Chicago

On one of our trips back to the Midwest as a family we flew to Kansas City, visited Verner and his family (I think on that trip they took us to see the Harry Truman library) and then we rented a car and drove to Chicago. On the way we stopped at the college town in Missouri where Winston Churchill gave his “Iron Curtain” speech, and we also went to St. Louis and went up the arch.

In Chicago, we arrived just at the late afternoon rush hour, quite an experience, and we stayed at a downtown motel for a couple of nights. We took the girls to the Field Museum, and I think this was a place that really captured their interest.

One evening we had supper with my cousin Eugen and his wife Dode (Dorothy?). They lived in a high-rise apartment in the downtown area — he worked for an advertising agency in the city. I was I recall an elegant dinner and the whole family enjoyed it. Eugene was all his life a talkative extrovert and people were attracted to him. ow I have sort of a mixed regard for him. As a child I was in a way envious of him, — he seemed sort of glamorous and involved in strange places and doings. His visits to Gowrie (mostly I guess while his father was at seminary in Rock Island) were occasions to look forward to.

Uncle Serenus finished his seminary training more or less at the bottom of the Depression, and since he was no prize as far as his ministerial capabilities were concerned, found it had to get a “call” to a congregation. Actually I think it ended up in some sort of controversy if he was really supposed to be serving at the congregation he ended up at — some other minister thought that he was entitled to the post.

Anyway when the time came for Eugene to go to college (I think they were in Fresno at the time) his parents didn’t have the necessary funds so uncle Carl helped him, wither outright or by a loan. I think he was in the army during WWII but started his career in the advertising field thereafter. He seems to have been reasonably successful. I saw him only one other time since childhood days — he visited us in El Cerrito when he was on a business trip to San Francisco in connection with a [beer?] company advertising program.

His marriage to Dode seems an odd one — she was quite a bit older than he — sort of like a second mother. She was however a congenial person the one time I met her. Eugene and Dode always did a lot of traveling, but mostly outside the U.S. — they didn’t seem to report on their annual Christmas card any trips within the U.S. borders.

After he retired he and Dode moved to Canada (where she was from) and they lived there till she died some years ago. I believe he is still in Canada. One Christmas he indicated he was moving to a retirement facility in North Carolina but they he was ill and apparently changed his mind, and presently is in some sort of retirement place in Canada. He was as I recall a cigarette addict so his illness may have been connected with that.

After we left Chicago we drove to Iowa for further visiting before returning to California.