Wilmette Public Library Local History Digital Collection

Anna Schneider Schuett (1903-1980) and Margaret Schneider Schoenbeck (1904-1992) oral history

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Track 4, Transcript p. 11-16: Track 4, Transcript p. 11-16
Transcription: Track 4 BM: Mrs. Schuett, would you give me your parents' names, too? p.12 And tell me where they lived? AS: Rose and Peter Schneider and they lived at now what is 3100 Old Glenview Road. BM: Um hum. And he had a farm about the same size as.... AS: About the same size as her father -- that's Margaret's father.... BM: Um hum. AS: .. . .but you take -- as far as Grandpa was concerned, the real Grandpa, he owned from Hibbard Road way past Lockerbie where all the pastures were. BM: Um hum. AS: And that was all pasture - Lockerbie Lane at that time. We used to take our cow and drive it into that pasture. How many cows did you have, Margaret -- two? MS: Two. Yes. AS: Yes. And we'd all get together and put those cows every day down where it's called Lockerbie Lane now. BM: Um hum. AS: And then from there we'd bring them back at night BM: Before you went to school, you took the cows.... AS: Oh, yes. BM: .. . . down there? AS: We did that before, and then when we came home from school we had to bring them back home. BM: Um hum. AS: And all this property belonged to Grandpa Schneider - Great p.13 Grandpa Schneider. BM: Um hum. AS: So when he couldn't farm it any more, he divided it amongst the boys, didn't he - amongst all the children? MS: Yes. AS: So how many acres did each one get? MS: Six acres. AS: And this here was part of Daddy's. Right here. BM: Um hum. AS: This six acres. And they - we did the farming. BM: Um hum. AS: Of course, it was -- at that time it was -- property was not enough to farm on so they had to go out and rent a little bit, but in between Daddy used to plant - like beans -- and in between those rows he would already have a space that we could put tomatoes in between. BM: Oh. AS: We always -- our farm was always doubly farmed all the way through. BM: Um hum. AS: So that gave us a lot more vegetables. BM: Oh, sure. AS: Then, Daddy would take these vegetables and take them to market. And he'd leave at 9:30 at night, didn't he? And he'd come home around -- oh, what - 11:30 the next day. p. 14 MS Yes, around noon. BM: Where did he go to market? Down in Chicago? AS: South Water. BM: Oh, the South Water Market? AS: Um hum. BM: With a horse and his wagon - with his produce on it? AS: Yes. Yes, all the produce. We'd have to load it up and.... BM: Oh, my goodness. AS: .. . .he'd take it down there. BM: When did he sleep if he didn't get home? AS: Well, that was just it. He got home at you might say 11:30 - was it the next morning? Then he'd rest a while before he went back out. BM: Um hum. AS: And sometimes they had to go, depending on how the vegetables came in - they had to go pretty near every day. MS: For a while, yes.. BM: Well, yes, when the produce was ready.... AS: And they went down with a team of horses and the wagon. And later on as we went along, we finally got one of the bigger trucks. BM: Um hum. AS: So that helped. BM: Now about how long did it take him to get down to the South Water Market with a horse and wagon? AS: Well -- 11:30 to - well, how many hours would you say they p. 15 came in? I think they came in at some time in the morning. MS: Yes, early in the morning. Around 4:00, I think they were there. BM: Um hum. MS: Sometimes they would go down there and they might get 'as much as 60 cents for a bag of corn. BM: Um hum. MS: . . . .and beans and tomatoes. AS: We'd load up so many tomatoes. BM: Did you put them in bushel baskets? AS: Never. We had to box them all up. BM: You boxed them? AS: Um hum. We had to clean them and box them all up in boxes. BM: Oh. AS: And we had to pack them with what we called packing paper. They looked beautiful. And these boxes had little cleats on top so we could stand one box on top of the other. MS: Without crushing them. BM: I see. And then he would bring the boxes back and you would have to repack them? AS: No, he'd buy new boxes. BM: He bought new boxes at the time? AS: He bought them from the box factory. Where was it - in Morton Grove? MS: Yes. They had a box factory there. p.16 BM: Oh. MS: That's where the boxes came from. They were quite expensive at the time, too. BM: Um hum. MS: So sometimes we wouldn't make any profit on it so I -- they brought things back that wouldn't sell. AS: Right. They couldn't sell it and they'd have to bring a lot of that stuff and dump it. And here we did all that hard work. BM: Yes. AS: Well, that's the way it went. BM: And with the cows, did you make your own butter? AS: Yes, all of it. BM: Cottage cheese? MS: Yes, definitely. I loved the cottage cheese (laughtert) and the cream. AS: Her mother and daddy did a lot of that cottage cheese. BM: Yes. Well, with all those children in the family, I guess they needed a lot of marvelous food. AS: And then they'd sell it if they had a lot of it. They'd sell it along the highway. MS: Yes, people that went by - that didn't have any....
Creators: Schuett, Anna Schneider, 1903-1980, Interviewee; Schoenbeck, Margaret Schneider, 1904-1992
, Interviewee; Maselli, Briggs
, Interviewer; Schuett, Anna Schneider, 1903-1980
, Interviewee
Media Type: Audio; Image; Text
Item Type: Audiocassettes
Description: Interview with cousins, Anna Schneider Schuett and Margaret Schneider Schoenbeck by Briggs Maselli on July 19, 1976 in Wilmette, Illinois.

