HS Board

Does MPHS have photographs:  Yes

Address in MP: 21 S. Emerson

Birth Date:  January 1, 1896

Death Date: August 24, 1971

Marriage
Date: 
Spouse:  Elsie Meyn
Children: Edward J, Wallace E.

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
If you look carefully at the building on the eastern corner of Northwest Highway and Emerson Street, you can still see Edwin Busse’s name carved into downtown Mount Prospect. Edwin Busse was both a business man and a local leader. For many years he ran Busse Market out of the building at the corner of Northwest Highway and Emerson. Later that building became the home of Annen and Busse Realty, which his sons helped run. He also served as the village Clerk from 1924 through 1941, he was a member of the Mount Prospect Volunteer Fire Department for 43 years and served on the School District 57 board.

Date of Interview: November 21, 1969

Interviewer: Meta Bitner, Edith Wilson, Doris Weber

Text of Oral History Interview:

Q: …Friday afternoon, November 21, Maida Bittner, Edith Wilson, Doris Weber from the Mount Prospect Historical Society interviewing Mr. Edwin Busse who lives at 21 South Emerson, Mount Prospect.

EDWIN BUSSE: …went to school in ________ …doctor, and he pronounced her dead before she got in the hospital. I had a housekeeper first, and now I’ve got a housekeeper. She was born in Germany.
Q: Were you born in Germany?
BUSSE: No.
Q: And your father was which Busse?
BUSSE: Edward Busse.
Q: He never lived in Mount Prospect.
BUSSE: Oh, yes, sure.
Q: Did he?
BUSSE: He lived across from –first we lived about the grocery store, and that was 1902, and then he built a house by where Beigle’s Restaurant was –that restaurant in there. He built a house there, and they moved that house over to –I think it’s the second or third house from the corner there. Then he built that house. He also built this house.
Q: Oh, that house right across the street.
BUSSE: Yes. Then when I got married this fellow living in here was getting sick and tired of Mount Prospect so my dad bought this house then I moved in here. Of course, I had to pay him out.
Q: Oh, sure. That always comes into it.
BUSSE: Then my dad built that one, and then he moved in there, and now my sister is living there.
Q: And his sister is quite ill, too, and it’s hard for him to go across the street to visit her.
BUSSE: And my sister can’t come over here.
Q: I saw you going across the street with your cane one day…
BUSSE: Yes, some days.
Q: …and I wondered whether you should.
BUSSE: Well, maybe I shouldn’t but I did anyhow.
Q: Now, you were born in 1896.
BUSSE: 1896, January 1.
Q: Where?
BUSSE: In Elk Grove, Algonquin Road.
Q: And his father was Mr. and Mrs. Edward Busse.
Q: Where did you go to school?
BUSSE: At St. John’s in Elk Grove.
Q: And he married the Meyn girl.
BUSSE: They lived across the street, so all I had to do was jump across the road there and I was…
Q: Do you mean right over here where Christian Busse –over in that area?
BUSSE: No.
Q: Right across the street here.
BUSSE: The house is still there where my wife was born.
Q: After school what was your first job?
BUSSE: My first job was –well, from school I went to Metropolitan Business College for fourteen months, and I graduated there with a ninety-five-and-two-thirds percent average.
Q: Oh, that’s great.
Q: …said they put siding on it.
BUSSE: Yes.
Q: Yes, well, now I think everything is working fine.
Q: You say there were how many children in your class in St. John’s?
BUSSE: Ninety-six.
Q: Ninety-six children. That’s a lot of children, isn’t it, for one teacher? And your teacher was Fred Meeske?
BUSSE: No, Paul Meeske.
Q: Who was Paul Meeske? Is that Fred Meeske’s father?
BUSSE: Fred Meeske’s father, yes.
Q: There were various grades in the one room?
BUSSE: Four classes.
Q: And he was able to teach all four classes at the same time.
BUSSE: Yes. He lined us up from one end of the school to the other.
Q: I don’t think we got the part about you pumping the organ.
BUSSE: Oh, in church Sunday mornings we had to pump the organ so we could get air to run it.
Q: Yes, and you did the pumping.
BUSSE: Well, we took our turns.
Q: Would you forget to pump once in a while?
BUSSE: I’ll say.
Q: That was a hard job to pump, wasn’t it?
BUSSE: Oh, no, it wasn’t hard. It was a tedious job, you know.
Q: You had to keep after it continuously. I suppose some of those long pieces lasted forever.
Q: After you left business college and you got your first job, when did you get the store?
BUSSE: Then I went to work for the Continental and Commercial National Bank.
Q: How long were you with them?
BUSSE: I worked there for about five years or something like that.
Q: You didn’t work there with Mr. Biermann, Frank Biermann?
BUSSE: I’ll come to that.
Q: Okay.
BUSSE: I worked there, and then the boss said to me, “Say, have you got any more guys like you out there?”
Q: A good worker.
BUSSE: You know, I always –he was a lot of times a funny guy.
Q: If you knew a friend, huh?
BUSSE: I said, “I’ll see once what I can do.” He said, “Yes, tell him to corne in,” and then I took Frank along.
Q: That’s Frank Biermann.
BUSSE: Yes. He started to work there, and then pretty soon William Busse said to me –I was about ready to get married. I was getting about seventy dollars a month over by the bank, and he said, “We need somebody to take care of the store. I don’t want my wife to work all her life. You can keep the books and take care of the store. We’ll find plenty to do for you.” So I worked over there for five years. Of course, they gave me a raise. I was getting seventy-five dollars a month…
Q: That was good money in those days.
BUSSE: …and I saved six dollars and forty cents, which was the carfare a month then. See, I saved that.
Q: How much were you able to put away in the bank?
Q: He’s not saying.
Q: It was a laugh in those days, too?
BUSSE: Getting married and putting away in the bank? A lot of that old stuff I threw out. We’d have electric bills, oh, a dollar or a little more than a dollar. We could live cheaper then.
Q: You probably could save, couldn’t you, on that. When did you go into business for yourself?
BUSSE: And then I went in with my dad. He said, “Come on. I can get you in the union now” –a big deal. “I can get you in the union now.” He was organizing the union, and he said, “You can work in the bottling plant.” So I went over there until 1925, then my dad started to –oh, and by the way, I was getting seventy –nineteen dollars a week with the union in the bottling plant.
Q: Where was the bottling plant?
BUSSE: Where Schimming’s is now. And then in 1925 my dad put the building up. That’s where Van Oriel is in now. And he said, “You know, I want one of my boys in business in the building here,” and then I became a butcher.
Q: And he had a nice store.
Q: Oh, yes. Your pot roasts were so delicious.
BUSSE: And then I became a butcher. I hired a union butcher, and I opened up in August, and the rest.
Q: August of what year?
BUSSE: 1925. Then my butcher goes and dies. I don’t know whether he died in the back room or whether he got home yet. Anyhow, he died, and there I was sitting. Now what are you going to do? Make an attempt at it yourself. So from then on I …
Q: You learned how to do the business.
BUSSE: I learned how to do the business with the help of salesman. They would tell me what to do and I would do it. But I didn’t make much money the first year.
Q: Where was your first home after you were married?
BUSSE: Right here.
Q: Right here at 21 South Emerson.
BUSSE: Then I plugged along. My sister worked for me, and we got along all right. Then I’d hire boys, you know. Some of the boys that I turned out over there that worked for me in the beginning were Sandy Falkinzer. I don’t know whether you know him.
Q: I know Sandy Falkinzer. I know them. I don’t think they live in town anymore, the Falkinzers.
BUSSE: No, they live in Palatine.
Q: Oh, I remember them, yes.
Q: He was a nice boy.
BUSSE: And he was a good boy. Richard Carlson, he married an Anderson girl –the real estate man. And Koesters.
Q: Lawrence Koester’s son.
BUSSE: Lawrence Koester’s son. He had two of them, didn’t he?
Q: Yes, and a girl.
BUSSE: I think the boys both worked for me. Some are doctors, some are dentists, and that’s the way I needed them. High school, and then when they graduated from there then they went.
Q: Sure.
Q: What was Christmas like in the Busse household?
BUSSE: Well, very lean in the beginning.
Q: Did the family come here?
BUSSE: We went around –one Christmas here, one Christmas by my brother, and one Christmas by my mother. That’s the way we treated New Year’s, too –well, New Year’s we most generally landed here, see, because I had my birthday and we always celebrated it.
Q: He was born January 1. He’s a New Year’s baby.
BUSSE: That’s the way we went around, with my mother, all holidays.
Q: Did you celebrate the two days together or separate?
BUSSE: No, together.
Q: What was the favorite food? Was turkey usually the Christmas meal or goose?
BUSSE: Turkey, goose. Ducks –they weren’t big enough.
Q: It helped to have a store in those days, to bring home all the goodies.
Q: How large a family would collect at a place on a holiday? Would there be a dozen or more together?
BUSSE: Oh, sometimes more. It all depends. When my wife’s relatives all come, why, then, that would be quite a collection.
Q: She was the daughter of Mr. Meyn.
Q: And a sister of the Meyn who lives on the corner down here, right? Mr. Meyn, you know –Mr. and Mrs. Meyn.
Q: No, I don’t.
Q: He was the blacksmith. Mr. Meyn had the blacksmith shop in town.
Q: And was it his son who was the village president years ago?
BUSSE: No, he was.
Q: The village blacksmith.
Q: Well, I shouldn’t say that. A blacksmith shop he had.
BUSSE: Blacksmith and machinery.
Q: Yes, he could do all sorts of things. First it was down- the street here –isn’t that right, Mr. Busse? –on Northwest Highway and Busse Avenue.
BUSSE: John Meyn, my wife’s father, he had a blacksmith shop over here on this corner where that house is standing now — where the gas station is. He had a shop there, and that’s where I met my wife, right across the street.
Q: Well, courting was easy then.
Q: Did you flirt?
Q: Sure, he flirted. What are you asking?
BUSSE: What did you do?
Q: She’s blushing.
BUSSE: I suppose we did the same thing you did.
Q: Look at her blush.
BUSSE: She didn’t expect that.
Q: No, we kidded her.
Q: Shall we go back to the grocery store?
Q: Yes, let’s go back to the grocery store.
Q: Well, then, Mr. Meyn, his father –he took over his father’s business then, is that it?
BUSSE: No. They were competitors for a while.
Q: Oh, is that so?
BUSSE: Why don’t you girls sit down?
Q: Okay, we will.
BUSSE: Pull up the chairs if they aren’t close enough.
Q: This is fine. I’ll just put my stuff on the floor.
BUSSE: But there was a blacksmith shop there, and it was for sale. Then the bought that man out, see. That’s how he got in the business. And he had another son home that could do blacksmith work that worked for his father, but he turned out to be a grocery man, too. That was on the south –who is in there now? J&B.
Q: J & B Market.
Q: Where was your market?
BUSSE: Where Annen & Busse is in.
Q: And, now, this house that was built across from the Mehling Store, wasn’t that a Meyn?
BUSSE: That way?
Q: Yes, Main Street. That was a blacksmith.
BUSSE: That was the only one that was there.
Q: That was the blacksmith shop.
BUSSE: And the blacksmith.
Q: You mean that is the original building that’s still standing?
Q: No, that’s gone.
Q: It isn’t there, I don’t think, anymore, that original.
BUSSE: No. that’s there ~et.
Q: Is this that original Meyn …?
BUSSE: Not the first one, but this one, all the kids were raised in there.
Q: The one on the corner of Route 83 and Main?
Q: No.
BUSSE: No, across from Route 83 and Main.
Q: Across the street from _________.
BUSSE: There is a bunch of stores in there.
Q: Yes, and then there’s the big house.
BUSSE: There is a big house. That’s the one that the Meyns raised.
Q: Oh, that is. I often wondered who lived in that house. That’s quite a beautiful house, isn’t it.
BUSSE: It must have been. They’ve got pictures of the house when it was built. Mrs. Herman Meyn has pictures of that. But then I started that meat market, and then I was elected village clerk about 1924. I became village clerk, and I was village clerk until 1945.
Q: What was one of the most important matters that came up while you were village clerk?
BUSSE: Everything.
Q: Everything was important.
Q: Anyone particular thing that impressed you _______ that you worked harder on?
BUSSE: Paving. Paving the streets.
Q: Widening the streets?
BUSSE: No.
Q: The streets were gravel before?
BUSSE: It was mud and gravel, yes.
Q: Wooden sidewalks?
BUSSE: We had wooden sidewalks when we first moved here. Street paving, all the underground work, sewers stubs, water –that was all put in while I was clerk. Then we’d have meetings until twelve, one o’clock –you know how the meetings go –and then they’d pass some bonds for Milburn Brothers. Milburn did all the paving here.
Q: Where did you meet?
BUSSE: Under the water tower, that little room, and that was I so full of smoke all the time. When I got home, three days later I’d smell of smoke yet.
Q: There was a little lean-to between the well and the water tower.
BUSSE: No, that was just a building.
Q: That building where you used to go to pay your water rent and things. It was the police station, too.
Q: It was just a little twelve-by-twelve …
Q: It’s still there.
Q: Yes, but it’s bricked-up now. It looks different, doesn’t it’?
Q: Isn’t it just as it was?
BUSSE: I think so.
Q: I think so, yes.
Q: It’s brick?
BUSSE: No. Wooden, I’m pretty sure.
Q: It looks like an old shed.
BUSSE: You know, imagine the guys sitting around there, and around on the outside yet there were some more smoking. Everybody was smoking, and I never smoked in my life.
Q: You never did.
BUSSE: Never did.
Q: And I’d inhale all that smoke, and that’s where I got my emphysema from now, I guess.
Q: They say that it’s worse to inhale someone else’s smoke than to smoke yourself. I heard that.
BUSSE: Well, that’s where I got mine from.
Q: And your clothes all smelled of smoke, and your wife didn’t like it.
Q: She probably thought you were smoking.
BUSSE: Two days later the house smelled of smoke yet.
Q: Who else was on the village board that helped to make decisions at the same time that you were clerk?
BUSSE: Well, William Busse.
Q: Shall I go and get the picture out there on the porch?
Q: I think it lists those names.
Q: Here there are a .lot of names. There is one Henjes.
BUSSE: Henjes?
Q: Who was he? Only in the history of Mount Prospect did I run across that.
BUSSE: He married into the Busse family.
Q: Where did he come from, Germany?
BUSSE: Well, they all came from Germany.
Q: These papers that you’re weeding through out on the back porch now, does this have to do just with your store? Any Busse family…?
Q: Here, Maida. Here’s the picture of the whole group that was on his village board.
Q: Isn’t this wonderful he saved all this.
BUSSE: At different times.
Q: Oh, save these papers, Mr. Busse, please. They have so much valuable information on them. It’s good your wife permitted you to keep all these, you know. A lot of wives throw out everything.
Q: We’d appreciate it if you didn’t throw any newspapers away because we’re saving and compiling some of these clippings in the old newspapers.
BUSSE: There is Bittner. Do you remember this quilt?
Q: That’s one that everybody did some embroidery on, isn’t it?
Q: Oh, look at that quilt. Isn’t that beautiful. Everyone’s name.
Q: Oh, Marie Moehling.
Q: Isn’t that beautiful. Red and white.
Q: Isn’t that pretty. Let’s see some of these names.
Q: How many signatures are on there? Is this sort of a family quilt?
BUSSE: No, anybody could get in there.
Q: That resided in Mount Prospect.
Q: Who made this, your wife?
Q: The Ladies’ Aid.
Q: When? What year? Do you remember about when?
BUSSE: __________________.
Q: Jessie Miller, Anna Olson.
Q: Olga Luckner, Ethel Wille, Elvina Albert.
BUSSE: Ethel Wille was my brother’s wife, or is my brother’s wife.
Q: Elizabeth Bussert.
Q: Elvina William Wilke.
BUSSE: Look here.
Q: Do you want to read some of those and tell us who they are?
Q: Emma Busse.
Q: There is Emma Busse, Edwin Busse –that’s you.
Q: Marjorie Earhart.
Q: Isn’t this marvelous.
Q: Yes, she’s married now.
Q: Christina Behren –Christina Busse.
BUSSE: My uncle, my aunt.
Q: Emma Busse. Elsie Meyn, Christine Meyn, John Meyn, here.
Q: Jeannie Busse.
Q: Tillie Ehard. She’s gone a long time.
BUSSE: Look here.
Q: Edwin, yes.
Q: Elsie Meyn. Was that before you were married that you got…?
BUSSE: That was before we were married.
Q: Christina Meyn.
Q: Before you were married. How about that.
BUSSE: We kind of figured it out. That would be about. ..
Q: You’ve had your fiftieth anniversary.
BUSSE: Yes, that was two years ago. That might be about, oh, a little less than fifty-five years.
Q: Henry Clousing.
Q: Scharinghausen?
Q: Remember, Henry Clousing, the house that we’re so interested in. Anna Clousing, Anna Muenching.
BUSSE: And that would be a good house for that.
Q: Yes, it would.
BUSSE: I’ve been thinking about that.
Q: Did you hear about that house?
BUSSE: I heard it was sold.
Q: For taxes, and nobody knew anything about it. That’s what the village said.
Q: Here we’ve been after it for so long.
BUSSE: Well, Wallace had it for sale. Wallace had it for sale when Mrs. Clousing finally died.
Q: Clara Koch.
Q: Mary _________.
BUSSE: And he had it sold. He sold it for twenty-eight thousand dollars. Then the deal couldn’t go through because –what did _________ say –the attorney said there was fifty-four errors to it and they couldn’t get the signatures.
Q: And that’s about six years ago, or something like that?
Q: Caroline Zingfel.
Q: We have her signature on the checks that we got from the library.
BUSSE: That’s since he’s been in that business there. He left me, oh, I don’t know what it was, about 1960 or 1959.
Q: Gertie Busse.
Q: Scharinghausen.
Q: Did he work for you?
BUSSE: Wallace? Oh, sure.
Q: Wallace Clousing?
BUSSE: No, Wallace Busse. He’s in real estate. He’s manager here now.
Q: Which Scharinghausen was this, I wonder, M?
BUSSE: That might be Walter.
Q: Walter’s wife or mother?
BUSSE: No, they’re much younger than I am.
Q: Mrs. Spoerlater’s sister.
BUSSE: Gertie Busse.
Q: Terkhoff.
Q: Wille.
Q: Schaeffer.
Q: Christian D. Busse. He was the first…
Q: He lived across the street.
Q: Yes.
Q: Bertha Ehart.
Q: Oh, no.
Q: Bertha Engel.
Q: Yes, Bertha Ehart, Bertha Engleking. That was her mother, wasn’t it?
BUSSE: That was her mother, yes.
Q: And Joseph.
Q: Joseph Ehart lived down here on Maple.
Q: Well, this certainly is a choice thing.
BUSSE: We had it at the fiftieth golden anniversary when the village was fifty years old.
Q: You must treasure this.
Q: I don’t remember seeing it there.
BUSSE: Oh, they say it was –everybody was looking at it. The only thing that they were looking at.
Q: You must treasure this.
Q: He should.
BUSSE: Well, yes. When my father-in-law…
Q: Rohlwings?
Q: You know who Rohlwings are. That was George L. Busse’s mother-in-law. Pfingsten, that’s his brother-in-law.
Q: You mean Jardell?
BUSSE: Jardell’s brother.
Q: Oldendorf?
BUSSE: That’s another relationship of the Willes, the Oldendorfs.
Q: Stella Woerfel.
Q: That’s a long time. When is it?
BUSSE: Yes. They used to live in the house across the street here. There was a house.
Q: Herman Noll.
BUSSE: Yes, you know who Herman Noll is.
Q: I know Herman.
BUSSE: He’s a preacher in Prospect Heights now.
Q: I know Herman Noll.
BUSSE: We had a fellow staying here for a while. He begged to be able to move in here. He wanted to get away from the old peoples’ home, so he came in here and Herman Noll was his pastor.
Q: Is that so.
BUSSE: Yes. He didn’t belong to any church at all, and so he Herman Noll got acquainted with him somehow, and Herman Noll confirmed him, mind you. He confirmed him, and then he came over here and Herman Noll visited him over at the house here. He came in, and he said, “Hello, Edwin,” and I said, “Hello, Pastor.” He said, “Ach, ‘Pastor.’ What’s the matter with you, Edwin? I was raised in your backyard.” “I know that, but I still call you ‘Pastor.’ You’re a pastor and you deserve that title, to have us call you pastor.” He said, “Don’t do that. Just call me Herman.”
Q: Who were your brothers and sisters?
BUSSE: Just Christina Busse and Richard Busse. He’s dead now.
Q: He lived in the house right across the street here, remember?
BUSSE: Yes, when they put a parking lot there.
Q: We’re repeating some of these things, I guess.
Q: We missed part of the tape in the beginning, and I don’t know what part.
Q: What else would you like to tell us?
BUSSE: Forty-two years a fireman.
Q: At the time of Mr. Biermann?
Q: You should have heard Mr. Biermann last Monday night.
BUSSE: I was a fireman before Mr. Biermann was a fireman. Mr. Biermann was twenty-one years old in October, and I was twenty-one years old in January. That much older I am than Frank Biermann.
Q: And you had the opportunity to use the old fire equipment –the one-and-only original piece?
BUSSE: I drove the old fire truck for years.
Q: How did it ride?
BUSSE: For years I drove the first American of France fire truck that we had.
Q: What was the first fire, do you remember?

