Job
Posting
The 7 Wonders
History
Resources
People
Businesses
Churches
Houses
Organizations
Schools
Structural
Memorials
Lost and Found
Tours
of
Mount Prospect
Essays
on
Mount Prospect
Other Sources
MPHS
MPPL
Municipal
Regional
On People
On
Buildings
On
Businesses
The Central School
Activities
Mount Prospect: La Historia De
Tu Comunidad
Award
Feedback
People AB CD EF GH IJ KL MN OP QR ST UVWXZ
Jack Keefer
(Oral History)
William Kirchhoff
Dr. Louise Koester
Ethel Kolerus
HIlda Laird (Oral History)
Theodore Lams
Rev. Robert Loftus
Christian Linnemann
Wilhelm Linneman
Axel Lonnquist
Florence Luckner
Name: Jack Keefer
Does MPHS have photographs: Yes
Address in MP:
Birth Date: March 28, 1913
Death Date: December 1995
Marriage
Date: February 1942
Spouse: Helen
Children: Five children
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Jack Keefer was a World War II veteran, having served for four years on the crew
of a PT 332. He opened a pharmacy in Mount Prospect in 1949 and soon became a
fixture in the community. He was involved with many local organizations
including the Mount Prospect Historical Society. Below is a selection from an
oral history that was done with Jack Keefer in 1991.
Name: Jack Keefer
Does MPHS have photographs: Yes
Interviewer: Michelle Oberly
Date of Interview: October 20, 1991
Oral history
text:
MICHELLE OBERLEY: Hello. My name is Michelle
Oberley. I'm the director of the Mt. Prospect Historical Society. Today is the
20th of October, 1991, and it is 1:30 p.m.. I have with me this afternoon for
this oral history interview Mr. Jack Keefer. We are conducting this interview
here at the Mt. Prospect Historical Society. We're now located at 1100 Linneman
Road in the old St. John's School. I'd like to welcome Mr. Keefer this afternoon
and thank him for agreeing to be part of this oral history project that will be
used for the 75th anniversary of the town, and we'd like to commend him for
volunteering his time. Welcome, Mr. Keefer. First of all, what we'd like to do
is, you as a local businessman is one of the reasons we've invited you to
participate in this tape. First of all, we'd like to start out by having you
tell a little bit about yourself. Can you tell us, please, when you moved to Mt.
Prospect and where you live-if you've lived in The same location since then? And
then start off telling us a little bit about your business and how you came to
be in the pharmacy business.
JACOB KEEFER: Thank you. Yes, I was born in Chicago on March 28th, 1913. At the
age of two, my family bought a farm in central Wisconsin, Nakoosa, Wisconsin,
which was a paper mill town, and we lived there for nine years during World War
I. Then at the end of that time, why, we moved back to Chicago where I was born
and moved back to Rogers Park. And I lived in Rogers Park until I went in the
Navy in 1942 and I was gone for four years roughly, and then I came back to
Chicago again. Shortly after I got back from the service, why, I married. I
married just about the time I went into the service in the beginning of 1942, so
it will be 50 years next February that we've been married. Then we moved to
Highland Park. We bought a little house in Highland Park and we lived there for
five years. During that time, I worked at a drugstore in Glencoe for Mr. Lee
Adams, and eventually in 1949, I bought my drugstore here in Mt. Prospect in
1949 from Mr. Steve Brant. I've been here in Mt. Prospect ever since. When I
bought the store, the town was, oh, maybe three and a half thousand people, and
I think I had one employee and that was Evelyn Britt, who was a native of Mt.
Prospect and she lived just two doors west here of the Historical Society
Building on Linneman Road, and she's still over at the drugstore today. As I
say, she was the only employee at that time. Eventually I had twenty-eight
employees in this drugstore. There were two independent drugstores when I came
here. Eventually we had nine independent drugstores, and as of today, we're back
to two independent drugstores. So you can see, they've come and gone, and a lot
of the big chain organizations have taken over a lot of the so-called drugstore
business.
OBERLEY: Mr. Keefer, let me just interrupt here. I mean, everybody who's
listening now to this tape in 1991 will know where your drugstore was located,
but, let's say, beyond that, can you give us the address of the drugstore for
the future audiences listening to this tape?
KEEFER: Yes. When I came to Mt. Prospect in 1949, I bought the store under the
name of Brant Pharmacy from Mr. Steve Brant, who bought it previously from Doc
Burda's wife. When he bought the store, it was like in the little two-car garage
behind the present brick building where Marcie's Card Shop is today at 10 East
Northwest Highway. And then Mr. Brant had Mrs. Burda build a brick building for
him. It was 30x40 square feet, and he a little soda fountain in there. He
operated for about two years, and then I came along and bought it from Mr.
Brant. I was in there about five years renting the property, and then Mrs. Burda
sold the building to me. After I took possession of the building, I put a new
addition on the back, a new forty-foot addition onto the building because we
were expanding and business was booming. I stayed in there then for 17 years. I
got to a point where I didn't have any parking really. They widened the road and
took all the parking away. When I first came to Mt. Prospect, I used to park my
car in front of the drugstore to make it look like I had a customer. So, now I
get to a point where I not only have no parking for the customers, the piece of
property that I owned was kind of a landlocked piece of property, and I didn't
have room to park my own car. The town is really booming about now, so I decided
I needed another location. Right across the railroad track there was a Brumburg
dime store, who came here-that building was put up in 1950, the Stop and Shop
center there. He had a dime store there, and he was going to retire and go to
California. So I rented the building from the Lambert Tree Estate, who were the
owners there, for a period of a ten-year lease, with an option for ten more
years. Then when my time ran out after ten years-that would be 1976, I
believe-then I sold the store to a young man by the name of Jerry Pospisil and
his wife Geraldine, who are still the owners today. I worked in the store after
I sold it for five years, full-time, and then eventually I went on to four days
a week, three days a week, two days a week, and it was only about a year and a
half ago that I finally retired for good for the third time. I go in there
practically every day. It's nice to go over there and meet the people who used
to trade with me. Pharmacy has been a big thing in my life. Our oldest son, Jim,
a Wisconsin graduate in pharmacy, has a drugstore up in Waupaka, Wisconsin. My
brother Al and I were classmates at the University of Illinois College of
Pharmacy, and he has had a drugstore partnership in Evanston for the past 50
years, and his son and daughter are both pharmacists. I have a nephew in
Tomahawk, Wisconsin, who has two drug stores in Tomahawk and his
daughter, Bob Huston's daughter, is a
pharmacist also in Colorado. So we have a total of seven pharmacists in the
Keefer family now.
OBERLEY: Interesting. Why pharmacy? Is there something in the family that. ..
KEEFER: Well, I was really destined to be a farmer originally. Then when we came
back to Chicago, I went to a parochial school and my buddy asked me if I were
going to go to high school. I didn't tell you, I'm one of 13 children, by the
way, and when you lived on the farm, of course, there was no opportunity to go
to high school there because we lived seven miles from the end of the world. We
didn't have telephone or electricity. We had telephone the last two years, but
we were there all these years without telephone and electricity. When I came
back to Chicago and went to a parochial school, my buddy said to me, "Are you
going to go to high school?" I said, "I really don't know. Nobody else in my
family ever went to high school." But he said to me, "I am going to go to Lane
Tech and become a printer." That sounded good. I had never heard of Lane Tech,
but I jumped on the streetcar and I traveled eight miles to Lane Tech, and I
became a printer. I had Linotype and pressroom and composition-everything that
goes up to make a printer. Fifty years later on, I wrote to him-he's out in
Montana-and asked him how come he didn't go to Lane. He backed down. He said
that he didn't go to Lane because he didn't have the seven-cent streetcar fare.
Many times I would go-down from Lane Tech there was a grade school. I was the
big farm kid, of course, but I would get on the streetcar and bend my knees a
little bit and give the conductor three cents, you know, which is what it took
for the kids to ride to school. So I didn't have much more than the seven cents,
either. But anyhow, I finished four years in printing and got out of high school
in 1931 right in the middle of the Depression, and, of course, it was almost
impossible to start a business or get a decent job. I got a job then delivering
orders on a bicycle in a drugstore. I sold newspapers on the corner of Clark and
Devon, which was a great big streetcar corner in Chicago. The streetcar barns
were only two blocks north of there, and there were streetcars everywhere, so it
was a good newspaper stand. Then I also had newspaper routes. At that time, the
Hearst papers had the afternoon Chicago American paper, which I delivered-my
brother and I both. It was a three cent paper daily and five cents on Saturday.
So we delivered six papers a week for twenty-five cents, and on Friday night we
would have to go back and collect the quarter for the papers. Somehow or other,
our profit came out of that quarter, and we paid for six days of paper. We would
go out in the evening and get the extra Hearst paper, which was the Herald
Examiner. That was a morning paper, but they would come out with a night
edition. We take maybe ten papers apiece and start over at Devon and Broadway in
Chicago, which is 6400 North, and we'd walk down one side of the street to
Lawrence Avenue, which is 4800 North-so you can see that's about two miles-and
then we would cross over and come back
and
try to sell these ten papers, which were three cents. The only businesses open
in the evening were saloons-this was before Prohibition ended-and the automobile
agencies up and down Broadway. We would hope somebody maybe would give us a
nickel for the three-cent paper. But the fact that we always went out and sold
the papers, we were always high man and we'd get coupons for that. The coupons
for all of our newspaper routes we used to buy our clothing and gifts.
