The walker or biker
had quick access to interesting areas outside of the village proper. St.
Mary's of the Lake Seminary was perfect for biking. The lake was formed
from a stream dammed. A handsome arched roadway led across the dam. There
was a little waterfall into a kind of concrete catchment. Bull Creek began
its course to Butler Lake there. The daring would fish from under the
arches until run off by caretakers. Some really adventurous kids even
swam there, titillated by the stories of lurking snapping turtles. At
the other end of the lake two piers jutted out from a structure that held
the remains of the Hines Lumber heir, who died in World War One. There
was a fascinating powerhouse along Route 45 with an elevated track for
coal cars.
You could walk down
Bull Creek to Butler Lake and along that creek to where it entered the
Des Plaines with minor detours for houses and fences. Just south of Butler
Lake where the high school now stands there was a nice little woods where
we camped as Boy Scouts, close enough to home if anything went wrong.
At some point in 1942 an anti-aircraft battery from the army camped there,
gun muzzles pointed skyward. Probably the soldiers were joking with us
as they let us look at the guns close-up. They wouldn't give any information
because "enemy spies might be listening." We were impressed
by their cooking equipment and the latrines, which none of us had ever
thought of. This unit also had searchlights which were a spectacular sight,
at least to small boys.
On at least a couple
of occasions Libertyville "blacked out" for simulated air raids.
Air raid wardens chastised those whose lights showed. Even then, an air
raid seemed unlikely. On one occasion two FBI agents visited my father
and by dint of my ear at the door I realized they were asking him and
other trustworthy citizens to keep eyes and ears open for possible subversive
activities. That seemed more plausible than possible air raids, but I
never had any idea of how seriously adults took possible subversion.
The county
farm was on Milwaukee just north of town at Winchester Road. As a child,
my mother lived just north of it and she told stories of inmates there
calling out to kids as they walked to town for school. One man nicknamed
"Rass" always called out the same message, "A big drum
makes more noise than a little drum." Tellers of that story would
shake their heads and say that the wrong people were locked up.
Before WWI the Des
Plaines was still clean enough to swim in. Its real decline probably happened
with the advent of municipal sewage systems and their pumping of effluent
into the river. During the thirties the water was almost opaque and there
were no fish except for carp. However, it was a great place to play. Woods
ran solidly from Oak Spring to Buckley roads and that area was used for
kids playing "fox and geese," especially when there was snow
on the ground.
The "new
gravel pit" along Oak Spring was a fascinating place. The pit operated
intermittently with a huge dragline to scoop gravel from the bottom into
small gravel cars hauled by a tiny steam locomotive onto an elevated roadbed
where they were dumped onto a screen that sorted them for size before
they went into the crusher.
The new pit was a
great, forbidden place to swim. The water was a luminous clear green and
there were really no beaches. You stepped into the water and dropped straight
down. At one point there were a couple of tiny islands where swimmers
could rest.
Bigger and braver
boys jumped from the dragline boom feet first into the water. I went up,
looked down, and retreated down the boom. I never saw anybody actually
dive. There were huge, cone shaped piles of gravel, sorted by size, along
the railroad siding. You could go to the top, jump off into the gravel
below and slide to a gentle halt. There were also huge piles of sand.
It was a great place to play until the yard men caught up with you. Loaded
cars were hauled to the North Shore tracks, then to Rondout where they
were switched to the Milwaukee Road or the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern belt
line. The Milwaukee Road engines that served the freight siding and factories
along Church didn't enter the gravel pit sidings, whether the two sets
of sidings didn't connect or for safety reasons.
The "old pit"
on Park Avenue had a swimming beach on the east side. Various service
clubs maintained the beach and provided a lifeguard who kept non-residents
out. The area out from the beach had poles and ropes. From there you swam
out to the raft on barrels, complete with a diving board and two ladders.
It was considered quite a stunt to swim from the west side to the raft.
Happily, nobody ever drowned doing it. Sometime after the war the river
overflowed into the pit and that put at least a temporary end to swimming.
There was a baseball
diamond at the northeast corner of Seventh and Rockland with a small set
of bleachers. It was the site of several Libertyville Days which featured
carnivals. They had "strongmen" who would show up the locals
on lifting weights, taking bets in the process. There was always a device
where you banged a hammer onto a plate that sent a marker up the pole.
If you rang the bell you got a prize. From time to time the strongman
would stroll over and quite casually ring the bell just to show the locals
how easy it was. The carnivals sometimes had boxers or wrestlers who would
take on and toy with adventurous locals. There was always a booth where
you threw baseballs at pyramids of wooden "milk bottles," and
always a "dip" where you threw at a target to drop a jeering
shill into a tank of water. There was usually a booth where you threw
darts at balloons and, of course, various rides like merry-go-rounds,
Ferris wheels, and a device called the "tilt-a-whirl" that had
a circular platform that went around, with small cars on tracks that also
whirled, so you had two circular motions that sometimes were too much
for sensitive stomachs.
For several years
Libertyville Days and similar days were held at the Serbian
Monastery on Milwaukee just south of Belvidere. There was a screened pavilion
with a dance floor just across the river, served by a small bridge.
The village dump
was just north of Rockland, close to the river. It had rats and people
went down there to shoot, usually at night with spotlights. Like most
dumps, it stunk.
Someplace down there
near the river there was a spring that smelled of sulfur. It supposedly
had medicinal qualities and some people actually drank from it. There
was a circle of mounds called the "Indian Hills." They were
reputed to be Indian burial mounds. Probably that was a story for kids.
I remember asking my parents, my uncles and various adults and never getting
what seemed to be a convincing answer.
On the edge of town
was Foulds Milling where I worked Saturdays for several
months in 1943, cleaning out the giant presses that mixed flour, eggs
and water into dough which was forced through stainless steel dies to
give the shapes. The spaghetti, noodles or whatever form was draped over
racks which were then put into the drying ovens. Once dried it went to
the second floor for packaging. At least one package went out with a worker's
missing fingertip. Diligent search failed to find the missing joint and
it was considered too costly to discard the whole batch, so some consumer
must have had quite a shock.
At that time "the
noodle college" put boxes of Kraft dinner which came packed with
cheese, into cartons which were then covered with wax. They were designed
to be thrown off landing craft and washed up onto invasion beaches. It
wasn't until years later that I realized I'd never heard the word "pasta"
at the noodle college. The generic term was "egg products."
In 1941 workers were
at a premium and I jumped at the chance to work after school from four
until midnight, carrying a time clock to be punched at various locations
around the buildings. This was for fire insurance purposes. There was
also a night watchman who carried a gun. It was spooky going into the
cavernous basement to the clock key hanging in the darkest recesses. There
was a separate office building with a key in the main office; no problem
there because there were night lights. The other key was on the attic
floor by an open freight elevator. On several occasions wags who had sneaked
into the building would run the elevator up and down while I was in the
dark attic. It was unnerving because the building was supposed to be empty
at night.
A period went by
with no practical jokes until one night when I got off on the attic floor
which was lined with large crates and shrouded objects. Suddenly my flashlight
revealed a huge man standing right by the passage. I let out a yell of
shock and fear and involuntarily struck the figure with my light. There
was a crash and the man lay on the floor. My light revealed the large
straw man dummy that was used at picnics and social functions. When my
legs stopped shaking I went back into the factory trying to act normal.
Nobody ever said a word about the trick.
There was a large,
open freight elevator in the main building which I sometimes used to get
from floor to floor. It was often used by trysting lovers who took a little
time for a fun break. When luck held you could run them up and down by
using floor controls and gates that overrode passenger controls. It was
great fun to keep the elevator bell ringing to draw attention. A really
special trick was to stop the elevator between the floors so the hapless
occupants had to wait for rescue and the resulting comments.
Even more fun were
the nightly visits from the switch engine that brought freight cars to
and from the main line at Rondout. The fireman came into the dock area
to get fresh drinking water and we struck an informal deal. For an occasional
carton of egg products he let me ride on the engine. When he was feeling
generous he'd ask the engineer to let me blow the whistle. The big thrill
was being allowed to shovel coal from the tender into the firebox, switch
engines not having automatic stokers at that time. Probably railroads
are a little more strict today.
This egg product
idyll ended when I incurred the wrath of the manager, Jack
"High Pockets" Jaeger. My sin was not sticking to the strict
time clock schedule. He gave me strict orders not to try to enter the
plant again. I never figured out why he thought I might want to.
My last job was at
Abbott Laboratories in North Chicago, where I helped
make Halazone tablets which went to the armed services for water purification.
For years my uncle,
Murrell Suydam, lived across from the noodle
college at Third and Church. He had a beagle named Jerry, who made an
unearthly howl when the Foulds siren went off at eight in the morning,
at noon and at four-thirty when the day shift ended. The siren also signaled
for the volunteer firemen. Right before entering the service I visited
my uncle and looked across at the factory, hoping I'd never work in one
again and so it proved to be.
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