Michelle Cox's Blog, page 14

Love Wins

Russell Schreiber was born on July 26, 1911 in Chicago to Paula Banas and Adam Schreiber.  Paula was of Polish descent and was born in Chicago, while Adam was an immigrant from Prussia.  Adam worked in a factory, and Paula cared for their three children: Norman, Lloyd, and Russell.  When Russell was just two years old, however, Adam abandoned the family.  Paula tried her best to care for her three sons by herself by getting a job as a night cleaner.  Not long after Adam left the family, however, both Norman and Lloyd died in the flu epidemic.  After her husband’s abandonment and the death of two of her children, Paula found it hard to cope emotionally and therefore sent Russell to live on a farm in Wisconsin with her sister and brother-in-law.

According to Russell, he enjoyed his life on the farm with his aunt and uncle.  When he was about ten years old, however, his mother brought him back home to live with her and her new husband, Victor Kaczmarek, who was also a factory worker, just as his father had been.  Before long, Paula and Victor had a child together, a little girl they named Vera.  Russell says that while his step-father was not mean to him, he and his mother spoiled Vera rotten.

“From the moment she was born, she was the favorite,” Russell says and recalls how he had to drink canned milk while Vera was given fresh milk delivered each morning.  “That’s just one example of hundreds,” he says, though that one has always stuck in his mind.  Likewise, as Vera grew older, she began to sneak into his room and steal things that were of value to him.  His mother and step-father, however, never believed his accusations against her, so he installed locks on his dresser to prevent any further thefts.

By the time Russell was in sixth grade, he was sick of school and quit to get a job loading and unloading box cars.  During the Depression, he worked for the CCC cutting trees in Oregon.  When WWII broke out, he did not serve for some reason, but instead got a job at the Horeen Leather Co. as a machinist, a job he kept for thirty years before retiring.

As a young man, Russell enjoyed going to movies and playing cards and was active in his parish, Holy Innocents, where he served as an usher and as a member of the Holy Name Society.  He enjoyed doing things with a group of girls and guys from the neighborhood, such as going to dances or picnics.  When he was thirty years old, he met a young woman, Rita Chmela, whom he very much liked.  Rita worked for Gala Hair Products.  She had started in the factory at sixteen, and by age twenty-eight, she had moved up to working in the office.  Russell liked her very much, but was hesitant to ask her to marry him.  It was one of his uncles who persuaded Russell to “pop the question,” telling him that he needed to get out of his mother’s house and away from his sister, Vera, who was now quite cruel to him.

So Russell proposed, and Rita accepted.  Rita continued to work at Gala Hair Products until their two children, Marvin and Pearl, were born, after which she stayed home with them.  They began their married life in an apartment on N. Bishop and then moved to a place on W. Huron, where they remained until the early 1970’s, when Rita surprisingly inherited her parent’s two-flat on W. Erie.

Apparently, Rita had two siblings, Wilomena and Frank, whom she was never very close to, which was a similarity she shared with Russell and his own antagonistic sister, Vera.  As mentioned, when Rita married Russell, they moved to an apartment on N. Bishop, but when her sister, Wilomena got married to a man named Sam Mazur, the two of them moved into the upstairs apartment of the Chmela family home.  Rita’s father had died in 1935, so just her mother and her younger brother, Frank, remained in the first floor apartment.  In 1962, Rita’s mother died, leaving just Frank in the downstairs apartment, while Wilomena and Sam still occupied the top floor.  Unexpectedly, Sam died in 1970 of a heart attack, after which the tension between Rita and Wilomena grew worse, with Wilomena apparently screaming “The wrong husband died!” during a particularly heated argument with Rita.  Then, in 1972, Frank died and the house was somehow willed to Rita, which infuriated Wilomena.

Despite her sister’s anger, Rita and Russell decided to take up residence in the first floor apartment, though Marvin and Pearl were already grown up and had moved away to the suburbs.  Russell says that they tried to “mend fences” with Wilomena, but she refused to even speak to them.

Apparently, Russell and Rita enjoyed their retirement years.  Russell enjoyed watching sports or movies on TV, and Rita liked to garden.  She was happy to be back in her childhood home despite Wilomena’s continued resentment.  Russell and Rita did not do much traveling, but they did once go on an anniversary trip to Spokane, Washington to visit relatives.  They joined the Happy Hearts senior citizens club at Holy Innocents and had a lot of friends.

Sadly, however, in 1989, Rita passed away, which devastated Russell.  Alone in the apartment, he was surprised when, several weeks after the funeral, Wilomena appeared from upstairs, wanting to make amends.  She had come down to comfort Russell, but she instead ended up crying and saying that she regretted all the lost years she could have had with her sister.  Russell, always an easy-going man, willingly accepted her apology, and a new friendship began.

Russell and Wilomena began checking on each other and going to the store together, with Wilomena sometimes even making him dinner.  They continued living this way, with one up and one down, for about five years before Wilomena’s health began to decline.  Wilomena never had any children, so Marvin and Pearl often checked in on her when they came to visit their dad, helping her with things around the apartment or shopping for her.  In the spring of 1995, however, Wilomena became so ill that Marvin and Pearl could no longer cope with her various health issues and decided to admit her to a nursing home.

After Wilomena went into the nursing home, Russell was afraid to live alone in the building and asked Pearl to move into the upstairs apartment, which she agreed to do temporarily despite the fact that she was married with her own children and living in Arlington Heights.  She thought it might be easier to care for her dad this way, though he ended up falling down the stairs anyway and breaking a hip.  It was perhaps the catalyst that Pearl and Marvin needed to be able to rationalize putting their father in a home, as well.  Pearl could not keep living there, nor could she adequately care for him in her home in Arlington Heights.

Eventually, then, Marvin and Pearl saw no choice but to discuss with Russell the possibility of going into a nursing home.  Though he was very reluctant to leave the house on Erie, he agreed that it would probably be for the best.  To Marvin and Pearl’s surprise, however, Russell requested that he be admitted to the same nursing home as Wilomena, rather than one in the suburbs, which would be closer to them.  Pearl and Marvin tried to explain to him that it would mean they wouldn’t be able to visit as often, but still he decided to stay in the city.

At this time, Russell has made a relatively smooth transition to the facility.  He is at times forgetful, but he says he likes the home and all of the activities offered.  His favorite thing, however, is that his room is right next door to Wilomena.  At the time of his admission, there were no empty rooms next to Wilomena, so she agreed to move to a different floor so that she could be next to Russell.  “It’s the least I could do after all he put up with,” she says and is thrilled to have her brother-in-law be her neighbor again.  The two of them can frequently be seen walking the halls together, both with walkers, or sitting watching TV together in one of the day rooms.

(Originally written: January 1996)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

The post Love Wins appeared first on Michelle Cox Author.