Practically everything we had, we got for newspaper coupons. Newspaper business.
And then, of course, I had a little print shop at home by this time, too, where
I would print calling cards and envelopes and letterheads. I did it originally
on a hand press, and eventually I got what they call a Peral Press. That was run
by a treadle. I would have to use my foot to make the press run, and then later
on I traded that in and got a larger press. Then, of course, after being out of
high school for four years, I'm working in a drugstore and my brother Al was
working in a drug store. He's two years my junior. We decided to go to the
University of Illinois and study pharmacy. Tuition was $35 a semester, two
semesters a year. We paid our tuition in thirds. We would go down to the
cashier's office and pay one-third at a time. This school is down by the County
Hospital. This is before the Eisenhower Expressway was in. You could down to
some of these Greek restaurants or Italian restaurants and get a pretty good
meal for a quarter. Or you could go in the backyards-the alley, I would say-back
where Taylor Street is today. They had a bunch of sandwich shops where you could
get a junior sandwich for a dime or a senior sandwich for fifteen cents of
corned beef or pastrami, and that would last you a good part of the day. I
remember one day we went down there to school and it was a bad snowy day and we
took the streetcar to school, but there was no school so we went over to the
delicatessen and bought a fifteen-cent sandwich and took it home with us and I
think we ate on it for the rest of the day. They were huge and there was corned
beef or pastrami. So. ..
OBERLEY: That sounds wonderful. You've seen a lot of changes.
KEEFER: Oh, yes. That was in the early days. Then, of course, we got out of
school in 1939. We were in the first four-year class of pharmacy, and we ended
up with a bachelor of science degree in pharmacy. By this time I was working for
an independent drugstore out in Glencoe. My brother already was in Evanston
working in the store that he eventually bought a partnership in. Two years after
I was out of high school, of course, World War II started. I took a new job on
December 1st of 1941, and a week later was Pearl Harbor. So I stayed with
Parke-Davis for maybe a month learning their system. I knew I would have to go
in the service. I was single. My wife and I-future wife-planned to get married
the coming May of 1942. But then when I realized that I had to go into the Navy,
I went up to Great Lakes and volunteered, and they took me and gave me a thirty-
ay leave before reporting for duty. During that thirty days, we got married on
February8, 1942. I was up at Great Lakes, of course, in ship's company for a
short time. Then I went to Fargo, North Dakota. I was in the medical department,
of course. I went to Fargo, North Dakota, on a recruiting assignment with the
U.S. Navy and spent five months there. Then the Army and Navy discontinued their
Navy recruiting. Now everybody who was going into the service would have to go
through the Army at Ft. Snelling in Minneapolis if you were in that area. Then
at the end of the day-they were taking maybe ten percent of the men for the
Navy-and they'd say, "Well, now, your papers show that your eyesight is such and
your teeth and so and so, that you're eligible for the Navy. Would you like to
join the Navy?" That's how they would get the recruits. But then, of course,
that all came to an end in about two months. There's no more recruiting, of
course, so they shipped all of us medical people to the East Coast to Melville,
Rhode Island, for PT boat training, which was supposed to take a couple months,
but I think I was there three weeks and you had learn everything. You had to
learn gunnery, navigation, motor mechanic, first aid, identification of
airplanes and ships and all of that. As soon as I got out of there, I went to
New York to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is the biggest Navy yard, I believe,
in the world. There we outfitted our PT boats as they arrived. About every five
days we would get a new PT boat, which was just stripped down with no gear on
it, and our crew had to put the armament on it and the radar and smokescreen
generator and all of that. I had to make provisions to take care of 250 men,
which we would eventually have. Each squadron had 12 boats and a 250-man
complement, and it was my job to give all of the shots to these men and get
enough supplies to last us for the two years that we would supposedly be in the
jungle. My commander was a U. S. Navy man, and he said, "Keefer, I don't know
anything about the Navy. All I can tell you is we're going to be in the jungle
for two years. I want you to get enough supplies to tide us over for two years,
and you're the senior medical man aboard." I didn't have a doctor until we got
out into the jungle. Then, of course, I had help. So, where do we go from here?
OBERLEY: Well, just to keep on the track, we've got to get back ourselves to Mt.
Prospect.
KEEFER: Oh, yes, yes. I'm sorry.
OBERLEY: No, no. This is fascinating because, you know, this will be information
people will look back and be interested in. But let's talk about when you first
arrived. I mean, I'm sure the town looks very different today than when you
first arrived in it. Do you have any memories or thoughts of what the town
looked like? I mean, as a businessman in our downtown area, what. ..[phone
rings]
KEEFER: Do you want to shut it off?
OBERLEY: What did the town look like? Excuse me.
KEEFER: Now we'll go back to 1949 when I arrived in Mt. Prospect. Mt.
Prospect was a small farming community, a very sufficient town that had a dry
goods store, a hardware store, a grocery store. It had everything that you would
expect to find in a small town. As far as the farms, the farms were all around
us at that time, and a big crop was sugar beets. They raised a lot of pickles.
They even had a pickle factory over on Northwest Highway and Wille. The sugar
beets they would load on the railroad cars over in front of what was Kruse's
Restaurant at that time at Emerson and Prospect Avenue. Today it is Mrs. P and
Me. Then they grew a lot of-what are the big flowers?
OBERLEY: Peonies?
KEEFER: Peonies. A lot of peonies out here, and I have never to this day been
able to figure out what they do with these peonies. But that was a big crop. A
lot of them were up on what we call Elmhurst Road today-[Route] 83-around where
Zanies [Comedy Shop] is and Grandma Sally's and that area. There were peonies
everywhere. They grew a lot of tomatoes here, too, and the farmers would pick
these tomatoes and take them to Chicago to the Campbell Soup factory. Of course,
they grew all the other crops, too. But there were two drugstores here at that
time. There was my store, which we call Keefer's after I took it over, and Van
Driel Drug Store at the corner of Emerson and Northwest Highway. There were
three doctors in town. There was Dr. Woolfarth, Dr. Granzig and Dr. Kestler, a
lady doctor, and they kind of took care of all of the needs of the people who
were sick. The closest hospital, you could either go to Evanston to St. Francis,
where four of our children were born, or you could go to Elgin. You had a
choice. Of course, now today we've got many, many hospitals. But things really
started to boom. The town was growing so fast, you couldn't keep up with it. I
remember the first day I filled fifteen prescriptions one day in the early part
of my career here and I thought, "Boy, I've really got the world cornered now."
Fifteen prescriptions in one day! But I got to a point where I had three
full-time pharmacists later on plus myself. I filled as many as 285 in one
record-breaking day. This, of course, was before all of the chain pharmacies
came along and took over. Even to this day, we're doing real well under our new
ownership over at the drugstore. Jerry over there is a very knowledgeable man
and we're very much involved in the colostomy and ileostomy business and he is
an expert. He's a real wizard on information for people who are in need of this
type of medication. The prescriptions in the early days were not like today
where you just count out pills or capsules or pour liquid. Practically all the
prescriptions you got were for hand-made capsules or powders-powders where you
take and put a bunch of papers out on the counter and fold them into neatly
folded powders, like Setla's Powders, if you're familiar with that. The capsules
all had to be the ingredients-maybe there were three, four ingredients-and they
had to be weighed out very accurately and then divided into capsule form.
Sometimes the prescription would call for, say, a hundred capsules. We even made
suppositories at that time. This was before air conditioning, don't forget. We
didn't have air conditioning, and suppositories are made with cocoa butter as a
base and then you mix the ingredients into this cocoa butter, which melts at
body temperature, so it was a real crazy thing. Many times on a Sunday
afternoon, you'd get a prescription to make suppositories when you were really
not in the mood to do it, but it had to be done. You'd run back and forth to the
refrigerator and cool off the mass and then bring it out and roll it. They had
to be rolled just like you would roll putty for a window. You'd roll it out and
cut them into whatever length it was-maybe one and a half inch-and then shape
them into suppositories. It was quite different from what it is today. We made
up our own syrup. We'd make up a gallon of cough syrup, where today you just buy
it. Everything is prefabricated. It took a lot of know-how and a lot of time to
do this. People would come in, and they wouldn't sit there and wait. Generally,
they'd go out and do some other errands. Today they give you a prescription and
they hand it to you and they want to know if it's ready. You know, they're
always in a big rush today where before I think we had more time to do this. I
just happened to run across some memo today where I found-I got some notes over
here in my bag where it showed where we made two capsules, and I charged
somebody, I think, 25 cents for these capsules. Today,
you know, you say hello to someone,
and they'll give you a bill for probably five dollars. It's just the opposite.
So it has changed a lot. What else can we talk about at this point?
OBERLEY: Well, I'm curious. You say that they town has grown. .
KEEFER: Oh, it has.
OBERLEY: ...tremendously. First of all, what attracted you to moving here? Did
it look like, as the name suggested, that it would be a good prospect? Were you
able to tell that other people would be in need of your type of store and move
to the area? What first appealed to you?
