Dot

L.A. Night

2011-06-27T07:12:00.003-05:00

An evening in Los Angeles, about 1949:

Bob Karpus

2011-06-23T10:06:00.003-05:00

Dot and Bob in 1945

Bob Karpus, husband for many years to my mother's best friend Sunny, died this week, in St. Petersburg, Florida. He's survived by his two daughters and grandkids. Sunny and Bob met in Chicago in the mid-1940s. Both were very happy, upbeat people throughout their lives. As a side effect of having published Dot's Diary, I was lucky to reconnect with the two of them after many years of being out of touch. They were just as wonderful, hadn't changed at all, and I feel very fortunate to have had them back into my life. I miss them both very much.

A New Vintage

2011-04-21T07:53:00.004-05:00

Just a few blocks west of where Dot lived in the 1940s, Bill Lavicka hopes to transform this property and its sturdy, old mansion into a winery. It will be amazing if he can do it, and I wish him the best of success. Lavicka obviously cares very deeply about preservation, and about respecting age -- of buildings and of people.

He wants to plant about 5,000 vines in the yard — what's now three or so bombed-out-looking blocks along the Dan Ryan Expressway just south of Garfield Boulevard.

Complicating matters, the vacant land and long-neglected mansion are owned by the city of Chicago. For nearly two years, Lavicka, 66, has been trying to persuade the city to sell 40 to 50 lots that were once part of the John Raber estate to him for $1 each, plus commit to streetscape and road improvements, and subsidize part of the renovation in some way.

Ald. Willie Cochran said Wednesday that he is "confident this deal will get closed," saying the winery would be approved along with an adjacent urban farm and new park with a baseball field. But details remain to be ironed out, and those will have to wait for the new mayor's input, he said.

The project, Lavicka said, has taken longer to plan than it would take to remodel.

The Chicago Tribune has more here.

1946: Opening Day--and a New Beginning

2011-04-16T13:05:00.003-05:00

Dot's Diary, Tuesday, April 16, 1946:

Today's news: LEFTY TRUMAN TO TOSS 1st BALL - Then Senators, Red Sox Play Before 30,000:

Opening Day, 1946: Before it could heal the nation, baseball at the close of World War II had some healing of its own to do.

By John Rosengren

On Tuesday, April 16, 1946, the president of the United States lunched with several U.S. senators at the Capital, paused to shake hands with wounded war veterans, then headed to the ballpark. A 65-piece U.S. Army band boomed “Hail to the Chief” when Harry S. Truman entered Griffith Stadium. The ball players–13 of them returning vets–stood at attention in their baggy flannels while the Stars and Stripes rose up the center-field pole and the band played the national anthem.

The photographers trained their bulky cameras on the presidential box, where the commander in chief would honor the game’s great southpaws with his opening toss. Truman caused a moment of consternation by gripping the ball in his right hand. The New York Herald Tribune reported: “He switched the ball to the publicized duke, limbered it up with two short waves of the soupbone, drew it back behind his ear, and fired an overhand delivery about 50 feet into the cluster of players of both sides deploying for the throw.”

Truman’s pitch was the first season-opening delivery by the commander in chief since Franklin Delanor Roosevelt’s in April 1941, but opening day was more than a photo op for Truman. When the war ended, the president turned to the national pastime for healing. The Missouri southpaw understood the nation’s faith in the game’s restorative powers.

Back at the ballpark

Washington’s Griffith Stadium had been sold out weeks in advance, and eager fans quickly snatched up the 4,000 bleacher seats and 3,000 standing-room-only passes that went on sale that morning. Some 32,300 men, women, and children filled the seats and spilled into the aisles to watch that afternoon’s game between the hometown Senators and the Boston Red Sox. Across the country, 236,730 fans passed through the turnstiles at eight American and National League parks, the highest inaugural-day attendance in 15 years.

There's more here...

Aftershocks Continue

2011-04-02T15:05:00.003-05:00

Dot's Diary, Tuesday, April 2, 1946:

Estimate 300 Perish in Hawaiian Town; California Hit - HILO WRECKED; RESCUE SQUADS DIG FOR VICTIMS: This tragic city was a horrible shambles today as rescue squads dug bodies of 37 victims of today's smashing tidal wave from the slimy wreckage and rubble.

PACIFIC TIDAL WAVE; 70 DIE - 5,000 HOMELESS; LOSS RUNS INTO THE MILLIONS: The latest total of dead in the wake of the tidal wave in the Hawaiian islands is 70. Forty-eight bodies have been recovered on the island of Hawaii and hundreds are reported missing there.

Mildred Pierce

2011-03-28T12:22:00.005-05:00

Dot's Diary, Thursday, Mar. 28, 1946:

“Today was another very warm day (69). Met Sunny and fooled around the house for awhile and then went to Parnell for a Coke. Then to the Stratford and saw Mildred Pierce and it was really worth the Academy Award.”

Coincidentally, just yesterday (Sunday, March 27th) HBO premiered their new mini-series, Mildred Pierce, adapted from the movie Dot saw today at the Stratford theater.

Reviews and more information about HBO's show here, here, here and here.

March: the lion- and the lamb-like

2011-03-27T11:10:00.009-05:00

Dot's Diary, Tuesday, Mar. 27, 1945:

“After school, Sonny and I went by Ginny's house and then we went to White Castle's and Parnell's. Saw Jim but he didn't see me.

Later in the evening, Sis, Ginny and I went up to 55th & Halsted to wait for Helen and—god, was there a powerful wind blowing. She came around 25 to 9, and she went into Skateland to see if Saby* was in there. He wasn't. Gosh, I felt sorry for her and I don't think he's even worth writing about.”

I awoke on this sunny March 27th morning in 2011 to a very un-March-like 30 degrees. Nowhere near the record low of minus-one degree (1965). But not quite the balmy, all-time record-setting 82 Chicago was experiencing on this day in 1945. It must have given my mom an extra bounce or two in her step (even more so if that powerful wind was at her back!), as she really covered a lot of ground today.

Elizabeth Taylor

2011-03-26T09:25:00.005-05:00

I don't know if my mother saw Lassie Come Home at a theater in 1943 or '44. But I suspect that, as a 15- or 16-year-old, she probably did.

For my part, I don't think I've ever seen the film. I do, however, remember the first time I was aware of Elizabeth Taylor. I was about 11, watching the Oscars on the blonde wood cabinet TV in the living room. Butterfield 8 was the movie, and Liz was its star. My parents went to quite a few movies, and they sometimes took me with--if it was suitable for kids. Well Butterfield 8--the story of a call girl--wasn't. But something about how people were talking about it made me aware that it was risque, and adult. And intriguing.

But 50 years later, I haven't seen that one either. I need to schedule a Lassie Come Home/Butterfield 8 double feature.

(p.s. I'm glad to be back after a self-imposed break. All work and no play (and not enough movies) makes for a dull blog.)

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T10:47:00.001-06:00

(p.s.: Happy 39th Birthday to Jack Benny!)

Snowbound in February

2011-02-05T10:36:00.006-06:00

Chicago's O'Hare Airport this week, when thousands of flights

were cancelled during the Blizzard of 2011

Dot's Diary, Monday, Feb. 5, 1945:

TIME magazine (Feb. 5, 1945 issue):

“The manpower and equipment shortage caught up with the Eastern railroads last week.

Since mid-December, when the first of a series of blizzards and icy gales lashed at their overloaded lines, the [rail]roads had done more than their usual best to clear the tracks. But main-line trains slowed to a crawl: the crack Twentieth Century Limited was ten and a half hours late on one scheduled run of 17 hours from Chicago to New York City.

Finally in many a busy freight yard traffic came to a stop while trainmen groped for switches beneath snowdrifts. Then the nation was in serious trouble. Two hundred thousand freight cars were tied up in the East by one of the worst transportation crises on record.

When last week's cold wave sent temperatures to 18° below zero at Portland, Me., to 16° below at Binghamton, N.Y., the Association of American Railroads decided it was time for drastic action. With the approval of the Office of Defense Transportation, A.A.R. clamped a tight three-day embargo on all non-Government freight moving east of Lake Michigan and north of the Chesapeake and Ohio lines in Virginia.

More Snow & Ice?

Whether the 72-hour embargo had given the railroads time enough to dig themselves out of their trouble was still a question this week. Long trains of empties were snaking across the bleak landscape, headed away from the congested terminals. Dozens of passenger trains were canceled, and their high-wheeled engines ignobly coupled to strings of empty boxcars. By week's end the roads hoped to have caught up again, unless. . . .

Along the busy railroad lines in the Northeast, engine smoke hung low and heavy over the rails. Railroad men gloomily marked it down as a sure sign that more snow was on the way.”

Mexican Cookbook

2011-01-14T07:22:00.003-06:00

Dot's Diary, Jan. 14, 1946:

New Edition of Cookbook Is Available: “Mexican Cookbook,” by Erna Fergusson, published by the University of New Mexico Press, is a new edition of a book which was out of print and came back by special demand. Many lovers of Mexican food want to know how to prepare it authentically in their own kitchens. ---Chicago Tribune

Author Erna Fergusson, by virtue of her popular cookbook, helped to make enchiladas, tacos and tortillas less exotic and much more common on Americans' dinner tables. Fergusson--who grew up in New Mexico--was more than a book author though:

Throughout her years Erna had various other occupations. During World War II she took a job with the Red Cross as the home service secretary and State Supervisor for New Mexico. After the war she became a reporter for the Albuquerque Herald, writing various articles regarding her hometown. She was commissioned in 1926 by Century Magazine to write “Redskins to Railroads” and “From Rodeo to Rotary” two of her pieces, which many years later along with other short works became published.

While at the Herald, Erna also began a touring company alongside friend Ethel Hickey. The touring company, Koshare Tours, provided guests with tours of the southwest, introducing them to native cultures. Koshare Tours were so successful that Fred Harvey, a famous and well to do western hotel and restaurateur, bought the touring company and hired Erna Fergusson to direct the new endeavor—Indian Detour Service.

In her 1934 book, "Mexican Cookbook", Fergusson was perhaps the first to correct the English-speakers notion that "frijoles refritos" meant "refried beans", but the correction never reached the popular consciousness.

Erna Fergusson can be best depicted as a New Mexico writer of the 1930s, honing the two techniques of oral interview and conversational prose style; she was a part of the Southwestern Renaissance, and greatly contributed to the history of New Mexico.

Amazon carries Fergusson's book, in used form. Although I'm no chef, I'm thinking of ordering it. I'll let you know the outcome, if I do. From their review:

This popular cookbook has sold more copies than any other native cookbook ever printed in the Southwest. First published in 1934, it contains recipes for the foods that are now served in trendy restaurants nationwide, enchiladas, chile rellenos, and carne adovada. But the heart of this cookbook consists of simple, rustic food served in New Mexican homes, green chile sandwiches, a lamb-based cold soup, and sweet rice. Techniques for preparing freshly grown food, while unnecessary thanks to modern supermarkets, bring back the ambience and spirit of territorial New Mexico.

The Iroquois Theater Fire

2010-12-30T08:23:00.005-06:00

December 30th marks the 107th anniversary of the Iroquois Theater disaster---a horrible, preventable inferno that claimed over 600 lives. The building was near the northeast corner of Randolph and Dearborn Streets, it was situated between the Delaware Building--which currently houses a McDonald's on the first floor--and what is now the Oriental Theater.

Coincidentally, I'm reading a very interesting book that covers the subject. Entitled Tinder Box, it describes in detail the unfortunate circumstances (and gross neglect) that led to the catastrophe, the timeline of the fire itself, and the aftermath of legal proceedings and hearings. It's highly recommended.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-25T08:34:00.001-06:00

Family card sent during the mid 1930s

Phil Cavarretta

2010-12-19T08:46:00.004-06:00

Phil Cavarretta (Chicago Tribune photo)

Dot's Diary, October 3, 1945:

Today's news:

WORLD SERIES ON TODAY: CUBS VS. TIGERS! - CHICAGO CLUB SETS RANGE IN BATTING DRILL - Short Fences Make Inviting Targets - Tigers by a Shade!: Charley Grimm and his champion Cubs surveyed Briggs stadium, lair of the Tigers, this afternoon and judged it suitable for the hitting styles of the several gents who gave the Cubs both the Individual and team hitting championships of the National league.

BOROWY DRAWS NEWHOUSER AS PITCHING RIVAL - Detroit Weather Cloudy, Windy: The world series, the baseball magnates' annual glamor show and, incidentally, an affair in which financial loot falls to some of the ball players, will get under way this afternoon. From what is definitely known about the principals, anything might happen.

Chicago Tribune, Dec. 19, 2010:

Phil Cavarretta, who went from Lane Tech to playing for the Cubs at age 18 and holds the franchise record for longevity with 20 seasons, died Saturday in Lilburn, Ga. He was 94.

The first baseman and outfielder, who was the National League's Most Valuable Player and led the Cubs to their last World Series appearance in 1945, played his final 77 games for the White Sox.

Cavarretta holds the Cubs' record for single-season batting average by a left-handed hitter at .355 in his MVP season. He ranks in the top 10 in most offensive categories for the Cubs.

Cavarretta, it seems, was also prescient:

During the 1951 season, he replaced Frankie Frisch as manager while still playing. That lasted until the spring of 1954, when Cavarretta told owner P. K. Wrigley he didn't believe the team could win. He was fired and quit the organization, moving on to the Sox.

The Cubs ended their 1951 season with 62 wins and 92 losses---and without Cavarretta.

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes

2010-12-18T08:52:00.002-06:00

Dot's Diary, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 1945:

“Cold outside. I met Sis in Parnell and we talked to Earl. When I just stepped in the house, the phone rang and it was Herb. So we went to the Southtown and then to Parnell.”

Playing at the Southtown on that cold December day (Chicago's 14th coldest December ever) was Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, the story of a Norwegian farmer (Edward G. Robinson) raising his daughter Selma (Margaret O'Brien of Meet Me In St. Louis) in rural Wisconsin. I remember my mother talking about this film several times when I was growing up.

I haven't seen it since then, but because it was such a favorite of hers, I know it must have made a big impression. Besides maybe identifying with the midwest location and O'Brien's characther, another factor might have been the father, Martinus Jacobson. If a director was going to cast the part of Dot's father Louis, he couldn't do much better than to choose Robinson. Both were of that same, stocky physical stature, and both had a sort of gruff, no-nonsense exterior yet were soft-hearted and tender as a grape on the inside. Perhaps Dot saw this too.

Birthday for a 65-Year-Old Mystery

2010-12-05T07:26:00.002-06:00

Dot's Diary, Wednesday, December 5, 1945:

Today's news: Five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers disappear during a Navy training exercise over an area known (in later years) as the “Bermuda Triangle”.

Still an unsolved mystery after 65 years, it is theorized that the five aircraft became disoriented and ran out of fuel. No wreckage has ever been found.

