September 2006

In the last three years, the Society celebrates the heritage of Park Ridge with a program which has progressively drawn more attention to local people, events and architecture of historical significance.

This program was intentionally designed to focus inward on the good story of Park Ridge, to allow our members and interested residents to become more aware of the legacy of the people and places which have shaped our community. We have ‘stayed home’ for all of these good times.

Our programs have taken us to the Illinois Industrial School for Girls, the Pickwick arcade, Weyrauch’s grocery store, Rabb’s Farm, Fricke’s garage, the Town of Maine Cemetery and our own late 1880’s Museum for Spring Tea. Annual Meeting programs have included native son Gary Johnson, President of the Chicago History Museum, as our speaker in 2005 and a tour of the historic, local Eugene Kupjack studios in 2004, facilitated by Hank and Jay Kupjack.

Our new and successful Pennyville Days event is a deliberate outreach to families and youngsters to stop at the Museum for a ‘taste of local history’ during our community’s larger Taste of Park Ridge. Our fourth annual Pennyville Days will be even stronger, with more ties to the larger Taste event and some special exhibits in planning.

Last October, our ‘Spirits of Old Park Ridge’ program tapped into a real interest in local history, as witnessed by the strong crowds at the Town of Maine Cemetery. We again presented this event this month, to satisfy this craving for knowledge about our roots. The attendance again confirmed the popularity of this program.

Our membership has grown over these three years, and we added 24 new memberships at the Cemetery Tour alone, just a few weeks ago. Please stay with us as we continue to celebrate the good story of Park Ridge.

Our year concludes with another visit to the Park Ridge Country Club for our Annual Meeting October 15. See the separate Meeting announcement in this envelope.

Paul Adlaf

No issue of the Lamppost would be complete without a salute to those Members working to support the operations of the Society.

Some of our activities aren’t even mentioned in the Lamppost or on-line, such as our volunteering efforts at the last two Senior Appreciation Days at the Park Ridge Senior Center, or the Scout groups we’ve taken on tours of our Museum during school days.

In this issue, we send our thanks to the following Members:

Ron Matzen, Society Treasurer, for many hours maintaining our financial records and watching over disbursements.

Judy Matzen, Publicity Committee Chair, always ready to help at our events.

Charles Melidosian, for setting up our web page and supporting the growth of our web presence.

Leo Rizzetto, the Society Chairman of the Board and indefatigable champion of the Society’s mission. Always helping at our events.

Lorraine Shouldis, for many hours spent compiling orderly records from the Anita Anderson files.

Nancy Pytel, always ready when last-minute needs arise.

Dorothy Flannery, volunteer extraordinaire for 23 years through the Park Ridge Garden Club outreach to the Society.

Harry O’Brien, for his ingenious suggestions to increase our membership. (Twenty-four new memberships at the Cemetery Tour this year!)

Millie O’Brien, guiding the planning and oversight of the Cemetery Tour along with Harry O’Brien

Judy Kaplan, for assembling the Lampposts this year, and helping at our events.

Jim Kingston, Lorraine Domaratius, Aline Harz, Norb Harz, Pat Adlaf and Helen Fess, members of our Saturday Museum hosting crews

Mary Ann Tanquary, taking on an important job as Membership Chair, and converting all of our membership records into a computer database, plus helping at Pennyville Days, the Spirits of Old Park Ridge, and recruiting her neighbors to join in at The Youth Campus event.

Kate Kerin, Mary Jane Mangan, Jim Schuetter, Christine Brand, all new members helping behind the scenes or at our events.

We still need help for many administrative chores. Can you help us?

Two prominent Park Ridge institutions are celebrating noteworthy milestones this year.

