Boston??? -Decision '39-'40

There was a time while living in Chicago when our family might have moved to Boston, Massachusetts.  I have no idea whether it was a job transfer or a new opportunity. The subject was broached when all of us were together. Our parents discussed this for some time as a possible venture. Eventually a decision apparently made not to leave Chicago. How different all our lives would have been had we made another choice and moved northeast once again. 

After this very important decision was made another seed of an idea seem planted within our family. My father took extremely good care of the 2 flat we lived in as renters. The next door neighbors, the Hickeys, Especially the senior Hickeys were encouraging my parents to get a place of their own. Daddy's  job seemed secure. Economy was picking up. England and Germany were at war. Terrible things were happening over there. Some families had sons in military service. We would know this for a star was exhibited in front windows of these homes. I remember listening to the news on the radio in our living room the day Germany moved into Poland. This news was so frightening.

There were popular books being marketed. One my parents read was  Five Acres and Independence A Practical Guide to the Selection and Management of a Small Farm, which would give support for daddy to ‘give such a venture a try’.  Even some films were produced which probably encouraged daddy in his pursuits. He was bit with that bug. We have a paperback copy of 5 Acres on a shelf. Apparently Gran read it, also. [Beth Fellows Stewart, that is]

Eventually he would  take short drives out west of Chicago into the farmland. Perhaps weekly, he’d take turns with one of us children as companions, a date with daddy, looking for a small piece of farm land.  We loved our date with dad and exploring some exciting prospects.

Big White Letters Sunnybrook Farm

I recall on one excursion I accompanied him when he was seriously considering a particular farm. As I awaited in the car I read the words Sunnybrook Farm painted in large white letters on the front of a big red barn which seemed so romantic to me.

I had read the storybook, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin. This, however,  was not the one we chose.

Hebron, IL  intersection 47 and 123

Eventually, the land he found was in the township, Hebron, IL. This was not at all a small piece of land but a full fledged farm. This was more than a house on an acre. There were many farm buildings, and on 180 Acres of land, not 5 A. and much more investment than anticipated. Besides the farm house on this farm were a fading red cow barn, a milk house,  a pig pen, chicken coop, hen house, a corn crib, a granary and a large gray-black wooden 2-story horse barn. We were about to put flesh on his dream even though it would truly stretch his/our resources to succeed with something so large. Each of us would soon give our own meaning to the word independence. 

Acquiring this farm and determined to make a go of it we lost focus, attachment, relationship with the Bergin family in Fond du lac, WI. and the Morris family as well. Now we children could and would spend years of our lives on this farm of our very own near the State Line in Illinois. What we imagined were the vacation days at granddad Bergin’s farm in Fond Du lac, WI. This could only seem like a very exciting venture to us. Daddy made clear to each this was to be a family undertaking and any success would depend on each one of us. The reality of permanent farm life would paint a differing picture in the days ahead than the one we had of Granddad’s Farm. Daddy now saw farm ownership as something he would be able to accomplish. [with help from wife and kids]. As a matter of fact it could not have been successful without each one's input.

From the moment the decision was made on the property, while living yet in Chicago, I would see my daddy when home after his workday seated at the mahogany dining table. He would take out his drawing board and work on his plans for the house on this property using his engineering knowledge, things like a  basement, roof line, additions, landscape, etc.

Not directly related to this decision I want to include this in my tale. Throughout the 4 years we lived at this Greenview, Chicago address my father would invariably announce as he prepared to leave the house for his daily work, “I am off to college”. I do believe this statement was an important message from my parents that this is what we were to do, too. We saw it as an expectation. Education was valued highly and was to be continual.We were to continue our education beyond high school and into college. This was an expectation my father held and verbalized, and for that matter on-going as long as we lived. And so it has been for me, as there is ever something to know, to learn. Death is when I cease learning. 

Greyhound Trip To The Farm '39

1939 11 years old

Greyhound Trip to Fond du lac

The family planned this trip, a summer vacation in 1939 for the 3 of us, Elayne, Bill, and myself to visit the farm in Fond du lac, WI. We packed up what we would need for the vacation. When the day arrived we boarded the Greyhound bus in uptown Chicago. Before the bus pulled away from the station Mother gave the driver some basic instructions and we were seated in the seat across the aisle so he could keep an eye on us. We arrived in Fond Du Lac safely, were met by family, probably a young uncle, and brought out to the farm.

