Returning Home – Part 2

It was my turn Friday to visit my old neighborhood.  Oak Park, Illinois, 251 South Home Avenue. I lived there two years or so. The landlords – Glen and Lucille Hannaford – were long-time residents of Oak Park, in fact the home we lived in was the one in which she grew up as a little girl. Both Lu and Glen belonged to my church, First Congregational – Oak Park, United Church of Christ. Glen and I sang in the choir, and Lu attended Sunday services. Our friendship grew and she offered the garret apartment to me.

The catch: the apartment came fully furnished but without kitchen appliances because the apartment wasn’t legal. During World War II housing was scarce, so Lu and her family converted the family home into three apartments. The most valuable was on the first floor and was rented out. The second floor became Lu and Glen’s. The third floor was mine and quite spacious for a single guy. When the war ended, Oak Park fought to reduce population density and outlawed the attic apartment. The stove and refrigerator were removed. I lived in the place with electric coffee maker and a hot pot in which to make soup. A bar refrigerator was added so I could keep cheese and cold beverages. I ate most meals out.

The house was huge in truly grand Oak Park fashion. Most likely this was a 4000+ square foot home with a huge wrap around porch. Likely built at the turn of the century (the last one, 1900). Everything was walkable – restaurants, cleaners, grocery store, church, downtown and, of course, the Lake Street L into the Loop. This was also the home from which I left to enter seminary.

In April of 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. That evening the smoke from the Chicago Westside neighborhood – Austin – wafted into my living room windows. Sirens punctuated the nighttime hours. Devastation was heavy in Chicago, and much of the city was locked down. I still made it to work downtown but soon felt the pull to seminary to address the racial sickness of my America.

Oak Park had become my home. Small town yet urban, old with history and heritage. Oak Park made me an adult after college. It just did.

And so it holds a dear place in my heart and mind.

Seeing it again was fun, not anti-climactic. The dead elms had been replaced by flourishing trees everywhere. Green lush reminded me of long ago days in Oak Park. But the traffic was horrendous. Everyone seemed to have a car or three and parked it on the street. What were once broad avenues were now narrowed lanes barely able to host two passing cars. But the verve and people were everywhere bringing life and spirit to the community. Just as I remembered.

After driving around the church, library and stores – some still standing, others not, or empty – we headed home. We toyed with going to Hyde Park and the seminary, but Rocky was adamant. No, he indicated; people get shot in Chicago!

I had to agree. The news is filled with expressway shootings, neighborhood drive-bys, and random marauding in populated areas including the Loop and Magnificent Mile. So we deferred that visit to another time.

I remember my landlady, Lu, warning me about the seminary’s location. She said, “people are shot and killed there!” All these years later the same is true. Sad.

May 27, 2021