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UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 ILLINOIS l.^ARY 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SUWESf 
 
LITTLE 
 
 OLD 
 
 OAK PARK 
 
 1837-1902 
 
 BY 
 
 MAY ESTELLE COOK 
 
 Sketches by 
 Hannah Beye Fyfe 
 
 Privately Printed 
 1961 
 
Copyright 1961, May Estelle Cook 
 Oak Park, Illinois 
 
'mn 
 
 LI 
 
 Little Old Oak Park 
 
 I Beginnings 7 
 
 II The Chicago Fire 28 
 
 III Growth 31 
 
 IV Churches 39 
 
 V Schools 50 
 
 VI Scoville Institute 60 
 
 VII Family Life 66 
 
 VIII The "Gay Nineties" 89 
 
 IX Newspapers 101 
 
 X Politics, Civic Spirit, and 
 
 Independence 105 
 
 About the Author Ill 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/littleoldoakparkOOcook 
 
Foreword 
 
 Having just finished writing this story of Little Old Oak 
 Park, I am conscious that it is neither one of two things — 
 neither just a story of a few more or less unimportant per- 
 sonal memories, nor a definitive history of an important 
 suburb. But I have greatly enjoyed doing it, except the han- 
 dling of those enormous tomes of the vindicator and the 
 reporter. But they were worth it. My lasting gratitude to 
 Mr. St off el, the Librarian, and to the attendants in the Refer- 
 ence Room, who greatly lightened the labor, and whose 
 constant competence and kindness encouraged me to keep 
 on with my task. Also, to anyone interested in the intricate 
 task of securing our independence as a municipality, let me 
 recommend the tiny booklet, Chapters in Oak Park History, 
 by John Lewis. He was called the Father of Oak Park, be- 
 cause he was the lawyer who did most of the work on our 
 side, and his account of the proceedings is the fullest we have. 
 
 I offer this story to the good citizens of Oak Park with 
 appreciation and affection, and confidence that they will 
 preserve the excellence of our present government and the 
 beauty of our streets and homes. 
 
 MAY ESTELLE COOK 
 
"For there is no comparison between that 
 which we may lose by not trying and by not suc- 
 ceeding; since by not trying we throw away the 
 chance of an immense good, and by not succeed- 
 ing we only incur the loss of a little human labor." 
 
 Francis Bacon, Novum Organum. 
 CXIV, A.D. 1612 
 
I: 
 
 BEGINNINGS 
 
 ff*^'*&? < 
 
 The geologic foundation of Oak Park is formed by 
 three strata, the first of limestone, the second a rubber- 
 like mat of glacial drift, the third a so-called spit of sand 
 thrown up on the shore of a larger lake which preceded 
 Lake Michigan. This ridge runs diagonally from near 
 what is now the corner of Ridgeland and North Avenues 
 on the northeast, leveling out gradually until it dis- 
 appears near Madison Street and Des Plaines Avenue on 
 the southwest. In the old days it formed a perceptible 
 rise in the north and south streets of the village, referred 
 to by people who did not come from New England as 
 "the hill," and by people who lived on it as Quality Hill. 
 Now, worn down by grading and building, it has prac- 
 tically disappeared except in the southward slope of 
 
 
 
Scoville Place. The soil was adapted to the growth of oak 
 trees, which formed an almost continuous forest along 
 the crest, and gave the region its old name of Oak Ridge. 
 
 The founder of Oak Park was Joseph Kettlestrings, 
 an honest, God-fearing, hard-working Yorkshireman who 
 came to this country with his wife and small family in 
 1833. 
 
 He and his partner ran a steam sawmill on the east 
 bank of the Des Plaines River a little north of where the 
 Lake Street bridge now stands. In 1837 he bought the 
 quarter section of land bounded by the present Harlem 
 and Oak Park Avenues, the railroad and North Avenue, 
 for which he paid $1.25 an acre. The deed, now in the 
 possession of one of his great grandsons, was signed by 
 Martin Van Buren soon after he became President. The 
 home which Father Kettlestrings built on the southeast 
 corner of Harlem Avenue and Lake Street was the first 
 house in Oak Park. 
 
 He was the kind of first citizen to whom the gener- 
 ations since his time can look back with pride. To be sure 
 his personal architecture leaned to the Romanesque, but 
 no matter, since his character was equally substantial 
 and well-rounded. His thin-lipped mouth expressed de- 
 termination, and his friendly smile was enforced by his 
 cordial manner. His speech was straightforward, pithy, 
 and refreshingly old-country. One legend about him was 
 that when someone asked him if the owls bothered him 
 at night, he replied, "Oh weel, hit's the 'abit of howls to 
 'oot," which showed his tolerance of spirit as well as his 
 loyalty to his native tongue. 
 
 cS 
 
Two facts about him prove how generous and high- 
 principled he was. First, whenever he sold a lot under 
 the terms of a mortgage, if the would-be purchaser 
 proved unable to meet the payments, he took back the 
 property and returned whatever sum had been paid, less 
 interest. He tried valiantly to persuade other dealers in 
 real estate to follow the same generous method, and was 
 much saddened by his failure. Second, he never drew a 
 deed without inserting a clause which bound the pur- 
 chaser never to sell intoxicating liquor on the premises. 
 
 The Kettlestrings did not live in a wilderness, for 
 there were a few houses and a post office west of them 
 on Lake Street — then called Michigan Avenue — and 
 several homes facing the railroad. But there were Indians 
 roaming around, and rattlesnakes, about which one of 
 the daughters reminisced, "We knew not which we 
 feared most." Probably the rattlesnakes, for Mrs. Kettle- 
 strings once killed one in the kitchen. 
 
 Farmers coming from farther west with produce for 
 the Chicago market often stopped for a rest. They called 
 the place Kettlestrings' Grove, and though the Kettle- 
 strings did not keep either a tavern or a saloon, as they 
 are sometimes accused of having done, they were 
 friendly and hospitable and often kept these "worn and 
 weary pilgrims traveling from afar" for a meal or over 
 night. Perhaps, considering the difficulty of digging good 
 wells, they may have drunk a little beer. 
 
 There was no road to what was then usually called 
 Fort Dearborn except a rough track along the oak ridge 
 to the crest near North Avenue, where it dropped to the 
 
 
 <r 4n? 
 
 «*■- ^u,~ 
 
prairie. Often in winter the trail was lost, and drivers 
 took their line across the flats to a giant pine tree not too 
 far from the Fort. If overtaken by darkness on their 
 return, they cited a star to the westward and like mari- 
 ners steered their course by that. During the summer the 
 road was a dark thread across a sea of pussy-tail grass 
 and tall wild sunflowers, and spring and fall it was a 
 trench of mud through which horses tugged and plunged. 
 Often the whole prairie was under water, looking like an 
 arm of the lake. At best, the journey from Kettlestrings' 
 Grove to the market in Chicago was likely to take a 
 whole day. 
 
 But Mr. Kettlestrings' faith in his property as "the 
 first dry land west of Chicago" was justified. In 1848 
 the Galena and Chicago Railroad, the first to run west 
 of Chicago, laid its track through Oak Ridge, located a 
 station just west of Harlem Avenue and named it Harlem. 
 There were two freight trains a day, one east and one 
 west, each tailed by a caboose. The story is that Mr. 
 James Scoville was often the only passenger to enjoy the 
 caboose for the hour's ride each way. In 1864 the Chi- 
 cago and North Western bought the road and increased 
 the service. 
 
 No census was taken in those days, but the popula- 
 tion was probably about two hundred by 1870. 
 
 In 1870 five or six houses had been built on the west 
 side of Oak Park Avenue between Lake Street and Chi- 
 cago Avenue, and three or four on the east side. There 
 
 the: 
 
 -<SAL£-HOU5£ 
 
was no Euclid Avenue, but three houses faced south on 
 what is now Superior Street. Just beyond them was the 
 lift in the terrain which stretched to the crest of the 
 ridge at North Avenue, and to the southeast nothing but 
 prairie to an indistinct group of trees which marked the 
 location of Austin. The small frame house at the corner 
 of Oak Park Avenue and Superior Street was the home 
 of the Hemingways, where the grandparents of Ernest 
 Hemingway lived and where his father was born. On 
 the northwest corner of Lake and Oak Park was the large 
 white frame house where the Scovilles lived until they 
 built their more elaborate residence in the 1870s. 
 
 The Scoville property stretched westward on Lake 
 Street, with a flourishing apple orchard where the Sco- 
 ville Institute and the Congregational Church now stand. 
 Beyond that was the Gale house, built in 1867 in the 
 style of an English manor house and still, at least in 
 design, the most beautiful house in town. It pays the 
 passer-by to stand for a moment just beyond the house 
 and look among the trees and shrubs. One of the oldest 
 inhabitants was asked the other day if there was a 
 gazebo in Oak Park. She answered no, although she was 
 not sure what a gazebo was. The questioner then took 
 her for a ride down Lake Street and pointed out a small 
 weather-beaten structure "half hidden from the eye," 
 
and said, "There it is! You should learn to appreciate it 
 before it tumbles down with age!" The old inhabitant 
 replied, "But that's just the Gales's summer house!" So 
 it was, but it is still there. The Gale boys — there were 
 seven of them — used it as a storehouse for balls and bats 
 and things, not knowing, any more than the rest of the 
 town, that it was a gazebo, a perfect little work of art 
 worth preserving for its beauty as well as its antiquity. 
 
 To the west of the gazebo stood a few frame houses; 
 and then on the corner across Forest Avenue was the 
 little white New Englandy-lobking building, erected in 
 1855 on a lot loaned to the town by Mr. Kettlestrings, 
 which was called "the mother of churches." It served 
 first as a schoolhouse, and soon afterward as a Sunday 
 School and then also for religious services conducted at 
 first by the schoolteacher or other layman.* 
 
 Next was the Austin house facing Lake Street, built 
 in 1860 and now the oldest house in Oak Park. With its 
 six acres of front yard, garden, and woodland it was 
 enclosed with a carefully designed rustic fence of inter- 
 woven branches of trees grown on the place. From there 
 to Harlem Avenue stood a number of frame buildings 
 with stores on the first floor and living quarters on the 
 second. At the corner of Harlem Avenue facing the site 
 of the original Kettlestrings' home was Steiner's General 
 Store, the only mart in the town for dry goods. Mrs. 
 
 * Later it became known as Temperance Hall. 
 
 
 TheL /Austin HcjUg<e>- 
 
Steiner often sat on the front porch of it, knitting, but 
 keeping a keen eye out for customers. 
 
 The second home of the Kettlestrings stood on the 
 south side of Lake Street about opposite the memorial 
 tablet to Father Joseph now at the southwest corner of 
 Scoville Place. (And the bronze relief doesn't look in the 
 least like him. ) The Kettlestrings had moved to Chicago 
 in 1843 and lived there for twelve years in order to edu- 
 cate their children. When they returned to their "farm," 
 they built this comfortably large home which was later 
 moved to a lot now occupied by the Girls' Gymnasium 
 of the High School. No one seems to have thought of 
 keeping it as a home for a historical society. 
 
 To the west of it on the south side of Lake Street 
 were several medium-sized houses. Where the Lowell 
 School now stands, but farther back on the lot, was the 
 Milwaukee brick* school which for many years was the 
 Central School. It was a two-story thin building, long 
 east and west and only one room deep north and south, 
 with an impressive belfry, and a stone tablet over the 
 front door on which were carved the words, Oak Ridge 
 School District No. 1, Cicero A.D. 1859 — a substantial 
 piece of the past now carefully stored in the Board of 
 Education Office. 
 
 To the west of the school on the south side of Lake 
 Street were a few more two-story frame buildings, stores 
 below and dwellings above. These, with a very few more 
 farther south on what is now Maple Avenue, made up 
 the village in 1870. 
 
 *A good quality red brick made in Milwaukee. 
 
 13 
 
In that primitive era life was notable, from the 
 modern point of view, for what it did not have : no water 
 system or sewers, no pavements, board sidewalks if any, 
 no electricity or gas, no telephones, no policemen or 
 free deliveries, no public transportation except the 
 railroad. 
 
 The question of drainage was especially annoying. 
 Visitors were always calling the attention of the inhabi- 
 tants to their geographical distinction of living on the 
 Great Divide, meaning that water from one side of the 
 ridge flowed east to the lake, and so to the St. Lawrence, 
 and on the other side to the Des Plaines and Illinois and 
 Mississippi rivers. But people who lived on top of the 
 ridge had water in their basements just the same, be- 
 cause there was no power to start the water flowing 
 either way. There were a few open ditches on town lines 
 and on some of the streets that were supposed to drain 
 into a semiliquid conglomerate somewhere to the south- 
 east called Mud Lake, but the system was not effective 
 because it too often went into reverse. 
 
 All the houses except the Gales's and perhaps two 
 or three others were frame, for lumber was plentiful and 
 cheap. They varied in size from very small to fairly large 
 and in style from upright with an ell, which was the pre- 
 vailing type, to the full front square or oblong pattern 
 with a wide front porch. Roofs were invariably pointed, 
 out of respect to the tremendous snow storms which were 
 then the fashion. Most of the houses were painted white 
 
 r/?eY' Shaped House, wiih AMit'iorf/' 
 
and had green blinds, true to the New England tradition. 
 Inside, the norm was a parlor, dining room, and kitchen, 
 with perhaps one bedroom on the first floor, and as many 
 bedrooms on the second floor as the size of the family 
 required. The inside finish was in many cases hardwood, 
 the cause of many tears of farewell if in later years the 
 old house had to be torn down. 
 
 Yards were large, for in those days land was usually 
 sold by the acre or half acre, not by the foot. Fences were 
 the rule, picket in front, unpainted stringboard in the 
 back. Most lots were more or less wooded, unless the 
 owner preferred to clear his land for a vegetable garden. 
 Somewhere near the house in summer there were sure to 
 be flowers, for the women took great pride in raising 
 Prairie Queen or Hundred Leaved roses from slips care- 
 fully imported from grandmother's garden "down East," 
 and "pinies" from bulbs with a lineage, or clove pinks 
 from seeds ordered from Vicks's. 
 
 In the back yard there was sure to be a barn, for 
 the railway station was so far from most of the homes 
 that a horse and buggy were almost a necessity. A pump 
 testified to a well, for the days of the more picturesque 
 well-sweep were past. There was a cistern somewhere, 
 too, but the pump for that was in the kitchen, delivering 
 into the sink. On the street in front of this estate there 
 might or might not be a sidewalk; if there was one, it 
 was of planks sawed in even lengths and laid side by 
 side across stringers. 
 
 
It is easy to see that in these very early days Oak 
 Ridge was a little country village, not a city suburb. 
 Each homestead was an independent domain, complete 
 with a limited completeness that satisfied the owners. 
 True, that satisfaction was conducive to a moat-and- 
 drawbridge type of mind, but it was also conducive to 
 the "rugged individualism" for which much is to be said. 
 
 In the primitive village the chief counterinfluence 
 to this self-centered satisfaction came from the little 
 white church on the northwest corner of Lake and Forest. 
 In 1855 Father Kettlestrings granted the use of the land 
 for a school and public meetings. Money was contributed 
 for the building, and the first school between what is 
 now River Forest and the city was established. Soon the 
 two rooms were used for a Sunday School, and a little 
 later Sunday morning services were held for the parents 
 of the children, at which the schoolteacher or some other 
 layman read a sermon. 
 
 In 1863 thirteen of these people, the Scovilles, Dun- 
 lops, Herricks, and seven others, signed a pact promising 
 to meet regularly on Sunday mornings and hire a minis- 
 ter to preach. The Kettlestrings and Austins had already 
 joined the Oak Ridge Ecclesiastical Society and did not 
 sign, but from the first they cooperated with the infant 
 organization. Representatives of several churches in the 
 city were invited to the inaugural services; but as only 
 the Congregationalists responded, and as the conduct of 
 
 >°xJZ«L* 
 
 Side walKS- 
 
affairs was entirely in the charge of the members, it was 
 rather taken for granted — at least by the Congregation- 
 alists — that the organization was Congregational. Ac- 
 cording to this belief, the statement that the Congrega- 
 tional Sunday School is the oldest religious organization 
 in Oak Park is correct. 
 
 At first, the preacher was a student from the Con- 
 gregational Theological Seminary in Chicago, whose 
 compensation was traveling expenses and board while 
 he was in the village. Even for that meager compensation 
 a devoted young theolog came regularly for some time. 
 Then for several years a more mature preacher was se- 
 cured for a small salary and the church began to function 
 prominently in the community. 
 
 At best the place was dreary to look at and hard on 
 the muscles : one large bare room with a plain desk at the 
 far end, rows of movable hard wooden chairs set in few 
 or many rows as occasion demanded, and a big black 
 coal stove near the entrance. That arrangement made 
 the back seats most desirable in winter, and at other 
 times lowered the spirits of the minister by rows of 
 empty seats in front of him. At least, the plain glass 
 windows were probably clean because the women were 
 too good housekeepers to allow any lack of cleanliness 
 to blur their godliness. There was no color anywhere 
 except in summer when some benevolent lady brought 
 a bouquet from her garden for the so-called pulpit. The 
 proper garb for both men and women on Sunday was 
 black, and the only relief from the gloom was Paisley 
 shawls worn spring and fall. For music in the first few 
 
 17 
 
years Dora Kettlestrings used her tuning fork to set the 
 pitch and led the congregation in singing the good old 
 hymns such as "Rock of Ages," "From Greenland's Icy 
 Mountains," and "Just As I Am." 
 
 But fortunately it wasn't long before the Blackmers 
 arrived and gave a great lift to the music. In some way a 
 parlor organ was secured, which Mrs. Blackmer played, 
 pumping with her feet while she sang a clear full soprano. 
 Mr. Blackmer stood beside her and led the singing with 
 musical knowledge and authority. Their two little boys 
 sat on front seats and opened their mouths wide, doing 
 their utmost with their high childish voices to help with 
 the hymns. Under this leadership the singing of the small 
 congregation became quite notable for its excellence. 
 