KEEFER: What influenced me to come out here, I was working over in the North
Shore. I always worked along the North Shore. I worked in Glencoe, Kenilworth,
Lake Forest in drugstores, and I happened to be working in a drugstore just
doing some relief work in Kenilworth. We had at that time Badger Ice Cream which
came from Kenosha, Wisconsin-real good ice cream. It was eventually bought out
by Bowman Dairy. The drugstore here in Mt. Prospect also had Badger Ice Cream,
and the salesman told me that this drugstore in Mt. Prospect was going to be for
sale. So I came out here to talk to the owner one day, and before I left, why,
he handed me the keys and asked me if I would relieve him for two
weeks so he could go on a vacation. He hadn't
had a vacation for a couple years. So I was free. I was just doing part-time
work. So I stayed here for two weeks and ran the drugstore, and I fell in love
with it. It was all new. Everything was brand-new. We didn't have much
merchandise, but we managed to get by. We had a little soda fountain with about
twelve seats. By this time, I just had this one employee helping me, and I
decided I would buy the store and, of course, then things started to boom and I
enjoyed it. I felt like I was in a place where I could serve the needs of the
people who needed my type of services. I was fresh out of the service, full of
vim and vigor, and long hours didn't mean much to me. I worked long hours. I'd
come in maybe at eight in the morning and be here until, many times, ten o'clock
at night, you know, six days a week plus Sunday shorter hours. So it was very
rewarding, and I liked it real well.
OBERLEY: A question that comes to mind, you said you didn't have too many
products in the early days. Could you remember some of the things and how the
product line grew in the store?
KEEFER: Oh, yes. We had a lot of proprietaries like for the kids, we had
Castoria and we had a tonic called Congola and we had Milk of Magnesia and
Citrate of Magnesia. We had Setla's Powders and Kohler's Headache Tablets and
powders. Just about everything that you can think of. See, there were really
more proprietaries at that time. We had a lot of salves that were made and put
in I the tubes eventually, where originally we had to make them up by
hand. In my portfolio here, I have a list of all of these things that you could
buy in a drugstore because you didn't run to a doctor every time you had some
little ailment like you do today. You went to the druggist and he generally told
you what to do and how to use it. That was the way of life. A doctor was kind of
a novelty. You only went to him when you were really sick. If you went to the
hospital, you knew you were sick, you know.
OBERLEY: Okay. Let's just explore the possibility here of some of the other
stores. Could you tell us a little bit about some of the other stores you would
patronize or some of your neighbor's stores, you know, next to your location?
KEEFER: Yes. On the corner, right around the corner was a Ben Franklin store. A
man named Mr. Kelly ran that. That's where the Grancic Building is, right next
to the alley behind that corner building today. There was a Ben Franklin in
there, and the post office was in that big building on Main Street, the post
office. There was a bakery in there. Mr. Horrack had a bakery shop. Meeske's
Grocery had just put up a new building on the corner where the former Wille Home
was. That was turned into Meeske Grocery Store, which was the big store-been
here many years. Eventually they burned out and had to rebuild after a few
years. At a different time, Ridenauer had a little dry goods store in there. A
fellow by the name of Mr. Seek, had a boy's, menswear store in there. I believe
there was always a barber shop in there. Then over on the block where Biermann
Hardware is there was a bowling alley where AI's OIde Town Inn is today. That
was the only bowling alley in town, and the pins were set by hand just like they
were in the days when I set pins in a bowling alley in Chicago. There's a young
man here in town named Roy Otto You probably know him, a lot of you. Roy Ott
used to set the pins in that bowling alley. Everything happened at the bowling
alley. Every church had a bowling alley. I sponsored four ladies' and four men's
bowling teams, and they all bowled over there in that little alley originally.
Then a little later on over at Rand and 83, Elmhurst Road, where Fish Furniture
Store is today, that became the first automated bowling in this area. A fellow
by the name of Jack Gonelle, who had a little tavern and a restaurant in the
front of the building, had this new bowling alley put in the back, and it was, I
say, all automated, which was a real innovation in bowling. No more pin boys.
That held up until later on when L. Fish Furniture came along and took it over
and made a furniture store out of it. Then, of course, later on we did get two
other bowling alleys. We had the one up on Rand Road by the-what do you call it
up here? Rand Road around, oh, what's the name of the big catering hall in there
today?
OBERLEY: Oh, Mr. Peters? Around there?
KEEFER: No, no. No, the one where the Historical Society is going to have the
big dinner next year?
OBERLEY: Oh, I can't think of it.
KEEFER: I can't think of the name of it, anyhow. Then there, of course,
was the other bowling alleys over in the Busse Building on 83 right where
Walgreen's and Dominick's are on 83 and Golf Road. There was a bowling alley up
in there also. But I believe the one up on Rand Road is still there. What was
that called? I can't think of the name of it. My memory isn't what it used to
be.
OBERLEY: Well, your memory is doing pretty good, I think.
KEEFER: For 78 years. You know, you lose a little every year. Then what else did
we have in town? As I said earlier, a lot of the little luncheons and noon
get-togethers were allover at Kruse's Restaurant, and you could go in there and
for a dollar and a half and get a real good chicken dinner. I guess beer was
probably twenty-five cents a glass. So that got to be quite a busy place. We had
just a little post office, you know, originally on Main Street there in that big
Busse Building on the east side of the street, and then they eventually built a
new post office over where the Federal Savings and Loan bank was located here on
Prospect Avenue and that was about 1960. Or '60 maybe was the one over by the
water tower. Anyhow, the post office was in that building where the Savings and
Loan Bank is located today. That building was owned by Herman Mein. He was
the blacksmith man who originally had a blacksmith shop here where the
restaurant is on Northwest Highway there and Wille Street, you know, in that
little triangle. There's a restaurant there today. That used to be the
blacksmith shop. Then eventually there was a Sinclair gasoline station there
that was owned by Winkelmann before they built the one up at Central and
Northwest Highway in the triangle up there. All right, so then the next post
office, of course, was built over, as I say, by the water tower, which is now an
office building, a one-story building. I believe that was 1960. And then, of
course, the next post office was built over next door to the Haberkamp
Greenhouses on ...
[END OF SIDE 1][SIDE 2]
OBERLEY: ...[conversation in progress] tape here. I'm talking with Mr. Jack
Keefer. He's going to be telling us more about his pharmacy business in the
downtown. Mr. Keefer, would you like to tell us a bit more about some of the
products in your...?
KEEFER: Yes.
OBERLEY: Or some more history about the town?
KEEFER: I'll tell you a little bit more about the history. It sometimes becomes
a little hodgey-podge because I don't have it written down here in proper
sequence. Usually in a small town it starts out you have a doctor, who arrives
in the community and starts practicing and then the drugstore follows. But in
the case of Mt. Prospect, it was in 1924 that a man by the name of Mr. Horstmann
came to Mt. Prospect and started a drugstore over on West Busse Avenue. If you
know where the Moehler Barber Shop used to be-there are a couple of girls in
there who have a barber shop and hair salon today. That was Moehler's Barber
Shop. Well, right next door to the east there's a two-story white building, the
Wille Building, and the original drug store was started there in 1924. Do you
just want to press that one second? [taping interrupted] In doing some research,
I went to Arlington Heights to Paddock Publications and looked at a copy of the
Palatine Enterprise which was dated April 18, 1924. The headline said, "A New
Drugstore in Mt. Prospect. William A. Horstmann of Arlington Heights has opened
a Mt. Prospect pharmacy in the Wille Building. This business institution is a
great addition to Mt. Prospect and should receive the support and patronism of
people living in that community. Mr. Horstmann is not a stranger to a large
number of our citizens, as he is, strictly speaking, an Arlington Heights young
man. He has had over eighteen years experience in the drugstore business, both
as a wholesaler and a retailer and as a registered pharmacist. Patrons will be
assured of having their prescription carefully compounded. He will carry such
lines as are usually found in the best of the drugstores. The grand opening day
will be held May the 3rd, further announcements of which will be given in these
columns." At about that time the following drug specialties were being
advertised in the Cook County Herald: Dodd's pills, Bayer Aspirin, Tantalac
Tablets, Gold Medal Harlem Oil Pills, Zonite, Cuticura, Castoria, Frezone,
Belans, Diamond Dye, Winslowe's Soothing Syrup for the babies and Vaseline. You
could buy a two-passenger Roundabout Ford car, FOB from Detroit. The lowest
price, $265. Or you could get a Studebaker 6 for $1,045 or an Oakland for
$1,095, and this was offered at Schoeppe's in Palatine. Would you believe that?
Schoeppe's was an all-purpose store in Palatine, which wasn't too many years ago
when they went out of there. Other cars advertised were Durant, Star and the
Jewitt. The play in Chicago was "Abbie's Irish Rose." It was playing at the
Studebaker Theater on August 30, 1924. Then there was an ad read like this: It
said, "Own a home like this one." There was a picture of a house for $6,500 or
$8,500 for the deluxe model. Everyone of these small towns, by the way at that
time, had a small hospital. In Palatine they had Dr. Stark, who had a little
hospital there. In Mt. Prospect, we had Dr. Woolfarth, who had a building over
here at 111 West Prospect Avenue, and the building is still there today with a
couple chiropractors in the building-right near where that printing place is.