Does MPHS have photographs: No

Date of Interview: November 28, 1993

Interviewer:  Unknown

Q: It is November 28, 1993, and the interview here is in Mt. Prospect at 415 E. Prospect. First of all, I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to be interviewed and signing the consent form. We just have to acknowledge that on tape, so I have to say that. I have a list of questions here, and I’m going to go off the top of my head and ask, as well. You said you were born in 1904, was it?
ALISE BOYLAND: 1905.
Q: In LaCrosse?
BOYLAND: That’s right.
Q: Why don’t you tell me again who your parents were.
BOYLAND: My parents were Louise Mitchell Platz and Max Frederick Platz. He was born in LaCrosse.
Q: When did you move to Mt. Prospect? Did you tell me 1936?
BOYLAND: 1936, yes. We moved over to Wa-Pella Street. It was a solid row of houses at that time. We felt very free to have our children play almost undersupervised because we didn’t have to worry about abusive people. Very often we would gather on Bill Welch’s front steps and visit and kind of keep an eye on the children. One of the women on the street had a pre-school, because there was no kindergarten, and later on Glad Ackley had a kindergarten in her home. I think maybe the Lutheran school had a kindergarten, but the early Central School did not. Back of the old houses on the west there was a Meyers farm, and during  the war we rented a little, small portion for little Victory Gardens.
Q: Was this World War II?
BOYLAND: Yes.
Q: I remember that one day, looking out my kitchen window, there were two big cows in the backyard. Fortunately, there were no children around. I quick called our one and only policeman, George Wittenburg, to corral them and get them back where they belonged. Downtown Mt. Prospect was basically Meeske’s, there was a National Tea Store, the bank and the Busse Hardware Store. There was a little dry goods store, a small one, and the post office. We had to go pick up our mail. And there was a drug store, so actually, we had all the basics that we needed. Of course, everybody –all the men –worked downtown, and there was very good train transportation. At that time the ladies did not work. We just were housewives. Well, you ask the questions.
Q: Have you always lived in the same place? Did you stay in that area long?
BOYLAND: No, we lived at 600 W. Lincoln for eighteen years, and then I moved over to a smaller house on Emerson Street — 207 N. Emerson Street. And then I sold that and made the mistake of going to a retirement home, the Tamarack in Palatine, didn’t like it and then moved back here to Mt. Prospect in this apartment.
Q: What made you decide to move back to Mt. Prospect?
BOYLAND: Because I’d lived here practically all my life, and I had friends here and a church. Really, when we first came out here, I think there was a Lutheran church, and I think soon after the South Church started. But, of course, they started in somebody’s home. And then the Episcopal church was started. I can’t tell you the year. It also started in somebody’s home. And then, of course, St. Raymond’s. By that time the town was blooming. See, when we moved out, only 1,200 people.
Q: What made you decide to move to Mt. Prospect in the first place?
BOYLAND: I guess my husband knew Mr. Piesander, who was in the real estate business, so we moved out and liked it very much. We rented the house for a year, and then decided to buy. At that time we had scrambled to get the down payment. Well, it paid for the house, because at that time you bought your house outright. You didn’t have a thirty-year mortgage, so our houses were paid for.
Q: What has changed about the town over the years? What strikes you?
BOYLAND: I think the growth, and many different types of people. Most of them, I think, are good middle-class people, but we begin to feel that there –I don’t know whether there are gangs coming, but we didn’t feel uneasy about –less safe than we did.
Q: You mentioned the train transportation. What do you remember about the building of the –were you here when the train station was being built?
BOYLAND: There was a station here, yes.
Q: Oh, there was a station already.
BOYLAND: Yes, there was a station here.
Q: What are some of the other landmarks or some of the other things you can remember that have sprouted up as you’ve been here?
BOYLAND: That have sprouted up? Well, I’m thinking of Kouzie’s. Of course, that’s now Mrs. Piamie (sic). That was here at the time that I moved out here. Of course, now we have so many stores, with Randhurst. Well, it’s an entirely different situation. Little stores can’t survive. Meeske’s couldn’t survive. I think the Continental Bakery is there now.
Q: What do you remember most about –did you do a lot of shopping downtown then?
BOYLAND: Not a great deal. It seemed we had everything out here. We would go –well, at that time, see, you could call Field’s and they would deliver for you. It was very nice. Very easy. And we’d go down occasionally. We had a bridge group, there were eight of us, and we would put in a certain amount of money every time, and then in due time we’d have enough money so we could go downtown for lunch. At that time we wore the hats and the white gloves and really dressed up.
Q: And make a day out of it.
BOYLAND: Made a day out of it, yes.
Q: Did you shop in Mt. Prospect, around the train station where all the stores are?
BOYLAND: Some in Des Plaines. There were a couple of nice stores there –Brown’s Department Store in Des Plaines. We shopped there. But as far as articles of clothing, there really wasn’t much at that time, no.
Q: Where did you go for that –for clothing?
BOYLAND: Well, as I said, Marshall Field’s. We’d go down periodically, in Chicago. But there were things we could get at Brown’s in Des Plaines, especially nice children’s things. But even then we could pick up the phone and see the catalog and call up.
Q: What did you do about groceries?
BOYLAND: Almost entirely Meeske’s, as far as I was concerned.
Q: What about other things, like hardware items?
BOYLAND: Busse’s Hardware, that filled our needs.
Q: I guess you were here when Mt. Prospect was becoming more suburban. You weren’t here for any farming, right?
BOYLAND: At that point [the population] was 1,200 when we moved out. Of course, there were farms all around us.
Q: Did you do any farming?
BOYLAND: No, I said we had a little Victory Garden.
Q: What about a car? Did you buy your car around here?
BOYLAND: I think everybody had their own car.
Q: Did you buy a car around here?
BOYLAND: I think we bought our car –it was a Lincoln. I think we bought that in, probably, Park Ridge. There was a Buick agency here. I think that was established here almost at the same time we moved out. I think there was a Busse Buick. I think that was still there.
Q: What about medicine? Were you able to get it in town?
BOYLAND: There was a drugstore in town.
Q: What kind of a place was that? Was that something where kids could gather?
BOYLAND: I don’t think they gathered there, particularly. It was basically a drugstore for us. I don’t recall the name of the store now. The children, they didn’t gather around like that. It seemed they were so independent, they played freely. At that time we didn’t really have to have –now there are so many recreational facilities for them. They didn’t seem to need that.
Q: What exactly did they do for their fun around here –for entertainment?
BOYLAND: I suppose so, yes, that little game. See, children were not organized, and they just developed their own little games.
Q: Just outside on the street.
BOYLAND: Mostly outside, yes. They were sort of creative, I think, in some of the things they came up with.
Q: What were some of the other stores that were in town? Any other recollections?
BOYLAND: Well, there was a Busse grocery store. I think that was about it. I’m thinking back when we moved out here in 1936. Now, of course, as time went on –well, naturally, you can see what’s happened.
Q: Yes. What grade school did your children attend? Did they go to school in Mt. Prospect?
BOYLAND: Oh, yes. They went to Central.
Q: Where was Central located when you were first living here?
BOYLAND: I think it’s where the bank is.
Q: Downtown?
BOYLAND: Yes, it was downtown.
Q: They all went to Central. Was that a grade school from one to eight?
BOYLAND: Yes, that’s right.
Q: Where did they go to high school?
BOYLAND: They went to Arlington Heights.
Q: Where was that located? Was that up north of…?
BOYLAND: In Arlington Heights, yes.
Q: Like north of Northwest Highway?
BOYLAND: Yes. That Arlington Heights school is gone now. I think there’s something else there now.
Q: If that’s the one I’m thinking of, I think there is a private Christian school there, I believe.
BOYLAND: Yes, I think so.
Q: The Central School, was that relatively near? Were you children able to walk to school?
BOYLAND: Oh, yes. I don’t say it was that near, but they just walked to the Central School, or took their bicycles. See, there again we didn’t have to fear of traffic. They’d come home for lunch.
Q: And for high school? That was a little bit farther.
BOYLAND: That was a bus, yes. They took a bus.
Q: I’m trying to figure out what life was like for them in the early years around here. What was their morning routine like? Did they have things to do in the morning before they went to school, maybe that children today would not have to do, like chores?
BOYLAND: Not really, because the bus came kind of early.
Q: And they went home for lunch?
BOYLAND: Not in high school.
Q: Are we talking in terms of their high school years, or are we talking the 1950s and the early 1960s, maybe?
BOYLAND: Yes. It was a very normal high school, I think much as they have today, except maybe fewer activities. But they had sports and they had a newspaper. As a matter of fact, my daughter Gloria was editor of the newspaper.
Q: At the high school?
BOYLAND: Yes.
Q: Any other recollections from their school years here?
BOYLAND: Well, the usual thing –proms and various activities –drama. ________ participated in all those things. A very nice group of people, because children from Arlington Heights also came and channeled in there, and so it was a nice group of children, or young people. I guess they weren’t exactly children at that age.
Q: The Central School, I guess, was mainly people from Mt. Prospect?
BOYLAND: Yes.
Q: What did they do at Central? What type of activities did they do there?
BOYLAND: They had the drama, too. They had nice programs periodically. They had band and they had music. It was a nice school. They had everything. They were nice children. The people that were out here in Mt. Prospect were so similar–young people, probably of medium incomes, and it made it nice.
Q: Were there a lot of after-school activities to do?
BOYLAND: I think there were some.
Q: What is your fondest memory of the early time when you were first here in Mt. Prospect?
BOYLAND: I enjoyed my home very much. I enjoyed the environment very much, and wonderful friends –some of those friends, when we lived on Wa-pella Street, who are still very close. Many of them moved away, but we still have that nice association. A very nice life.
Q: When you reminisce with your children, what do you like to pass on to them about Mt. Prospect?
BOYLAND: I guess the same thing. Of course, my one daughter is in California. It doesn’t mean that much to her. But I guess we talk about how pleasant it was. It was a small town. But we don’t dwell on that. After all, they have their own lives.
Q: What about the government? What was that like when you first came here?
BOYLAND: We had a mayor. I think Piesander was the mayor.
Q: Did you have a lot of interest in the politics of the town?
BOYLAND: Not particularly.
Q: Did your husband?
BOYLAND: Not particularly.
Q: What about your friends? Was there any interest in the politics?
BOYLAND: Oh, I think we all had a certain interest, because, after all, it was our home, but I don’t say we had a whole lot.
Q: Were there any particular political issues that the government was dealing with at any particular time that you can recall?
BOYLAND: I don’t recall. I think we were not into politics that much. See, we were such home bodies, in a way, our families, that we were not into that as much. Probably now we’re more into it.
Q: What are you concerned about now, as far as that area?
BOYLAND: I’m concerned about this new health program and how it’s going to affect the older people. I guess nobody knows exactly how it’s going to work out.
Q: Yes, that’s true. Is there anything locally that you’re concerned about right now?
BOYLAND: No.
Q: What do you see as far as similarities between the Mt. Prospect that you came to in 1936 and the Mt. Prospect that you know today?
BOYLAND: I guess it’s the same thing. I still feel very safe here, and everybody seems very pleasant. I haven’t dealt with anybody that causes trouble.
Q: Do you have any concerns for the future, or just generally, what do you think the future holds for Mt. Prospect?
BOYLAND: I can’t really say, because I’m so old now that I just have no idea what the future is, and I guess I’m not interested.
Q: Is there anything that you’d like to add about your being here years ago –your memories from years ago?
BOYLAND: I think I have covered it pretty well.
Q: Great. I’m trying to think if I have any other questions –I guess your general outlook about years ago was just that you felt very safe.
BOYLAND: Very safe, and very pleasant living.
Q: And just able to gather outside on the porch.
BOYLAND: Yes, it was very pleasant living; good neighbors, good friends.
Q: Thank you for the interview, and thank you for consenting. We appreciate that.
BOYLAND: I’m sure there’s a lot you’re going to edit.