One of the Seven Sisters

Almera Navarro was born on August 2, 1908 in the Philippines to Jonray and Divine Santos.  Jonray worked for a trucking company, and Divine cared for their seven daughters: Dorilyn, Eilene, Frela, Almera, Jelinda, Karmina and Lonila, who became known collectively as “The Seven Sisters” of Calamba, the town in which they lived.

Almera attended grade and high school and even went on to college, earning a degree in education.  After she graduated, she got a job teaching in the provinces and fell in love with the principal of the school.  At age thirty-three, Almera assumed she would never get married, so when the principal, David Navarro, proposed to her, she accepted.

David and Almera had three children: Jazel, Carmi, and Lito, but Almera continued working as a teacher even after they were born and did not retire until she was sixty-five.  Almera apparently loved to teach and to take classes herself, always wanting to learn more.  In fact, she was only one class short of obtaining a Master s degree when she eventually retired.  She loved reading, especially anything about current events, and she read the whole newspaper from cover to cover every day.  She was a very stubborn, opinionated person that loved to debate various topics with anyone she could find.  She was a very inquisitive, social person, her children say, describing her as “a non-stop talker.” She also loved music of any kind, dancing and traveling.

In fact, when David passed away in 1965 of cancer, Almera’s children began funding her travels.  She went all over the world, traveling to Europe, China and even South America.  She became lonely, though, for her children, who had all moved to the United States, so her son, Lito, and his wife, invited her to come and live with them in Chicago.  Almera was delighted to accept and enjoyed the time with her grandchildren.  She insisted on speaking to them only in English and loved telling them stories about growing up in the Philippines as one of the “seven sisters” and especially what it was like during the war years.

At certain times of the year, she would go and spend several months with her daughters as well – Jazel being a physician in Missouri and Carmi a nurse in DeKalb.  Jazel comments that her mother took great interest in all of her grandchildren, and being a former teacher, she had very high standards regarding their schooling.  “She could be very critical,” Jazel says, “though she meant it in a good way.”

Unfortunately, in the early 1990s, Almera suffered from three strokes, the last leaving her severely incapacitated.  The hospital discharge staff urged the family to place her in a nursing home, though Lito, with whom she was still living, was very reluctant to do so.  All three of the children got together to discuss the options and finally decided that caring for Almera at home probably wasn’t the best option for all concerned.  Lito is hoping that she will still recover enough to come home, but Jazel and Carmi are more realistic.

Almera is currently in a semi-comatose state and unable to respond most of the time.  She is therefore not able to participate in the home’s activities, except to listen to music programs.  She is never without family members visiting her, however, even through the night.  “She was a wonderful mother,” Lito said recently during a visit.  “We want to do everything we can for her.”

(Originally written: October 1996)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

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“Only Hussies Ask Boys to Dance!” – Part 2 of the Adele and Karel Bartos Story

Karel Bartos was born on May 7, 1908 in Chicago to Ambrose Bartos and Gabriela Adamik.  Ambrose and Gabriela met and married in what is now Czechoslovakia and began their family there.  Ambrose was a shoemaker, and Gabriela cared for their seven children.  Otto, Denis, Honza and Jan were born in Czechoslovakia, though Honza died shortly after birth.  The rest of the children: Karel, Hanna and Kamila were born in Chicago after the family immigrated there in 1914.  Jan died at age fourteen of the flu epidemic, and Karel almost followed when he contracted diphtheria at age seven.  Karel lived, but he was always weak, thin and sickly after that.

Because he was ill for such a long time, Karel did not start school until he was eight.  He was bright, though, and eventually skipped two grades to catch up to where he should have been.  Karel was interested in sports, particularly baseball, as he was too skinny for football, but also enjoyed reading and putting together model airplanes.  He was so good at making them, in fact, that by the time he was in high school, he and a friend had begun building real, small airplanes from scrap that actually flew.  Eventually they decided to build one to sell and began to advertise it.   “Some farm kid in Michigan” offered to trade them two motorcycles—a Harley and an Indian—for it, which Karel and his friend willingly accepted.  They spent the summer riding around on the motorcycles, but continued to build and fly planes, dreaming of being pilots someday and traveling the world.

Ambrose, however, had other ideas for Karel.  For one thing, he saw flying airplanes as an expensive, silly past time, not a real career path forward.  Ambrose still worked as a shoemaker and owned his own little shop on the city’s northwest side.  He insisted that Karel finish high school, which he did, though he had to work full time, as well, to help support the family.  When he graduated, Karel then went on to business college, at Ambrose’s insistence, to learn accounting.  In the meantime, he got a job working for his brother, Denis, at the Continental and Commercial Bank downtown Chicago.

It was at the bank that he first met his future wife, Adele Janicek, in passing, when Denis stopped to talk to Adele’s friend, Martha.  Karel was painfully shy and struggled to talk to anyone, much less girls.  His siblings thought he was a lost cause when it came to love and romance and never expected him to marry at all.  His mother, however, had not given up hope and thought that if he could just meet the right sort of girl, Karel would come out of his shell.

So when Gabriela noticed Adele Janicek at various functions in the neighborhood, her interest was piqued.  Adele was bright and determined and funny and talkative and always seemed to be in the middle of things.  She seemed the perfect girl for her Karel, if only she could think of a way to get him to talk to her.

As it happened, one night at a neighborhood dance, Gabriela saw her chance.  She was thrilled when she noticed Adele talking with a friend of Karel’s, John Wesley.  Gabriela pulled John aside as soon as she found him alone and begged him to ask Adele to ask Karel to dance.  John told her that he did not think Adele would agree to that, but Gabriela urged him to try.  She was delighted, then, when, a little bit later, she saw John and Adele approach Karel.

She was horrified, however, when Karel loudly rejected Adele’s offer to dance.  Humiliated, she pushed him out onto the floor with Adele.   Later, at home, Gabriela scolded him.

“But only hussies ask boys to dance!” Karel exclaimed and truly thought she would have been proud of him for rejecting an obviously loose woman.  Gabriela was forced to explain that she had put John and Adele up to it, which then embarrassed Karel all the more.  Gabriela continued to push Karel to ask Adele out, however, so that one day when he saw Adele at another dance—and tired of his mother’s nagging—he asked Adele if he could walk her home.  She replied that no, she was walking home with John Wesley, but promised Karel that he could walk her home the next time.  Adele kept her promise, and to his surprise, Karel found on the walk home, that he actually liked Adele.  He shyly asked her out again, and then began to court her in earnest.

When he proposed to her a few months later, everyone was stunned that Adele—forward and driven and outgoing and popular—would accept the weak, shy, quiet Karel.  Adele never explained herself to anyone, but chose Karel just the same.  As it turned out, it was the beginning of a beautiful life together, though, like any, not without its share of troubles.

The year before Karel and Adele got married, not only did the stock market crash, but Adele’s father, Daniel, passed away at age forty-seven.  His health had been bad for many years from working in the foundry, and eventually his heart just gave out.  When Karel and Adele got married, then, they decided out of practicality to move in with her mother and her three brothers, all of whom were still at home.  Thousands of people at the time were losing their jobs, especially in banks.  Women were the first to be fired, as it was common thinking that their husbands or fathers would provide for them.