Five Avengers are airborne at 1400 on a bright sunny day. The mission is a routine two-hour patrol from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. due east for 150 miles [241 km], north for 40 miles [64 km] and then return to base. All five pilots are highly experienced aviators and all of the aircraft have been carefully checked prior to takeoff. The weather over the route is reported to be excellent, a typical sunny Florida day. The flight proceeds.

At 1545 Fort Lauderdale tower receives a call from the flight but, instead of requesting landing instructions, the flight leader sounds confused and worried. "Cannot see land," he blurts. "We seem to be off course." "What is your position?" the tower asks. There are a few moments of silence. The tower personnel squint into the sunlight of the clear Florida afternoon. No sign of the flight.

"We cannot be sure where we are," the flight leader announces. "Repeat: Cannot see land."

Contact is lost with the flight for about 10 minutes and then it is resumed. But it is not the voice of the flight leader. Instead, voices of the crews are heard, sounding confused and disoriented, "more like a bunch of boy scouts lost in the woods than experienced airmen flying in clear weather." "We can't find west. Everything is wrong. We can't be sure of any direction. Everything looks strange, even the ocean." Another delay and then the tower operator learns to his surprise that the leader has handed over his command to another pilot for no apparent reason.

Twenty minutes later, the new leader calls the tower, his voice trembling and bordering on hysteria. "We can't tell where we are ... everything is ... can't make out anything. We think we may be about 225 miles [362 km] northeast of base ..." For a few moments the pilot rambles incoherently before uttering the last words ever heard from Flight 19: "It looks like we are entering white water ... We're completely lost."

Within minutes a Mariner flying boat, carrying rescue equipment, is on its way to Flight 19's last estimated position. Ten minutes after takeoff, the PBM checks in with the tower ... and is never heard from again. Coast Guard and Navy ships and aircraft comb the area for the six aircraft. They find a calm sea, clear skies, middling winds of up to 40 miles per hour [64 km/h] and nothing else. For five days almost 250,000 square miles [647,000 km²] of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf are searched. Yet, not a flare is seen, not an oil slick, life raft or telltale piece of wreckage is ever found.

Finally, after an extensive Navy Board of Inquiry investigation is completed, the riddle remains intact. The Board's report is summed up in one terse statement: "We are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened."

A Streetcar Named Potato Salad

2010-12-04T13:02:00.004-06:00

Dot's Diary for Tuesday, Dec. 4, 1945:

“Herb didn't call today. Saturday night he was put in jail; and all through Sunday, too, for being disorderly on the street car and drunk.”

My mom's boyfriend, Herb, had crashed through the window of a Chicago Surface Lines (later CTA) streetcar back on Nov. 17, and had now paid the price with some jail time. As Dot's sister described it a few years ago:

“I can still see Herb, standing on the back of the streetcar (they were open-air in the back), with the conductor facing him and saying to Herb, ‘Haven't I seen you before?”

How Herb crashed through the window without hurting or cutting himself, I'll never know.

And the topper was the shopping bag breaking open— with all of us scrambling off of the streetcar at one time, after Herb had done his ‘thing’.

We then had to walk home from 63rd & Halsted, and I remember Herb saying, over and over, about ‘Potato salad all over the street!‘, and then he'd laugh his head off.”

I'll bet that for years afterwards, my mother and Sis couldn't help looking at each other and laughing out loud whenever they saw a streetcar go by. Then one of them would say ‘Potato salad all over the street!’ and they'd laugh all over again.

Pride of the Marines

2010-12-02T11:00:00.002-06:00

Al Schmid, the pride of the Marines

Dot's diary, Saturday, Dec. 1, 1945:

“Went down 63rd and bought a dress. Then Sis and I met Sunny and went to the Stratford and saw Pride of the Marines.”

Looks as though there's no chance for me to see Pride of the Marines (trailer) via Netflix or TCM right now. There are these items concerning the film's subject, Marine Private Al Schmid, however, that I wanted to share.

This is from the February 1, 1943 issue of Time magazine, :

Private Al Schmid of the Marine Corps was facing life, and he was blind. In San Diego Naval Hospital he began his biggest readjustment.

"Dear Ruth . . ." he said. The Red Cross girl, Virginia Pfeiffer, wrote it down. She did not hesitate when he came to the part about breaking his engagement to Ruth "because I don't want to be a drag on anybody." She signed his name, "Al." The Jap bullet that blinded Al Schmid after his machine gun killed 200 Japs had struck far from Guadalcanal.

When she left the room Virginia reread the letter. Then she added a postscript asking Ruth to go on writing: "With his intelligence, personality and humor there is no reason why you can't build something pretty fine out of life."

Last week Al Schmid, Marine cap perched jauntily, stepped off a train on to the windswept Philadelphia station platform. His mother and father were there to meet him. So was Ruth Hartley. He could not see the tears in their eyes, but he heard their voices. He laughed when he felt the shape of Ruth's hat pressing against him.

Said Ruth, bursting with wedding plans: "He'll never be a drag on anyone. Not that one!" Other welcome home news for Al Schmid was the doctors' verdict: that after more months of hospital care he possibly might regain partial vision in his one remaining eye.

More--from the Arlington National Cemetery's Web site:

Al Schmid was born on 20 October 1920, as Albert Andrew Schmid in Burholme, Pennsylvania. Schmid was a United States Marine who was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions at the Battle of the Tenaru during the Battle of Guadalcanal. His life story appeared in the American news magazines of the time, the book Al Schmid, Marine by Roger Butterfield, and the 1945 film Pride of the Marines in which he was played by John Garfield.

Schmid worked a variety of jobs before becoming an apprentice steel burner at the Dodge Steel Company in Philadelphia in 1940.

After hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Schmid enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on 9 December 1941, being trained at Parris Island South Carolina and New River North Carolina where he was assigned to the 11th Machine Gun Squad, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division. He used a bonus from his employer to purchase an engagement ring for his girlfriend Ruth Hartley.

Schmid landed with his Regiment at Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942. On the night of 21 August 1942, Schmid was manning a M1917 Browning machine gun along with Corporal LeRoy Diamond and PFC Johnny Rivers. Though having a serious foot infection, Schmid refused medical treatment in order to stay with his weapon.

Japanese Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki and 800 of his men attacked the perimeter held by the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment during the night with the goal of breaking through to destroy the American airstrip of Henderson Field that would conclude the campaign in the favour of Japan.

During the night, Rivers the gunner was killed by a bullet through the head, Diamond, the gun commander, was wounded and several bullets hit and shredded the water jacket of their machine gun which kept on firing. A Japanese soldier threw a grenade in the machine gun pit blinding Schmid, but Schmid kept his weapon firing with instructions from Diamond. The next morning over 200 dead Japanese were counted in front of their machine gun.

Schmid was awarded the Navy Cross on 18 February 1943. He married Ruth Hartley in April 1943. They had a son, Al Schmid, Jr. in June 1944. Diamond and Rivers were also awarded the Navy Cross. He spoke at war bond rallies across the nation and was in the public's eye through Roger Butterfield's book and the Warner Brothers film. The Democratic Party nominated Schmid for the Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs but he lost the election.

Schmid eventually recovered partial sight in one eye, but problems with his leg led him to retire in 1957 and move to Florida. Al Schmid died of bone cancer [on] 1 December 1982. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Finally, here is Time's September 3, 1945 review of the film my mother saw on December 1, 1945:

Pride of the Marines (Warner), adapted from Roger Butterfield's true story, Al Schmid, Marine, is Hollywood's most serious attempt yet to picture some of the problems of returning servicemen.

Hero Al Schmid (John Garfield), a 21-year-old Philadelphia machinist, joined the Corps shortly after Pearl Harbor and became a machine-gunner. One night on Guadalcanal, defending a river crossing, he killed some 200 Japanese. Toward morning, a grenade went off in his face and ended the war, for him, in blindness.
For months, doctors worked on Al's eyes without much result and without much hope, while friends, without much result or much hope either, worked to renew his will to live. Pride, bitterness, fury, self-pity, despair engulfed him.

Without letting her know what was wrong with him, he did his best to break off with his sweetheart, Ruth Hartley (Eleanor Parker). But thanks to her love and patience, the pep talks of his fellow marine Lee Diamond (Dane Clark) and the kindliness of a Red Cross worker (Rosemary De Camp), he was finally won back into human circulation.

Even when it drags, the screen story of Al Schmid has a compelling doggedness and honesty. The cast, especially Messrs. Garfield and Clark, put it over with a notable absence of affectation. The picture's single, sustained combat sequence is keenly written and filmed, fiercely exciting, with its shrilling obbligato of the enemy's "Mreen yoo dyee (Marine, you die!) Mreen tonight yoo dyee!" set against the jabbing technical chatter of the frantically overworked machine-gun crew.

It is also exciting—because the screen is so unaccustomed to plain talk—to see and hear the angry discussion of postwar prospects which Scripter Albert Maltz has written for the hospitalized marines. Effectively outspoken, too, is Lee Diamond's reminder, to Al, that blindness gives him no monopoly on job handicaps—that Diamond himself has been plentifully handicapped all his life because he is a Jew.
But Pride of the Marines is more than a rostrum for liberal polemics. It is a good hard-hitting movie.

Biking in Englewood

2010-11-26T11:50:00.005-06:00

Host Geoffrey Baer

Chicago's PBS television station, WTTW, will be airing repeat showings of an excellent program, "Biking the Boulevards". Host Geoffrey Baer cycles the city's string of boulevard parkways beginning on Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, and finishing up at Humboldt Park. Along the way, Baer traverses Garfield Park Boulevard, pausing in the Englewood neighborhood. Baer briefly chats about the area's history and redevelopment efforts, as well as the infamous Holmes case and Kennedy-King College.

As a cyclist myself, and having biked a couple of the organized "boulevard rides", I found the show both fun and informative, albeit just a little frustrating, coming as it does right at the beginning of our bicycle-unfriendly winter.

Watch the entire show here, at WTTW's “Biking the Boulevards” Web site.

Phil the Bandleader

2010-11-21T07:06:00.006-06:00

Wednesday, November 21, 1945:

“[Herb and I] went to the Stratford and saw I Love a Bandleader and Scotland Yards Investigator.”

Phil Harris sang “That's What I Like About the South” in I Love a Bandleader. A crazy, fast-paced number, Harris would comically find any excuse to play the tune during his 1940s radio appearances (often responded to by groans from his fellow actors), even though Harris actually was born north of the Mason-Dixon Line, in Linton, Indiana.

Wikipedia:

In 1936, Harris became musical director of The Jell-O Show Starring Jack Benny (later renamed The Jack Benny Program), singing and leading his band and – when his knack for snappy one-liners became apparent – joining the Benny ensemble playing Phil Harris, scripted as a hipster-talking, hard-drinking, brash Southerner whose good nature overcame his ego---sometimes.

His first trademark was his jive-talk nicknaming of the others in the Benny orbit. Benny was "Jackson," for example; Harris's usual entry was a cheerful "Hiya, Jackson!". He usually referred to Mary Livingstone as "Livvy". His signature song, belying his actual Hoosier birthplace, was "That's What I Like About the South."

His comic persona—that of a musical idiot who never met a bottle he didn't like or a mirror he could bypass—masked the fact that the Harris band evolved into a smooth, up-tempo big band with outstanding arrangements.

Harris' debut on Jack Benny's program can be listened to here.

Here's what Dot and Herb saw on that 1945 evening at the Stratford Theater. From I Love a Bandleader:

On the Radio: Nov. 13, 1945

2010-11-13T07:41:00.005-06:00

Tuesday, November 13, 1945:

“In the evening, Sis and I went and met Jim Parks and Lillie in the library. Got the giggles, so we then went to Parnell and had a Cherry Coke. Came back home and listened to the radio.”

One of the shows Dot and Sis might have listened to on the radio was the Fibber McGee & Molly/Johnson's Wax Program on NBC. The episode that aired on this November 13, 1945 evening was titled “Fibber Teaches Molly to Drive”, and it may be heard in its entirety here.

Corsair Lifts Off Again

2010-11-08T15:59:00.005-06:00

After 67 years:

A specialized team recovered a World War II fighter plane from Lake Michigan today, nearly 70 years after a Navy pilot missed a signal officer's warning to slow down and crashed during a training exercise.

The F4U-1 Corsair Fighter emerged rusted, its underbelly coated with zebra mussels, but otherwise remarkably intact after sitting beneath 250 feet of water nearly 33 miles off the Waukegan shoreline for decades.

"It's in wonderful condition," said Taras Lyssenko, general manager for A&T Recovery, a Chicago-based company that recovered the plane. "Keep in mind, it crashed and broke in half on the aircraft carrier."

More here.

Northwest Passage

2010-11-05T06:37:00.004-05:00

The Northwest Expressway, looking south from North Avenue, 1960

November 7, 1945:

AGREE ON ROUTE FOR HIGHWAY TO DOUGLAS PORT: A tentative route for the northwest super-highway of 16.3 miles connecting the Douglas airport with the north side, the loop, and the Congress st. super-highway was agreed upon yesterday [...] providing an eight lane depressed high speed highway along a northwest diagonal route.

November 5, 2010:

It was at 11 a.m. on Nov. 5, 1960, beneath a bunting-draped Lake Street overpass, that Illinois' political powerhouses, Gov. William Stratton, Mayor Richard J. Daley and Cook County Board President Dan Ryan, officially opened the Northwest Expressway.

Although it followed by only weeks the completion of the Congress Street Expressway, now the Eisenhower, Stratton called it "the greatest highway in America."

Three years later, the expressway would be renamed for President John F. Kennedy, a week after he was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. That was only fitting because the expressway shared a special link with the young president who captured the city's heart. During Kennedy's three visits to Chicago, hundreds of thousands lined the route to watch his motorcades.

Construction of the Kennedy — it cost $232.3 million — became the foundation for Daley's reputation as a master builder and helped transform the small suburban Orchard Field into one of the world's busiest airports, O'Hare.

90 Years Ago

2010-11-02T09:00:00.003-05:00

Friday, November 2, 1945:

TODAY MARKS 25 YEARS OF RADIO BROADCASTING - Election Return Program Considered First: Twenty-five years ago today station KDKA, Pittsburgh, broadcast the Harding-Cox election returns and ushered in the era of radio broadcasting.

On this Election Day of Tuesday, November 2, 2010, we can get the latest election returns and all the analysis we care to read-text or video- from a wireless phone we carry in our pockets. But 90 years ago today you had to wait for the next day's newspaper. Unless you were one of the tiny handful of hobbyists who owned one of the newfangled "Amateur Wireless Sets":

As the months of 1920 passed by, amateur interest increased, and a number of people in the Pittsburgh area were wondering how they might be able to obtain sets of their own. In early September, the Joseph Home Department Store in Pittsburgh put an ad in the Pittsburgh Sun notifying the public that the store had on display a radio set for amateur use that could pick up the Conrad radio programs. Not only was the Horne Company going to display and demonstrate this equipment, they were going to sell it as well: "Amateur Wireless Sets, made by the maker of the set which is in operation in our store, are on sale here, $10.00 up."

