The 1400 block of Monroe Street, River Forest, in 1945-1953
Cast of characters 1941-45
Dr. and Mrs. Cywinski -Diane, Connie
Prairie (later Batagglia?)
Dr. and Mrs. Mascari - Joey, Jeannie and Mrs. Maurici, grandmother
Richard and Mary Christensen - Karen, Ruth, Mary Kyle
Prairie (Jacamowski, Renefield and Reginald)
Prairie (Salerno)
prairie
prairie
Lillian and Austin Cole - Alan, Nancy and Bruce
Marshall and Jane Wiedel - Jane and Mike
prairie
prairie
River Forest is one of the Chicago’s oldest suburbs, located along the city’s western edge. Its development, after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, was aided by the fact that the passenger railroad connecting it to Chicago had opened a few decades before and made commuting easy for businessmen. After 1900, starting along Lake Street and Chicago Avenue, the village expanded north and south. It was mostly single-family houses. Our grandfather, John Christensen, designed and built his house at 822 Franklin Street in the 1920’s.
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.
Our mother, Mary Mahaney, was born in Allegany, in western New York, near Olean. Her family was Irish Catholic, poor and sickly, and by the time I was born had all died, mostly from tuberculosis, with the exception of one brother. Our father came from a Chicago family, most of whom immigrated from Denmark in the 1880’s. They settled in Chicago before the 1900 census was taken. Our paternal grandfather was John C. Christensen, the architect who built most of the Chicago public schools between 1910 and 1950. My grandmother Jenny (Jane Thustrup) had three sisters, two of whom, Dagmar and Anna, were part of our childhood. The third sister, Belle, lived in California and we never met her. (She was my Godmother. She had married a Catholic.) When I was born my grandmother Jenny asked that I be named for her favorite sister. She was insistent. Thankfully, my mother said “No! Out of the question.” So they settled on Karen which was Danish enough sounding, but at least wasn’t “Dagmar.” My mother told me a story of the time the three, Jenny, Dagmar, and Anna, come to visit; and left me screaming in terror at the sight of their strange heads wearing huge feathered black hats leaning over my crib.
My sister Ruth was born on November 7, 1944. I was 3 ½. I am told that when our good neighbors, the Wiedels, asked me what the new baby’s name was, I answered “Franklin Roosevelt.” I had heard that name a lot that week. I doubt it, they said, knowing that my parents were dedicated Republicans.
I hadn’t known that my mother was expecting a baby, and six years later, I didn’t know before my youngest sister, Mary Kyle, was born. That year I was sent off to summer camp and got the news via post card. Was our Mother that prudish or was it normal at that time?
Charlie McDougal was the name of our mailman. His route ended one block further along the street at North Avenue, the border of River Forest. Charlie whistled loudly and could be heard from a block away. He was also beloved by all the dogs on his route and was usually surrounded by a happy gang of them. This meant that when the deliveries were finished Charlie had to retrace his route to get all the dogs home again.
I remember one very cold winter day, when the streets were unplowed, and the sidewalks treacherous. People along his route felt so sorry for him, they invited him in and gave him a little glass of “whiskey” to warm his insides. By the time he got to our block he most likely didn’t feel the cold much. Towards the end of the block he fell down in the middle of the street and my Dad and Mr. Wiedell had to pick him up, bring him into the Wiedell’s house, and sober him up. It must have been a Saturday because both men were home.
Mostly it snowed a lot but sometimes winter brought storms of freezing rain. When the electric wires to the house got too heavily coated in ice they went down. My dad always had a supply of logs by the fireplace and our kitchen had a gas stove so there was some light. Flashlights were kept ready. It was great fun for kids. We sat cozy, by the fireplace, in the dark, drinking hot cocoa (with a marshmallow) while mom read us stories. Then up to our beds, warmed with a warming pan. Usually by the next morning electricity had been restored, the sun was out, and the world was white, sparkling, and beautiful.
My sister Ruth and I shared a bedroom. We had twin beds with a bedside table between them. The headboards were padded and covered with some kind of vinyl. We soon discovered that, after the lights were turned off, you could rub your hands over the headboards and create swooshes of sparks. It could take a long time to fall asleep. One night Ruth kept coming over to my bed. Maybe she wanted to crawl in with me. I wanted to sleep and I rolled over to shove her away. To this day, my sister insists that hit her in the nose and almost broke it. I remember being surprised she was so close. We’re still best friends.
By the late 1940’s war-time shortages were over. There were three new homes on our side of the street. Christmas lights went up decorating the outside of our houses. It seemed like a contest to see whose dad could put up the most. Cars came from all over to drive very slowly down our streets, to the point where we couldn’t get out of our own driveway after dark.
Roller skates. Roller skating was my big sport then. Most of the kids on our block and the next were competitive boys and so I joined in. We held races with complicated rules. Up the block, up a driveway, touch the garage door, down to the corner, around a tree, touch the front steps of another house…. All at top speed. It was dangerous only because the skates tended to fall off.
We wore laced shoes with hard leather soles. Mine were black and white saddle shoes. Adjustable clamps held the skate on the front of the foot. There was an adjustment on the underside to lengthen or shorten the skate. At the back of the skate was a metal heel support with a leather strap to buckle around your ankle. A skate “key” was used to turn the hexagon nuts to adjust the skate. You always wore the key on a string around your neck because you never knew when the skate was going to fall off.
The anticipation of the fireworks on the Fourth was almost unbearable. It always seemed that night would NEVER come. Our Dad and Mr. Wiedel (note that all adults were Mr. and Mrs. or Dr. and Mrs. (adults did not have first names to children) bought the fireworks and put on the show for the neighbors on the Wiedel’s extra lot. Children could light sparklers, but only under adult’s watchful eyes. I remember little black pills, about the size of a pinkie nail. You put one on the sidewalk, lit it with a match, and it grew long- like an ashy worm. I think there were little things you could throw at the sidewalk and, when they hit, would make a loud snap/pop sound. But for the real thing, we had to wait until it was finally dark, and our dad and Mr. Wiedel started the fireworks. One. At. A. Time. So the display lasted a long time. My favorite was a Catherine Wheel, probably about a foot across, pinned to the trunk of a tree. When lighted, is spun and colored sparks would fly. Wow.
We had a dog. Actually we had two of them, one after the other. Beautiful Irish Setters both named Scheherazade, Sherry for short. (Our Dad liked classical music.) Irish Setters are beautiful but they never grow up. We had a metal chain link fence all around our backyard. The dogs wanted out and eventually found a way. I think the first Sherry disappeared one day and never came back. I do remember my poor mother having to spend hours cutting burrs our of the Second Sherry’s coat when she returned from a five day spree. I think we gave Sherry 2 away to somebody who could cope with her.
Our mother was often sick and confined to bed. She, like so many of her relatives, had developed tuberculosis. Treatment was primitive. Several times during our childhoods she was confined in a sanitarium and at one point one of her lungs was surgically collapsed. Later, in 1953 she again spent months in the sanitarium and once again in 1959 when I was a freshman in college. Mom’s cousin, Margaret McCormick, came and ran the household that year. By the late 50’s new treatments for tuberculosis had been developed and she was finally out of danger. We were fortunate to be financially able to afford having daily housekeepers during this difficult time. Mrs. Habek, a nice lady from Berwyn, was the first. The second, Alice Nicely, lived in Forest Park and later bought a house in Tinley Park, a far southern suburb of Chicago. We loved to visit her there because she raised chickens and ducks and rabbits.
Fortunately for Mom, there were the three Ryan sisters who ran a pre school from their enormous family home on Gayle Street in River Forest. The house was huge, made of dark grey stone and had a tower. One sister was named Francis. I think one was called Bessie and I don’t remember the name of the third. They were rumored to have a reclusive brother living in the tower. Not only did they take me and a few years later, Ruth, off Mom’s hands at a period when she needed rest, but one of them drove a big, black pre-war Ford and picked us up at home and delivered us back.
Our grandfather, John Christensen, had built a house in Miami Beach, Florida. Many winters we took the Illinois Central train to Miami and stayed for several weeks. The house was about three blocks from the beach so we could walk. I remember the dry rustle of the palm trees, the tinkle of a little fountain in the yard, and rich, humid smell of the tropical air.
The best part of the Florida trip was the train! It took three days to get to Miami. We had a double bedroom. By day there were comfy couches with a table between them. Each half had a bath room — toilet and sink only. At night the porter lowered the upper bunks and made up the beds. I got the upper bunk and liked looking out at the lights. If the train was stopped in a station, you felt unmoored when it started to move and then realized that no, it was the train on the other side of the platform that was moving. Mrs. Habek came with us a few times and we thought she had more fun. In her car, at night both sides of the aisle were turned into upper and lower berths with curtains. Remember the train scene in the movie “Some Like It Hot”?
We staggered through a moving train to the dining car. It always felt dangerous, stepping from one car to another. In the dining car we ate at tables set with white tablecloths, silverware and flowers. Meals were cooked to order and were delicious, especially the desserts. I don’t remember a bar car (my Dad did like his martini so maybe he found one) and observation cars had not been invented .
One trip we brought a butterfly with us. Usually we left the cocoons we collected in the fall in our garage over the winter. For some reason, one cocoon was left in our laundry room and it hatched a day before we left for Florida. Mom put it in a birdcage with a dish of sugar water and we took it with us planning to release it in Florida. We let it go in somewhere Georgia but it was probably too late…the sugar water had gotten it all sticky.
Francis Willard School was a four and a half block walk from our house.
More next week
Caretakers: Mrs Habek and Alice Nicely
Household help: Colleen Burton
Frances Willard School
Playing on the building sites and hunting snakes in the prairies
Free range children
Florida house and the Illinois central
Galoshes
Snap shots
Summer afternoon thunder storms- It was hot in the summer. When the sky got dark, we knew to go inside. Our house had dark green canvas awnings on the east and west sides that turned the indoor light a spooky green when storms approached. Then, for a half hour , the lightening would explode outside and the thunder rumble and heavy rain would fall. I never felt scared, just the comfort of being safe and inside and dry. As quickly as the storms arose, they went away, and the sun reappeared.
The strange sound of the tin roof over the screened porch -- when someone walked out on it, it sounded like metallic thunder. The door to the roof was in our bedroom, so Ruth and I got to make lots of noise.
The moaning in our back hall -- there was something wrong with the weather stripping between the attached garage and the back entry hall. When the wind was from the right direction, it moaned like a ghost.
The beautiful dark blue of a cold, clear winter evening, about 5 o’clock. I had been ice skating at the pond near Willard School with friends but walked home alone. The silence! The long lonely wail of a train whistle! Stars and a sliver of moon! The feeling the emptiness! Not sad - not frightening – just vast.
Worms in trees. Every year, at the end of May and in early June, we were plagued with little green inchworms. From the trees that lined every street, they descended on a tiny, silky threads. They were cute, but they got in your hair and on your clothes.
The beautiful elm trees that lined each side of all of our streets. Their trunks rose straight and then branched out forming a long green archway over the length of each block. Like being in a church. In the 1960’s Dutch elm disease wiped out most of these trees and streets were replanted with a variety of species. It never felt the same.
Several times each summer the Mosquito Abatement truck would come down each street shooting out a fog of (probably) DDT. When I got older, 11 or 12, we would hop on our bikes and pedal like mad in the fog behind the truck.