The Surprising History of My Home Town

The thing about a home town is its randomness.  I could just as easily have been born to a different family in a different city in a different country. Sometimes I think about how lucky I was to be born me instead of, say, the unwanted child of a Romanian peasant or one of the street kids of Rio de Janeiro or even the kid three doors down the block whose parents hated him for being gay.

The village I was born in was Maywood, Illinois.  Well, the hospital my mother went to to deliver me was in Melrose Park, Illinois, the adjacent Chicago suburb notorious for its connection to The Mob, but our home was in Maywood.  It’s a good thing I learned to love the place, because, just like everybody else, I had no say in the matter.   One day I simply became aware of my surroundings and was taught to recite my address.  For the longest time, I believed the 18 mile distance between our house and the Chicago Loop was about as far as one could travel in one day, it was so far.

This week, sixty-six years later, I received from my cousin a link to a large collection of vintage historical photographs posted by a Facebook friend who also grew up in Maywood.  Swells of nostalgia washed over me like a Maui surfer’s dream wave as I moved from picture to picture.  They drew me in and captured my attention for hours at the end of which I had learned more about my hometown then I had ever thought to ask.

The Village of Maywood is an Illinois home-rule corporation that was organized on October 22, 1881. The Village is named for May, the deceased daughter of Colonel William T. Nichols, Maywood's founder.  Colonel Nichols was a State Representative and Senator from Rutland County, Vermont.  He served with the Vermont Volunteers during the Civil War.  In 1868, Colonel Nichols and six other men came to Illinois from Vermont and formed the Maywood Company, which developed the Village.[1]

Surrounded by large parcels of farmland, the Maywood Company constructed homes typical of the times:  American Foursquare, some embellished with a few touches from the by-then-dated Victorian style.

 Figure 1: The third house built in Maywood in 1870 still stands today and is occupied by a local minister. (Vintage-Historic photos from Celia Elizabeth Leon-Mason's collection)
 
Many of Maywood’s buildings were done by prominent “Prairie School” architects of the time including William Drummond, John S. Van Bergen, Isabel Roberts, Thomas E. Talmadge, Vernon S. Watson and the much beloved Frank Lloyd Wright, who lived in the neighboring Village of Oak Park, a little more than 5 miles away.  Later I will reveal a recent discovery about the surprising connection between Wright and my very own family.

Figure 2 Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park home (Wikipedia)

 In 1887 my great grandparents, Iva and Amanda Hurst bought a home on 13^th Avenue in Maywood.  Although Iva was from England, he was a descendant of a Moor and therefore considered by Americans to be Negro.  At the time there were only two or three blocks in the village designated for black newcomers, but the village has always prized its early history of diversity in a thoroughly segregated Chicago and vicinity.  Great Grandmother Amanda, also from England, was Caucasian, but her choice of husband restricted her movements within Maywood society to the same small area . 

The Hursts became known as The First Black Family of the Village of Maywood and were honored as such at a recent gala.

  Figure 3: Amanda Croucher Hurst, my great grandmother

It is easy to understand how difficult it would be for any descendant of Iva and Amanda to fly under the radar in the neighborhood.  "You're a Hurst, aren't you?" was a frequent question from people who already knew the answer.  It was both a blessing and a curse, although I have always been profoundly proud of our history.  The longevity of our residency gave us status with both white and black residents who had been around for similar lengths of time.  Although Maywood grew to a whopping 27,000 residents over the years, back in my day everybody knew everybody else or knew someone who did.

The proverbial unlocked doors and the storied discipline from the handiest mom or dad in the block were all absolutely true for us.  If Mrs. Foster caught one of the kids in my family outside misbehaving in some way, our parents would know about it before we could get home.

We were Catholic, so for a lot of reasons I have gone into in other posts, the Hurst children (no matter that my sister and I had a different last name) all went to the only local Catholic school to which we were welcome.  We were still among a very few black kids enrolled; I can name them all from memory.