At the Continental and Commercial bank, however, such was not the case with Adele.  She was naturally very fearful of losing her job, but Miss Kate Williams and indeed many of the bank officers really liked her.  They also knew that not only Karel but all three of her brothers had lost their jobs and that she was the sole provider of the family.  Thus, they kept her on.  Karel and his brother, Denis, had left the bank the year before and were both working at an accounting firm when the market crashed and were both subsequently fired.  Karel had been trying to finish his accounting degree by taking classes at night and continued to do so while he looked for another job.  None was forthcoming, however.

Things continued this way for a long time with Adele providing for all of them.  Officially, she worked in the statistics department at Continental, but she made it a point to help out as much as she could in every department.  She was constantly doing people favors.  It seemed to pay off, however, because not only did she manage to hold on to her job, but one day, one of the officers in the statistics department for whom she was taking dictation, kindly asked if Karel had yet found a job.  When she said no, he told her he knew of an accounting position at Northern Illinois Coal Company that was coming open and that he would set up an interview the following week for Karel if he was interested.  Adele was thrilled with this news, but when the officer told her later which day had been set up for the interview, she was crushed when she found out it was the same day Karel was scheduled to take the CPA exam.  She dreaded telling the officer that Karel would not be able to interview, but when she did, he did some checking for her, and Northern Illinois agreed to see him the following week instead.  When Karel did go in to interview with them, they were apparently impressed because he was offered the job immediately.

Things then began to look up for Adele and Karel.  Her three brothers moved out of the house, having all gotten married themselves, leaving just Adele, Karel, and Renata in the original house that Daniel and Renata had purchased years ago.  Before long, they decided to sell the house and buy a new one in Cicero.  Just as the sale was going through, however, Northern Illinois Coal Company was bought out by a company in Kansas.  The new company offered to relocate Karel and Adele, but Karel did not have a good feeling about it.  He was afraid they would move to Kansas and then he might eventually be let go, so he resigned.

Karel thus started the job search process all over again and began to look through the classifieds.  He was excited to come upon an ad for an accountant with United Airlines and applied.  Adele, for her part, promptly went to the bank officers at Continental and informed them that Karel was applying for a job at United, which happened to be a major client at the bank.  A few calls were then made to United, and Karel not only got an interview, but the job.

It was a dream come true for Karel to combine his job with his love of planes and his desire to see the world.  It was then that Karel and Adele’s travels began.  Because they could now get free tickets, they traveled all over the United States and the world any chance they got.  They went to Europe at least ten times and often flew to New York just for the weekend to see the opera or the ballet, Adele’s own childhood dream fulfilled from the days of her friendship with Maria.

In 1945, things were going so well for Adele and Karel that Karel decided they should build a brand new house in Riverside.  Adele was very against the idea, however, as she didn’t see the point in it.  They had a nice house in Cicero, and she had no desire to move.  Karel was determined, though, and Adele listened, as he so rarely had a strong opinion about anything.  Finally, she gave in to Karel’s wish for two reasons.  One, he had put up with her mother all those years, which had not always been easy, and Adele was grateful to him for it.  Second, they had saved enough money that they wouldn’t need to get a mortgage, so in the end, they paid $32,000 in cash and built the new home.  They lived there for forty years and retired in their sixties.  Adele had worked at Continental for over forty years.  On their 60th wedding anniversary, they flew to Europe and returned on the Concorde.

Even in their retirement, both Karel and Adele continued with social events and travel, but, Adele says, “old age has not been kind to us.”  In the early 1990’s, Adele began to notice that Karel’s memory was becoming worse and worse and finally took him to a doctor, where he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  Adele became very depressed about their prospects and had no one to turn to for help.  They had never had children because, says Adele, “We were too busy living life!”  All of Karel’s siblings had already died, as had all of Adele’s, except Emil.  Adele thought that perhaps they should sell the house and move into an apartment, but Karel adamantly refused.  His choice was to move into a Czech nursing home, where they could be cared for properly as they aged.  Adele was reluctant to do this, but in the end agreed with what Karel wanted, as she knew it was probably his last sane request.

And so in 1992, Karel and Adele moved into a Czech nursing home in Chicago.  Because of their long involvement in the community and a perhaps because of a large donation to the nursing home, they secured a large double room which overlooked the gardens and were allowed to bring as much of their own furniture from their home as would fit into their new space.  As a result, their room resembles a tiny version of their home in Riverside, not that of an institution.

Adele, though she has her own health problems, is very involved in the nursing home and very devoted still to Karel, who sits patiently in a wheelchair, dressed impeccably each day by Adele, with his eyes closed.  When roused, he gives a gentle answer, usually nonsensical, to whatever is asked and then closes his eyes again.  Adele spends her days reading, sewing, writing letters, making telephone calls, and pushing Karel through the home, taking him to various activities with her.  There is a part of Adele that seems a little sad, but she continually focuses on the positive. They make an interesting sight—Adele leading or pushing Karel through the halls—perhaps mirroring what their life together was in more ways than one.

On August 30, 1995, Adele and Karel celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary at the nursing home, with nephews, nieces, a few friends and the staff surrounding them and wishing them well.  For better or worse, they are a lovely example of taking life’s “lemons” and making lemonade.

(Originally written September 1995)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

The post “Only Hussies Ask Boys to Dance!” – Part 2 of the Adele and Karel Bartos Story appeared first on Michelle Cox Author.

“What A Lemon” – Part 1 of the Adele and Karel Bartos Story

Adele Bartos was born on September 19, 1907 in Czechoslovakia to Daniel Janicek and Renata Benes.  It is not known what type of work Daniel did in the old country, but sometime in 1911, he set off for America to find a new life and a new job.  He left Renata behind with their three children: Adele, David, and Edward, and made his way to Chicago, where he got a job in a foundry as a molder.  He made the forms which the hot steel or iron was poured into to make auto parts and wheels.  Daniel worked constantly, and in one year had saved enough to send for Renata and the children.  They boarded a ship in Bremen, Germany and arrived in America twelve days later.  They then took a train from New York to Chicago, where Daniel was waiting for them.

The train journey took seventeen hours, and though Adele was only five years old, she vividly remembers that it was on that trip that she had her first encounter with a banana.  On the train, a man walked by with a big basket of fruit.  Spying Adele, he handed her a banana.  Adele waited for the man to pass by before attempting to eat her treat.  Not knowing that she had to peel it, she naively bit into the whole thing and quickly decided she didn’t like it.  She set it on the window sill of the train, where it sat all day in the sun.  Later, hungry, she decided to give it another try.  This time, a fellow passenger advised her to peel it first.  But by now, the banana was all mushy, and after another bite, Adele concluded that she didn’t like this strange new food and refused to try a banana again for years!