Movie Classic 1939

I remember waiting beside the movie theater which was showing the WIZARD OF OZ. We were promised that we would get to see the movie. Usually once at the farm we would just remain there except for Sunday Mass at St. Patrick’s or St. Joseph’s. You have seen little girls with long braided hair which becomes wispy in just one day, especially overnight. Well, come Sunday mine must have been something, because grandmother finally prevailed upon one of the young uncles, Tim or Mansfield, who knew how to braid rope they said, to braid my head of hair. I was so embarrassed at Mass as my hair was like 2 ropes hanging on my head. [Perhaps like a Pippi Longstockings]. Probably was a big improvement from grown ups point of view. 

I remember one or more Sundays after Mass visiting Aunt Marion at the Children’s Home. She perhaps worked there as a nurse. This fascinated me. 

A House Very Similar to Homestead

We 3 children spent many idle hours on the front wood porch, with only the view of trees, grass and sky before us. There were fowl, chickens, geese, who by mid-day would wander up from the farm buildings. Occasionally they would come onto the gray porch floorboards and leave their moist droppings. I think the hens were mixed colors or breeds. We could enter the grandparents’ living room via the door on the porch left. Once indoors I remember seeing a rocking chair. [cousin Dorothy has this treasure], and then a table to my right which held photograph books,  the family bible, etc.

There was a table on the left side of the room on which was set a radio with a large horn  on it. Not the dog, of course. 

Across the room from this radio was a large doorway opening into the dining area with its big claw legged oak table and oak high back chairs, leather seats. We ate many breakfasts at this table and many an ear of corn and warm milk poured out of green glass Mason canning jars. We must have been there some times late in the year. I remember playing cards in the twilight with granddad, sister and brother at this table, particularly a game called “old Shanty”. He’d have this oil lantern to cast light on the table. Smell the oil?  I dearly loved the sound of his voice and his dear snow white handlebar mustache, sparkling eyes. When I met with cousin Jack Bergin in Boise while RV-ing in the nineties I thought Jack's voice and appearance were much like my memory of granddad. I loved all the voices of the young uncles. Their voices were  similar with such rich tone.

A Painting Catches It All

Grandmother was most always working around the kitchen at the big, black cook stove keeping the fire going and heating water for personal hygiene. At mealtime her sons would arrive through the rear door onto a kind of mud room, wash up at the basin set on a stool before entering the kitchen and seating themselves at the dining table. The smell of the wood burning, the warmth, the breakfast smells are vivid to me. Most of my memories are seeing her working about the kitchen area. She must keep the wood burning in her stove for heating water, for baking, cooking. This was a large family they were raising. My father would refer to his mother with such love. I now know it is her constant being there and giving so much of herself that he treasured. 

I found this verse by Karen Ray on Google which captures, I think, some of the nostalgia my father might have had concerning the stove, that kitchen, and his mother. She shares.

Mama’s old wood cook stove--                                           

I remember it yet, All the goodies Momma cooked,

how can we forget?

For her to fix meals was always a pleasure,

My memories of Mother are always a treasure.

That old stove cooked three meals a day,

Light bread on Fridays, cakes and pies for holidays.

Cooked hams, turkeys and chickens with delight;

Many times used for canning until late at night.

The old stove heated the kitchen on cold winter days.

It served us so well in so many ways.

When we kids got home from school,

We always went looking

Straight to that old stove to see what was cooking.

An old iron pot that cooked the meat

Sat on the old stove, always cooking a treat.

Aroma of corn bread from the oven you’d smell

For us hungry kids, it sure cast a spell.

As my mind takes me back to the Good Old Days,

Our lives were so simple in so many ways,

But picture my mother in an apron if you could,

Standing by her cook stove with a bin full of wood. 

Karen Ray-  shares

Nearby was the slanting cellar door leading into the black, earth floored cellar. It was cool down there but not cold and this is where grandmother kept the milk for us. Seemed always to be warm and creamy, coating our lips, very different from the pasteurized milk from the bottles delivered at our house by the milkman. Kind of hard to drink, truly. When my mother often sang, ‘I don’t Want to Play in Your Yard---’, I always visualized this cellar door and grandmother descending the stairs to bring up the milk in her long, cotton house dress with her yellow gray hair piled in a bun atop her head. Times she’d ask us to fetch the milk from the cellar.

We slept in an upstairs bedroom. There were these very different windows which were almost down to the flooring. She kept a chamber pot in the room which we were to use during the night. It could smell quite hefty by morning, most mornings.

Old Shep

I believe Old Shep, their beautiful collie, was always grateful for our visits. He accompanied us most everywhere we went. He grew old through these years along with us.