Does MPHS have photographs: Yes

Date of Interview: Unknown

Interviewer: Dolores Haugh

HOWE: Vic would like to start. Tell us where you were born.
BITTNER: Well, I was born in Wisconsin Rapids December 20, 1896, on a Sunday morning. And my dad was a preacher. Now, you can imagine what shape he was to preach that Sunday service. That wasn’t the only service he had to preach. In the afternoon, he had to preach eight miles away at Rudolph. Then he had to preach at Sherry, another ten or twelve miles away, and then come back nineteen miles –a distance of almost forty miles and three sermons –to come home. And how much sleep did he get? I have a feeling, and he’s been kidded about it, that it was a good thing the horse knew the way. Let me tell you, the roads were terrible. I often went off in the company of my dad in these trips. We had trails to follow. You couldn’t see the sky because the trees arched over. And we would hear bear and fox and wolves and things like that in the shrubs, and skunks sometimes. We’d have to take our clothes off outside before we could get inside.
HOWE: That is really something. Tell me a little more about your dad.
BITTNER: Oh, my father was born in Brown Deer, Wisconsin July 4, 1864. Brown Deer lies just north of Milwaukee on the Milwaukee River. And his father settled there in 1844. At the time, Wisconsin was a territory. It wasn’t even a state. It became a state in 1848. And they had thirteen children, ten of them boys, three girls. And my father was the second youngest. My grandfather and grandmother were very religious, and they said they were going to give their last two boys an education to serve the church. So it was decided that my father would become a minister. And so he was a real student –a very intelligent man in languages. He could speak English, German, Hebrew, Greek, Latin. And when he would prepare a sermon, an important one, he’d often go back to the original Greek because he says there’s too much lost in translation. And he taught Latin for one year at Northwestern.
HOWE: And what about your mom?
BITTNER: My mother was born in Germany and came here as a babe right after the Civil War. They first settled in Buffalo for a little while and then they went to Watertown, Wisconsin. She became a professional seamstress and must have had talent because my sisters were always the envy of every child at school because of the clothes they wore. She could do so much with material, design and so on that others could not do, that it always looked so professional that it was an art. My sisters were the envy of others. At the age of sixty-five, my sister, who’s also a water colorist, took my mother with her one day when she was going to paint watercolor. And she said, “Mom, I want you to sketch this scene while I draw.” She sketched, and do you know that that was a wonderful sketch. A person who had never taken any lessons in sketching, at the age of about sixty-five, had rendered a scene that was –I would have been proud of it.
HOWE: It was a natural talent.
BITTNER: She had ability that she never explored. And I said, “Mom! Goodness sakes. We’ve missed the boat. You should have been in the art field.”
HOWE: Tell me about some of your early recollections with your family.
BITTNER: Well, I think my earliest recollections go back to about 1901. We had a parsonage that was next to the church. Back in the church, there was a sort of a depression, and when it rained really hard, water would collect there. My next younger brother, who was still wearing diapers –I took him by the hand and we waded through that water, and the water came up to his navel. And I’ll tell you, I got a real ______ spanking for that. So that seemed to have stayed with me because of the fact that I did something that was foolish. I was too young to be doing anything like that because he could have fallen down in the water and I wouldn’t have known what to do with him. Then the next thing I remember, my brother who became the minister –he was the oldest brother; he celebrates his eighty-sixth birthday December 5th -he was quite an athlete. He was always doing things that were unpredictable. We had three horses. Besides teaching, my dad taught school. (sic) So, you see, he didn’t have much to do. And then he also ran a farm to make ends meet. And so one noon, he takes one of our horses and leads it through the school. He goes into the back, up and down the aisles and up front. We had a family that did not need any neighbors because we always had something going on and something doing.
HOWE: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
BITTNER: There were five boys and three girls. And I happened to be the middle one.
HOWE: How did you usually spend your Sundays?
BITTNER: Well, I don’t know what it was, but I traveled an awful lot with my dad. Now, was it just because of the years or was it because I was always the sort of a fiery sort of fellow wanting to do things? I always had ideas. I was always getting into things. Maybe he liked my attitude. I don’t know. He never said anything. I was always with him. Now, can you imagine hearing a sermon in German –which I didn’t understand –in the morning, hearing it again in Rudolph, Wisconsin, eight miles away, hearing it again at Vesper where Sherry, ten to twelve miles away, and then coming home, sleeping alongside of him on the way home? So that, generally, was my Sunday. Sometimes it would vary. Sometimes we’d go to Port Edwards. Sometimes we’d into Tustin. My dad was quite a preacher, and he was in great demand. He just simply worked too hard. He gave too much, and he didn’t realize that he was undermining his health by doing what he was doing.
HOWE: Was he Lutheran?
BITTNER: Yes. He was a Lutheran minister. Imagine, he was only getting three hundred dollars a year at that time. This is back in 1903. The going was rough. One day, a man came to him and said, “Reverend Bittner, I’d like to get married.” “Well, that’s fine.” He said, “Could you come to my farm? We live near Nekoosa. Could you perform the ceremony?” “Oh, I’d be happy to do it. Give me directions.” So he gave him directions and, well, he knew when he got across the Wisconsin River he had to go south. And, well, it was an evening wedding and it was long. It became darker and darker, and then all of a sudden the horse stopped and he didn’t know where he was. He was at the end of the trail. And what to do? It was almost eight o’clock then already, and the wedding was supposed to be at eight. He climbed a high pine tree and there, about a quarter of a mile away, he saw a light. Somehow he worked himself around that bar fence, got over to the farmer’s place, and he said to the farmer, “Could you direct me to the Friedrich farm?” “Oh, if you’re going to the wedding, you’re too late.” He said, “That wedding was supposed to take place at eight o’clock. It’s a little after eight right now.” He said, “No. That wedding hasn’t happened yet. I’m the pastor.” And then he said, “Oh. Let me put the saddle on my horse and then we’ll ride over there together.” So they, both on horseback, went to the other farm about a mile away. Well, the bride had already taken down—they were taunting the groom. No wedding tonight. But when my dad came, there was the greatest cheering that was ever heard in that area. And he married them. He hadn’t heard much about them, but a year later, he said, “Pastor, would you come to our house and baptize our first-born child?” He said, “Fine, I’ll do that.” So he went there. he baptized that boy, and that man turned out to be one of the greatest athletes in the world. His name was Ed “Strangler” Lewis. Now, that was not his right name. His right name was Friedrich. Mrs. Friedrich and my mother were very good friends. And many looked down upon Strangler Lewis because of his crushing method of strangling people in his wrestling. But in later years he was a real benefactor to the youth. He went around from high school to high school, to YMCAs and other places, made talks telling the young people what counted in life, how they should do it. You’d go to Port Edwards, which is only about two miles from Nekoosa, and this was told to me by our pharmacist, Keefer. Keefer told me there is a monument now erected in the park at Port Edwards honoring Strangler Lewis.
HOWE: You dad was the one that baptized him.
BITTNER: That’s right. Now, Strangler Lewis came to Chicago in 1923 to train for a match. I was too bashful—boy, I thought Strangler wouldn’t pay any attention to me, being a rough old wrestler. I should have gone to his training headquarters, introduce myself, but I didn’t. That’s one big regret I have had –that I didn’t do that.
HOWE: That’s a real interesting story. Now, you want to talk a little more about…
BITTNER: About my father? Yes. As I said, he had to keep making ends meet. Three hundred dollars a year income wasn’t enough. He was teaching and preaching, and then he bought a farm. Well, that was pretty tough doing all these things. And finally his health was failing, and he had a nervous breakdown. I remember that so well, when the doctor was there and he said, “Well, Reverend Bittner, you’ve got to take it easy. You can’t continue as you have. You’ve got to quit some of these things.” As a result, my dad asked for another location for where he’d only have one congregation to serve. And as a result, he got a call to Mayville, Wisconsin. We moved to Mayville, Wisconsin, in 1904. That was an unusual community –eighteen saloons and two breweries, population of two thousand people. It was the town where they manufactured pig iron and coke. It had a mixture of people, but most of them were German descent and only spoke German. And they were the highbrow Germans who left Germany because of the political problems it had, and the established – scholars and butcher shops and everything –they were the merchants. They had their Turner Hall, they had Donnachor, their women’s glee club, Mennerchor, the men’s glee club, and they had turning festivals and so on. I tell you, you were living in Germany –the whole swooshal activity surrounded that particular group of people. We were not in Mayville too long when my dad died at the age of forty-four. Here we were –eight children. The oldest, about nineteen years old and no income.
HOWE: Were you old enough to work then?
BI1TNER: Not quite. I’ll tell you, we had to do some scrapping. I got my first job right after my confirmation. I was confirmed rather early. I was confirmed at the age of twelve because of being a son who lived with a pastor. I heard legend all the time, and I knew my catechism like no one. I’m getting ahead of my story. I had to learn German to play with the kids in the street. That was sort of a handicap, but still I think I was a heck of a lot smarter in those days than I am now. I got my first job in a German newspaper office –the Dodge County Pioneer. I set type by hand. I know what a stick is, I know what a galley is, I know what twelve point is, I know what sixteen point is. I’ve gone through all of that because that was  ______ printer in those days. I worked there before and after school. And then I changed jobs and I worked for the other German newspaper office –two German newspaper offices, one English newspaper office that could barely make its goal. It had a circulation of about 8- or 900 while the German newspapers had a circulation around 3,000. So here at the Dodge County Pioneer, I became very proficient in German. I worked before school and after school. I worked on Saturdays. We had an editor who had a doctor of jurisprudence, a university in Germany. It escapes my mind right now, but it was one of the high- ranking universities. It may come to me. And he was such a well-educated man that I just worshipped him. He was offered, for instance, being the head of the department of German at the University of Wisconsin but he turned it down. He wanted to be with his own people right there in Mayville. One day, I came into the office with a book under my arm. He said, “Vic, what do you got there?” I said, “The Merchant of Venice.” He said, “My old friend Shakespeare. I’ll ask you to read any line anywhere in that book. I’ll tell you who said it, I’ll tell you what chapter, and I’ll tell you who said it. I tried again and again. He said, “You know, we Germans, we study Shakespeare more intensely than English. It isn’t just Shakespeare. The Merchant of Venice is from Italy. You name it, I can tell you.” So, you see, he gave me a real inspiration insofar as knowledge is concerned.
HOWE: Tell me some more about your youth now.
BITTNER: Well, as a teenager, I was doing everything. As I told you before, I had a very lively spirit. I had to be in everything. I played shortstop and pitched for the high school. I played basketball. You probably won’t believe this. In one basketball game, I shot thirty-two field goals, sixty-four points, everyone was a field goal and not a single free throw. I had sixty-four points. I set a record that has not been beaten since that time. I didn’t miss any. They kept on feeding that ball to me, and it just went in. It was just like no effort on my part. It’s just like when you sign your name. That’s the way it was with me. Now, we had a very unfortunate situation when we had to leave the parsonage. We moved to a home on a bank of the Rock River in the city of Mayville. Here we have the Rock River at the end of our lot. Here’s where we did all of our skating and canoeing and swimming and things like that. Here, in back of us, were beautiful hills for skiing. So we did our skiing, we had our tobogganing, we had everything there. It was just the greatest place to live as a youngster. And I was in all of those things. If there’s one thing I really did well, it was the matter of skating. I did a lot of racing at the University of Wisconsin when I was there. Then when I got older, I found out that I couldn’t skate quite as fast as I used to anymore. I started figure skating. So I did a lot of figure skating. And what age do you think I skated my last time?
HOWE: I don’t know. Tell me.
BITTNER: Seventy-seven. I took Bobby King with me because I hadn’t skated for about six to seven years and I thought, Bobby, you come along in case I need you, in case I fall down. At first, I tell you, it was difficult for the matter of balance, because skating is the matter of balance. And I had that down to perfection. But after a half an hour, I could do things. And the fellow on the ice said, “Hey there, Grandpa! Don’t skate so fast!” Well, when I skated, this was the sort of free skating where I would ride the runner on the back inner side on the back outer side, the front inner side, the front outer side –and so this to make my skates do various things. I curved in and out among the missing the people, and this guy was afraid I was going to be hitting someone. And so it’s too bad. I’ve been thinking several times, should I go back and try it once more? But maybe I should spare my loins. In addition, as I said, we had some excellent hills for skiing. The last time I skied was when I was the age of sixty-six at Fox River Grove. Our little town of Mayville was very tennis-conscious. My oldest brother, who is the minister and who’s quite a baseball pitcher, he pitched for his college team –he was quite an athlete and taught me how to pitch and how to play tennis. And with his help in doubles, we cleaned up anything and everything around.
HOWE: Were you in high school by this time?
BITTNER: Yes. I was in high school by this time. As I said before, I was an eager beaver and I had to get into everything –plays, oratorical contests, you name it. One of the greatest things I ever got out of high school was this –freshman year I entered the oratorical contest. It was open to all the members of the school. At the contest, I delivered Patrick Henry’s address, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Since I am quite an emotional guy, I could really give it emotionally, and just a freshman getting up there and doing that in what he could do. And in this contest were professors of the principal’s son, a senior. He’s going to go to the law school. Well, when the decision was rendered, I took first place. He took third. I felt sort of a bad feeling there for a while, but later one, everything was okay. But, you know, that was such a shock to me that I as a freshman could do that. And, of course, thereafter I had entered other oratorical contests, and I have won first place in the county, and I went to the district and won there also. I didn’t make it to the state.
HOWE: Tell me some more about your high school.
BITTNER: We had, of course, basketball and baseball, which were our main sports. And then, of course, in the evening everybody came down the river and skated. And we did a lot of skating and swimming as a group. The bathhouse was only about 500 to 600 feet from our place. Of course, we just used our own home for changing clothes. We had well-qualified principal. He was a man that was a father to everyone. He gave us advice that was so helpful later on in college. His name was Keeley, Professor Keeley, and he was a lawyer by training, but preferred to teach. He was a master at speaking. And everyone got lectured. They were always so wonderful mainly because kids need –he knew that many kids came from homes where the father and mother could not correct the children in the right channels, so we got that help from him. Then I graduated in 1916, and I left the old German printing office and went looking for a better-paying job. And this was during World War I. We were not in it at that time. And it wasn’t progress in Europe, however, and I took the job at the coke plant. Since we lived in a German community, loyalty to the United States, its cause, was questioned, and this bothered me. I volunteered for the Armed Forces. I was stationed at Camp Bradley, Peoria, Illinois, and I was retained there several times to give post order drills and to run the camp while they changed every two months for the new group coming in. It was at Camp Bradley that they finally told me, “You’re going to the officer’s training camp.” Well, nothing happened. All the sudden, if you wanted to visit your family, anyone who wants to go home for a week can do so. And what happened is this, they had word of the armistice already and didn’t tell us. And so I went home, and the day I had to leave Mayville to go back, the armistice was announced on November 11, and I celebrated in Milwaukee. It was _______ there. Oh, I tell you. Girls came around hugging me and kissing me. They treated anyone in uniform. ..
BITTNER: Now, I never got to officer’s training camp because of the Armistice. And I was discharged about a week later and went back to my old job at the coke plant. But I should mention this, that we had a terrific flu epidemic at Camp Bradley. And over half of the soldiers were sick in bed at one time with the flu. I contracted the flu, I think, probably the very first one. My brother, who was a pharmacist, advised me to take aspirin. I didn’t have any, but I hailed a woman who was across the street to come to the camp and asked if she would go to the drug store and get me some aspirin. She did that. I had aspirin and, 10 and behold, in a few days, I got over this. But then I had to take care of the sick. And finally, my last assignment was taking the very sick –those that had pneumonia –to the hospital. And many of these dear friends of mine I never saw again. Now, I did now get to the University of Wisconsin after three years of interruption because of money and because of the fact that the war intervened. And the state of Wisconsin is a very nice thing. It gave each soldier one dollar a day for every day he attended the school of higher learning ______.And you know, that was enough money, in those days, to buy my meals. One dollar a day, in 1918, bought my meals.
HOWE: Did you live at home?
BITTNER: I lived at home, but I roomed in a boarding house with my younger brother at the University of Wisconsin. And there I met an unusually fine group of young people. We organized a Lutheran fraternity. Outside of that, I didn’t do much because the course I was taking was a very difficult one, and I had to spend a lot of attention studying because of the assignments that we were getting.
HOWE: What was the name of the fraternity? ~
BITTNER: Delta Phi Epsilon. It has gone .My life at the university was really uneventful. However, I did one thing. A pastor came to me one evening and called on me. He was a Lutheran pastor and said, “I’m trying to found a Lutheran student church here at the university. Won’t you help me?” I said, “Certainly.” And so with the friends that I knew, we had a nucleus of Lutherans that became the first Lutheran student church in America, I believe. During the first year, I was on the board of directors. The second year, I was its president. And then the next year I graduated. But outside of that, I didn’t do much at the University of Wisconsin.
HOWE: Where did you go to work?
BITTNER: Well, there wasn’t much work at that time. We were in sort of a depression. But there was a friend of mine who graduated from the University of Wisconsin, who was working with the People’s Gas, Light and Coal Company on a special assignment, and he let me know about it. He said, “Come down here for an interview.” So I went down there before the final examinations were written. I was accepted. And going back was one of those hot June days. I was on my way to North Western Station, and I said to myself, “Gee, I’m going to go back to this dirty, muggy place. Who wants to work here?” But then I began to think about it. Okay, jobs aren’t plentiful. You better stick to it. So I went back. That, then, became my permanent employment until I retired.
HOWE: What were you thinking about when you got married?
BITTNER: You know, this is the first time I was free –when I didn’t have to keep my nose to the grindstone. And we were enjoying Chicago. It was a new city, for me. And I had a cousin who said to me, “Vic, you’re old. You ought to get married.”
HOWE: How old were you?
BITTNER: I was about twenty-seven when I got married. And you know, that woke me up. He said, “I know of a girl that you should marry.” _______ And it was the daughter of a Lutheran minister who lived on North A venue. She was a very nice girl –gifted and all that. But for some reason, I enjoyed her company, but it was a time that I felt really at home. However, there was a young girl there who always made it a point to open the door, and she was really nice. I had a friend then who came to Chicago and graduated at mid-semester and he lived with us. I said to him, “How would you like to double date? I know a nice girl. You take her and I’ll take another girl living there and we’ll go out.” He said, “Sure.” So I called up Esther, the girl I was dating, and I said, “Say, I have a friend Leo. He just graduated from the University of Wisconsin. He’d like to go out, and I don’t know any girls. Would you mind dating him?” She said, “No. That would be fine.” I said, “He’s a fine fellow. I can vouch for that. I know him.” I said, “By the way, that leaves me out. But there’s another girl in the house. I don’t know who she is. Maybe she wouldn’t mind going.” She said, “Oh, Meta. I’ll ask her. Yes, she’ll go out.” So we went out together and, well, I switched horses in the middle of the stream and started to go out with Meta steadily. It wasn’t long. The whole household was down on her. The father, the pastor, should have known better than ______. They made it so rough on her, she had to move. And she, luckily, had a lot of friends that were in school, and she found a very nice place in the state, out in Oak Park. And that’s where she went and that, of course, brought us closer together. And then that resulted ultimately in marriage.
HOWE: That was a real interesting courtship, though, wasn’t it?
BITTNER: It was.
HOWE: You went on afterwards and had a family.
BITTNER: Yes. We had one son. Now, my wife taught a couple of years after we got married. And then we had one son. This is a funny thing — the head of the school had his principalship changed, and the new principal didn’t think that a married woman should be teaching there because the children would be looking at her wondering when she’s going to be pregnant. So he asked her whether she would resign at the end of the year. Well, that was all right with us. We didn’t care. But it shows you how times have changed. So, I told you in the interview that our son was born April 19, on a Sunday morning just as the sun was rising. And then half a year later, of course, we found that that little apartment of ours was too small. We had to get out. And I bought a lot. I bought this lot right here, 300 West Melbourne, from Besander. And of course —
HOWE: You know what? Excuse me for interrupting, but you know he sold us our lots too.
BITTNER: Oh he did?
HOWE: That was in the fifties, though.
BITTNER: And I said, “We want to find out if we want that place.” We knew Al Hackey was out here. I said, “Listen. Live there for a while.” Okay. So we moved into the apartment above the Gift Box. And that was on Main Street. It was a seven-room house, and there were less than a thousand people here.
HOWE: What was it like living here in Mount Prospect at that time?
BITTNER: This was a radical change that we made. We had no friends. Meta cried. She could not speak German. The next-door neighbor could speak no English. Most of the communication in the business establishments were in German. Going three blocks in and direction from the business area, you’d see nothing except sidewalks and paved streets, no buildings. And there was one train that we caught at seven-thirty in the morning. Oh, the men were so polite in those days. There were five coaches. They let all the ladies get on first because we didn’t have to worry about seats, you know. And there was only one church in town. That was St. Paul’s Church. And all the services were held in German except one was held, once a month on a Sunday evening, that was held in English. People were kind to us and soon we were treated just like natives and I was, in fact, ______.  Now, the farmers in this area transacted most of their business in town. I have knowledge of them running large accounts. They wouldn’t pay for their bills during part of the winter or spring and summer until their harvest came in. And then they’d pay it in large sums of money. I know of bills of up to a thousand dollars being paid. And, oh boy! That was a big day. Meeske and the whole staff would celebrate when the farmer paid his bill. And this happened one day when I was in there -I said, “Say, Meeske. You’re a ______ and giving him credit, and here I’m paying you cash every time I buy something. When in the dickens are we going to be treated alike?” Well, he gave me a gift. He said, “I never thought of that. I never realized that we were not treating folks alike here. I hope this will make up for it.” And, as I said before, this was an onion center. And there were a number of large onion sheds in the area, west of Wille and south of Central Street. In the fall, the North Western Railroad parked railroad cars on the sidings of farms, for farmers to load them with shipper beets and other things. I might mention that while we were living there on Main Street, looking west, there was a triangular piece of property bounded by Main Street, Busse and Northwest Highway. When we were looking through the papers of the Myan estate, I found a receipt for taxes, back taxes and penalty. That triangular piece of property was sold for four dollars and something like eighty-nine cents –I’m not sure of the cents –for back taxes and penalties. And can you imagine what that could sell for now. Here it was right in front of our nose and we didn’t realize. Now, the city had its public school as well as the Lutheran school and, prior to our arrival, the beginning of the high school. We knew most of the people in town and we really liked the community. And Melbourne and Elmhurst was our home. We moved into it in 1934. As we moved here, there were only two buildings in this area. Everything was wide open. We had vacant land all around. In the later years, we’d lost our loved wide-open space for the construction one-by-one of house after house. And finally we were completely surrounded with buildings. I was still working for the gas company in 1937, and I was promoted and placed in charge of providing natural gas to Kokomo, Indiana. We didn’t want to have it, but we got it by trade somehow. Now, this involved the laying of gas mains and converting the existing gas supply to one of a natural gas supply. I was away from home about three months at that time doing that job. At about this time, I was put in charge of all engineering, planning and budgeting for all the expanding natural gas sales in Chicago. The job also included extensive engineering and planning for work created by the Chicago subway system –and later, all the expressways, the cost of which ran into millions of dollars to the city of Chicago.
HOWE: What were some of your other activities?
BITTNER: Now I began to participate in the activities of the American Gas Association and a little later in the American Standard Association. I was elected chairman of many committees in the American Gas Association. The most important and prestigious was the one where I was responsible for the operating sections of the American Gas Association, consisting of some five thousand members. Then my job was to report to the board of directors, and that was the highest that one could obtain at that time, beyond being a board member. Other jobs like vice-president of a section of the American Standard Association was also a challenging one. U.S. Representative Hessleton of Massachusetts wanted Congress to pass laws to regulate the gas industry. The industry said, “No. Let us do it.” So it was agreed that we do it subject to their approval. A committee was formed to write a code to regulate the safety of gas transmission and distribution mains. This committee was composed of the best consultants in the country –professors from university who were best informed in regard to these matters and engineers from various engineering schools and the top men of the industry. We met often and after three years produced a code acceptable to Congress, to Canada, to other countries in the world, and you might say it established a code that was generally acceptable to the industry throughout the world. The two jobs, in addition to my work in Chicago, gave me considerable national exposure and in addition required much travel. I always took Meta with me, and we enjoyed the company of nationally important people in most of the large cities and important resort hotels in the nation.
HOWE: What about your other travels? I know you like to travel abroad and around the world and so on.
BITTNER: Well, I’ll you. These  ________ matters. They really whetted our appetite. We really considered travel seriously. We crossed the Atlantic twenty-six times. And we visited every country in Europe, all important islands of the world –including even Fiji, where a hundred years ago they were man-eaters –every important country in South America and Central America. We visited Egypt, Morocco, Africa, Asia Minor as well as Asia, Australia, Japan. You’d be surprised at what the Japs did for me. They visited me just a year before I retired. I told them I had planned a trip there and they said, “Let us know when you come.” So, here ______ Osaka and Tokyo gas company, together with Mitsubishi trading corporation, took us in -and furnished us with chauffeured cars and guides. It was almost unbelievable. At one location, I believe it was Onara, we had the geisha girls entertain us who just a .short time before entertained Senator Robert Kennedy. The lavishness of the entertainment by the Japanese was in response, I said, to the visits that they made at in coming to see me here in America. It was my pleasure to advise, help and entertain many people from many countries like Canada, England, Germany and France and Argentina. When the Argentine representative who worked for the governor heard that I was retiring, he wanted to hire me as a consultant to go down there. But I refused to do that because I had my…
HOWE: Were you active in any other affairs here in the Chicago area?
BITTNER: Yes. There was one responsibility in Chicago, not directly connected with the gas company, which gave me pleasure. I was a member of the board of directors of the First Central Association. This was a group of businessmen who had business establishments and business interests in the area, bounded by the river on the east, Ashland west, south by Roosevelt Road and north by the railroad tracks. This was an area that was going to pieces. There were so many robberies that people refused to work there –going to and from work, they were being robbed. They had special police assigned to help the people. Our organization was trying to see what we could do to help these people. We had a survey made. Now, for this reason –skid row was ______ at that time. See, this goes back about some twenty years ago. We had a survey made and we found out that 65 percent of the people in skid row were not alcoholics. They were people who were so poor they could not afford to live any other place in these areas. That was the cheapest place to live. And the other 35 percent was made up of bums, transients and alcoholics and so forth. We had a problem there, and we had been doing some work in trying to see what we could do to relieve the pain of some of these people and get them a better place to live their many lives. These meetings are where we met monthly. We would meet Mayor Daley, city planners and also planners from the state of Illinois, and also U.S. planners we’d have come in and talk to us. It was quite a find. The results and the improvements that took place –because you go down there now, you will see large buildings in many places just west of the river that did not exist at that time that had replaced the slums and lousy things. Well, some of these buildings were even built above the tracks. But that was the up-growth of the work that we were doing in this association. So I’m not a stranger to planning it all together. Today you have the Gatewa~ Building and other high-rise buildings –many improvements because of our earlier efforts.
HOWE: Is there any particular job or work you like to think about?
BITTNER: My last job, just prior to retirement, was unappreciated and opposed by every one of superiors. One day, after sending many progress reports to the vice-president about these projects, he came to me and said, “Vic, forget about that big crosstown interstation system that you are planning.” I asked why. He told me he doesn’t know how to clean it, and we’re not going to spend any money like that. I said, “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. You are not going to be running this gas business in two more years unless you do something about adopting this system and installing this system. You will be up against it in rates and everything else, and you’re going to just be up against one hell of a big problem unless you do something. Give me one hour. Give me one hour. I’ve made a lot of starts.” I had some of the best brains in the gas company –fellows that had master degrees that I put to work on this. It outlined them. I’ve shown the difficulty that we have, what we have to solve and so forth. And then it finally got to the point where one of these men had a breakthrough. He was able to do some of these things on IBM machines, and we were the first in the United States to do gas network problems with IBM machines. No one who is _____ acquainted with the network system and the difficulties in working them out will appreciate what a great clue that was and what a wonderful thing it was. “I’ll give you that hour. I’ll call you.” So he prolonged the -of the company and one hour, I talked and I talked and I talked and told him about all the needs and what would happen if they didn’t do this and that and so on and so forth. Finally, the vice-president said, “This has been a wonderful study. I’m going to the chairman of the board and tell him we will fail to supply Chicago with gas in two years unless we get started on this system immediately.” Incidentally, the cost of this project was 26 million dollars. I told them, “Get started. You’ll do one third next year, one third the next winter.” They followed my recommendations, and the system has been installed and I talked to the president in the meantime. And one vice- president told me, “Vic, this is the biggest that even happened in a gas company since 1908,” and so I was very happy. And you know, I had only seven more months before retiring. The next paycheck I got was the biggest paycheck and raise that I ever received in my life.
HOWE: What else were you doing around the town here?
BITTNER: Many years ago, I was an average photographer. I was a member of the Chicago Camera Club and I advanced in photography very quickly. I made straight enlargement, I made paper negatives, I made ______ oils, and all those things that the average photographer knows nothing about. I began throughout the United States in photographic _______ , competing with the best amateur photographers in the United States. I won a number of awards. I even went competing against Dr. Max Thoruc and Dr. Poundstone and others considered among the best in the country. For a number of years, until I took up painting, I was listed in the American Annual on Photography’s “Who is Who” in amateur photography.
HOWE: Tell me about your watercolors and oils now.
BITTNER: I could effectively manipulate photographs –take out telephone poles, put in trees or whatever I wanted to do. But I was limited in what I could do because of the nature of the medium. Meta solved that problem when I was recovering from an operation. She purchased my first set of oils and, of course, some instructions, and I began painting. I was so frustrated in painting my first picture –of course, I wasn’t quite well yet. I was ready to quit. I recuperated, and I was urged to try it again. To my surprise, things began to go a little bit better and easier. I finished a number of pictures after that. And then I heard of Grace Hemingway. And a good friend of mine knew her. I went to Grace Hemingway, the mother of Ernest Hemingway, the author, and I took oil painting lessons from Grace Hemingway. That picture there and another one in the hall are two …