And here are some of the ads from the National Tea ad of that day. It said, "P &
G Soap, ten bars for forty three cents." Gold Dust, which was a very popular
cleaning agent for the kitchen, was twenty-four cents a box. Corn Flakes, seven
and a half cents a package. Lard, which was a big item in big use at that time,
lard was thirteen and a half cents a pound. This was before we knew about
cholesterol, you know. Then sugar was ten pounds for seventy-five cents. Also,
in Mt. Prospect on another subject here, at Mt. Prospect, next door to where Van
Driel is located today, Annen and Busse-well, there was a Busse all-purpose
grocery store when I came here, and eventually Annen and Busse real estate were
in there. But in 1924, they had an ad for that store. It said, "A large display
of fireworks will be at the Mt. Prospect Ice Cream Parlor Store," which was
located right here on Northwest Highway and Main Street, the Mt. Prospect Ice
Cream Parlor. June 13, 1924, they were going to have a big display of fireworks.
Can you imagine that? I remember when I was a kid in Chicago, I would ride a
bicycle all the way out Peterson Avenue to Lincoln to buy firecrackers, because
they were illegal in Chicago and I had to go out to the edge of town to buy
them. In Mt. Prospect at that time, we also had Dr. Wilhelm. He
was an optometrist-"eyes tested and glasses fitted." His office
was in the Mt. Prospect Drugstore. His telephone number was 267-only three
digits. He had hours on Monday and Friday from 7 to 9 p.m.-only two hours a day
that he worked in the drugstore, and that was very common at that time. Here's a
little item. It said, "Herman F. Mein, a blacksmith on Northwest Highway and
Wille Street"-you all know where that is. That's where that restaurant is in
that triangle up there. So you want to ...? .
OBERLEY: Okay. Thank you very much for that. We've got a few more questions
here. We'd like to go back again to your business. How did you advertise? How
did you get people to know about the kinds of things you were doing in your
store? Were there any advertisements that were your favorites or was the
community the type that a lot was word of mouth?
KEEFER: Well, of course, we had the Paddock papers at that time. The Cook County
Herald, which most of the people read, and also, from time-to-time, we had small
newspapers that sprung up. We had the Mt. Prospector, when I came here. The
office was on the corner over there by Northwest Highway and 83 in the big white
building at that time. Mr. Folks and his wife ran that. It was a kind of a
picture paper. They were photo bugs, and they took a lot of pictures of
happenings in town and then they combined it with a story to make a little news
item for the community. But the big papers would always buyout the little guys,
and then we'd come up with somebody else. Another time Di Mucci came up and
started a newspaper in town, but that didn't last too long. I always said I do a
lot of advertising, like I sponsored four ladies' and four men's bowling teams,
four ladies' and four men golf teams, and I figured this was very good
advertising. I remember one of the first things I did here when I came to
town-there was no Catholic Church here, and St. Raymond's was being organized
and they wanted to hold a bake sale. So I had a big store without a lot of
merchandise it in, and we had the bake sale right in the front window of the
drug store. These were the things that I thought was good advertising to get
people to know me and know what I stood for, and I was always available to be a
help to somebody in need. So I didn't spend a lot of money. I never did
advertise, by the way, in the Yellow Pages just because I felt the Yellow Pages
I couldn't afford. They were very expensive. I did other little things to
promote my name in town and it seemed to work.
OBERLEY: Well, I know that you've been active with some of the local civic
events in the community. What other kinds of groups did you sponsor through your
long career in town? What kinds of activities did you become involved in?
KEEFER: Oh, yes. That's a good question. You know, before I arrived on the
scene, they had a chamber of commerce in town and then it went defunct. In fact,
they even had a bank account left over with a couple dollars in it until in the
middle of the '50s sometime. But in 1949, a group of the businessmen in town-I
have all their names here somewhere-started to reorganize a chamber of commerce.
Of course, I got very much involved in that. I was president for a number of
years and treasurer, I think, for ten, twelve years-secretary and everything
else. If you were to try and call the chamber of commerce in Mt. Prospect, the
phone would ring in my drugstore. Maybe you wanted to know what the elevation of
the town was and the height or how many grains of hardness in
the water. Anything like that pertaining to
the physical an geographical aspects of the community, I knew. If I didn't have
the answer, I was sure to find out what the answer was and get back to you. So I
felt like I was really a part in helping get this community going and be a
service to the people. There were a lot of things that we did. We started a
parade in about 1954, I think. We started the Fourth of July Parade. That was
started by Dick McMann, who had a dry goods store over on Prospect Avenue and
Wille, Carter Bowen, who had the music store at that time on West Busse Avenue,
right across the street from Olde Town Inn, Herald Rickless, who was with the
Paddock Publication, and myself. The four of us started this Fourth of July
Parade. Now, Carter Bowen was the music man and Rickless was publicity and Dick
McMann and I built floats. We had beautiful homemade floats for every parade. I
remember the first year we were going to end up-we started out here on north
Emerson Street. There was a park up at Emerson around Memory Lane in there, and
we were to cross the railroad track to go to Lions Park. Of course, the
authorities said, "No, you can't do that. You have to have a permit from
the state to cross the railroad track." Well, to this day we have never had a
permit, and we've had a parade every year. But we patrol it and the police help
us. We had some wonderful parades, and I have many pictures of all of these
parades at home in both color and black-and-white. Then, of course, we also had
the Memorial Day parade we helped run for the VFW, which was in May. So we've
always had two parades here in Mt. Prospect ever since back in the early '50s,
and they were well-attended and we're real proud of it.
OBERLEY: Okay. Let's see. Some other questions here. [taping interrupted] Okay.
Was there any special way that this early chamber of commerce and your
businessmen would get together to talk? I mean, did you ever, you know,
deliberately get together with your colleagues at, let's say, a certain
restaurant or somewhere to discuss things? Was there a routine that developed?
KEEFER: Oh, yes. We had monthly meetings. Definitely. We had monthly meetings,
and we would have outside speakers come in and talk to the members. Then we had
the typical Christmas party and party around the middle of the year. We always
had dinners going on. I remember one year at Christmastime, we had a Santa
Claus. We engaged a man to be Santa Claus, and he lived in the north end of town
up around Rand and Louis Street in there. He would work at the Mt. Prospect
State Bank, we'll say, in the morning, and then he would work at the Federal
Savings and Loan Bank in the afternoon. He would greet the kids and give them
candy and talk to them and have the pictures taken, and that was quite an
interesting thing. It was my job to pick him up when he was finished at one bank
and take him home for lunch and then bring him back in the afternoon. Then I
would be driving down the side streets, maybe past a school and the kids look in
there and see Santa Claus and they'd say, oh, Mr. Keefer with Santa Claus!" It
was hilarious, you know. But we did that for quite a number of years. Then one
year we had a float in the parade, a Christmas parade it was. We met Santa
Claus. He came in on the train and we put him on the float and it was raining
and sleeting and snowing, and they get out here in the residential section
around Hi Lusi and Council Trail in there and the float broke down and here's
poor Santa Claus out in the snow and rain. We had to abandon the float and take
him in a car and go back later on and pick up the float. Let's see. How did we
start out in this? Well, we had meetings. Yes, we had meetings all the time. For
a while later on, we would go down to Gonelle's when he had a dining room there.
Sometimes it was just a little committee meeting. We would go over to Kruse's
Restaurant. Then, of course, Mt. Prospect Country Club was owned by the Sophie
family-Mr. Sophie and his three sons-and, of course, all of our big banquets
would be held at the Mt. Prospect Country Club. Everything happened over there.
So we had a lot of activity. We didn't have the expressway here like we have
today where we could run into town. We didn't have O'Hare Airport. If you wanted
to go for an airplane trip, you'd have to drive out to 55th and Cicero out to
Midway, and that was a big project to do because when you wanted to go out there
in the morning, that's when the traffic was heavy. I went out there one morning
with Dr. Bagnolo, who came to town a few years after I did, and we get out there
just as the plane was taking off for Florida. In those days, you had to make a
reservation maybe three, four days in advance. I had to take him
back home and turn the telephone back
on and the milkman on, and then he had to make another arrangement for a flight
going to Florida. So it was a lot different than today. The expressway was built
quite a while after we came here. That changed our way of living quite a bit. We
have always had, of course, the Northwestern commuter train, which is one of the
finest in the world. That's been a real factor in helping these towns like Mt.
Prospect, I think, develop-that we had good transportation.
OBERLEY: Yes. I was going to ask, did the train, did you see any changes with
the commuters and the commuter traffic? I mean, your business being located so
close to the train line. Do you think that was successful? A good location to
that? KEEFER: Yes. Yes. It was a good thing to be near the train. However, when
they go by in the morning, you're closed. When they come in the evening, they
have one thing in mind-they're going to go home. They're going to, you know, run
right by. But it is good because they're living near the train tracks some way
where they can get back and forth very easy, and, yes, the location I think is
very good and our parking is very good where we are now on Prospect Avenue
there. Very good.