                                                

Figure 4: St. James Catholic Church and School,

where the nuns laid my educational foundation  

(Vintage-Historic photos from Celia Elizabeth Leon-Mason's collection)

This picture of St. James must have been taken years after I graduated in 1958 because the infamous fire chute is missing.  A cylindrical metal silo was stuck to the right side of the building.  It became the source of utter terror for many of us, including me.  Inside was slick like a well-maintained playground slide and was, of neccessity, spiraled for emergency exits.  The sound of the fire drill bell struck me dumb with fear.  I never emerged at the bottom without a friction burn on one or more parts of my body.

Oddly enough, the only photograph (left) of a similar contraption I found on the Internet happens to be one that Atlanta's Piedmont hospital had installed back in the same period.

 Figure 5: Proviso Township High in 1951.  It looked exactly the same in 1958 when I started my Freshman year.  (Vintage-Historic photos from Celia Elizabeth Leon-Mason's collection)

Both my mother and my grandfather attended the same high school we did.  Imagine walking into a school with 4,000 students and scores of teachers and having one of those teachers ask "Aren't you a Hurst?"  Aaarrggh!  It never ended until I left town forever.

I graduated in 1962 after a wonderful four years of intense instruction and a crammed social calendar.  It would be only five years later, after I had graduated from college and moved to Milwaukee, that I would pick up a Time magazine and read of violent full-scale race riots in those hallowed halls.   I cried.  My town, which I once couldn't wait to escape because it was so "square", had been transformed in five years time to a replica of the notorious West Side of Chicago, thanks to a combination of white flight and upward mobility on the parts of African American families seeking a better environment than the gang-infested streets of the city. 

There is only one member of the Hurst clan living in Maywood today.  My mother's first cousin, Sidney Hurst and his descendants have never left.  Cousin Sid is the same age as my mother: 86.  Mama lives in Matteson, IL now and her brother and his family live in Colorado.  But before they left, he and my aunt and my cousins lived in this Maywood home:

 Figure 6:  Current view from Google maps.  Sadly, the house has been painted in a way incompatible with its legacy. 

Before the current owners made the regrettable decision to paint the burgundy red brick white, the lines and layout of that house always made us suspect it had been designed by one of the renowned architects of the Prairie School.  Last year a neighbor called my Uncle to give him the long sought after news:  it has been confirmed that this house was designed and built by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright.  It is now listed in the historical register.

There is one more source of intense pride and sorrow for all residents of  Maywood.

Maywood was the home of the 33rd Tank Company, Illinois National Guard (Company B) which was organized on May 3, 1929 with the purpose of training men for combat. On November 25, 1940, 122 men of Company B were inducted into active service to become part of the famous 192nd Tank Battalion, which fought in the Philippine Islands during World War II.  The unit became part of the notorious "Bataan Death March" in April 1942, a horror that was later called a Japanese War Crime.  Only 41 men returned to Maywood alive.


In honor of their sacrifice, Bataan Day Parades were held in Maywood on the Second Sunday in September from 1942 to 1987.  As a member of the Proviso High School majorette squad, I had the honor of marching in that parade from 1959 through 1962.   (photo from Wikipedia)
In recognition of the enormous sacrifice endured by members of the 192nd Tank Battalion and to honor the soldiers from Maywood who died on the Bataan death march, Congress designated Maywood the Village of Eternal Light.[1]  
 

Today many of the people I went to school with who sought college educations and new horizons are returning to Maywood and working to return it to its former glory.  It will be a mighty feat.  The high school is a fortress of metal detectors and armed guards.  The diversity for which we had been so proud is rapidly slipping into a distant memory, although the complexion of the majority has changed.   

The more things change the more they stay the same...but different.  I wish I had had sense enough to appreciate what I had while I had it.  I sure do now.

Deal Signed a Raw Deal

I sat sanctimoniously sucking my teeth in disgust at Arizona, and damned if I’m not living among the same brand of muck.

The legislators of the Grate (sic or sick, take your pick) State of Georgia in their obstinate wisdom have passed a law that mimics the details of Arizona’s dangerous and mean-spirited immigration law.
On Friday, our brand new Republican Governor Nathan Deal signed HB 87 into law.  According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, like the law Arizona enacted last year, Georgia’s bill would empower police to question certain suspects about their immigration status. It would also penalize people who transport or harbor illegal immigrants in Georgia.

Much of Georgia’s bill would start taking effect July 1.