We played fewer hours behind the house than out on the front porch. Here we would see the long grass deep green color of the grass and the yard sloping slowly down towards a creek bed with a shallow stream of water running through it., Van Dyne Creek. We were told that it was on the hill rising up from the opposite side of the creek that our grandfather’s uncle had built his home. My grandfather’s 2 older brothers had moved on West to Minnesota. We always were intrigued with such romantic historical information and thought we could spot the place where the house once stood each year as we reminisced when revisiting.  

There were large trees near the creek and often a farm implement was resting there. These were horse drawn and had the perforated metal buttocks formed seats and brakes and clutches which were a joy for us to play on. Uncles treated us kids royally.

We got to sit on the tractor with them, smell the gas vapors puffing out the engine. A few times we were taken out in the fields with that smell of the earth being turned. What a treat. The house was some distance from the red barn. 

We’d come first to the windmill with its pump and tin cup dangling there inviting us to pump and have a very cold drink of water. There'd be a metallic taste, either from the tin cup or the minerals in the well water or both. At any rate this was quite different from city tap water. Made the most lovely grinding, squeaky sounds as we pumped away and water splashed onto the form on which the pump stood. 






The machine shed stood in front of us and to our left. Here we often hunted eggs laid on implement seats, and hidden away in corners, most anywhere.

Can still hear the hens proudly cackling. We’d surprise one and she would jump up and flap her wings all in a flurry. There were usually baby kittens about for us to discover and to play with. A cow barn to the right of the pump held the good smells of fresh hay.

We were allowed to play in the hay or in the yellow straw. I wonder if perhaps we weren’t supposed to but the young uncles tolerated the play. We figured we were the only kids in the world to have this experience, only kids in our Chicago neighborhood for sure.

Times when we visited the family would be threshing the grain or recently finished, there being much hustle and bustle on and around the huge threshing machine and many wagons.. There would be a huge stack of golden straw mounded high beside the red barn. Times like this those hens seem to love laying their eggs in the fresh straw.

Threshing Done For Another Year

I learned the threshing machine was invented in 1784 by a Scottish mechanical engineer, Andrew Meikle, for use in agriculture to separate out the grains which for eons previously had to be separated by hand with flails. This was a huge improvement.

There was one Sunday morning, bright and sunny, the fields were all shiny, golden stubble after the grain had been harvested by a threshing crew. I was standing in the lane as I saw granddad walking up the long lane from the road to the house. He was a bit tipsy. Didn’t seem to recognize me. He was a changed granddad, without his cheery words. Been out all night. This was the first I learned he had an alcohol problem. 

Summer Vacation 1938 10 years old

This July Lake Winnebago was cold

Summer of 1938 the entire William Bergin family of 6 vacationed in a cottage at Lakewood Beach on Lake Winnebago, Fond du lac, WI. My parents rented upstairs from Mrs. De Sombre. She was an interesting character, an old maid school teacher.

Elayne, Billy, Mother, Jimmy, DeSombre Cottage, MaryKay

This was a very awkward, scrawny  year for me physically. Additionally, I had this brown knit swim suit which did nothing for my developing figure which was almost a uniform for the vacation duration.
.

There was a large green lawn leading from the cottage down to the lake. A stone wall was all around the water’s edge and no shallow beach, stones rather than sand. 

There were a few of the large white adirondack chairs set out on the lawn.The entire time we visited the weather remained chilly and the water cold.  It was July but there was not a warm day in the entire month that year. We shivered constantly when we went swimming which is what we had to do because the lake was there after all. We met a young boy about our age who had a rowboat and gladly he shared with us. 

Learning to row a boat

We spent much of our time on the lake learning to row that boat as he so generously shared his boat, time and talent. We were often home alone as mother and dad left to visit various relatives. They had such trust in us. I remember a number of fights we had with Billy while we were left alone. He would chase us through the cottage, threatening us, sibling rivalry. Perhaps looking back it had a lot to do with the three of us coming of age. I don’t recall Jimmy being there. Safer with mother and dad, I suppose.  

We met Aunts Anna and Ellie, as we were told befriended my dad and helped and encouraged him to go to Marquette and complete his courses at the University. He always spoke lovingly of them and with such gratitude. They were lovely women. 

Cow Pasture on Aunt Ellie's Farm

I remember walking out onto their cow pasture one Sunday afternoon with them, with mother and a few others, where the cattle had pastured and us stepping between the drying ‘cow pies’. Wherever the grass is greener it has been thus enriched. One walks carefully.