BITTNER: My work and objectives at the People’s Gas, Light and Coal Company made me responsible of many matters on a national level. And I regret that this gave me little time to enter into local activities to a greater extent. However, Meta more than made up for my inability to participate in community affairs. I don’t know if you remember Ivan Besander? He tried his darndest to get me to run for alderman. And when the Busses heard that, oh, they were in uproar and they came and said, “Vic, you can’t do that. You’re a Republican.” Well, and the thing is this –Ivan Besander became president, and if I had run with him on his ticket even though I was a Republican, but politics should not have entered in on this at all at that time. But they saw a thing there that. ..
HOWE: Well, I think you’re being overly modest anyway because you’ve been very active in the Art League, ever since I can remember when it started.
BITTNER: Well, I can probably tell you a little more about that some other time.
HOWE: How about a few words about yourself?
BITTNER: Well, I’m not going to say much right here except as a tie-in that I was known as Mrs. Bittner’s husband. After graduation from the University of Wisconsin in 1923, I accepted employment with the gas company in Chicago. My work soon got me involved in the American Gas Association, in which I held a number of chairmanships and also in the American Standards Association, where I served as vice-president of one of its sections. The activities required considerable travel throughout the United States. Whenever possible, I took Meta with me, thereby enjoying the hospitality of the country’s finest resorts and hotels. This whetted our desire for overseas travel. We visited all countries in Europe and all important countries and islands in the world. Our last, planned in connection with our fiftieth wedding anniversary, was a sea voyage around South America. This didn’t come to pass because of Meta’s untimely death.
HOWE: Tell me a little bit more now about son and his family.
BITTNER: Well, my son was born April 19, 1931, in West Suburban Hospital, Oak Park, Illinois. It was six o’clock in the morning and I was in the delivery room, and I can still see that sun coming up just as young Vic shouted to let the world know that he was alive. Well, as I said before, a half year later, we moved to Mount Prospect, and it was really in our home here at 300 West Melbourne where he grew up. There were no homes around here at that time but one home in this block. Everything from home to the North Western Station was vacant. We crossed the fields. We had a path. There was nothing that obstructed us. The Lutheran church up there and all the other structures –there was nothing there. This, at first, seems strange –but you know, finally, we felt that a house being built here and another one there was an infringing upon our rights to enjoy the wide-open space, and we didn’t like that quite so much. But yet we had some wonderful neighbors here –most of whom have died or moved away. And I am about the only lone person. Now, my son got married.
HOWE: Where did he go to school, first of all?
BITTNER: He went to Northwestern. He wanted to play football in the worst way, and he was asthmatic. And we had one awful time raising that child, because Dr. Custer told us, “You’ll never raise him,” because his asthma was so severe. Meta was up every half hour for weeks in a run to give him adrenaline to keep him alive. And, well, he survived. He did play football in Arlington High and was a very good defensive end. And he wanted to play football at Northwestern. I said, “No. With you having to take adrenaline and then the additional energy you have to expend playing, that’s going to be too much for your heart, and I will not permit it.” And so he didn’t and to date he says, “Dad, it’s a good thing you did what you did.” He got married to a young lady from Lincoln, Illinois. Her name is Jean. ..
HOWE: You’ll think of it.
BITTNER: Isn’t that funny!
HOWE: We all do that.
BITTNER: And she was TWA airline hostess and a very nice-looking girl. And they met through mutual friends. And then they got married. And, well, what should they do except to take a flight for a honeymoon, and it was a flight overseas. Well, I helped them a bit on that. And so they took their honeymoon overseas. Their first child was Margaret. She was a delicate blond. And then a little over a year later, Betsy was born. Now, these girls have grown up, and both are beautiful girls. They are really a credit to the family. Betsy has been asked again and again to model, but the family just will not permit it. Margaret now is in her third year at the University of Illinois at Normal, Illinois. Betsy chose not to go to school. She was not very much interested in school, although she finished high school. She is now attending a riding academy at LaCrosse, Wisconsin, at which place she is getting a credit at the University of Minnesota for this course. And they are teaching her everything about training horses, breaking in horses, teaching them the various ways of running along and teaching her how to judge, how to run a riding academy and things of that sort. Oh, she’s so happy about it that she’s on cloud ten right now.
HOWE: Where does your son live now?
BITTNER: They live in Elmhurst, and they have lived there quite some time. He’s been very fortunate boy. He attended university at Northwestern. He entered the school of journalism and, of all things, he did write very well. He has written all kinds of poetry that we’ve saved, and I have now given it to him again. I had tried to encourage him to continue to write poetry, but he quit after he finished university. But he could have written some very, very beautiful and worthwhile things because he showed that in his writings. And Howard, he took ______ well, diversified chorus that would give him the ability to get into business in various lines—salesmanship or anything else. And so he got himself a job with Commerce Clearing House. He was the youngest man that Commerce Clearing House ever hired. When he called for an appointment, the first question that the manager of the Chicago asked was, “How old are you?” He said, “Twenty-three.” “Man,” he said, “didn’t you read our ad? Our ad said ‘No one under thirty-three need apply’.” My son answered calmly, “I can sell. Now if you want to turn down a good salesman, you say. But if you want someone who can sell and will be a credit to your organization, you will have an interview with me.” He said, “Come down and see me.” He was hired. He was the youngest man that they ever hired. Later on, he became manager of that sales office. Now, he is an official of the company. He’s in charge of forty district sales-offices in the United States. He travels quite a bit throughout the United States and has quite a bit of responsibility. And he told me in a sort of soulful voice, “Dad, it looks like I must look for a tax shelter.” I said, “Oh, boy.” Aren’t you something else.
HOWE: What were some of the businesses that were here in the 1930s?
BITTNER: Well, I would like to go into some of those things at a later date. I can talk about these things. We had a hardware store, we had a very good grocery store- Meeske’s. It was the finest grocery store in the area. They got customers from distances as far as ten miles away. And the most unusual thing about this store was this –when we started to shop there, all we could hear was German. And German was spoken. ________ And so on. But to me, I understood everything, but Meta didn’t. The first days were very difficult on Meta. She cried because she had no one she could speak to. The woman next door could speak no English. Here she was with a young child, half year old, with an apartment to be put in order because we had just moved in, and she was crying. Mrs. Besander happened to come in and find out. She then got her acquainted with people and straightened things out. But otherwise there wasn’t much here. There was one thing here, too. This was the onion center of the United States, you remember. There were onion sheds west of Wille and south of Central Avenue and they grew onions, and people from around about here, young people, would go out and weed onions. And then the farmers would harvest their onions in fall. You know, those farmers would not pay any money to the merchants during the early spring and summer season until the harvest. They’d run up their bills. Some of them, as much as 8- and 900 dollars. And then when they paid their bills, Meeske used to make a lot ado about it, give them cigarettes –he’d give them candy and everything else. I said, “Fred Meeske, what kind of a businessman are you? Here, I’d been paying cash for everything I buy. And I don’t even get a stick of gum. And here you’re giving them credit.” Well, the first thing you know, he gave me a box of candy.
HOWE: We really appreciate your time. ..
BITTNER: There’s one thing –this is hearsay, but I think it is true. Noble Pfeffer, I believe, was county superintendent of schools. He came out here probably about the time that I, or a little before, wanted to buy a lot. He went to old George Busse –not the George Busse we know who belongs to the Historical Society, but his father –and he said to Mr. Busse, “I’d like to buy a lot here.” He said, “Why do you want to buy a lot here for?” He said, “These are Germans. They’re all Lutherans. You don’t belong here.” He probably didn’t say it in quite that gruff a manner, but he did say it to get that sort of a story. And that, supposedly, was the true fact. And here we had quite a town when we moved in. We had a lot of paved streets and sidewalks, but no buildings. The Depression came along, everything stopped. The year I built this house, there were only two homes built in this town. And it took a lot of nerve to get the building started.
HOWE: Did you go into the World’s Fair?
BI1TNER: Yes I did. And I was in charge of the gas supply to the World’s Fair. And I have a couple of pictures upstairs that I’m going to give to the Historical Society that I took at that time of the World’s Fair. They aren’t the world’s best, but I’ll go into photography some other time and tell you something about it. But I’m going to donate those to the Historical Society . Now, I was in charge of bringing the gas supply in there to see that every building got gas and the proper amount for heating, for cooking, whatever need. I had a pass that allowed me to go in and out in everything everywhere all the time. There was only one place, the Belgium village, that they ever questioned me in regard to the authenticity of the pass and the right to be doing these things.
HOWE: Well, Vic, thank you. And we’ll sign off. This portion of the tape will complete the interview with Victor Bittner. And so we would like to take up just about where we were talking about the watercolors.
BITTNER: I had just been speaking about the work I had been doing in oils, and I took up the suggestion of my friend and began seriously working in watercolors. He assured me, “I know you well enough to know that you will be very successful in it.” And I only painted two more oils thereafter. One is the old St. Paul church which hangs in the new St. Paul Church at the present time. Well, then I really painted, whenever I had a leisure moment, in watercolors. I was one of the early members of the Mount Prospect Art League and became its second president. By this time, we, the Art League, were doing well and had members from all of the adjacent communities. I exhibited extensively –so much, in fact, that right after retirement, I could not produce all the pictures that I could sell. Of course, I have materially increased my prices. But in place, I chose to exhibit less often. One time, when I was exhibiting in Barrington, a woman wanted a particular picture of mine, and I said, “Look. I’ve got to have something for Golf Mills. Look, I’m selling everything out here. I’ll boost the price up, double the price and then after exhibiting at Golf Mills, I’m going to call you and you can pick up the picture.” I go to Golf Mills and I start putting up my pictures. And one of the first pictures I put up was the one I boosted the price to double. And a girl comes along a buys it. I never had the nerve to talk to her again, and she never got in touch with me again. But it shows you. A friend of mine had that very same experience. He said, “When I doubled my prices, I sold more pictures.” And I’ve had a number of people complain that I do not charge enough for my watercolors. But I said, “I’d rather sell them than have them hanging around.” I exhibited extensively. I’ve won my share of prizes and have pictures throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. Some in Connecticut, in New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas, Minnesota, Colorado, Florida, Japan, Germany and Italy. I’ve painted for leisure, primarily. And for me, the rewards were more than worth the efforts put into it.
HOWE: I think our interview has been one of interest. People should know about the contributions that you and Meta have made, not only here but also for the whole entire Chicago area. I feel that as we do these interviews, it’s to our advantage because so many times, we don’t know what our senior citizens have really contributed. We thank you very much. We appreciate all the things that you and Meta have done.
BITTNER: I’d just like to say this. Meta always underplayed and things and, to a certain degree, I did the same thing. I never boasted about the things I was doing. For that reason, most people in town –people who knew me –really didn’t realize the work and the quality of the work that I was doing. And I said, “Sometimes I think it’s all wrong because here we’re doing this and nobody knows about it and it’s going to be buried. And I think we shouldn’t be quite so modest.” Meta said,”I don’t care. I hate a braggart.”
HOWE: Well, this isn’t bragging. This is what we call oral history, and this is what we wanted and we thank you very much.

Does MPHS have photographs: Yes

Address in MP:  Milburn Ave

Birth Date: November 6, 1900

Death Date:  November 27, 1975

Marriage
Spouse: Victor F. Bittner
Children: Victor F. Bittner Jr.

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:

Meta Bittner grew up in Cairo, Illinois at the very southern tip of the state. Her grandparents, Whilemina and Jacob Walter had immigrated in 1852 and settled in this “small town with great expectations” in 1867. Her mother and father, Rose (Walter) Stoltz and John Stoltz remained in this town; however their child Meta was destined to head north. Meta moved to Mount Prospect in 1930 and began making waves as soon as she got here. She was very involved with the Mount Prospect Woman’s Club, serving as president for many years. She was also very involved with the Mount Prospect Public Library, which was originally founded by the Mount Prospect Woman’s Club. She was a member of the original board when the Library became a tax supported organization. She served on the library board for over twenty years, from 1943 to 1965. Meta Bittner was one of the founders of the Mount Prospect Historical Society and served as the first president of MPHS. She was also a charter member of the Executive Board of the Lutheran Woman Mission Endeavor of Northern Illinois.