Proponents say the state needs to take immediate action because the federal government is not adequately enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. Critics say the measure is unconstitutional and will damage the state’s economy by scaring away migrant workers and conventioneers. Opponents, meanwhile, are vowing to challenge the measure in court, banking on its meeting the same fate in a federal courtroom as did the now “unconstitutional” Arizona legislation.

In the meantime, crops of peanuts, Vidalia onions and other South Georgia produce could die on the vine for lack of adequate hands to replace the migrant workers who usually pick them. That will help destroy the state’s already fragile economy.  Good move, GOP.  Weren’t you the same guys who were preaching about the importance of small businesses to the health of the nation’s economy? Talk out of both sides of your mouths much?

The Publix Heist

I was under the impression that older people are supposed to be set in their ways. They have figured everything out and are willing and able to tell youngsters how things should be done.

I find myself instead spending a lot of time examining my own reactions to things I see and hear.  Instead of making an instant judgment and moving on to the next stimulus, I mull over events as I drive, as I walk the dog, as I watch whatever mind-numbing programming happens to be on TV.

This morning after my exercise class I drove to the supermarket to do the weekly shopping chore.  I don’t know if it is because I have done this drudgery 2,288 weeks in a row or what, but I’m usually not excited about gathering the grub yet again when I pull into the Publix parking lot.  By the time I have traversed the aisles and completed my paltry selections, I have walked through the bakery department and fought the sugar demons; passed the deli holding my breath so as not to get a whiff of their insanely delicious but currently verboten southern fried chicken; and completely skipped the aisle featuring my Achilles heel, salty snacks.  In other words, I have pissed myself off.

There were only two cash registers open at this 11 a.m. slow time, so I pushed my cart up to stand behind a woman with a beautiful curly headed 18-month-old in the kiddy seat of her cart.  The woman was unloading the groceries with her right hand and holding a half-eaten apple in her left.  When she reached for the transparent plastic bag filled with more apples, I realized the woman had not brought that apple from home.  She had selected that apple from the display in the produce section.
Now I was intrigued.  Apples are charged for by weight.  Half the weight of the apple in this woman’s left hand had already been consumed, so technically she had stolen half an apple and didn’t appear to be the least bit conflicted about it.
 
When The Apple Thief picked up the bag of uneaten and unpaid for apples, she put the half-eaten apple into the bag with them and placed the bag on the conveyor belt.  The unsuspecting cashier failed to see any of this because she was busy swiping bar codes. 
The cashier’s hand hovered over the bag of apples and I held my breath a bit.  When she looked down at the bag to look for the little sticker they plaster over every single freaking piece of produce in the store, her eyes widened when she saw the bite craters in the top apple.

“Oh, the baby had that one.  She ate half of it.”  She giggled nervously.

Well, that was a damned lie and I was really torqued off at that lady, lying on that poor little girl like that.  One glance at the size of those bites on that apple belied her claim.  I knew it; she knew it and the cashier had to have known it.  

In the spirit of good customer service, I suppose, the cashier simply smiled weakly and kept scanning.
 What surprised me most about this little scenario was my own reaction to it.  I was actually fighting the urge to call that young mother out.  I was incensed, not so much by her petty theft; I mean, who hasn’t stolen a grape from a bunch to make sure they are sweet enough to buy the rest?  It was her lie.   The lie says she believed she was doing wrong and did it anyway.  

I decided it was not my place to call her out.  That’s what we tell ourselves, isn’t it, when we are reluctant to deal with the push-back in a confrontation.  I just wasn’t in the mood to argue this morning.  Obviously, it bothered me enough for me to be writing about it four hours later.  And I know why, too.

In my book, lying is way up at the top of the list of offenses that are unforgivable.  And I don’t quibble about shades of untruths.  There are no white lies in my mind, just as I don’t think the act of stealing is any more or less wrong depending on the value of what is stolen. 


And what about the child?  That mother will be all bent out of shape the first time her daughter attempts to blame a sibling for her own wrongdoing.  She will likely punish the little girl and forget completely the fact that she taught her to do it when she was back in line at Publix.