One Sunday we were left in town at a young cousin of my dad’s home, while the folks went out to Mass, probably breakfast as well. I always thought the name was Shea but have not been able to verify this relation until recent times when looking through my father’s letters I saved several times he refers to them when he visited his sisters Helen and Veronica in the 1970’s. 

The Shea’s  had this modern radio in their home with lots of knobs. I believe there were some short wave knobs unlike the radio on the right. I turned some knobs and was scared that I had broken it and kind of laid low when they returned so as not to be suspected as a villain. Darn another sin to fret over. Apparatus of all types were becoming complicated. I think our ancestors would swoon had they seen what is available today. I remember they had a baby daughter that year, 1938, when I was 11 and Elayne 12, Billy 9, Jimmy 2+. We were again told the story about Aunt Veronica and Harry. They married and he left her immediately and they never could find him. In those days a divorced person was someone the family treated carefully, like arm’s length, maybe like contagious. They were never to remarry. We saw Aunt Veronica at our home in Chicago for some Thanksgivings. Mother said she was beautiful. Seemed like such a sad story to me, never able to marry and her husband whose whereabouts couldn’t be known.  How would it be dissolved? Uncle Dave had a twin who died at birth. I saw Uncle Dave when attending Mount Mary College. He was a very big man and married to Theresa. They invited Elayne and me to dine with them at their restaurant. This was the evening I had my first Martini and wow was it strong. My head was spinning.

Uncle Mansfield at a later date spent many days with us at our Greenview address in Chicago. I remember fondly his teaching us to wish on and then break the turkey wishbone and about a turkey’s whistle, the portion of the bird which held the tail feathers. Thereafter, speaking for myself, of course, this part of the roast was shunned.  There was a time with us when he had this corrugated cardboard, like logs, and he constructed an entire farm set for us down in our basement and I was in awe of his creative talent. Gradually, we saw less and less of him. At one point we were told he contracted spinal meningitis. But, he didn’t die. [I had 2 young friends in grade school who died from it]. One evening we were returning to our home, riding in the streetcar, with mother and she saw him on the same car. Mother told us to pretend we didn’t see him, in hopes he wouldn’t recognize us. By then he had a serious alcohol problem and apparently no amount of ‘helping’ him seem to be a solution. They didn’t know how to. Much later when in California he joined AA. And many years after when I am married and living in CA my dad sent a copy of a letter he received from Uncle Mansfield, then living in San Diego. I was delighted and told my father I would look him up. He cautioned me not to. He will bring only trouble. Apparently trouble is what he always brought with him for his brother and sister-in-law, my parents. They had been at wits end dealing with his alcoholism.

Serenity Prayer

Only by this time he was keeping his pledge and been sober for some time. I have the copy of that letter from my Uncle in a loose leaf containing many of my father's letters in the 70's and 80's.
In my generation we began to learn how we control our behavior, sin being wrong choices. Previous generations referred to a child as bad seed or bad apple the child who struggled to conform at home, school or society. I was enlightened a bit when our Kevin was born at the Harvard, IL hospital and I was wide awake as I had been given no drugs to dull my senses. I felt that he and I were as close to Creator God as we could ever be. This was a heavenly moment. As years passed I realized Christian children are erroneously  being taught a child is born with original sin on his/her soul. The child’s soul is spotless. We, it’s family soon begin to instruct the child in our sinful ways through our choices, mainly due to ignorance. In addition we righteously  most often choose our family’s methods of dealing with behavior we rightly or erroneously believe needs changing. These behaviors today have a label, dysfunction. Alcoholism fits into this label and is found among my ancestors. Not just my beautiful granddad and uncle/s. I discovered many years later the brothers who emigrated to Minnesota found solace in Alcohol and in a generation or two lost out. One child growing up decides to overcome this family problem by not using alcohol at all. Another decision my father chose was to use but not abuse alcohol. He had his small cabinet in which he kept alcoholic products. If there were cause to celebrate or simply enjoy a drink  he would go to the cabinet, remove a bottle, pour into the required glasses and return the bottle to the cabinet. We grew up with our dad modeling this behavior. He taught us as well. He was in control of it rather than the alcohol controlling him. What he didn’t know was why his father,  my grandfather, drank in the first place. Control rather than solution. Other families have experienced dysfunction when they sought solutions to problems in food, shopping, gambling, drugs, sex, work, and other. Such addictive behavior exists in the many other than family societal groups as an example the church. See The Dysfunctional Church by Michael Cosby. Such a church is incapable of helping families overcome addiction unless they see it in themselves. Families are left on their own to search out  and identify problems, deal with them, ridding themselves of their ‘sin’ of choosing wrong behavior, wrong solutions. I share what I have learned because I too, without all the pieces, spent much of my life, in error or ‘sin’ making wrong choices. And then it was too late. My children would be on their own striving to be functional. Bradley, La Leche, Montessori,  ongoing search for those nuggets of truth, sharing, were steps in the right direction. I spent several years with only Jaime at home when living in Riverside, CA attending CODA meetings [Children of Alcoholics], an offshoot of AA. I was not a Child of an Alcoholic. I was a grandchild of an alcoholic though and I realized my own father and mother didn’t have all the facts when they made some very important decisions. And neither did I/we. I learned the 12 Steps are even good for grandchildren of alcoholics. .  

