The 1400 block of Monroe Street, River Forest, in 1945-1953

Our father bought a double lot at the north end of the town at 1414 Monroe Street, and had a house built. When I was born in 1941, the house was not quite finished and we lived in an apartment in neighboring Berwyn. We moved into the house sometime in 1942. There is a photograph of me hanging up my Christmas stocking at the age of 1 ½. Because of the war, house construction had stopped and didn’t resume until 1945. When I was little there were only five families on our side of the block. The other side of the street was a foreign country. On our side there were seven empty lots, which we called prairies. We lived in the house at 1414 until 1953 when we moved about 5 blocks to a larger house.