Married Life

My dad had had built a hotel with 33 apartments, on Glenwood and Loyola, all one-room apartments, furnished. We got our apartment free plus we were paid $50 per month for managing the building. We sure had a lot of growing up to do. We really ran into some very unusual people. Although on the other hand, we met some of our very best friends there, Gert and Spin Harder being the most special. He was a druggist and they came from Iowa. We had many good times with Spin and Gertrude, also Annette and Charlie Gregor; we all enjoyed each others’ company. We were at a party one night at one of their apartments and I guess we got a little noisy. Another tenant told me the next day that she was going to complain to us, but we weren’t home, but then she heard Mr. Johnston laugh, so she knew where we were. One day the apartment’s maid told us that they were running out of bath towels, so I called my dad to tell him. He said we’d better run a check on where the towels were, so Gertrude and I went through all the apartments and found many towels stacked on closet shelves. We just took them all and that was the end of the shortage.

We finally had enough of trying to manage other people, and so dad got a new manager for the apartment-hotel, and we took an apartment on Lincoln St. Gert and Spin moved when we did, into the same building, across from the tennis courts. When we got married my dad gave Ken a business to run that sold bonds, on the West side. He had bought it from a couple of men (Mssrs. Irmen and Klicka). But six months or so later, the depression was taking over and not many people were buying bonds.

When Tootie (my youngest sister Marilyn) was very young, my father seemed more interested in other women than he was in my mother. When we were on Farwell avenue he has his own room and came and went as he pleased. He was there less and less. Even so, mama was always protective of him, to us, if we were critical. When mama contracted cancer she went to her mother’s in Wheaton; Tootie stayed with Gwen. I went to help from time to time, but the family was not happy with the fact that I smoked.

Mama died at the age of 48 on July 14, 1933. I thought, then, that she had had a good life. Plus, she had suffered so long. Tootie stayed with Gwen and Gwen raised her right along with her own Marilyn. My father did not come to the funeral; he was living in Minneapolis with a girlfriend. We didn’t speak anything of him after that, to our children, so they were not aware they had a grandfather until he showed up at our house in Evanston. I went to Minneapolis much later with Gwen and Tootie to see my father and to reestablish contact. We were happy we had done that. He was 77 when he died, in 1962.

The Daily News

Ken started watching the ads and got a two-week, temporary job with the Chicago Daily News as secretary to the circulation manager. When the two weeks were up he was given another job, and a year or so later got a $2.00 per week raise. To us it seemed like $200. In December, 1929 I was chided about having “no children” by an acquaintance of Ken’s. We must have “gotten to work on it” as he suggested, because Barbara Lee was born the following October, about a year-and-a-half after we married (October 24, 1930). She was a beautiful baby and a good baby — so smart and cute, the very apple of her father’s eye. When she was old enough we would walk down to meet his train each night. He was so thrilled with her, her beauty and all.

We moved into an apartment on Thome Ave. and stayed there for quite a few years, having two more children. Ken Jr. arrived on March 6, 1934 in St. Francis Hospital, where all the children were born. When the nurse announced to Ken that “it was a boy,” Ken sent her back into the delivery room to be sure she was right (both our families were known to have more girls than boys and he couldn’t believe his good luck).

Susan Kay arrived in October 5, 1935, when we lived in a three-room apartment with only one bedroom, otherwise very handy. We thought we had our family. We had been in that apartment only 11 weeks after Susan was born, but we managed. In our bedroom we put a baby bed. When we put the children to bed at night we put Barb in our bed, Ken, Jr. in the baby bed, and Susan in the bassinet in the dinette with the door closed. When we went to bed we put Barb out on the davenport in the living room. It all seemed to work fine, to us. We moved to a two-bedroom apartment on Rosemont Ave. Many years later a friend said to me “Do you remember when you lived in that little tiny apartment, with all those children?!” We didn’t think we were so bad off. We managed very well and our children were fine.

I remember telling Susan one day that I loved her because she was my “baby.” One day years later when Karen Ann came along (May 23, 1944), Susan asked “Now why do you love me?” I told her because she was so sweet. I had a way of saying to each one “I love you because...you were my first born (Barbara), or because you were my only boy (Ken), or because you were my baby (Susan). So, it all worked out just fine. They were all wonderful kids and are wonderful adults today; I still love each and every one like I always did. They have all grown to be wonderful adults. I am so very proud of them all.

Rosemont

We lived on Rosemont for five or more years, in which time Ken Jr. developed a mastoid and had to have surgery. My doctor suggested that Barbara needed her tonsils out, so it would be a good time to do it while he was in the hospital. Wrong!! All day they were calling to me from each of their rooms (they couldn’t be together because hers was a “clean” case and his was not). Anyway, all day I went between the two rooms, spent a few minutes, then to the other. Wow, was I glad to get them both home. Gwen had taken care of Sue during the crisis.

In this period of time my friend Isaphine Goltz and her husband Max were part of our lives. They lived close by and had one daughter, Virginia, who was the same age as Kenneth, Jr. We would walk with them to the beach, take our lunch along, and had many good times. One day, though, we got over-ambitious. We lived a block away from Devon Ave. and we walked up Clark Street to Howard St. and a couple of clocks into Evanston to see Gertrude Harder; she wasn’t home! Barbara had ridden her three-wheel bike and absolutely refused to ride home. I had Sue and Buddy (as we called Ken in those days), in the buggy. Isaphine had Ginny in a stroller. What to do? We finally prevailed upon a nice Clark Street car conductor to take Barb and the bike down to Granville Ave. There was a drugstore there where she could wait for us. Maybe you think we didn’t race with those kids in the buggy and stroller down to Granville. The Good Lord was with us and Barb was safe and sound. The others all enjoyed the fast ride. I think we aged quite a bit, the mothers, I mean.

The War

When Ken got his draft notice, I was pregnant with Karen. After his exam he was classified as 1-F because of some problem or other; I don’t remember what it was. During the war we had food stamps, however, since we had a big family we seemed to have plenty. My brother Lou served in the calvary. When he returned, he, his wife Jeannie and son Lou Jay stayed with us in Evanston while they built a new home. That put a huge strain on our family (Lou Jay was a difficult child). We had rented the Evanston house in 1941, then moved into our own house in 1950.

By the time Karen was born, on May 24, 1944, we lived in Evanston because of the schools for the children. Ken could still take the Northwestern RR to work. We first rented a house in Evanston for eight years, then bought our own. By this time Barbara was in college. We had lots of good times with our friends. One couple, Hal and Marion Burr used to play cards with us almost every Friday night, after having a good dinner. Sometimes Hal would bring a steak, so we’d cook out on the barbecue; other times I’d cook something in the house. We had lots of fun and many good bridge games.