Neighborhood/Parish 1936-40

Our Lady of Lourdes

For Stations of the cross on Fridays in Lent we were seated in church by classroom. The nuns kept us in order in church by sounding their clickers. When May came around each year, the month of Mary, Jesus’ mother we would participate in the May Crowning  processions  so exciting and unforgettable. This would take place in late afternoon. Each of us girls carried a fresh, fragrant and beautiful long stemmed pastel peony blossom into church in procession which we placed at Mother Mary’s altar.  

 An eighth grade girl would place the crown on Mary’s head, statue of Mary, that is.There was a grotto in a room west of the altar which we could also enter outside through an alleyway. It was dimly lit and a replica of the grotto at Lourdes, France, rocks and pool and running water, where Mother Mary appeared to Bernadette.

Grotto at Lourdes

Mother would often meet us afternoons when school dismissed following a visit to church with Jimmy in his stroller. They would say to us they had just visited the ‘Pretty Lady’. Once a year we would have a carnival on the school grounds over a weekend. Elayne discovered her lucky number to be ‘4’. I sometimes thought mine was ‘7’ but it failed me. My brother, Billy, as I referred to previously had this paralysis affecting his right arm and leg. I cannot get inside my mother’s brain to know to what extent she felt responsible for her little child’s handicap. I label it so, even though Billy never, ever allowed himself to be kept from participation in life. Mother prayed petitions. She wanted Billy cured. We would attend Perpetual Help Novenas at Lady of Lourdes which were ongoing every single Tuesday should she choose. However, there was an extremely popular novena going on at Our Lady of Sorrows Church with services every Friday evening. These novenas would consist of song, Benediction, sermon. There would be a small booklet containing the procedures or a song card or prayer card. At Our Lady of Sorrows’ peak in 1930, Friday Masses served about seventy thousand people and almost 1,000,000 copies of the church’s Novena Notes. On January 8, 1937, the Sorrowful Mother Novena began an era that would establish Chicago’s Our Lady of Sorrows as a Marian Shrine of national and international fame. Through the 1940’s and into the 1950’s the Great Novena filled the church weekly in up to 38 separate services. They prayed the Novena of Our Sorrowful Mother and the rosary all through the Great Depression and the war years.

"Pretty Lady"

One chilly, Saturday afternoon walking home from the beauty parlor 2 blocks away while her hair was still quite wet our Mother developed a terrible ear infection. There weren’t antibiotics in those days and the infection persisted a long time. The first safe antibiotics were discovered by a British scientist in 1945. Mother was bedridden often after this so Elayne and I took turns staying home from school to be with our little brother, Jimmy. The nuns were so cooperative. Mother had special relationships with these BVM nuns. They would talk at the doorway to the classroom for long periods of time. I wonder what about. This infection seemed to affect her overall health ever after.

Exact Stroller Boy Is Son Michael

I especially loved putting little Jimmy in his stroller and taking long walks. Mother trusted me completely. On Saturdays we would walk down Wilson Avenue, east,  towards the lake and north on Broadway, checking out what might be playing in the movie theaters . The nearest one on Wilson was the De Luxe Theater and admission would be 10 cents.

Broadway was a busy street with many shops, dead fowl hanging from hooks, feathers, beaks and all. The 2 theaters we would pass charged 15 cent, one the Uptown Theater.

Eventually, after s slow walk we would return home with the playbill announcement. 

If parents thought it good fare we could attend a movie that afternoon. There were many cowboy movies, Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Jesse James, sometimes Shirley Temple, and always a cartoon and a March of Time Newsreel, week’s review of what happened in Europe, Germany, France, England, Poland. My favorite- Shirley Temple movies. Young Shirley seen here.