Amateur wireless sets on sale! On sale to the general public, not just to the radio ham or buff! The day the ad appeared, Harry P. Davis, vice president at Westinghouse, saw the ad in the newspaper, and it aroused his interest. He was Conrad's superior at Westinghouse, and of course he knew all about Conrad's amateur broadcasts. But the sale of radio sets to the public--here was an idea that nobody had thought of before. Even if Westinghouse had been shoved out of the central core of the radio business as it now stood, perhaps something new could be drummed up. Sets not merely for radio "professionals" but for the general public--all made by Westinghouse, of course.

The day following the Home advertisement, Davis held a conference with Conrad and other Westinghouse officials raising the possibility of building a bigger and more powerful transmitter at the Westinghouse plant, with the plan of offering radio broadcasting on a regular basis. In subsequent conferences Davis wondered if it would be possible to have a station and a suitable transmitter ready for regular operation in time for the Harding-Cox presidential election on November 2. Yes, it was definitely possible, said Conrad, and accordingly he and Donald Little were assigned to the task.

The immediate objective was to get ready for the election, now only two months away, but the long-term objective was a regular broadcasting service that could be depended on by listeners day after day and week after week. The technical problems would not be hard to overcome with Conrad at the helm; the public relations aspect of the thing was a bit more involved. But everything moved apace. On the roof of one of the buildings at Westinghouse's East Pittsburgh plant a shack and 100-watt transmitter were built. To give additional range, an antenna ran from the roof of the shack to one of the powerhouse smokestacks. On October 16, the Westinghouse Company applied to the United States Department of Commerce for a license to begin a regular broadcasting service. By telephone a few days later Westinghouse received permission to use the amateur call letters 8ZZ in case the formal and written license was not received by November 2. However, on October 27, formal notification arrived, and the station received the call letters KDKA (these were the same as those used in commercial shore stations). The station was authorized to use 360 meters, giving them a clear channel away from amateur use.

Westinghouse was also beginning production of sets for home use, and these, together with the imminent inauguration of programming, were given ample notice in the local press. As things turned out, the flood of new sets did not begin until well after the election, but Westinghouse was laying plans for selling them. They were also making preparations for the programming that was to go out over the air since if one is going to have regular broadcasting one has to have something to broadcast. Arrangements were made to have the Pittsburgh Post telephone the election results to Westinghouse as soon as they became available from the news wire services. Filling up the gaps would be a banjo player and some of those reliable old phonograph records that had been a major part of Conrad's private broadcasts.

The big night came and went without a hitch. To be on the safe side Frank Conrad was standing by at his own transmitter at Wilkinsburg, prepared to send out the returns from there if necessary. But it wasn't necessary. The broadcast on election night began at 8 P. M. Eastern Standard Time and ran until after midnight. Donald Little and John Frazier were in charge of the technical side of the operation, and Leo Rosenberg of Westinghouse's publicity department read the bulletins as they came in.

About the elections there had been little doubt from the beginning-- Harding and Coolidge were easy winners over Cox and Roosevelt. There might have been some doubts in the Westinghouse boardroom about the fate of KDKA, but there needn't have been. The evening was a smashing success, and the next day scores of telephone calls from listeners came through the Westinghouse switchboard. There were many more listeners than there were sets, listeners mainly gathering in large numbers at central locations--churches, lodges, the private homes of Westinghouse executives--to be guinea pigs for the experiment. Everyone was delighted.

Historically, the important thing was that KDKA did not simply turn off its power and fold up after the election night special, but, as promised, continued its nightly broadcasts on a regular basis.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T11:30:00.005-05:00

Halloween, about 1954. From left: My mom (Dot), Sis, Sunny, Lil.

Red Hamill

2010-10-25T06:31:00.007-05:00

October 25, 1945:

HAWKS DEFEAT BRUINS, 5-4, IN HOCKEY OPENER - M. Bentley, Hamill Each Score Twice: A pair of unassisted goals by Capt. Red Hamill during the last seven minutes of play gave the Chicago Blackhawks a 5 to 4 victory over the Boston Bruins in the National Hockey league's 1945-'46 opener tonight in Boston Garden.

Captain Red Hamill was midway through his career with the Blackhawks on that opening night of play in 1945. A left winger for the Hawks from the 1941-42 through the 1950-51 seasons, for a total of 360 games, Hamill is number 63 on the team's all-time points list with 192. He was also with the Boston Bruins in 1939 when they won the Stanley Cup. Hamill passed away in 1985 at age 68.

In 1948, he signed what apparently was the official Blackhawks' Christmas card:

Winners

2010-10-24T08:43:00.003-05:00

October 24, 1945:

Baseball Gives Contract to 1st Negro Player: The first Negro player ever to be admitted to organized baseball was signed tonight by the Brooklyn Dodgers for their International league farm club, the Montreal Royals. Jackie Robinson, lean six foot Negro shortstop ... represents the first fruit of a $25,000 search which has been conducted secretly by President Branch Rickey of the Dodgers.

Last night, on October 23, 2010, the San Francisco (formerly New York) Giants beat the Phillies to advance to the World Series. Just 65 years ago, there wasn't even one non-white player in the major leagues. But then came Jackie Robinson, changing things for the better, forever.

Village Ice Cream

2010-10-15T07:25:00.009-05:00

Monday, October 14, 1946:

“We met Sis and Sunny, and then met Doty and Chuck. We took a ride in Chuck's car to 79th & Ashland and ‘The Village’–a real cute ice cream parlor.”

The Village Ice Cream Shop was at 7814 S. Ashland Avenue. As with so many of the smaller eating establishments that existed in the 1940s-- the Minuet Grill and Parnell Restaurant, for instance--there is little if any information about them. It's frustrating. However, I just recently located one tiny item of interest about The Village--a matchbook cover:

(From the Chuckman Collection)

The Village served Scholl Dairy Products. I can't make out all of the matchbook's small print, but it seems to read something like, “Home of Scholl Pure 100% (or is it 10%?) Ice Cream. All flavors cooked(?) from fresh fruits.”

As I'd previously noted, the Village's owner in subsequent years became a victim of an extortion scheme, resulting in an appearance before a U.S. Senate committee in the 1950s, where he testified before John and Robert Kennedy. There's more about that here.

Here's what the ice cream shop site looks like today. The small building on the left it 7814. It's difficult to tell from this Google street view, but it could be that it's the original, Village Ice Cream building with a different (and not very attractive) facade.

Scholl Dairy, as the matchbook says, was located at 5604 S. Throop St. (now evidently a vacant lot) at one time. At present they are in Michigan City, Indiana. The company has been in business for over 125 years, and is apparently being run by Scholl family members.

Englewood Apartments

2010-10-07T12:24:00.004-05:00

901 West 63rd Street: Future site of Englewood Apartments

Good news for the Englewood neighborhood.

Just a little bit west of a couple of Dot's old haunts--the Linden Theater and Whelan's Drugs--and across 63rd Street from where L. Fish Furniture once stood, the City of Chicago will be building a supportive housing complex.

Mayor Richard M. Daley today dedicated the Englewood Apartments, a new, $17.3 million supportive housing development containing environmentally friendly features for formerly homeless individuals and CHA tenants.

“We know that permanent, affordable housing linked with a range of support services is critical in helping those at risk of homelessness find the help they need to live independent, healthy and fulfilling lives,” Daley said at a ceremony at the building, 901 W. 63rd St. “By combining housing and support services, we are helping some of our most vulnerable residents overcome personal challenges and build a better life.”

Englewood Apartments is a part of the City’s Plan to End Homelessness and the CHA Plan for Transformation. Half the units are for those who endured homeless and half are CHA replacement units.

Operated by Mercy Housing Lakefront, the six-story building will be home to very low-income individuals. Tenants will have access to on-site services, including substance-abuse treatment and employment training.

The 99 studio apartments will include kitchenettes and bathrooms with approximately 354 square feet of living space. The development will also provide ground-floor space for offices and on-site case workers.

“Supportive housing with on-site services is a demonstrated solution to help individuals transition toward a life of self-sufficiency,” Daley said.

“We know that offering safe housing and support services under one roof helps break the cycle of poverty — and in some cases, homelessness — and gives people a new beginning.”

The building demonstrates a commitment to permanent supportive housing, community preservation and green building design.

It is equipped with a green roof, high-efficiency insulation, energy-efficient appliances and fixtures, a geothermal HVAC system, rain gardens and native landscape. The energy- and resource- efficient building will help lower utility costs and manage the building’s impact on the environment and ensure its long-term durability.

Mercy Housing also plans to obtain a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The development adds to the City’s portfolio of supportive SRO and family housing. Since 1988, the City of Chicago has invested more than $280 million to create or preserve 5,900 units of supportive housing. The Plan to End Homelessness has another 3,200 units of supportive housing that utilize existing rental units.

“Our strategy to build new, preserve existing and use privately owned units is the key to our success in the Plan to End Homelessness,” Daley said.

The new building is made possible through city, state and federal resources.

The City donated the land, contributed $2 million in TIF assistance and over $1.2 million in low-income housing tax credits, which generated $11.3 million in equity for the project.

In addition, this year, the City will provide more than $2.1 million in HUD funds for rental subsidies and $150,000 in Skyway funds for supportive services.

The Illinois Housing Development Authority contributed $2 million in HOME funds and $255,000 in donations tax credit equity. Other investments include a number of energy grants.

“We are adding another high-quality, environmentally friendly building to our city.
The successful completion of this building is another step toward ending the isolation of homelessness and public housing. It is a part of our efforts to create sustainable communities for a brighter future and it is a beautiful place to call home,” Daley said.

Time and Again

2010-10-02T09:18:00.007-05:00

Author Jack Finney would be 99 today. Finney's time travel novel, Time and Again, was an inspiration to me as I thought about how to delve into my mother's diaries. Finney's descriptions and photos, and his characters' powerful feelings about wanting to revisit the past, struck a chord with me.

In the book, Simon, a commercial artist, is brought into a secret government project. The objective is to transport Simon back to 1880s New York City. The fragment of an intriguing note from that time period is the driving force that convinces Simon to move forward (actually, backward), cautiously, into this exciting, yet potentially dangerous, experiment.

The time travel project's Dr. Danziger advises Simon on what he's about to undertake:

“And you'd like to watch the ‘sending of this,’ would you? Well, who could blame you? So would I. But what good would it do you, Si? What would you learn? If anything, only a meaningless fragment more of a mystery that would continue to tantalize you and which you could not pursue. Because surely you've understood”—he leaned across the desk toward me—“that there cannot be the least intervention of any kind in events of the past. To alter the past would be to alter the future which derives from it. The consequences of that are unimaginable, and it is an utterly unacceptable risk.”

“Of course! And I understand. But just to watch that letter mailed, Dr. Danziger! I wouldn't learn much, I know. Nothing, probably. But... well, I can't explain.”

“You don't have to. Because I understand. Nevertheless—.”

The Fair and the Boston Store

2010-09-25T07:42:00.007-05:00

September 24, 1945:

“Didn't go to school again, and so went downtown. Got my pictures taken in the Fair.”

September 25, 1946:

“Went to the Boston Store and took some training to be a sales girl.”

State Street got its “great street” reputation in no small part because of big, sprawling department stores. The Fair and The Boston Store were two of those.

After Dot had her picture taken on this September Monday in 1945, maybe she went to the 7th floor to have a bite at Harding's.

Harding's appears to have been a moderately-priced restaurant with at least 11 locations in and around the Loop, including at The Fair.

Harding's Presidential Grill at 108 W. Madison, and

Harding's dining room on the 7th floor of The Fair department store.

Information about Harding's is scarce. But here are a few items I found in the Chicago Tribune archives:

Nov 6, 1942: JOHN P. HARDING RETURNS AS CIVIL SERVICE HEAD: Mayor Kelly cleaned house yesterday in the city civil service commission. He appointed John P. Harding, veteran restaurant operator, to be president of the commission, succeeding Joseph P. Geary.

Mar 13, 1943: RESTAURATEUR JOHN P. HARDING DIES IN HOSPITAL; Civil Service President Had Many Interests: John P. Harding, 76 year old president of the civil service commission and for many years a Chicago restaurant owner, died yesterday in St. Francis' hospital, Evanston.

Oct 27, 1954: HARDING TO MARK GOLDEN JUBILEE OF RESTAURANT CHAIN

Dec 30, 1960: LAGERLOF'S IS ACQUIRED BY HARDING'S

* * *

The Boston Store: “A corner in our grill, adjoining our restaurant”

North of The Fair a block or two was The Boston Store. By 1946, it was no longer as successful as the nearby Marshall Field's or Carson Pirie Scott. From Jazz Age Chicago:

By the late 1930s, business at the Boston Store had begun to decline and what had once been State Street's second-highest-grossing department store had slipped to seventh. During those years, little effort was made to modernize the store or the way it did business. Observers criticized the store's increasingly outdated appearance--some said it "reeked with a quaint Victorian mustiness"--and Mollie's refusal to develop suburban outlets or break with its traditional cash-only sales policies. The Boston Store closed in July of 1948.

Sears, which later closed its huge State Street store a few blocks south, now occupies the lower levels of the building. Today, the Boston Store exists only in Wisconsin.

But back on that September 25, 1946 day, Dot was pursuing a sales girl job at the big store. She also would soon be boarding a train for a romantic adventure.

The Boston Store, and a young girl's dreams, live on--in “Mamie”--a poem by Carl Sandburg:

MAMIE beat her head against the bars of a little Indiana town and dreamed of romance and big things off somewhere the way the railroad trains all ran.
She could see the smoke of the engines get lost down
where the streaks of steel flashed in the sun and
when the newspapers came in on the morning mail
she knew there was a big Chicago far off, where all
the trains ran.
She got tired of the barber shop boys and the post office
chatter and the church gossip and the old pieces the
band played on the Fourth of July and Decoration Day
And sobbed at her fate and beat her head against the
bars and was going to kill herself
When the thought came to her that if she was going to
die she might as well die struggling for a clutch of
romance among the streets of Chicago.
She has a job now at six dollars a week in the basement
of the Boston Store
And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is

romance
and big things
and real dreams
that never go smash.

Records to Burn

2010-09-23T08:15:00.014-05:00

September 23, 1945:

BOMB EXPLOSION WILL MODERNIZE CHICAGO DRAMA: The atomic bomb explosion and V-J day will be dramatized when “Port of Chicago” is presented by the Uptown players, 1219 N. La Salle st., every Friday and Saturday night during October. --Chicago Tribune

In the course of searching for information in the Tribune about the Uptown Players or the “Port of Chicago” play they were staging in September of 1945, I came across this, tragic item from April 21, 1946:

500 FLEE FIRE; ACTRESS CALMS THEATER CROWD; Two on Upper Floor Are Rescued: Five hundred persons fled a fire last night in the Uptown Players theater, 1219 N. La Salle st., in an old four story building. The interior of the building, formerly a church, was destroyed. For a time, the fire threatened the 18 story Marquette apartments, 1211 La Salle st.