OBERLEY: I liked that story about Santa Claus and the abandoned float. I leads
me to ask, was there any certain particular way you would decorate your stores
for the holidays or do special promotions in addition to Santa Claus to attract
business? KEEFER: Oh, yes. See, we did a lot of, as we call, the front-end
business in the store. I remember going down there the night before Christmas,
the day before Christmas, and moving the stock forward because you really sold
everything you had. It was the only place they could buy the merchandise was in
these local stores. We didn't have the big chain stores at the time. Yes, we all
decorated. My gosh, I always had two beautiful twelve-foot windows in there,
either Christmas trees or a Santa Claus display. That was part of the excitement
of getting ready for Christmas. One year we invited all of the kids over to the
VFW for a Christmas party, and we gave them candy and snacks, you know. Then we
were going to show them a kiddie movie. Well, somehow or other, they got things
mixed up down at the distributor. Instead of getting a movie for the kiddies, we
ended up with a travelogue, and, of course, that wasn't too good. But at
that time, where Jake's Pizza is over here today, that was owned by a couple
called Mel and Paul. They had a restaurant over there. It started out with a
hamburger shop originally in a trailer right on the corner of the point there.
They had a little trailer. Then eventually they put up that building, and he was
quite a movie bug. He ran home and picked up some kiddie movies that he
had at home and brought them over and saved the day. But these are the things
you'd run into, you know, just like the Santa Claus getting caught in the rain
and snow. But they all made for a well-knit
community, and we did real well.
OBERLEY: In comparison for these early years versus today, would you say that
the community was friendlier back then or people knew each other a bit more, or
do you say that no, the town's pretty much remained the same? What are your
thoughts? KEEFER: Well, now, this was the day before drugs on the street, before
hippies, and at one time, I could stand over there on the corner and I would say
that probably a third to a half of the people I knew as they walked by, you
know. They were all natives here, and they traded in the local stores
where today a lot of them never come into a local store, you know. They've got
their favorite places to go, and you just seemed to be more involved with them.
You were going to church, and you knew all of the people from your church.
Everybody in my church I knew. I was working on fund-raising campaign and
running bazaars and everything else, so you became very well-acquainted with
them-more so, I think, than you do today. We had baseball games. First thing I
did when I came to Mt. Prospect, they asked me if I would sponsor and American
Legion baseball team. I said, "Sure." Five hundred bucks. I didn't know, of
course, that baseball bats came in different lengths and different weights and
all that. I found out real quick, though. One Saturday morning they came running
into the store. They needed a dozen baseball bats-certain lengths and certain
weights and all of that-and I had to have my wife run down to Evanston and pick
them up that morning because they had a game scheduled. I didn't have a nickel's
worth of insurance on these kids, being new. But the following year, I took all
of my equipment and turned it over to help form Little League in town.
Everything that I had was put into the Little League program. Of course, they
had a blanket insurance policy that covered all of the kids. I remember right
off the bat, one of the kids broke his ankle or his wrist-I forget what it
was-and I got a check for $1,000 to hand to the mother to pay the expense.
Fortunately that didn't happen to me when I had the team the first year without
any expense. But we were very involved in the community. We were involved in
baseball game and then midget football started shortly after that. That took
another whole big group of people to keep that going.
OBERLEY: Let's see. What other special events in town? I mean, you talked about
the parades, you've talked about starting the sports leagues. Are there any
other big events that you can think about or memories or special things that
stick out in your mind?
KEEFER: Yes. One of the big things in town here was the Lions Club. They were
organized in 1934, which is, I think, fifty-seven years ago. Every year they had
a fall festival. Originally it was held in various places in town. One time it
was held over by the water tower where the water tower is now. Another time it
was held over here where Keefer's Drugstore is today, in that corner triangle.
Another time it was held over on Owens Street in the park. It was held one time
in here where the car wash is on Prospect Avenue. It was held there. We had
nothing but rain, and we took loads of sawdust and spread it allover, you know,
to keep the ground dry. Then eventually we went into Lions Park, because the
Lions Club donated the sixteen acres of property that eventually became Lions
Park. This was before we had a park district here in town, and that sixteen
acres of property became the nucleus for the Mt. Prospect Park District. Then
when they had the Fall Festival every year with the Lions Club, why, that was a
big drawing card, especially when it was in Lions Park because people could walk
to it. It wasn't as big as it is now, but eventually we wore out our welcome. I
guess the noise was too much and people got tired of us and we went over to
Melas Park where we have the carnival at the present time. So that was always a
big thing.
OBERLEY: Okay. Well, I also want to ask you since you're a member of our
Historical Society, can you remember some thoughts about when the Historical
Society was started because I know you've been involved for many years?
KEEFER: Yes, I can. In '76, '86? Anyhow, twenty-four years ago it is now. Next
year it will be twenty-five years ago we started. We had the fiftieth
anniversary celebration of our community, and all of the businessmen in town
donated some money toward the celebration. It was a big thing. We had a
big band out here, and we had one of the biggest parades we ever had. We had the
Medina parade people out here with their horses, and it was a big thing. At the
end of the celebration, we had a certain amount of dollars left, and they said,
"What are we going to do with the money?" A committee of us got together and
decided- here was a man here in town by the name of John Weber, who was
president of the Historical Society at one time. We got together and decided we
would use this money to start a historical society in town. That was the initial
funding that we came up with. Of course, after that we had membership and other
means of collecting money. Yes, I remember that real well. Let's see, what would
that be-1966?
OBERLEY: About '68.
KEEFER: 1968. Yes. That's when we had our fiftieth anniversary, in '67.
OBERLEY: You know that the downtown of Mt.Prospect has changed over the years
physically. Do you think the changes are better or do you think it was better
the way it was in the 1940s when you first came here? That's a very objective
question.
KEEFER: Yes, it is. I'll tell you, ...
OBERLEY: I mean a very subjective question.
KEEFER: Due to the fact that you have such a large population in town, the old
town wouldn't really be big enough to service the population today. So, our
center of town has turned into more of a service type of community where you
have barber shops and offices and drugstores and eating places. Then the big,
big stores with all the merchandise, they're in the shopping centers. The fact
that people have generally two cars to a family, why, the mother can get out and
go shopping with the car, and she doesn't have to depend on walking to the
stores like they did years ago. When you figure out years ago our border in town
was from Wa Pella here to, oh gosh, down here to Prospect Road. That was the big
area really. Then maybe from Central to the railroad tracks here. That was the
business part of town. Today, of course, the big stores are a mile or two away.
But it's no factor, because once you're in the car, why, it doesn't make any
difference if you drive one mile or two miles. Another unusual thing that
happened here in 1949, we did not have a movie in town. A young couple here by
the name of-oh, I can't think of it. Anyhow, they decided they were going to
start a movie house in town, and they sent out a number of postcards. I don't
know how many, and the postcard read something like this: "Would you like to
have a movie in Mt. Prospect?" And, of course, everybody wrote down yes. So with
that small amount of information, they decided to build a movie house here in
town, which was built in 1950, and I still have the original opening night
program.
OBERLEY: Do you remember what the movie was?
KEEFER: No, I don't. No, I don't. This happened to be at the time when TV was
coming into its own. The movie was a disaster. The movie house never did get
their feet on the ground because, number one, they had no parking. They didn't
have a single parking spot there for the movie house, and TV was coming in
full blast. They'd say, you know, why should I go to a movie house when I can
watch TV for nothing. It was a disaster from the very beginning, unfortunately.
I felt so sorry for these people because the movie just didn't cut the mustard.
OBERLEY: It just didn't take off.
KEEFER: It didn't take off. No, it didn't.
OBERLEY: Well, just as a final question, because you've been great talking here
all afternoon, just one final question. Just your philosophy here. This I'm
going to read off of a suggested sheet of questions. It's probably the only one
I'm taking verbatim.
KEEFER: Can you hold that off one second? [tape interrupted]
OBERLEY: Okay, if there's one thing that you would want children to remember
about the history of their hometown, what would it be?
KEEFER: What would it be? Well, I've been halfway around the world a couple of
times, and, as I always say, "There's no place like home." The old saying used
to be, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." I think home is where
you grew up, and this is where you have your roots and you might go halfway
around the world, but still you're going to appreciate your own hometown more
than anything because you were part of it and you grew up there and you made the
community go by being involved in it. This is where your friends are. A lot of
times I think of moving away, but really my friends are right here in Mt.
Prospect and this is where I'd like to spend my remaining days.
OBERLEY: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Keefer, and we appreciate this
interview. Be it so humble, there's no place like home here in Mt. Prospect.
Thank you.
KEEFER: Okay.
Name: William Kirchhoff
Does MPHS have photographs:
Address in MP: 109 S. Emerson
Birth Date: 1861 in Wheeling Township
Birth Date: 1943 in Mount Prospect
Marriage
Date: Unknown
Spouse: Maria (b. 1858 d. 1944)
Children:
Sophie (b. 1882) Louis (b. 1884) Christine (b. 1885)
Marie (b. 1887) William (b. 1891) George (1894)
Laura
(b. 1897)
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
The Kirchhoff family was a part of the German American community that developed
in and around Mount Prospect. Not as much is known about this family as is known
about some of the higher profile families, but it is known that William Kirchhoff
worked with William Busse and William Wille in the founding of School District
57 and the construction of the Central School, the first public school in Mount
Prospect. He had owned a farm in Wheeling Township from about 1880 until
1917 when he built a house in Mount Prospect. William was one of the earliest residents of downtown Mount
Prospect. He built his house on Emerson Street the year the village was
incorporated. There is a road that runs through Arlington Heights and Rolling
Meadows that is named for this family, although the road is spelled with one "H"
while William Kirchhoff's name appears with two on his tombstone.