VICTOR BITTNER SPEAKING ON META BITTNER

Text of Oral History:

HOWE: …and he is going to talk about his wife Meta. This is an interview on the life of Meta W. Bittner, a noted civic leader of Mount Prospect who died November 27, 1975. This interview was made by Dolores Howe and with Meta’s husband, Victor J. Bittner. Let us roll back the years to Meta’s birth and other related matters.
BITTNER: Meta was born in what is known as Little Egypt in Illinois, the southern part of Illinois, on November 6, 1900, in Cairo. This city was made famous during the Civil War when General Grant made his headquarters here. And it was also on the route of the underground which the Negroes used to move from the south to the north.
HOWE: Who were her parents?
BITTNER: Her mother was Rosa Walter, whose father was to become one of the leading merchants in Cairo. Now, he was a character. He was an unusual fellow. He was born in Germany, and he came to America and landed in New York in 1853. He barely got off the gang plank when three guys grabbed him and put him on a vessel. They shanghaied him. And for one whole year, he sailed the seven seas and never got off that ship until possibly a year and a half later. And somehow he got back to New York, learned the butcher’s business and then finally settled in St. Louis, Missouri.
HOWE: Yes, that’s an interesting part of his life. Why don’t you just continue a little more about his life right there in Cairo.
BITTNER: Well, I’m going to tell you about some of these things. For instance, he ran a meat market and sausage factory that he established not many years after he fought in the battle of Pea Ridge. Now, her family– and members of her family -didn’t know where Pea Ridge was and it was only within the last few years that we began to find out where Pea Ridge was. I was studying a little map that showed, in great detail, Pea Ridge. The battle of Pea Ridge. And it’s located right on the border of Arkansas and Missouri. He enlisted in the Union army in St. Louis, and he went down there with the Union Army and met the Confederates there and stopped the Confederates from invading Missouri, because they wanted to take Missouri over and make it a Confederate state.
HOWE: What about her grandfather?
BITTNER: This was her grandfather.
HOWE: Now, continue on from there. Let’s take it up from the time of the meat market then.
BITTNER: Now, that meat market was very unusual. They employed at least twelve people there, and they had an old smokehouse that’s still standing there today. It’s about half the size of this room. And all the river boats used to stop there in Cairo, and many of them replenished their meat supply there. Day or night, they would come to him to fill orders. And I remember being there in 1925 –I can still see the old speakers from the store door that led to his bedroom, which would whistle and wake him up and make him come down and open up his door to supply the river boats with meat.
HOWE: What kind of meat did he have?
BITTNER: Well, he had all kinds of meats. He would sell deer, he would sell bear, wild turkey, rabbits, buffalo meat –almost anything edible in the types of meat.
HOWE: And what about Meta’s mother?
BITTNER: Well, Meta’s mother, Rosa, was born over above that meat market. She married John Stoltz, who operated the livery stable in Cairo, Illinois, where salesmen rented horses –that is, before the general use of cars and where the wealthy –the doctors, the lawyers and so forth — boarded their horses. Now, John Stoltz was very proud of Meta and gave her a pony with a wicker type of a carriage which was the highlight of her life. And once, when she was in the carriage alone with the pony, she was riding along and the pony became frightened and ran away. A fast- thinking man dashed out into the street and halted the pony and possibly avoided an accident. Now, Meta’s father died shortly thereafter when she was only six-and-one-half years old.
HOWE: What kind of a youth did she have?
BITTNER: She was much like all the other children her age –but possibly, a little more fragile. She was everyone’s sweetheart –loveable, sprightly and gay. There was an early recognition of her ability as a musician. Her parents went all the way to Chicago to Lyon & Healy’s to purchase a Steinway piano for her. This was a very big moment in her life, and she began to study music in a serious manner. She played diligently all her life until arthritis in her wrist made it difficult to play.
HOWE: Did she study it intensely?
BITTNER: Yes, really. She had a very unusually good teacher in her youth. And when she was graduated from high school, she –an excellent Episcopalian school for girls in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin by the name of Grafton Hall, which had a strong music department. The music teachers came to Grafton from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They were some of the best musicians in Milwaukee. They commuted weekly to Fond du Lac to teach music only –harmony and so forth. And Meta became an accomplished pianist and an organist. She gave concerts in churches in Oshkosh and other places. She also studied voice and had a very fine alto voice.
HOWE: What was Grafton Hall like?
BITTNER: The building was a large granite stone structure, gray in color, located right on the cathedral grounds on Lake Wisconsin. The enrollment was only a hundred. The students came from many states, and it was a strictly supervised school. The students had to go to school on Saturdays, but got a day off on Monday. This was done to prevent, as much as possible, the mingling of the Grafton Hall students with the public school students at that time. The discipline was Spartan. Even at meal time, the building –which housed these students –was elegant, large sweeping marble staircases and formal dining room. And each girl had her own separate room. It was mandatory that each student attend chapel service in the cathedral at 7:00 p.m. And Meta tells me that many a time, a student would just wrap her fur coat around her –or at night, pajamas –and go to church that way. The priest didn’t notice, and others wouldn’t say anything. And so a lot of funny things happened in connection with that. It was a wonderful school where all the students enjoyed and concluded that they were lucky to be enrolled at Grafton Hall, which offered an astonishingly, an outstanding college curriculum. It did not survive the Depression in the thirties and was finally dismantled.
HOWE: And what happened to Meta after she graduated from Grafton Hall?
BITTNER: At the time, Cairo already began to decline in population and importance. Its peak population was close to 20,000, and her family agreed she should go somewhere where there was a greater opportunity to use her education. In the course of looking around for a job, she observed that Luther Institute, a private high school in Chicago, was looking for a teacher with her qualifications. She accepted the assignment and taught English, history, domestic arts, gym, basketball for girls and participated in all musical events at the school. They had a very strong music department there, and they had a professional musician come teach music –voice, piano and everything else, chorus and so on – so it was really an outstanding program for the student. Often she took the part of the leading man because her strong and beautiful voice. Students from the whole Chicago area attended the school. And would you believe that Wally Kershief was one of her students, as well as Ted Mailing and Al Bigel, Edna Glady, and there were others from this area –Arlington and Des Plaines and so forth –the names of which I can’t recall at this time. Now, these students, of course, did not room in Chicago. They commuted daily by train to go to school.
HOWE: Did she teach for some years there?
BITTNER: Well, I guess I had something to do with her career as a teacher. I realized from the moment that I met her that she was an unusually good person. I found she was gifted in so many ways that I wanted her to be my wife. After a considerable courtship, we got married July 21, 1926, in Cairo, Illinois. What a marriage. Her stepfather, D.F. McCarty, the prominent political figure, arranged for not only to have certain streets closed at the time of the church ceremony but also for a motorcycle-police escort to and from church.
HOWE: What happened after the wedding?
BITTNER: Well, we spent our honeymoon in Delevan, at Lake Lawn. Lake Lawn then was owned by three utilities of this area, under Samuel Insull, and it was run for the benefit of the employees. And they gave us wonderful accommodations there for almost nothing. If I recall, in the new hotel we stayed there, we only paid twenty-one dollars apiece per week for meals and everything.
HOWE: Where were you working at the time?
BITTNER: I was working at the gas company –People’s Gas, Light and Coal Company, Chicago. We played golf there, we danced and had the most wonderful time of our life. The maid asked us, “Are you honeymooners?” We said, “Why should you ask a question like that? We spent our vacation here last year.” And that was a fact. I took my mother up there, she took her mother up there and the four of us spent a vacation there. Well, the maid said, “You folks look suspicious. In addition, I found a fair amount of rice on the floor.”
HOWE: Where was your first home?
BITTNER: At first, we lived at 320 North Lotus Avenue, that is just north of the Austin High School. We soon realized that we wanted our own home and moved to Mount Prospect in 1931. Six months after, our son, Victor Bittner, Jr., was born. We rented an apartment above the Gift Box on Main Street. We liked the small community of less than one thousand people and began the construction of our home in 1933 at 300 West Melbourne Avenue.
HOWE: What was it like in Mount Prospect at that time?
BITTNER: At that time, Mount Prospect was a German community. German was spoken in most business establishments, and this was a great disappointment to Meta because she could not speak German. But soon, the Besanders got us a ­­­___with some of the natives. And when we began to build our home, we were certain we’d made a good choice to reside in Mount Prospect.
HOWE: What did you do in Mount Prospect then?
BITTNER: Well, population of a thousand, there is very little to do. There’s a St. Paul’s church where they had services every Sunday in German –except one English service on a Sunday evening, once per month. But we soon had many good friends with whom we could visit. Meta was interested in community service and found that the Women’s Club was the organization which provided an opportunity to do something. She became active almost immediately on the Women’s Club library committee. Meta taught English in a private high school, as I had told you before, and was an avid reader. And while she was serving on the Women’s Club library committee, Meta was appointed book chairman and, later, summer reading chairman. She knew the value of books in the life of people -in education as well as reading for pleasure. And to her, the library was a depository of a wealth of information valuable for education, pleasure, industry and commerce. With this in mind, when the community became large enough to support a library, she participated with others in a campaign for a tax- supported library. After several referendums to build a public library, she was elected library trustee and served twenty-two consecutive years in that position. And in addition to that, she also was the president for the last number of years. The trustees of the library in those days took an active part in the operation of the library. Her previously acquired duties as books and summer reading chairman remained as part of her duties as well as that of a trustee. Meta purchased all books for fifteen years, all magazines for ten years, and chaired the summer reading club for ten years. Now, the library, by this time, had moved into what is now the paint store –that’s on Main Street –and then it began its real expansion. And as I said before, she was chairman of the board of directors. There are two things which should be mentioned which she did in connection with her activities on the library board. She personally negotiated all by herself with William Busse, Jr., a very good friend of ours, for the rental of the vacant store for a library at the very low rental rate –about one half of the going rent at that time. By doing this, Mr. Busse gave the library greater financial assistance than any other citizen in Mount Prospect.~
HOWE: Is this William Busse?
BITTNER: This is William Busse II. And no one has ever brought that out. He was doing so much –Meta never talked much about the things she accomplished and the things she did. And here she said to him, “Bill, you and your family have done so well in Mount Prospect. Don’t you think you could do something for the up-and-coming library? Can’t you rent this store for us at a nominal price?” He said, “Well, Mrs. Bittner, you know, I might just do that. Yes. You can have it. I’ll give you that at about half the price.” And so that was a wonderful thing, and very few people around here ever knew that he denied himself a certain amount of income by giving the library a good start in that store. said, he was never given sufficient recognition for the valuable assistance that he gave to the library, which had no supporting help from the city in its first year of operation. They had no tax income, and the board members traveled the streets, and they solicited money. Meta just about knew every businessman because it connected with the church and she brought in the money. And so that’s what kept the library going, in addition to the help that the received from Bill Busse II.
Now, the other significant action which she performed was to negotiate, and this is all by herself, with the Holsty estate and come to an agreement for the purchase of the original part, a plot of ground on which the first library was built. The purchase price was very favorable to the library. The leasing the store was indicative of her ability to influence people favorably towards the establishment of the library. Meta and Mrs. Custer, who was also on that committee, was a great twosome in getting things without having to pay for them. They personally visited Mr. Carl Rhoden, the deceased chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library, and asked for help. Mr. Rhoden made tables and chairs available to the Mount Prospect library, as well as the checkout desk, with the privilege of also selecting a thousand books for use at a very low annual rental.
HOWE: Did you know that some of those tables and chairs are at the museum now?
BITTNER: No, I did not know that. But I know that Meta and Mrs. Custer went there. They were so dirty. They were in stores. They scrubbed them with scrubbing brushes and cleaned them up, and that is the way that the members of that library board worked at that time. They actually worked.
HOWE: Sounds like the beginning of a museum, too.
BITTNER: That’s right. You know, in the beginning things are tough, and people don’t realize that. Once things are rolling and are established, it’s a lot easier to go along. In addition to ably serving the community with her work, she performed for the library. Meta rented numerous other services of the community.
HOWE: What other services?
BITTNER: Well, she was a member of the Mount Prospect Women’s Club for over thirty-five years. She served as president and was on the advisory board and various committees. She was made an honorary member of the Women’s Club in 1975. And the very last letter she wrote before her fatal illness was addressed to this group, thanking them for bestowing this honor upon her. During World War II, she actively sold war bonds and often canvassed sections of the city for charitable and other worthy causes. She was the founding president of the historical society and later served as its historian. Meta was a founding member of the Mount Prospect _______ Club.
HOWE: Called the Scrimshaws.
BITTNER: Oh, that’s right. This group was interested in the preservation of historical landmarks as well as to quest for old things. As a member of this group, she frequently lectured at various Quester meetings on various subjects pertaining to antiques, and especially on glass.
HOWE: Yes, and also she did a fantastic research paper on dolls that I remember particularly that we used. In fact, when I was with the newspaper, I took pictures and did a great big feature using all the information that she had gleaned. And it took a long time to get all that information together, too.
BITTNER: I remember going up to the library with her. She said, “You must come with me because I won’t be able to carry over the books.” And she would get as many as eight books on the subject matter that she would research. Now, she has written many papers. For instance, pertaining to Christmas, as I recall, there was one –the Christmas ornaments, the Christmas tree and all those things. And I happened to remember one thing in connection with it, which I might mention right now, the very first Christmas tree that was ever used in a church in America was used in a Lutheran church in Cleveland, Ohio. That is one of the things she brought out. And then, of course, she had. ..
HOWE: Where are her notes and things on all this research?
BITTNER: Every once in a while, I find something. She did not put things away systematically. She just did something, then pushed it away.
HOWE: But if you ever find those, they are very valuable.
BITTNER: Yes. And my granddaughter’s after them also.
HOWE: Good. As long as she wants to preserve them, that’s fine.
BITTNER: My granddaughter belongs to a Questers group, and she thought she could use some of these papers.
HOWE: I only wish we had taped those. They were awfully good programs.
BITTNER: Well, maybe they can be taped if someone would want to take the time and do it. Now, she was president also of the archives committee of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and a member of a number of its organizations. She sang in the choir nearly all her life because of her beautiful, strong alto voice. She could read the music without having a piano giving her the melody or the notes. She’d look at a piece of strange music and just by sounding a couple notes, she knew just where to start and she could work out the melody from there.
HOWE: Wonderful talent.
BITTNER: Few are the people who have resided in Mount Prospect who have served the community in as significant a manner as she has. All her work was done unselfishly—digligently, astutely and conscientiously for about thirty-five years, without any ______. Hers was a service of love for this community.
HOWE: Family?
BITTNER: Well, our family was a well-organized one and loved _______ brilliant.

Does MPHS have photographs: Yes

Address in MP: 101 S. Maples Street

Birth Date: October 8, 1911

Death Date: February 26, 1999

Marriage
Date: 1937 to Fred Linnenkohl
1961 to Charles A. Barnes

Children:

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Bessie was the only child of Dietrich and Lena Friedrichs, the first owners of 101 S. Maple Street, the home that now houses the Mount Prospect Historical Society. She lived most of her life in this building and was very involved with the restoration and preservation of the building.