This in turn led me to an interesting story concerning S.D. Records and a jazz records collector named John Steiner, the course of whose life was changed by the Uptown Players Theater fire:

S D Records was the brainchild of two Chicago record collectors, John Steiner and Hugh Davis. As with most collector jazz labels of the period, S D focused on reissuing vintage jazz recordings from the 1920s and 1930s and new recordings either by artists from that period or by younger artists who played in a traditional style.

The company was founded in January 1944, but Steiner and Davis had already been working together for four years, recording music in the city at various homes and on location in clubs.

The label's original headquarters were at Steiner's home, at 104 East Bellevue Place. Steiner and Davis departed from usual business model for a collector label: they did not operate a record shop to help support it, although both bought and sold extensively in the collector market.

But in June 1947, when S D was no longer making new recordings but was continuing with its release program, the company's headquarters moved to Chicago's downtown, at 8 South Dearborn. There Steiner operated a "record exchange," essentially a record shop for rare jazz discs.

The partnership after which the label was named survived barely more than a year: in February 1945 Davis sold his half of the company to Steiner (the transaction was announced in Down Beat on February 15).

Steiner operated the imprint on his own for the next five years. Because of the trouble they were having, getting pressings of reasonable quality at an affordable price, Steiner and Davis had already quit pressing S D 78s in the fall of 1944; a Down Beat item on January 1, 1945 announced that S D was suspending activities "until conditions return to normal."

In mid-1945, the dormant company's address changed to 1225 North Lasalle; i.e., the Uptown Playhouse Theater, where Steiner was actually living while promoting trad jazz concerts and operating other ventures. But Steiner was compelled to regroup after the theater burned down on April 20, 1946.

There was another significant hiatus in Steiner's activities after a disastrous fire hit the Uptown Playhouse Theater on April 20, 1946.

In his rueful post-mortem, "Records to Burn," he noted that the fire began as the Players were finishing the third act of "You Can't Take It with You."

It reduced the building to a shell. "Along with theater properties were consumed my library and clothes, furniture and office equipment, substantially all of the thousands of records racked in the phono-storage room, the recording studio (more destroyed by inundation than by fire), and every piano in the place, including my upright autographed with the sharp corner of a screw-driver by a host of visitors from Yancey to Slam."

Along with pressings of previous S D releases (but fortunately not their masters) Steiner lost no less than 150 unissued sides by Jack Gardner and his groups (Steiner refers to Gardner as the "musical director for S. D. enteprises since 1941"), 20 sides by groups led by Boyce Brown, a few by Frank Melrose, and location recordings by Gideon Honoré, Zinky Cohn, Punch Miller, Bobby Hackett, Joe Sullivan and Jimmy Yancey, along with many disks recorded from radio broadcasts by big name jazz artists.

Taking the chemist's analytical attitude, Steiner noted that when the 78s were inundated, the labels peeled right off the records pressed during World War II while sticking fast to the pre-war Decca, Columbia, and Victor product.

"Wartime shellac compositions blistered upon long contact with dirty water and they became raspy under the needle... A few records of recent pressing, including some Savoy, Philo, and Keynote, after five days immersion, crumbled like clay pies, presumably due to solution of some element in their composition."

"There may be some gain from this experience, especially if this story carries a moral. Records are not to be stored in inflammable buildings. Records are to be copied and the copies widespread".

No doubt helping his recovery from the fire, Steiner was able to get in another recording session. On September 30, 1946, he conducted a marathon outing involving tenor saxophonist Bud Freeman and alto sax player Bill Dohler; Jack Gardner and Tut Soper took turns at the piano bench. Three S D 78s were drawn from it; they were released in March 1947, marking a return to activity for the label.

The 18-story Marquette Apartments--now the LaSalle Towers Condominiums--at 1211 N. LaSalle, which narrowly escaped fire damage, still stands today, and is familiar for the large, three-dimensional mural on its wall.

Steiner's former home at 104 East Bellevue Place, just a block from the lakefront, is gone, replaced by a tall condo building.

Baby Dodds was one of the jazz artists whose records Steiner was thankfully able to re-press. You can listen to some of Dodds' work here.

By the Sea

2010-09-17T06:44:00.007-05:00

South Works Steel Plant

Monday, September 17, 1945: “Sis and I went for a ride by the lake and really enjoyed ourselves.”

I'll speculate that Sis and Dot, and the two guys they'd just met, headed east on 63rd Street to Jackson Park, and then south past 79th Street. On their left, between South Shore Drive and the lake, was the thriving South Works steel plant and its thousands of workers:

Etched in the slag piles that cover the site is a heroic tale of men like Frank Stanley, men who built the steel that undergirds the Loop's skyscraper behemoths, the rocket assembly structures at Cape Canaveral, Iowa's farm plows and the railroads that crisscross a continent.

"Why were the foremen big and burly?" Stanley asks rhetorically of preunion days, when workers didn't have many rights. "To keep you in line. They'd tell you to do something. If you didn't, you got punched."

The South Works story speaks, literally and figuratively, to the great American myth of the melting pot.

As the journalist John Maclean put it in a 1992 Tribune Magazine article about the closing of South Works, the plant's roaring melting pots turned iron ore, limestone and coke into prime steel, and Scots, Irish, Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, Mexicans, blacks and others into generations of Americans.

Closed and bulldozed almost 20 years ago, plans for revitalizing the area are finally taking shape. Houses, townhomes, parks, stores and streets may one day turn the now desolate site--larger than Chicago's Loop--into a brand new, bustling neighborhood.

In the 1950s, Dot and Sis would take their kids to Rainbow Beach (foreground in the photo above). As we rollicked in the water and made little roads for our toy cars in the sand, we could see the Loop on our left in the distance. On our right, was the hazy South Works. The Loop was magical, like Oz. The steel mills were always powerful-looking and scary... like the Sorcerer in Fantasia.

Mayors for Life

2010-09-08T07:37:00.009-05:00

Richard J. Daley

Yesterday, Richard M. Daley, Mayor of Chicago since 1989, announced that he would not seek another term. Back in October of 1946, his father, an Illinois State Senator, was running a race for Cook County Sheriff.

DALEY DEFENDS MULCAHY, BUT VOWS CLEAN-UP; Assails Liquor Sales to Minors in County: Sen. Richard J. Daley, Democratic candidate for sheriff, said yesterday that “disreputable resorts where liquor is sold to minors” are frequently found in unincorporated suburban areas. Daley didn't blame Sheriff Michael F. Mulcahy, who is the Democratic candidate for county treasurer, for this condition. In fact, he told the Evanston League of Women Voters that Mulcahy had made “an enviable and outstanding record.”

“Young criminals are created by bad community conditions,” Daley said. “Boys and girls often go wrong when allowed to frequent disreputable resorts where liquor is sold to minors. As the father of five young children I will recognize my responsibility to remove such plague spots when I am sheriff of Cook county.”

Daley lost that election, and subsequently became the Democratic Ward Committeeman of the 11th Ward. In 1955, he began his first of seven terms as Mayor of Chicago.

Merely phone...

2010-09-07T10:14:00.003-05:00

September 7, 1945: “Got home from school and Herb called and he said ‘Railway Express’. I said ‘Got a package for me?’, and he said ‘Um-hum. A bundle of love.’ Real cute.”

Before the word “FedEx” became familiar as both a noun and a verb, the Railway Express Agency was, as the brochure above honestly states, “American's High Standard Shipping Service”.

Whether you use Railway Express every day in your business or for occasional personal shipments, our nation-wide rail and air express services are always at your call. With hundreds of new express cars, motor vehicles and other equipment being added to our facilities, we are keeping pace with your every shipping need. Convenient pick-up and delivery at your home or office ... is provided at no extra cost for your shipments, large or small. Merely phone...

Railway Express filed for bankruptcy in 1975, two years after Federal Express began operations.

The Great Migration

2010-09-05T09:53:00.003-05:00

In a new book, The Warmth of Other Suns, author Isabel Wilkerson tells the story of migrating African-Americans in the early 20th century. Many would end their northward journeys on the South Side of Chicago, including in the Englewood neighborhood where my mother and her family lived in the 1940s. I'm certain Dot attended Englewood High School with children of the migrants Wilkerson describes.

From a review in the New York Times:

In the winter of 1916, as Americans read the news of unimaginable slaughter in a distant yet rapidly spreading European war, it was easy to overlook stories like the one in The Chicago Defender reporting that several black families in Selma, Ala., had left the South. A popular African-American weekly, The Defender would publish dozens of such stories in the coming years, heralding the good jobs and friendly neighbors that awaited these migrants in Chicago, even printing train schedules to point the way north. Smuggled into Southern railroad depots by Pullman porters, dropped off by barnstorming black athletes and entertainers, The Defender emerged as both cheerleader and chronicler of an exodus that would lead about six million African-Americans to abandon the states of the Old Confederacy between 1915 and 1970. “If all of their dream does not come true,” it confidently predicted, “enough will come to pass to justify their actions.”

[...]

They eventually settled in Chicago, where George found work in a Campbell Soup factory, Ida Mae in a hospital. There no longer were “colored” and “white” signs to degrade them, but the specter of racial caste was omnipresent. The Gladneys survived by exploiting the small but significant advantages of Northern life, while retaining the work ethic of their rural Mississippi roots.

Time Marches On Again

2010-09-03T08:06:00.006-05:00

This Sunday, September 5th, Turner Classic Movies will present four hours of selections from the legendary newsreel-documentary series, The March of Time. Currently being screened in a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, these short films were shown regularly in movie theaters between 1935 and 1951.

The New York Times:

It’s hard to know today even what to call these films. (Raymond Fielding, a retired college educator who wrote a book about the series, told me that roughly 290 were made.) “Newsreels” seems inadequate; they are longer, more detailed and much more opinionated than the standard-issue newsreels that preceded them. “Documentaries” is closer, but the blaring orchestrations and outlandish voice-overs sound nothing like a modern documentary.

It’s tempting to give up and label these whats-its a mass-media Neanderthal — an evolutionary dead end; an attempt to merge the tools of newsgathering and filmmaking that had its moment but died out. Except that, once you watch a few and learn about how they were made, you start to see a little “March of Time” in almost everything: Fox News, “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the History channel, schlocky reality shows of the “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” variety, PBS’s “P.O.V.”

“The March of Time” series, a creation of the folks at Time magazine, began as a radio broadcast but made the leap to film in 1935. It often tackled subjects and themes that audiences weren’t used to seeing — foreign affairs, social trends, public-health issues — and did so with a combination of panache and subterfuge that today seems either absurd or visionary.

The Beetle and the Bomb

2010-09-02T07:18:00.003-05:00

“Five marks a week you have to put aside —

if you want to own a car to ride!”

September 2, 1945: “BRITISH ASSERT 'VOLKSWAGON' HAS GOOD POINTS: The German peoples' auto on which hundreds of thousands of Germans gave a down payment and received only Hitler's promise in return, has been tried out in Britain and has received favorable reports by most of the motoring experts writing in the British newspapers. They say that altho its finish and standard of engineering are far below British light cars, the volkswagon suspension system with ... rear engine, road-worthiness, and economy in gasoline could well be incorporated in a British automobile to sell below $400.”

The Beetle went on to become a huge success and the longest-running car design in automotive history. But right after the war, any future the “peoples' car” had was literally almost blown to pieces:

The Volkswagen factory was handed over by the Americans to British control in 1945; it was to be dismantled and shipped to Britain. Thankfully for Volkswagen, no British car manufacturer was interested in the factory; "the vehicle does not meet the fundamental technical requirement of a motor-car ... it is quite unattractive to the average buyer ... To build the car commercially would be a completely uneconomic enterprise."

The factory survived by producing cars for the British Army instead. Allied dismantling policy changed in late 1946 to mid 1947, although heavy industry continued to be dismantled until 1951. In March 1947, Herbert Hoover helped change policy by stating "There is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a 'pastoral state'. It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it."

The re-opening of the factory is largely accredited to British Army officer Major Ivan Hirst (1916–2000). Hirst was ordered to take control of the heavily bombed factory, which the Americans had captured. His first task was to remove an unexploded bomb which had fallen through the roof and lodged itself between some pieces of irreplaceable production equipment; if the bomb had exploded, the Beetle's fate would have been sealed.

Hirst persuaded the British military to order 20,000 of the cars, and by 1946 the factory was producing 1,000 cars a month. During this period, the car reverted to its original name of Volkswagen and the town was renamed Wolfsburg. The first 1,785 Beetles were made in 1945.

The Monon Line

2010-08-31T21:21:00.004-05:00

August 31, 1946: “Took our train (from) 63rd and Wentworth. A modern one. It was crowded so we had to sit on our suitcases. Had a lot of fun tho. The train got to Winamac at 4:15, and we almost missed the stop. So we had to run thru the train, yelling ‘Stop!!’. (Dave's) brother-in-law, Bill, met us at the station and drove us to their place.”

Dot's Winamac, Indiana stop was probably Fair Oaks (highlighted in yellow above), just north of Rensselaer, and the closest town to Winamac which is a short distance west. Further south is the town of Monon, population 1,800, and the namesake for the Monon Line. This railroad, whose right-of-way is now owned by CSX, carried my future parents on their very first getaway alone together, 64 years ago today. Just over a year later, they'd be married.

I discovered recently that there is a Monon Line Connection Museum in Monon. I plan to visit there sometime soon, and will post pictures and other information about it here.

Canal Origins Park

2010-08-30T08:26:00.008-05:00

I made a visit by bicycle over the weekend to a place called Canal Origins Park. In an industrial neighborhood at 29th and Ashland, this tiny park overlooks the south branch of the Chicago River.

Directly across Ashland Avenue is the huge Sun-Times plant. It's a quiet place, altho maybe during the week employees from the plant come to sit by the water and have lunch. The historical aspect of the park is that it sits at what was once the beginning of the important Illinois & Michigan Canal waterway. The canal helped to establish Chicago as a major inland port:

Canal Origins Park represents the beginning point of the historic Illinois and Michigan (I & M) Canal, a 96-mile long man-made waterway that was built to provide a link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. As explained by authors Blanche Shroerer, Grant Peterson, and S. Sydney Bradford "Just as the Erie Canal secured New York City's position as the most important shipping center on the East Coast, the Illinois and Michigan Canal guaranteed Chicago's place as the key transporation center in the Middle West." The United States Congress made its initial land grant to Illinois in 1822, and ground was finally broken for its construction in 1836. It opened in 1848, and its impact on Chicago's growth was soon apparent.

The city had only 4470 residents in 1840, when the canal was being built. In 1850, the city had a population of nearly 30,000 and fouryears later it had more than doubled to 74,500 residents. The I & M Canal reached its peak in 1882 when hundreds of boats used the waterway to transport over a million tons of cargo.

Although the I & M Canal was rarely used to transport cargo after the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal opened in 1900, it continued to be used by recreational and excursion boats. The United States Congress established the Illinois & Michigan Canal Heritage Corridor in 1984.

The park has a connection to the year 1944, as can be seen on the (regrettably) graffiti-marred sign above. While practically all the signage at the park suffers from this type of defacement, at least the park is relatively clean, and the native plant sections are very calming and pretty. It's definitely a place worth seeing.