 Besides being precentor in the church, for many 
 years Mr. Blackmer had a singing school at which he 
 taught a surprisingly large number of people to sing by 
 note. For that service we undoubtedly owe him much 
 credit for the fact that music holds an unusual dominance 
 in the cultural life of the village. 
 
 In contrast with the many advantages the early set- 
 tlers did not have, they had several precious possessions 
 that are gone and irreplaceable. One was quiet . At night 
 there were almost no sounds except the playing of wind 
 in the trees, or the eery " 'ooting of howls." In the day- 
 time there were few startling sounds except the whistle 
 of the few trains and the ringing of the school bell, and 
 both of them had meaning. There were three trains each 
 way daily. The 6:15 was called the Worky and for many 
 citizens was the rising bell. The 7:15, called the Clerky, 
 
 18 
 
was the breakfast bell, and the 8:15, called the Shirky, 
 said to nearly all families that father was safely on his 
 way to the city. Coming home, the trains were not so 
 regularly spaced; but the earliest, about four o'clock, 
 whistled, perhaps, that mother was on her way home 
 from shopping in the city, and the two later ones that 
 supper must soon be ready for father. Besides these reg- 
 ular whistles there were occasional prolonged shrieks 
 from freight trains, which only made the ensuing quiet 
 more welcome. 
 
 Another joy of living, too little appreciated at the 
 time, was the oak trees. There were few if any elms, and 
 consequently the early settlers did not have the superb 
 cathedral-like arching above streets which we moderns 
 thrill to. But though the oaks did not remind us of 
 cathedrals, they were our friends, intimately known to 
 us in our own yards. Most royal of them were the black 
 oaks,* tall, straight, slender, aristocrats of the entire 
 Quercus family, whose leaves in the fall turned a rich 
 dark wine color. On the edges of the ridge, where the 
 ground was moister, the giant swamp and bur oaks 
 thrived, stockier and more robust than their taller rela- 
 tives, and more tenacious, often keeping their rumpled 
 brown leaves until spring buds pushed them off. One of 
 these aborigines stood in the yard of a Frank Lloyd 
 Wright house on Forest Avenue until quite recently, 
 when after years of pruning and cementing, propping 
 
 * Three good specimens of black oak may still be seen in the 
 garden at 322 North Kenilworth Avenue. 
 
 19 
 
-NiT 
 
 and chaining, and general petting, it was chopped down 
 and ignominiously carted away in big logs. There should 
 have been a funeral for it, but there wasn't. There were 
 various other varieties, a few specimens of which still 
 survive to drop their leaves, each a perfect little work of 
 art, on our sidewalks. In the old days the leaves fell in 
 showers on the grounds and walks, a carpet of soft tans 
 and browns and dark reds, delightful to the eye and 
 hilarious to scuffle through. 
 
 In the spring wild flowers grew in many yards as 
 abundantly as they do now in the forest preserves,— 
 spring beauties, anemones, the little red trilliums, dog- 
 tooth violets which were not violets at all but tiny lilies, 
 Jacob's-ladders, jack-in-the-pulpits, and May apples, 
 hiding their luscious white blossoms under their big um- 
 brella-like leaves. 
 
 More rarely there were hepaticas and Dutchman's- 
 breeches — the daintiest flower that ever bore such an 
 ugly name — and violets both blue and yellow, though 
 they were likely to be more abundant where there was 
 less shade, or perhaps richer soil. On the prairies outside 
 the town, where the adventurer often traveled, especially 
 on Sunday afternoons, there were great fields of pink 
 phlox, with tiny wild orchids and shooting stars scat- 
 tered between. And for the really rash wanderer who 
 dared the banks of the Des Plaines, there were great 
 stretches of the loveliest flower of all, the Mertensia, com- 
 monly called bluebells, fewer now in the forest preserves 
 and more abundant in the Morton Arboretum. 
 
 The woods, including the trees in one's own yard, 
 
 
 fiS&^jte^S- 
 
 V,i 
 
gave shelter to the greatest delight of all to those who 
 had ears to hear as well as eyes to see; namely, birds. 
 The abundance and beauty of them were quite beyond 
 words to tell. Except nightingales, we had most of the 
 birds that the English poets have sung about for ages, 
 and many others besides. There were brown thrashers, 
 with their bright chestnut suits and dashed vests, who 
 sang all day long regardless of weather — though they 
 preferred sunshine — not caring whether anyone listened 
 or not. The smaller and shyer veeries preferred to sound 
 their sweet, high notes when they thought no one was 
 listening, and the wood thrushes sang their vespers far 
 away in the hush to twilight. 
 
 The rose-breasted grosbeaks and their evening 
 cousins trilled high in the topmost branches and the 
 orioles swung on the outer branches, pouring out carols 
 and madrigals. The scarlet tanagers, though they didn't 
 exactly sing, added notes of gorgeous color to the con- 
 cert, as did the red-headed woodpeckers with the most 
 dramatic color scheme of all, black wings with a streak 
 of white across their bodies and their flaming red heads. 
 Then there were wild canaries, whitethroats, and cat- 
 birds who, besides imitating a cat's mew to perfection, 
 could sing like a mockingbird when they wanted to; and 
 they often wanted to on a bright moonlight night. The 
 birds everyone loved most of all were the bluebirds "who 
 carried the sky on their wings and the earth on their 
 breasts." They preferred a fence post in your garden, if 
 you had one handy, to make their nests in, and would 
 sit on the top of the post and sing to you in a perfectly 
 
 21 
 
understanding and friendly way while you puttered in 
 the flower beds. 
 
 On the prairies were meadowlarks and red-winged 
 blackbirds. And during the spring migrating days the 
 flitting little warblers sang their brief phrases of song, 
 quite unconscious of the despair they caused opera-glass- 
 carrying human beings since they never stayed still 
 long enough to be identified. Wrens, who sing their 
 songs not twice over but ten or fifteen times a minute, 
 had enough confidence in people to accept the small 
 houses hung out for them and spend the summer. Robins 
 and blue jays were not so omnipresent as they are now, 
 but were cheerful, noisy, and inhospitable to other birds. 
 
 Thanks be, there were few English sparrows and no 
 starlings! There were no cardinals at first, either, but to 
 our joy they came later. Ornithologists tell us they were 
 so late in coming to this region because the winters were 
 too severe for them, even up to the 1870's. Why, with 
 all our ingenuity and our love of music have we not 
 devised some way of keeping with us generations of 
 these embodiments of beauty and song? They did not 
 disappear all at once, but little by little; except in the 
 brief periods of their migrations, they have been driven 
 away by the heedless pressures of modern life. 
 
 As we have already noticed, life in this small coun- 
 try town was conducive to the development of "rugged 
 individualism." One of the individuals was Mr. Grouch, 
 
who could always be depended on to turn sugar into 
 vinegar. Mr. O. W. Herrick, the recognized wit of the 
 village, acted as chemist for the daily experiment, while 
 the other men in the group who waited at the station 
 for the 8:15 train listened in. One lovely October morn- 
 ing Mr. Herrick refused to bait the victim because he 
 thought no one could be disgruntled on such a day. But 
 the conspirators insisted; so he slapped Mr. Grouch on 
 the shoulder with a friendly "Isn't this a lovely day?" 
 Mr. Grouch turned on him and growled, "It's an awful 
 weather breeder!" 
 
 Then there was Mrs. Common Sense, who lived in 
 an unusually fine house on Lake Street and did more for 
 the poor than anyone else in the village. She had a habit 
 of looking at you through her round owlish spectacles 
 and telling you what she thought of everyone, including 
 yourself. One morning after the men had gone to town 
 her neighbor's house caught fire and the neighbor ran 
 out screaming and wringing her hands. Mrs. Common 
 Sense grabbed her fire extinguisher, ran over, snatched 
 the man's red flannel undies from the clothesline, pulled 
 them on, sprinted up the stairs, out the attic window, 
 and put out the fire. When her neighbor tried to thank 
 her, her reply was, "Golly, why didn't you do it yourself 
 and save me the trouble?" 
 
 Then there was Dr. Gray, editor of The Interior, 
 who wore an overcoat in winter made of the pelt of a 
 grizzly bear. He was big and shaggy himself; so no won- 
 der children were afraid of him. But in disposition he 
 was really a sheep in wolfs clothing, spoke with a lisp, 
 
 23 
 
was afraid of his own children, and had the kindest 
 heart in the world. 
 
 There was also a fine-looking young man, son of a 
 prominent family, who though a little lacking in certain 
 ways, had a great love of trees. He used to march up and 
 down the streets, swinging his cane and shouting at the 
 top of his voice, "Woodman, spare that tree!" The woman 
 who was the most dreaded caller in town was the person 
 who had had all the known diseases. No matter how 
 desperately ill anyone else had been with some disease, 
 she had suffered longer and been nearer death's door 
 with it than anyone else. But probably on the whole our 
 small town didn't have queerer people in it than other 
 small towns. 
 
 On the other hand, we had our share or more of 
 unusually fine people. Next to Father Kettlestrings there 
 was no question that Mr. James Scoville was our out- 
 standing citizen. The story of his coming here has been 
 told many times, but it is good enough to bear repeating. 
 A native of Connecticut, he had spent most of his boy- 
 hood in New York State. He had worked his way through 
 Manlius Academy, and almost entirely self-taught, had 
 learned surveying. After school his first job was overseer 
 of a gang of workers on the Erie Canal. 
 
 After saving enough money, he came to Chicago on 
 his way to Beloit College, where he had heard much 
 learning could be had for little money. On a fine October 
 morning he started to walk the hundred miles to Beloit. 
 By noon he had come to a ridge at the top of which 
 stood a grand old oak. Under it he sat down to rest and 
 
 24 
 
eat his lunch. Refreshed, he went on his way, whether 
 to trudge all of the remaining miles or to receive some 
 friendly lifts, the story fails to tell. During the months he 
 spent at the college he did not forget the oak tree, nor 
 the quiet beauty of the surroundings. Not long after he 
 returned to New York State, he was able to marry the 
 one girl in the world, and to come back to Chicago and 
 find employment. 
 
 In 1857 he bought the large lot at the corner of 
 Oak Park Avenue and Lake Street, on which the well- 
 remembered oak stood, and built what was then con- 
 sidered a rather fine house on the spot where the monu- 
 ment* now stands. His integrity, industry, and sound 
 business judgment had already laid the foundations of 
 the wealth, part of which, from the first, he used to the 
 advantage of the community. It is a great pity that Oak 
 Parkers of today could not have known him. 
 
 Perhaps he was a little too well groomed when he 
 was out at six o'clock in the morning directing workmen 
 when other people were just getting up. Perhaps too his 
 quiet manner gave people the impression that he was 
 stiff and unapproachable. Quite possibly the heroically 
 elongated portrait of him on the second floor of Scoville 
 Institute enforced that false opinion. On the contrary, 
 he was a very delightful person with a friendly feeling 
 toward people and a sense of humor that saved him from 
 conceit and stuffiness. Besides, he had a genuine love of 
 
 *The World War I memorial in the present Scoville Place. 
 
 £^^=i 
 
 v&*?& 
 
 O 
 
learning and of literature which gave him a stimulating 
 breadth of mind. Many mornings he would entertain the 
 commuters at the station by reciting line after line of 
 the "Lady of the Lake" or other classics in a half-humor- 
 ous way which showed his consciousness that his audi- 
 ence considered it queer for a businessman to know so 
 much poetry. 
 
 Mr. H. W. Austin was another benevolent citizen 
 with the good of the community much at heart. His es- 
 pecial concern was to banish intoxicating liquors from 
 the town. By strenuous efforts he and his supporters had 
 rendered the traffic in them illegal, and had driven out 
 the saloons, all but one. That one saloonkeeper had man- 
 aged by trickery to keep his place running. One day Mr. 
 Austin called upon him suddenly and asked him how 
 much he would take for his place, contents and all. The 
 man named an unreasonably high figure. Thereupon Mr. 
 Austin put his hand in his pocket, counted out the re- 
 quired sum, handed it over, and said, "This place is now 
 mine." With his own hands he began taking bottles from 
 the shelves and pouring the liquor into the street. Fore- 
 warned help was at hand and the place was soon 
 cleaned up. 
 
 But the story didn't end with that dramatic inci- 
 dent, for it was another case in which eternal vigilance 
 is the price of success. Fortunately Mr. Austin and his 
 supporters supplied the vigilance, and there have been 
 no saloons in Oak Park since. By their efforts a law was 
 passed in 1872 forbidding saloons in this area. A much- 
 quoted story is that a stranger coming from the city and 
 
 26 
 
asking how he should know when he got to Oak Park 
 was told: "When you get where the saloons stop and the 
 churches begin, you will know that you are there." 
 
 There were many other good citizens whose contri- 
 butions to the village life were less conspicuous than 
 those of Mr. Scoville and Mr. Austin, but whose integrity 
 and interest and benevolence helped immeasurably in 
 establishing an unusually peaceful and contented com- 
 munity. In spite of the tendency to individualism in the 
 community, there were many kindly neighborly habits 
 which showed that Christian spirit was not wholly lack- 
 ing. If anyone was ill, except with a contagious disease, 
 the neighbors went to call. Usually a woman would take 
 a mince pie or a jelly roll or a chocolate cake or a fresh 
 gingerbread or something else very good, but more in- 
 dicative of good will than of a knowledge of dietetics. 
 In cases of real catastrophe there was an outpouring of 
 sympathy and practical help. Neighbors often became 
 intimate friends and greatly enriched each others' lives. 
 
 And then upon this peaceful contented life fell the 
 great catastrophe. 
 
II 
 
 THE CHICAGO FIRE 
 
 Upon this peaceful community and the other sub- 
 urbs and Chicago fell suddenly the horror of the Chicago 
 Fire. No one can ever tell the whole story of it. All any 
 witness of it can do is to tell his own story with whatever 
 truth and vividness he can muster. As a child of six I was 
 terrified, confused, and angry because I could not under- 
 stand what was happening. 
 
 Our doorbell rang furiously at two o'clock the morn- 
 ing of October 9, 1871, startling everyone wide awake. 
 My father came to my room to say that there was a fire 
 in the city, and that his bookkeeper had come with a 
 horse and buggy to take him to the office. Then he was 
 gone. The office was on the second floor at the corner 
 
 28 
 
of Madison and State, where Carson's now is. We had 
 no idea of the extent of the fire, but only a vague sense 
 of danger and disaster. The entire dome of the sky was 
 a lurid red, deeper and more restless to the east. Had the 
 end of the world come? Later, we learned that many 
 people thought so. 
 
 At that early hour the town was deathly silent as 
 each family woke to meet the desperate news in its own 
 way. So far as I can remember there was no general 
 alarm, no ringing of bells or blowing of whistles, or 
 gathering of people. At our house someone thought to 
 bring yesterday's newspaper to the front porch; and we 
 found that we could read it, fine print and all, from the 
 light in the sky. As daylight came, that threatening 
 blanket of livid red came nearer and looked as if it might 
 fall on us. Part of the awfulness of that morning and the 
 long hours of the day that followed was that there was 
 nothing to do. The time was full of nothing but fear — 
 and waiting. Hour after hour my father didn't come, and 
 didn't come, and didn't come. It would not be true to 
 say that I grew up in that day, but I did learn what 
 grown-up people meant when they talked about anxiety. 
 
 Finally, toward evening, my father came, tired, 
 heartsick, with patches of his eyebrows and beard singed, 
 and small holes burned in his coat. They had been too 
 late to reach the office from the west, for the fire had 
 already jumped the river. So they had skirted it to the 
 north, edged through the crowd of people fleeing the 
 fire along the northbound streets, and made their way 
 along the lake as far south as Madison Street and there 
 
 29 
 
turned west. What they did with the horse and buggy I 
 have forgotten. But they soon had to give up; again they 
 were too late, for sparks were falling like rain, and get- 
 ting bigger and bigger. So they somehow recovered their 
 conveyance, joined the procession of the dispossessed as 
 far as Chicago Avenue, and dragged slowly home. 
 
 For the details of his story we had to wait until the 
 next day, but no matter! The dread and the fear of the 
 fire were over for us because he was at home, safe. I've 
 forgotten how many days it was before he could return 
 to the ruins of his office and find his safe in the rubble 
 of the cellar. Unexpectedly the combination worked, and 
 for a moment he hoped the account books were un- 
 harmed. But when he opened the door, there was a great 
 puff of dust in his face, and that was all. I found after- 
 ward among some old papers the final telegram he sent 
 to headquarters in New York: "Everything lost." He had 
 asked to have it sent back to him, and had kept it as a 
 sorry souvenir. 
 
 Nearly every family in Oak Park suffered great 
 financial loss in the Fire, but I never heard of any man 
 who lost his life trying to save his business. There was 
 an immediate rush to rent buildings on the West or 
 Near North Side for temporary quarters. Anything would 
 do — houses, barns, saloons, freight cars, anything with 
 a roof, even if it leaked. But the rate of recovery, as ev- 
 ery Chicagoan and suburbanite knows, was phenomenal. 
 
 30 
 
Ill 
 
 GROWTH 
 
 THE 
 WATER W6RKS- 
 
 " 1 f :t 
 
 After the Chicago Fire many families moved to the 
 suburbs. Some of them felt they would be safer in the 
 country; others wanted to get away from the harsh winds 
 of the lake. In the twenty years between 1870 and 1890 
 Oak Park gradually changed from an obscure country 
 town to a thriving suburb. Statistics are not accurate for 
 the early years; but, averaging the guesses, the popula- 
 tion was about two hundred in 1870, was doubled or 
 
 31 
 
more in the year after the Fire, and is given as 4,589 in 
 1890 in the school census, which is supposed to be accu- 
 rate. New homes were built, some of them large and 
 fine; and many of the original houses were torn down or 
 moved back on the lot to make room for a larger and 
 more pretentious front. The Post Office, which had been 
 located in two or three different places west of Harlem 
 Avenue, was moved in 1872 to a grocery store — the tra- 
 ditional home of post offices — to two doors west of the 
 Austin place, and officially named Oak Park. 
 