Date of Interview: August 7, 1991

Interviewer: Dolores Haugh

Text of Oral History Interview:
DOLORES HAUGH: [remarks joined in progress] …August 7, 1991 and the person speaking is Dolores Haugh, and I’m talking today to Bessie Friedricks Barnes. This is at her lovely home at 616 North Lewis in Mt. Prospect. Bessie I thank you so much for being with me today. [tape interrupted] Bessie, before we start, I want to correct the address. It’s 16 North Lewis, and the time is 1:30 in the afternoon. And so with that, we’ll start our interview. I wanted to ask you a few of the questions that we have here. First of all, your full name is …?
BESSIE BARNES: Bessie Friedricks Barnes.
HAUGH: Right, and where were you born, Bessie?
BARNES: At 101 South Maple in Mt. Prospect.
HAUGH: And your parents were?
BARNES: Dietrick and Lena Friedricks. And Sophie and Edward Cremreide …
HAUGH: Were your grandparents?
BARNES: And my grandparents-I’m sorry, the Cremreide family was my grandparents.
HAUGH: Yes. That’s all right.
BARNES: The first family was my parents. And then my grandparents was Detrick Friedricks, Sr., and as I already stated the Cremreides.
HAUGH: Okay, good. We just really want to relax. When the people record this, you know, they’re going to go over this and they’ll take a lot of this out, so don’t worry about it. Okay. You mentioned you were born at 101 South Maple, so that’s the other address that you lived at. So basically you’ve only lived in two homes in Mt. Prospect, right?
BARNES: That’s right.
HAUGH: That’s good. Okay.
BARNES: In my life, as far as that’s concerned.
HAUGH: Right. Tell me a little bit about your home at 101 South Maple.
BARNES: My mother and dad built that in 1906. It was then the thirteenth house in town. The population was a little over a hundred.
HAUGH: Your father was a …?
BARNES: A painter and a decorator.
HAUGH: I can remember you telling a delightful story about going to get the paint for the house. Would you like to tell that? I think it’s a great story.
BARNES: Well, there was a hardware store in Mt. Prospect, which was at that time called the Biermann Hardware Store. Frank Biermann, who just recently died, owned it. He carried many products because there were so few stores in town, but one of them was paint. My dad would buy some paint there, although they were of the good brands that were manufactured in Chicago, I believe. But this day, one of his men took me along up on a high-seated wagon pulled by two horses. He did that every day, but this day he left the reins in my reach. I guess I was about three years old. I pulled the reins while he was gone, and the horses headed for home very, very speedily. Everybody down the street was chasing because they thought I was so small I would falloff, and I was having the best time of my life [laughter].
HAUGH: I love it. That’s great! And tell about how your dad took you into Milwaukee Avenue for the Pratt and Lambert paint. BARNES: Yes. He would also take me on his wagon and horse, and I would ride with him down into Chicago. He would buy paint-as you said, Pratt and Lambert. Then he would also go to Ramine and Cunard. Sometimes Mom would go along and he would drop us off at the Wieboldt’s store that was available then and we would do our, well, shopping for clothes there because there was no store here for clothes and. ..
HAUGH: That was when you were around three years old or a little older?
BARNES: Or even a little older, too.
HAUGH: I might mention also that because of this nice story, we were able to get Pratt and Lambert to donate all the 24 gallons of paint for the restoration of your house by the Historical Society.
BARNES: I thought that was very great.
HAUGH: Oh, I did too. Well, we’ve had some wonderful people working on the house. What was downtown when you were a little girl?
BARNES: There was a grocery story and. ..
HAUGH: Who had that. That wasn’t Meeske then, was it?
BARNES: No, Mr. Busse owned it. Mr. William Busse, Jr., had it at that time. Mr. Fred Meeske worked for him, and then eventually he bought Mr. Busse out.
HAUGH: Was that in the same place as the Meeske’s was before Continental Bakery moved in?
BARNES: No, that was the house of William Busse, Jr. And then next door. ..
HAUGH: That was before it was moved.
BARNES: Then a dry goods store took part of that building, and then the other was grocery and meats.
HAUGH: What did they have in the dry goods store?
BARNES: Ch, they just had everything. General merchandise, I guess you would call it. A little of shoes, clothes-mostly materialand sewing supplies. And, oh, school supplies. I don’t remember other than that. Sometimes rubbers, boots-just a little of everything
HAUGH: A lot of working things, I suppose, because so many farms were around, right?
BARNES: Right.
HAUGH: Now, the grocery stores, because the farmers were there, did they carry produce like they do now or did they just have certain things that were not available, you know, by growing them yourself?
BARNES: I don’t remember too much about produce that they had other than that which was not grown around here like fruits, bananas, oranges and that type. But they did have all kinds of meats. But the store was very different because there were clerks, and you told them the item you wanted and they would run and get it and then gather all the items you were purchasing and then write it down, each item written with the costs. So it took a while to do some shopping. Now we go much faster, of course, going through a checking and waiting on ourselves.
HAUGH: Did they have those old-fashioned ways of running tabs for people for the farmers so that they could pay it off, like when the crops came in or anything?
BARNES: I’m not sure. I would believe that because I know people would say “charge it.” When I went shopping, when I started to do the shopping for my mother, she always made out the grocery list. But I was four or five years old with my little red wagon and did all the shopping. Mom never went shopping except when we went out of town for clothes or special items.
HAUGH: So then she’d give you the shopping list. But then wouldshe give you the money, too?
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: So, I mean, you just kind of went cash-and-carry. Butthere were charges, I’m sure.
BARNES: Oh, yes. Because I can remember hearing people say “charge it,” but Mother and Dad believed in paying as they went.
HAUGH: Sure. Wasn’t there a farm equipment store in Mt. Prospect, too, over near Busse Biermann? Wasn’t that a farm store there or was that Buick place?
BARNES: There was a Buick garage. That, too, was run by Mr. Ernest Busse and Mr. Albert Busse. They were brothers. I just do not remember any implement except the coal company, which was Wille’s, and I don’t remember if they had implements or not. But then there was also a post office in the Busse store for a time. We had a box-I can still remember. It was Box 34. Then on the corner was the Mahling Real Estate. I think it was insurance before that.
HAUGH: Was it Mahling?
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: I don’t. ..
BARNES: Gertrude’s.
HAUGH: Yes, Gertrude’s father. But when did he get the general Store that he had on the corner there?
BARNES: I don’t remember it as a general store at all.
HAUGH: Because I thought she always said the post office was in that store.
BARNES: It could have been earlier.
HAUGH: Earlier on maybe. That might be it, too, yes. Because I know then, of course, Gert Francic went into the real estate business, too, you know, later. Now tell me a little bit about the development of the automobile. Now, you talked about going on the horse and buggies, and I know you’ve got a good story about one of your cars, so you tell us about your automobile, how you had to fix your garage.
BARNES: Oh, yes.
HAUGH: What was the first car you had, though?
BARNES: I think it was a Ford. I don’t quite remember what year it was, but I was very small. You had to roll up the top or down. I remember that and our mothers wore hats with the veil on top and around in order to they wouldn’t blow off. But, of course, our barn was for horses and a cow, so a car did not fit in there. So, as my dad said, he had to build an apron on it in order to have a car fit in there when he had no longer the horses and cow and chickens and so on. Narrators: And that’s all going to be brought back again in our restoration. That’s one reason I love that old carriage house because it has so many good stories about it. You know what I was referring to-when you built the garage when you got the Buick.
BARNES: Oh, yes. That, too. The first car fit in the barn with that little apron in the first section of the carriage house. But the other one had to build an apron, as my dad called it. In other words, it was just so the car bumper or the front part of the car would fit in it, otherwise you couldn’t close the door. And that’s the garage they just now took down.
HAUGH: Oh, I know what I was going to say. When he did that, the first garage in the carriage house, is that why there’s like a little bump in it in the back part of it, so that the front of the car would fit all the way in? I love this.
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: It’s going to be part of our talk when we take people through.
BARNES: Yes, that’s right.
HAUGH: Were there any other stores downtown that you can remember when you were little? Now, we talked about the food and we talked about the farm implements and Busse Hardware. Oh, the lumber and coal, that was down there.
BARNES: The garage and the barber shop.
HAUGH: Who ran the barber shop? Do you remember?
BARNES: Yes. Mr. Baldwin was his name.
HAUGH: Baldwin or Baldini?
BARNES: B-A-L-D-W-I-N.
HAUGH: Baldwin. Okay.
BARNES: And then he later moved to the garage of his home on Central Road. The house still stands.
HAUGH: That’s Baldini though, isn’t it? Because I met his daughter. I think it was Baldini because the only thing I remember was that he planted all the pines on that street, and that’s why it was called Pine Street.
BARNES: Oh!
HAUGH: When I interviewed him-not him but his daughter. I think it was Baldini. But you were close.
BARNES: I sure was.
HAUGH: Right. What else can we think of that was down there?
BARNES: I did say a barber. That’s the barber shop. I don’t remember any other stores, but I do remember when the first drugstore there came in.
HAUGH: Oh, okay. Now where was that?
BARNES: The building still stands. Later it was Wille’s Insurance Company. No, I think first it was a liquor store, and then they moved next door to that smaller building. HAUGH: Oh, okay. This is all on Busse Avenue. Now you’re
between Northwest Highway and 83. That block in there.
BARNES: That’s right.
HAUGH: Okay. All right. So there was a lot of space on that street then because they didn’t build what houses now the Olde Town Inn. That used to be a bowling alley. I think that was built like in ’27. Wasn’t it around in there?
BARNES: That was built later. Of course, Mr. Mein’s house was there.
HAUGH: Now where was that?
BARNES: He was across the street. He faces, well, really Northwest Highway. I think he had it to Busse, but they did build some buildings,and now there’s a restaurant in that area, right in there.
HAUGH: Okay. Right on that corner there.
BARNES: He had a blacksmith shop there and he was the first blacksmith there and then his son followed, Herman. He was our neighbor at 101 South Maple. There was a creamery.
HAUGH: Oh, okay. That was on down Northwest Highway, right?
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: Because that’s the one they tore down. Now, that was there real early on.
BARNES: Yes, very early.
HAUGH: And then, let’s see, was there anything on the other side of the tracks at all?
BARNES: I don’t remember anything except that Wille’s had a dance pavilion up the hill on Prospect Avenue, as we always called it. And that’s where all the town affairs were held.
HAUGH: But that was still on this side of the tracks.
BARNES: No. No.
HAUGH: That was on the other side of the tracks?
BARNES: South side.
HAUGH: Oh, okay.
BARNES: On Prospect Avenue.
HAUGH: And where did you cross the tracks then? At 83?
BARNES: No on Maple-I mean Emerson.
HAUGH: Emerson. There was no 83 then at that point to cross over?
BARNES: I don’t remember that, either. But the trains were so infrequent, we could cross the track anywhere [laughter].
HAUGH: I love it. That’s cute. How did these folks advertise? Did they have a newspaper or fliers or did you just kind of lookfor the posters in the windows? BARNES: I remember that Paddock Publications was-I don’t know how old it was then already, but everyone took that paper and there were ads in there. But as far as other advertisements, if there were any special ones, they were handmade by the people who owned it.
HAUGH: Fliers. Yes, because Paddock was out here a long time. In fact, somebody told me one time that the elder Mr. Paddock used to come in his horse and buggy to pick up different things from people.
BARNES: Yes, he did.
HAUGH: And he was crippled, I think, somebody told me, right?
BARNES: Right.
HAUGH: He had a high shoe or something was added.
BARNES: Right. And he was so used to using his horse and buggy that when he did get a car, he would still read his newspaper and do things with his hands instead of watching. When everybody saw Mr. Paddock come, why they all got out of his way.
HAUGH: I love it! That’s great!
BARNES: He was so interested in his work and he forgot that he had to control the car because the horse always controlled him otherwise.
HAUGH: Oh, that’s cute, that’s cute. Were there any factories in town at all?
BARNES: There was at a later date, Crowfoot’s.
HAUGH: Crowfoot’s, yes. Did they make batteries? Was that what that was? I don’t remember what they made.
BARNES: I don’t know either. But I thought it was nuts and bolts, but I’m not sure.
HAUGH: Oh, it could be. It could be. Now, they were over on Evergreen, right?
BARNES: Where the creamery was at one time. Of course, …
HAUGH: Oh, near Evergreen, but on Northwest Highway then.
BARNES: My aunt was secretary there.
HAUGH: Oh, what was her name?
BARNES: Gertrude Friedricks Milikin.
HAUGH: Oh, okay. And that was your aunt. Good. How long did she work there? Do you know?
BARNES: Well, she worked when they had their shop in Arlington Heights, and then she worked here for quite a few years. I suppose about five. I don’t know.
HAUGH: Well, that’s good enough. That was nice, sure. Do you know how many people they had there as far as employment?
BARNES: No, I don’t.
HAUGH: I always thought it was kind of a large place, but sometimes office staff wasn’t very big, you know, so it’s hard to know. I think that we’ve got something on that anyway. Do you remember anything about when the electricity came in? Do you remember anything about that?
BARNES: Well, yes. I was well in school by the time electricity came. But I do remember the gas lights we had, the lamps, of course. But we also had. ..
HAUGH: Kerosene?
BARNES: No, the gas. There’s still one in the hall upstairs.
HAUGH: The jets? Where the jets come out you mean?
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: Yes, yes, gas jets. BARNES: We had the jets in the halls.
HAUGH: Now before that then you had kerosene, is that right? Kerosene lamps and things like that.
BARNES: Right.
HAUGH: I think they had kerosene lamps on the streets, too,
didn’t they before the gas?
BARNES: Yes. They didn’t have sidewalks when I was small. We just had dirt roads, of course.
HAUGH: Where did you go to school, Besse?
BARNES: In that one-room school that was located on Central and now 83. That building has now been moved to St. John Episcopal Church, and it is being used there. But it was just one room and one teacher.
HAUGH: Who was your teacher?
BARNES: Well, it changed every year, but I remember my first teacher, Miss Reichert. She still stands out in my mind. She really loved the children when I was in first grade. I have a picture of that. I guess maybe that’s why I remember, too. But Mrs. Butler was the teacher when we graduated from eighth grade. There were seven of us.
HAUGH: What were some of the subjects you took when you were in school?
BARNES: All the. ..
HAUGH: Reading, writing and arithmetic.
BARNES: Geography, history, spelling, English. Nothing, no extra curriculum, like they have now.
HAUGH: Like art or music or anything like that.
BARNES: No.
HAUGH: What were some of the things you did for fun? I know there were lots of things going on.
BARNES: Because our town was so small, it was in 1917 when they were waiting for a baby to be born in town so then the population would be 301. So, …
HAUGH: You don’t remember who that was, do you? The baby that they were waiting for?
BARNES: No, I don’t. I imagine. ..
HAUGH: We’re trying to find that out.
BARNES: That was in 1917. I was only six then, so I don’t know. But anyway, then it became Mt. Prospect. They had to have over 300 population. But, …
HAUGH: Oh, I was talking about some of the fun things you did.
BARNES: Oh. We would all gather together after-we all had chores to do. We didn’t get away with like. ..
HAUGH: Tell us what you had to do. That’s neat, too-all the things you did.
BARNES: My job was we had to beat the rugs. We had beaters. Hang them on the line or put them on the ground if they were big ones. Had to wash and scrub the screens because they were not attached. I didn’t do a lot of climbing. We had a privy like everybody else. I had to take care of that, which I hated. [laughter] But then after we, of course, had to do our lessons first, then we could get out and all of us kids at that time gathered where now is a playground on School Street and Maple Street and we would play all sorts of games-Run, Sheep, Run and…
HAUGH: Roll Me Over.
BARNES: …Hide and Seek, and Annie Annie Over and, oh, just fun games like that. We made up our games because we didn’t have games. But at our house it was different. We had to do our chores and then we would have a choice of which game. For instance, if we were shelling peas or stringing beans, whoever didthe most could chose the game they were going to play, and then we would have refreshments. We had fun.
HAUGH: And you always had a lot of people around. You were an only child, but all these other people were cousins and neighbor kids and everything, right?
BARNES: You bet.
HAUGH: So that’s how you had a whole bunch of them around all the time. That’s good. Oh, tell them about the croquet, too. I like that.
BARNES: Oh, yes. I had a croquet set. Years before that part was all garden because Mother and Dad raised most of our food. Mother canned all of it. There was no freezer at that time. But then later, they cut down and we made a croquet yard. Everybody seemed to like that. We would not be through with our dinner at night because Daddy never got home regularly because he would have to finish just what he started in his job of painting and decorating. But there was always a big game going on there. If the game wasn’t finished before dark, they would turn lights on from the car, headlights, and my dad had fixed up a trouble light, so there was always much noise around that yard. But it was fun.
HAUGH: Other things now. Do you remember the library? Do you remember when the library started in town? Someone said that the Women’s Club started in that little school where you went to school. That was supposed to be the beginning. They used to wheel out the little carts with the books on it. Do you remember anything about that?
BARNES: No, I don’t. The first librarian I remember is Mrs. Schlemmer. But I do not remember details of it. HAUGH: This was even before that because when Mrs. Schlemmer came in was when they first started, I think, the official library, you know. They had it over at what used to be the bank building there on the corner, you know.
BARNES: The little red bank.
HAUGH: Yes. She was in there for a while, I guess. She was down by the paint store. When did the bakery come in? That’s what I was wondering. Do you remember when the bakery started up? Wasn’t it Schmidt’s Bakery?
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: Was it always Schmidt’s or was somebody in there before?
BARNES: As I remember, it was always Schmidt’s. Then when it became time for them to retire, the building was renovated and Then
HAUGH: Then there was another bakery, but that was. ..
BARNES: That was across the tracks.
HAUGH: Yes. All that stuff across the tracks didn’t start until around the ’40s, I think, wasn’t it, when they first started going across the tracks?
BARNES: It must have been because I always remember. ..
HAUGH: Where was the National?
BARNES: It was across in that area where they have the arch.
HAUGH: Yes. Yes. That’s right. And there was an A & P before it was over on …
BARNES: That was over on this side of town. Let’s see. That little fruit store is in that area now. The produce. ..
HAUGH: Wasn’t there one down near the bakery on 83 there, too? There was a little paint store in there, too, when we first moved out here in the ’40s, ’50s. It was right near Schmidt’s Bakery-a little tiny store in there. No?
BARNES: Well, it could be. I’m sorry. I just don’t remember.
HAUGH: It was a paint store. But anyway, well, that doesn’t make that much difference. I just kind of wondered, you know. Some of the things that you did at the Wille’s Hall. You mentioned Wille’s Hall. You had dances there and so on.
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: What was the best one you remember?
BARNES: I don’t remember the affair, but I do remember the music because I always loved that German-type music. We children would finally give up and lay down on the benches and nap while our parents would still be dancing. But it was always a town affair. If there was something to celebrate, the whole town was invited at that time. Now, I’ve often wonder, though, if Mrs. Wille is still living.
HAUGH: Yes. As far as I know she is.
BARNES: She must be very well up in her 90’s.
HAUGH: Oh, sure. Well, Mr. Wille was, I think, around 99 when he was killed by an automobile. Remember? I’m talking about Adolph.
BARNES: Well, yes, that’s. ..
HAUGH: Or are you talking about a different Wille?
BARNES: Oh, yes.
HAUGH: Which one are you talking about?
BARNES: This was Mrs. Elvina Wille. I don’t know what her husband’s name was, but her daughter was Mrs. Ethel Busse, Mrs. Richard Busse. When Mr. Richard Busse died, their house was on the corner where the parking lot is for the bank now. They bought that whole area. And they went up to Minoqua to live and I’ve lost track of them. But I never heard. But they were so accommodating and so lovely. It was. ..
HAUGH: Have you got any recollections of the police department?
BARNES: Yes. There was just one policeman. Mr. Mulso and Mr. Wittenburg ran the police and village. Mr. Mulso was the public works, I believe.
HAUGH: Police magistrate.
BARNES: Everything.
HAUGH: And they did everything, right?
BARNES: They sure did.
HAUGH: How about the fire department?
BARNES: That was all volunteer. I know Mr. Frank Biermann was very much involved with that and Mr. Herman Mein, along with the other people. My husband, Chuck, moved to Mt. Prospect in ’45 in a house right next to the post office at that time. They had an arrangement where they got a fire call, it would ring in his home. [tape interrupted]
HAUGH: Okay.
BARNES: I know Mr. Biermann and Mr. Herman Mein were the leaders. What their titles were, I do not know. But I can remember how some of those fellows, amongst others who were volunteers, would back their cars in their driveway at night and so if there was a fire call, they were able to just pullout in a hurry.
HAUGH: Do you remember any big fires in Mt. Prospect? Were there any that you can remember when you were little?
BARNES: The one I can most remember was the parsonage of St. Paul’s Church. They rebuilt it or fixed it up because it’s still standing. It’s a two apartment house now. I remember that my dad went over and helped. Even though we didn’t belong to the congregation, they accepted us very well. Everybody else did belong to the congregation. We were very good friends of the pastor. I can still remember my dad went over and used some of his expertise and helped there.
HAUGH: Is that Pastor Mueller?
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: What was his first name? Do you know?
BARNES: John, I think. We always called him J-E-A. He always used just his initials. He had his birthday the same day I did.
HAUGH: Oh, how about that?
BARNES: Not the same year.
HAUGH: Nice October birthdays, right?
BARNES: Right.
HAUGH: Did they have anything like Fourth of July parades where you would have any kind of a town parade or anything like. .. [end of side 1] [Side 2]
BARNES: [remarks joined in progress] …over. And we were just. ..
HAUGH: Now this is World War I?
BARNES: Yes. I remember how we were marching down the street and the church bell was ringing and it was exciting, but I don’t think we really realized what it was. We were too small.
HAUGH: Did they have a VFW or a Legion at that time or not? Or did that start after? That started after the war, didn’t it?
BARNES: I believe it started after that. My mother belonged to the Ladies Auxiliary.
HAUGH: Of what?
BARNES: Of the VFW.
HAUGH: Of the VFW. Oh, that’s neat. The train depot-have a lot of stories about that, that we were just kind of a nothing place for a long time. Do you remember anything that was sent out by train or did you have any experience with the trains at all?
BARNES: Well, we didn’t get to ride the train very often because there were very few-in the morning taking the workers and in the evening bringing them back out. The mail went out in bags, and they would catch it as the train went by.
HAUGH: They wouldn’t even stop, huh?
BARNES: No. Years later, Mr. Lonnquist moved out here. I don’t know his title of the Northwestern Railroad. And then we got more trains fitted to his coming and going, and so that’s why we got more trains late afternoon and later in the morning.
HAUGH: You didn’t have enough from your little garden that you’d send anything in, did you?
BARNES: No, but the farmers used to bring in big loads of beets in their truck and empty them into freight cars. There was a switch here where all the freight cars would come and go with produce or coal even because, you see, we were heating our homes with coal.
HAUGH: I often wondered, remember that little railroad spur that ran in with-did that go in for Wille’s Lumber? Remember that, you know? They could switch the things off.
BARNES: I think that went in for coal. They probably used it for lumber, too, but mainly coal at that time.
HAUGH: I mean, when we moved out here, I can remember that spur. They still used it sometimes, you know. It was so non-descript. Anyway.
BARNES: We had other events. You asked about a parade. I don’t remember that. But when we would have school programs or big events, why Busse’s Garage was used and also Wille’s. Wille’s was much smaller. It depended upon the affair as to which was used. Those were our auditoriums.
HAUGH: The other things is your school’s plays. You had a lot of that, too, didn’t you?
BARNES: Yes, we did, and they were held in either one of those places.
HAUGH: Oh, not at the church?
BARNES: No. There was no auditorium at the church at that time.
HAUGH: I see. Now, you’re talking about St. Paul?
BARNES: Yes. That was the only church until 1935 when South Church came.
HAUGH: Well, let’s see, if you really had to chose, what would you say was really your fondest memory of Mt. Prospect?
BARNES: I thinking knowing everyone and the togetherness.
HAUGH: Don’t you feel it’s still here? Don’t you feel that it still exists in some ways here?
BARNES: No, because I don’t even know where all the streets are that I read in the paper, let alone the people.
HAUGH: Join the club. When things expand and there’s progress and you have more and more and more people, why, you don’t have that closeness. But you do because you’ve got a lot of close friends that you’ve had for years. Tell me about some of them, like the Grothiers and Burnette.
BARNES: Yes. Right. Burnette, of course, married my cousin and so we were very close. But she lived in Mt. Prospect, and she was a very close friend of a neighbor girl of Chuck’s and so that’s how I got to know Burnette. And then, of course, she met Don and they were married.
HAUGH: What was his last name, Don’s last name?
BARNES: Scamehorn.
HAUGH: Okay. It’s not Scama, it’s Scam.
BARNES: Well, they call it Scamehorn, now because there is an E. S-C-A-M-E-H-O-R-N. And Elvira, who is married to Pastor Grothier, we grew up together. She. ..
HAUGH: Now what was her maiden name?
BARNES: Her maiden name was Mein.
HAUGH: Oh, that’s right.
BARNES: Her folks built their home in about 1912. So we grew up together, and then, of course, when she married Kurt as a young pastor, they were sent to a church in Alabama. Then they were not at home, however, I was always with their mother and dad. Now they’ve come back to the home and they’ve restored it some. It was just lovely. It was on Christmas walk last year, and we are still very close friends. Then Elvira has a sister Vanetta, and I get to see her about once a year when she comes up here from Florida. She lives there. So that was fun. When we were little children, our parents were very close. We didn’t have movies to go to or places like that, so they loved to play cards and so on Saturday nights, we’d be at each other’s house, and we children would play.
HAUGH: Some of the things you played with, too, I think are interesting. Did you tell me you liked dolls or you didn’t like dolls?
BARNES: Oh, yes.
HAUGH: I thought you did.
BARNES: Oh, yes. We all had dolls and buggies. We really played. Our mothers would pack some sandwiches, and we’d have a picnic under the mulberry tree.
HAUGH: Come in all blue, all colored from the berries.
BARNES: You’re right.
HAUGH: How do you think the downtown has changed over the years?
BARNES: Well, it has changed some. What I figure downtown is the corner of Northwest Highway, Emerson Street and Main Street, Busse Avenue. That seems to be …
HAUGH: And it’s still there.
BARNES: …downtown.
HAUGH: It’s still downtown.
BARNES: Of course, there’s a lot of addition on Prospect Avenue.
HAUGH: Do you remember when McMann’s carne in? Remember McMann’s store on Prospect? I don’t know when they carne in. Do you remember them? They were down on Pine Street where. ..?
BARNES: What kind of a store was that?
HAUGH: It had children’s clothing, more or less of a dry goods store, but mostly clothing. And then what was that one, the men’s store on Main Street, too? Alison’s was there. Was there an Alison’s?
BARNES: I remember the name.
HAUGH: They just sold men’s clothes. They were right next to Meeske’s in a little shop there. That was when we first carne out in the ’40s. If there’s one thing that you could really want the children really to remember about the history of their hometown, what would it be? Probably your house, right?
BARNES: I’m afraid it would be. [laughter]
HAUGH: Not that we’re prejudiced or anything. But I’d like you to tell just a little bit more about how you feel about the restoration of your home as a museum. I think that’s important for people to know how you personally feel about that.
BARNES: Well, I think it is very great. In the first place, it’s quite a surprise, but a wonderful surprise to know that it is being restored. And secondly, I think that my mother and dad would really be proud because they lived for that home and they had it in such perfect condition at all times and it was still in good condition. However, tastes change. But when we sold it, it was still in good condition. But it has deteriorated and it’s really quite a job to restore it-more than I think we ever thought. But I’m looking forward to that day, and I will be so proud and my family is proud of it, too. They’re all looking forward to dedication day like I am.
HAUGH: Sure. Right on. I think it ought to be said, too, that some of the things that you’ve given us will make the house so authentic-all the lovely gifts that you’ve given to the museum and to the society that will make it a real part of your family home. Some of those things are your personal little cup, you know, and your chairs and tables you had when you were a little girl and all those wonderful nostalgic things that we, you know, I think, feel so important to us as a society and as a restoration program because they’re not just for the kids nowadays, but they’re going to be there for lots of other children coming down the line. BARNES: I think it will be very exciting and certainly will have mixed emotions when I get to see all those things back in the house where they were originally.
HAUGH: Sure. I hear you just finished a project with Adele Werkowski on the interior design. Tell me about that a little. I think that’s a big project.
BARNES: Well, she gave me a 1905 Sears catalogue and asked me to go through it. It only had 1,101 pages in it, and to chose items in that catalogue that I recognized that we had in our home. It was surprising how many there were. Many of them were even identical, but a lot of them you could get the idea from the picture. Then she did such a wonderful job. She took pictures of those items. We spent a couple hours going through it after I had gone through it. I had it marked, and she took pictures of those and made a page of each one and little stories I had told about each item. That must have taken a lot of her time. It’s a gorgeous piece of work.
HAUGH: And, you know, this kind of research is so important to the museum itself, making it a high quality museum where people, when they enter, will have the feeling and know that those are really the things that were in that house. It’s going to be a great day.
BARNES: My only regret is that I didn’t know this was going to happen and I would not have given or sold so many things. I would have kept them back.
HAUGH: You can’t keep everything.
BARNES: I didn’t know this was going to happen. We moved in 1966 to this address.
HAUGH: There was a lot of changes in ’66. I remember that’s when I started with my newspaper and Prospect Day came to the downtown area. Remember that?
BARNES: I remember their office.
HAUGH: That’s where I was. A lot of good things are happening, and, Bessie, when we do have that dedication, it’s going to be a real gratifying thing for you, I’m sure, to know how much you’ve helped us and how much we appreciate it, too. So anything else you’d like to say for posterity? Still gardening, right? You’ve still got your own little garden.
BARNES: Well, just flowers.
HAUGH: That’s all right. That’s all right.
BARNES: Gave up the gardening. I used to can and freeze a lot, but I don’t any more.
HAUGH: Well, our lives change, as you said when we started. So I guess we’ve made our circle completely. I always have so much fun talking to you because you have such a good recollection of so many things that I think are unknown to other people and so as a Historical Society person, we’re real happy that you’re around.
BARNES: Well thank you. It certainly has proven to me-I’ve heard it, but I never experienced it that when God closes one door, he opens another. And I’ve been very busy and very happy and it was really educational because I didn’t realize many of the things and working with and listening to all those professionals, it is indeed education.
HAUGH: It sure is. I think, too, the opportunity to work with other people that are interested in what we’re trying to do, new friends that you’ve made. And, Bessie, you have to tell them how you go out and talk to people now. The Lions Club and Fairview School kids. I think that’s wonderful. It’s jut wonderful.
BARNES: Thank you very much. I don’t know what kind of a job I do, but I try to tell them. It’s amazing the children do not realize how we lived years ago. Even their parents don’t.
HAUGH: That’s right. That’s right. They don’t know that there wasn’t any indoor plumbing and there was no TV or radios or anything. They wondered what in the world you did. So this is a real education for them.
BARNES: But I’d never give up our youth. I enjoyed that. It was so much fun. I think we had lots of close friendships through that. Now we can all go our own way and still be entertained.
HAUGH: That’s right. That’s right.
BARNES: Or even stay home and watch TV.
HAUGH: By yourself. Yes, sure. I wanted to also mention that you’re serving on the Historical Society Restoration Building Committee, Garden Restoration and Interior Design and as a board of director.
BARNES: Yes.
HAUGH: And she was also our Elderhonor person last year. So these are wonderful things that are happening. Bessie, thanks so much.
BARNES: No, thanks to you.
HAUGH: Oh, no, no, don’t. ..
BARNES: If you didn’t push me, I don’t think I would. ..
HAUGH: Well, good. Us widows have to stick together. And, again, I thank you. ..
BARNES: Oh, you’re welcome.
HAUGH: …and we’ll put this on, and we’ll have a lot of people listening and reading about all the wonderful things that
you’ve shared with us today.
BARNES: Thank you very much. This was a pleasure.