Shirley Temple - Cuppycake song

Sometimes when on Broadway with our parents we would buy shoes. There was an x-ray machine which was such fun to look into and see our bony feet. These were later banned from stores as health hazards. On our walks beyond Broadway we'd come to the tip of Lincoln Park and beyond this Lake Michigan.

My little brother, Jimmy

One can see a bit of our house and Freddy’s, next door, on this special picture of little Jimmy. A man passed by one day when we were in school. He had this pony and a camera. Jimmy’s cousin Jack, about his age, has a similar pony picture.

On hot summer days we 3 could walk up to Wilson and catch a bus bound for Montrose Beach. Often the bus was a double decker.  Without parents checking us invariably we would stay out in the sun too long and have painful, blistered backs next day and a week following. Later in the summer there would be prohibitions from gathering on the beach at all as we entered polio season which we observed by not gathering in crowded spaces. When a child came down with contagious disease, whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, the health department would place a contagious disease sign in the front window warning off any visitor. We took swimming lessons at Amundsen High and one summer typing lessons.  There were many neighborhood friends, a number of them attending public school. We would play in our yard or out front. One holiday when running I tripped over a wire which was protecting the lawn, hit the edge of the concrete walk with my mouth and broke my front tooth in half. I ran to my mother who was beside herself with grief because I had ruined my appearance. I often wondered how the pain of my broken tooth and bloody mouth was a greater problem for her than for me. Another thing I recall were our trips a few blocks south and west in the other direction to buy ice cream cones, sometimes rainbow triple deckers. We saved any money we had to buy lead soldiers from a school store on Montrose. I referred to these lead soldiers previously, which we dramatically played with together, replacing our soda bottle caps. Dad made the basement of this 2 flat special for us kids, even though we were renters. He built 2 storage rooms so other than the furnace we had lots of play space marked off. He painted the walls to resemble red bricks. We played grocery store sometimes having some of the  ‘stuff’ from the West Allis grocery store. One day I stepped onto a nail in the furnace room and didn’t tell mother. I worried. I could get lockjaw. Slowly it healed and nothing else happened. Apparently I had a problem with slapping Billy when frustrated at play. I recall mother frequently chiding me to keep my hands to myself.  We had an old victrola on which we could play a few records. Elayne was showing artistic talent and mother was about ready to send her Saturdays to the Art Institute for lessons. Circumstances changed.  Billy took lessons in elocution at the Cummerford Studio at 4354 N. Ashland Ave. Chicago Academy of Theater Arts and Elayne and I had our dancing lessons, tap, ballet, gymnastics.  I loved my lessons but Elayne hated the lessons. I wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up. On a few occasions when our cousins, the Collin's, moved to Chicago and while mother and Aunt Flo were visiting on a Saturday morning I would teach MaryAnn the steps I learned in dancing school. She would pay me a dime. Mrs. Cummerford along with her husband ran this studio. I recall this one year [believe there was another] when we had prepared numbers with costumes for a show. This was to be on a stage in a neighborhood movie theater, the Uptown. I recall tickets needed. The film showing was Wuthering Heights. I think it was Friday evening. Friends and families attended. After the film ended the screen went up, next the curtains and we staged our performance. My sister has kept the theater bill on which we are listed as performers. One of the boy tap dancers listed is Bob Fosse who would later become a star and a Hollywood director.

Dad always took public transportation to and from work. On Saturdays he would get off the streetcar at Wiebolt's and buy special groceries, cheese, eggs and clothing for family. Once he found this great buy of white oxfords in sizes for Elayne and me. Only problem is they were definitely for boys. I hated those shoes and had to wear them even so. One year we tried our hands as entrepreneurs. With neighbor kids, we put on a fair in our basement for the entire neighborhood. Fair failed for mother let everyone in free. We bought our fresh bread from the bakery on Clark Street, around 2 corners and meat from the butcher shop nearby. We had no freezer. Often we stood in long lines within these shops. Grownups frequently sneaked ahead of us kids. Just wasn't fair. Today we'd say 'pushy broad'. In those days customers were waited on individually. There were no supermarkets. There was an A and P south on Montrose, west of Ashland.

