The Maid, the Asylum, and the Old Cubs Field
Agnes Faraldo began life as a maid in wealthy homes around Chicago after quitting school in the seventh grade. She was born on April 12, 1917 to Feodor and Vera Zientek and was the oldest of their four children. Feodor had worked as an usher in a movie theater and had presumably met Vera there. It was years and years later that Agnes discovered that when her parents married, Vera was already seven months pregnant with Agnes! Theirs was not a happy marriage, however, as Feodor was an alcoholic, and the two of them separated when Agnes was sixteen. Vera soon took up with a man named Oscar Schaffer, whom she lived with for twelve years before getting married to him. Feodor, meanwhile, died in the TB ward of Cook County Hospital in 1942, a broken-down alcoholic.
Agnes hated her stepfather, Oscar, and wanted to get away, but her mother refused to let her move out until she turned eighteen. When she finally did, she stayed away from the family for almost a year before being persuaded by her sister, Ruth, to come home to help celebrate their brother’s graduation. Agnes agreed and at the party was introduced to Ruth’s boyfriend, Vince Faraldo, whom she was instantly attracted to. When Vince asked her out the very next day, Agnes agreed but she felt horribly guilty. The two of them really hit it off, but Agnes worried what kind of man would switch his affections so easily, especially between sisters. Vince managed to convince her, though, that he had only recently met Ruth and that she was more of a friend, really. When Agnes finally worked up the courage to tell Ruth, her sister didn’t seem to mind at all. “He’s not that great. You can have him!” Ruth supposedly told her.
With Ruth’s blessing, then, the young couple began dating and married in 1939. Agnes quit her job as a maid and became a housewife. When they met, Vince had a job delivering coal and ice, but after they got married, he began working for the B & O Railroad and finally ended up as a cement mason. Their first baby, Anthony, was born in 1940, and two years later, Rosamund, was born. When the World War II broke out shortly thereafter, Agnes and Vince made a conscious decision not to have any more children. Fortunately, Vince did not have to serve in the army because he had stomach ulcers.
Agnes and Vince lived for several years in an apartment on Hermitage and Taylor, but they eventually had to vacate it because the University of Illinois Hospital was buying up more land to expand. In 1917, the hospital had bought up the nearby, vacated Chicago Cubs ballpark, also known as West Side Park, which was located at Polk and Wolcott and where the Cubs won two World Series championships. It is interesting to note that at the time, an insane asylum was located just past the left field fence. During the games, the inmates used to scream crazy things out of the windows, which is supposedly where the phrase “that came out of left field” originated.
Agnes and Vince were thus forced to leave the area and moved north to Division Street, just across from Humboldt Park and were together for 45 happy years before Vince died of cancer in 1984.
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