Wilmette Public Library Local History Digital Collection

"Taking Root in Wilmette" by Elisabeth G. Weedon, 1867-1965

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Track 4: Track 4
Transcription: TRACK 4 Northward ever northward they trekked, walking sometimes on the ties and sometimes on the cinder path until they reached a little way station, labeled Llewellyn Park. An inviting board walk here led west and they were tired of walking on railroad ties so they walked along until they saw a man and his young son chopping up a tree that had blown down in his yard. They asked the man if there were any "For Rent" signs in the immediate neighborhood. He kindly directed them farther up in the village but as they reached the next corner they saw such a magnificent tree just a little way off that they had to go that way to look at it. DA: That wasn't the tree you and I saw this year was it? VW: Oh no, dear! DA: Remember that old tree, hundreds of years old? VW: Oh yes, that was in Evanston. This tree was right after... right by Grandma's house. And I don't know whether it was chopped down before... I think maybe it was chopped down before you were born. It has a crazy history. Do you want to hear it? DA: Um hum. VA: Well it was a beautiful, beautiful tree...a great big, enormous tree. And I remember once when a man came out from Lincoln Park, and spent an entire day at one of our windows getting pictures of a robin's nest. Well we always thought it was our tree. Mother and Dad had bought the house, really, because of it. But our tree.. But when they came to build a house between our house and the one next, they surveyed and find that not a tiny piece of bark was on our property. DA: Oh dear VW: It was pretty much of a shock to us, but that was that and you know, it was a beautiful tree and you would never think of anyone cutting it down. Well that went on for years, and we still had our beautiful, beautiful tree. Course, a cottonwood is what people would call messy, but we never minded that. You know you just rake it up with the leaves. Well it went on that way until World War II. And I think this is all fiction that I'm telling you, but I mean all the side parts of this is fiction. It was really true. Well a family moved in next door with a very English sounding name, but both of them had very fine sounding voices. There were two children. They didn't have much to do with the neighbors, and once, one of the children was locked out of the front door, and came to a neighbors' to get help. And the neighbor said, "Well let's go round the back door and see if that's open." And the child said, "Oh, No! We're never allowed to use the back door!" Well the man insisted on absolute quiet at night. I remember once when your sister, Ellen, was visiting us. And 6 she was a tiny child, and she used to sing little songs in a toneless kind of way when she went to bed. And she was sleeping in the little bedroom that's nearest this house. And the man just opened the window and yelled at her, "Shut up." That was a pretty horrible experience. Well anyway, the rumor, and how it started I don't know, went around the neighborhood that he was a German spy, and that using this great big tall tree he had some sort of electronic equipment so that he could spy on our electronic equipment and perhaps send it to Germany. I don't know much about those things, but it always seemed to me to be to be very wild. I'm sure that our, whatever we had, CIA or whatever, would have been able to find it. But anyway that was...Well they moved away. And incidentally I heard later that she had a job in the government. So maybe they were government people. Our government people here, I don't know. But they moved away. And in moved a former chaplain at one of the mid-western Universities who was hated by many of the people on the campus because he was a pacifist. And of course it seemed a little funny that these people we thought were spies, and then a pacifist came in apparently. I don't know. They probably didn't know each other. But anyway, that is what happened.
Creators: Weedon, Elisabeth G., 1867-1965, Author; Vivian Weedon, 1903-1995
, Performer; Ardley, Deborah
, Performer
Media Type: Audio; Image; Text
Item Type: Audiocassettes
Description: Undated conversation between Vivian Weedon (1903-1995), and her niece, Deborah Ardley. Weedon read aloud an article written in 1931 by her mother, Elisabeth G. Weedon (1867-1965). The reading is interspersed with questions by Ardley followed by Weedon’s replies and comments. This recording is part of the Wilmette Public Library Oral History Project begun about 1974. A June, 1976 interview with Vivian Weedon’s sister, Sydney Weedon Templeton (1894-1994) is also part of the library’s Oral History Collection.
Notes: "Taking Root in Wilmette" by Elisabeth G. Weedon (1867-1965). This recording is part of the Wilmette Public Library Oral History Project begun about 1974. A June, 1976 interview with Vivian Weedon’s sister, Sydney Weedon Templeton (1894-1994) is also part of the library’s Oral History Collection.
Place of Publication: Wilmette, Illinois
Date of Original: About 1974
Date Of Event: Before 1931
Subject(s): Oral histories
Wilmette (Ill.) -- Residents
Personal Name(s): Weedon, Elisabeth G.
Local identifier: R977.31 WE
Language of Item: English
Copyright Statement: Protected by copyright: Uses other than research or private study require the permission of the rightsholder(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Copyright Date: 1974
Copyright Holder: Wilmette Public Library
Copyright Holder Contact Information: 1242 Wilmette Ave.
Wilmette, IL 60091
U.S.A.
Contact: Wilmette Public Library
Email:refdesk@wilmettelibrary.info
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