 There had been something of a feud between the 
 people who lived west of Harlem Avenue near the orig- 
 inal railway station and Oak Parkers about having the 
 station moved farther east. A court suit was pending; so 
 a group of Oak Parkers, whose names history has failed 
 to record, had an amicable interview with railway offi- 
 cials, and it was decided that the easiest way was the 
 best way. In the dark of the early morning of Easter 
 Sunday, 1872, the little station slid along the tracks to 
 just east of Marion Street, and daylight showed the new 
 sign on it: Oak Park. Of course the question was asked, 
 "Who did it?" The answer was, "The railroad." There 
 was grumbling to the west, but nothing more was done 
 about it. So between the Post Office and the Railway 
 Station the name Oak Ridge was dropped except as a 
 reminiscence, and Oak Park became the official name. 
 
In the early 70s a blacksmith shop appeared some- 
 where near Harlem Avenue, which although it lacked 
 the spreading chestnut tree was a great boon to the 
 faithful nags that plodded back and forth from homes 
 to stores, station, and school. Those nags were rare per- 
 sonalities, treated by their owners very much as mem- 
 bers of the family. They were often allowed to roam at 
 will around their home yards, looking in at the windows 
 as if wishing to be allowed inside, or cropping the grass 
 of lawns not too carefully mowed. 
 
 Three of them especially became well known to 
 commuters on the 8:15 train. Prince lived on Superior 
 Street just east of Oak Park Avenue, Polly a little farther 
 south on the Avenue, and Charlie still farther south. 
 Their order of starting to the train was in reverse to 
 their distance from the station: Prince first, Polly second, 
 Charlie third, and they apparently became addicted to 
 that order. 
 
 But sometimes their masters were careless, and up- 
 set the ritual. For all three that was like the sound of a 
 trumpet to an old war horse. Polly was furious if she 
 found herself following Charlie instead of Prince, and 
 started out on a run to punish him by beating him to the 
 station. Charlie was older than Polly, but had kept his 
 spirit, and the race was neck-to-neck. Prince, younger 
 than either but lazy, woke up and caught up. Other 
 commuters along the way, either in buggies or on the 
 sidewalk, acted as excited as if they had stakes in the 
 race, and shouted and waved their hats, each for his 
 favorite. Hazards were high because the streets were 
 
 33 
 
narrow. But by some providential protection, or because 
 horse sense really won the race, there were never any 
 casualties. And marvelous to relate, the three winners 
 usually arrived at the station in the proper order: Prince 
 first, Polly second, and Charlie third. Then the train 
 came, the excitement cooled down, and the day settled 
 into its usual routine. 
 
 In the '70s some very fine houses were built, at 
 least fine in that they were large and comfortable, but 
 from the modern point of view quite too ornate. The 
 new Scoville house, where the monument now stands in 
 Scoville Place, was the most imposing and the finest. 
 The woodwork in that house and in the Institute was 
 marvelous; for Mr. Scoville had his own woodworking 
 shop, and no door or window frame or molding or any- 
 thing else came out of it that was not of the best fiber and 
 finish. Other grand houses were those of the Hurlbut 
 brothers, one at the corner of Forest and North Boule- 
 vard, which after the Hurlbuts moved to Evanston was 
 the home of the Oak Park Club, and the other at the 
 corner of Home Avenue and Pleasant Street. 
 
 The inclination of the owners to achieve elaborate- 
 ness of ornament rather than harmony of design showed 
 even more in furnishings than in architecture. Not in 
 one of the houses just mentioned but in another of the 
 same class the parlor was a quite excruciating example. 
 The carpet, which was of the finest body Brussels, had a 
 
 & ScQvi((e~ ffousc 
 
design of large oblong figures of bright red, flanked by 
 globes of equally bright yellow, which were separated 
 from their red neighbors by a green vine which bore 
 clusters of large bine grapes. The tables and frames of 
 the sofa and chairs were either mahogany or black wal- 
 nut and the upholstery — we had just escaped the era 
 of black haircloth — was green rep. 
 
 The saving grace of the room was the curtains, 
 which hung from the high ceiling to the floor and were 
 the finest French or Belgian — probably Belgian, straight 
 from Bruges — lace of a quality and beauty of pattern 
 which are no longer made. Over the mantle was a really 
 good copy of the Madonna of the Chair, with a gilded 
 frame nearly a foot wide. The other pictures were steel 
 engravings of patriotic subjects, probably Washington 
 Crossing the Delaware, the Signing of the Declaration, 
 or Franklin Drawing Lightning from the Clouds. Against 
 one wall stood a square piano, looking still, stark, and 
 lonely; the day of grand pianos or uprights had not come. 
 
 In one front window stood a yellow and brown 
 Rookwood vase containing a really beautiful maidenhair 
 fern. In the other stood a terra cotta group of Rogers 
 statuary representing Biblical characters not easy to 
 identify; circumstantial evidence was that this one was 
 Rebecca at the Well. For details, there were one or two 
 books on one table bound in tree-calf — probably this 
 one was Mother, Home, and Heaven — and on the other 
 a round glass plate beneath a bunch of white wax water 
 
 
 Lace curtains 
 
 xx*^ 
 
 I I fa >il A 
 
lilies with a glass half-globe over them. On the arms of 
 every chair were tidies of white thread crocheted by the 
 lady of the house and on the back of the chair a larger 
 antimacassar to match, for a headrest. 
 
 The room was of course not for comfort, but for 
 company. And even in those pre-Frank Lloyd Wright 
 days there were many people who realized that such an 
 incongruous assemblage of ornaments, no matter how 
 expensive, did not produce beauty. One critic called the 
 room "eye-scratching," and another, when asked what 
 style of house-decorating it represented, said it was 
 called "an uneasy combination of mid-Victorian and 
 early General Grant." 
 
 The most important addition to the facilities of the 
 town in the '70s was the installation of a water system, 
 a tremendous project undertaken by Mr. Scoville in 1878. 
 First a reservoir, commonly called the Pond, was dug 
 north of the railroad from Oak Park Avenue nearly to 
 Euclid, and then a sixty-eight-foot water tower was 
 erected where the Avenue Bank now stands, with engine- 
 house and offices east of it. For the water supply several 
 artesian wells were drilled on Mr. Scoville's vacant land 
 east of Oak Park Avenue and north of Lake Street. 
 
 The first water main was laid on Oak Park Avenue 
 in 1878, and the system gradually extended until it cov- 
 ered over half the village. Householders were not slow 
 in laying pipes to connect with the mains. Mr. Scoville 
 held possession of the system until 1888, when he sold 
 it to the Water, Light and Gas Company. It was not 
 until 1912 that it was connected with the Chicago system. 
 
 36 
 
In the early '70's a committee of citizens decided 
 that there should be police service, and hired a police- 
 man at forty-five dollars a month. There was no jail; so 
 in the rare cases when this solitary guardian caught a 
 victim, he had to convey him in whatever way he could 
 to a handcar on the railroad, tie him fast to something, 
 and himself propel the car to Austin, where if he was 
 lucky he secured help in taking the culprit to the Town 
 Hall and locking him up. No wonder there were few 
 arrests under that system! 
 
 About this time an outsider commented that "Street 
 lighting was no problem to the early residents of coun- 
 trified Oak Park. They carried lanterns at night and 
 were well pleased with a kerosene lamp on an occasional 
 lamp post." But not forever. In '84 kerosene lamps were 
 installed on wooden posts, one to a block, to be lighted 
 by the policeman, who had these orders: "Lights are to 
 burn from sunset until 1:00 a.m. except on moonlight 
 nights, or if cloudy they will be turned on." But man's 
 inhumanity to man has its limits, and by '84 a second 
 policeman was added to the force. 
 
 There was no protection against fire except a group 
 of volunteers who acted as a fire squad. When an alarm 
 was given by the violent ringing of the bell in the school- 
 house belfry, these firebugs rushed from house or store 
 to wherever the hose cart was kept, rolled it out, attached 
 it to whatever vehicle came along first — very likely a 
 milk wagon — and galloped the horse to the fire. As one 
 critic said, "They usually arrived in time to put out the 
 ashes." Strange as it seems to us now, the most frequent 
 
and dangerous in spring and fall were prairie fires on the 
 outskirts of town. One news item records that the high 
 count was eight in one day. On these the untrained 
 heroes of the Fire Department did valiant service, pre- 
 sumably by tramping them out or using spades, because 
 there seldom was a pump near by to which the hose 
 could be attached. 
 
 In the late '70's a number of east and west streets 
 were laid out, some of them named for the sons and 
 daughters of the Kettlestrings family. Chicago Avenue, 
 which was originally a cowpath by which several milk 
 suppliers ambled along to pasture, was formalized into 
 a street and for many years there was no building farther 
 north. Augusta Street was then a slough on which in 
 winter, absence of snow permitting, there was good 
 skating to the river. 
 
 One of the notable events of the '80's was that the 
 young people of the village, especially the boys, began 
 to go to college. Many of them went to Beloit or Ann 
 Arbor, a few to Williams or Amherst, and a very few to 
 Harvard or Yale or Princeton. How much their influence 
 raised the I.Q. of the village is one of the imponderables, 
 but one pleasure it brought to villagers is unforgettable. 
 Often in summer evenings when the boys were home 
 for vacation, groups of three or four or more of them 
 used to swing up and down the streets, singing college 
 songs. Older people went to sleep with the melodies of 
 "The Bull Frog on the Bank" or "Clementine" or "Juan- 
 ita" or "On Wisconsin" or "Fair Harvard" or some other 
 classic ringing in their ears. 
 
 38 
 
IV: 
 
 CHURCHES 
 
 tr, 
 
 
 *•> 
 
 "-fl****^:^ 
 
 /fC? 
 
 The most notable achievement of the '70's and '80's 
 was the building of churches. The Evangelicals, who had 
 never affiliated with the members of the little white 
 church, were the first to build their own church in 1867, 
 a small frame building north of Lake Street at the corner 
 of Ontario and Marion near where their present brick 
 structure now stands. In 1873 the Congregationalists, 
 with generous help from Mr. Scoville, built a large white 
 stone church on their present site. Soon afterward the 
 Methodists dedicated their Milwaukee brick building on 
 the northeast corner of Lake and Forest, across from 
 
 39 
 
present Lowell School. The Unitarians and Universalists 
 "combined their creeds in a statement acceptable to 
 both," and built on the west side of Wisconsin Avenue 
 south of Pleasant Street. The Baptists also went to the 
 south and erected their Milwaukee brick structure on 
 the southeast corner of Wisconsin and Pleasant, but not 
 until 1883. The Presbyterians moved to a preliminary 
 building on the south side of Lake Street even later, in 
 1886. 
 
 The Episcopalians, who for many years had main- 
 tained a small church on private property in River 
 Forest, built on Forest Avenue north of Ontario in 1883. 
 
 It is interesting to notice in passing that of these 
 seven original buildings, four were destroyed by fire — 
 two of them, the Congregationalist and Unity, by fire 
 caused by lightning. Doubtless that is the reason that 
 the location of Oak Park, which used to be marked for 
 miles around by the silhouette of spires against the sky, 
 is no longer so marked, because in the second building 
 the Gothic spires have been replaced, if at all, by Nor- 
 man towers of more solidity and less height. 
 
 The usual program for church services was nearly 
 the same in the different denominations: Sunday morn- 
 ing service at ten-thirty or eleven; Sunday School either 
 just before or just after the morning service; and Sunday 
 evening service at half past seven or eight with less 
 formal observance conducted by a lay speaker or — 
 rather seldom — professional lecturer. Either Wednesday 
 or Thursday evening there was a prayer meeting at which 
 the minister was the leader but anyone was free to speak 
 
 40 
 
or offer prayer. The deacons were likely to carry the 
 chief responsibility and speak most often. Sunday after- 
 noon or evening the young people held their own serv- 
 ice, usually in affiliation with a national organization 
 such as the Christian Endeavor or the Epworth League. 
 
 During the week there might also be committee or 
 business meetings, and occasionally there was a series of 
 revival meetings. Oak Parkers never aspired to invite 
 Moody and Sankey here, but they often went to the city 
 to attend those famous services. The memory of Sankey 
 sitting at his parlor organ playing and singing "There 
 Were Ninety and Nine That Safely Lay" in his really 
 magnificent voice was likely to persist even longer than 
 that of the impassioned pleas of Dwight L. Moody. Most 
 of the churches had occasional series of revival meetings 
 of their own, led by equally earnest but less famous 
 evangelists and often resulting in added members to the 
 church. 
 
 During all the early years churches were the centers 
 of social life. When a new family moved into the neigh- 
 borhood, the first question asked about them was : "What 
 church do they go to?" If they went to your church, you 
 called upon them at once; if to another church, you sus- 
 pended judgment. 
 
 Church socials were depended on as the regular 
 opportunities for the members to get acquainted with 
 each other. Card playing and dancing were of course 
 taboo, and conversation was not allowed to run wild. 
 Mild games were popular, especially if they could be 
 made a means of raising money; for example, charging 
 
 41 
 
five cents a guess on the height of a pole, or the number 
 of square inches in a picture, or the number of pins that 
 could be dropped in a glass of water after it had been 
 pronounced full. Refreshments were simple and mildly 
 profitable; five cents was charged for a bowl of mush 
 and milk, and ten for oyster stew. So far as records show, 
 coffee and doughnuts were taken for granted. 
 
 Almost every church had a Sunday School picnic in 
 the summer, to which every man from pastor to janitor 
 went and took his entire family. The idea of these picnics 
 was to get as far away as possible under the necessity of 
 reaching home before nightfall. They were always con- 
 sidered the high point of the year's enjoyment for the 
 Sunday School. 
 
 One year one of the churches decided to have its 
 picnic in Lake Bluff. A special attraction was that almost 
 no one had been there, and another that Lake Bluff had 
 an unusually delightful bathing beach. So everyone pre- 
 pared to go, and many families invited their neighbors 
 to go with them. The plan was to have a special train, 
 which would switch to the Milwaukee division of the 
 North Western. Accordingly, three or four carloads of 
 people, one-third adults and two-thirds children, got a 
 fairly early start, laden with large lunch baskets and 
 plentiful supplies of bathing suits and towels. Every- 
 thing was lovely as far as Chicago. There came the first 
 disappointment, because the train had lost its special 
 right of way and there was a long wait. Arrived belatedly 
 at Lake Bluff, the picnickers were disappointed again 
 because there was no convenient place for spreading out 
 
 42 
 
their lunches, least of all on the lake shore. Third and 
 most disastrous calamity, the weather turned cold. A few 
 hardened swimmers braved the waves, but they couldn't 
 conceal the blue color of their faces when they came in. 
 
 The return home was delayed because the right of 
 way was again disputed; and when the picnickers finally 
 reached Oak Park, enthusiasm for Lake Bluff was en- 
 tirely dissipated and all the children were complete 
 wrecks. One of the men who had favored the excursion 
 and helped to manage it announced when he reached 
 his happy home: "Never again! Next year we Sunday 
 School picnic in our own back yard!" Although that ex- 
 perience did not entirely wipe out the fashion of Sunday 
 School picnics, it did shorten the distance of the location 
 of them, or lead to the substitution of strawberry festi- 
 vals in and around the chirr ch. 
 
 The events of highest enjoyment in the churches 
 were the Old Peoples' Concerts, which most of them gave 
 occasionally. These festivals meant a great deal of work 
 and didn't happen every year; but everyone, especially 
 the gifted people who took part in them, felt that they 
 were worth the trouble. First of all, every participant had 
 to have a name from Puritan Days. On a long-cherished 
 program these are a few of the first names adopted, the 
 last names for the sake of identification being the per- 
 sons' own: Jonadab, Melchizedek, Sennacherib, Fearing, 
 Walkaround, Humility, Gratitude, Euphemia, Endur- 
 ance, Fancy Free. 
 
 The costumes were genuinely antique. Tucked away 
 in sea chests, cedar chests, trunks, boxes, or just closets, 
 
 43 
 
out they came. Hoop skirts, though no longer the fashion, 
 had been saved and the elaborate and nearly impossible 
 gowns that went with them. Usually they were too tight 
 in the waist, and a singer who wore one had to add a 
 sash. Men who were unimpressive in business suits be- 
 came youthful and handsome in Grand Army uniforms 
 or colonial velvet coats with lace jabots, knee pants, silk 
 hose, and buckled shoes. Powdered wigs were especially 
 becoming to bald-headed gentlemen. 
 
 The voices discovered in these festivals were often a 
 delightful surprise to the audience. To hear two of the 
 middle-aged ladies of the church singing "What Are the 
 Wild Waves Saying?" was a revelation. And when the 
 entire chorus sang "The Old Sing-ing-ing-ing School," 
 the audience rose and joined in. 
 
 Women's societies in the various denominations 
 were invariably an important part of church life and 
 were of much the same pattern. In most churches there 
 was only one; in a few the Benevolent and Missionary 
 Societies were separate organizations. In the typical 
 women's societies the programs were much the same: 
 first, a devotional service led by one of the members, 
 then a short business meeting, then the ladies brought 
 out their needles and thimbles and went to the frames 
 already set up by the work committee, some to tie com- 
 forters, others to do the fine elaborate quilting which 
 was the fashion in those days. The accompaniment to 
 that particular kind of fancywork was conversation that 
 had its uses in community life, no matter how skeptical 
 husbands were about it. News about family happenings 
 
 44 
 
was shared, choice recipes exchanged, experiences in 
 child culture compared. Gossip? That depended. 
 
 A paragraph on the general subject of gossip may 
 not be out of place here. Women are loath to admit that 
 they gossip, but most of them confess under pressure 
 that they sometimes do. In Oak Park there was an un- 
 usually powerful deterrent which newcomers did not 
 know about until they had unwittingly encountered it. 
 It took a little time to discover that whatever group they 
 were in there was likely to be someone present who be- 
 longed to one of the numerous family chains, and who 
 would take offense at anything unpleasant said about 
 any member, past or present, who belonged to some one 
 of those chains. The chain of the longest history and 
 widest connections was the Kettlestrings - Dunlop - 
 Herrick - Eastman - Scoville - Goodwillie - Tomlinson - 
 Cotsworth - Seabury complicated relationship. 
 
 Another, not quite so extensive, but with slight con- 
 nections with the first, was the Beye - Fyfe - Hurlbut - 
 Ainslie - Ketchum - Hamilton - Smeeth alliance. It took 
 a keen mind and good memory to compass both of those 
 groups, besides a few others of lesser length. So new- 
 comers, after having been criticized for a slip or two, 
 were likely to become extremely shy in talking about 
 people. 
 
 The women often found new and surprising ways 
 of earning money for their societies or for the church. 
 One blacked her husband's boots for ten cents a pair. 
 That was such a unique idea that the local paper cited 
 it as an example of commendable devotion to the church 
 
 45 
 
and congratulated the minister on having such an in- 
 genious parishioner. 
 
 A joint device for making money was the album 
 quilt. A design was made for the blocks for a quilt, which 
 included four square or oblong pieces of white material. 
 The pieces for a block were given out to individual mem- 
 bers, who were willing to take them themselves and give 
 them out to friends who would secure four people to 
 write their names in indelible ink on those white pieces 
 at ten cents each for the privilege, and return them. Then 
 the pieces were properly patched together and gathered 
 into long strips. When the strips were assembled and 
 meticulously quilted at a meeting of the society, the 
 quilt was sold, if possible to a man, for as high a price as 
 the makers dared charge. One for which the sum of ten 
 dollars was paid is still in possession of a member of the 
 church, held at a value above payment because of the 
 autographs of many old Oak Parkers on it. 
 
 There was no joining of church organizations for 
 local activities, and very little sharing of social functions. 
 But denominational lines were never so hard and fast as 
 to prevent friendliness between neighbors. And it was 
 characteristic of the community that almost every family 
 belonged to one of the churches, and the few who had 
 no church connections were looked upon rather askance. 
 The one regular cooperation of the churches occurred 
 when some of them merged for Sunday evening services 
 during the summer. 
 
 The quality of spiritual enlightenment which the 
 churches were able to inspire is an imponderable not 
 
 46 
 
possible to estimate. But one habit of thought was so 
 plainly manifest that there was no escaping it, and that 
 was that virtue consisted largely in what a person did 
 not do; in other words, that piety was negative. A very 
 obvious and rather homely proof of that prevalent idea 
 was what happened in our small community when a 
 dancing teacher appeared in our midst in the late '70's. 
 He was allowed to address the teen-agers in school, and 
 to try to convince them, as in most cases he did, that 
 life was much better worth living if a young person had 
 good manners, and that the easiest and most delightful 
 way to attain good manners was to learn to dance. 
 
 The obviously sincere gentleman was quite uncon- 
 scious of the fact that he had introduced into the 
 community a fundamental question that split the church- 
 goers in two. Should they or should they not allow their 
 young people to go to dancing school was a soul- 
 searching question in every churchgoing family. Un- 
 fortunately the time of the dancing class for the older 
 children was Wednesday evening, which for most of the 
 elders was prayer-meeting night. That made the decision 
 a matter of religious importance. The negative answer 
 was given explicitly in a conversation between two boys. 
 "You goin to dancing school?" asked one. The other 
 answered, "No, 'course not. Our family don't dance or 
 drink or swear or play cards or chew gum or do any of 
 those wicked things." That answer, though perhaps over- 
 stated, was the test applied rather generally to decide 
 whether a family was thoroughly Christian or not. 
 
 There were a few additional tests also. One was, "Do 
 
 47 
 
our neighbors take a Sunday newspaper?" If so, their 
 destiny in the future life was considered a little dubious; 
 and also if they went for a ride with their horse and 
 buggy on Sunday afternoon. 
 
 A question about the depth of the Christian faith 
 held by apparently good church members might be 
 raised by their attitude toward the Garfield tragedy. Gar- 
 field was shot in March 1881 and lay hovering between 
 life and death until September 19th. A woman who was 
 prominent in one of the churches not only for her good 
 works but for her apparently strong religious convictions 
 was heard to say repeatedly during the summer that so 
 many prayers were being said for the President's recov- 
 ery that she would lose her faith in God if he didn't get 
 well. Many people expressed the same sentiment. It was 
 easy to say of them, if not to them, "Oh ye of little faith!" 
 But to point out to them why their ideas were wrong — 
 how many of their fellow citizens could have done it? 
 
 Another test of faith was made by the publication 
 of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. For the next three 
 or four decades the idea of the age-long creation of forms 
 of life by natural selection was taken to deny the Bible 
 account of the Creation in six days. Schools as well as 
 churches were disturbed and distressed by the apparent 
 conflict. Much later the Scopes trial proved dramatically 
 how deeply in some places the clash of ideas had dis- 
 rupted society. Many churches lost members or even 
 went to pieces in bitterness of disagreement. But for 
 some reason the Oak Park churches weathered the storm 
 with few if any casualties. Probably the chief reason was 
 
 48 
 
that most of their ministers took the position that indi- 
 viduals should decide for themselves, and that church 
 members who were intellectually tolerant enough to 
 realize that "day" in the Bible did not necessarily mean 
 twenty-four hours should not be persecuted as unortho- 
 dox. 
 
 Unquestionably the influence of the churches was 
 the strongest power in the community. The name Saints' 
 Rest, which was applied to it facetiously, was not wholly 
 a joke, for there were not a few men and women who 
 had an unusual number of saintly qualities. Certainly not 
 many villages have had finer pastors than Little Old Oak 
 Park. A historian could count them over one by one, in 
 one denomination after another, and decide that almost 
 without exception they measured up to the fivefold re- 
 quirement of an ideal minister; namely, that he be a 
 gentleman, a scholar, a man of God, a good preacher, and 
 a friend. They were hard workers too, for the office of 
 assistant minister hadn't been heard of in those days. 
 The one and only pastor in a church needed also to be 
 an organizer and something of a financial wizard. 
 
 As for the ministers' wives, they carried a big bur- 
 den too in taking care of the minister and sharing his 
 work. Besides, they had to be good housekeepers, social 
 experts, and adept in the bringing up of children. If in 
 addition to all these accomplishments, they were charm- 
 ing — and most of them were — they were very popular. 
 And popularity creates many obligations. 
 
 49 
 
V: 
 
 SCHOOL, 
 
 
 02lH 
 
 The == 
 
 FIRST SCHOOL 
 
 The two most potent allurements that Oak Park 
 offered to people seeking homes were its churches and 
 its schools, both of which had a reputation for excellence 
 that was well deserved. The story of the schools began in 
 the same little white building on Lake Street in which 
 the first church met. Unfortunately, no recording angel 
 was present to take notes of that historic occasion; but 
 it is of record that the First of September, 1857, a teacher 
 had been secured, and that twenty-nine pupils appeared 
 to learn what they didn't already know about their A, B, 
 C's, and other fundamentals. The school board of three 
 leading citizens soon found that the one-room capacity 
 
 50 
 
of the building was not equal to the need; so they raised 
 seven hundred dollars and added another room. When 
 that also proved inadequate, the lot almost across on 
 Lake Street was bought; and what was for years called 
 the Central School was built, large enough at the time 
 to meet the demand. Thereafter the rooms* in the little 
 "Mother of Churches" were used as a day school only in 
 times of overflow from the Central School. 
 
 In 1860 Mr. O. W. Herrick was engaged to come 
 from his home in New York State to be principal of the 
 new school. One of the legends with regard to that event 
 is that the young ladies of Oak Ridge, having heard cer- 
 tain facts about him, decided that they would run a race 
 to see which of them should sit next to him at the supper 
 which was being planned to celebrate his arrival. Dora 
 Kettlestrings won the race and greatly enjoyed her re- 
 ward. Before too long she became Mrs. O. W. Herrick, 
 which was also good fortune for the town, for they es- 
 tablished one of the most influential families in Oak Park. 
 
 In those early days no one thought of making school- 
 rooms look pretty, or even comfortable. Walls were dead 
 white or a dingy ecru. Seats were double, so that every 
 child had a seatmate, acceptable or otherwise; and the 
 seats were almost the same size, comfortable or other- 
 wise. The only other furniture was the teacher's desk 
 and chair, which stirred pleasant emotions only in case a 
 youngster liked the teacher. If most of them did, there 
 would sometimes in season be a vase of flowers on the 
 desk. 
 
 There were no pictures on the walls, except that 
 
 51 
 
some benevolent citizen wishing to inspire a love of litera- 
 ture in the pupils had supplied three or four of the rooms 
 in Central School with photographs of our five leading 
 poets framed in a row, all gray-haired and four of them 
 gray-bearded, all looking solemn, superannuated and 
 unapproachable. Bryant, Longfellow, and Lowell, their 
 faces pretty much smothered in their beards, looked 
 like different versions of Olympian Zeus; Whittier ap- 
 peared to be pronouncing an anxious benediction on the 
 world from his dark eyes; and Holmes, clean-shaven, 
 thin-lipped, was evidently disappointed that he couldn't 
 bring the ghost of a smile to the others' faces. If the chil- 
 dren paid any attention to these patriarchs, it probably 
 was only to wonder whose grandfathers they were. 
 
 But austerity in schoolrooms was what the children 
 were accustomed to, and they thought nothing of it. 
 They were there to learn, and they did. No frills in their 
 education; there were just the three R's with emphasis 
 on spelling, plus a little geography, mostly from books 
 with few maps, some physiology in the seventh grade, a 
 course in United States history in the eighth grade, and 
 grammar, grammar, grammar all the way along. The 
 days when the multiplication tables were sung had 
 passed, but the tables were repeated up and down and 
 across until they must have worn channels in all the 
 young brains. A good teacher would get a class to a point 
 of snappiness where they would do mental arithmetic as 
 fast as she could improvise problems for them. The fun 
 of the day was the spelling class, which was usually a 
 spelldown. That gave a chance for alertness; for if a 
 
 52 
 
word was misspelled, some faces down the line froze to 
 blankness in order not to betray awareness. The teacher 
 gave out another word as if nothing had happened, and 
 nothing unusual did happen until the first youngster who 
 had caught the mistake spelled the misspelled word cor- 
 rectly and marched up the line to a place above the 
 defaulter. It could happen any day that the pupil who 
 began class at the foot of the line ended at the head. 
 
 In comparison with modern methods the way gram- 
 mar was taught takes the prize for thoroughness. Sen- 
 tences were analyzed word by word, subject, predicate 
 — simple or compound — verb, and object if any, and 
 each word parsed. Then at least one sentence from each 
 day's lesson was diagrammed on the blackboard. 
 
 Nothing pleased a skilled diagram artist more than 
 to be allowed to cover the blackboard on one side of the 
 room with a gorgeous, long, complicated sentence like, 
 "When in the course of human events . . . ." And in the 
 recitations there was a chance for creative thinking be- 
 cause the teacher often asked for an original example 
 of some construction. One remembered episode was pro- 
 vided by John, a tall, homely boy in seventh grade who 
 was deeply enamored of Alice, the pretty, fairylike belle 
 of the class. Unfortunately, Alice didn't return his affec- 
 tion. But John didn't belong to the faint-hearted bat- 
 talion. So one day when the teacher asked him to give 
 an example of a transitive verb, he rose, looked at Alice 
 with a beatific smile, and said firmly, "John kissed Alice!'' 
 That sealed his fate. The redhead of the class always 
 could be depended on to solve a problem. Asked to give 
 
 ^Cc^vt<i z(rU4, UtLcL 
 
 H- 
 
 ^rvUuA/tyit/ \ stv ^l/U^hlXttj '. 
 
an example of a conditional contrary-to-fact clause, he 
 promptly replied, "I would have gone fishing today if 
 I hadn't had to come to school/' 
 
 No child who went through that rigorous training 
 ever had, in later life, to hesitate between ivho and whom, 
 its or it's, whose or who's, or used his apostrophes in the 
 wrong places. Even the fine distinction between will and 
 shall was known to him; for the sad fate of the French- 
 man who said, "I will drown, no one shall help me," was 
 held up to him as a warning. Perhaps a few escaped who 
 continued to say, "It's me!" But it wasn't the teacher's 
 fault if they did. And now that the battle is on between 
 those who believe in the old standards of English unde- 
 filed, established by centuries of use by the educated 
 and cultivated, and those who champion the careless 
 ways of English "as she is spoke" by the uneducated and 
 uncultivated, those pupils of the old-fashioned schools 
 and their descendants are an army of defense against the 
 uninstructed, ugly jargon creeping into our language. 
 
 Before long the need of high school classes became 
 apparent. For several years the large room on the second 
 floor of the Central School was large enough for the 
 eighth grade and what few high school students there 
 were. There are still families in Oak Park who preserve 
 legends of that big room in which their grandparents 
 went to school. The principal of the school was the 
 teacher, and opened school each morning by reading a 
 chapter from the Bible. One lady reports hearing her 
 mother say that the only remembrance she has of those 
 "opening exercises" was the principal's voice reading 
 
 54 
 
"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward," and 
 thinking how unfair that was. 
 
 Another legend is that of the punishment of a boy 
 who was tragically allergic to the truth. He had exer- 
 cised this fault in some way — the subject forgotten — 
 which had caused unusual trouble. The principal called 
 the entire room in solemn session, commanded the mis- 
 creant to the platform, and explained the matter to his 
 awe-struck schoolfellows. Then he turned to the instru- 
 ments of torture on his desk, dipped a scrubbing brush 
 into the warm water in the basin, soaped the brush thor- 
 oughly, and scrubbed out the boy's mouth. The whole 
 proceeding was taken in deadly seriousness by the audi- 
 ence. Whether the punishment reformed the sinner is 
 not known. And how a class in a junior high school today 
 would take such an assembly is also an unanswered 
 question. Whether this case comes under the head of 
 corporal punishment or not is also an open question. If 
 it does, it was the last-known case of corporal punish- 
 ment in our schools. 
 
 Always in the grades, and sometimes in the high 
 school classes, Friday afternoon was the time for "rhe- 
 torical exercises. " As the teacher called the roll, each 
 pupil answered with a quotation from some classic. The 
 sum total of responses, naturally, was a hodge-podge of 
 
 'raPwj 
 
 •"flfflffl 
 
 
 F/kST High School \ \wifh £lemenfd\ry-e*.t 
 
 ?V ^ l*ke arvi Forest- 
 
unrelated ideas, culled from various books of Selections 
 the previous evening or suggested by parents, with no 
 correlation and often quite stupid. But one day when the 
 teacher called his name, a boy answered, 
 
 "I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry; 
 Did not you speak?" 
 The teacher, fortunately, was game; so everyone 
 laughed. From that time on the exercise became a lively 
 competition for daring or insinuating answers. But alas! 
 the quotations finally degenerated into a contest for the 
 ridiculous or bizarre, and had to be given up. 
 
 In the programs boys put plenty of energy into de- 
 claiming the Gettysburg Address, or "Give Me Liberty 
 or Give Me Death," or parts of "Horatio at the Bridge," 
 or "Friends, Romans, Countrymen," or some other clas- 
 sic. Girls recited "Barbara Fritchie" or selections from 
 "Evangeline" or "Hiawatha" or "Sir Launfal," or as a 
 sort of prize for good work read one of their own com- 
 positions. Boys were notably lacking in that part of the 
 program. Before very long the big room acquired a 
 piano. After that the programs were varied by piano 
 solos by girls learning to play "The Shepherd Boy" or 
 "Whispering Winds" or "Murmuring Pines" or even 
 "The Last Hope," or some other sentimental piece. 
 
 The last day of school was a gala occasion. The 
 rooms blossomed with flowers, and wreaths and festoons 
 of oak leaves. The afternoon before, the town was alive 
 with children standing on the tops of fences or on ladders 
 stripping the lower branches of black oaks of leaves, or 
 sitting on the ground making festoons by the yard — 
 
 56 
 
another joy lost with the passing of the black oaks, be- 
 cause they were the only trees with leaf stems strong 
 enough to hold the leaves together. 
 
 The programs for the last day of school were usu- 
 ally made up of the best compositions and recitations of 
 the Friday afternoons of the year. 
 
 There was a daily period for reading. The classic 
 McGuffey's readers had apparently become old-fash- 
 ioned, for more modern readers were used. The selections 
 in them were of course intended to teach high moral 
 standards, usually in story form and in language suitable 
 to the various grades. The teachers paid attention to the 
 pronunciation of words and the right emphasis to bring 
 out the meaning, but very little to the quality of pupils' 
 voices, or to careful enunciation, or to the skill with 
 which a story was told. As a rule, such recitations were 
 mechanical and dull, necessary exercises in the forms 
 rather than in the spirit of literature. 
 
 Occasional compositions were required of the pu- 
 pils, but without much attention to improvement in 
 vocabulary, or to clarity of expression. 
 
 But in spite of the fact that the structure of the 
 language was well taught, anyone who cares for the 
 English language cannot help mourning over the fact 
 that no educational prophet arose in those early days to 
 insist that every school child be taught to speak dis- 
 tinctly, and at least in a tolerably pleasant voice. Our 
 English cousins are quite right in their criticism that our 
 voices are harsh, our pronunciation slipshod, and many 
 of our words un-understandable due to poor enunciation. 
 
 57 
 
The first high school class graduated in 77, and 
 consisted of three boys: Herbert Whikkler, Walter Gale, 
 and James Byron Herrick. It is part of the proud record 
 of our high school that James Herrick, after graduating 
 from Ann Arbor, returned to our high school to teach 
 Latin and Greek for two years and earn part of the 
 money for his medical training — the same James Herrick 
 who won a national reputation as a heart specialist and 
 for whom Herrick House* is named. 
 
 As need arose, other grammar schools were built — 
 the original Holmes School in 1889, the Longfellow in 
 1894, the Whittier in 1901, the others after Oak Park 
 became an independent municipality. 
 
 One unwritten law with regard to the choice of 
 teachers puzzled many citizens, and that was the custom 
 of barring an applicant whose permanent home was in 
 Oak Park. Time proved that it was a wise law. Not all the 
 young college graduates who applied for positions as 
 teachers in their home town could be employed; and 
 when one or two were selected, a loud cry of favoritism 
 was raised. Worse than that, the attitude of the pupils 
 themselves was the greatest difficulty. The greater the 
 need of discipline, the more certain the disciplinee was 
 to say, "Why, teacher! You couldn't keep me after school. 
 You know my father and mother." 
 
 The fundamental question about the schools of the 
 early days is whether they were adequate precursors of 
 our excellent school system of today. The answer quite 
 
 * Herrick House is now located at Bartlett, Illinois, and continues 
 to serve children of all races and creeds who have heart problems. 
 
 58 
 
clearly is yes. In spite of the absence of the organized 
 support of the community in PTA's, and in spite of an 
 occasional unfortunate selection of teachers, the com- 
 munity has always held the schools their first common 
 concern. Although the purse strings have sometimes 
 been held too tight, that fault has usually been corrected 
 when people understood the real need. The fact that so 
 many of our older citizens cherish family traditions of 
 devotion to the schools and teachers of the early years 
 is proof enough of the fundamental excellence of the 
 system even in its cruder days. 
 
 The large schoolyard was a great asset to all the 
 pupils. For a half hour before school, the hour and a 
 half of the nooning — for many of the children brought 
 their lunch — and the morning and afternoon recesses, 
 the yard was pandemonium, the one regular exception 
 which proved the rule of quiet in the village. There was 
 room enough for several ball games to go on at once, 
 plus games of sting-goal (prisoner's base), pom-pom- 
 pull-away, London Bridge, old cat, hopscotch, and just 
 plain tag. Except in baseball, boys and girls often played 
 together. People passing on Lake Street often stopped 
 to watch them and to listen to the noise and exult in the 
 fun. When the bell rang, suddenly — where were they 
 all? The quickness with which the howling mob became 
 a quiet, orderly school always seemed a miracle. All any 
 dried-up oldster, who had lost his own joy in living or 
 lost his faith in Young America, needed to do was to 
 watch those youngsters in full action in their play to find 
 his own blood tingling again in his veins. 
 
 59 
 
VI: 
 
 LLE INSTITUTE 
 
 A few library-minded citizens formed a Library 
 Association in 1882. They had a rather sketchy organiza- 
 tion which rented a room on the north side of Lake 
 Street near Harlem Avenue, charged men $5.00 a year 
 for membership and women $2.50, paid an attendant to 
 keep the room open three afternoons a week, gave or 
 begged or bought about sixteen hundred books and a 
 
 60 
 
few periodicals. It never had much patronage, one reason 
 doubtless being that most of the books contributed to it 
 were books that the members of the association did not 
 care to keep. 
 
 Another attempt at a library was the so-called Pas- 
 tor's Library, housed in the basement of the Congrega- 
 tional Church. It was started by Mr. Huntington, pastor 
 of that church when their new sanctuary was built. 
 When his devoted parishioner, Mr. Scoville, learned 
 how much his pastor wanted and needed a library, he 
 opened an account for him at Jansen, McClurg's in 
 Chicago, and told him to order whatever books he 
 wished. The result was a generous and well-selected 
 collection of books on theological and general religious 
 subjects, but not, unfortunately, of much interest to the 
 general public. 
 
 For many years Mr. Scoville cherished the desire 
 to give to the village a public library which would serve 
 as a cultural and civic center. He had studied many in- 
 stitutions of the kind, chiefly the library in St. Johnsbury, 
 Vermont, which Governor Fairbanks of that state had 
 given to his home town. By 1878, when his plans were 
 nearly finished, the great depression forbade his going 
 on with them. But by 1883 business recovery encouraged 
 him to renew them. He called together thirteen of his 
 friends, one or more from each of the churches and the 
 others businessmen or lawyers, explained his plans to 
 them and invited them to form with him and his son a 
 Board of Trustees for the projected Scoville Institute. 
 The warranty check which conveyed the property to the 
 
 61 
 
Board of Trustees is dated April 20, 1883. From that time 
 the other members of the board shared with Mr. Scoville 
 and his son the planning and anxieties connected with 
 the realizing of the project. 
 
 The first stone of the foundation was placed in 
 October '84, and "the cornerstone, with appropriate 
 ceremonies, was lowered to its place September 4, 1886/' 
 The dedication exercises were held in the Congrega- 
 tional Church October 9, 1888, in the presence of a 
 packed audience. The treasurer's account, rendered by 
 Mr. Burton Scoville, stated the cost of the gift, including 
 an estimated value of the land and the endowment of 
 $25,000, as $115,049.27. 
 
 The first paragraph of Mr. Scoville's presentation 
 speech was this: 
 
 "Citizens of Oak Park and Ridgeland: It af- 
 fords me unspeakable pleasure this evening to 
 be permitted to present to you this library 
 building in its completeness, and with an en- 
 dowment for its future support. It is for the free 
 use of all the inhabitants of Oak Park and 
 Ridgeland, subject, however, to such rules and 
 regulations as the Board of Trustees may from 
 time to time adopt for its government and man- 
 agement. No words of mine can add to or de- 
 tract from its beauty or utility. It is the result of 
 my best efforts, and speaks for itself; and in the 
 coming ages, I doubt not, will reveal to those 
 who may here assemble the purposes for which 
 it was erected. Hoping and trusting that it may 
 have an elevating and refining influence upon 
 
 62 
 
all who may enter its walls, and prove a bless- 
 ing not only to this but to future generations, I 
 now resign it to the care of the Board of 
 Trustees." 
 
 In his charge to the trustees, which followed, he 
 said in part: "There is not room enough in your building 
 to hold all the good books. Bad books should be rejected, 
 and I have this one request to make of you; that you so 
 guard the portals of this Institute that no malefactors 
 shall ever find a resting place within its walls. . . . The 
 Institute is to be a home of literature and art for this 
 community. It will be more. It will be an armory in 
 which you will store weapons for defense, more powerful 
 than dynamite in the preservation of the liberties of a 
 free people." 
 
 From the very first the building was a great success 
 as a civic center. For a time the third floor, which is a 
 sizeable attic, was used as a gymnasium, but that use of 
 it proved noisy and bothersome and was given up. The 
 large room on the second floor, which is now the staff 
 room, was used for all kinds of meetings — committees, 
 small clubs, women's organizations, lectures. The larger 
 room, now the Reference Library, was called the Audi- 
 torium and was serviceable for larger lectures, including 
 for a time the Nineteenth Century Club, and sometimes 
 even Town Meetings. 
 
 On the first floor, the "west parlor," now the Chil- 
 dren's Room, was the Reading Room and the small south 
 room, looking on Lake Street, was the Children's Room. 
 
 63 
 
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that so far as records 
 have been discovered, Scoville Institute was the first 
 library in the state to have a Children's Room and a 
 Children's Librarian. 
 
 But the problem of building a fine library proved 
 difficult. Mr. Scoville had expected that, if he provided 
 the plant and an endowment to care for it, the citizens 
 would provide the books. The Library Association and 
 the Pastor's Library gave their books, amounting to 
 about five thousand in all, and disbanded. A volunteer 
 group of citizens, both men and women, made a house- 
 to-house canvass of the town for subscriptions, with 
 moderate success. 
 
 The trustees undertook a series of lectures to raise 
 money, although they did not consider that duty was 
 nominated in their bond. One distressing incident proved 
 that they were not trained experts in managing lecture 
 courses. One of them happened to enter the Oak Park 
 railway station one cold winter evening at an off hour, 
 where he saw a solitary figure slumped in a seat with his 
 coat collar pulled up over his ears and his hat pulled 
 down over his eyes. In a benevolent mood he asked the 
 man if he had missed his train. The stranger was respon- 
 sive, and in the course of their conversation revealed that 
 his name was James Whitcomb Riley, and that he was 
 waiting to meet a lecture engagement at Scoville Insti- 
 tute. Being a stranger, he didn't know where to go even 
 for a bite of supper. The trustee was equal to the emer- 
 gency and saw to it not only that the distinguished 
 gentleman was properly fed and escorted to the institute, 
 
 64 
 
but that a similar incident did not occur again. 
 
 It is interesting to learn what books were bought as 
 the money came slowly in. People were reading Scott, 
 Dickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Bulwer- 
 Lytton, Charles Read, Ian McClaren, with a small sprin- 
 kling of Byron, Tennyson, the Brownings, and Tom 
 Moore. 
 
 But the unpleasant fact became more and more 
 evident that the money necessary for the creating and 
 maintenance of an ample library was not coming in. By 
 the terms of the gift no charge could be made for books 
 or for the use of the building. The increasing use of the 
 building as a civic center added to the expense. A library 
 fund was started; but after a year or more a survey 
 showed that out of 1,600 families who had library cards, 
 only 275 families subscribed to the fund. 
 
 Advantage was taken of a state law which allowed 
 two mills out of every dollar of state taxation for the use 
 of a public library. But meager as that amount was, there 
 were legal difficulties about collecting it, and very little 
 came of it. Mr. Burton Scoville added $10,000 to the 
 endowment fund, but even that wasn't sufficient. The 
 difficulty became so great as the deficit mounted that the 
 trustees even considered closing the doors for a time. 
 The only good that came out of this period of struggle 
 and disappointment was that it increased the determina- 
 tion of the citizens to break away from the rest of the 
 township and become an independent unit of govern- 
 ment, so that they could levy a tax for the creation of a 
 public library. 
 
 65 
 
VII: 
 
 FAMILY LIFE 
 
 O 
 
 Attempting to penetrate to the heart of any family's 
 life is as futile as pulling off the petals of a rose to find 
 the fragrance. But when families live near each other 
 year after year, with the same environment of weather, 
 government, public services or lack of them, the same 
 schools for the children, the same stores, and all the rest 
 they do, they establish some common habits. Even keep- 
 ing up with the Joneses is a unifying force. And these 
 neighborhood mores change gradually, as they did even 
 in conservative Oak Park. 
 
 66 
 
From the modern point of view, the norm of family 
 living in the '60s and the early '70s and even '80's was 
 founded on the unshakable belief that father knows best. 
 Father earned the living — there were few if any in- 
 herited fortunes in those days — and knew the ways of 
 the outside world. So his word was law. Mother might 
 disagree and fuss a little, or even complain to her friends; 
 but she usually submitted with more or less grace, ac- 
 cording to the degree of Christian spirit she possessed. 
 If she did not, the family life was turbulent; and there 
 were a very few families who were known to be that 
 way. Divorce was practically unknown. It was considered 
 a device of the Devil, wholly un-Christian. Besides, what 
 to some people seemed worse, it wasn't the proper thing 
 to do. 
 
 For the children, the first law was obedience. 
 Whether or not the traditional type of torture followed 
 disobedience usually depended on the temper of father; 
 ordinarily mother was too tender-hearted. The theory 
 that the life of the family should be held in suspense 
 until the sinner learned from his own experience that 
 the wages of sin is some kind of catastrophe — that theory 
 didn't come into practical application until later. Of 
 course, children were naughty and got into all sorts of 
 trouble; but when the hour of decision came and father 
 or mother said "No," they minded, or else. 
 
 Did children have a good time when there were no 
 movies to go to, no TV, no radios, no autos, and very 
 few parties? Most great-grandfathers and grandmothers, 
 if asked today, would say that they did. In the first place, 
 
 67 
 
everyone stayed at home then more than anyone does 
 now. The general feeling seemed to be that expressed 
 by the father of a German family who said, "Why should 
 I go out to annoy myself when I could stay home to 
 enjoy myself?" For one thing families used to play games 
 with each other, especially when the children were little 
 — nice active games like blind man's buff, I spy, pussy 
 wants a corner, going to Jerusalem ( old-fashioned name 
 for musical chairs ) , and menagerie. 
 
 Everyone had a large yard, and there was no limit 
 to the games that could be played out-of-doors in the 
 summer. Almost everyone had a croquet ground; and the 
 great advantage croquet had over tennis, which later 
 took its place, was that the whole family could play at 
 once. Grandfathers and sometimes grandmothers could 
 amuse the children with balls and mallets hours on end, 
 or practice making wickets. And most homes had a barn, 
 with its stalls and mangers and hayloft and perhaps a 
 broken-down buggy inviting to various kinds of adven- 
 tures. 
 
 Besides, children read more in those days than they 
 do now. Look at the worn-out copies of Robinson Crusoe 
 and Swiss Family Robinson, if you have been lucky 
 enough to keep your old library, as proof that boys and 
 girls both loved those explicit tales. Most boys read the 
 Alger and Henty books and others. Chatterbox and St. 
 Nicholas gave them plenty of variety. 
 
 Girls, as usual, read more than boys. Some of them 
 didn't have patience to pursue the various marshmallow- 
 flavored series to the end, such as the Elsie and Pansy 
 
 68 
 
and Prudy and Dotty Dimple and Leslie Goldthwait con- 
 fections, but everyone of them read Little Women with 
 conviction and enjoyment. Some of them went on to 
 Oliver Twist and David Copperfield before they had to 
 read them in high school. In the very happiest of families 
 father read to the whole family in the evening. Or per- 
 haps families were equally happy in which one of the 
 girls could play the piano or parlor organ in the evening, 
 and the whole family could and would sing. 
 
 Occasionally in the summer the youngsters had a 
 hayride. That meant sitting on the floor of a big lumber 
 wagon on good thick piles of hay while a pair of farm 
 horses drew them slowly out somewhere in the country. 
 They entertained themselves at such parties by telling 
 stories or singing songs that everyone knew, such as 
 "Yankee Doodle," "John Brown's Body," "Marching 
 Through Georgia," "Old Folks at Home," "Annie Laurie," 
 "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny." (It was surprising 
 how many of the Civil War songs children knew then, 
 words and all.) In winter the hayrides gave place to 
 sleigh rides, when the wagon box was on runners, the 
 hay covered with blankets or buffalo skins, and the horses 
 wore sleigh bells. At those parties there was usually a 
 stop at someone's house for a hot oyster-soup supper. 
 
 During the year a neighbor's family might come in 
 unannounced to spend the evening. Then there was 
 likely to be a talkfest in the parlor while the children or 
 young people had a candy-pull or soap-bubble party in 
 the kitchen. After the dancing master came to town, 
 there were many impromptu dancing parties when old 
 
 69 
 
and young of two or three families especially enjoyed 
 the Lancers or the Prairie Queen or the Virginia reel 
 while one of the boys called off and one of the girls 
 played the piano. 
 
 For the young people who were not allowed to 
 dance there were plenty of parlor games such as dom- 
 inoes, checkers, authors, and a number of card games, 
 besides all the resources of the kitchen. And for the en- 
 tire crowd there was always the chance for charades, 
 which often developed a lot of amateur talent. 
 
 There was one way of spending time that had its 
 advantages and satisfactions, though it wasn't popular 
 with all the teen-agers. The name of it was Work. 
 Horace Humphrey, one of the graduates of the high 
 school in the late '70s, wrote of it this way: 
 
 "We played no golf but there was a very 
 satisfactory substitute which we may call 'gar- 
 den golf.' The collection of clubs consisted of 
 a driver, which was a spade; the lofter, a hoe; 
 the niblic, a grubbing hook; and the putter, a 
 rake. With this collection of implements we 
 repaired to the links in the back yard for an 
 eighteen-hole round, and this was the way we 
 played it. With the driver and the niblic and 
 the putter we prepared the ground, smooth as 
 a putting green. Then with the lofter we made 
 the holes or sometimes trenches. In these holes 
 were carefully deposited the balls, which were 
 beans or peas or kernels of corn. They were all 
 covered up and the game was finished. . . . 
 
 70 
 
"I said the game was finished. Well, hardly, 
 for it was a twosome, with God for a partner, 
 and His activities were subsequent. They con- 
 sisted in pouring down sunshine and rain until 
 in the fulness of time the game was really fin- 
 ished and the winner collected his trophies — 
 not pencil marks on a card, nor even a silver 
 cup, but a lot of good things to eat." 
 
 Families who, besides having a garden, kept a horse 
 offered their sons an education in animal husbandry; 
 and the rather large number who owned the extreme 
 luxury of a cow supplied their neighbors with a fine 
 illustration of opposite methods working toward the 
 same end, for most of the cows were pastured on the 
 open prairie north of Chicago Avenue and the boys who 
 accompanied them were in a terrific hurry to get there, 
 and the cows were not. Perhaps the fine phrase "delib- 
 erate speed" was coined by someone who saw that con- 
 flict, the cows being the solid embodiment of delibera- 
 tion, and the boys of the frustration of speed. 
 
 Besides, there were the usual ways in which boys 
 could harden their muscles, shoveling snow in winter, 
 cutting the grass in summer, raking leaves in the autumn, 
 and running errands any time. 
 
 But they had plenty of fun, too. Yards were large 
 enough to play ball in, or if they weren't, there were 
 vacant lots. The woods and open spaces on the prairies 
 gave lots of chances for camping, hikes, and trails to 
 tepees of their own making, where they could imitate 
 all they wanted to of Indian living. The Des Plaines was 
 
 Looksncr West on Mad 1 So r>- 1006- ^>^ 
 
near enough for canoeing, though it was never a very 
 exciting stream. 
 
 The one night in the year when parents were in- 
 clined to be a little blind and deaf was Hallowe'en. Older 
 people had never thought of making parties to entertain 
 the youngsters in peaceful ways, and the term "juvenile 
 delinquency" had never been heard of. One Hallowe'en 
 the grandmother of a four-year-old found her grandson 
 sneaking out of the back door with a club in his hand, 
 and asked him where he was going. 
 
 "To do demige," he said. 
 
 "What is demige?" 
 
 "I don't know," he answered, "but it's what all the 
 boys do on Hallowe'en." Quite true. 
 
 One story told with amusement by parents who were 
 a little easy on the prankish spirit was of a family in 
 which the father was considered all too strict with his 
 three sons. The sons were of quite different ages, but he 
 insisted that all three should go to bed at nine o'clock. 
 No exceptions, even on Hallowe'en. It was rumored that 
 he kept a rawhide in his closet, but proof isn't extant. 
 However, boys have chums, and chums have expedients. 
 
 One special Hallowe'en when the three sons had 
 obeyed father's curfew with unusual docility, the school 
 bell rang with a furious clang about ten o'clock. That 
 was the village signal for Fire! Father went to the boys' 
 room, routed them out with the stern command, "Fire, 
 boys! Up with you and do your duty like men!" Evi- 
 dently the father returned to his bed and slumbered with 
 a happy feeling that he had contributed his share to the 
 
 72 
 
common safety; for when the boys returned about mid- 
 night and reported that the fire had finally been put out, 
 he commended them for their valor. Whether in the 
 morning he grew wiser, when he saw some of the acci- 
 dents that had happened in the night, there is no way 
 of knowing. In fact, there were an unusual number of 
 torn-up sidewalks, torn-down fence posts and gates, 
 broken-in barn doors and windows, porches stained with 
 rotten eggs and smashed tomatoes, and plenty of other 
 signs of an orgy of the Lord of Misrule. 
 
 Meantime, what about the girls in families? As 
 nearly all the women in town did their own housework, 
 most of the time of the girls after school was spent help- 
 ing mother. The willingness and competence with which 
 they accepted that natural assignment were of course 
 various and variable, but most of them turned out to be 
 fairly good housekeepers themselves. Most of them also 
 took music lessons on the square piano or parlor organ, 
 a very few of them on the violin. Results? What they 
 usually are in a group of girls: Several dropped the les- 
 sons before long because they either had not enough 
 talent or enough persistence; the majority kept on long 
 enough to play at home for family singing and family 
 pleasure; and a very few pursued music as their excelling 
 accomplishment. 
 
 The routine of housekeeping was much the same 
 in all families. Monday was washday, and the greatest 
 hazard was to get a long-enough clothesline up solidly 
 enough. Almost every housekeeper had her washing 
 hung outdoors; most of them hung it out themselves. 
 
 Vw>- 
 
 *Kr 
 
 Tier 
 
And the lady on the street who got hers out first was the 
 happiest. Tuesday was ironing day, and probably, on 
 account of the full skirts and the amount of tucking and 
 pleating and ruffling on them, part of Wednesday too. 
 Thursday was the maids part-day-out; if there was a 
 maid, she didn't have the whole day. If there was no 
 maid, the housekeeper was busy with all the extra things 
 she couldn't do other days; perhaps calling on her neigh- 
 bors was one of them. Friday was for cleaning, and Sat- 
 urday for baking. 
 
 Families who were not lucky enough to have sons, 
 and had more outdoor work than the man of the house 
 could manage, had a hired man who had a room in the 
 house or in the barn. Usually they were immigrant farm- 
 ers bound for the West to join relatives or take up claims, 
 who had used all their money and stopped here to earn 
 more. They were almost invariably good workers, and 
 often interesting characters, with their queer German or 
 Scandinavian or Irish ideas, and the burr of foreign 
 speech on their tongues. 
 
 In the comparatively few homes in which mother 
 did not do the housework, either alone or with the help 
 of her daughters, there was a hired girl. Those young 
 women were a useful and unique class of society who 
 should have received more credit than was given them 
 for helping build the community. At first, most of them 
 came from Germany, later from Holland and the Scan- 
 dinavian countries, and later still from Ireland. They did 
 the washing and ironing, scrubbing and sweeping and 
 baking, and sometimes helped with the children, and 
 
 74 
 
most remarkable of all, usually were amiable and sang 
 at their work. In the very early years the regular wage 
 was three dollars a week; by the '90's it had risen to five 
 dollars. 
 
 One old resident has in her mind two pictures of 
 their faithful Gretchen, one of them in the steam-filled 
 kitchen on Monday morning, bending over the washtub 
 scrubbing a garment, while her elbows jerked up and 
 down in rhythm with her high-pitched voice as she sang 
 "Augustin, Augustin! 
 Ach du lieber Augustin !" 
 The other was of Gretchen on the front porch waving 
 her scrubbing brush in the face of a lady coming up the 
 steps to call, shouting at her "Gehen Sie to back door! 
 Ich scrub hier!" From the dearth of the present day it 
 seems a cause of regret that we were not more grateful 
 for, and indulgent to, those strong, thorough-going, good- 
 natured helpers when we had them. Weekly wages went 
 up later, of course; by the time of the Columbian Worlds 
 Fair in '93 it was usually five dollars a week! 
 
 Families all suffered a miserable upheaval every 
 spring at house-cleaning time. No vacuum cleaners, no 
 professionals, no compressed air — just muscle and de- 
 termination. In a way it was harder on mother than on 
 father, for she couldn't do much of it herself but had to 
 get it done. Whether father helped or not depended first 
 upon his disposition and then upon circumstances. A 
 noticeable number of fathers went East on business; 
 very few, if any, belonged to clubs in the city at which 
 they could stay. If there was a hired man, he had to take 
 
 75 
 
the brunt of the work. But mother always managed in 
 some way to get it done. 
 
 Tacks had to be taken out of all the carpets, the 
 carpets rolled up and taken outdoors, swept hard first, 
 then beaten with wicker racquets. Furniture was all 
 moved out, the upholstery beaten, the frames cleaned 
 and often refinished. Ceilings and walls were cleaned, 
 windows and curtains washed, floors and woodwork 
 scrubbed. Good housekeepers did one room at a time if 
 they could arrange with helpers, but that wasn't always 
 possible. Even at best it was, as someone said, "Going 
 through the shambles to reach order." When everything 
 was finished, the house was so clean that no one dared 
 touch anything; otherwise, living returned to normal 
 except for the odor of camphor gum and turpentine in 
 the air. 
 
 Dressmaking was another problem for the house- 
 keepers. No ready-made gowns were to be had except 
 the awful Mother Hubbards, which no woman of good 
 taste would wear even on Monday mornings. There were 
 no dressmakers' shops to go to short of Marshall Field's 
 or Carson Pirie Scott and Company, and they were too 
 expensive. True, all women could sew, and there was a 
 sewing machine in every house. Many women made their 
 own wash dresses and their babies' and little girls' 
 clothes. But when it came to that good black silk dress 
 to wear to church every Sunday except in the hottest 
 weather, and to whatever parties were likely to happen 
 during the year, the lady of the house just couldn't man- 
 age it. For a time in the late '60's and early '70's many of 
 
 76 
 
them had the help of a very agreeable widow who lived 
 with relatives and would spend her days where she was 
 needed to cut out, fit, and at least partly finish these 
 Sunday gowns. 
 
 Gradually there grew up a limited class of these 
 going-out-by-the-day workers who came soon after 
 breakfast, stayed all day, including the evening meal, 
 and did fairly good journeyman work. As time went on 
 and social demands became more exacting, this habit of 
 engaging outside help became almost a ritual. The dress- 
 makers went in pairs, one to select styles, cut and fit, and 
 decide whatever knotty problems about length of skirt, 
 size of bustle, shape of overskirt, location of tucks, ruffles, 
 pleats, fringe or bows the lady herself didn't decide; the 
 other to run the sewing machine, make all those fancy 
 details, even to the buttonholes, binding of seams and 
 casings of the ten or twelve whalebones which were used 
 to slenderize every waist. 
 
 It was a time of great stress and hard work for all 
 the women in the household, especially if there were 
 grown or growing daughters, and mother did her own 
 housework. Father didn't always enjoy the tension, even 
 if the results met his approval. But it was a program that 
 prevailed for years in many families, with a week in the 
 spring and another in the fall agreed on as the time for 
 examining Godeys Lady's Book, and coming as near the 
 exotic pictures in them as sensible women dared to 
 venture. 
 
 jffiri f 3£i^ 
 
 4^ t 
 
There was a song in Gospel Hymns, the book used 
 in Sunday School in those days, which began 
 "Nothing but leaves! The spirit grieves 
 O'er years of wasted life." 
 The fussings and fixings of women's dresses were not the 
 only frivolities on which women wasted their time. They 
 had a mania for trimming everything in the house, too. 
 The crocheting they did of doilies and mats and center- 
 pieces, tidies and runners, edgings and insertions for 
 pillowcases, aprons, petticoats, towels, and even curtains, 
 would have converted all the heathen in the world if the 
 time it took had been used in that effort. And in addition, 
 there were the time and energy consumed by embroi- 
 dering initials on almost everything in the house that 
 wasn't crocheted, or cutting up calico or other goods 
 into small pieces and sewing them together in squares 
 or more elaborate patterns to make quilts. The quilting 
 parties which followed had their social uses, and were 
 defensible. So also was the habit many women had of 
 knitting useful garments; that was real service, not 
 fancywork. 
 
 Another habit women had which seems quite un- 
 necessary now was that of calling on each other two or 
 three times a year, not for any special reason but just 
 because it was the proper thing to do. A first call on a 
 family who had just come into a neighborhood was a 
 natural and friendly adventure, but a periodical repeti- 
 tion was a bore. A woman's conscience would prick her 
 with the sudden conviction, "I must call on Mrs. X! I 
 haven't returned her last call!" And dutifully she would 
 
 78 
 
 
 Qu/'/t fl/ocK 
 
put on her best dress, her bonnet — women over thirty- 
 five wore bonnets — her light kid gloves, take her card 
 case, and start out, hoping she could do two or three in 
 an afternoon. Probably Mrs. X wasn't any more pleased 
 to have her activities interrupted than the caller was to 
 interrupt them; but, nevertheless, they got through it 
 with mutual relief, and the habit continued until the in- 
 creasing number of clubs and afternoon teas made the 
 exertion superfluous. 
 
 Of course Christmas was the happiest season of the 
 year, bringing out in every member of the family his 
 highest ability to plan, anticipate, execute, and appreci- 
 ate. Farmers came in from the country with wagonloads 
 of big, beautiful Christmas trees, and father selected the 
 very best of them, and had it set up in the parlor when 
 the children were not present. The door was locked and 
 the shades pulled down, and the strongest commands 
 were issued not to enter. The tree was safely based; and 
 if father was especially careful, wires were stretched 
 from the top of it to the picture molding at the four cor- 
 ners of the room. 
 
 The trimming of it was a project of late hours and 
 much weariness, but what were a few lost winks of sleep 
 and some sore muscles in such a radiant cause? No elec- 
 tric bulbs or dancing dolls, but largely homemade orna- 
 ments of satisfying beauty. Probably Grandmother or 
 Aunt Someone had already made plenty of red tarlatan 
 stockings carefully overcast around the edges with 
 bright-colored wool, and filled with animal crackers, 
 raisins, nuts, and candy, especially white peppermint 
 
 79 
 
canes with red streaks running around them. There were 
 apples and oranges that had been pierced with a needle 
 and hung on strings, festoons of popcorn — the product 
 of patient hours of shaking the popper over the coals 
 of the furnace or kitchen stove or the fireplace, and more 
 hours of stringing on thread — gay loops of colored paper 
 rings, more loops of cranberries, and tinsel stars and balls 
 and tiny toys. Best of all were the little wax candles in 
 their colored metal holders, carefully balanced as near 
 the ends of twigs as possible, and not lighted until the 
 last minute. 
 
 Aunts and uncles and cousins were there waiting in 
 the late afternoon or early evening for the doors to open. 
 When mother had everyone in line in the hall, with the 
 littlest children in front, the doors burst open, and there 
 was the great big beautiful blazing tree! Everyone 
 cheered. Then one of the girls struck up "Deck the Hall" 
 on the piano, and everyone sang while they all marched 
 three or four times around the tree. Then they all sat 
 down around the tree, the children on the floor, and sang 
 Christmas songs while the candles lasted— "O Little 
 Town of Bethlehem;' "O Come, All Ye Faithful," "We 
 Three Kings," "Kris Kringle" (What has become of it?), 
 "Away in a Manger," "The First Noel." Perhaps two or 
 three of the girls would sing "O Holy Night!" 
 
 Then good order gave way to joyful disorder as 
 father, or in father's absence Santa Claus himself, began 
 to distribute the presents. Small packages were cut down 
 from the tree, larger ones picked up from under the tree, 
 and a few, like a sled or a tricycle, came out from a 
 
 80 
 
corner of the room. No one could hear what anyone else 
 said, but it didn't much matter because everyone was 
 talking. "Thank you!" "Oh, see this!" "Just what I 
 wanted!" "Did you make it yourself?" So many slippings 
 on of new jackets, or caps, or scarfs, or — over the shoes 
 — socks or stockings; even new dresses over old! And all 
 the hugging and kissing of delighted recipients and 
 donors! 
 
 After the tumult finally noised itself out, there was 
 some supper, and after that the final sing, ending with 
 "Silent Night, Holy Night!" It took some time borrowed 
 from the next day to get everyone safely stowed in bed, 
 for as many of the family as the roof would conveniently 
 cover stayed all night, and the problem of beds was 
 something. The others had to be bundled up to drive 
 home. 
 
 New Year's was celebrated in a very different way. 
 At first, it was a day when ladies stayed at home and 
 their gentlemen . friends called on them in a very in- 
 formal way and stayed long enough for a good visit. If 
 the ladies chose to serve a cup of tea or coffee and a 
 piece of fruitcake saved from Christmas dinner, well and 
 good; but there was no obligation or expectation. If hus- 
 bands were at home, so much the better. If they also 
 had gone calling, that was perfectly proper. If a lady 
 did not wish to receive callers, she hung a fancy basket 
 on the front door knob, and the caller left his card and 
 was not resentful. 
 
 Unfortunately, this neighborly visiting began before 
 many years to lose its casual simplicity. One or two ladies 
 
 81 
 
decided to invite two or three friends to receive with 
 them. The dining-room table was set with the best silver 
 and glass and china, and arrangements were made in the 
 kitchen to have tea or coffee served with a few moments' 
 notice. Gentlemen responded to the more formal enter- 
 tainment by going to call in groups of two or three. As 
 years went on, both receiving and calling groups grew 
 larger, preparations more elaborate, and chances for sat- 
 isfactory or leisurely conversation fewer. Often the call- 
 ers did not know more than one or two of the ladies, and 
 the ladies not more than one or two of the callers. The 
 matter of leaving cards became complicated; should a 
 gentleman leave his card only for the ladies he knew or 
 for all the ladies receiving? And what should he do if he 
 couldn't remember which of the ladies he did know? 
 Finally, the whole observance reached a travesty of 
 itself, when men began to boast of the number of calls 
 they made in a day, and the women of the number they 
 received. In a word, the custom died of its own weight. 
 Besides, New Year's Day became for the gayer members 
 of society a day of recovery from the all-night balls of 
 New Year's Eve. 
 
 One very delightful event which occurred rarely, 
 usually in the summer, and would have been featured 
 in the society column of the local paper if the editor 
 had known about it, was the blossoming of Mrs. Scoville's 
 night-blooming cereus. She must have had several of 
 these spirit-like plants in her greenhouse; for a plant is 
 supposed to bloom only once in a hundred years, and 
 
there were several occasions when a large group of peo- 
 ple watched the miracle. In the afternoon Mrs. Scoville 
 herself would drive around in her phaeton or send some- 
 one to tell people that a bud was beginning to swell 
 and would probably begin to open by eight or nine or 
 whatever hour her discerning eye prophesied. No one 
 invited failed to come. It seemed a miracle as the im- 
 prisoned spirit began slowly to unfold its wings, petal 
 by petal. It might be an hour or two before the entire 
 beauty of it was revealed, circle upon circle of pearl- 
 white leaves — like angels in a celestial choir. No one 
 could watch that revelation without feeling that for once 
 he had seen the Spirit of Creation face to face. 
 
 When the family wanted to go for an outing to- 
 gether on Saturday, there were several places to choose 
 from. The nearest was Haas's Park, the lovely stretch 
 of woodland along the river which is now Forest Home. 
 There were no forest preserves in those early days, and 
 the Haas family, whose large home stood near the en- 
 trance to their "Park," generously allowed the public to 
 drive through their woods, to picnic there as long as they 
 chose, and even to use their flat-bottomed boat for a ride 
 on the river. Especially in the springtime when the 
 ground was covered with wild flowers and the crabapple 
 trees were in bloom — the winters were colder than we 
 have now — and the crabapple blossoms were even pinker 
 than they are now — it was a paradise of natural beauty. 
 
 The boating was a novel experience and more or 
 less of a joke. Two families who went there regularly for 
 a picnic at least once every spring and fall always wound 
 
 83 
 
up the festivity with a boat ride. This was a little hard on 
 the men and boys who managed the four oars, but at 
 least an unusual diversion. The last ride in the boat, 
 which they called the "Mud Turtle," proved too much 
 for the two fathers. One spring they had delayed until 
 later than usual, and the river had shrunk nearly to its 
 summer depth. Not far from the starting wharf the boat 
 stuck, and pushing with oars failed to release it. Nothing 
 for it except that one of the fathers must get out and 
 push it off. They drew lots and the one of them who lost 
 — or won? — stepped bravely into the current, which 
 didn't reach quite to his waist, and with a free use of his 
 muscle, plus the pushing of the three oarsmen, released 
 the craft. Unfortunately, the incident was repeated after 
 a short excursion downstream, and the other father had 
 his chance to exert his muscles. And that was the last boat 
 ride of the two families on the Des Plaines. 
 
 Another excursion in which the entire family joined, 
 often more than once in the summer, was a picnic in 
 Lincoln Park. First was the zoo, to watch the bears 
 catching the peanuts the children threw to them, the 
 monkeys chasing each other over the swings of their high 
 cage, and the seals apparently sliding up the rocks after 
 sporting around in their pool. It was great luck if you 
 were there when the lions and tigers were being fed. 
 Then down to the lake shore, to open the lunch baskets 
 and dispose of every crumb. If father was in an indul- 
 gent mood, back to the pavilion for ice cream, and to 
 round out the day to perfection, a ride around the inland 
 lake in a gondola. Oak Park children knew as well as 
 
 84 
 
Chicago children that there was no park in the world 
 like Lincoln Park. 
 
 Another special treat on Saturdays was a family ex- 
 cursion to the old Exposition, an enormous building on 
 the lake front which eventually was torn down to make 
 way for the Art Institute. It was a sort of glorified 
 County Fair Palace, with a "beer hall" at one end, a con- 
 servatory at the other, and a fountain in the center 
 which served as a meeting place for everyone in Chicago 
 with everyone from out of town. If father could take a 
 day off and go to the city with the rest of the family, it 
 was indeed a gala day. If he couldn't, he met them at the 
 fountain. There the family was likely to separate, father 
 and the boys going to see the exhibits of machinery of 
 all kinds, from railway locomotives to the latest pencil 
 sharpeners; and mother and the girls to the displays of 
 household goods and the latest fashions. 
 
 No woman who saw the glass-enclosed showrooms 
 of Marshall Field or Carson Pirie Scott and Company 
 will ever forget them. There were gowns of silk or satin 
 or velvet, trimmed with Alencon lace or Chinese em- 
 broidery; brides' gowns with trains a yard long with 
 sweeping veils of rose point lace; long, full-skirted coats 
 of Russian sable or Alaska seal; hats of peacocks' breasts 
 with real aigrettes for trimming, or plumes half a yard 
 long; Chinese mandarin coats and robes of unbelievable 
 colors and microscopically fine embroidery. Isn't it a 
 pity that one or two of those displays of textures and 
 workmanship that no longer exist were not kept for the 
 wonder of today's idolaters? Or is it better for the peace 
 
 85 
 
of mind of women in general that such luxuries have all 
 but disappeared? 
 
 In the '70's and '80's there was no hall in Chicago 
 adapted to orchestral concerts. So, incredible as it seems, 
 a part of the Exposition Building was walled off for a 
 concert hall and there Theodore Thomas and his orches- 
 tra gave their first concerts in Chicago in 1877. The 
 journey from Oak Park to the city was not easy, espe- 
 cially in the evening, when most of the concerts were 
 given. But many Oak Parkers managed to make it, and 
 hear for the first time many of the worlds greatest mu- 
 sicians. Even more of them went to the May Festival 
 concerts, many of which were in the afternoon. It was 
 said of Mr. Thomas that his sense of hearing was so acute 
 that he could detect the variation of an eighth of a tone 
 in any instrument in his orchestra. How much he must 
 have suffered with his precious orchestra playing "among 
 the amenities of an auxiliary beer hall, and the tumults 
 of the lake front railroads!" But his will was indomitable, 
 and he persisted in his determination to establish in 
 Chicago a home for great music. 
 
 McVicker's Theater was built in 1872, and for many 
 years was much the best theater in Chicago. There were 
 plenty of Oak Parkers in the audiences, especially at 
 Saturday matinees. Many Oak Park children had their 
 first experience of the theater — bringing their parents 
 
with them — seeing Joe Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle, 
 or some forgotten actors in Uncle Toms Cabin. One 
 Oak Parker remembers hearing her mother tell how as a 
 child she was saved from being completely drowned in 
 tears because one of the angels in the aerial ballet who 
 were hovering over Little Eva's deathbed got caught in 
 the wires and couldn't hover. A grandmother remembers 
 that the highest enjoyment she ever had in the theater 
 was seeing The Rivals played by a cast that included 
 Joe Jefferson and Mrs. John Drew. In the course of the 
 play those two stars indulged in a little byplay of their 
 own that made Mrs. Drew forget her lines, and hide her 
 face with her fan. 
 
 But going to the city to the theater was a rare in- 
 dulgence for most Oak Parkers. To many of them it was 
 a wicked indulgence, wholly forbidden by their religious 
 beliefs. For many more it was much too expensive. And 
 in many cases it really was frightfully expensive, for the 
 sale of tickets wasn't well regulated; scalpers bought up 
 great sections of seats and fleeced the public unmer- 
 cifully. 
 
 People did not demand as much excitement in those 
 days as they do now. Home life, with its much work and 
 comparatively little play, was peaceful and fairly satis- 
 fying. One custom, which should have been spoken of 
 before, shows how old-fashioned it was. That was that 
 mothers, in addition to all the work they had to do, 
 rocked and sang their babies to sleep. "Sweet and Low" 
 was a favorite lullaby. 
 
 These are the words of another: 
 
 87 
 
Sleep, baby, sleep! 
 
 Thy father watcheth his sheep, 
 
 Thy mother is shaking the dreamland tree 
 
 And down falls a little dream on thee; 
 
 Sleep, baby, sleep! 
 
 Sleep, baby, sleep! 
 
 The large stars are the sheep, 
 
 The little stars are the lambs, I guess, 
 
 The bright moon is the Shepherdess; 
 
 Sleep, baby, sleep! 
 
 Sleep, baby, sleep! 
 
 Lord Jesus loveth his sheep; 
 
 He is the Son of God most high 
 
 Who for our sakes came down to die; 
 
 Sleep, baby, sleep! 
 
 Little did the mother think, while she was singing 
 this lovely lyric, that Father Time was standing beside 
 her, already composing his lullaby for nearly all her pos- 
 sessions, her ways of doing her daily tasks, and even 
 much of her thinking. But if he had asked her, she would 
 have told him that even he would never compose any 
 lullabies for the virtues that make a happy family life 
 possible. 
 
VIII: 
 
 THE "GAY NINETIES 
 
 ) ? 
 
 Not everything that happened in the '90's could be 
 called "gay"— not by any means. But there was a gen- 
 eral tendency toward more exuberant living, toward sav- 
 ing more time for amusement, taking life less seriously, 
 and indulging the tendency of people of like tastes to 
 get together in groups and form societies or clubs to 
 meet regularly for a definite purpose. In the '80's the 
 moat-and-drawbridge kind of living had pretty much 
 disappeared as characteristic of village life, and the 
 churches had ceased to be the only centers of sociability. 
 In the '80's there was a group of people on Oak Park 
 Avenue who rather arrogantly called themselves The 
 Club, who had very elegant parties in each others' homes, 
 
 89 
 
often employing a city caterer to furnish an elaborate 
 dinner and sometimes a professional entertainer for a set 
 and formal program. There were many small groups that 
 took to themselves names and met regularly for some 
 special purpose. By the 90s this tendency had become 
 almost an epidemic. All kinds of organizations came to 
 life — fraternal, literary, musical, philanthropic, and just 
 plain social. 
 
 First of the fraternal organizations was the Harlem 
 Lodge, the name of which was changed later to Oak 
 Park Lodge, which began its meetings in 1867. The 
 Siloam Commandery was organized in 1882, followed 
 by the Phil Sheridan Post, a unit of the Grand Army of 
 the Republic in '87. The Odd Fellows came into exist- 
 ence in '86. The first woman's organization, except a 
 small group calling themselves the United Mothers' way 
 back in the '70's, and the women's church societies, was 
 a unit of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* 
 brought together in '74. The first literary society was the 
 Augusta, named for the pastor of the Unity Church, who 
 created it in 1884. Another woman's society, the Travel- 
 ers, began its stay-at-home journeys around the world in 
 1890. All three of these groups are still meeting. 
 
 1891 saw start of the Nineteenth Century Woman's 
 Club and the Cycling Club. In 1892 the Needlework 
 Guild and the Associated Charities began their philan- 
 thropic work, and the Oak Park Orchestra played its first 
 
 'The W.C.T.U. leader, Frances Willard, taught in River Forest 
 and was a frequent speaker in Oak Park. 
 
 90 
 
concerts summer evenings in Scoville Place. These open- 
 air concerts were delightful get-togethers, not only of 
 scores of Oak Parkers, but of other suburbanites, and it 
 was a pity they did not last. In '95 the Chamber of Com- 
 merce began to bring a spirit of cooperation to the 
 various businesses of the town, and the Nakama Club 
 was added to the social groups. In 1896 a group of patri- 
 otic ladies established the George Rogers Clark Chapter 
 of the D.A.R. In '97 the Lowell Club organized for its 
 flourishing social-literary career, and Hephzibah Home 
 opened its doors to welcome the children of broken 
 homes. In '97 also Mrs. Crosby Adams created the Mac- 
 Dowell Musical Society, of which more hereafter. In '98 
 the Family Service Association began to continue and 
 amplify the work of the Associated Charities. 
 
 There were many, many other organizations of one 
 kind and another that came to life in the decade of the 
 '90's, some of which died in their infancy or adolescence, 
 or were adopted by some other group of like purpose. 
 Counting all the church societies, the total must have been 
 staggering. We often hear the complaint that Oak Park 
 is overorganized, but it still remains true that each indi- 
 vidual need not join any more groups than his good sense 
 finds compatible with his enjoyment and his health. 
 
 In '97 Mrs. Crosby Adams gathered a few of her 
 pupils together, and in a very modest and unheralded 
 way, started the MacDowell Club. Three or four times in 
 the next few years Mrs. MacDowell herself came to play 
 programs of her husband's music for the members, and to 
 tell them of the struggling beginnings of the MacDowell 
 
 91 
 
Colony at Peterborough, New Hampshire, which has 
 now become such a haven of refuge, especially in sum- 
 mer, for struggling artists in this country. In the beautiful 
 tract of woodland which MacDowell purchased and in 
 which were built numbers of isolated cottages where art- 
 ists could live and work in undisturbed and unbelievably 
 inexpensive solitude, much of the music and poetry and 
 other art which we are now enjoying was created. Among 
 the artists who profited by that retreat was Oak Park- 
 born and educated Doris Humphrey, who won a national 
 reputation by her work in interpretive dancing. 
 
 The Nineteenth Century Club, which is still the 
 largest woman's club in the town, held its organization 
 meeting October 19, 1891. Just as a matter of compara- 
 tive dates, it's interesting to notice the unrelated fact 
 that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra gave its first con- 
 cert the next day. More than twenty women prominent 
 in Oak Park life and supposed to have the rather indefi- 
 nite endowment called "brains," were present. The spon- 
 sors of the effort to form a club were three Oak Park 
 women who belonged to the Chicago Woman's Club — 
 one of them had been president of that organization — 
 who were firm in their belief that there were women in 
 Oak Park as full of light and as capable of leading as 
 Chicago women. It was a little discouraging to them to 
 be met with some of the medieval objections which were 
 raised in the discussion of their project. One woman was 
 sure her husband wouldn't approve of a woman's club; 
 another said she was too busy with her home duties to 
 take on any more; another didn't know what a woman's 
 
 
 vvtty STAy we ON I 
 EARTH UNLESS TO GROW 
 
 /^otto of the W b Century Woman's Club 
 
club would find to do — didn't they have their church 
 groups already to do missionary and charity work? 
 
 But the three leaders, who believed that women 
 were as clubbable as men, were not only determined but 
 wise, and as a result eighteen women signed their names 
 as members. They decided to take as the first subject of 
 study the "Political Condition of Europe in the First 
 Half of the Nineteenth Century," and appointed a com- 
 mittee to prepare a program for the first regular meeting. 
 Then they went on to discuss a statement of the purpose 
 of the club. After much consideration they agreed that 
 the new club was for "the intellectual advancement of 
 the members, the promotion of higher social, educa- 
 tional, and moral conditions in the community, and a 
 united effort toward the higher development of hu- 
 manity." 
 
 Having settled that all-important point, which is 
 still printed in successive yearbooks as the purpose of the 
 club, they went home with the half -fearful, half -elated 
 feeling of adventurers on an uncharted sea. 
 
 The program which the newly-elected committee 
 prepared for the first program was this: 
 
 The Political Condition in the First Half 
 of the Nineteenth Century of: 1. England; 
 2. France; 3. Spain; 4. Italy; 5. Austria; 6. Ger- 
 many; 7. Russia; 8. The Influence of the Napo- 
 leonic Wars on Europe. 
 
 Each country was assigned to a different member. 
 But time is inexorable and moved on to the point when 
 there was danger that the children at home would "look 
 
up and be not fed." So there was a motion properly 
 seconded and passed that Germany, Russia, and the 
 Napoleonic Wars should be postponed until the next 
 meeting. 
 
 The members were much in earnest about fulfilling 
 their stated purposes, and from the beginning were work- 
 ers for civic betterment. They were largely responsible 
 for placing the first woman on the school board. Many 
 of them worked hard to secure a good library for Scoville 
 Institute and for establishing and maintaining the Exten- 
 sion Lectures.* All of this seriousness seems rather in- 
 consistent with calling the decade "gay" but at least it 
 furnished the husbands with much amusement. Perhaps 
 they were a little jealous that their wives were plunging 
 deeper into world affairs than they were. 
 
 The highest point of achievement as well as the 
 most potent joy-bringer of the decade was the Worlds 
 Columbian Exposition in '93. Little Old Oak Park had 
 grown up enough by that time, if not to take full advan- 
 tage of that important world event, at least to enjoy a 
 good share of its bounty. There were three ways of going 
 to Jackson Park — one by the "dummy" which ran on 
 Randolph Street and connected in the city with one of 
 the south-bound railroads (usually not too promptly); 
 a second by the North Western, then across to the Illinois 
 
 *The Extension Lectures continue as the Oak Park Community 
 Lectures. 
 
 TtfE DUMMXLIME 
 
 t| 
 
 /S. 
 
 ■■ 
 
Central by bus, and south in trains made up of open cars 
 irreverently called "cattle cars," to the west entrance to 
 the grounds; and third, by tugboat or excursion steamer 
 to the east entrance through the arched gateway of the 
 Peristyle. Whichever way you went, you wished you had 
 taken one of the others, though on the whole the Illinois 
 Central proved the easiest and quickest. 
 
 Once arrived on the grounds, each person had his 
 preferred starting place for the day's adventure. Many 
 chose wisely to begin at the summit and see the Court of 
 Honor first. That first overwhelming sight was indescrib- 
 ably beautiful. The enlarged lagoon had brought an 
 arm of the lake inland, and the long peristyle of high 
 columns at the east end with the arched open gateway 
 gleamed white against the blue of the lake beyond. In 
 front of this entrance stood the heroic golden statue of 
 the Republic, * lifting in her right hand a symbolic globe 
 with wings, and in her left the torch of liberty. The 
 shores of the lagoon were terraced with bright flowers, 
 and on either side were two enormous white buildings — 
 Palaces, they were called — harmonious in general design 
 but differing in ornamental detail — housing the exhibits of 
 manufactures, agriculture, electricity, and horticulture. 
 
 At the west end of the lagoon stood the Administra- 
 tion Building, with a dome just enough reminiscent of 
 that of the Capitol in Washington to give national sig- 
 nificance to the whole scene. In front of that building the 
 MacMonnies' Fountain poured its streams of water 
 
 *Also known as Miss Columbia and still to be seen in Jackson 
 Park. 
 
 95 
 
around horses of the sea, and floated a ship, its slender 
 oars poised for flight. The whole scene was too over- 
 whelming for words, and on sunny days when the lake 
 was as blue as the Mediterranean and met the blue sky 
 on the horizon, it was more beautiful than a dream 
 because it was true. 
 
 But human beings can't stand forever at the Gates 
 of Paradise, and sooner or later even Oak Parkers had to 
 come down from the clouds and enjoy the Midway, or 
 perhaps take a less sudden descent by way of the Palace 
 of Art, which had many of the great pictures of the 
 world on its walls. The antics and curiosities of the Mid- 
 way—for example, the Street in Cairo and the Villages 
 of the Irish, the Chinese, the South Sea Islanders, and 
 the Esquimaux, besides dozens of side shows — were 
 more than anyone could endure in one day. The weari- 
 ness is forgotten, but no one who possesses "the inward 
 eye which is the bliss of solitude" forgets the vision of the 
 White City, and beyond it the reach of the blue lake 
 meeting the infinite blue of the sky. 
 
 We hear a great deal of criticism of Chicago "blow," 
 and deprecate it as an ill-mannered and irritating out- 
 break of the spirit of the West. But in the case of the 
 Columbian Exposition the "blow" is not equal to the 
 
 •MILLER^ DRUG 5TQRE- 
 
fact. We should have done more to keep the memory of 
 it alive, if in no other way than hanging pictures of the 
 beauties of it in our public buildings; and also doing 
 more than we have to perpetuate the influence of the 
 Congress of Religions held in the new Art Institute as 
 part of the Exposition. But it is to our credit, and a source 
 of lasting pleasure and profit, that we preserved the most 
 perfect of the buildings, the "Palace of Art," now Chi- 
 cago's Museum of Science and Industry. 
 
 To return to the more specific gaieties of the '90's, 
 many people remember the gaiety, not to say absurdity, 
 of women's dress in that period. Magazines still carry 
 occasional pictures of the high tight collars, the enor- 
 mously bouffant sleeves, the dangerously small waists, 
 the long skirts that swept the sidewalks, and the hats so 
 big that they had to be held on by hatpins a foot long. 
 
 One of the most interesting but almost unrecognized 
 facts of history is that a mechanical invention, which 
 greatly increased the gaiety of the period, also helped 
 very much in doing away with some of the silliest styles 
 of women's dress. That was the bicycle. No one paid 
 much attention to the tricycle, which was the parent of 
 the bicycle. Nor did anyone anticipate a social revolu- 
 tion when some middle-aged gentlemen began to ride 
 wheels. This original bicycle was a big wheel about a 
 yard in diameter, followed by a little wheel a few inches 
 across, which in action looked like a small dog following 
 at his master's heels. This invention was, properly 
 enough, called "the bonebreaker." Why it had such an 
 attraction for tall, dignified men, who seemed to find in 
 
 97 
 
it their delight and manifest destiny, was always an un- 
 solved problem. Perhaps they liked to show off the skill 
 and unusually good balance it took to ride it. That style 
 gradually gave way to the modern form of two equal- 
 sized, well-balanced wheels. 
 
 By the end of the '90's, the world, especially the 
 suburban world, had taken to wheels. The bicycle with 
 the "dip" bar made it possible for girls and women to 
 ride, and the two-seated invention made it possible — 
 and probable — for young men to take their best girls 
 with them on joy rides. Both those activities had major 
 consequences. One of the sights of the town was a young 
 woman who spent most of her time between giving vocal 
 lessons and going to parties. She went to both on her 
 wheel, pedaling down the street with her gay-colored 
 gown pinned up to her knees, the ribbons of her large hat 
 streaming in the breeze, and the wheel swerving danger- 
 ously when the lady lifted a hand to wave to an acquaint- 
 ance. Parenthetically, it was a great relief to the entire 
 village when this spectacular rider disappeared from the 
 streets, which she did when she married a staid old 
 bachelor who preferred that she confine her public 
 appearances to the concert stage. 
 
 However, Miss Flyaway had by indirection added 
 her bit to the influence of good sense, and women soon 
 
 wm ' 
 
began to wear divided skirts when they went a-wheeling. 
 The evolution from that sensible garment to a complete 
 plain suit of durable cloth didn't take long. And women 
 soon discovered that they looked so well and so stylish in 
 these businesslike outfits and felt so comfortable in them 
 that they adopted tailor-made suits with undivided skirts 
 that cleared the sidewalks by an inch or more for their 
 ordinary outdoor wear. It really was a revolution in 
 women's dress, for the ladies have never gone back to the 
 long skirts that had to be lifted at every puddle of water 
 or street crossing, and couldn't be kept clean even so. 
 
 The bicycle built for two caused a more easily 
 traced increase in the gaiety of nations. Groups of 
 young couples formed the habit of using them for excur- 
 sions to the country for picnics or to some lake for beach 
 parties or some resort for dances. Fleets of them became 
 a common sight and something of a nuisance to buggy 
 or carriage riders, especially on Saturday afternoons. 
 Nothing could have been more natural than that the 
 groups should want a clubhouse of their own where they 
 could meet for other diversions, especially in winter 
 months. 
 
 Hence, the Cycling Club was formed. Just before 
 the '90's they merged with the newly-formed Prairie 
 Club, which met in the original building at the southeast 
 corner of South Boulevard and Kenilworth. (In its en- 
 larged form it is now the Oak Leaves building. ) In 1890 
 the Prairie Club ceased to exist and became part of the 
 Oak Park Club. The growing use of the automobile 
 before the end of the decade deprived the bicycle of 
 
 99 
 
most of its social functions, and reduced it, except for 
 children, to the state of a utility, but not until it had 
 played quite a part in the life of the "Gay Nineties." 
 
 One of the proofs of the greater enjoyment of living 
 was the increase in outdoor life. Many families had 
 croquet grounds and some were beginning to have tennis 
 courts too. The auto was still in its infancy and often was 
 more trouble than it was worth. Drivers had to crank the 
 car in front to start it, and get under it, usually several 
 times during a drive, to fix some gadget. Mr. Mudd is 
 reported in a local paper as having a Locomobile in 1899, 
 which required a gallon of soft water every mile, usually 
 made twelve miles an hour, and made the trip to Mil- 
 waukee in a day. 
 
 But why shouldn't people in the United States have 
 been gay? Until the last two years of the decade we were 
 at peace, the good earth was producing its bounty in 
 increasing measure, machines were taking over the 
 heaviest burdens from human shoulders, most businesses 
 were prospering, most people believed in personal and 
 national perfectability, and Chicago and the West gen- 
 erally had faith in a bright future. 
 
IX: 
 
 NEWSPAPERS 
 
 Oak Leaves 
 
 Every man in Oak Park whose business was in the 
 city took a Chicago paper, so that the need of a local 
 press was not acute. But several courageous people, one 
 of them a woman, made attempts to publish a local paper, 
 and failed. In January '83 John Daly made another 
 attempt and succeeded. The paper was named the 
 Vindicator and was published weekly until 1887, when 
 the Reporter took its place. Mr. Daly introduced his 
 publication to the public in these words: 
 
 "In presenting our claims to the citizens . . . 
 for the support of an independent journal we 
 feel warranted in asserting that there is need 
 for a newspaper with sufficient courage and 
 independence to discuss with impartiality the 
 questions that are of the most vital importance 
 to the people of this community." 
 
 101 
 
The editor made a persistent effort to live up to 
 his purpose. Each paper contained a report from the 
 townships of Austin, Berwyn, and Cicero. In September 
 '83 a report from Oak Park appeared in the Cicero col- 
 umn. Nearly every paper after that had items of news 
 from Oak Park. Both Vindicator and Reporter have pages 
 that measure seventeen by twenty-eight and a half 
 inches, and the volumes which contain a year's papers 
 are something to handle. 
 
 The column in the Vindicator which gives scraps of 
 information from all parts of the world is headed "Edi- 
 torial Jots and Glints." Here are two: 
 
 "The Judiciary Committee of the Senate 
 has agreed to report in favor of paying George 
 W. P. C. Lee $150,000 for 1100 acres com- 
 prised in the Arlington Estate near Washington, 
 now a National Cemetery." 
 
 "The mails are slowly getting into better 
 shape, though some trains are still making poor 
 time. The worst delays yesterday were as fol- 
 lows: First Pittsburgh, 4 hours; 2nd Pittsburgh, 
 2 hours; Detroit, 3 hours; Grafton, Cincinnati, 
 and Buffalo, 2 hours each." 
 
 Words are not spared in advertising, as, this item for 
 example, "In this advancing and enlightened 
 
 age of the world, when political aspirants have 
 ascended and descended the hill of fame, when 
 Mayor Harrison defies the public press of the 
 great Garden City . . . I Ed., etc. to the length of 
 85 wordsl ... we don't yet know enough to 
 
 102 
 
save ten cents on every dollar we invest in gro- 
 ceries by buying them at J. D. Flanigan's, No. 
 646 Forty-third Street." (Vindicator. February 
 10,1883.) 
 
 Fearing a dearth of exciting local news, the editor of 
 both local papers subscribed to "patent insides," which 
 ranged in subject all over the globe from "How to Kill 
 Cabbage Worms" and "In and Out of Andersonville" to 
 "Jeanne d'Arc" and "The Courage of the Zulus." There 
 was usually a serial love story which continued for sev- 
 eral weeks. The editors were aware that the papers were 
 designed for home reading and were careful to include 
 material of special interest to women. Here is one ad- 
 dressed to girls and young women: 
 
 "I may as well be frank at once and say I 
 do not like the girl who woos. She is usurping 
 the privilege of her knight, and if I were he I 
 would turn and flee. . . . Like flowers, the ones 
 worth having, sweet of perfume and restful in 
 color, are not the ones that protrude themselves 
 on your vision and say, as do some flowers and 
 some maidens, 'Take me!' " 
 
 For housekeepers : "A Pertinent Question." 
 
 "What do you want a dollar for?' One 
 would think the man was talking to a beggar 
 instead of answering a partner's demand. But 
 the average wife has to take what she can get 
 from her cashier with becoming modesty and 
 gratitude. At the same time, it may be, the nec- 
 essary treasury of the house would have been 
 
 103 
 
empty if the housekeeper had not done her 
 share in protecting it from waste." 
 
 The editor of the Reporter had evidently taken Sir 
 Gawain's vow "not to be against ladies," for he includes 
 this flattering excerpt in the number of October 24, 1890: 
 
 "A Chat with Married and Unmarried Femininity." 
 
 "Periodical literature for women concerns 
 itself so largely with her new successes in the 
 business world, is so taken up with chronicling 
 her achievements in commerce, in literature, 
 and in art that the casual reader might be per- 
 suaded to believe the good old-fashioned occu- 
 pation of motherhood had fallen into disrepute. 
 . . . The scientific facts of heritage are matters 
 of proverbial acceptance. The sons of great men 
 are rarely great. Great men have nearly always 
 mothers of powerful character and mind. The 
 dignity, freedom, and strength of a nation are 
 nearly in direct proportion to liberty and dig- 
 nity of its women. . . . Men of races may be de- 
 stroyed and obliterated by lower forces but 
 woman is eternal. War and barbarian influx 
 pass by and spare her, and whatever political 
 or social convulsion may attack our present 
 civilization it cannot be wholly destroyed like 
 those of old times, since woman holds the 
 secret." (Reporter. October 24, 1890.) 
 
 At the time when Oak Park attained its independ- 
 ence, early in 1902, Oak Leaves bought the Reporter, 
 and has been published regularly ever since. 
 
 104 
 
X: 
 
 POLITICS, CIVIC SPIRIT 
 AND INDEPENDENCE 
 
 JWDEPENDEjv c 
 
 Of course, almost all the men in Oak Park were 
 Republicans. It was natural that they should venerate 
 and want to follow the man who had held the Union 
 together, freed the slaves, and won the hearts of his 
 countrymen by his wisdom, his honesty, his simplicity, 
 and his kindness, and delighted them with his humor. 
 Added to all this was the pity of his death. There were 
 only three men of prominence in the village who dared 
 to be Democrats. They were unmercifully razzed, but 
 
 105 
 
not ostracized. No one of them was lacking in loyalty to 
 Lincoln, but all three of them felt in duty bound to pro- 
 test by their votes against the way the North was treating 
 the South after the Civil War. 
 
 Very few voters took their political responsibility as 
 a matter of great importance, or gave it deep study. 
 Choice of candidates was largely a matter of personal- 
 ities rather than principles, and party affiliations a ques- 
 tion of heredity, convenience, or supposed self-interest. 
 Children were not brought up to know much about the 
 government they must take over when they grew up. In 
 United States history they learned the list of presidents 
 and something about the battles of the Revolution and 
 the Civil War, and a few of them learned what their own 
 rights were under the Constitution. But as for high school 
 pupils knowing what laws were being passed in their 
 state legislatures, or in Congress, or how those laws 
 would affect their own lives, they had no idea. And as a 
 rule they didn't hear their fathers talking about such 
 subjects. 
 
 One high school principal said in the '90's that he 
 had thought young people ought to know what was going 
 on in the local courts, but that after taking a group of 
 them to the police court and hearing the language used 
 and discovering that some of the J.P.'s were giving the 
 verdict "guilty" in order to get the fee, he gave up the 
 idea and decided that his students must learn about local 
 justice from books rather than see it in action. The father 
 who took his teen-age daughter to the national conven- 
 tion which nominated Garfield in 1892 was considered 
 
 106 
 
slightly crazy. He wasn't; on the contrary, the Lord was 
 with him, for after a forgotten number of indecisive 
 ballots the nomination was made while the girl was 
 there and she profited by the most dramatic experience 
 of her life. 
 
 Civic spirit is an elusive subject about which very 
 different opinions are held. Of the superficial kind which 
 angrily resents the suggestion that the policemen's uni- 
 forms in Evanston are better-looking than ours, or that 
 there is one more street lamp to a block there than here, 
 we have always had plenty. But what of the deeper kind 
 which leads citizens to make personal sacrifices for the 
 good of the town? In the village annals there is this dis- 
 couraging example of the lack of it in the early days. 
 
 The lot on which the Oak Ridge School — for so 
 many years the Central School — originally stood was 
 only about one-third the size of the present Lowell 
 School grounds. It was much too small to give good 
 space for a playground, and the question of buying more 
 land to the west and south of the building was discussed 
 for several years. Finally, the school board called a 
 meeting to settle the question. The price of the lot was 
 $800. There was plenty of debate, pro and con. One man 
 was especially vocal against "such an unnecessary ex- 
 travagance." Mr. Scoville, who had sold the gentleman 
 his own lot, took out paper and pencil and after figuring 
 a moment announced that the gentleman's share of the 
 purchase would be seventy-five cents. Nevertheless, the 
 meeting voted against the purchase. Mr. Scoville said 
 nothing more, but soon after the meeting purchased the 
 
 107 
 
lot himself. He held it until another school board was 
 elected, another meeting called, and the decision re- 
 versed. Then he sold the lot to the school board for the 
 original price. 
 
 Anyone who has watched and heard the use of that 
 playground by the generations of children since, as re- 
 corded in the chapter on schools, knows what a joy- 
 bringer and health-producer that eight hundred dollars' 
 worth of real estate has been. 
 
 The lesson about civic spirit is such a simple one 
 that it's hard to understand why it takes so long for some 
 people to learn it. It is only that a small contribution 
 from each citizen mounts up to a lump sum big enough 
 to buy a great improvement which is worth much more 
 to each individual citizen than the small tax he paid for 
 it. Perhaps because the word tax has such an unpleasant 
 connotation, we need a word other than tax, such as 
 contribution or gift. 
 
 One way in which civic spirit asserted itself with 
 increasing vigor in our town was the desire to have an 
 independent government, free from the other parts of 
 the township. When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, 
 the remainder of Cook County was left with a rather 
 indefinite form of government. In 1867 a definite town- 
 ship was established which included Austin, Cicero, 
 Berwyn, Oak Park, and a few small settlements besides, 
 and was called Cicero. 
 
 The law then was that no one of these units could 
 vote itself out of the township, but that the entire town- 
 ship must vote on the question. That law was obviously 
 
 108 
 
unfair, and increased the friction which naturally existed 
 between Austin and Cicero and the other towns. Those 
 two, being nearer the city, had more interests in common 
 with the city than the others which were farther away. 
 Moreover, there was internal friction for years in both 
 Austin and Cicero between the citizens who wanted to 
 be incorporated in the city and those who did not. Also, 
 there was jealousy of Oak Park in both towns because, 
 though it might not have been larger, it had more wealth 
 and influence. 
 
 In 1898 an election was held in Cicero Township on 
 the questidn whether or not Austin should be taken into 
 the city, and there was a decided majority for incorpora- 
 tion. Oak Park at once staged an enthusiastic celebration 
 and began to prepare for our own emancipation. 
 
 But alas! the opposition was still at work, and the 
 Superior Court of Illinois handed down a ruling that the 
 annexation of Austin to the city was unconstitutional. By 
 that decision the Oak Parkers "found all their efforts 
 futile and their enterprise put back to where it was ten 
 years before." But they didn't give up. There was much 
 legal bickering, quite confusing, and in retrospect seem- 
 ing quite unnecessary. But in October 1899 the Supreme 
 Court of Illinois upheld the annexation of Austin to 
 Chicago. 
 
 That cleared the way, and a petition for the separa- 
 tion of Oak Park from Cicero was completed and filed 
 before Judge Carter of the County Court on October 8, 
 1901, and on November 5 an order for the election of 
 officers issued. An election committee was selected, and 
 
 109 
 
a very lively campaign followed. Handbills were distrib- 
 uted in the morning papers, and the election of the first 
 town board was completed on December 17, 1901. The 
 campaign was fought on the question of precinct repre- 
 sentation, and the People's Independent ticket won by 
 majorities varying from 40 to more than 100 in the eight 
 precincts. 
 
 Thus, it came about that Oak Park, the world's larg- 
 est village, has no charter, but was created by court 
 order. A town meeting to inaugurate the first board of 
 trustees was held January 1, 1902, "amid universal ac- 
 clamation." 
 
 With that meeting, paradoxically enough, Little Old 
 Oak Park ceased to exist, for the town had become old 
 enough to reach full maturity. In a twentieth century 
 still new, a new and independent Oak Park was experi- 
 encing a sturdy growth, one stemming, at least in part, 
 from this wise purpose: "Resolved: That municipal af- 
 fairs should be divorced from party politics, and that it 
 is desirable that some workable method should be de- 
 vised for the selection of candidates for municipal office 
 which shall be entirely independent of the party ma- 
 chinery." 
 
 It is to be hoped that Oak Park has accepted as its 
 permanent motto this resolution which was passed by 
 the founding fathers at the time of its creation. 
 
About the Author 
 
 When May Estelle Cook was 93 years old, she was 
 asked by the Nineteenth Century Woman's Club to take 
 part in a program called the "Past, Present, and Future of 
 Oak Park" Her listeners found her talk so charming, witty, 
 and full of the wisdom of her years that they asked her to 
 set it down for others to read and enjoy. 
 
 Her story of Little Old Oak Park is delightful, but of 
 equal interest is the story of May Estelle Cook herself. Born 
 near Chicago's lake front in 1865, she was brought to the 
 community we now call Oak Park in 1870. She was gradu- 
 ated from the Central grade and high school and in 1888 
 from Wellesley College, as one of Oak Park's first college 
 graduates. 
 
 On her return to Oak Park she began more than 70 years 
 of service to her beloved community. Many still remember 
 her as a teacher at Austin High School, where her deep 
 understanding, rare humor, and tart expression helped to 
 introduce two generations of boys and girls to the mysteries 
 and delights of English literature and language. 
 
 In 1891 she helped to found the 'Nineteenth Century 
 Woman's Club. Ten years later she helped to organize the 
 series of adult education programs that we now call the 
 Oak Park Community Lectures. Old timers still recall how 
 she drove around the village in her buggy, delivering tickets 
 
 111 
 
to subscribers. Fifty years later she was still taking an active 
 part in Community Lecture board meetings. 
 
 She was an active member of the League of Women 
 Voters from its inception, a long-time, devoted member of 
 the First Congregational Church, and one of the founders 
 of the Conference on International Affairs. For forty-four 
 years she has served on the board of the Scoville Institute 
 and was its secretary for thirty-six of those years. 
 
 Amidst these activities she found time to play the piano, 
 to garden, to walk in the woods, to develop a scientific ac- 
 quaintance with the birds and trees of our community, to 
 play tennis vigorously, to read voluminously, to sparkle as 
 a speaker on literary subjects, history, and international 
 affairs, and to travel with a keen and loving understanding. 
 
 As the years passed, she became more and more inter- 
 ested in civic affairs. She rallied to every community issue, 
 writing letters to the editors, making crisp speeches. In the 
 village election of 1957, when she was 91, she told the cam- 
 paign manager, "Give me the hard ones," and went on to 
 ring doorbells, climb apartment stairs, and persuade doubt- 
 ful voters. 
 
 Gentle but determined, adventuresome but practical, 
 full of good humor but sensitive to the feelings of others, 
 brilliant, independent, she has lived abundantly, a person 
 of consequence. 
 
 DWIGHT AND MILDRED FOLLETT 
 
 112 
 

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