Name: Dr. Louise Koester
Does MPHS have photographs: Yes
Address in MP: 221 S. Owen
Birth Date:
Death Date:
Marriage
Date: No
Spouse:
Children:
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Dr. Louise Koester was the first doctor in Mount Prospect. She was born in
Hanover, Germany and came to the U. S. in hopes of becoming a medical missionary
to Africa. She attended Wheaton College studying medicine and dreamed of using
her training in Africa. While looking for a hospital to complete her residency,
she faced gender discrimination. It was hard for her to find a hospital that
would allow her to train since the majority only allowed women to train as
nurses. She learned about Mary Thompson Hospital which was the first all-women
staffed hospital located in Chicago. Mary Thompson Hospital accepted Koester and
she completed her training there.
Dr. Koester first heard of Mount Prospect through her friend and colleague, Dr. John Renner of Palatine. Dr. Renner told her of Mount Prospect’s need of a doctor in the growing community. She weighted her choices and decided that it was her calling to go to Mount Prospect and help the small community in need of a doctor, however she continued to contribute to missionary work, even donating enough money to build a hospital in Africa.
In 1926 Dr. Koester soon opened an office inside her house, charging two dollars for office calls and three dollars for house calls. Soon after Dr. Koester opened shop another doctor also moved to town. Realizing the need for a hospital, Dr. Koester and Dr. Wolforth opened up the first hospital for accident victims. When asked what it was like being a doctor at the time Dr. Koester commented, “It was very hard to be a doctor then for there were no antibiotics and the training included making all of the medicines we gave to patients. Many times it was hard to decide what to do for a patient so I did my best and prayed.”
A local doctor was reported to have said: “She won’t stay there very long, she’ll last only two weeks or maybe a few months. Who wants to go to a woman doctor anyway?” After twenty-six years of dedicated service, the Village of Mount Prospect acknowledged Dr. Koester’s work in a special proclamation in 1965.
Name: Ethel Kolerus
Does MPHS have photographs: Misc. images
Address in MP: Unknown
Birth Date: Unknown
Death Date: Unknown
Marriage
Date: Unknown
Spouse: Unknown
Children: Unknown
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Ethel Kolerus was the first woman in
Cook
County to hold the office of Township Supervisor. She was originally from
Mount Prospect and served as the Township Supervisor for
Wheeling Township. At other
times, she also served on the staff of U.S. Senator Charles Percy’s Chicago
office and on the Wheeling Township Board of Auditors.
Name: Hilda Laird
Does MPHS have photographs: No
Interviewer: Nancy Hank
Date of Interview:
Oral history text:
NANCY
HANK: It's October 11. We're at the home of Hilda Laird in
Mount Prospect.
I'm Nancy Hank, the interviewer. I want to thank you for agreeing, Hilda, to be
interviewed and for signing the release form. I'm going to ask you some of the
biographical information. What is your full name?
LAIRD: My full name is Hilda Hutchinson Laird.
Q: Where were you born?
LAIRD: I was born in
Jersey County,
Illinois, which is about fifty miles north of St. Louis, Missouri.
Q: What year? Do you mind giving us that?
LAIRD: No, 1912.
Q: Who were your parents?
LAIRD: My father was Alban Hutchinson. My mother was Emma Hancock.
Q: And the grandparents?
LAIRD: My grandmother was
Elizabeth
--shall I say her maiden name?
Q: Yes.
LAIRD: Elizabeth Reyworth. That's R-E-Y-W-O-R-T-H. My grandfather was William
Hutchinson --no, I think it's Charles. Sorry.
Q: Okay, Charles Hutchinson.
LAIRD: William's my great-grandfather.
Q: When did you move to
Mount Prospect?
LAIRD: In 1935.
Q: And I'll put down your address. It's 501 ...
LAIRD: No, when I moved to
Mount Prospect we bought a house at 312 South
Wapella. We lived there until 1956.
Q: Okay, and your current address is ...
LAIRD: 501 North Pine Street.
Q: How has Mount Prospect changed since you've lived here?
LAIRD: When we moved here in 1935, there were 1,200 people in the village and we
lived in the 300 block of Wapella, and we were the only built-up block in that
side of town, and we had lots of children there. In fact, it was called
"incubator alley."
Q: What did you know about
Mount Prospect
before you came here?
LAIRD: I really didn't know much. We had come out to rent a house because
friends had lived here, so when we came out to rent a house, Mr. Besander --we
stopped at his office and instead of showing us a house to rent, he showed us a
house to buy. So we considered the house, came out once again and bought the
house at 312 Wapella.
Q: What are some of the events you remember happening in the village?
LAIRD: I really can't remember. Actually, you know, the village was so small and
we had lived in
Evanston
prior to moving to Mount Prospect, so we went back to Evanston to the doctors,
most of the shopping. It takes a while before you get used to this little town.
I think there was only two store --Meeske's and Busse's. Meeske's were on Main
Street and Busse was over near Van Driel's.
Q: Do you remember any of the parades or other things that happened in the early
days?
LAIRD: I don't remember any parades.
Q: Okay. What do you feel are the landmarks in the community?
LAIRD: Well, the little schoolhouse is here at the Episcopal church now. That
used to be at the comer of 83 and Central Road. Really I think the library now
is on that site. I think the library was started after we moved to Mount
Prospect. I think Frank Eringer was the first librarian, and of course it was in
a little, tiny brick building at the comer of 83 and Busse, I think it is.
Q: What do you remember most about shopping downtown other than the two stores
that we...
LAIRD: Well, there was a little general store next to Meeske's, and after that I
think there was a dry goods store over in the block where Keefer's Pharmacy is
now. But the little store was owned by Mr. Kenning and he had --well, Landex
owned it first. In fact, I've still got a little flour sieve that they gave at
one time for some reason. I don't even remember.
Q: Do you still use the flour sieve?
LAIRD: Yes, still use the flour sieve, and I think it has their name still on
it. Then the grocery store was Meeske's, and it is now where the Japanese
restaurant is. You could call up and order your groceries.
Q: That's where you did your grocery shopping?
LAIRD: Yes.
Q: At Meeske's. Okay, and how about clothes and shoes?
LAIRD: We went to
Evanston
for clothes and shoes. After a few years then we went to Des Plaines and
Speigler's and Brown's department stores.
Q: And Brown's is still in
Des Plaines,
isn't it?
LAIRD: Yes. Speigler's was. ..
Q: Yes.
LAIRD: I don't know if it still is.
Q: I think it's in the mall. I think they went out of business.
LAIRD: I think they did too.
Q: How about for hardware items? Do you remember where you shopped for those?
LAIRD: Oh, Busse-Biermann. Mr. Biermann was the most wonderful man in the whole
world.
Q: Is that B-E-E-R?
LAIRD: B-I-E-R.
Q: B-I-E-R-M-A-N-N.
LAIRD: Frank Biermann.
Q: Okay.
LAIRD: He also at one time was the fire chief, I think.
Q: I see. How about things like farm equipment and supplies, meaning -- I don't
know if you used farm equipment necessarily, but I would think maybe even lawn
mowers and so on.
LAIRD: Well, of course, we had a push lawn mover. At least, we only had a push
lawn mower. Another thing we had was a coal furnace.
Q: Okay, so how about coal?
LAIRD: Mr. Wolf owned the coal --at least that's who we bought coal from. I
think Wille also had a coal company, but there was a Mr. Wolf, and I believe his
home was across from the water tower, what was also one time the post office.
Q: How about your cars?
LAIRD: When we moved here we had a Chevrolet.
Q: Where do you remember buying that?
LAIRD: In Evanston.
Q: And how about medicine?
LAIRD: I suppose if I remember right I think Burda Pharmacy was. ..
Q: And that was B-U-R-D-A?
LAIRD: B-U-R-D-A.
LAIRD: Yes.
Q: And the stores were all located in what is downtown.
LAIRD: Yes.
Q: Do you remember any of the people that worked there in those stores?
LAIRD: Well, yes.
Q: Mainly the owners.
LAIRD: Yes, Fred Meeske was the owner of Meeske's, and Ralph Busse, I think he
did mostly stocked the groceries and so, and he was a really a wonderful person.
Q: Sort of a stock boy.
LAIRD: Fred Haas was a butcher along with Mr. Meeske.
Q: We know that the early stores carried dry goods and pharmacy, of course,
medicines and so on. Do you remember what other things the early stores carried?
Could you buy a sack of coal in a store downtown?
LAIRD: No, I don't think so.
Q: Mainly it was delivered.
LAIRD: Yes, yes. I can't think of. ..
Q: Anything out of the ordinary that the early stores might have stocked for
people?
LAIRD: No. I really can't, as I remember the stores, except that the cookies
were like in containers where the kids could get a cookie.
Q: Yes, I remember those too.
LAIRD: But my father was never very happy about us taking cookies that we didn't
pay for. When you ordered your groceries from Meeske's, you would ask them if
they would mind stopping at the post office and pick up your mail and bring it
to you, which they did. In fact, that was the wonderful thing about that store.
They were very. ..
Q: Accommodating.
LAIRD: Yes, accommodating.
Q: Did they carry things like stamps, for instance, for your. ..
LAIRD: No, because the post office was right next door.
Q: Was so close by.