It just so happened that when the Janiceks arrived in Chicago, it was July 3, 1912, and the city was celebrating Independence Day with fireworks and festivities.  Adele’s family was amazed by it all and managed to ask someone what it was all about.  “That’s how we always greet visitors!” was the reply, and for a long time Adele and her brothers believed it.  Though they missed their home at first, they were in awe of their new country.

In the fall of that year, Daniel and Renata enrolled the children in a Catholic school where the nuns taught in Czech and English.  It didn’t take long for Adele to become fluent in English.  Another baby, Emil, was eventually born to the family, of which Daniel was extremely proud, as this child, he said, was a “real American.”

By the time Adele was going into fourth grade, all the neighborhood children were talking about a new public school that was going to open near them: Chopin Grammar School.  Adele’s neighborhood, which was just south of Humboldt Park and Wicker Park, near the Ukrainian Village, was made up of Czechs, Poles and Ukrainians.  All of the neighborhood children wanted to go to this new school.  Adele asked her parents if they, too, might be allowed to go.   Daniel was willing to let them change schools, as, for one thing, it would be free, as opposed to the Catholic School they were attending, but he was reluctant for them to stop being exposed to the Czech culture they were getting at the Catholic school.  His condition, then, to allowing all of them attend Chopin, was that they had to continue to go to “Czech school” on weekends to continue learning to read and write in Czech as well as to learn the history and culture of their native country.  They were also enrolled in Sokol, which was a Czech physical education/gymnastics organization that provided physical exercise to balance the exercise of the mind.  Many Czech immigrant children in Chicago belonged to Sokol.  So every Sunday from 9 am to 12 pm, the Janicek children attended Czech school, and during the week they attended Chopin.

Adele was very smart and studied hard and was the salutatorian of her 8th grade class.  While at Chopin, Adele met many different children of different nationalities, a fact which Adele loved.  In particular, she met an Italian girl, Maria, who became her best friend and whom Adele was very much influenced by.

While Adele was the oldest in her family, Maria was the youngest.  She had many older siblings who were all intellectual and who greatly influenced and guided Adele and Maria.  Through Maria, Adele learned about opera and theater and classical music and literature.  The girls were always at the library, and Adele read constantly.  A whole new world opened to her through reading and by knowing Maria’s family, and she longed to go to high school to become a teacher.  Without even asking, however, Adele knew this to be “a ridiculous dream” as they were “as poor as church mice.”  Renata could see how much Adele wanted to go on for more schooling and felt bad for her only daughter.  She persuaded Daniel to let her continue, and they then told Adele that she could go for two more years so that she could learn some sort of trade.  “That way,” Renata told Adele, “you won’t have to work as hard as I do.”

Adele was delighted with this decision and was put into a vocational program at the local high school.  She was offered stenography or bookkeeping, and since she hated math, she chose stenography.  The day after her graduation from the trade school, she and some girls from school went to an employment agency to find work.  The very next day, Adele was sent on an interview and got a job at the Wearproof Clothing Company on Wells Street as a stenographer.  She started at $15 a week, but soon got a raise to $17.  She enjoyed her co-workers and her boss, Mr. Belden, but after a while, she wasn’t challenged anymore, especially as the job required more typing, of which she wasn’t fond, than stenography.

Adele happened to mention her unhappy situation to a friend, Bea, who in turn told her older sister, Martha, about it.  Martha worked in the statistics department of the Continental and Commercial National Bank and Trust Company, which was situated on LaSalle St., 19th floor.  Martha was able to get Adele an interview for a stenographer position with a Miss Kate Williams.  Adele was excited to be going to such an elegant building downtown and all the way up to the 19th floor to boot!

During the interview, Miss Kate Williams asked Adele just one question: “Miss Janicek, do you know the difference between a stock and a bond?”  Adele took just a moment to think and answered, “I don’t today, but I can learn tomorrow!”  Miss Williams liked her answer so much that she hired Adele on the spot.  Adele, needless to say, was thrilled.

Adele considered it a great privilege and a real step up to work in a bank; it was so elegant, and she was surrounded by so many educated people.  Adele started immediately and loved it.  One afternoon, Adele and Martha happened to be passing through the lobby of the bank on their way to lunch, when Martha bumped into a young man she knew, Denis Bartos, from the accounting department, who was with his younger brother, Karel.  It was obvious that Martha and Denis liked each other, so Adele and Karel politely withdrew and, after initial introductions, stood awkwardly next to each other waiting for Martha and Denis.  Neither had much to say to each other besides small pleasantries.  After what seemed an eternity, Martha excused herself from Denis’s company and the two girls went on their way.

Adele meanwhile threw herself into her work and spent most of her evenings at the library.  She was still very involved in Sokol and sat on many committees and also helped organize all sorts of social events in the neighborhood, including dances and plays.

It was at one such dance that a friend of hers, John Wesley, approached and asked if she knew the Bartos family, pointing to where they stood off in one of the corners.  Adele indeed recognized Mr. Bartos, who was a local amateur actor and with whom Adele had actually been in some neighborhood plays.  Encouraged, John asked if he might do him a favor in regards to the Bartos family.  Intrigued, Adele asked what that would be.  John explained that he was also a friend of the family and that earlier in the night, Mrs. Bartos had pulled him aside and asked if he might ask Adele to ask her son to dance.  Adele was flabbergasted at John’s request.  It was unheard of for a girl to ask a boy to dance!

John explained that the youngest Bartos brother was very shy and that his mother had pleaded with John to ask Adele, whom she saw as being bright and pretty and full of energy.  Adele refused, but John begged her, so, in the end, she agreed, but only for one dance!

Accordingly, John led her over to the Bartos family, whereupon Adele instantly recognized the shy, youngest Bartos brother as Karel Bartos, the boy she had met several months ago in the bank lobby and whom she had awkwardly stood next to.  She dreaded having to spend a whole dance with him, but she resolved to keep her promise to John and asked Karel as politely as she could if he would care to dance.

His reply was a very shocking and loud, “No!” causing his mother and sisters to gasp aloud at his rudeness.  His sisters promptly pushed him onto the dance floor with Adele.  Humiliated, Adele went through with the dance, though the whole time she was thinking, “What a lemon!”   He wasn’t even a good dancer!  When the dance ended, the two of them quickly went their separate ways.

About a month later, Adele and Karel saw each other again at another dance in the neighborhood.  This time, Karel approached Adele and managed to ask her if he could walk her home.  “Oh!” Adele answered, surprised.  “I’m already walking home with John and some of the girls.”  She didn’t wish to be unkind to Karel, knowing ultimately how shy he was, but she likewise didn’t want to be rude to John.  He had brought her to the dance, after all, and she felt obliged to leave with him.

“Maybe the next dance, then?” Karel stammered.  “Maybe I could take you home from that one?”

Adele agreed, and, as promised, went to the next dance accompanied by Karel.  As it turned out, it was the beginning of their courtship, and they were married six months later on August 30, 1930.