The More Things Change...

2010-08-26T08:05:00.005-05:00

August 26, 1946: “WHITE SOX BEAT A'S, 4-2; LOSE 2nd GAME, 6 TO 5; Philadelphia Tallies 4 in 5th to Gain Even Break: The White Sox, by what should have been the simple process of beating the tail end Philadelphia Athletics in both games of a double header this afternoon, could have gone into a tie for fifth place.”

August 26, 2010: “Team stumbles in effort to close ground on Twins: The Sox were held to five hits in a listless 4-2 loss to the Orioles that prevented them from cutting their 3-1/2-game deficit in the American League Central as the Twins were losing 4-3 to the Rangers.”

Hillman's

2010-08-24T08:31:00.007-05:00

August 24, 1945: “Took a walk down 63rd and Halsted to Hillman's.”

Hillman's was a food market and a small restaurant in the lower level of the giant Sears store at 63rd & Halsted. There were most likely several small grocery stores and shops in the Englewood neighborhood during the 1940s. Hillman's, I'm fairly certain, was the largest of them. They also had a location downtown, on Washington Street, and their “luncheonette” (cafe is a little too chic a word for those times) is pictured above (via www.chicagoancestors.org).

Dot's sister Louise:

“Hillman's was a big food store in the basement of Sears. We did most of our big shopping there. The deli and bakery were super!

Each department had a separate counter & helper. You got a ticket for each purchase, paid a cashier in different locations, and then came back to each separate counter with your paid slip in order to claim your package. Sometimes you'd have over ten tickets to claim. Not very efficient is it? But the food was great and so was the variety. After all, we had no super markets then.

They also gave out a lot of free samples!”

And the Band Plays On

2010-08-23T19:34:00.002-05:00

Still going strong more than 60 years later:

Dakes, who lives in a retirement community in Orland Park, played saxophone with the Glenn Miller Orchestra under Tex Beneke, going on the road with bandmates who included Skitch Henderson and Vaughn Monroe and playing backup for headliners like Jack Benny and Florence Henderson.

Bill Morris, 78, played trumpet, tenor saxophone and vibraphone for musicals and stars like Bob Hope and Pearl Bailey who were passing through the Portage, Mich., area, where he and his wife live. Bill Hyland, 84, played keyboard for decades with bands on the West Coast, having moved with his wife to Pasadena, Calif. Sackerson, of Palos Heights, played drums with Chicago-area bands throughout the 53 years he worked as a banker.

"I always say banking was my hobby," he said.

Bob Shipner, 80, of Palatine, played trumpet with local big bands, and for 20 years sang with the late violinist Franz Benteler. He recorded a number of songs for Mercury Records, including "Skylark" and "Across the Wide Missouri."

Morris looked up at discussion of the latter. "You going to sing that today?" he asked. "I'll back you up. Key of E flat."

They all had day jobs. Dakes worked in human resources for Bethlehem Steel. Shipner was a captain, and eventually chief pilot, at Eastern Airlines. Hyland was a school teacher and administrator. Morris taught at Western Michigan University for 44 years.

They retired from work, but not from music. Except for Dakes, they still play in bands. Now they took the ballroom stage, and became a band together once again.

More here.

Hurry! Last Three Days!

2010-08-21T08:57:00.006-05:00

August 21, 1945: “Sis and I dressed and went downtown to the Oriental. Met Sunny and saw Jealousy —very corny, but we also saw lovable Dick Haymes and a grand stage show.”

In addition to lovable Dick Haymes, there were other performers live on stage that night, as the ad above shows.

Steve Evans appears to have been a comedian. Someone by that name appeared on a few, early 1950s TV shows, such as Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town, and Jackie Gleason's Cavalcade of Stars.

The Shyrettos were a circus act. They evidently appeared with Steve Evans on those same TV programs:

Alfred Schieritz was a member of the trick cycling and bicycling act, the Shyrettos, a trio that included his sister Hanni and Walter Heinze. The Shyrettos toured in Russia before they came to the United States in 1938. In their first five years in the United States they performed at the International Casino, New York. They then played night clubs, theaters. They toured with Ringling-Barnum 1941-43 and with major Shrine and Police circuses and fair dates in the 1940s-1950s. Alfred married comic Sue Carson in 1957 and then managed her career.

I was unable to learn who “A. Hartman” or the “Lang & Orchestra” were. A “De Simone” appears in the credits for a 1965 Italian film, The Dolls, but I am not sure it's the same person. Leave a comment if you can add anything, please.

As for Dick Haymes:

(Haymes) never became a United States citizen and avoided military service during World War II by asserting his non-belligerent status as a citizen of Argentina, which was neutral. Hollywood-based columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper seized upon this at the time, questioning Haymes' patriotism; but the story had little effect on Haymes' career.

About that time, he was classified 4-F by the draft board because of hypertension. As part of his draft examination, he was confined for a short period to a hospital at Ellis Island, which confirmed his hypertension. However, Haymes' decision would come back to haunt him in 1953 when he went to Hawaii (then a territory and, technically, not part of the United States) without first notifying immigration authorities. Haymes was nearly deported back to Argentina.

Haymes experienced serious financial problems later in life and at one point was forced into bankruptcy.

Haymes was married six times; but drinking, debts, and abuse led to the dissolution of all but his sixth marriage. His more notable marriages were to film actresses Joanne Dru (1941–1949), Rita Hayworth (1953–1955), and Fran Jeffries (1958–1964). He was also married to Nora Eddington, a former wife of Erroll Flynn. Haymes' wives bore him six children in all. His daughter Stephanie Haymes was married to Bernie Taupin, Sir Elton John's lyricist.

A Big, Small World

2010-08-20T07:48:00.005-05:00

August 20, 1946: “Sis and I took an L and met Sunny at Riverview at 8:00. We had a swell time looking around and gambling. A fellow gave me a sailor doll. I found a dime.”

I hadn't seen any aerial views of Riverview amusement park until I came across this one, from Getty Images. The entire park is visible in this early 1960s view. Looking northward, Belmont Ave. is in the foreground; Western Ave. is the north-south street. The Pair-O-Chutes is the tower at about the 4 o'clock position. The large coaster at 7 o'clock is the infamous Bobs.

The park appears small and sparse to me when seen this way. In reality it was dense with its rides and attractions. Its atmosphere of tall trees gave it an intimate, enclosed feeling. As I've mentioned before, even one, long day here, from opening until closing, wasn't enough for us kids. Even after 10 hours, we always felt afterwards that we hadn't seen everything. Riverview became our entire world for one, glorious day-- far from home, free of parents and school, and nothing to do but laugh.

Planes and Dogs and Radar

2010-08-19T06:34:00.005-05:00

You probably woke up this morning thinking, "I wish someone could explain to me how radar works". Well, probably not. But if you were at “the show” 65 years ago today, you were sitting in the dark and very likely watching just such an explanation. This newsreel was being shown in theaters during mid- to late August of 1945, just a few days after the war ended.

There's also news about a dog show in Connecticut, and a model airplane event in Chicago. The model planes are being flown at a small stadium or ball field. If anyone can identify the area, please leave a comment.

Lights Out

2010-08-18T07:25:00.006-05:00

NBC's Studio B, at Chicago's Merchandise Mart

Saturday, August 18, 1945: “Didn't do anything today. Went down 63rd & Halsted, fooled around. In the evening, Mom and Dad went out, so I sat around and wrote a letter; also read the Sunday paper, put up my hair, and listened to the radio. Went to bed at 12:15.”

On Dot's radio that Saturday night was the eerie and chilling program, Lights Out. You can listen to “Rocket from Manhattan”--a Lights Out episode from just a few weeks later (September 20, 1945), here.

As you can see in the photo below, the cast really threw themselves into their work. From RichSamuels.com:

Sidney Ellstrom---who died a thousand violent deaths during the run of this show---is at the microphone, about to be done in by an-about-to-expire cast member.
The male corpse on the top of the heap appears to be Harold Peary who, several years after this photo was snapped, assumed the role of the "Great Gildersleeve" on the Fibber McGee and Molly show (with such success that he was, in the early 1940's, able to spin the role off to his own show which became one of the genuine classics of radio's Golden Age).

Lights Out! was the malformed brainchild of NBC-Chicago producer Wyllis Cooper; Arch Oboler, one of radio's great writer-directors, assumed responsibility for the series after Cooper went to Hollywood in 1936 to pursue a career in film writing.

(From Old Time Radio):

Lights Out debuted in 1934 and was radio's premier horror series created by writer/director Wyllis Cooper, who later scripted Boris Karloff's 1939 classic Son of Frankenstein. Wyllis Cooper was a innovative radio writer and worked on other notable shows such as The Empire Builders, Quiet Please, Campbell's Playhouse, The Army Hour, and Whitehall 1212. Lights Out truly set the bar high for other radio dramas in the 1930's due to its gore and strangeness. It was one of the first old time radio shows that developed the medium of radio with distinct sound effects and dramas intended to be heard.

Adhesive tape, stuck together and pulled apart, simulated the sound of a man's or woman's skin being ripped off. Pulling the leg off a frozen chicken gave the illusion of an arm being torn out of its socket. A raw egg dropped on a plate stood in for an eye being gouged; poured corn syrup for flowing blood; cleavered cabbages and cantalopes for beheadings; snapped pencils and spareribs for broken fingers and bones. The sound of a hand crushed? A lemon, laid on an anvil, smashed with a hammer.

1,000 Accordions

2010-08-17T07:44:00.010-05:00

Saturday, August 17, 1946: “Didn't do anything all day. Sat around listening to records. Sis went to the Music Festival with Chuck.”

The annual Chicagoland Music Festival at one time was, as is evidenced in the newspaper article below, very extravagant and very popular and, today, no more.

The Soldier Field Music Festival probably was the event, described to me by Sis, at which my mother played The Sharpshooter's March on her accordion. I'm not sure why Dot didn't attend this particular one, but I have a feeling it was because she was more interested in a couple of guys --Herb and Dave-- right about now.

Whatever the fate of the festival, on this Saturday evening 65 years ago, it was the place to be.

Above: The 100-piece Army Air Forces band upon its arrival in Chicago

Chicago Tribune: Clouds may hide the stars in the sky over Soldiers' field tonight, but there still will be thousands of stars shining brightly within the lake front stadium where the musical stars of today and the musical stars of tomorrow will present the 17th annual Chicagoland Music Festival before about 90,000 people.

Vocalists, instrumentalists, baton twirlers, bands, and choral groups were streaming into the city from 20 states to complete the festival's tremendous cast of more than 5,000 performers, Philip Maxwell, festival director, said.

Hotels and concert halls in and near Chicago's loop will be the scenes of final contests today, while in Soldiers' field some of the program's 30 acts will hold dress rehearsals.

Yesterday's arrivals included the St. Paul [Min..] 40 and 8 society, American Legion drum and bugle corps, in Indian regalia, and the United States army air forces' band.

The festival's two great singing stars, Helen Traubel, Metropolitan opera dramatic soprano, and John Charles Thomas, noted baritone, not only will sing tonight, but, with Edith Mason of opera fame, they will judge the vocal duel between the midwest and east.

Unique spectacles galore will feature the show. One thousand accordions will play “The Sharpshooter's March” as hundreds of gaily costumed baton twirlers go thru their paces; Dr. Edgar Nelson, honor guest, will lead the Hallelujah chorus of 3,000 voices.

The massed Negro chorus, directed by J. Wesley Jones, will sing spirituals; a brass choir of 300 instruments will play; hundreds of Chicago dancers will stage a tulip pageant as 150 klompen [wooden shoe] dancers from Holland, Mich., perform; [...] the Festival Symphony orchestra, directed by Henry Weber, will be heard. A tremendous fireworks display will furnish a blazing climax.

(From the Chicago Daily Tribune)

Good Times

2010-08-15T07:16:00.006-05:00

“Inquiring Camera Girl” was a regular column in the Chicago Daily Tribune during the years 1945-46 as well as prior-to and beyond. Readers who submitted an “interesting” question subsequently used in the paper were awarded $5. Using a “man or woman on the street” approach, reporter Maryon Zylstra stationed herself at various locations to ask passers-by the inquiry of the day and to take their pictures.

In the August 14, 1945 edition of the Tribune, the question was “What is your idea of having fun or a good time? If asked exactly on that day, which it wasn't, “This!!” might well have been the answer, because of course it was V-J Day--the end of the war, and millions were celebrating in the streets.

Nevertheless, the answers given days before could apply to that joyous occasion anyway:

Lois Martini, student: I like riding in convertibles. If I'm laughing a lot, I consider that I'm having fun. If I'm in a happy mood, anything I do is fun.

Helen Mathieson, student, Highland, Ind.: Dancing with a smooth dancer is most enjoyable.

Francis Franke, student: I especially like entertainment that hasn't been planned. Anything that happens on the spur of the moment is always interesting and exciting.

Elvira Skavich, Lemont: It isn't necessary to spend money before I can have a good time.

Sylvia Ginsburg, student: Just being myself and feeling in a gay mood is having a good time.

Victory... and time

2010-08-14T07:09:00.010-05:00

Above: from The Chicago Daily Tribune, 65 years ago today

August 14, 1945: “VICTORY DAY came at 6:00 [p.m.]. I was home alone with the baby. I cried for a while, and then Herb called and I got dressed. [...] I went to Dee's house and Dee, Merle and I went down Archer [Ave.] and fooled around. Stopped in a grocery store and bought some vittles. Ate at Dee's house. I really had fun. Everyone was gloriously happy.”

One year later, on August 14, 1946, author H.G. Wells died in London at age 79. In his book, The Time Machine, Wells wrote:

“But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?”

“We'll Be Together Again”

2010-08-12T08:23:00.003-05:00

August 12, 1946: “(Herb) had a cup of coffee with me, and as we were sitting around talking they played ‘We'll Be Together Again’ on the radio. Then he took me into the hall, and kissed me good bye. I love him more than I ever did before.”

That was the last time Dot would see Herb Martin, her boyfriend and, as of six months ago, her fiance. Herb, on leave from the Navy, was now headed back to his Washington D.C. base. As Dot would soon learn, Herb had a girlfriend there, also named Dorothy, who eventually would become Mrs. Herb Martin.

In the back of her '46 diary, my mother wrote: “I cry every time I hear it, 'cause it seems like it's Herb's and my song.”

The tune was a big hit at the time for the Les Brown Orchestra with Doris Day. The nice rendition above is by Rosemary Clooney.

The House of Blue Lights

2010-08-11T07:21:00.003-05:00

August 10, 1945: “Later in the evening, Sis and I went to the Southtown and saw Salty O'Rourke and The Man In Half Moon Street. They were both super.”

Reading the description of the Southtown below, I was reminded of the very subtle, blue indirect lighting within the archways of the theater. While I was very young, I do remember the wonderful effect in a vague sort of way. Other theaters had similar lighting. I tried to reproduce the experience in the quick and crude Photoshopped effort above; not very well, I'm afraid. But maybe you get the idea.

