When Dorothy Sell was in high school in Clinton, bowling was one of the activities she and her classmates did in gym class. The students went to a bowling alley on Green Street, she recalled, which didn’t have automatic pin-setters, so the students took turns doing that chore.
“You would bowl for a while, then go and sit in the back and set the pins up,” she said. “There were spots on the floor where the pins went.”
In 1959, Dorothy married Roy Warren and moved to Windsor. Three years later, in March of 1962, Windsor Lanes opened. The newly-weds didn’t attend the grand opening, she said, but Roy got into bowling soon after.
It became a family activity as soon their three daughters were big enough to try their hand at the sport.
“They would set the ball down and give it a shove,” Dorothy said.
At the June 8, 2024, meeting of the Windsor Historical Society, Dorothy will give a program on the history of bowling in Windsor and an update on its future. Windsor Lanes closed four years ago, but the building has been sold and is now being cleared prior to new equipment and lanes being installed. There’s no set opening date, but when Windsor Lanes reopens, Dorothy hopes the sport will be as popular as it was when her family bowled there.
“I’m guessing that 75 percent of the kids in Windsor bowled in the junior league,” Dorothy said of the years her daughters were growing up.
Dorothy found a copy of a 1960 letter to the editor of the local newspaper, pointing out that Windsor needed a bowling alley for the local kids to have something to do. That may have been what prompted a group of investors called the Windsor Development Co. to apply for a Small Business Administration loan to build a 60- by 154-foot building with 10 lanes. The company planned to lease the building to Asa Chambers of Sedalia, who would operate the bowling alley. Windsor Lanes opened in March of 1962.
Now, an entrepreneur named Anton Glen Berthelsen has purchased the building and is renovating Windsor Lanes, which fell victim to Covid restrictions. Anton has hired Roy Hampton, who used to bowl with Dorothy’s children, to clean out the old building at 605 N. Main. Hampton found bowling balls, shoes, and pins in the clean-out, which he has loaned to Dorothy to display at the June 8 meeting.
The WHS meets at the Windsor Museum and Research Center, 214 W. Benton, Windsor, MO 65360. The program starts about 1:15 p.m., following a brief meeting of the Windsor Historical Society at 1 p.m.
Dorothy has invited Amy Mullins Witherspoon, whose family ran Windsor Lanes for many years, to the meeting. Also scheduled to attend is the former owner of Windsor Lanes, who sold the building to Berthelsen in 2023. Dorothy is meeting with Berthelsen before the June 8 WHS meeting.
Dorothy is also bringing memorabilia in the form of bowling shirts and embroidered hand towels, souvenirs of teams and tournaments she and her family were part of. They had tons of trophies, she said, plus their own bowling balls and shoes, but unfortunately, somebody broke into the storage unit where the items were kept and took everything.
So she has her memories of her family bowling together, which they did in leagues and together on open days on Saturdays. Roy, who passed away three years ago at age 83, was very competitive, as is their oldest daughter Sandy, who bowled with her father in a mixed league.
“She is like her father,” Dorothy said. “When she decides to do something, she wants to do it well.”
A standout year for serious bowlers was 1973, when the 10th Annual Missouri State Junior Bowling Championships were held at Windsor Lanes. The competitions were held over eight weekends in March, April and May, Dorothy said, and drew 363 teams and 1,410 singles. Every business in Windsor was a sponsor, as well as outlying businesses, as people had to go out of town to find lodging.
Dorothy has collected memorabilia from that event, at which her daughters took part, and still has their scorecards. She was involved in everything they did in and out of school, she said, including softball, band, 4-H and Girl Scouts. In addition to bowling, the family had family skate night every Tuesday, driving to Clinton to the roller-skating rink.
Roy and Dorothy moved to the Lincoln area when the shoe factory closed to find work, but drove back to Windsor to bowl, she said. They moved back to Windsor in 2019, and Dorothy was surprised to see how much the town had changed.
Now, Windsor is undergoing a renaissance of new businesses catering to the tourist traffic generated by the KATY and Rock Island recreational trails. Bowling alleys across the country reopened once the worst of COVID was over, although in many areas didn’t rebound until winter, bowling being a seasonal activity in many parts of the country.
Dorothy has seen a lot of changes in Henry County. She grew up near Leesville, east of Clinton, and attended the Leesville one-room school for her first eight years of education. Part of a family of 10 children, she lived in a farmhouse built by Ulysses Grant Sell, her paternal great-grandfather, then in a farmhouse built by great-grandfather Jacob Van Hoozer.
The farmhouses no longer exist, and the roller-skating rink in Clinton is also gone, but once Windsor Lanes reopens, Dorothy hopes people of all ages will rediscover the fun of bowling, which provides exercise as well as social activity.
“I would like to see the high school include it in the gym classes,”Dorothy said.
And with all-new equipment, the students won’t have to take turns setting up the pins.