(To be continued . . . next week!)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

 

 

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Married on Thanksgiving Day—Twice!

Essie Maguire was born on May 26, 1916 in St. Cloud, Minnesota to Bert Andrysiak and Regina Walsh.  Bert was of Polish descent and worked as a farm hand.  Regina was of German/Irish descent and cared for their three daughters: Essie, Arlene and Goldie.

Essie attended grade school and two years of high school in St. Cloud and then quit to get a job in a shoe store.  The Great Depression was particularly hard on the Andrysiak family; Bert lost his job, as did Essie and Arlene, who was working at the time in a flour mill.  With little other choice, Bert made the decision to move the family to Chicago in hopes of finding a job.  Eventually he found work in a factory on Belmont.  Essie found a job at Marshall Fields, Arlene found work at Western Electric, and Goldie remained at home with Regina.

Essie made new friends at work, though she was shy, and was introduced at a Christmas party to a young man by the name of Gip Lester.  Essie and Gip began dating and fell in love, marrying nearly one year later on Thanksgiving Day.  They went on a honeymoon to New York City, and Essie always loved to tell the story of seeing the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza.  They lived for a time with Essie’s parents until they saved enough money to get a studio apartment on Wrightwood.  Gip worked mainly as a carpenter in various factories.

When the war broke out, Gip enlisted in the navy and was shipped to the South Pacific, where he was killed in action.  Upon hearing the news, Essie went into a deep depression and quit her job.  She remained at home with her mother (Bert had since passed away of lung cancer) and became almost a recluse.  After a couple of years of this, Essie’s youngest sister, Goldie, urged her to go back out into the world and get a job.  Essie finally took her advice and got a job as a waitress, which really brought her out of her shell by having to talk to so many people.

One day in the early 1950’s, she waited on a man by the name of Michael Maguire, who was a cosmetics salesman for Revlon.  He asked her out, and she hesitantly accepted, but only if she could bring along one of her sisters.  Michael apparently laughed at this and said that of course she could bring her sister.  Essie went home that night and persuaded Goldie to come with her on her date, as Arlene was already married and out of the house.

So it was that Essie, Michael, and Goldie went bowling, and by the end of the night, Essie was smitten.  Michael asked her out again, and this time she agreed to go alone.  They went dancing at the Aragon, and then began seriously dating.  After only a shocking three months, they got married in 1952, again on Thanksgiving Day, as Essie thought it would bring them good luck.

Michael and Essie eventually moved to Indianapolis, and remained there until 1969, when Michael accepted a promotion at Revlon, which meant they had to move to California.  In all, they had twenty-five good years together before Michael died in 1977.  They never had any children.

When Michael died, Essie again grieved and considered moving back to Chicago.  She was reluctant, though, to leave the house she and Michael had built and the community of friends they had made.  In the end, she decided to stay put, though whenever she talked to one of her sisters on the telephone, she would tell them she was going to come back.

Finally, in 1992, Essie’s sister, Goldie, and her son, Jim, decided to travel from Chicago to visit Essie.  During their stay, it became apparent to Jim that his aunt Essie, even though he barely knew her, was a bit confused and forgetful.  He pointed this out to his mother, but she denied that there was any problem with her sister, saying that it was just old age setting in.

A year later, however, Goldie got a call from some of Essie’s neighbors, who told her that people from the bank were at Essie’s house to foreclose on it, as apparently Essie had not paid the mortgage in months.  Goldie put in a frantic call to Jim, who flew out to San Diego to try to solve the problem.

Jim found all of Essie’s affairs to be in complete disarray, especially her finances.  She was completely out of money and her checkbook record going back two years was unreadable.  His aunt, he says, must have been an expert at “fooling people,” with no one, not even her neighbors, realizing the extent of her mental deterioration.  Jim took her to a doctor where she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia.  During the doctor’s interview of her, Essie could not even state her current last name or even the season, much less the date.

Jim brought Essie back to Chicago to live with his mother, thinking it would be nice for the two sisters to live together again and keep each other company.  Shortly after Essie moved in, however, Goldie was diagnosed with cancer, which caused Essie to oddly become antagonistic toward her and even abusive at times.  Jim had no choice, then, but to admit Essie to a nursing home.  Goldie felt guilty about not being able to care for her sister, but Jim insisted, saying it was his fault for naively thinking it would be a good situation.

Essie has made the transition to a nursing home very well.  She is confused most of the time and wanders the halls, but is easily redirected.  She seems pleasant, for the most part, and cooperative.  Jim visits when he can, but he is currently preoccupied with caring for Goldie.

(Originally written: May 1995)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

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“He Never Got to Enlist”

Arndt “Arnie” Winkler was born on February 8, 1911 in Odell, Il. to Hagen Winkler and Eileen Burke.  Hagen was of German descent and worked as a farmer on his eighty-acre farm.  Eileen was of Irish descent and cared for their ten children: Karl, Daniel, Lorene, Augustus, Freda, Arndt, May, Felix, Essie and Elbert.  Hagen’s father, Arndt, also lived with them and was apparently Arnie’s favorite person in the whole world.

Arndt, the elder, lived into his nineties and helped on the farm until his dying day.  The family always said that it was a good thing Grandpa Arndt was there because when Hagen was fifty years old, he suffered a blow to the head (the details are unknown), which resulted in him having seizures for the rest of his life.  Despite this handicap, Hagen was still able to sometimes work on the farm alongside his father and six sons and lived into his eighties, as did Eileen.

Arnie, the younger, grew up working on the farm and went to two years of high school before he decided to try his luck painting houses.  He liked it more than working on the farm or going to school and was able to make some money at it.  Eventually, however, he decided to follow his two sisters, Freda and Lorene, to Chicago, where they had moved to get work.  There, he joined a painters’ union and easily found a job.  He had few friends at first, though, so he often spent his free time with his sisters.  One night, Lorene invited Arnie to come with her and some of her friends to see a movie, and it was then that he was introduced to one of her friends, Sally Knapp.

Arnie and Sally hit it off right away, and the two of them began dating.  They were married in 1939 and got an apartment on the south side on S. Aberdeen Street.  There they had two children, Rose and Arndt, Jr.  They moved several more times over the years and eventually bought a house in Elmwood Park.  Both Arnie and Sally were active in the Catholic Church and were members of various parishes, depending on where they lived, including Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Bartholomew, Our Lady of Victory, St. William, and St. Edna.

Arnie was fiercely patriotic, and when the war broke out, he went to enlist but was turned away because he was over twenty-nine with two children.  He was devastated that they wouldn’t take him, so he threw himself into his work instead and did what he could on the home front.  “He talked about it all the time,” his daughter, Rose, says, “that he never got to go to the war.  I think he felt ashamed for a long, long time.”