We had milk delivery by horse and wagon

The milkman left the glass milk bottles on our doorstep, pasteurized though not homogenized with a 4” layer of cream on top. Other horse and wagons were the ice man and the rag man. We could play a game of baseball in Freddie's yard. He hadn't a mother, just older sisters and his dad. The back yard was dirt like an empty lot. Usually the games ended abruptly when a fight broke out. We had no referee.  I loved roller skating, spinning tops, Hi-Li, riding our bicycles, jump rope- M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-i and many other, Spin tops,  Red Light Green Light, Stone Teacher, Captain May I-, Hop Scotch, playing War with marbles. If we were out front of our home neighbors would eventually gather.  Friends names I recall- Delores Wilson, Ilene, Tom and Genevieve Manning, Freddy Hartenberg next door, George and Jim O'Brien up the block toward Wilson, Georianne on the next corner, John and Lawrence Fogli. Jim now adds Bobby Dietrich and that Freddy used to stand outside and call Oooh-Oooh, Billy! We never phoned and no tex.  So real. If we wanted a playmate we would go to their home and call out for them. Mom or dad might call out the window, “Sorry, Billy is eating lunch now”. We lived here for 4 years packed with memory. A few times I went with Dolores to the YWCA for swim or dance lessons. We were not supposed to be there, you know, Protestants. One day after school my friend, Georgianne, walking home collapsed  and died that night from Spinal Meningitis.

Return to Chicago 1936-40 9 yrs.-13 years old

4th, 5th, 6th, 7th grades.This year my father is employed at American Printing Ink Co. in the line of  work appropriate to his education.  Family moved from Milwaukee to 4513 Greenview Avenue on north side of Chicago, 2 1/2 blocks from our school, Our Lady of Lourdes and 3 blocks from the playground.

Chase Park

I spent many hours of play at nearby Chase Park. I loved what we called 'the ringers' and would sport terrible blisters on my hands. The ringers were a string of about 8 ringers in the row of ringers hung by chain from a metal support, much like ones swings hang from. There was a wooden wedge platform I mounted at the start which raised me from the ground enough for me to catch the very 1st ringer in one hand.. Then with a thrust of my body I would leap forward for the 2nd wring. Now the objective was to twist my body 180 degrees around and get enough forward swing to catch on to the 3rd ring and so on down to the last and then return one ring at a time to the platform where I started. I needed to rub a chalk on the palms of my hands both to protect them and to keep them from slipping. This was never ending challenge to me, much to parental dismay. I would come home with the large broken open blisters on the palms of my hands. At this ‘awful’ stage I would need to do without my ringer fun until the blisters healed. The park was across from our school and provided many hours of fun for us. They flooded a rink in the winter for all neighborhood kids to skate on.  

Especially remember the black, pot bellied stove in the center of this shack where we could put on our skates or retreat to  warm our fingers and toes and the smell of woolen mittens drying against the stove, and inside that stove a blazing, red hot fire. The shack would have kids of all ages coming in and leaving. We could freely visit this park just so we would be home for dinner or for whatever was on the day's schedule. I found this piece on the Chase Park’s history.

In 1920, the Lincoln Park Commission converted a deserted semi-professional baseball field into Chase Park. Known as Gunther Park, the ball field was home to the Niesen-Gunther team beginning in 1905. The facility went out of business in 1913, during the construction of Chicago's north side professional baseball field, Wrigley Field. A community member suggested the conversion of the old ball field into a park in 1914, and several years later the Ravenswood Improvement Association and some local officials petitioned for the park. The Lincoln Park Commission finally began land acquisition in 1920. Within the next two years, tennis courts, a playground, an athletic field, a wading pool, and a fieldhouse were constructed in Chase Park. In 1934, the Lincoln park commission was consolidated into the Chicago park district. The Park district demolished Chase Park's original fieldhouse and replaced it with a new building in 1976.

Chase Park was one of seven neighborhood parks created by the Lincoln Park Commission. Five of them were named in honor of President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet members. Chase Park honors Salmon P. Chase (1803-1873), who served as Lincoln's secretary of the treasury from 1861 to 1864. In late 1864, Lincoln appointed Chase Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Early in his career, Chase became well known as a defender of runaway slaves and leader in the anti-slavery movement. As one of his initial acts as Chief Justice, he appointed John Rock, the nation's first African-American attorney to argue before the Supreme Court.