LAIRD: Then the post office moved over by the water tower.
Q: Okay, this was when the post office. ..
LAIRD: Was next to Meeske's. And then National Tea came in, in that same block
as Meeske's. It was a very, very small store.
Q: The National Tea.
LAIRD: Yes. I remember the clerk was a Mrs. Maleski. She was a very nice lady.
Q: Now we're going to talk a little bit about your grade school memories. First
of all-- yes, then we'll go back to the follow-up, your fondest memories. We'll
do the school. What grade school did you attend?
LAIRD: I attended a country school called Buckeye School. It had all eight
grades.
Q: Did you go there for eight years?
LAIRD: Yes, I went there for eight years.
Q: Give me the location of Buckeye School.
LAIRD: It was in
Otter
Creek Township. I really don't know how I would describe...
Q: Okay, just tell me it was in southern Illinois near St. Louis.
LAIRD: Yes, yes.
Q: In Jerseyville.
LAIRD: Near Jerseyville. When we were young there was a little town called
Otterville in
Otter
Creek
Township, and it was the closest tiny, little store.
Q: What were your favorite subjects or classes?
LAIRD: I suppose English.
Q: How far did you live away from your school?
LAIRD: I lived with a great-aunt, and I was about a half a mile from school,
walked there come rain or come shine.
Q: SO you walked to school. And what time did school start?
LAIRD: I don't recall, but I imagine at nine o'clock, but I don't really
remember.
Q: Did you walk rain and shine and how about snow?
LAIRD: Yes, rain, shine, snow or sleet, whatever.
Q: Okay, all kinds of weather.
LAIRD: I could really see the schoolhouse from where we lived.
Q: What time did you have to get up in the morning in order to be at school on
time?
LAIRD: I have no idea. In the country everyone gets up early.
Q: Okay, would you say it was seven a.m.?
LAIRD:
Seven a.m. or before.
Q: Did you have any chores in the morning before you left for school?
LAIRD: No.
Q: Did you eat breakfast before you went to school?
LAIRD: Yes.
Q: Would you describe a typical breakfast meal before you went off to school?
LAIRD: Well, sometimes my aunt would even make fried chicken for my breakfast.
Can you believe people having fried chicken for breakfast?
Q: No, that's unusual but it sounds kind of good.
LAIRD: I can't remember what else. I'm sure we must have had. ..
Q: Oatmeal perhaps.
LAIRD: ...com meal mush, fried com meal mush. Did you ever have that? It's
delicious.
Q: Yes, it is but I don't think we had that. I think generally we would have had
oatmeal, toast perhaps. Did you bring a lunch to school or did you go home?
LAIRD: No. Brought a lunch.
Q: Could you describe a typical lunch?
LAIRD: No, I really can't remember.
Q: Okay. Sandwich and fruit?
LAIRD: I suppose. I don't. ..
Q: That might have been a typical one, but you don't really remember.
LAIRD: I really don't remember.
Q: After your country school, did you buy lunch at your high school or junior
high?
LAIRD: Yes. We didn't have junior high, you know --eight grades, no junior high.
Q: What was the name of your high school?
LAIRD:
Evanston
High School.
Q: Oh, you went to
Evanston.
Do you remember any of the high school lunches?
LAIRD: I remember what I had every day for lunch, which was a salmon salad
sandwich. I still love it, and I made if for my daughter. She had never heard of
it. A friend of mine that I went to high school, we still meet together.
Q: How many students did you have in class at school through eighth grade, your
country school?
LAIRD: In my class?
Q: In your class?
LAIRD: I would think about three people.
Q: Okay, about three in each class through eighth grade, about twenty-four in
the school.
LAIRD: I imagine.
Q: What was the typical order of the day? Did you start with a special song,
prayers or the Pledge of Allegiance?
LAIRD: I don't think we did, but I really, you know, ...
Q: Can you describe a typical day?
LAIRD: We had a recess and then, of course, since we all had lunch, we ate our
lunch quickly and went outside and played games. Of course, we didn't have
indoor plumbing, and there was a stove that heated the school.
Q: Do you remember coming to school in the winter when the stove wasn't working
too well?
LAIRD: No, I don't remember that it didn't work too well. I suppose the teacher
got there before we did and started the fire. However, I suppose they banked it
some way so she didn't have to start it each day.
Q: Oh, do you think they did overnight? Do you think they were allowed to keep
it going?
LAIRD: I don't know, but it always seemed fairly warm.
Q: It was. It was comfortable in the winter as far as you can remember.
LAIRD: I don't remember keeping coats on or anything.
[Side 2]
Q: We're talking about grade school memories, and we're talking about typical
order of a school day. We've mentioned that Friday there was a spelling bee, but
we'll elaborate on that for just a moment if you would.
LAIRD: On Friday afternoons we always had a spelling bee, or the teacher read to
us from whatever book she chose. That was one of the nice things. We didn't have
to really recite or have studies in the afternoon on Fridays. You asked me for
one of my fondest memories. It really was a teacher, and the teacher rode a
horse. She always came by horseback. Her name was Irene Springman. She had red
hair, and she was such a wonderful person. That's one of my fondest memories.
Q: Rode a horse to school? Now, what happened to the horse during the day?
LAIRD: The horse was just tied out to a post or --I think a post. Our school was
surrounded by farms, but the farm would have a fence, and I think her horse was
tied to a fence. She lived about, I would say, about eight miles or ten from the
school.
Q: That's a long ride. In the winter also. ..
LAIRD: Yes, she always rode her horse.
Q: How about the horse on a cold winter's day?
LAIRD: I don't know. ..
Q: Out there with a blanket.
LAIRD: Of course, the horses, you know, stay out in the fields on a winter day,
so ...
Q: Well, that really was a dedicated teacher.
LAIRD: You know, there weren't a lot of jobs for people in those days, so, you
know, ...
Q: They were happy to have a teaching. ..
LAIRD: I don't know. I imagine the pay was compared to today --I would like to
know what she got, probably six hundred a year or something like that.
Q: What did you wear to school?
LAIRD: I hate to tell you this, but we always had long underwear, black
stockings, high shoes and I suppose --I remember wearing black bloomers and I
suppose a skirt and a top of some kind. I don't really remember what I wore.
Q: Was there a dress code as such?
LAIRD: No, there was no dress code. Everybody wore almost the same type of
thing.
Q: Is there anything your parents refused to let you wear to school?
LAIRD: No.
Q: Describe some of the things that you did during your play or recess period or
the games that were popular and fun.
LAIRD: Of course we played drop-the-handkerchief and London Bridge and I thought
it was called blindman's bluff but it might not have been, because no one was
blindfolded, but we'd choose sides and try to catch each other like "Here we
come, where you from?"
Q: I remember something called Annie Annie Over.
LAIRD: Yes, well, we did that too. Of course, everybody young and old and little
and big played together. We didn't have cliques or --that was one of the nice
things about having all eight grades together. Yes, the eighth graders usually
helped build the in the winter.
Q: Did you ever play pie? Remember making a big pie with a center and like eight
slices and people would run up and down and try to catch each other.
LAIRD: We never played that.
Q: Do you remember any specific songs that were taught and frequently sung at
school?
LAIRD: No, I really don't.
Q: What arts and crafts projects were done?
LAIRD: None.
Q: No cutting and pasting?
LAIRD: I don't remember any.
Q: Okay.
LAIRD: You know, when you have eight grades you don't have much time for cutting
and pasting or teacher.
Q: True. How about things for Christmas, cards for family and. ..
LAIRD: One thing we used to have --this was after I was a little older; of
course, younger children didn't have it --we had what was called a box social.
Everyone decorated a box and usually you put fried chicken and potato salad and
pie or cake, and then they had an auction. Really, the boxes were beautiful.
They were all decorated with different colored crepe paper and tinsels and so
forth, and then people would bid on the -- whoever got your box, that's who you
ate your supper with. Then at Christmas we had a play and the teacher always at
Christmas gave us this little box of candy that was either like a little church
or a little house and an orange. That was our Christmas treat from the teacher.
Q: Okay, Christmas play, box shaped like a building with candy.
LAIRD: With candy in it and an orange. Of course, living in the country and far
from town, you didn't see too many oranges, so it was a real treat.
Q: I'll bet it was, back in those days. An orange was a real treat, was a
wonderful treat.
LAIRD: Especially if you lived in the country. I'm sure city people had
oranges...
Q: But out in the country it was a little harder to do.
LAIRD: We had apples and turnips and so forth. They were buried in the ground,
and then you just went out and opened the little hole and got your.. .
Q: Like a fruit cellar. How would you answer, "1 will never forget the day at
Buckeye
School
when. .."? Shall we come back to that? We'll think about that a little bit.
LAIRD: I can't think of it.
Q: Something special.
LAIRD: I can't get anything special.
Q: Then we'll ask what did you do after school in the way of chores or play or
work?
LAIRD: When I was old enough, why, we had wood, so it was always my job to carry
wood for the house. As I got older, then I had to milk the cow, which I learned
--I went to visit my sister, who lived with my grandmother, and I learned to
milk the cow, which was unfortunate because then I had to milk the cow.
Q: Just one cow?
LAIRD: One cow.
Q: That was for the -.
LAIRD: I only lived with my aunt and uncle.
Q: And that was kind of the household supply.