Arnie loved fishing and going to the movies and religiously read the paper every day.  He did not go out much, but he loved to play cards.  He and Sally were part of a card club, and they hosted many, many card parties over the years.  Arnie and Sally apparently had a very good marriage, says Rose, though Arnie smoked and drank a lot.  He quit smoking at age forty and was in exceptionally good health for most of his life, of which he was extremely proud.  He used to brag that when he was sixty-six and had to have a hiatal hernia treated, his doctor supposedly said, “You have the body of a fifty-year old!”  Still, Arnie officially retired at that point, though he continued to do house-painting on the side for old customers or referrals.  He and Sally enjoyed their retirement years and did a little traveling around the Midwest.

In his early eighties, however, Arnie began to be confused, disoriented, delusional, paranoid and occasionally violent.  Rose and Arnie, Jr. took him to a doctor, who diagnosed him with substance abuse and Alzheimer’s.  The doctor’s recommendation was to for him to go to a home, but Sally refused and brought him back to care for him at their house in Elmwood Park.  She tried for the next three years to care for him with Rose stopping in to help at times, though Rose had her own family and health issues to contend with.  Likewise, Arnie, Jr, has not been able to help in his father’s care because he lives in Indianapolis.  The stress on Sally has been terrible, Rose says, but “she is just as stubborn as him.”  Finally, when Sally recently had to be admitted to the hospital herself with a possible stroke, Rose, with Sally’s permission, finally arranged for Arnie to be admitted to a nursing home.

Arnie remains confused and disoriented and is not making a smooth transition to the facility.  Likewise, Sally has since gotten out of the hospital and is having a hard time dealing with an empty house.  She comes to visit Arnie daily and spends most of the day with him.  She is glad he is being cared for, but she does not, even now, accept the fact that he has Alzheimer’s.  “He’s just confused,” she says and is waiting for him to get better so that he can come home.  “He was so different,” she tries to tell the staff.  “This isn’t really him.”

(Originally written July 1996)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

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“His Life Was a Tragedy, and He Doesn’t Even Know It”

Randy Walsh was born on July 13, 1959 in Chicago to Tim Walsh and Genevieve Sutera.  Tim was of Irish descent, and Genevieve was from a Sicilian family.  Tim and Genevieve both worked for the Burlington Northern railroad, which is how they met.  Tim worked as an engineer, and Genevieve was a secretary in the office.  They eventually married, and Genevieve quit her job to be a house-wife and a mother.  She had five children, but two died at birth and were not given names.  The other three were Jim, Jean and Virginia.

Much later in life, Tim and Genevieve had a fourth child, Randy, but he was not really a welcomed baby, as their three older children were already raised and had subsequently moved out.  Indeed, Genevieve was resentful of having to start all over.  Tim apparently felt the same because when Randy was just three years old, he left the family.

Randy and Genevieve lived alone, then, until Genevieve remarried a man by the name of John Martino.  Together they had one child, Beverly, when Randy was six.  Not long after Beverly was born, however, John left, too.

Beverly believes that her father left because Genevieve was an alcoholic and a drug user.  She is convinced that this is also why Tim, Randy’s father, left, too.  In fact, she says, she is surprised that Tim stuck it out as long as he did and secretly thinks that after Randy was born, Genevieve’s drug and alcohol dependency grew worse.  This and the fact that Randy was diagnosed with epilepsy at age three is what Genevieve believes to have been “the one-two punch” that finally pushed Tim over the edge.

Beverly says that Genevieve was physically and emotionally abusive to them, especially to Randy.  She was never affectionate with him, Beverly recalls, and treated him like a servant, constantly demanding that he do her bidding.  The two of them had no one to turn to but each other, the three older siblings having pretty much cut themselves off from Genevieve, thereby abandoning Randy and Beverly to their fate.

Randy, unfortunately, was a sickly child and grew into a sickly adult.  As a child, he had an average of ten to twenty seizures a day, and whether or not his epilepsy was properly treated is questionable.  He is considered to be mentally disabled, or, at the very least, is thought to suffer from a severe learning disability.  Beverly says that the doctors are unsure if he was born this way or if it is a result of his many seizures over the years, especially if he repeatedly hit his head during seizures, which no one can accurately confirm.

Beverly says that Randy’s life-long illnesses have prevented him from living a “normal” life.  He attended high school for two years and then quit to get a job at Burger King.  He had few friends and no hobbies or interests and spent his free time waiting on Genevieve.  At sixteen, he developed diabetes and high blood pressure.  Once out in the world at Burger King, he made a couple of friends and soon began drinking and doing drugs himself.  Before long, he was also an alcoholic drug-user liked his mother, though his body was already severely damaged from epilepsy and diabetes.

Things got worse when Beverly announced, at seventeen, that she was getting married.  “I had to get out of there.  I didn’t have a choice,” Beverly says.  She hated to leave Randy and tried her best to explain it to him.  She says that she would have been willing to have him come and live with her and her new husband, Wally, but Randy refused to leave his mother.  Nonetheless, he severely mourned Beverly’s leaving.

One year later, however, when Randy was just twenty-four, Genevieve died.  It was determined that Randy could not live alone, so, through a series of “bad decisions,” Beverly relates, Randy went to live with his grandmother.  She, too, died just two years later, leaving Randy again alone.  For a time, a nurse was arranged to come in and check on him until Beverly and Wally decided to take him in.  Once he did so, however, Beverly was shocked by how much care he really needed.  Between working and caring for her own children, she eventually determined, sadly, that she couldn’t handle it.  Likewise, it was hard to live with Randy’s sometimes violent temper, especially in the small space Beverly’s house afforded.

Beverly helped Randy to find a room at a boarding house, which seemed the only option at the time, but this, too, proved to be too difficult for Randy to handle.  Thus, still just in his thirties, he was moved into a specialized care facility, whose residents were mainly physically and mentally handicapped people.  Surprisingly, Randy met several friends there and even had a girlfriend for a time.  When he developed renal failure, however, the facility could no longer handle his needs, but they were very supportive in helping Beverly to find a new place for him.

As it turned out, Randy did not like the new facility, whose residents were much older, and he had many clashes and outbursts with the staff.  It proved difficult, however, for Beverly to get him out of this facility.  She says that she tried for over a year to move him to a new place, but that she was stuck in the facility’s bureaucracy.  When his body grew too weak to tolerate being transported to off-site dialysis, the facility finally arranged his transfer to a facility that provided on-site dialysis.

Randy seems to be making a rocky transition to the new facility.  He is angry much of the time and has poor coping skills.  He has frequent angry outbursts with the staff and sometimes even the other residents, the majority of whom are at least forty years his senior.  For this reason he does not participate in any of the activities offered and spends his time either watching TV or talking to Beverly on the phone.  When he is not angry, he seems to be sad and cries frequently.

Beverly tries to visit as often as she can, but living in Berwyn, it is difficult to get to the facility daily.  She feels a lot of guilt in not being able to help her brother more, but she has very young children at home to also care for.  She feels sad for Randy and wishes life could have been better for him.  “His life is just such a tragedy,” she says, “and he doesn’t even know it.”  She believes that “he has never really come to terms with his past” and doesn’t seem to be able to understand how horrible their childhood was.  She recalls a conversation she and Randy’s older sister, Jean, had with him a few years back on his birthday.  Jean had surprisingly appeared for Randy’s birthday that year and had taken Beverly and Randy out to lunch for the occasion.  When the conversation turned to the past, both Beverly and Jean were shocked when Randy began recalling how wonderful their mother and their childhood had been.  “We were stunned,” Beverly said, “when he told us he had had a good childhood.  It just shows how unaware he really is.”

(Originally written: January 1996)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

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“He Could Have Been a Great Man”

Do- Yun Chung was born on August 2, 1914 in Pusan (now Busan), Korea.  His family was relatively well off, with his father working as a surveyor and his mother caring for their six children—three girls and three boys—of whom Do-Yun was the youngest.

Do-Yun went to law school and after earning his degree got a job as a vice principal in a junior high school.  He was a very religious man and was opposed to both hunting and fishing because of his beliefs.  He loved teaching, however, and also enjoyed sports of any kind, drawing and painting.  He also did a fair bit of traveling around Korea and went to Japan and China many times.

When he was forty-two, he was set up with a young woman by the name of Haneul, who was twelve years his junior.  Do-Yun and Haneul married soon after meeting and eventually had a son, Sung-Ho, and a daughter, Ji-Eun.

When Ji-Eun was old enough, Do-Yun arranged a marriage for her to a young teacher at his school by the name of Woo-Jin Park.  Apparently, however, two weeks into the marriage, Ji-Eun discovered that her new husband was still seeing his former lover and suffered a nervous breakdown.  Haneul, who had never been fond of her Do-Yun’s choice of husband for Ji-Eun, took her back in to their home.

According to Haneul, her own marriage to Do-Yun had never been a happy one, and she claims that Do-Yun repeatedly abused and strictly controlled her over the years.  At one point, Do-Yun admitted to this, saying that he was following his father’s advice to have a heavy hand lest his wife find someone else.  Do-Yun says that he felt this to be especially necessary with Haneul, as she was so beautiful and so much younger than himself.  He was constantly worried that she would run off with another man.

So when Ji-Eun’s marriage fell apart, Haneul saw this as her chance to escape.  She appealed to a cousin living in Chicago, and began to make arrangements for her and Ji-Eun to immigrate to the United States.

Under the pretense of their trip being only a visit to give Ji-Eun a change of scenery, Haneul and Ji-Eun made their way to Chicago and found an apartment on Ravenswood.  Haneul began attending Truman College, eventually earning a degree in education and then getting a job at Truman teaching English as a second language.  Ji-Eun, meanwhile, never really recovered from her traumatic marriage and remains mentally unstable.  She has not able to hold a job all these years and is basically a recluse.

In the early 1980’s, after much pressure from Do-Yun, who did not realize that Haneul’s trip to the United States was a permanent move, Haneul agreed to take steps to arrange for him and Sung-Ho to immigrate to the United States as well.  She hoped that over the years, Do-Yun might have changed, and likewise, she also missed her son and wanted him to be closer.

After Do-Yun and Sung-Ho arrived, Haneul was able to get Do-Yun a job as a janitor at Truman College, which he resented very much.  “He has always been very proud and deeply traditional,” Haneul says.  She believes that he couldn’t accept the fact that Haneul was educated now and had a teaching position while he now held such a lowly one, especially with a law degree.  He also found it hard to adjust to American culture in general.  He was not happy from the get-go, though Haneul tried to introduce him to the Korean community she had become a part of.  “It’s a shame,” she says, “as he could have been a great man.”  She suspects that there was much violence in his family growing up, and that his abusive behavior was learned.

As it turned out, Do-Yun soon went back to his old ways of trying to control Haneul through physical violence, so Haneul legally separated from him.  She forced him to get his own apartment, but wanted Sung-Ho to remain with her and Ji-Eun.  Sung-Ho, already in his twenties at this point, was tired of the bickering and moved to Atlanta.  He remains there now, working as a dental technician.  He lives with a woman and has two children with her, and has not had contact with Haneul in many years.  Indeed, she has never met her grandchildren, which is a great source of sadness for her.  She regrets now that she did not take him with her when she first left Korean, but she felt that if she had insisted he accompany her, Do-Yun would not have allowed her to leave at all.

Though Haneul forced Do-Yun to get his own apartment, he has continued over the last few years to show up at hers and harass both her and Ji-Eun, whom he also blames for his troubles.   Haneul claims that in some ways he was even worse than before because now he seemed confused as well.  About two months ago, he unexpectedly showed up at the apartment and began to beat Haneul, seeming to think they were still in Korea.  Haneul managed to call a Korean doctor friend, who had Do-Yun admitted to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with dementia, among other things.

From there, Do-Yun has been transferred to a nursing home, where he seems to be making a relatively smooth transition. He is talkative with other Korean residents, but does not like to join many activities.  At times he seems alert, but at other times he is very confused and forgets where he is.  Apparently he has been calling Haneul, demanding that she come and get him, but she refuses to even visit him.  She has asked the staff to not allow him to telephone her and does not want any part of his care.  Likewise, she has asked the staff to begin the process of getting a state guardian appointed for him, as she wants nothing more to do with him.  Meanwhile, Do-Yun does not accept any of this and insists he will soon be going home.  When staff attempt to discuss his version of the past, he refuses to comment.

(Originally written: September 1996)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

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“Old Before Her Time”

Rosemary Luckstrim, left, with a colleague from work

Rosemary Luckstrim was born on September 5, 1912 in Chicago to Ora Feigel and Peter Luckstrim, both of whom were of Irish/German descent.  Peter worked on and off in factories, and Ora cared for their four children: Roger, Millicent, Rosemary and Bert, though both Roger and Millicent died as infants.

Rosemary graduated from 8th grade and attended a two-year technical high school to learn to be a secretary.  Right before she finished, however, her mother, Ora, passed away.  Bert had left home long before, so it was left to Rosemary to care for her alcoholic father.  Peter no longer held a job, so Rosemary became the sole provider.  She managed to get a job working as a secretary in Environmental Control for the Federal Government.

Rosemary was apparently a very private person and had just a small circle of friends.  She enjoyed reading and playing cards with friends when she was a young woman, but became more and more involved in her parish, St. Andrew, as time went on.  Rosemary was a deeply religious person who attended daily mass and was always volunteering in different ministries and spent a lot of time visiting the sick.  Her whole life was about doing things for others.  Her dream was to enter religious life, but she felt like she could not because she had to stay home and care for her drunken father.

Besides the church, Rosemary’s other passion was her work.  She enjoyed what she did and the people she worked with and was thrilled that she got to travel so much, including going to Washington DC and Alaska on business.  She also took a lot of trips on her vacations, often persuading work friends to with her.

Rosemary was devastated, then, when she was “let go” at age 65 because the company wanted to hire a younger person with a college degree to do the job she was doing.  Rosemary accepted her “retirement” with grace, but privately lamented her loss, often complaining that her years of on-the-job training should have counted for more.

According to Rosemary’s cousin’s daughter, Joan Mynatt, Rosemary never got over what she saw as her forced retirement, even though she was of retirement age when it happened.  Joan is the only remaining family member whom Rosemary has left.  Peter died at age fifty-five of pneumonia, and Rosemary’s brother, Bert, died at age forty of a heart attack.  He had never married.  Joan says that Rosemary became increasingly withdrawn and reclusive as time went on and that she was never the same after she stopped working.

“She didn’t really have a life,” Joan says, and likewise that she “grew old before her time.  But then again,” says Joan, “she was always an old soul.”  Rosemary eventually became afraid of people and paranoid and refused to ever leave her house.  She womld ask Joan to do errands and go shopping for her even though she was physically able to do so herself.  “Everything became difficult,” Joan says.  Going to the doctor or the dentist, even going out to lunch with Joan, all became too stressful.  Instead, she preferred to stay at home and pray.

In the early 1990’s, Rosemary began to experience confusion in addition to her paranoia.  Fearing for her safety, Joan arranged for Rosemary to move into an independent living facility, but she was already too confused to function there.  Joan then placed her at St. Benedict’s nursing home because they had a nice chapel and a religious setting, which Joan thought Rosemary would enjoy, despite the fact that it was a far drive from where Joan lived.

Rosemary’s mental confusion grew worse, however, to the point that she did not utilize the chapel or even seem to understand where she was, so Joan moved her yet again so that she would be in a facility which was close to her so that she could visit more often.

Rosemary is making a relatively smooth transition to the new home, though she does not participate in activities, and she has difficulty with conversation.  She does not seem aware of where she is, which, says Joan, is actually “a blessing.”  Only occasionally is Rosemary combative, and she spends a lot of time “watching” something on the ceiling, which she at times tries to communicate with.  Joan seems to be coping well, as she just recently went through this whole process with her own father, who recently passed away in a nursing home.  “I know what’s coming,” she says.  “I just want Rosemary to be as comfortable as possible until the end.”

(Originally written:  June 1995)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

 

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They Met Him at a Restaurant and Took Him into Their Home

Nelson Pederson was born on July 22, 1931 in Chicago to Emil Pederson and Asta Brahms, both immigrants from Denmark.  It is thought that Emil worked in a factory in Ravenswood, near where the family rented an apartment, and that Asta cared for their two children, Anna and Nelson.  When Nelson was still very young, however, Emil and Asta divorced, and Nelson never saw his father again.

Asta, unable to raise two children on her own in a still-strange city, married a man by the name of David Jaeger and had three more children with him: Louis, Earl and David, Jr.  Nelson did not get along with his new stepfather, whom, Nelson says, was very abusive to him.  Thus, after graduating from eighth grade, Nelson quit school and got a job as a delivery man for the General Rug Company as a way of having some independence from his stepfather.

When he was twenty, he met a young woman, Emily Novak, in a candy store.  They dated for a short time and married.  They had one son, Bertie, but shortly after the baby was born, he and Emily divorced.  Nelson doesn’t like to talk about it much and will only say that they didn’t get along.  He lost contact with both of them, then, like his father had before him, and to this day has no idea where Bertie is.

According to Nelson, he has always been “unlucky in love.”  He married two more times, each one lasting only about a year.  In his forties, he married his fourth wife, Patricia Roth, and stayed with her for ten years before they, too, divorced.  All this time, Nelson spent his life working at various factories or gas stations.  He enjoyed going bowling and to the movies and loved watching baseball on T.V.  His favorite music, he says, is “country and western.”  He did not have a large social circle and spent most of his free time alone.

When he was in his early sixties, he started to repeatedly become ill at work and would frequently have to go home.  Finally, his boss insisted that he go to the doctor, who admitted him to the hospital with COPD and alcoholism.  The hospital staff did not want to release him back to his apartment on his own, but Nelson had no family or friends listed to call.  Finally, Nelson had the hospital staff call a couple who lived near him.  He had apparently met them a few years back in a local restaurant and saw from time to time around the neighborhood.

The couple, Daniel and Ruby Esposito, answered the hospital’s call and came up to see Nelson, thought they were a little confused and surprised that he had no other friends or family to call besides them, as they considered themselves acquaintances at best.  The Esposito’s took pity on him, however, and instead of having the hospital set up care for him in his apartment, they decided to take him into their home.  Nelson was apparently happy living with the Esposito’s for three years, but despite their care, his health grew steadily worse.

Nelson was eventually readmitted to Swedish Covenant and this time additionally diagnosed with depression, personality disorders, and confusion.  It was Nelson’s mental confusion/dementia that was the hardest for the Esposito’s to handle.  Before being admitted to the hospital, he was frequently found wandering the halls of the apartment building or in the neighborhood and several times left the burners of the stove on.  So when he was finally ready to be discharged from the hospital this second time, Daniel and Ruby, who had gotten power of attorney for him when they first took him in, decided to follow the discharge staff’s advice and place him in a nursing home.

Much to their delight, Nelson made a relatively smooth transition to his new home and seemed to be enjoying his new life there until his sister Anna suddenly reappeared in his life.  Nelson had last seen Anna over ten years ago when they had had an argument and consequently lost touch.  Nelson was overjoyed to see Anna again, however, and willingly went with her when she would pick him up from the nursing home for “outings.”  These outings turned out to be trips to the bank in which Anna tried to get Nelson to withdraw money and give it to her. She has also tried to get a hold of his social security check and attempted to force him to sign a new power of attorney, naming her the decision-maker.

When Daniel and Ruby discovered what Anna was up to, they were flabbergasted.  “The joke’s on her,” says Daniel, “because he doesn’t have a cent to his name.”  Daniel and Ruby are urging the staff to put some sort of limit on Anna’s visits, as they claim she is verbally abusive to Nelson—and to them if they happen to be visiting at the same time as her.  They are worried about Nelson’s well-being and don’t want “his last years to be ruined by his insane sister.”

Anna, on the other hand, claims that the Esposito’s are themselves after Nelson’s money and that they are poisoning his mind against her.  She also resents that the Esposito’s have told the staff that she is insane.

Nelson finds himself caught in the middle.  He has difficulty expressing his feelings, but he seems to be wanting to please both his sister and the Esposito’s, whom he calls his good Samaritans.  He is quiet most of the time and has difficulty communicating with both sides.  He has taken some interest in the activities at the home, which the staff are encouraging him to attend, if only to distract him from his familial troubles and to make some new friends.

(Originally written July 1996)

If you liked this true story about the past, check out Michelle’s historical fiction/mystery series, set in the 1930s in Chicago:

 

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