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Father Thomas O'Brian
Maurice Pendelton
Stanley Pierce
John Pohlman (Oral
History)
Name: Rev. Thomas J. O’Brien
Does MPHS have photographs: Assorted Images
Address in MP:
Birth Date: October 25, 1901
Death Date: May 1963
Marriage
Date: No
Spouse:
Children:
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Rev. Thomas O’Brien was the founding priest for Saint Raymond’s Church. He was
ordained in 1932 at Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary. He spent seven years as an
assistant at Saint Thomas the Apostle parish in Chicago and then ten years as
the Chaplain at Saint Theresa
Hospital in
Waukegan.
In 1949 he was assigned to Saint Raymond’s and sent to organize the congregation
and build the church facilities. This was the first Catholic Church in Mount
Prospect, and once it had a priest, it grew very rapidly. It was first started
in the late 1940s when the Catholic Women’s Club began working to bring a
Catholic parish to the community. After years of work, in 1949 Father O’Brien
arrived and gave the first mass in the basement of the Central School. The
parish grew quickly and opened the doors to its eight room school in 1954. The
school was so popular by the end of the decade that they had to have two
schedules for the students, one that came in the morning and one that came in
the afternoon. The school has been significantly enlarged and continues to be
popular in the community.
Name: Maurice Pendelton
Does MPHS have photographs: Yes
Address in MP: 411 S. I-Oka
Birth Date: Unknown
Death Date: Unknown
Marriage
Date: Unknown
Spouse: Hester Pendelton
Children: David and Thomas
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Maurice Pendelton was the Mayor of Mount Prospect through the start of the huge
post war boom in suburban construction. When he came into office World War II
was just coming to an end. From there he watched as development in the area went
from a slow trickle to tidal wave. Professionally, Pendelton worked as a
publisher. He owned his own publishing business in
Chicago,
which specialized in printing lumber and wood working trade journals. He took
this experience and used it to print the Prospector, Mount Prospect’s first
newspaper.
Name: Stanley H. Pierce
Does MPHS have photographs: No
Address in MP: 716 S. Emerson
Birth Date: Circa 1892
Death Date: December 25, 1959
Marriage
Date: Unknown
Spouse: Stanley Pierce was a Widower
Children: No
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Stanley Pierce was described by his neighbors as a nice man, who kept to himself
and did not seem to have many close friends. He drove a sports car but tended to
wear old clothes and did not seem to have a lot of money. Pierce died on
Christmas Day in 1959 and from then on all of his neighbor’s assumptions were
turned on their heads. Pierce died with $1200 in his pocket, which in 1959 would
have bought a car. Later, a representative from Continental Illinois National
Bank and Trust was going through his belongings and found the combination to a
safe. Inside the safe was a treasure map that gave the location of over 6,000
$20 double eagle gold pieces in three separate stashes under small fruit trees
in his back yard. The gold that was recovered had a face value of $120,000 but
may have been worth over $250,000. The collection was said to have weighed over
400 pounds. It was also learned that Pierce had worked as an investment banker
and had left his Alma Mata, the University of Chicago, one million dollars in
his will.
Name: John Pohlmann
Does MPHS have photographs: Yes
Address in MP: 1 S. Owen
Birth Date: 1889
Death Date:
Marriage
Date: 1915
Spouse: Anna Meyer
Children: Three children
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
John Pohlman was born in Mount Prospect in 1889. He had fifteen siblings and his
family therefore made up a large percentage of Mount Prospect’s population,
which was still fewer than 100. At the age of 6, John Pohlmann became one of the
first 5 students to attend the Central School, Mount Prospect’s first school. At
20 he became the Station Master for the Chicago Northwestern Railroad in Mount
Prospect. He worked in the Mount Prospect train station for the next 45 years.
He was one of the organizers of the Mount Prospect Improvement Association and
then was later one of the first Board of Trustees. He was also a charter member
of Saint Paul Lutheran Church and the Mount Prospect Volunteer Fire Department.
Below is a selection of an oral history of John Pohlmann.
John
W. Pohlman; Interviewed by Delores Hough; November 24, 1969
Complete transcript available at the Mount Prospect Public Library.
JP: ...we had one comical conductor on the Northwestern years and years back,
and right in back of Kruse's there was a farmer there who worked that land, and
he had crashed at a big straw stack out there, and he was a comedian, you might
call him, and called it "Monstrawstack," and that name carried on for years. I
remember it when I started, way back, people would say, "Oh, you're working down
at Monstrawstack." "Where do you get that?" I knew it was called that, but
out-of-town people would call it "Monstrawstack." "That's where you work." At
the time of my beginning at the railroad there was not much of Mount Prospect.
DH: What year did you start on the railroad?
JP: I stared in ninth month, the tenth, 1910. Is there anybody old enough to
remember?
DH: How many trains did you have a day, going each way?
JP: Well, now, I think we had three in the forenoon and one around three-thirty,
and then again about six-thirty. That was last. If you got hung up on the
other end, you'd do like this. Of course, in those days you would never get
home.
JP: Yes, well, he's the man who put me to work. He was superintendent for this
division at the time when I started. When I walked in there looking for a job,
he said, "Well, what can you do? Can you push a pencil?" I said, "Well, I
think I can." "What education did you have?" Well, I had four months of
business college outside of fourth grade. Well, we had no grade -- we had
fourth reader. What did they call them? Fourth readers.
DH: That probably was beyond fourth grade, though.
JP: Oh, yes. That was beyond that, of course. In those days it was reading,
arithmetic, geography and history. That's all we...
DH: How much of that did you study in German _________ high school?
JP: In German?
DH: Yes.
JP: One September to the other September, and from September to Easter when I
was confirmed -- a year and a half.
DH: And everything was German?
JP: Everything was German -- no, they had an English reader then.
DH: Do you remember the time...the big snowstorm?
JP: That was in the year of 1917 and 1918. Do I remember it? Yes. I'll tell
you a little story about that, how people lived together in Mount Prospect, the
few we had. The freight handlers -- now, Charlie Mackleburg, who lives on Nolan
Street near me there, he was one of the boys who was working freight, as was his
father and so forth, and a couple of other fellows, and no train came. No train
coming. Old Fred Mackleburg said to me, "John, the least you could do is
furnish us with a deck of cards and a case of beer." I'll never forget it. So
what did the guys do, like Herman Haas who lives on Mount Prospect yet -- he was
one, well, he was a linotype man _________ printing _________, so he got the
idea, and he said, "Well, let's all chip in a quarter." There was Charlie
Mackleburg and Louie Mackleburg, who has passed away, and I don't know who the
other one was, but three of them. They went across to Kruse's and told them the
story of what they wanted in there, and old Clarence opened up and gave them a
deck of cards and a case of beer, and then he threw in a bottle of whiskey on
top of it. About two o'clock in the afternoon, no train around yet. The beer
was gone and whiskey was gone, so old Fred Mackleburg said, "Well, boys, I don't
think we have to wait for the train now anymore, and he was feeling his -- and
he said, "I'm going home." And there was no train. I had mail hanging on the
post. And there was no telephone.