From the American Theater Organ Society:

While most large cities could claim at least one neighborhood theatre that was large and opulent enough to rival those downtown, only New York and Chicago had them in droves. The Southtown was the last of that genre, the last big house put up by Balaban & Katz and the final large scale design from Rapp & Rapp, who received about $54,000 for the honor.

The Southtown Theatre was built on 63rd Street near Halsted, about two miles west of the epoch-making Tivoli, and represented a significant change in site selection policy. Proximity to transit lines, and especially to transfer points, remained important, but America now had wheels of its own, so Balaban & Katz opted for a two-block tract with room enough for an uncrowded plan and parking for 1000 cars. In this same connection, a protected motor entrance was provided on one side of the lobby.

All this real estate allowed for lobbies and foyers galore. The separation of traffic, a particular specialty of Rapp & Rapp, was greatly facilitated by a separate exit lobby, with its own doors, adjacent to the main entrance. Outgoing patrons could pass directly from the foyers into this area without ever encountering the hoards waiting in the main lobbies. Yet another set of exits appeared at the opposite end of the grand foyer.

The auditorium was equally expansive, with seven aisles and a balcony overhang of only thirty feet. The shallow, lightly raked balcony with "boxes" stepping down to the organ screens was a Rapp & Rapp feature which made the theatres employing it seem even larger than they actually were. The arches in the sidewalls received the Rapps' semi-atmospheric treatment: deep niches lit in blue and festooned with artificial foliage. Lighting was almost entirely indirect, the only major fixtures being those in front of the organ screens.

A Depression child, the Southtown Theatre opened with a double feature policy and no stage show. The second-hand organ provided the only live music. The orchestra pit appears never to have been used. When live entertainment was brought in, the bands always played from the stage. The theatre closed in 1958 and was acquired by Carr's department store, which adapted it for their purposes with little change. A store for longer than it was a theatre, the Southtown has been demolished.

The Lone Wolf and Boston Blackie

2010-08-09T12:23:00.007-05:00

August 9, 1946: “Sis and I went to the Stratford and saw Notorious Lone Wolf and Phantom Thief. Real good.”

Two, pretty obscure, 1946 films. Notorious Lone Wolf starred Gerald Mohr, and was part of a long-running series. Mohr played the “Lone Wolf” in nine films during the 1930s and 40s. The character was a reformed jewel thief who would always sacrifice his own ambitions to help a lady in distress. Eric Blore played Jamison, his light-fingered valet.

Phantom Thief features the famous Boston Blackie character, star of at least 23 movies, including silents. It must have indeed been really good, because Dot was seeing it for the second time within a week.

I can't find any YouTube clips of either film, but I was able to locate the lobby card above (courtesy of Photobucket).

Baked Ham Sandwich

2010-08-08T10:39:00.002-05:00

August 8, 1945: “Got out of show at 10:15. Went by Englewood Hi and talked a great deal. Then went to Tasty's and each had 2 Baked Ham sandwiches and Pepsi.” ---Dot

I've been thinking about that sandwich. Yesterday I had dinner at an Italian restaurant with Sis' daughter Nancy. On the menu was an entree with a long, five-word name in Italian. Nancy asked me if I could translate and I replied, “It's probably just a ham sandwich”.

So here's a recipe for a Baked Ham Sandwich. Of course, I can't say whether the result would be as tasty as the two Dot had at Tasty's 65 years ago today.

Baked Ham Sandwich (from cooks.com):

1 stick butter
2 tbsp. prepared mustard
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp. poppy seeds
1 sm. onion, chopped
1 1/2 lbs. sliced or chipped ham
1 doz. poppy seed rolls (lg.)
1 1/2 lbs. sliced Swiss cheese

Mix the first 5 ingredients and cook for 5 minutes over medium high heat. Cut rolls; put ham, cheese, and approximately 1 tablespoon topping on each sandwich. Wrap individually in foil. Bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

A Swell Time

2010-08-07T06:54:00.006-05:00

August 7, 1945: “We met Sunny at Riverview and really had a swell time fooling around. I ate 4 hot dogs. Had our pics taken.” ---Dot

Growing up, Riverview, Western & Belmont, was a place I spent some of my most happy, carefree days, thanks to my mother's love of the park. My aunt Louise's two sons and I were given free reign of the park all day--from 10 a.m. until 7. Then the grown-ups would join us in the evening. Twelve hours at the park, and it still was never enough.

A Riverview remembrance:

August 6, 1945

2010-08-06T08:38:00.014-05:00

At 8:15 a.m., Japan Standard Time, the city of Hiroshima, population 300,000, is destroyed as an atomic bomb is dropped by the U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber, Enola Gay. 90,000 people die instantly.

Author Kenaburo Oe, from an editorial in the August 6, 2010 New York Times:

Sixty-five years ago, after learning that a friend who was reported missing after the bombing of Hiroshima had turned up in a hospital there, my mother put together a meager care package and set out from our home in Shikoku to pay a visit. When she returned, she shared her friend’s description of that morning in August 1945.

Moments before the atomic bomb was dropped, my mother’s friend happened to seek shelter from the bright summer sunlight in the shadow of a sturdy brick wall, and she watched from there as two children who had been playing out in the open were vaporized in the blink of an eye. “I just felt outraged,” she told my mother, weeping.

Even though I didn’t fully grasp its import at the time, I feel that hearing that horrifying story (along with the word outrage, which put down deep, abiding roots in my heart) is what impelled me to become a writer. But I’m haunted by the thought that, ultimately, I was never able to write a “big novel” about the people who experienced the bombings and the subsequent 50-plus years of the nuclear age that I’ve lived through — and I think now that writing that novel is the only thing I ever really wanted to do.

In Edward W. Said’s last book, “On Late Style,” he gives many examples of artists (composers, musicians, poets, writers) whose work as they grew older contained a peculiar sort of concentrated tension, hovering on the brink of catastrophe, and who, in their later years, used that tension to express their epochs, their worlds, their societies, themselves.

As for me, on the day last week when I learned about the revival of the nuclear-umbrella ideology, I looked at myself sitting alone in my study in the dead of night . . . . . . and what I saw was an aged, powerless human being, motionless under the weight of this great outrage, just feeling the peculiarly concentrated tension, as if doing so (while doing nothing) were an art form in itself. And for that old Japanese man, perhaps sitting there alone in silent protest will be his own “late work.”

Markus-Campbell Publishing

2010-08-02T12:04:00.008-05:00

Dot's diary entry for July 15, 1946:

Went for a job today, and got it--- at Marcus Publishers Co., 1315 Michigan Ave. Started working, but didn't care for it. Finished at 5:15.

Dot earned $5.55 during her one day career at Markus-Campbell Company. The building was torn down at some point, and replaced by a condominium tower. At what is roughly the same 1315 address today is a small shop: Michele Lynn Hairstyling:

Markus-Campbell published several books by the author David Everett Watkins. Among them:

The Art of Conversation , Conversation 12 Booklet Training Course (1969)
Effective speech: Including public speaking, mental training and the development of personality : a complete course (1939)
EFFECTIVE SPEECH INCLUDING PUBLIC SPEAKING, MENTAL TRAINING AND THE DEVLOPMENT OF PERSONALITY A COMPLETE COURSE VOLUME 6 (1940)

The company was once located at 3601 S. Michigan Avenue (probably before moving to 1315 S. Michigan), in this beautiful graystone mansion:

From the City Clerk of Chicago's records:

The graystone mansion at 3601 S. Michigan Ave. housed, in 1929,the American Correspondence School of Law, American School of Aviation, American School of Photography, Markus-Campbell Publishing Co., and the Page-Davis School of Advertising, all serving the Bronzeville community.

Finally, Markus-Campbell back in 1913 published a Watkins book titled, Public Speaking for High Schools, in which appeared, among other things, advice on how how to point:

1982 >> 2010

2010-08-01T08:25:00.007-05:00

28 years later.

Chicagoan John Belushi stands at the northeast corner of Michigan Avenue and Pearson Street in 1982 in a Chicago Tribune archival photograph. Colby's (furniture?) store, and a Crate and Barrel are behind him, on the southwest corner. Today, “Plaza Escada” with its very corny clock tower, occupies that spot. To the south, the I. Magnin's department store building now houses Border's Books and Filene's Basement.

Firmly standing its ground tho, as always, is Chicago's Water Tower. It has seen it all.

(Photos from the Chicago Tribune and Google Maps.)

Resurfacing here...

2010-07-31T17:52:00.004-05:00

My apologies to anyone who has taken the trouble to visit Dot's Diary blog-news over the past nine months. I have been AWOL and guilty of neglect. But I vow, here and now, to be more diligent.

A few updates:

Sunny---or my “aunt” Sunny as I've often called her---left us in early July. She is survived by her husband, Bob, her children and her grandchildren. Fortunately for me, I was able to reunite with her when my mom's diaries were being published. We had some great chats on the phone. Both Sunny and Bob shared their memories, and clarified some things for me. I visited them in St. Petersburg, Florida, where they had lived since the late 1950s. Sunny was as bright and cheerful as I'd always remembered; there could be no more appropriate name for her.
A friend, and neighbor of Dot's when she lived on Normal Blvd., Dan Malloy, graciously donned his Sherlock Holmes hat as he has many times before, and found some information about Don Trotta. For a brief time in 1946, and just before Dot met Dave, my father, Dot and Don dated. Dan uncovered a Dominic Trotta, born in 1924, who almost surely was the same person. Dominic passed away in 1996.
I've started--seriously, this time!--to review all the diary entries. My intent is to update information where I can, fix broken links, correct typos, and add new videos or photos where they're available. I've updated and uploaded several revised pages already. No dramatic changes. It's a slow, piecemeal process and will be going on over a period of time.

As always, I welcome any comments, photos or memories you'd like to share. Again, thank you to the diary visitors, especially new ones. I hope you'll return here again soon. --Dave (Dot's son)

New York in the 1940s

2009-11-03T05:10:00.004-06:00

The online version of LIFE has a collection of the magazine's photographs of New York City in the 40s. Above, Central Park on Jan. 1, 1946.

The Blackhawk Says Goodbye

2009-11-02T18:01:00.006-06:00

Dot's Diary, Friday, June 8, 1945:

“Today was the night of the Prom and what a night. Jim looked awfully cute. He brought me a lovely carnation corsage. The Michigan Ballroom was beautiful. Jim and I danced every dance. Then we went to the Blackhawk Restaurant and danced to the music of Del Courtney. We stayed there 2-1/2 hours and then rode around the lake. Wound up at the Latin Quarter. We wanted to go to more places but they were all closed. Got in the house at 6:15 a.m. Ummmm... what a night.”

Fast forward to November 2, 2009:

Employees are getting the word at this very moment: Don Roth's Blackhawk, which is celebrating 40 years in Wheeling, will close its doors for keeps at the end of the year.

“I come to this meeting with mixed emotions and heavy heart," said Ann Roth, wife of the late Don Roth, in a prepared statement. "It became crystal clear, that with my pushing 90 and with none of my children choosing to run the business, that 40 great years here were really quite enough for me.” [...] The announcement gives patrons plenty of opportunities to visit Don Roth's Blackhawk for one more meal. Or two.

"I expect the next two months to be busy," says longtime general manager Bob Vorachek. "I think there are a lot of people for whom the Blackhawk was a part of their lives, and they'll want to take one last spin, as it were."

New Year's Eve at Don Roth's ought to be quite an event, however bittersweet.

“We're going to go out while the Blackhawk is still a going concern, and still popular," Vorachek says. "The family is doing it the right way, with our heads held high and pleased that we were part of this history.”

That original Blackhawk at Wabash and Randolph, is no longer there. But I'll be at the Wheeling location one night during the next two months, thinking of another night, 64 years ago, and Dot and Jim.

Herb Martin

2009-10-28T10:10:00.006-05:00

Herb Martin is the fellow who, for all practical purposes, was engaged to be married to my mother when he left to join the Navy in February of 1946.

Herb's life outside of the 1945-46 period in which he's in my mom's diary has been a mystery. Beyond September 20th of 1946--the last time Dot mentions Herb--I have had no clue to what became of him. Last we heard, he was stationed in Washington, D.C., and was by then dating a woman (coincidentally named Dorothy) in that city.

Lately I've found some more things out, and I've pieced them together below, in a sort of chronological order:

On Dec. 30, 1928, Herbert Roy Martin and his twin brother, Peter N. Martin, were born, most likely in the city of Chicago.
In 1930, the two 1-1/2-year-olds were living in Chicago at 7246 S. Oakley, (about three miles away from where Dot eventually met Herb) according to an official U.S. census report.
Some time between 1930 and June of 1945, the Martins moved to 639 West 61st Place, a block or two from Dot's home.
Dot meets Herb on June 26, 1945 outside of Whelans Drug Store.
On February 4, 1946, Herb is sworn in to the U.S. Navy. He will become an S1C--Seaman First Class--before leaving the Navy.
By June 13, 1946, Herb is stationed in Washington D.C.
By mid-August 1946, Herb is dating Dorothy Babington in Washington D.C. Dorothy was born in 1928. She is the daughter of James (a truck driver) and Dorothy, and she has at least one sibling by 1946--a brother, James.
Herb marries Dorothy Babington--probably in 1947 or '48.
Herb and Dorothy have at least two children: Herbert Jr. and Christine.
The Martins reportedly move to Washington D.C. in about 1955. It's unknown, but it's possible they may have previously been living in Herb's hometown of Chicago.
Herb's last residence was in the 33161 zip code--the North Miami area.
Herb died on Nov. 27, 1995. He is buried at Florida National Veterans Cemetery, Bushnell, Florida--about 50 miles west of Orlando.

That's all I have--for now. I'm still searching; perhaps this new information will jog a memory. If it does, drop me a line.

Two Years Ago

2009-10-18T09:21:00.006-05:00

Hard to believe, but it was two years ago today that the Chicago Tribune published a profile of Dot's Diary in its newspaper. Thanks once again to the Trib's Eric Zorn. The article is still online here in case you missed it.

Pritzker Military Library

2009-10-17T11:02:00.006-05:00

I'm busy this weekend, and it's cold and rainy here in Chicago. Otherwise, I might have visited this place which I first heard about only yesterday. It's the Pritzker Military Library, just north of the Loop, in the Streeterville neighborhood. If and when Chicago ever experiences a nice, fall day, I'll go there and post a report afterwards.

In Candace Thompson's Lincoln Park condo sit hundreds of yellowed pages filled with the loopy cursive writing no longer in favor.

They are letters her mother wrote while living on an Army base in post-World War II Japan and describe life in a Quonset hut, where the refrigerator ran on kerosene, baths were taken in the kitchen sink and two young daughters grew into toddlers. Thompson says the letters are humorous, describing a Spartan life that reveals lessons still applicable today.

"There are universal themes of friendship and family and community and dealing with hardship and scarcities," Thompson, 64, said of the missives for her grandmother in Covington, Ky. "I think the letters are not just entertaining, but they are inspirational."