• The Park Ridge Country Club is observing its centennial. Founded on land originally occupied by Rabb’s farm, the Club grounds and buildings have long contributed an attractive ambience to our community. Noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright contributed to the design of the original clubhouse. During our annual meeting reception period, we will be able to view Club memorabilia, artifacts and the substantive book commemorating this anniversary in the hallway outside the dining room.
• The First United Methodist Church on Touhy Avenue celebrates 150 years in Park Ridge this year, with a continuous presence at its current location. The current church was built on the site of the first church structure, and one wall of the first building was retained within the current church. On Sunday, October 22 the Methodist Church presents an afternoon organ concert by Brett Zumsteg, former organist at the Church. More details of the Church’s 150th year are posted on our web page, www.pennyville.org

Speaking of our tour of Town of Maine Cemetery, we recently heard from former resident Barbara Lee, whose family resided on Cedar Avenue near Northwest Highway in 1950. She reports that her father and mother Alfred and Sylvan were stage performers, using the professional names Alfred Latell and Sylvan Dell. Barbara Lee notes with pride that her father pioneered the stage act ‘Bonzo the Dog’ in England in early 1922. Alfred Lee was buried in our Cemetery in an unmarked grave in 1951, and Barbara Lee intends to return here later this year to place a headstone at this gravesite.

The following is our first effort to include a ‘Kid’s Page’ section within the Lamppost. Society Member Virginia Jacobson prepared and contributed the following historical quiz for the occasion. We plan to continue this feature in the future.

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Would you like to try a historical quiz that starts right here in Park Ridge?

Match Game

Try to match the name of an early Park ridge settler to his occupation in the second column! No hints here, but be prepared for more names in a following issue. Some of their names are still in use today!

Answers are below at page bottom (in small print).

CAN YOU SEE ME NOW? (Or What’s There Now?)

Try to name the streets and store or business now in these locations. CLUE: these are all corners in Uptown Shopping area.

(Answers are below). If you took the self-guided tour and map given out at “Pennyville Days”, you are “ahead of the game”.)

• Once “A” was an elegant 1890s mansion, once a restaurant, once “31 flavors” and Ice Cream sparkled there; now it’s jewels. It’s __________ & __________.
• Once “B” was a Park Ridge Hotel, the Park Ridge Bank, (remember from match game), sometimes it had second floor offices. Now it’s for __________ __________ (kind of business) or what it deals with.
• Once “C” was the U.S. Post Office. Now it’s for a different kind of governing. It’s the h.q. for __________ # __ or the __________ of __________.
• Once “D” was an auto repair shop, held DeSoto sales, Fricke’s garage. You’re at __________ & __________. Hint: It’s near another mini transport hobby location of recent past.
• Once “E” was a drug store, a bank, and where “dry goods” were sold. Now it’s still where well-dressed folks gather. It’s __________ __________ __________.

Answers:

Z: 6, Y: 1, X: 3, W: 2, V: 4, U: 5.

A. Solari & Huntington Jewelers. (Main & Fairview) S.E. corner.

B. home sales or Gillick Realty (Main and Prospect) S.W. corner.

C. District 64 or Board of Education Admin. Building (Prospect & Garden, N.W.)

D. Prairie & Main. S.W. near Hill’s Hobby location.

E. Pine’s Men’s Store (Summit and Prospect N.E.)

Recollections of Growing Up in Park Ridge Part 1.
Reminiscing About the Park Ridge News Agency

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Many of our readers will readily recognize the name James A. Fizzell as the noted author of many books on trees, shrubs and gardens in the Midwest. His horticultural and writing experience spans more than 40 years. He stopped in the Museum a few months ago to hand off a small wooden statue of Max Holub, long-time owner of the old Park Ridge News Agency. Jim has lived all his life in Park Ridge, and offered to prepare some recollections of working for Max Holub in the days when all Chicago newspapers came into town by railroad and were delivered to your home via bicycle.

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In the 1940s and 50s, many boys worked for the Park Ridge News Agency. It was owned by a distinguished gentleman who was interested in young men making something of themselves. Mr. Max Holub was the owner of the Park Ridge News Agency next to Scharringhausen’s on Main Street, as well as the Edison Park News Agency which was actually a substation of the main agency in Park Ridge. The Edison Park agency was on the east side of Oliphant Street just south of the Northwestern Railroad crossing.

Delivering newspapers required discipline and physical condition. Most of the boys rode bicycles many miles every day, throwing papers from the middle of the streets to homes on either side. It required memorizing the routes as well. Few boys wanted the disgrace or the cost of missing someone and having the “boss” go out to deliver the missed paper.

For the boys delivering the morning Tribune and the Sun (now the Sun-Times), it meant getting up at the break of dawn, or earlier, to fold the papers and get on the street. There was a 7:00 a.m. deadline for deliveries. I began delivering papers in Edison Park in about 1946. I had an afternoon route delivering the Daily News and two ethnic newspapers, the Dzenic Chicagoski and the Abendpost to about 40 customers on the southwest part of the community. The manager of the Edison Park office was George Prellberg. George was a gentle person to work for and always helpful to the boys. He was a good teacher and taught us to roll and tie the papers, count change, talk to customers in a professional way and other life lessons. At that time there were about half a dozen boys delivering afternoon papers. I remember George Burck, Rich Schiefelbein, Jack Lunnaberg, my brother Tom, and especially Jim Waschow.

Jim Waschow was a little older and he drove the delivery truck taking papers to the stores. The evening papers were called the Bulldog Editions and the deliveries were called the Bulldog runs. There were two each evening getting the latest editions to the stores as fast as possible.

All daily papers came by way of the Northwestern Railroad. They were unloaded onto a baggage cart by the waiting driver and thrown down to the waiting truck parked on Main Street. All of us looked forward to the day when we could drive the truck and do the Bulldogs. Those of us who had the time in the evening would be runners for Waschow, counting out the papers as he drove from one stop to another, and running them into the stores. We picked up the earlier edition returns at the same time.

Also, getting a morning route was a big deal. The older guys, Bill Forney, Jack Kelsey, Roger Futrell, Doug Lattner, and a couple of others (can’t remember their names), delivered the Tribs. I fondly remember when Mr. Prellberg asked if I would be interested in a Trib. route. Those routes were bigger with more papers and paid a lot better than the afternoon routes. Eventually, I delivered the Tribunes and the Suns to nearly all of Edison Park south of Touhy. It was necessary to get to the agency about 4:00 a.m. to be sure of getting a good bike. Also, to get the several hundred papers tied was quite a job. We had tying machines like the bakeries used. If it was wet, we wrapped the papers in wax paper. On Sundays the papers were huge, too many to fit in the baskets. We made bundles of them and the truck drivers would drop them off along our routes for us.

We paper boys rode special delivery bikes with a small front wheel and a big basket mounted above it. The basket could hold a lot of papers and was easier to handle than a regular bike with the basket mounted to the handle bars. Those tended to tip over and were unwieldy to ride.

When we finished our routes some of us ran the paper stands at the Northwestern station. The Tribs were 4 cents in those days. We met each train starting with the 5:56 inbound at Edison Park and finished with the 8:31. After we finished, we took the remaining papers to the office, counted the receipts and headed for school. I went to Taft. Fortunately I was able to arrange my school schedule to be available for work. In those days, Taft was on a split schedule because it was so overcrowded. Most of us who worked were able to go only when we had scheduled classes.

Rural routes were delivered by drivers either in the trucks or in the jeep. The open jeep was the easiest to deliver from because there was no top. Waschow delivered the rural routes in the morning. Much of it was in the Manor which was not a part of Park Ridge at that time. He also delivered the Air Force houses (mostly trailers) at the Douglas Plant, now O’Hare Field. Jack Lunnaberg later delivered the afternoon rural route from the jeep. He was unfortunate enough to turn the thing over one afternoon. He was under it but suffered few injuries. Eventually I went to work at the Park Ridge office, delivering the Bulldogs, and doing the morning runs and complaints too. Also, those of us driving the trucks delivered for kids on vacation or sick. Most of the boys missed very few days. Responsibility was a big deal then.

Part of the responsibility of the drivers was to deliver the papers to residences along the Northwest Highway from Washington to Prospect. On that run was the old rectory for St. Paul. It was a run down house with a sloping porch just west of the old church. Father Smith was adamant that the paper be on the porch, quite a deal when driving in traffic on the westbound side of the Highway. If the driver missed the porch, there was a phone call to Mr. Holub before the driver could get back to the agency. One afternoon, just as I lofted the paper over eastbound cars, Father Smith opened the screen door and the paper hit him right in the stomach. When I got back to the agency, Mr. Holub met me with his ever-present cigar wagging in his mouth. “I hear you got Father Smith’s paper on the porch today,” was all he said.

The cigars were Perfecto Garcia Queens. He gave me 25 cents every day so I could pick one up for him when I delivered afternoon papers to Piepho’s Drug Store. The drug store was on the point at Talcott and Devon. Those cigars actually cost 25 cents each in those days. He chewed them down to the nubs, but never did light them.

Mornings were great times. It was quiet and there was little traffic. It was safe for kids in those days. In summer, it was already light out, and the heat of the day had not started. In winter, it could be brutal, though. I remember driving the open jeep out to Douglas (O’Hare Field) to deliver to the Air Force housing on a morning in about 1950 or 51. It was still dark. The temperature was about 25 below zero with a stiff west wind. The jeep had a governor to keep it slower that 35 mph. Usually, we could break the governor by flying down the hill under the Higgins Road underpass under the Soo Line, and popping the jeep into 2nd gear. It wouldn’t work that morning, so 35 mph was it. There was no Rosemont then, just a little school. Orchard Place School was the name, I think.

If we finished early enough, most of us would head a couple of doors east to the Coffee Cup next to Gillick’s for breakfast. Two eggs with toast were 75 cents, coffee 10 cents.

At Park Ridge, Bill (Bimmy) Arensfeldt was the mechanic that serviced the vehicles and kept them running. There were dents, etc., governors to replace, and always something needing work. While the Agency was a narrow store front on Main Street, there was a big garage and work area behind it and several other stores facing the alley. The manager of the Park Ridge Agency was Bill (Buck) Ziggenbein. I can’t remember the names of some of the other adults that worked there. Alice Baedeker ran the front office and was the bookkeeper. Some of the Park Ridge delivery boys I do remember were Wally Richardson, Don Skadow, Gino Rizzo, Ron Chambers, Denny Pitt, Arie VanDigglin and others whose names escape me.

Shortly after I started at that agency, Mr. Holub began to handle magazines as well as papers. Eventually, the Park Ridge News Agency was the largest distributor of magazines in Illinois handing all the magazines going to O’Hare. The Main Street building was much too small and a new facility was built east of the corner of Devon and Talcott. It spanned the area between the two streets.

Every year, Mr. Holub would sponsor a major event for newsboys who were high school seniors. He kept track of his boys. At the appropriate time would send those who were eligible to Chicago to take an exam for college scholarships that he evidently funded. The first one I remember receiving one of these was Bill Forney. In 1954, I received one of these scholarships and headed to the University of Illinois.

Mr. Holub was a great man, and responsible for many delivery boys going on to college. I never remember him getting mad at any of us, even when we had an accident and bent one of the vehicles. I used his car one afternoon to deliver a complaint and managed to put a dent in it. His comment to a shuddering youngster was something like, “It can be fixed.” He was honored for many contributions to the city of Park Ridge as well.

The News Agency ceased operations in the late 1960s from what I understand. With it went the opportunity for many young people for meaningful employment. The agency provided a lot of boys who have gone on to lead productive lives with discipline, a good sense of responsibility, and good training which have helped them succeed throughout the years. Many of those boys have had exemplary careers.

Mr. Holub and the Park Ridge News Agency served Park Ridge well for all the years it was in existence. It gave kids jobs and the papers were delivered on time. For young people seeking a good

Recollections of Growing up in Park Ridge Part II.
School and Life Around Town, 1954-1962

Former Park Ridgian Richard Carlson, now in Overland Park, Kansas, called in the other day to get some information about the former Crescent Foods store, which was located at Western and Crescent Avenues, in connection with his Class of 1966 Maine Township South High School reunion. He later offered to share with our readership some recollections of growing up in Park Ridge in the 1950s and 60s. We thank the author for taking the time to contribute the following article.

To grow up in Park Ridge in the 1950s was to experience the Americana memorialized by Norman Rockwell. There were neighborhoods full of children, of course. But also schools, churches, patriotic parades, bicycle adventures, parks, leafy streets, playgrounds, and vacant lots to explore. Dads drove or took the train downtown. Moms generally stayed at home to care for the family. Roles and images that today would be called stereotyping are fondly remembered.

Our family moved to Park Ridge for the schools. In 1954 our home became a two-story brick house with an attached garage in the 400 block of south Western. My kindergarten class was a short walk to the George Washington Elementary School at the end of the block. Lincoln Junior High was just another block to the north. A small grocery store, Crescent Foods, stood between the two schools at Western and Crescent.

Undeveloped residential lots still existed a block away on south Engel, and not long after we moved in, my maternal grandparents built a ranchstyle home there in the 600 block. I recall being curious about the nearby smoldering city dump that lay just beyond the rude wooden fence bordering the south side of Talcott Road.

A toboggan hill anchored the south end of a park where two swimming pools were soon under construction, and a YMCA was built just to the north at Touhy and Western. Toss in the school playgrounds and could a neighborhood offer anything more? There was no need to wait for winter to play on the toboggan hill when you’re a young boy with a bicycle. Once the West Park pools opened those who arrived early in the day got to claim one of the redwood pallets to lounge on.

By today’s standards, a fairly restrictive dress code existed in the schools, and students got dressed up to attend. Washington teachers and staff were highly respected, capable, and demanding. The holiday season included performances of Christmas carols for parents in the auditorium. Among the memorable teachers were Mrs. Hall, Kieffer, Baud, and Brunkow. The space race was in high gear and Mrs. Brunkow in particular recognized my interest in science and encouraged its study.

School field trips included the new Prudential Building (then Chicago’s tallest with the world’s fastest elevators), the Museum of Science and Industry (a personal favorite), the Field Museum, and the DenoyerGephart Map Company (long gone). The Adler Planetarium was another favorite, but I found the Shedd Aquarium dark and boring. With a little pleading Dad would take me to O’Hare to watch airplanes. It was utterly beyond my imagination to see myself landing a jet on those runways someday. Who knew?

Cub Scout activities filled many after-school afternoons with games, crafts, and memorable Saturday field trips to the Chicago office of the FBI, the Park Ridge fire station, Glenview Naval Air Station, and the Chicago Tribune. Mom was a den mother and the pack was sponsored by the Park Ridge Presbyterian Church. Little could I foresee the role NAS Glenview would have in my life a little over a decade later.

Competition to be a school crossing guard was keen. Boys were first eligible in the fifth grade, and their rewards included a five-minute early dismissal from the last class of the day to assume your post. Gym classes included the playground in fair weather and dodge ball and even square dancing in the winter. Summer activities revolved around neighborhood friends, the school playground, bike adventures, and frequent visits to the glorious hobby shop on Main. Depending on age, the shop was my source for army men, Matchbox and Dinky toys, endless model airplanes, ships, and cars, HO-scale trains, and flying model airplanes. We’d also head southeast of Prospect along Summit to watch trains on the Chicago and Northwestern to read the block signals. Diesel locomotives had completely replaced steam by then, sadly.

Other venues competing for my pre-adolescent attention—both on the same block of Prospect—were the record store, and, of course, the Pickwick Theatre. When admission (often to a double-feature) went to a skyhigh 90 cents parents griped, but we continued to attend anyway. Next to the popcorn machine was a warmer with a motorized stirring device within which entire sticks of butter were melted. The record store offered weekly lists of the top 40 radio hits that were broadcast on WLS and listened to by young audiences on pocketsize transistor radios. Just south of the tracks on the west side of Prospect was another favorite store, the Ben Franklin “five and dime,” next to the post office.

15-cent hamburgers debuted at a place called McDonalds in Des Plaines. Service was had by placing an order at a walkup window and the meal was consumed in the car. In the winter, the service area under the large overhang was enclosed, which was thought to be very clever. The staff were male only, a practice that continued for some years. A pal’s dad managed the Howard Johnson’s across the street, itself now the site of a McDonalds. Other favorite places to eat were Romano’s on Oakton, and to a lesser extent, the Choo Choo and Sugar Bowl restaurants in downtown Des Plaines. Romano’s was a small road house by the railroad tracks with not much else around. Then as now, they served the best thin-crust pizza in the known universe. I remember overhearing an adult conversation once about Park Ridge being a “dry” town. I could never understand it because whenever I turned a faucet, water came out.

By the sixth grade our family of four (and cat) had outgrown the Western Avenue house and we moved to the 400 block of north Merrill where I finished the last few months of the sixth grade at Eugene Field in Mrs. Harkness’ class. The basement of the Merrill house featured a gas-fired incinerator for trash. This was a step up from the Western Avenue house, where trash was burned outdoors in a wire basket.

In the seventh grade, the original Emerson Junior High School was still fairly new and offered school activities unavailable at the elementary level. I joined the photography club and a model airplane club. I was enthralled by shop and mechanical drawing, which had a lifetime influence on the way I sketch and print. Thank you, Mr. Johanson.

Other classes included a brief stint in home economics, where our assignments were eaten upon completion—some more eagerly than others. Mrs. King’s language arts classes were demanding but memorable, and Mr. Prey held sway over math and science. Miss Keating did her best to spark my interest in history, but she was a few decades premature.

Junior high school social activities began with extra-curricular, evening square dancing lessons in the seventh grade, and ballroom dancing lessons in the eighth. There were school basketball games to attend and the occasional after school dance. The most eagerly anticipated events for me were the annual science fair and the Scholastic art competition. One of my perspective drawings won a gold key award. The student newspaper was the Emerson Echo.

In the summer, a boy with a lawn mower could be assured of ready spending money, and northern Illinois winters meant a lucrative, if irregular, income following a snowstorm. $2.50 was a generous reward for a mowed lawn, and I once got a princely $5.00 for a mammoth, hours-long snow removal. Second cars were a luxury and most students walked, rode bicycles, or rode the buses to and from school.

Stately elms lined many Park Ridge streets and the fall brought an avalanche of leaves. Dutifully raked and piled, they were burned curbside. Today it is difficult to smell burning vegetation and not be immediately transported back to Park Ridge Saturdays in October. In the 1960’s Dutch elm disease ravaged those same elms and left unsightly gaps in the leaf canopy of many neighborhoods.

Central air conditioning was rare. Window fans were far more common, and generally did the trick, save for the hottest days. The summertime mosquito population was kept in check by trucks with an insecticide fogging apparatus that would drive slowly down the streets at twilight. The billowing clouds of insecticide would hang in the air for several minutes as parents rushed around the house closing windows and doors. Some kids would follow behind the truck on bicycles. With that dosage, I would imagine they haven’t been pestered by an insect to this day.

Junior high school graduation brought even bigger discoveries waiting to be made at Maine Township High School. There were plans for a new high school somewhere near the dump along Dee Road south of Talcott, but I couldn’t imagine how that would ever happen.