LAIRD: Yes, that was our milk, and we had a well and no refrigeration of course,
so the milk and the cream and the butter was put into a bucket and hung in the
well.
Q: Where did children hang out, so to speak, in their free time?
LAIRD: We didn't hang out.
Q: You didn't hang out.
LAIRD: No.
Q: Did you have neighbor children to play with?
LAIRD: Yes, I had my cousins. I remember one time of course we had horses. You
know, you could ride horses, and we had a stream. We used to play in the stream,
and one time we were going over to a barn and we threw the bridle and it didn't
cross the creek and it fell in the creek and we were really panicky, but we
finally got it out.
Q: What school did you attend for junior high? Well, the junior high was your
Buckeye School and was not a junior high.
LAIRD: No junior high, all grades.
Q: And the high school then was. ..
LAIRD: Evanston High.
Q: Do you have any special memories from Evanston High?
LAIRD: No, not really.
Q: Do you remember the clothes that you wore at Evanston?
LAIRD: One thing I wore was a middy blouse and skirt with a tie that was tied in
like a sailor's knot. Did you ever wear that?
Q: No, I do remember them, seeing pictures of them, but, no, I don't think we
had anything quite that fancy.
LAIRD: Well, that wasn't fancy. It was just a white middy blouse.
Q: But it was a blouson top, sort of bloused over?
LAIRD: Yes, yes.
Q: And a black. ..
LAIRD: A black knotted tie and a skirt. There was no dress code. Of course, in
those days there weren't slacks for people. I mean, girls didn't wear slacks. I
don't even remember that boys wore blue jeans. I don't think blue jeans were
here then.
Q: I think they had woolen or corduroy pants, did they not, usually?
LAIRD: Yes, probably.
Q: And usually they were above high-top shoes too --higher shoes that laced up
that would go up the ankle a little bit.
LAIRD: In high school I didn't wear high shoes. I think one of my earliest
memories is one thing. You would meet some of your neighbors or people that you
knew when you went downtown. Now with
Mount Prospect
so large and so many different places to shop, you just don't see anyone that
you know.
Q: Yes, downtown has really changed to quite a few areas that are called
downtown, isn't that right?
LAIRD: Yes, but I still think of downtown as the little section that's Main
Street, or rather 83, between Northwest Highway and Central Road. That's what I
call downtown when we first moved here.
Q: That little. ..
LAIRD: Just that little area.
Q: ...area. Now, is there anything that you'd like to add about living in Mount
Prospect years ago? You did talk about your neighbors.
LAIRD: Yes, and I want to say also when we lived on Wapella there was a
cornfield in back of us and we rented space and had victory gardens. Almost
everyone had one on our street, and we had an engineer who used to almost
measure every pea he put into the ground so that it would only be so far apart.
I know one time the children were playing out in the --they had com shocks, and
they thought the farmer was coming so they ran, ran and hid in someone's house
so that --but I don't know whether they were ruining the com shocks or not, but
they were afraid.
Q: Probably knocking them down.
LAIRD: Com shocks had a way of falling when you got close to them because, you
know, it just set about eight or ten of them together to make up a little shock.
Then usually around Halloween time we'd rake the leaves and sometimes we'd take
them down to a comer across from Alyse Boylon’s home and we'd have a wiener
roast. Of course, my children. ..
Q: Over the burning leaves.
LAIRD: The children all played together and had a wonderful time, and we really
didn't have to worry about locking our doors. Of course, the milkman would --if
we weren't going to be home, we'd leave him a note. He'd put our milk in the
icebox for us.
Q: Really convenient so it didn't stay out all day.
LAIRD: No, and was really wonderful.
Q: You popped the caps. If there is one thing you would want the children to
remember about the history, what would that be? Your children.
LAIRD: Well, I think mainly how really simple life was then. They rode their
bikes to school in the nice weather. My children went to Central School and that
was about eight blocks. They had to cross the railroad track. Of course, in bad
weather we pooled and mothers took different turns of picking up the children.
Q: In that respect, then
Mount Prospect
is kind of the same now as it was in the past would be certainly car pools in
the winter. Except car pools kind of.. .
LAIRD: I think now so many of the children take buses.
Q: Except how about the parochial schoolchildren?
LAIRD: I don't know about the parochial. I think bus picks the parochial
children up too. Yes, my neighbors did have little children and they were picked
up.
Q: And they were picked up at the bus also. What are the other things about
Mount Prospect that are the same as they were in the past?
LAIRD: Of course, I still feel like it's --I don't feel like it's such a big
town as it really is, I guess because I've lived here so much. We moved to
Barrington and were gone eight years. The nice thing about
Mount Prospect
is it's convenient to almost everything, and of course we had good schools, good
library.
Q: What do you think the future holds for this community?
LAIRD: I don't know that it should change too much. I hope it doesn't. I'm sure
though that as people move further out, it will become more like the city, as
all the towns do.
Q: SO you hope the population stays really right around 56,000?
LAIRD: I don't see how it can change much. Well, it can because now we're
building this big condominium or rental place. I suppose that things will be tom
down, but we don't have any space for any buildings.
Q: Well, thank you very much for consenting to be interviewed.
LAIRD: Well, I'm sorry I don't. ..
Q: I really appreciate it, Hilda.
LAIRD: You're welcome.
Q: That's a wonderful, wonderful recollections.
LAIRD: Well, not really.
Q: They're important and they're very interesting. Someone that's been here
since 1935, that's really quite a long time.
LAIRD: Yes, it is.
Q: Yes, it is, and the changes that you've seen, the things that you've
mentioned today, it's really, really, really very nice. Thank you very much.
LAIRD: You're welcome.
Name: Theodore Lams
Does MPHS have photographs: Yes
Address in MP:
Birth Date: November 11, 1905
Death Date:
Marriage
Date:
Spouse: Hildegard Lams
Children: 4 Daughters
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Theodore Lams was Mayor of Mount Prospect through a large part of the post war
boom. Lams had been a trustee from 1945 until he became Mayor in 1953. When he
was Mayor, the population more than doubled and the developed area of Mount
Prospect grew immensely.
One of the largest developments in Mount Prospect, Randhurst, started while Lams was Mayor. Although the grand opening happened the year after he left office, he was certainly involved in the development. When Randhurst was built, malls were a new idea and Randhurst was one of the largest. People came out from Chicago and all of the neighboring communities to wander around inside what was then the largest air-conditioned space in the country.
Lams may have been Mount Prospect’s most artistic Mayor. He received his Masters degree in Music and worked as a professor of Music at Northwestern University for the majority of his professional career.
He was also involved in other community organizations. He was a founder and board member of the Northwestern Suburban YMCA, one of the original organizers of North West Community Hospital, a long term member of the Mount Prospect Lions Club, and a president of the Saint Paul School Board.
Name: Christian Linnemann
Does MPHS have photographs: No
Address in MP: 1200 S. Linnemann
Birth Date: March 27, 1798
Death Date: Unknown
Marriage
Date: Unknown
Spouse: Dorothia (Kestermann) Linnemann
Born: December 28, 1802
Children:
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
The Linnemann’s were the first German Family to settle in the area that is today
Mount Prospect, arriving in 1847. They acquired 80 acres in Elk Grove Township
from the Government and took the title in 1848. Soon after arriving they worked
with the Busse Family to found a church. The two families established Saint John
Lutheran Church in 1848. The Linnemann family bequeathed thirty acres of land to
Saint John,
to help get the church started. They were influential in establishing a
traditional and very religious German community in Mount Prospect.
Name: Wilhelm Linneman
Does MPHS have photographs:
Address in MP:
Birth Date: 1837
Death Date: 1905
Marriage
Date:
Spouse: Christine Geweke 1840-1913
Children:
Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Wilhelm Linneman was the youngest son of Christian
and Dorothia Linneman, the first German Family to settle in the area that is
today Mount Prospect. They were originally from Hanover, Germany and arrived in
1847. They purchased 80 acres of farm land in Elk Grove Township from the U.S.
Government for $100 (or about $2,000 today) and took the title in 1848. Over the
years, they eventually grew this holding to 300 acres, at least 40 of which
stayed in the family until the 1970s.
Soon after arriving they worked with the Busse Family to found a church. The two
families established Saint John Lutheran Church in 1848. The Linnemann family
bequeathed thirty acres of land to Saint John, to help get the church started
and later, when the church fell on hard times, agreed to buy the land back at
market price. Christian had been trained as a carpenter in Germany and he
brought his tools and skills and used them to help build up the community.
Because Wilhelm was the youngest son, he was responsible for taking care of his
parents in their old age. However this also meant that he learned the skills of
his father and, while large piece of the family farm were given off as wedding
presents, he ran the section that stayed with the parents. He learned to make
trees into lumber for building houses with huge four person pit saws and he
learned to plane these planks into good lumber. While the youngest son would
have had a lot of responsibility, there were also advantages, such as learning
useful skills.
Wilhelm had three children; Sophie, Louis, and Anna. Both Sophie and Anna
married members of the Deeke family.
Name: Rev. Robert J. Loftus
Does MPHS have photographs: Misc. Images
Address in MP: 310 S. I-Oka (St. Raymond’s Rectory)
Birth Date: December 25, 1928
Death Date: April 27, 1996
Marriage
Date: