One of the best quotes I’ve read in a while came from writer and scientist Charles Pellegrino in “Ghosts of Vesuvius,” his book about the last days of Pompeii, which I purchased after seeing the excellent exhibit on that topic at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
“If you have not shaken your head today, slowly from side to side, and said ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘Gee, what is that?’ then you probably have not had a very interesting day,” he wrote.
It nicely sums up my approach to this column. Beyond that, I respect a solid “I don’t know” response a lot more than informed-sounding nonsense when I’m talking to people, no matter if I’m on the job or not. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy engaging in speculation about why things might be when factual answers prove too elusive.
Often, especially when looking back many decades or even centuries, the facts surrounding a person or event can be lost to history if they weren’t recorded in some way. That’s when we straddle the boundaries of folklore.
The term evokes fairy tales and fables from ancient times overseas, when giants and other monsters menaced villagers, but it’s a tradition that continues to this day.
When we retell a story such as that of a freedom seeker who passed through our area as part of the Underground Railroad but didn’t write anything down herself, we’re often relying on stories that have been passed down or shared over generations.
It’s a tradition I unabashedly participate in, by helping others share the stories of their pursuits and their families. As a journalist who specializes in features, storytelling is at the heart of my job.
Keeping a careful eye to make sure people in power are working in our best interests is of huge importance, as is keeping people apprised of hard news such as crime. But engaging readers with well-told stories about their neighbors and the places where they work and live is a key element to the survival of publications such as this one. Figuring out why things are the way they are and collectively asking “Gee, what is that?” are unifying concepts, something everyone except uninterested duds can rally around.
That was the message I was trying to relate to a group of local history enthusiasts last month at a meeting of the Homewood Historical Society. My skill set is more suited for a keyboard than a podium, but I was finally convinced to do the talk by my friend Elaine Egdorf, a historian who has provided lots of valuable ideas and input for this column and who organizes programming for the society.
I opened with a story that ostensibly had nothing to do with Homewood or even the south suburbs. It wasn’t even my own story, but rather one of the interesting experiences amassed by my wife, Tonya. When she was a youngster in the 1980s, her church choir took a trip to Niagra Falls, where they visited the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum.
Walking with a friend through a section filled with wax figures depicting superlative people — the world’s smallest man, hairiest woman and others — they turned a corner to find an exhibit featuring the World’s Tallest Woman. The very tall woman promptly turned toward them and lit up a cigarette, causing Tonya and her friend to scream; they weren’t expecting a live person to be on display. Understandably upset, the World’s Tallest Woman began “cussing us out,” as Tonya tells it, and she and her friend high-tailed it out of there.
It’s a story that’s achieved legendary status in my family and we retell it often, and it’s the kind of story that if continued to be told over generations that could morph into a sort of fairy tale about a harrowing encounter with an angry giant.
It’s that intersection between history and folklore that I love exploring, and there is plenty of folklore to delve into right here in suburbia.
There are mysterious places and leftover ruins from the (somewhat) ancient past, such as the so-called Bum’s Castle in Harvey, which still occupies a prominent place on the south suburban skyline despite total neglect and active attempts to blow it up.
The old prisoner of war barracks building that housed Germans captured during World War II in what is now Sweet Woods Forest Preserve near Thornton was moved and now hosts acoustic concerts in front of its cozy hearth as the clubhouse at Izaak Walton Preserve in Homewood.
Even more modern structures, such as the Chicago Southland Lincoln Oasis over Interstates 294 and 80 in South Holland have achieved a sort of legendary status. Someday, like most of the other Tollway oases, it will be gone and we’ll tell our grandkids about these cool places where we could sit and eat fast food while watching motorists zip through underneath us.
The original Inland Steel factory in Chicago Heights helped transform the sleepy village of Bloom into an industrial powerhouse city at the dawn of the 20th century. It survived the Rust Belt years in the last decades of the last century, and is still situated at the end of a cobblestone road, still producing steel products.
George Pullman, the 19th Century railroad car magnate, now lives in the popular consciousness as a folk villain, and the Pullman Porters have emerged from that historic environment as labor and civil rights heroes. Together, they now have a National Historic Park devoted to keeping their stories alive.
Other industrialists from the Gilded Age have receded into the murk of passing time. That includes John Valentine Steger, whose fight to have the town of Columbia Heights renamed for his piano factory, which he had named for himself, was unearthed by a librarian in the village that became known as Steger, much to the chagrin of another company producing pianos there.
J.V. Steger’s business practices may have been cutthroat, but by many accounts he tried to establish a more enlightened version of Pullman’s company town. Similarities exist, such as streets still lined with workman’s cottages, but the people who lived there didn’t shop at the company store or pay rent to their employer. He’s a flawed icon of the south suburbs’ industrial heyday, whose legacy lives on only in name of his adopted town.
The stories of our area are still being recorded and shared by people like Tyrone Haymore. His ongoing effort to preserve the Kedzie Avenue mansion of megasuccessful entrepreneur S.B. Fuller as the Robbins History Museum is not only keeping alive the legacy of the business tycoon, but also highlighting the stories of everyday Robbins residents such as himself.
The funny stories about where we live that get shared and retold become folklore, too, and sometimes they become additionally rich when we learn more about seemingly unrelated events. Such was the case when I looked into why a vinyl LP recorded in the early 1970s by the Governors State University Jazz Band sold for thousands of dollars. It was because it was excellent, I learned, and had developed a cult following. But I also learned in reporting that tale that the first president of GSU maintained his first office at the Covert Motel along Governors Highway in Matteson.
That hotel’s name had long been the subject of mirth for my friends and I, especially after the operators removed the high hedge surrounding the motel’s parking lot and, having made it much less covert, changed its name to Presidential Inn.
Even little stories, snickering ones about covert motel parking lots, have a place in the big book of suburban folklore, and by any estimation, it’s one we haven’t even put a tiny dent in exploring. After the Homewood Historical Society presentation, several people gave me ideas of topics to explore down the road.
Bygone destinations, such as the Brown Derby Amusement Park in Homewood, and Fireside Chalet in Glenwood — which may have had a connection to the Underground Railroad network — came up, as did the long-gone roller rinks and bowling alleys that people used to patronize, along with a few that are still around.
People wanted to learn more about bricks produced around these parts and still make up the walls of our sturdy, old buildings. And always the people who have come from here and gone out into the world to do remarkable things. There is a never-ending supply of those stories.
What suburban folklore would you like to explore? Drop me a line at the email address below.
Landmarks is a weekly column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at [email protected].