Does MPHS have photographs: Yes

Address in MP: 105 S. Elm

Birth Date: 1896

Death Date: June 1990

Marriage
Date: June 1919

Spouse: Helen Busse Biermann

Children:

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:
Frank Biermann came to Mount Prospect in 1911 when his father, a teamster, was hired by William Busse to grade and maintain the streets in Mount Prospect. Fred Biermann later married William Busse’s Daughter, Helen. Frank work for William Busse in his tore on the corner of Busse and Main. In 1927, William Busse split up his store, forming Busse Buick and William Busse Jr. Dry Goods. He sold his farm implement Business to Herman Meyn and his Hardware store to Frank Biermann, creating Busse-Biermann Hardware. Frank Biermann was also very involved in local organizations. He joined the Mount Prospect Volunteer Fire Department in 1915 and served for 41 years. From 1928 to his retirement in 1956 he was Chief of the volunteer department. Frank Biermann was also a member of the Lions Club for 50 years and very involved with the Mount Prospect Historical Society.  Below is a selection from an oral history interview done with Frank Biermann.

Date of Interview:                                   October 27, 1969
Interviewer:                                               Unknown

Text of Oral History:
MODERATOR: Then, Mrs. Howe, will you please present the program?
MRS. HOWE: All right. Tonight we’re very, very happy to have Mr. Biermann with us. He’s been with us all the time because he started this motley crew, shall we say. The nicest thing about Frank is that whenever you go and you say, “Frank, I need your help,” he says, “What can I do for you?” He never says, “Well, I’m kind of busy,” or, “I don’t know if I’m going to find the time,” like so many of us do. He always is there. Just as a shining example, we were out — where were we, Frank, when I asked you for the –at the board of directors meeting. I’ve got to clarify that, his wife is sitting here. At the board of directors meeting I said, “Say, Frank, I thought we had that picture of you in your fire chief uniform in our file. It’s not in there. Have you got a picture?” He said, “Yes, I think so,” and I said, “Gee, I’d like to have it.” The next morning I walked into work and the girl at the Frieden machine said, “Say, there was a man in here looking for you this morning,” and I said, “Oh, so early?” And she said, “He left this present.” I said, “Oh, good,” and here was the picture from Frank at nine o’clock the next morning, and that’s just indicative of him. If you want something done, ask a busy man. I’m not going to tell you what he’s going to tell you –I’ll let him tell you about our great fire department and all the years that he’s put in, and maybe he’ll mix in a few side remarks. Frank, come on up.
FRANK BIERMANN: This is sort of an unusual thing for me. I haven’t done this for a good many years, to talk to a public audience like this. Of course, at lot of you, I think, are good friends of mine and I’ll just try to feel more or less at home. Now, you talked about if you want something done and you want it done in a hurry, then ask me –I don’t know about that. That was orders, “I’d like to have it the first thing in the morning.” What do you do when a lady tells you she wants something right away, you get busy. Well, anyhow, I hope you folks will bear with me. I’ll try to reminisce a little bit and give you a little story of my history and the history of the fire department. When I talk about the fire department I want you to keep this in mind –I’m not taking credit for it. The boys that worked with me, they’ve got it coming as well as I have. All [of us] worked hard to make a nice department out of it, and that’s the start of my story. Now, I came here in the horse-and-buggy days. We moved to this town on March 8, 1911, and we came here with wagons. We were moved in wagons. Like you are when you have neighbors and another, everybody helps one another like you did when we first came to town here. Everybody was more like neighbors. You helped one another real close. It’s changed a little bit since then, but we won’t go into that. Neighbors would come along and they’d come along with their wagons and we’d load up and we came to Mt. Prospect. That was March the eighth. It was a fairly decent day. It wasn’t too cold. I remember it very distinctly. It was nice. We came in, and crossing over Elmhurst Road at that time we went over the railroad like you did when the Mt. Prospect Road went over the top and had to go up and then down again, and then alongside of it where the Jewel is now the road came in then past Fulle’g and then so on. Well, the reason we came here, this town was going to start to develop. The Busse brothers really went into it and started organizing real good. That’s George’s father, my father-in-law and Louie and Al and a few others. Those were the Busse brothers. They were getting ready to get this town in shape. I just want to give you just a little history of the town first, if you don’t mind and if you can bear with me. They needed a man with a team of horses who could put all his time in to help build sidewalks at that time. Now, everything was mud, prairie, corn fields and what have you, and they were building up and laid out the streets. A survey was made, so then they were getting ready to build sidewalks and they needed somebody to do the teaming. They didn’t have trucks, in those days. There were no gasoline buggies flying around like they are today. It was all done with horses. So my father-in-law –before that he wasn’t my father-in-law; he was Helen’s dad –got in touch with Dad and convinced him to sell there and come to Mt. Prospect. They got together and Dad finally said yes, so here’s how we got here. Well, that’s the start there. Now, getting back to the year 1911 when we were here, things were going along and everything was going along, so then the Improvement Association started and was organized. They were starting to take care of this — they had a lot of little things to take care of, like it was a pretty dark town. If I remember, they bought twenty-five kerosene lamps –lanterns, stands; no, they were lamps, really, on a pole –and then they had to have an individual clean them every day and oil them up and take care of it. George, you remember some of this, too. If I reminisce a little bit too much you correct me a little bit, will you?
GEORGE: I had one of those lights in front of my house.
BIERMANN: I know you did, and I’ve got a picture of that, too. So that was our lighting system in town. Now, the roads and everything was all mud. Everything was mud. They graded them. Dad did a lot of that after the survey was made. He did a lot of grading up and down, and there wasn’t much to it because it started –where the village warehouses are today is where the pickle factory was. Now, the pickle factory had great, big wooden vats. It was quite a pickle territory around here, and the farmers used to bring the pickles in and they’d put them in there. Woolrich Ta~lor, I think it was, at the time in Chicago were the ones that ran it. That’s when they’d put them in brine –the salt brine in here –and stored them. Then they’d load them on the cars and haul them into Chicago by railroad. So that was the extreme west end of town, believe it or not. The north end, of course, was Central Road. The south end was the railroad, and the east end was where the creamery was, which is Elm Street. Now, that was the size of the town when I came to town here, and you could almost shoot a rifle through and not hit anybody because there weren’t too many houses. Well, anyhow, the population at the time, as I remember it, was 149 in 1911. That isn’t very many, but they were very progressive. They wanted to make a nice town out of it, and everybody got busy. The Improvement Association came along and got things rolling, and then, of course, now in 1913 — September 29 of 1913 –was when the fire department started getting organized. They got together and wanted to organize a fire department, so they met in the old schoolhouse –the white schoolhouse that used to stand on Main and Central. They organized a meeting there, and when they did –I made a few notes. If you’ll pardon me, I’ll try to read off some of them. The first meeting at the public school was held for the purpose of organizing a fire department. Now, Joey Hart was elected chairman pro tern. That was the brother of Berth~ Hart. John Pullman –I tried to get him to come here tonight –he was the first secretary. In fact, he served on the village board later, too. But he called me today, and he said, “Frank, I can’t make it.” I said, “Well, I’m sorry that you can’t, John. I probably needed you to back me up on some of these dates.” I can’t fib too much anyhow because two of my former bosses are here. There are two ex-mayors here. See them? I’ve got to be careful what I say or I’m liable to get in trouble. All right, then a committee was appointed to draw up sets of rules and regulations, and the meeting was to be held on November 8th. They started to progress pretty fast. Now, here are the few members that I’m going to mention who were at the first meeting who were elected November the eighth. C. D. Busse was elected chief. A lot of people remember Chris. Joey Hart was assistant chief –that’s Bertha’s brother. John Pohlman was secretary. L. W. Haberkamp was treasurer. Now, that’s Ed’s brother. Somebody said it was his father, but that’s his brother. A. E. Busse was engineer –Emma’s husband. He was elected the first engineer. Charles Sieloff was captain. See, they already had ideas. They were electing their boys for respected positions. They didn’t have anything to work with, but they were getting organized and I give them a lot of credit for that. Herman Mein was another mayor here. He was a fire chief, too, at one time. He was first nozzleman, the first nozzleman. Ernest Busse was a member, Albert Wille was a member. Conrad Englekink, Henry J. Hart –now, that’s another brother of Bertha. Christ Wille –another Wille boy; Albert and Christ were both in there –and William Busse, Jr. Now, that’s the list I took out of the original minutes book, which I had and it’s still at the fire station. There was the organization of the fire department when they started out. The first meeting after that –that was November 8, and on November 21 — now, they were getting busy, right away, bing, bing, bing. They were going to get organized. Well, here they are. They Improvement Association was asked to buy six lanterns for them. There’s something about that lantern business –that’s coming in later. I’ll tell you that after a while. In 1914 –see, we’re in 1914 now, January 7 –a committee of three was appointed to investigate an engine; some kind of an engine that was for sale at Glenview. I don’t know what it was. I don’t remember because I wasn’t in at that time and there is no report in the minutes of what happened to that. But they did in 1914 –the exact date I don’t know, but they did purchase the old hand pumper. You’ve seen it. You’ve seen pictures of it –it’s in the fire station today –with the side pump on it and one thing and another. They bought that from Niles Center, which is now Skokie, for sixty bucks. Think of it! It was a good buy in those days. They were progressing right along. They got a fire engine, and now they need a bell to notify the members that there is a fire. They purchased a bell, and here is where it comes in, from Arlington Heights. Paul Holstein was authorized to buy the bell from Arlington Heights for the sum of eight dollars so evidently there was a little finagling going on there. So they bought the old first fire bell for eight bucks. They were going along pretty good, and in January of 1915 here they come along and they bought two axes, two , a ladder, and so forth, and they started building it up. It was building up very nicely. Well, then, of course, like every ambition is, a boy either wants to be a policeman, a fireman, or something like that. I got into that. So then I became old enough so I was able to do it, so I turned in my application and, by golly, they took me on. So in 1915 on February 4 I became a member, and I was a member on that until I retired in 1956, January 31, which is quite a while. All right, now they were getting organized again –and I remember this, now. I’m-starting to get organized in it, and I like it –I still love it –and that was my ambition to protect life and property, and I still enjoy it. It gets in your blood. You just can’t shake it, that’s all. It’s part of you. You live with it. You sleep with it. If it wouldn’t be for my wife here to make [it to] a good many fires. How many times she didn’t hold my pants out so I could jump in it, believe me. I had to go. When that whistle goes you go, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t because you should. If you want to be a good citizen, that’s your duty. All right. Christ Wille. Good old Christ. He was appointed to install the bell. Now, look at that. That bell must have been lying around and they didn’t know where to put it. They got permission to put it in the first village hall which was Wille’s hall. Do you remember? Where Wille’s are now they had a building there and they had a tower, and they put that bell up in there. So every time there was fire somebody had to go over to Wille’s hall and start ringing that bell. Of course, if the wind was blowing pretty hard it was pretty hard to hear that bell with all the windows closed. But anyhow, it worked out. Now, for quite a while there, like all minutes in all organizations, you get a lull. There isn’t too much activity. You kind of go along, just kind of dormant-like. Well, we were dormant for a certain while until all of a sudden we started getting some fires. Every time they have a fire it peps you up. It really does. It gets you. You get stagnant if there is no activity, no fires, no business, see. That was our business to fight fires. Well, anyhow, that happens once in a while, and in this case here started to get prairie fires, and one thing and another. This was in 1918. At that time I wasn’t  out here all the time. I had a little job in the city. I worked for a bank downtown, the Continental Commercial Bank, for about seven years. I was in there and I wasn’t much good out here, but I did help out nights when they did have something. Well, I came out one Saturday afternoon, I think it was an early train about three o’clock or something, and 10 and behold, driving down, coming into town, I happened tolook out there and here was a straw stack on fire –Herman Earlyking’s. That’s at the 800 block of East Prospect, in that neck of the woods. That’s where Herman Earlyking’s farm was. It was pretty close to the barn. I got out, and, of course, you tear right over there and you try to help. Here they were over there with that little hand pump. Fellows were running with pails, pulling that thing, and we had a little ten-gallon priming tank, is what I’d call it. It was just enough to prime the thing and get it going, and then you were supposed to drop it in a cistern. That was another thing that I’ve got to go into a little later, too. Well, anyhow, that was our first fire. That pepped us up again, when you did something like that, so then you start getting some more committees together and you go out and you want to buy something better. You’ve got to improve this. This is too much money business. You stand there and you don’t get to first base with the thing. You pump, and everybody’s got to run with pails and fill the thing up. You know how it is. There is just a little bit of water. It’s an awful feeling when you just run out of water and you want to put something out and you get it about half out and then your water is kaput and then you’re done and you feel like a heel. You don’t want to be around then. Well, anyhow, we made it all right anyway. So then we come along to after Herman Earlyking’s –and he was very satisfied because we saved his barn. The barn didn’t burn. We were able to cut it off enough to keep that up and stay around and knock that out for him. I want to tell you another thing, now. With this little side pumper that we had, if you notice there used to be a rope on it. I don’t know whether they have it on there or not. They told me they were going to put it on but they never did. I think it’s in the way. When you pull it — when the call was for the fire of the thing, you had to pull it by hand, naturally. We had no gasoline trucks or buggies to pull it then. It was just horse-and-wagon days. So most of the time in a small village like ours you’d pull it out. Well, Herman was a little far down there, so I got to a point where I said, “By golly, if that happens again we’re in trouble.” Did you ever try to run all you can and pull on the thing in back of you? It’s a small wagon, say, for instance, a mile. Doggone it, you’re tuckered out. By the time you get there you ain’t got no ambition to fight a fire.” All right. So then in November then they go going to get . people out to get subscriptions and see if we couldn’t buy something better. Well, we got a committee appointed and one thing and another, and they got busy. The committee worked, the committee on subscriptions, and we told them what we wanted. Well, we bought a Buick chassis from the Busse Motor Sales –William Busse & Son at that time. We bought a 1915 Buick chassis, a truck. On that we mounted two forty-gallon soda acid chemical tanks with 200 feet of one-inch chemical hose and a two-inch section hose –a hard section hose. No, that two-inch section hose was on that little hand pumper. But we had pails. That’s right, we had pails on that. There is where you would have soda acid. Are you familiar with that, where you put soda in one and then an acid, and when you dump the acid bottle in it mixes with the soda water and it builds up pressure? When it does that it builds up, oh, quite a bit of pressure, and you’d better have that nozzle when that happens or you won’t have a tank left neither. I found that out, because it gets pretty dangerous. You can get about 200 pounds of pressure there in no time. Well, anyhow, we fought with that in several places. The Rev. Miller’s fire one time, his parsonage over there at St. Paul’s got going, and we got in there. You do more damage I with soda acid than you do with putting the fire out, believe it or not. We put the fire out but by the time we got through all the upholstery and carpets were ruined because that sulfuric acid really eats everything to pieces. Now, if anybody had any doings with soda acid you know what I’m talking about. It’s a good extinguisher but it does a lot of damage, too, believe me. It’s effective because you create your own pressure and you put out the fire and that’s it. But as I say, you do as much damage with acid as the fire does sometimes. So we kind of got away from that, too. We went along pretty nice –excuse me for referring to notes, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself neither. Oh, yes, then we got into ’19 or so, there we had another lull there. There wasn’t too much from 1918 till 1920. Then electricity came into the picture, too, there a little bit. In 1921 we purchased our first electric siren. That was another thing we needed. We had a lot of trouble with notifying the boys there was a fire. About two or three would make it and there wasn’t enough help, and we got into trouble in that respect so we had to turn around and get some other equipment. So we bought an electric siren, and we had this siren mounted in back of the old bank building. Do you remember the old bank building that stood on Main and Busse, that little bitty building? And on the telephone pole right next to the sidewalk we had this siren mounted, with a switch high enough so the kids couldn’t get at it. It took a good-sized man to reach up there, about seven or eight feet up. Still the kids would try to climb up there and hit it. Well, anyhow we got along all right, and that went along for some time. And then we had signals. Three blasts was a~, and that was all  right. One long and one short was the west side, I think it was, where the big tower was. Was that west side, east side? We didn’t have it on the north side or south side, that was I the only thing. It was just east and west. One long and one short was the west side. Now, that meant from Main Street, of course. One long and two short was east of main street, and one long was out of town. There you are. Those were our signals. Believe it or not, we were progressing right along. We had to do the best we could. So we went along, and we had forest preserve fires and everything under the sun. We went along all the way up till 1922, and that’s when one of our mayors, Herman Mein, was elected chief, in 1922. The 1921 fires –I’ll go back one more year there, I see in the note here –the Burke property, Rev. Miller’s parsonage, which I mentioned. That was in 1921. Northwestern Light & Power, oh, that’s a good one. That was on September 21, 1921. Up to that time Mt. Prospect –maybe you don’t want to hear about that, do you? MODERATOR: Sure!