Thompson has studied the letters, finding clues to how her parents, Bettie and Rex George, chose to raise their three children. And she's compiling the 30 frayed and tattered letters into a memoir, illustrating through the eyes of her young parents how the postwar world developed.

But filtering someone else's experiences into a book is no easy task, so Thompson enrolled in a memoir-writing workshop at the Pritzker Military Library that is designed to help fledgling writers capture their experiences and those of others for a historical record.

Baby boomers like Thompson, as well as veterans from across the armed services and others looking for literary guidance, are involved in the workshop. Whether the dozen or so participants are writing for the public or their families, recording the experiences of the military is an important venture, said Ryan Yantis, executive director of the library at 610 N. Fairbanks Court.

Relatedly, I have some new information about the love of Dot's life (that is, aside from the man she married), Navy veteran Herb Martin which I will post here soon.

The Valley of Decision

2009-10-15T11:17:00.005-05:00

64 years ago today, Dot wrote in her diary:

“Got out of school and went downtown in search of a job. But— started back home and instead went to the Southtown and saw Don Juan Quilligan and Valley of Decision. Very good.”

I've never seen either of those films. Don Juan Quilligan appears to be a lightweight, long-forgotten, B-movie comedy. But I recently found clips from The Valley of Decision (see below). The 1945 film features Gregory Peck (in his third picture) and Greer (Mrs. Miniver) Garson as lovers across class lines in the world of 1873 Pittsburgh steel mills.

The movie's opening monologue, delivered by Peck, is particularly poignant. Some of it could have applied to Chicago, too, as the city was during the 1920s-40s, when Dot was growing up:

This was Pittsburgh in 1873,
Here on the hills lived the owners of the great mills,
And here I was born, in the house of my father [...]
Below, where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers joined to form the Ohio,
Steel was forged into rails and wheels,
To follow the paths of the covered wagons,
Into the future of a new America.

I can't say if Dot made the right decision--to go to the show instead of looking for a job. But she says this one was very good, and so when it comes out on DVD or turns up on TCM, I'll be there.

The Village--and JFK

2009-10-14T06:58:00.011-05:00

The Village ice cream shop was at 7814 S. Ashland Ave.,

probably in the parking lot to the right of this building.

Dot had one of her typically busy days on October 14, 1946. She got a letter from Jim Parks, made a Voice-O-Graph recording with Dave, and then, with Chuck, Dave, Doty, Sunny and Sis, took a ride in Chuck's car to The Village–a “real cute ice cream parlor” at 79th & Ashland. Typically, it's difficult to find information about the small, 1940s-era establishments that Dot and her friends went to. That was the case with this ice cream shop, until now.

In July of 1958, its owner, William Scholl, gave testimony in Washington, D.C. before the U.S. Select Committee on Improper Labor Activities in the Labor or Management Field. Among the officials asking questions of Scholl were a Senator John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. Other well-known government figures present were Barry Goldwater, Sam Ervin and Frank Church. The Chairman was Frank McClellan. Mr. Scholl apparently was a victim of extortion.

One of the Kennedys--I'm not sure which--asks questions of Scholl in this excerpt (emphasis mine):

Mr. Scholl: My name is William Scholl; 9232 South Trumble is where I live. My place of business is 3422 West 95th Street, Evergreen Park, 111. That is where the White Mill is. Village Ice Cream is at 7814 South Ashland Avenue, Chicago, 11.

The Chairman: Are you in the restaurant business ?

Mr. Scholl: I am, and ice cream, both.

The Chairman: You waive counsel ?

Mr. Scholl: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: All right.

Mr. Kennedy: Do you deal in any special product, Mr. Scholl ?

Mr. Scholl: Yes, I do, in a very high butterfat ice cream, one of the outstanding ones in Chicago, in Evergreen Park, and we make our own flavoring, chocolates, marshmallow, all of the different ones, and then we put on good whipped cream, pure whipped cream.

Mr. Kennedy: You have two restaurants, the Village Restaurant and the White Mill, the Village Ice Cream Shop?

Mr. Scholl: Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy: During 1951 you were approached by representatives of local 594 about organizing your employees ?

Mr. Scholl: I was.

Mr. Kennedy: What did they state to you at that time ?

Mr. Scholl: Mr. Trungale told me that I had to become a union house, and I would have to put some employees in the union. I told him I didn't want to. I said I didn't see what benefits they would get, or, "If you can tell me, enlighten me on what they would receive, anything better than what they are getting," and he said, well, he
didn't seem to know just what the wages were, but to keep on working under the same conditions, the same wages, which was far above the union wage, and the conditions would be the same, but I would have to put in about eight employees, which I did.

Mr. Kennedy: You did? You selected eight ?

Mr. Scholl: Eight employees.

Mr. Kennedy: Did he tell you there would be a picket line unless you put in these employees ?

Mr. Scholl: Yes; all the waitresses. I only have about two carhops.

Mr. Kennedy: How much money did you pay him at that time ?

Mr. Scholl: At that time I paid him $65.

Mr. Kennedy: In check or cash ?

Mr. Scholl: Cash.

Mr. Kennedy: Did you make payments periodically after that?

Mr. Scholl: I did for dues every 3 months.

Mr. Kennedy. Always in cash ?

Mr. Scholl: Yes ; always in cash. I had to come

Mr. Kennedy: 'Why did you pay him in cash ?

Mr. Scholl: Well, they wanted it in cash.

Mr. Kennedy: Who wanted it in cash ?

Mr. Scholl: Mr. O'Connor.

Mr. Kennedy: Did you just make the payment to Mr. O'Connor?

Mr. Scholl: The dues were paid to Mr. O'Connor.

Mr. Kennedy: Did you make these payments back in 1951 in order to avoid difficulties with the union ?

Mr. Scholl: Yes; I did. They would have a picket line out in front.

Mr. Kennedy: Was it a form of extortion, in your estimation ?

Mr. Scholl: In my opinion, it was.

I don't know what became of William Scholl after the hearings, but I hope things turned out all right.

As I noted above, the location appears to now be a parking lot. However, the building adjacent to it is probably very similar in appearance to the one that housed The Village--Dot's “cute, little ice cream parlor” that later came to be known by a future President of the United States.

Flesh and Blood

2009-10-11T08:37:00.004-05:00

A 90-year-old finally talks about his WWII experiences.:

After the war, Grandpa tried to move on. “It took me almost a year to tell my wife and my parents anything,” he said. “I just couldn’t talk about it.” One day he was getting off a train near Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard when a bus backfired. His first thought—gunfire!—made him throw his body to the ground. His second thought—get up and keep going—underscored the obvious: Life goes on. So he packed away the memories along with his medal and put them on the shelf until that Thanksgiving six decades later.

Chicago magazine has more.

The United Nations logo

2009-10-02T13:03:00.005-05:00

The designer of the logo for the United Nations, Donal McLaughlin, has passed away at 102. Diary readers may recall the news of the day during 1945-46, as the U.N. was being created.

Besides the obvious, enormous challenges the new organization faced, it also needed a permanent location (Connecticut was a front-runner for a while) and--of course--a lapel pin. That's where the 38-year-old McLaughlin entered the picture. Formerly a designer for the Office of Strategic Services (of which, by the way, my father, Dave, was a member), McLaughlin proposed other ideas before hitting upon the one you see above:

The United Nations emblem had a difficult birth. Mr. McLaughlin, in his pamphlet, recalled that the initial task was to fit a pictorial image, along with the words “The United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, 1945,” on a round button measuring just 1 1/16 inches across.

Rejected prototypes included a globe surrounded by chains intended to represent nations linked in peace. “Linked in peace, but also a world in chains,” Mr. McLaughlin noted. Another image showed a chimneylike brick structure, bound by the “mortar of cooperation,” with an olive branch poking out. “Could be a trademark for the Structural Clay Products Institute,” Mr. McLaughlin wrote.

Eventually Mr. McLaughlin’s idea for a map projection of the continents, with the United States front and center on the vertical axis, won out. Ivan Spear, a team member, softened the image by adding laurel branches, an idea he borrowed from the Philco logo. Mr. McLaughlin, recalling that the laurel symbolized victory, substituted olive branches, a symbol of peace.

On Dec. 7, 1946, Mr. McLaughlin’s design, with slight modifications proposed by him, was adopted as the official United Nations seal and emblem.

As a graphic designer myself, I envy the great opportunity McLaughlin was given and I have tremendous admiration for the work he ultimately created--probably one of the world's most recognizable symbols, and one of the best.

Whelan's Drugs

2009-09-30T10:26:00.004-05:00

This morning's paper has a business article about Walgreens' decision to reinstate sales of liquor in its drug stores. That got me thinking again about the now-defunct Whelan's Drug Store chain. (Dot first met Herb just outside the Whelan's on the corner of 63rd & Halsted St.).

A couple of years ago, I wasn't able to find much information at all about Whelan's, which once was a thriving company, along the same lines as Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS are today. But today a search led me to the photo above and the text below, from the Museum of the City of New York. Altho the photograph is from 1936, it's my guess that this store didn't look all that much different from the one in Chicago in June of 1945, when Herb and Dot were meeting each other just outside on the sidewalk.

WHELAN'S DRUG STORE
Eighth Avenue and West 44th Street
FEBRUARY 7, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 67

This photograph, originally titled Modern Drug Store, depicts a new type of commercial enterprise. Replacing independent pharmacies that specialized in medicines, chain stores like Whelan's offered a wide array of low-priced toiletries, appliances, toys, candies, cigarettes, and, almost incidentally, drugs.

In 1939, there were some 200 Whelan's stores in the country, half of which were in the metropolitan New York area. The trend was still new, however, with chain stores constituting less than 10 percent of the nation's pharmacy business.

This Whelan's was advantageously located in the heart of the theater district across the street from the new Lincoln Hotel.

Whelan's pioneered the chain store approach to selling pharmaceuticals, but it no longer exists.

The Worst Hard Time

2009-09-18T08:13:00.005-05:00

For thousands of years, the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas were seas of firmly-set grass--able to withstand drought, fierce winds, the inferno of many Julys, and the icy cold of winter after winter. They fed bison, the ranchers' cattle and gave Native Americans their hunting grounds.

Millennia of beautiful stability gave way within just a few decades with the arrival of the farmer and the plow. Countless acres were ripped up and seeds planted in the dirt. For a time, it seemed as tho it would work. The new settlers were prosperous. The rains and the towns came, and the crops were rich and plentiful. But it wouldn't last. They had sown the seeds of disaster by exposing the dirt to the wind and to dry spells. The world literally fell down upon the farmers of the Great Plains. They had created a Dust Bowl.

I'd had this book on my overloaded bookshelves since 2006, when it came out in paperback. Heartbreaking and yet reaffirming of human resolve (or stubbornness), The Worst Hard Time gives a mesmerizing, chronological account of this era of human-engineered, environmental catastrophe. Notably, author Timothy Egan presents parts of the story through the words of diaries. Egan's descriptions of day-to-day life, the dust storms and the havoc they brought are vivid and unforgettable. You might wonder, like me, if we've learned all that we should from the experience.

Ford City

2009-09-12T13:23:00.002-05:00

Ford City shopping mall, on Chicago's southwest side, was the site of a bomber factory during WWII. With the end of the war in 1945, and a housing shortage at hand, the government considered GI housing. A fellow named Preston Tucker would end up using the buildings to produce his ill-fated autos. Barracks-like homes for war vets were constructed in the neighborhood. The three of us--me and my parents--lived in one of those paper-thin houses for a while.

The main route to the area back in 1945-46 was Archer Avenue--a diagonal thoroughfare running from downtown. The Stevenson Expressway and, later, the CTA's Orange Line made it easier. But the Orange Line stops north of the Ford City mall, at Midway Airport. Now, an extension to Ford City is being seriously considered.

The city is under-served by its rapid transit lines, particularly to the south, southeast, and southwest sides. It might take several more years to correct that, but at least this is a start.

All My Sons

2009-09-02T09:21:00.005-05:00

I recently had the pleasure of seeing the wartime-themed, 1947 Arthur Miller play, All My Sons, at Chicago's Timeline theater. It should strike chords with anyone who has a family member who served in, or lived through, WWII. Or other wars and homecomings.

In the story, a pilot has been missing in action for three years. Nevertheless, his mother clings to her belief that he will return, despite her other son's arguments and pleas. But a truth will be revealed that will change everyone's lives forever.

111th & Kedzie

2009-08-28T08:30:00.004-05:00

Plans are underway to develop the intersection of 111th Street and Kedzie Avenue--the heart of the Mount Greenwood neighborhood where Dot, my father and me lived from the early 1950s until 1965. I remember summer mornings when my mother would take me by the hand to go grocery shopping at the A&P, which was right on the 111th/Kedzie corner. There was a Woolworth's, too, with a lunch counter and parakeets for sale. Not quite as bustling a crossroads as my mom's old haunts on 63rd & Halsted, but still pretty busy. I drove by recently and although business-wise, it's not nearly as depressed as other parts of town, the area around the intersection needs a shot in the arm like the one they're proposing.

Chicago's Oldest

2009-08-27T07:15:00.003-05:00

Did you know that Schaller's, near the site of Comiskey Park, is Chicago's oldest restaurant? I didn't. The city's most ancient ice cream shop is the far south side's Rainbow Cone--a very special treat for me (and Dot) when I was growing up. More here.

Edward M. Kennedy

2009-08-26T14:04:00.002-05:00

I was 14 when John F. Kennedy was shot. My mother was 35, and very ill at the time, with just a few months left in her life. But I vividly remember her watching TV all throughout that mournful November weekend.

During 1945-46, the late Edward Kennedy was 13-14 years old. He was attending school in Massachusetts. From wikipedia:

Frequently uprooted as a child as his family moved among Bronxville, New York, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Palm Beach, Florida, and the Court of St. James's in London, Kennedy attended ten different schools by the age of eleven.

At age seven, he received his First Communion from Pope Pius XII in the Vatican. He spent sixth and seventh grades in Fessenden School, where he was a mediocre student, and eighth grade at Cranwell Preparatory School, both in Massachusetts. His parents were affectionate toward him as the youngest child but also compared him unfavorably with his older brothers.

Between the ages of eight and sixteen he suffered the trauma of his sister Rosemary Kennedy's failed lobotomy and the deaths of his brother Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. in World War II and sister Kathleen Agnes Kennedy in an airplane crash.

An early political and personal influence was his affable maternal grandfather, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a former mayor of Boston and U.S. Representative. Kennedy spent his four high school years at Milton Academy prep school, where his grades were ordinary and he did well at football. He also played on the tennis and hockey teams and was in the drama, debate, and glee clubs.

Englewood Plant Giveaway

2009-08-17T08:39:00.003-05:00

Openlands and the Stay Focus organization is holding a plant giveaway today, Aug. 17, at 62nd & Normal Blvd. (a block south of Dot's home). Volunteers are needed. Plants will be distributed beginning at 12:30 p.m.

Also, on August 29th at Rowan Trees Farm, Garden and Market, three blocks worth of gardens will be weeded and planted. Workday will start at 9:30 a.m. Volunteers should gather at the Gazebo, at 517 W. Englewood.

Phone Julie Samuels at Openlands for more information: 312-863-6256.

Remembrance

2009-08-16T08:29:00.007-05:00

The 64th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II (August 15, 1945) was commemorated on Saturday.

Prime Minister Taro Aso joined some 4,800 bereaved families to pay respect to 3.1 million Japanese war dead — 2.3 million soldiers and 800,000 civilians — at the Nihon Budokan hall in Tokyo. Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko also attended the ceremony, leading a one-minute silence at noon. Emperor Akihito — whose father Hirohito announced Japan's surrender in a radio broadcast on Aug. 15, 1945 — said he hoped Japan would never again wage a war.

“I mourn for those who died in the war and pray for world peace and further development of Japan,” the 75-year-old emperor said in a speech.

“The memory of the war is fading. So I am trying very hard to pass the story of our generation to the younger generation,” said 82-year-old former naval officer Shiratake Kuribayashi.

Potter Palmer's Castle

2009-08-15T13:46:00.002-05:00

Interesting facts about the unique, and now lost, Palmer Mansion. The castle-like home, at 1350 North Lake Shore Drive, was demolished in 1950. An apartment complex stands on the site today.

The sale of the mansion was reported in the Chicago Tribune on Thursday, December 11, 1945, (during the time Dot was dating Herb):

PALMER HOUSE SOLD TO HILTON FOR 19 MILLIONS: Purchase of the Palmer House for 19 million dollars was announced yesterday by C. N. Hilton, head of the Hilton Hotels of America chain. Hilton, on Feb. 15, bought Chicago's Stevens, the world's largest hotel, for a reported 7 -1/2 million dollars.

Other articles elsewhere on the site—Chicago History Journal—are worth the time to check out.

Palos Revisited

2009-08-13T10:26:00.004-05:00

This Chicago Tribune article talks about the extensive Palos Forest Preserve area, located just southwest of the city. Dot made the trip (roughly 12 miles) out that way a couple of times during 1945-46. Once to Maple Lake on Mother's Day, 1945. Another visit was in March of '45 for a hayride at Walter's Barn, with Jim Parks.

Michael Reese Hospital

2009-08-11T13:03:00.009-05:00

The Chicago Tribune's Blair Kamin notes that a Chicago commission has declined to recommend Michael Reese Hospital for landmark status. Much of the south side campus was created beginning in the mid-1940s, with a prime motivation being the rehabilitation of “slum” areas. The photos above from 2003 and August of 2009 show the destruction of several beautiful trees in front of now-vacant structures.

More information at Forgotten Chicago.

Chicago the Beautiful: 1948

2009-08-11T11:37:00.005-05:00

A “Travel Talks” short released by MGM. Although a few years after Dot's Diary, it's likely that not too much had changed yet. For example, Potter Palmer's “Castle” is highlighted, even tho its future was grim back in 1945-46.

Monitoring YouTube Clips

2009-04-11T13:27:00.004-05:00

Well, I can see that I will need to be more vigilant about monitoring the embedded YouTube clips. I did a random check of the clips for March 1945, and found that three had been removed from YouTube's site. Again, due to “terms of use” violations by whoever posted them. I'll let you know when things are all up to date again.

Video clips for 1945

2009-03-29T15:42:00.004-05:00

Within the 1945 diary pages, I've replaced or removed what I believe are all of the broken, embedded YouTube videos. I've also added a couple of new clips.

I'm going to try and do the same for the year 1946 over the next few days.

YouTube

2009-03-28T08:49:00.003-05:00

In browsing through the diary pages again, I have noticed that many of the embedded movie clips have been “removed” by YouTube. In case you happen to wonder why, it is because the user who originally posted the clip I linked to has violated an agreement with YouTube not to post copyrighted material.

Sometime in the near future I will evaluate all the diary pages. In particular, I will check all the video clips to see if they are still working. If they have been removed, I'll try and replace them with a different one, or with a still picture.

As part of this planned evaluation, I also hope to update some of the entries with whatever new and relevant information I can find, in light of the fact that a year or two has passed since I posted the diary entry.

Another thing I have been wanting to do for quite awhile, is to add more daily news to the diary entries for 1945. Particularly during the year's first 4-6 months, leading up to the end of the war. At the time I wrote those, I wasn't accessing all the available news sources I did later on.

What became of...?

2008-10-29T07:13:00.008-05:00

Sis: Dot's sister, and my aunt Louise, married Vertus. Sis and Vert had three children and eventually four grandchildren. Vert became an electrician. They lived for many years in the southwest suburbs, and then later in life, retired to a pretty, wooded area near Dixon, Illinois. Both passed away recently, and are missed.

Son: Dot's younger brother, Lou, played basketball at Kelly High School, joined the Navy, became a teacher, got married, and now has two children. They live near Chicago.

Dot's parents: Pauline and Louis would later move from Englewood back to the Brighton Park neighborhood. Pauline became a registered nurse, but died of cancer in 1963; Louis passed away in 1970.

Dave: My father remarried, unhappily-as it turned out-in 1965. His business success continued; eventually he owned several stores, before becoming a part-time electrical inspector. He retired to southern Indiana, married again, and built a peaceful, quiet home on a lake. He passed away in 2000.

Me: I've lived in the Chicago area all my life, went to Morgan Park and Bogan high schools. Served in Vietnam, married, divorced. I was formerly a sales consultant and computer systems administrator. Since 1993, I've been in a second career as a graphic artist.

Sunny: Dot's girlfriend married Bob; they lived near Chicago until the late 1950s, when they migrated to St. Petersburg, Florida, where they live today. They have two children, and recently celebrated 60 years together.

Hal Totten: Hal, Dot's good friend and confidant, lived in the apartment building next door to Dot. Hal joined the Navy in early 1946, and later became a skilled horse trainer. He and Dot apparently didn't exchange many letters, at least during '46. Thanks to efforts by Dan, a loyal diary reader and Englewood neighborhood patrol boy (who remembered seeing my mother and Sis), I was very lucky to have met Hal in person, in 2007. His memory was a little foggy, but he recalled my mother and her family, and had quite a sense of humor. He'd lost touch with Dorothy, apparently, except for one time. He was in the Englewood neighborhood, probably in the late 1940s, and saw Dot walking his way. They stopped and chatted, but only for a minute. He remembered that she seemed in a hurry, and troubled by something. Troubled by what, remains a mystery. Hal passed away in early 2008.

Herb Martin: Efforts to track down Herb, Dot's—at least informally—one-time fiancé, and his twin brother, Pete, have led just about nowhere. However, once again loyal diary fan Dan from California is following a lead. If there's any news, I'll post it here. Otherwise–Herb, had asked Dot to marry him before he joined the Navy in January 1946. Although they wrote to each other, the romance appeared to have ended, at Herb's request, during the summer, when Herb was stationed in Washington, D.C. Herb was apparently dating another Dorothy there. It's unknown whether my mother ever saw him or heard from him again.

Jim Parks: I've tried, but have been unable to find any information about Dot's steady boyfriend.

Helen Romanelli; Viola Fick: Unknown

Don Trotta, Larry Amato, Ralph Davis: Unknown.

Ginny: Dot's friend Virginia Merigold married Bob Plant.

Merle Lodding: I heard from Merle out of the blue in late 2007. Dot's former Brighton Park neighbor still lives in the Chicago area, and remembers Dot and Dot's family.

Dee Kozack: Unknown.

Chuck: The man who was Dot's friend, and then got Dave and Dot together, later got married himself and became my godfather. He has lived until recently in the Chicago area.

Stan Jennings: I found Navy vet Stan, Dot's boyfriend in roughly 1943-44, in about 1998. He'd had a long, successful career as a Chicago-area restauranteur, as well as a husband and father. He had vivid, warm memories of having known Dorothy. One was exactly how much he paid to the penny for the new suit he wore on that one day he surprised her when knocked on her door.

Marge: Lee and Marge, Dot's aunt, moved to Michigan City, Indiana, and then Mattoon, Illinois. They both passed away several years ago. Lee, a very loyal White Sox fan, had his ashes placed within Comiskey Park. I've stayed in touch with their daughter.

Dell: Dot's aunt Dell raised a family and still lives in the Chicago area.

Stratford, Linden, Southtown theaters: These and the other Englewood neighborhood theatres—the Ace, Englewood, Empress—are all gone. Some survived into the 1970s. The Southtown became, inconceivably, a department store (Carr's), until being demolished in the early 90s.

Parnell, Minuet's, Karson's, Hillman's, Tasty's, etc.: The restaurants and diners where Dot and her pals sipped on so many Cokes and ate so many hamburgers or BBQ beef sandwiches, are all gone.

Englewood High School: A new, technical school now occupies the site of the old “castle” structure.

Kelly Library: Just down the street from Dot's, this building still stands, and remains a Chicago Public Library.

63rd Street: The once bustling area at 63rd & Halsted streets is no longer the shopping destination it was in the 1940s and 1950s. Through hard times, and through residents' determined efforts, the neighborhood seems to have turned a corner. Kennedy-King college is the centerpiece of the new “63rd Street”, and there are more new housing developments and new stores as time goes by.

Dot's home: Although too many houses and other structures are now gone, the apartment building where Dot lived during 1945 and 1946 still stands.

All good things...

2008-08-16T11:26:00.005-05:00

As much as I wish my mother had continued writing in her diary until the end of 1946, she did not, and so Dot's daily diary entries will have to end around mid-October.

I am planning to add a sort of epilogue at that time. Probably some photos and a little, capsule summary of what transpired after that time, as well as my thoughts.

There's more to come—just wanted to get that out of the way.

Herb's House: Correction

2008-05-21T12:46:00.004-05:00

The photo I posted for today's diary page (May 21st) of Herb's house (639 W. 61st Place) shows the wrong side of the street. The correct picture is above. The address is now a vacant lot, the house torn down.

Dot's Back!

2008-04-06T12:01:00.002-05:00

If you want to catch up, the delayed entries, from April 1st thru 5th, can be read here. Today's entry, as always, is here.

Thank you to the loyal readers who have returned. —D.

Almost Out of the Woods

2008-04-06T00:04:00.002-05:00

I've just about untangled things here, computer-wise. Unless there's another glitch, the diary pages will be back online and up-to-date no later than Monday morning, April 7.

Whew.....

Thursday update

2008-04-03T12:29:00.002-05:00

The repair work continues today, and will probably continue on Friday. I've got my fingers crossed that things will be back to "normal" on Saturday. But I'm at the mercy of the microprocessor, and so-- who knows?...

Weds. a.m. update

2008-04-02T11:33:00.002-05:00

Still repairing and restoring here...

I had a major hard drive failure on my computer Monday afternoon. It's going to take more time to get things resolved. At this stage, Weds. morning, I don't expect to be back up and running until Friday--at the very earliest.

When all is well again, I will post the missing days of the diary. Please check back again, and thanks as always to all of the loyal readers & fans of Dot. --D.

Apr. 1: Note on Diary Updates

2008-04-01T11:00:00.002-05:00

No, it's not an April Fool's Day joke.

Major computer troubles will cause a temporary delay in updates to the Dot's daily diary. I'm hoping to get things resolved today, but it may take a little longer--though I hope not.

Thanks. ---- Dave

Hal Totten, 1927-2008

2008-03-06T08:23:00.007-06:00

Dot's good friend Hal—or Harley Totten—has passed away at the age of 80. Hal was Dot's next door neighbor during the time span of these diaries. Especially during 1945, Hal and my mother spent a lot of good times together, and Hal evidently acted as a sort of big brother to her.

I was lucky to have the pleasure of meeting Hal in the summer of 2007. My sincere thanks for this go to Dan, a crossing guard at the time, who recognized my mother, and realized that his uncle had married Hal's sister. Dan then located Hal here in Chicago.

Hal of course was surprised to hear from Dot's son. I think it had been awhile since he thought a lot about those days. He was a bit quiet and reserved at first. But then he seemed to open up, and laughed a lot. We went out for a hamburger and a beer, and for a couple of hours, I listened to him talk about his life, his Navy days, and his work with horses. He proudly showed me photos of his family. Although he had some vision problems, he got a kick out of the pictures of him that my mom had saved, and the diary pages I'd printed out.

Sitting across from him at the table, I was star-struck and happy, thinking about how he and my mother used to do the same thing, at Parnell or in her own kitchen, and it felt like a circle had been completed. I hope my mom would have liked that. I know she loved Hal's company, just as I did on that day. —Dave

1946: Not a Leap Year

2008-02-28T09:11:00.001-06:00

Note: there will be no, new diary entry on Friday, Feb. 29th, due to the fact that 1946, unlike 2008, was not a leap year. New entries will resume on Saturday, March 1st, which —in 1946— was a Friday. —D.

Walter's Barn: update

2007-12-25T11:32:00.001-06:00

The daughter of Walter, of Walter's Barn, has graciously sent some new information and photos about her late father's Palos Park, Ill. riding stables. (Dot went on a hayride there with her friends in March of 1945.)

Happy New Year

2007-12-21T20:17:00.000-06:00

I can't believe the year 2007 —and 1945, in a manner of speaking— are both drawing to a close. As it ends, I want to thank each and every reader, whether you read the year's diary entries every day, or only checked-in occasionally. Dot (my mother) also left a 1946 diary —albeit not as complete as 1945's. I wasn't sure if, at the end of this year, I'd want to continue on for another year as well. But I've decided to keep it going. If you've been reading it during the past 12 months, I hope you will stick around into the "New Year".

Tribune article

2007-11-21T08:17:00.000-06:00

There is also a PDF version of the Chicago Tribune diary article here, in case it becomes unavailable at the Trib web site.

Dot's Diary in Chicago Tribune

2007-10-18T07:47:00.000-05:00

In today's Chicago Tribune Metro section, there is a story, written by the Trib's Eric Zorn, and also an interview he did with me. The article is also online, here.

A Garden on a crowded avenue

2007-09-16T13:05:00.001-05:00

The Terrace Garden was part of the huge (40-floor) Morrison Hotel at Clark and Madison (now the Chase Bank - formerly BankOne - formerly First Nat'l Bank building). As can be seen in the photo, diners were seated stadium-style around a circular floor. On this central floor, or stage, most likely there were various acts, or an orchestra and dancing for the patrons. It brings to mind the local “Hollywood Boulevard” movie theatres, which feature the same type of seating for dining while watching a movie (though not with the same savoir faire, definitely). Does anyone know more about the Terrace?

(Today's diary entry)

Heaven is an open window

2007-08-10T08:50:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite diary entries is from Tuesday, August 7th. Returning from a day at Riverview, my mother writes: “I sat by an open window in the L, and it was heaven.” I have that picture of her there. It's very clear, tho entirely imagined.

62 years later, Tuesday, August 7th, on a very hot, humid night, I found myself coming home on the L from an outdoor movie at Grant Park, looking out the window, wishing it would open, and thinking it would be heaven if it did.