We attended Our Lady of Lourdes elementary, We had BVM nuns in the school once again as we had at Gesu Grade School in Milwaukee. Elayne and I continued our piano lessons. I think the lessons helped pay school expenses. Tuition was $2 a month per child. Noontime there would be a few kids walking about the playground holding a flat box suspended from their shoulders. The box held candies, like peppermint patties. We would buy one for a penny and if inside the chocolate covering we saw a colored creme we could win a prize. One noon hour as I arrived in the school yard a Sister approaching saw that I was walking with my head down. She greeted me and gave me a directive that I must walk with my head up high. I found this information below from a parish bulletin.  ...we closed the School program 3 years ago due to low enrollment, but the building is still intact and providing a home for our large Religious Education program and a full-time Adult Medical Job Training School. In addition, the class photos are still on the first floor walls.

Elayne and I wore these one piece, navy blue, pleated, wool serge, uniforms. We had stiff, white collars and cuffs which snapped on and off.  We would remove them at night and scrub them with a brush and sudsy water to wear the next day. Eventually they would develop cracks and when too many we had them replaced with another set. As we grew older, 6 & 7th grades we would get so sweaty. We wore red wool tams. The boys wore tan dress shirts and knit navy blue ties. After school we must change out of uniforms and don play clothes. This way we could wear them longer before needing to wash clothes. Our pastor, Monsignor Campbell, was a jolly white haired man.  We  attended a children`s Sunday Mass, 9 AM in full uniform.  

Older boys would deliver white or chocolate milk to the classrooms. With a long pole we opened or closed the windows, or remained after school to erase blackboards, clean erasers or dust. We considered helping sister an honor and a privilege. There were altar boys and patrol boys or crossing guards.                    


                             

At dismissal time Sousa records were played from the office and came to us over loud speakers. We marched to the music from the building to our respective corners. Reminds me of a special happening at home each morning when mother had the 'Breakfast Club' on the radio. Little Jimmy learned to march all about the house.

Don McNeil's Breakfast Club

The host called it 'marching around the breakfast table'. At school there would be occasional fire drills. Sometimes the janitor would bring in sawdust to sprinkle on the floor for a special cleanup.

At scheduled times I would return to school at 7 PM for my Girl Scout Meetings held in the school basement. Several times we scouts traveled together to the Des Plaines Forest Preserve on Saturday for a campfire and wiener, marshmallow roast. 

I have special memories from each grade. 4th Grade my teacher was Sr. Mary Edgar. She seemed to love song and drama and shared her talent with us. “I’m Happy when I’m Hiking off the beaten track. I'm happy when I'm hiking pack upon my back. Up hill and down the valley, along some winding lane with a real good friend to the journeys end tramp tramp tramp tramp tramp tramp--”. We had  a play in which we dressed in full costume as colonial folk. And I recall 
               
                        John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

                         His name is my name too.

                         Whenever we go out,

                         The people always shout,

                         There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

                         Dah dah dah dah, dah dah dah                                    

She was my favorite teacher of all time and probably an important reason why transferring from Milwaukee to Chicago went so well for me. We studied the History of Chicago, Chicago Fire and all that from a blue, soft covered text. I often copied answers from my sister’s last year History Workbooks for I was just a year behind.

Billy was in 3rd grade and just the right age to begin altar boy training. He would be required to learn the rubrics for his position. Along with he'd need the Latin responses to the priest's words when assisting at the altar. Et introibo ad altare Dei iuventutem meum  etc. I will go up unto the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth etc.

Mass Server's Card

Billy would be reciting his memorization all about our house so that Elayne and I began to learn the words along with him. There were four sides to know perfectly. After mastering his card and having the rubrics down pat he became ready to be placed on the altar boy schedule for the week.
I found this site with a beautiful copy of Mass Servers Card. St. Joan of Arc parish, Fairview, Camden, New Jersey.
http://www.fairview.ws/sjoa_church/latin.html



5th Grade Sr. Margaret Mary, quite elderly, Spelling Bees, standing up quickly when Fr. Runkle entered her classroom for special religion classes, ‘Good morning Fr. Runkle’,  during which he gave us the opportunity to ask him questions, the examination of conscience sort. 6th Grade, Sr. Barbara and my Confirmation year in which I chose Barbara as my saint’s name and read up on her life. That year we exchanged names for Christmas gift giving. I was totally disappointed when I opened my gift which was a tiny 8” doll pillow which this boy’s mother had made from drapery material to ‘fill the bill’. Recall the clothes made from drapery in Sound of Music. There was still poverty in the neighborhood in 1938. We had a Valentine box. I was beginning tonotice special boys that year-- Donald Turner and James  Furstal.

Elayne adds that Sr. Barbara also her 6th grade nun shared that she taught Elmer Layden, the Notre Dame great and he sent her a football game which the boys in her class played some noon hours. Elmer also gifted her with their classroom radio.