ABSTRACT:

Grew up on farms in Grosse Point — fathers were brothers Schooling at St.
Joseph in original school building - present building is the third building on the
corner (NE) Ridge Rd. and Lake Ave. — names of early Sisters — Sister Judith,
Sister Urseline, Sister Alisetta, Sister Loretta, Sister Modesta, Sister Beatina
Original Schneider farm on Old Glenview Rd. was divided among ten children -
eight boys and two daughters of Joseph and Katherine Schneider
Corpus Christi Day - celebration with baskets of flowers strewn along parade
route (a German custom) by the whole parish - discontinued later because
automobile traffic became too heavy — May of each year after last mass on a
Sunday
Roller skating to school - long days with mass at 7:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. - all
classes taught in German — took lunch from home as it was an hours walk to St.
Joseph from 3100 Old. Glenview Rd. — if lunch forgotten, child was sent over to
kitchen at the convent and the “cook” sister would make them a sandwich —
picked apples that hung over a fence and ate on way to school - all subjects
taught in German for first two grades - from third grade only English was taught
— at home. German was used - transition was difficult - classes were 50—55
children per class — discipline strict
Pastured everyone’s cows near Lockerbie Lane before leaving for school and
upon return in late afternoon had to drive them back home
Truck farmed — had to drive produce from farm to South Water Street market on
Chicago River in Chicago - left 9:30 p.m. to arrive there before 4 a.m. — returned
home by 11:30 a.m. - produce was:. corn, tomatoes in boxes made at Morton
Grove (box factory) , carrots, beets, beans, celery
Kept cows to give milk — produced own butter and cottage cheese — chickens
produced eggs - bought sugar and salt but little else
Great grandfather Joseph Schneider had a brick bake oven in back. yard where
bread and coffee cakes were baked
Sundays went to church twice — mass in a.m. — dinner at 12 noon — vespers in
afternoon — walked from 3100 to church and back twice — weekdays began
with breakfast at 6 a.m. -plow the fields — 9:00 a.m. a little lunch - 12:00 noon
dinner - 3:00 p.m. lunch — 6:00 p.m. supper
Winter storage of vegetables in cellar and in heaps of sand and manure in yard
Livestock consisted of a team of horses, cows and pigs — butchered and made
pork—cured sausages and hams and bacon in “smokehouse” — traded at
Bleser’s and Hoffman’s — ice—boxes and ice man but in earlier years stored
milk and butter in the deep well — cellar (dirt floor) stored root vegetables -
canning from large orchard of apple, pear, cherry and peach trees with grape
vines and currant bushes
Flooded fields — barn burned, horses killed — purchased a new team of horses -
father did landscaping for Mallinckrodt and Bahai Temple and “teaming” for
Doetsch Brothers - mother a Doetsch — Mother and Anna did the farming with a
single temperamental horse — winter father worked for Cook County with his
team
Picnics at Goldbar’s Grove - July 4th, Labor Day, Old Settlers and Schneider
Family Picnic in pasture - Schneider Band played for all events.. — six of the
eight brothers were in the original band - Masked Ball - Village Hall - Grosse
Point - post office at Bleser’s store — mail picked up there
Move to “Grandfather’s house” — four unheated bedrooms — out hoUse - well
water until the 1930’s - washing in winter in shed in yard — home-made soap —
lye and lard
Place of Publication: Wilmette, Illinois
Date of Original: 19 July 1976
Subject(s): Oral histories
Gross Point (Ill.) — History
Wilmette (Ill.) -- Residents
Personal Name(s): Schoenbeck, Margaret Schneider ; Schuett, Anna Schneider
Local identifier: R 977.31 Sch
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: 1976
Copyright Holder: Wilmette Public Library
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