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- the only negro family then living in Englewood (we lived in Englewood from 1916
to 1920) lived there. I can't remember seeing any of the family on the street at any time except this girl, whose name was Grace Lucas. There must have been some connection between Motley and the Lucas family, but maybe his family just took it over fromthe other family. It was never painted, always looked bleak whenever I passed by, and I used to walk past from 1941 to 1943m while we were living at 6010 Union. I used to walk east from Union to the Englewood station (now closed), where I would get the commuter train to Gary. Englewood Yard, formerly one of the bus- iest rail yards in the USA, 'cept for piggyback movements, is closed by the vicious Pennsy officials since the NYC-P Co. merger, a thing I predicted long ago.
The school was Lewis Champlain grammar school, as mentions the windows that
looked out on Englewood Avenue. I was a kid going to Lewis Champlain before and after the bldg. was put up. We were in portables for years, and I can remember no complaints about portables. The bldgs. were warm and comfortable and we hadn't heard of air conditioning in those days. When the powerhouse that still supplies heat to both that school and Englewood High (my son graduated from EHS in 1943), was built, I was happy to go and pick up coal with a poor, shakey wagon and haul it to 60th and Princeton, where we then lived. This was a bit easier than going up on either the Pennsy or NYC (called the Lake Shore by "rails") and maybe getting caught by the cinder dicks, which happened to me once. There were no saloons in Englewood those days. The kids I remember who went to work at an early age never thought of keeping their earnings for themselves, just wanted enough to attend The Marlowe Theater, a good-sized vaude house that stood at 63rd & Stewart, also had a hotel in the same structure. When the series, I MARRIED A REDHEAD, was running in the Chicago Tribune, I wrote to the Southtown Economist, saying I was never able to find any of my former classmates upon returning in 1941, though a above the line in blue ink (The Economist printed my letter, I still have the clipping). few names on store fronts were familiar. The redhead (I'm sure) was the ticket taker at The Marlowe, had to be kissed by everyone every time she said "good night." The Marlow had gone by 1941, a show kids used to walk miles to attend, and I can recall seeing the Ragen Colts (a young hoodlum group that terrorized Englewood for years), who came from up in the stkyds area, chasing a young negro who chanced to show up in the Englewood district, and I know that I hoped the negro would escape. The Colts came out of that show and saw him walking along Stewart Ave. They were sponsored by a politician and were used to imtimidate voters and stuff ballot boxes on election days.
Thanks again for DECEMBER and best wishes to you and kinfolk,
written in blue ink and underlined Mead
P.S.written in blue ink P.S. underlined Nippy weather beginning now. I put up storm windows yesterday Just finished reading The Trial of Dr. Spock, by Jessica Mitford