The Value of Gifts

 

My Mother's Day roses

 

The delivery man had the wrong address on his invoice, so he was calling my phone to see if I was home.  When he finally found me, he handed me a gorgeous rectangular glass vase filled with crimson roses with petals so deeply textured, they almost looked like velvet fakes.  The card was signed “Love, Me,” as they always are.  I was thrilled.

One of the perks of Mother’s Day I have come to treasure even more than this lovely gift is the assurance of a phone call from The Actor.  Never once has he failed to call if we happened to be in separate locations.  It has also become reasonable to expect the conversation will last longer than usual, which means we venture into many interesting pockets of conversational fodder.

Unless he’s George Clooney, Denzel Washington or William Shatner, an actor’s financial life is anything but predictable.  I’m pretty sure the concept of “feast or famine” was first used to describe the checkbook of someone bent on earning a living in front of the camera.

The Actor supplements his bank account between commercials, TV guest spots and movies by selling a premium hardwood flooring line to commercial developers, government building managers, and large retail store chains, among others.  He has been blessed with a gift of gab which, when combined with his aversion to the word “No,” landed him a contract with the developer of the ill-fated City Centre in Las Vegas before the bottom fell out of the economy.  The commission on that deal would put a sizeable cushion into his coffers and allow him to weather the dry spells between acting jobs for quite some time.

That was the plan.  The reality, no surprise to anyone who hasn’t been in a coma for the past two or three years, is that the City Centre developer is being sued by more sub-contractors than there are courtrooms in Vegas for non-payment.  The Actor’s commission has not been paid by his factory because the factory hasn’t been paid by the developer.  So, just like everybody else reading this post, he has had to budget his money and reign in his spending.

“Do you think it is easy for me to only send you flowers on Mother’s Day?  I hate that.  I want to do better than that.”  He said this in the middle of a rant about the state of the union.

This from the same guy who had sent me a text saying “You are not allowed to make me cry like that.  Great piece!” after he read my post on motherhood wherein I said my favorite gift of all-time from him was an hour-long drive in the Oakland (CA) hills! 


That’s when I realized, maybe for the first time, that gift-giving could very well be more about making the giver feel good than about pleasing the recipient.  My son, like many other men I’ve known, evaluates his expression of his love for me according to the cost of the gift.  How has he not noticed that I’ve kept every single thing he has ever made for me as a child?  Has he not noticed the framed crayon rubbing of an oak leaf he made in pre-school still standing displayed in the china cabinet?

I feel best about a gift when I have gone out of my way to match it to the wants and/or needs of the recipient.  My thought is that anybody can walk into a Rodeo Drive boutique in Beverly Hills and ask the salesperson which item is the “it” gift of the moment.  A sincere expression of love is far more intimate and personalized.

I love my roses and wish they would last just a little longer than they do.  But the greatest gift of all was the conversation.

A Day in May for Mothers

So Glad I'm a Mom

I have a friend who cannot have children.  Her gorgeous body took her on a wild trip when she was thirty-something and when she reached her destination she had undergone total ovarian failure.   Her way of dealing with this tragic outcome has been, I think, to believe she was never going to be a parent anyway.  Maybe not,  but I can't help feeling sadness for the loss of her ability to make that decision for herself.

Being my son's mother has been my one constant source of pure joy.  Granted, if one were to watch a video of the 41 years I have spent as Mom, the viewer might be hard pressed to identify all the joy.   I say is it is far easier to see conflict, strife, worry and disappointment than it is to see joy.  

One of our friends has an autistic child.  Although he has achieved an impressive level of functioning on the autism spectrum, he does not have the ability to connect with people; he does not hold conversations, does not show pleasure or love.  Some pity our friend, thinking she has all the responsibilities of motherhood without any chance of experiencing those special moments of connection.

But I can see the joy his mom gets from the smallest things, like turning toward a person who says something to him.  Mothers love whomever they get -- at least most of us do.

Motherhood for me has been about feeling and watching my son grow from a zygote to a fine adult man.  It has been teaching him to read when he was only four; tossing his very first pitch to his outsized plastic whiffle bat; inhaling his scent, until puberty took the pleasure out of that. 
 
Motherhood for me has been hundreds of baseball games, football games, skating contests, swim meets, snack shacks and car pools to away games.

