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Life In the Good Old Days
In those days our iceboxes (not refrigerators) were on the porches, with small doors on the stairways so the icemen could have access to the ice chests to deliver the ice. We had an ice card with “25 lbs, 50 lbs, 75 lbs, and 100 lbs” printed on each side of the card. You put up the side with the amount of ice you needed. We also had a milkman who came onto the porch of the apartment house. We marked a card each day for the number of bottles of milk, cream, butter, or eggs we wanted. In the summertime we got our vegetables from a man with a horse and wagon, who came down the alley to offer his wares — certainly not as many as we are able to get today in our stores. Mama baked bread and coffee cake twice a week; we always had fresh bread and baked beans on Saturday night. Mama also made all the cakes, puddings etc. that our family needed. We are fortunate in these times to bake if we choose, or buy from the bakeries if we don’t. I guess the only thing we bought in the store were items like soaps and canned goods, limited as they probably were.
One day a man who collected junk and rags, came down our alley with his horse and wagon. As usual he called out “Any old rags or iron today?” While he was doing business in the alley, his horse leaned over the fence and ate all the tall sun flowers that were peeking over our fence. My father was so proud of those sunflowers. A tasty bit, no doubt, for the horse, but my father didn’t like it at all.
Ravenswood
In about 1920, when I was 12, we moved to an area called Ravenswood, on the North side of Chicago. We lived in a house at 4871 N. Hermitage Ave, in the block North of Lawrence Ave.
Of course, we had to change schools and that meant meeting all new kids and making new friends. I met some very good friends. Marguerite Bagge was one of them; we went to school together. Her family had a big delicatessen and sometimes we’d go there and she would make us sandwiches that were so good. Other times we would go to her house and practice dancing. Her mother was always in another room and rarely made an appearance. (Marguerite was the youngest of many children and I guess that’s why we never saw her mother). We were in high school, so her mother must have been quite elderly.
We lived there for a few years and had many friendly neighbors. Many of our friends were right on our street — the Schultz girls; Myrtle was my friend. Also the Schmitz family — the father was the Weigh Master at the Board of Trade — so they were important people (we thought, anyway). Eleanor Schmitz was the youngest, my friend Joey (I dated him) was next youngest. Virginia was older than we were and then there was an older sister Mabel. They used to pull taffy and make fudge, so it was fun.
I also played with my younger sister Ruth and my brother Llewellyn (a name which he hated, so when we all got old enough we called him Lou). My sister Ruth `(born 1913), was five years younger than I was. My brother Lou (born 1915) was younger than Ruth by a year or two.
It was in Ravenswood that Gwen met her future husband Stewart Nielsen; his family lived on the other side of the street, a few doors up. Their courtship was really something! He’d be coming down the street and across, and she’d put on a record like “Rose Marie” and he’d whistle it. We all thought that was so romantic! They married in 1927
Many years later in 1924, Marilyn was born. I know she was a darling baby. Mama’s doctor had suggested she have another child; he thought that might help a condition mama had. We called them “spells.” They were similar to convulsions. She would have one about once every four or five weeks. Perhaps it was epilepsy. My dad would always manage to be out of town when it got time for one. She would always have them at night and start with a scream and her mouth open. At home we used a certain kind of marmalade that came with a very thick cork. We saved those corks to use for mama. If you could get the cork into her mouth before her teeth would set, it would save her tongue a lot of damage. Then she would quiet down and Gwen and I would sit on Gwen’s bed and shake with fear and wait for the next one. She would have ten to twelve of those during the night and then be sick for a couple of weeks recovering. When she would just be better, it would be about time for the next one. This went on for a long time, then gradually they began to subside. Then you never knew when she’d have one. My mother was ill a good bit in those days, so we moved into an apartment on N. Lincoln St. near Winnemac Ave.
She was a wonderful mother. But she died so young, only 48 years old.
After I graduated from high school in 1926, I took a job with Kemper Insurance company at the information desk in executive offices, which were in a separate tower. I knew James Kemper, who was the son of the man who started it, and he was a rascal (that’s putting it nicely)! I worked in downtown Chicago after about a year at Kemper, doing office work. That’s where I met Hannah Johns, who became one of my bridesmaids. I no longer worked after I got married, except to help Ken.
Indian Lake
In the summer of 1927, when I was 18, we children and mama were up in Indian Lake near Dowagiac, Michigan at our summer cottage. The cottage had been given to my father on his mother’s death. One day I asked my sister Ruth to row a boat alongside me as I swam the length of the 2-mile-long lake. Evidently the wind was with us on the trip. On the way back Ruth tired out and I ended up rowing us as far as I could. We beached the boat and walked home, getting the boat back the next day. That summer I saw an ad in the paper for a big apartment in a six-flat building on Farwell Av. between Sheridan Road and the lake, where my friend Adele Ickes lived. I called my dad and he went and rented it. So, we moved to Rogers Park in the Fall.
Rogers Park
When we moved in, the landlady said three young men (the Schmidgall’s) with their mother, and another young man (my future husband Ken), were moving in across the hall. I had the front bedroom with a balcony outside, because we were all on the third floor. I met and dated two of the boys, Bob and Ray, before I met Kenneth. Art, the fourth boy, already had a girl friend. That was the beginning of my life with Kenneth.
We would go to the movies, or to beach parties, etc. We had a lot of fun and double-dated with George and Adele Ickes before they were married, plus Hal and Marion Burr. We would go to the beach a lot, and as my sister Marilyn, or “Tootie” as we called her, was very young, perhaps two or three years old. We would put her in the buggy and wheel her down to the beach and pretend we were married and she was ours.
I stuttered all my life, through school, except when I was singing or speaking French. I even stuttered when I met Ken, but seemed to grow out of it and it is gone, now.
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