TLP Collab - Home, Community, World
Becca Bonneville: No Place Like Gnome
A Whimsical Adventure: Periwinkle Poetry
Journaling reads:
1953 - 1971
4353 West Cortez Street, the home my grandparents purchased around 1920. I was told that it was newly built at the time. It was three stories. A first floor flat, a second floor flat, and an attic. My grandparents took over the main level, Busia, Dzia Dzia, Max, Charlotte, Richard, Ted and Stanley. My grandmother’s sister and family moved into that second floor, and after a few years their family was complete: Ciotka Josephine and Wujek Frank, Irene, Chester and Dolly. Out of six siblings in Poland, these two sisters were the only ones who immigrated to the United States. Life went on.
Fast forward to 1942. Charlotte married Joe (my parents). Busia asked her sister and family to vacate. Mom and Dad took over the second story flat. And then there were five of us, Mom, Dad, Ray, Joe and me.
I have good memories growing up there. It was an open door policy, us kids were free to enter the first floor flat. We grew up with my grandparents, them speaking Polish, us doing a mix of speaking (me not so much) and understanding Polish. We communicated. Three of my mother’s brothers never married, so Uncles Max, Ted and Stan were almost always there with a lap for us to crawl onto. I have memories of watching TV downstairs, pizza from Livia's on Saturday nights. Visits with my grandparents during the day when the brothers were at work.
The backyard on Cortez, when weather cooperated, was where both families congregated. We would sit on benches and lawn chairs, escaping the heat of the summer until the mosquitoes began biting. And then the night air helped to cool the indoors. On Sundays, after church, it was time for Uncle Max to bring out the camera or his video camera and take pictures of us all. When the video camera was on, it would require movement from me. I would skip, I would dance, I would show off my expertise with the hula hoop, I would wave bashfully. As the years passed, we would celebrate communions, confirmations, graduations, birthdays in that backyard, snapping photographs to commemorate the occasion.
I would play in that backyard with my Barbie and friends. Occasionally my uncle would get the hose out to cool us off on hot summer days in Chicago. I had a sandbox near the house. Louise and I would play, with the white picket fence separating us, for all hours of the day. When I got older, we would have photo shots with my friends, going off to dances, to the theater, all in that beloved backyard.
Busia loved flowers and she kept a massive garden on the property to the west of the home. It was essentially a vacant lot, taken over by Busia’s vegetable garden. When I was 3 or 4, I remember Busia and Mom rushing out to the vegetable garden to salvage what they could. Builders were there to clear the land, and ultimately, they built two additional small bungalows on the property that Busia thought was too small for even one home. My grandparents had the option to purchase the land, but they never thought that it would sell... Life in the big city...
I lived here for 18 years, until I went off to the University of Illinois in Champaign. So many good things living on the edge of the city proper, close enough to transportation to get me to downtown and culture. The grandparents passed away, my uncles became snowbirds, then they passed away. My oldest brother transferred to Florida with his job. My parents put the house up for sale when the neighborhood became unsafe, shootings in the alley, shootings too close for comfort. My parents sold the house and purchased a new one near Niles. My dad passed away in February 1987, just a few months before the move. Mom and brother Joe moved in 1987. The end of an era.