Motherhood for me has been tears shed when he felt obtuse and rejected; when he felt the first stings of racial intolerance; when the first girl he asked out said no.   There were lots of tears, actually, but they were just as often the joyful kind as not.

Motherhood for me has been life-saving.  When my second marriage fell apart, I plunged into the deepest depression of my life and feared I would never come out of it.  My thoughts of suicide, once expressed to my shrink, nearly landed me in the hospital.  If I had gone to the hospital or if I had gone ahead and taken an early trip to heaven, my son would have been devastated.  He had already been traumatized by the divorce.  So, I took the meds, doubled the therapy and DECIDED to get better -- for my son.

Motherhood for me has been extremely fulfilling.  My son is a multi-talented ex-pro baseball player, a college graduate, an eloquent speaker and a leading-man type actor who fails to see his appeal.  That is so charming.  At 41 he still seeks my advice when he is feeling emotionally fragile and he still seems to think I hang the moon every evening.

My fondest memory of my entire stint as Mom is the Mother's Day when he was 18 years old.  Even after the divorce, my ex would take my us out for brunch; it was a long tradition.  This time my son asked his Dad to allow him to do the honors by himself.  He made the reservations .  He put on a coat and tie.  He bought me flowers and opened the car door for me to enter and leave the car.  He pulled out my chair.  And he even ordered for me, after quietly asking what I'd like.

Ordinarily on these occasions I could see the point at which my son would have had enough, would want to get home and start doing the things he like to do.  But this time he steered the car into the Oakland (CA) hills.  We drove and chatted about things he knew mattered to me.  We drove for more than an hour and he never seemed bored or distracted.  It was the most treasured Mother's Day gift I have ever received.
Motherhood has been the greatest gift of my life.

Does Friendship Demand Agreement?

December 23, 1776 

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated…

Thomas Paine wrote these words 235 years ago when the severe suffering caused by the American Revolution caused many soldiers to walk away from the fight.  It is surprising how applicable his words are to one of today’s more interesting debates in the wake of the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

The War on Terror looks, feels and smells nothing at all like the infantry-based conflicts of the twentieth century, but it is still war.  When William Tecumseh Sherman said ‘War is hell,’ he wasn’t just talking about battlefields littered with the casualties of cannons and muskets and bayonets and daggers, although he might have thought he was.  No less hellish are the challenges posed by a war with hidden enemies, covert operations, stealth tactics, and intelligence guaranteed to be refuted by somebody, somewhere.

The recent execution of Osama bin Laded has resurrected a moral dilemma for me that, in the scheme of things, is of little global consequence.  I am bedeviled, though, by the question of what to do when a valued friend in a debate takes a position I cannot fully endorse. 


I could just rely upon the teaching of my grandfather:  If you can’t say anything nice about a person, say nothing at all.  That works in polite or even impolite conversation to an extent.  But what if my silence serves as silent assent to the point of view of a person known to be my friend and ally?  In such a case, saying nothing is tantamount to telling a lie if I happen to disagree, at least in part, with what my friend is saying.  I’m not comfortable with that at all.

My natural inclination is to say something along the lines of “I love you, my friend, but this time I don’t entirely agree.”  That, in fact, is what would be required to make me feel I have been completely honest in a free exchange of ideas.  But what if the friend in question is inclined to feel betrayal instead of disagreement?  What if that friend is used to having people agree with him or her on most things and has shown a decidedly short fuse when it comes to entertaining opposing opinions?

I have noticed that many people simply say whatever they think the friend wants to hear and move on.  Those people seem to feel it is not worth jeopardizing the friendship to publicly disagree.  They find a way to couch their comments in vague terms that can easily be viewed by the friend as assent, but can always be explained away if challenged by a third party.  Doing that makes me feel as if I have let myself down.

Ideally, a true friend allows room in the relationship for all kinds of interaction, including the occasional differences in points of view.  The truth is – and I know this because I do it just as much as the next person – when a person is having a strong emotional reaction to a situation, all they want to hear is commiseration. The rest of the peanut gallery can take their opinions and go to hell!

I wish I didn’t have such a deep aversion to lying.