BIERMANN: On September 21, 1921, we had a fire at the Northwestern Light & Power Company. Now, that was located right where the present water tower is, right there. It was owned by the Improvement Association, more or less. The members of the Improvement Association had stock in that. Everybody had a chance to buy a share of stock in that. It was a stock company. So, we had our own electric light plant in this town up to that time. Lo and behold, we had that fire and that was kaput. They absolutely burn out. Well, then the public service company at that time came in and they negotiated and took the franchise, and, by golly, we had electricity then that stayed with us quite a bit, and we’ve got it yet. So that’s when the public service company which is now Commonwealth Edison came into the picture after that time. So we had that to contend with, too. We couldn’t stop that because that was done by the time we got there. Oh, we had a lot of fires. We had a Chicago & Northwestern caboose fire, and they reimbursed us twenty-five dollars for that, too, believe me. That was in 1922. We had another occasion, too, with the Northwestern one time. An engine was working down here and [it] ran out of water. They stopped in town here and, by golly, they were stuck. They didn’t have any water. They either had to pull the [engine] or do something, so they came running over and they wanted the fire department to get any water. Well, fortunately, we had our water works in then, so right at Kruse’s corner there, the engine was there, and we got over to the fire department and filled up that engine with water so they could proceed on. So in an emergency we were there, too, once in a while, even in those days. We were some good. Now we get along in 1922, and, oh, boy, here is where the village started appropriating money for us. That was something. Seven hundred bucks we got appropriated,. How do you like that deal? Isn’t that something? We’re going along now. And then they got rich and we started having banquets and one thing or another, drills. Then we purchased another siren, a good one, which we put on the water tower. That was $308.75. We spent money then, believe me. That was a lot of dough in those days. That siren lasted for a good many years; in fact, the siren yet is over on the water works over here on Pine Street right now, that same old siren. I think they use that just for CD purposes now –Civilian Defense. I’m pretty sure. So we were starting to get paid for making fires now. I don’t remember just what the beginning was. I think it was two or three dollars a run or something like that. I think the chief got three, the captains and lieutenants got two, and the men got one dollar or something like that. I don’t know. It was something along that line. Anyhow, we had a payroll in 1928 of $124.50. That’s what it cost the village for our fire department for personnel. That was all right, wasn’t it? We went along fine. Now, in 1928 that’s where we got a little bit perturbed with the old soda acid stuff, and one thing or another, and we wanted to get something better. So the fire department went to the village board and the village board agreed to have a meeting. We called a special meeting for the citizens for the idea of discussing the idea of a new piece of fire apparatus. That was fine, so we got out and got signatures for a referendum and, by golly, the bond issue went through and we were lucky. We were very happy about that because we immediately got busy then and started negotiating for bids on trucks. Of course, we bid on the American of France at that time. That’s the old 9usse-wa~. We used to call it “Betsy.” But the American of France was the first one we had, and it was between American of France and Peter Pirsch. We had our ifs and ands, and even in the fire department we were split a little bit there because one wanted this and one wanted that. Finally, when the recommendation went into the village board Pirsch went in and was favored. I think yours truly had an awful lot of gumption. and I fought for that American of France like tooth, nail, and everything I could because I could see that that was the best deal all the way through — my opinion was. In fact, I was appointed engineer to investigate it, and on the committee and everything else, so I just got in and I worked hard and I sold the village board on it. The village board listened to me and they bought American of France. Boy, was I in the dog house. They were going to throw me out, and everything under the sun. Well, anyhow, I made it and we got it patched up. As I say, anything I did was for the good of the department, and I won’t take credit for nothing myself. The department, too. I had some boys that after a while realized this and said, “Well, I think you’re all right. You made it all right.” I’m thankful for it because I’m very happy it happened the way it did because we still have American of France equipment, and I’m very much sold on it today. As far as I’m concerned, it’s good stuff. It’s good equipment. So then we started having carnivals. We needed hose, and what have you. We helped buy this, too. At that time we were running dances and stuff. So we ran a carnival. At our first carnival our receipts were $615.00. Boy, that was dough. We bought a lot of hose. In those days we could buy, I think, a foot of two-and-a-half inch, double-jacketed hose, which was the best –double-jacketed could stand a lot of pressure –for, I think, a dollar a foot. We could buy it for a dollar a foot then. I don’t know what it is today. I bet it’s six or seven bucks, if not more. We got that, and Will Haberkamp’s greenhouse had a fire, too. That was December 29, and we worked hard on that. Arlington Heights came down and helped us. They did~. Wheeling came down and helped us, and poor Wheeling got froze up. Their truck froze up solid as the dickens. The couldn’t even pump. Anyhow, they were real nice. Then around 1931 we disposed of our chemical truck. Am I taking too long?
MODERATOR: No!
BIERMANN: Really?
MODERATOR: Keep going.
BIERMANN: If I do I’ll cut it short.
MODERATOR: 1969.
BIERMANN: I wasn’t in that long, Doc.
MODERATOR: We have the other side of the tape to go. You haven’t finished one side.
BIERMANN: All right. Now, in 1931 our carnival receipts went up a little bit. We had $704.00 bucks. See, we’re
getting a little bigger. A little more. People are starting to come out and really spend money with us. Oh, yes, here’s  good one. In September –you know, we usually have an annual banquet, the firemen. We got so that we had a little money, we were working hard, and we put together and we used to have banquets. We’d get a pretty good meal for a buck and a quarter apiece in those days and get a nice turkey or duck dinner, or something like that. We used to have it, and at this particular time we went to Neumeier’s place. Now, Neumeier is where –what’s the name of that place across from. ..?
MODERATOR: El Rando.
BIERMANN: No, the little one. Is that El Rando?
MODERATOR: Yes.
BIERMANN: EI Rando, okay. We were at EI Rando, but that was 1933, November the twenty-third. I’ve got the date and everything here. We got a call over there, “A fire in town!” You know what happened, everybody out. The poor women sat there, those men were all gone and they had all the duck. We busted down there, and here it was a fire at Wolf’s residence. That’s the corner of Lincoln and Ioca, I think it was, if I remember. Lincoln and Ioca, the Wolf residence. A bad fire. It started in the basement and ran up the front steps and the upstairs, and it was going like the dickens. Nobody was home. The neighbors saw it and called, so we got over there and got in there. Well, the first thing we did, which we were supposed to do, which my command always was, is to be sure and have your line charged all up –your water; your line filled with water –before you start opening up a building, because the minute you open a building with a fire and it gets oxygen, away it goes. Now, you need three things for fires: You need fuel, heat and oxygen. Take one of them away and you haven’t got a fire. You’ve got to have every one of the three. So, always have your hose ready the minute you open a house. All right. Doug Budlong, you know. ..
BIERMANN: …and then we split our department into two companies. What are you going to do, run this thing forever? We split our department in two companies because we had two motors –two apparatuses, so we had two companies. We had so many men on this and on that. I think it was ten or fifteen on each one, or something like that, because I had about thirty members when I was one. Well, that’s so much of the early fire league. I’m holding too long. It’s after nine here. In 1937 now we start getting out in the country and we start having a lot of trouble –you know, boys getting hurt and cut –so we more or less drafted a doctor into the organization. We got Dr. Wolfarth to come and become a member, and he was very loyal to us and helped us an awful lot. He gave us a lot of first aid setup. We bought an inhalator and went out and did some inhalator work. It went along real good. He’s done an awful lot. We have an awful lot of inhalator work, too, when people got heart attacks and asthma attacks. And too much liquor once in a while, they would call up and get sick, you know, and then the mother wouldn’t know what was wrong with the young guy I and they found out that he was liquored up a little bit too much. We had that to contend with, too, not only –the ladies once in a while. We had a lady once –I probably shouldn’t mention this; this is kind of rude –but out here on Higgins Road we got a call one time, an inhalator call down there. Somebody was desperately sick. We didn’t know what it was, so all right, the inhalator went out there with the emergency unit, and Doc Wolfarth went along, you know. He didn’t make the truck. He was right in back of us with his car. We got out there, and there was a woman in a bathtub and she wouldn’t get out. She wanted to commit suicide and drown. She had had too much liquor. She just got fed up with somebody, I suppose, and she got out of her mind. So we had her to contend with. We had to get her in a blanket and get her into bed and take care of her. Can you imagine trying to lift a woman, nude, out of a bathtub? So we had all kinds of things to contend with, believe me. Talk about being a doctor, they can have it. I’ll go along being a fireman, and that’s it. I just rang that in. Maybe you’d  enjoy it and maybe you wouldn’t. We run into funny things. I’m not kidding you. On the south side here –I happened to think of that just now, too. Now, Esmond (2.50) at that time was lieutenant, and we had two brothers who had gotten in a , scrap. They were home, visiting with their mother, and I ! don’t know what happened. Two brothers got in there and they started scrapping, and they started slugging one another and the mother fainted. She went out like a light, and we were called. We got over there, and Doc was in the back. I think Doc Ba~nola was with us that time. By the way, we had two doctors, too. Bagnola came in for a while, too, and I think Doc Ba~nola was with us that time. We went into this place, and the mother was in there and we started giving her oxygen and some tried to revive her. She was fighting it off like the dickens, and Doc has his stethoscope on her and was checking her allover. He started shaking his head all the time, and I was thinking, Whatls the matter here? He said, “I don’t know, there is something funny here.” It turned out then we found out. It disturbed her so that her two boys were fighting, it just worked her up to a point where she just went out. I guess itls possible to do that. So then we found out what it was, so then the two boys –one was outside and the other one came in, and we asked them, “Whatls the idea of disturbing your mother like that, to put her into a trance like this?” He said, “Well, weill do it again.” I said, IIOh, you will, will you?” I said, “Esmond, take care , of these two boys. II You know how Esmond is a great big fellow yet. He got over there, and he said, “You fellows, if I catch you once more doing a thing like this, youlre both going in the hoosegow. Believe me or not, Illl take care of you both.” So I guess he got that one straightened out. But that shows you what happens. What we donlt get called for once in a while when youlre on the fire department! Everything under the sun. Emergencies. A cat in the tree? Oh, God. Welve had those, too. When they get hungry they come down, donlt worry. Oh, yes. In 1945 the department had to become a corporation. We started getting in the real estate business. We were looking for a better site. We were in that little pump house, one thing or another. We had to get something going here that was more modern, and we needed room. We had two trucks, and we didn’t know what to do with them. So, we had some property we had bought on Main Street where the theater is now. We owned a couple of lots in there. Do you remember that, George? I’ve got a real estate man here. We’ve got to keep me straight here, see. I’ve got to be careful what I say here. I’ll get in Dutch. We bought that property, and after viewing it and figuring it out, one, two or three, or it wasn’t the right spot anyhow. We didn’t know. So my father-in-law, I discussed it with him a little bit and he said, “Oh, boy. Don’t put it there. It’s right on Main Street. It’s too crowded,” and what have you. He said, “I’ve got some property over here. I’ll figure out what I want for it and I’ll give you fellows a good proposition on it.” And he did, and that’s the present site, where the village hall is today. The fire department bought that property and donated it to the village, and it cost us fifteen thousand bucks, believe it or not. In that day it was a lot of money, too, but it was a good buy if you figure it out. Even at that time he practically gave us a good buy on it, wouldn’t you think so, George? And you know, I have something here that I treasure.
GEORGE: I would have paid him more money than that for it.
BIERMANN: I know you would have. A contract for real estate. I have it in my possession yet. Now, I happened to be appointed one of the trustees, and Herman Mein was the other one, that handled the real estate, and one thing or another, of the Mt. Prospect Volunteer Fire Department, and I have the original sales contract on that particular property, and there is a clause in there I am going to read to you. It refers to lots 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 in block 12 of Busse-Wille’s subdivision, section 12, town 41, range east …and so on going. Fifteen thousand bucks. “It is expressly agreed and understood that the deed conveying the above-described property will contain a clause restricting the use of the property to the erection of a municipal building or buildings by the Village of Mt. Prospect,” but it can’t be used for nothing else. Don’t you think that’s a good idea? After we gave it to them that’s what we wanted it for, and they did it. All right. It was real nice of them. We got going –let’s see, who was mayor then? That was Penn. Penn was mayor. By golly, thank you. You helped me out there again, too. See, isn’t it nice to have fellows here that can prop you up a little bit, see, and hold you? Then we start planning a new fire station, and then by that time the village got interested. Fine, they’re going to build a building. We were going to go ahead and build our own building. We’d have done it, too –believe me, we would. We were ready to go. So they came along and they got interested. They got her interested to the point that they turned around and had a referendum on it, and they floated a bond issue on it for $145,000. Does that sound right?
GEORGE: That’s right.
BIERMANN: All right. They completed the building January 11, 1949, and had the first meeting in there. We were the happiest guys on earth. We had a new fire station, a new city hall, and we had that occasion. Boy, I’ll tell you, our chests were out farther than it ever was in all our lives. Then the 1960s came along and we put an addition into it, and that cost $195,000. So then things went along, went along and went along, and in 1965 they got the new fire station. Now I’m going to head out and quit because I think you’ve heard enough. From now on it got more or less modern. Oh, goodness gracious, it’s nine-thirty, folks, and I need a rink of water or something here. I’m getting dry.
MODERATOR: Tell us about the lanterns.
BIERMANN: Oh, the lanterns? All right. Well, anyhow, this was before we bought our first piece of equipment. Is that what you mean?
MODERATOR: Yes.
ERMANN: The bylaws and rules and regulations went something like this: The chief was supposed to route the way I to the fire. Now, he’s supposed to know everything. I don’t I know how he does, but he’s supposed to. That’s according to them, yes. Carry the lantern and run –oh, thank you very, very much. I hope I don’t make the rest of you dry. Oh, that was good. We put out fires with that, too, you know. Well, anyhow, run ahead, and the fellow is supposed to come along in back of it with the equipment then, and the first man is supposed to be the nozzle end there, and the other ones start pumping, then they had ten gallons in the restaurant for the cistern. You see, where the closest cistern –oh, yes. Years ago everybody had a cistern, either one in the ground outside or one inside the house. I remember ours. We had an old galvanized one in our house at 117 South Maple where we moved to. You went in from the town and we used to live at that house that used to stand right where the parking lot of the post office is now, right across from the city hall. And, by the way, I don’t think there were any houses east of us then, George, except the creamery was over there then.
GEORGE: No, Fredricks on the corner.
BIERMANN: Oh, yes, north, but I mean east.
GEORGE: No, that came a little later.
BIERMANN: That came later, is right. No, Scharinghausen was there on the corner. Scharinghausen was on the corner of Evergreen, and that was there. Herman, he was cheesemaker there, remember?
GEORGE: Was he there then?
BIERMANN: Yes, he was there. That was on the corner. I remember that very distinctly. Herman Scharinghausen was on the corner. What was I talking about?
MODERATOR: The lanterns.
BIERMANN: Oh, the lanterns. Okay. A cistern. You had to have a cistern to pump water. You can look at it sometime when you’re at the station. It had a little priming tank in there, about ten gallons you’d pour in there with pails. You always had pails setting on there, too, years ago, and you’d run and get [water] so you’d get the thing primed, and then you’d throw the two-and-a-half inch line down into the cistern and then you’d pump. How long will a cistern last on a big fire? Well, anyhow, we had, I think, an inch-and-a-half discharge on there with a small tip on it, which was fair. So that was it, that’s about the nozzle end of it. Friends, it’s been a pleasure tonight to talk to you, and it’s been my ambition all my life to help build up this village. I always say this: Fire prevention, we worked on that very hard. I even had a little sign put on that old pumper that I was talking about, “If we do our part, fires won’t start.” There is a lot of truth in that, and I mean it. If you just watch out, because it’s negligence and if people are too complacent about things they happen. I’m going to close with that, and I’m going to thank you. You’ve been a nice audience. I hope I did something tonight. I don’t know. I tried to help.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Biermann.
BIERMANN: You’re very welcome.
MODERATOR: Thank you, too, Mr. Biermann. Will there be any more business to come before the meeting? If not, then we stand adjourned.