Wilmette Public Library Local History Digital Collection

Frances A. Goodhue (1886-1983) oral history

Description

Track 4

Track 4

Transcription

TRACK 4


 
RA: His company was the first company to manufacture electrical refrigeration of some kind. The McCalf family too, I believe, was in wholesale refrigeration.
 
FG: I wonder if they were connected with Central Cold Storage? It's just a name to me but I know it was something to do with my father's interests.
 
RA: I don't know, and unfortunately Mrs. Burgess is gone, but at one time she did tell me much about the refrigeration business. And in reading Colleen Kilburn's book on Joseph Sears of Kenilworth, she mentions the fact that there was a man let's see…there was a connection there somehow, but I'm not too clear about this. But umm….the Scheidenhelm's you knew of course. And Mrs. Scheindenhelm told wonderful stories about…Tell me what the celebrations were like in the village at that time….Fourth of July celebrations. Was there a celebration?
 
FG: Oh yes they had one over in the park. Of course, the park wasn't as big in those early days. You know there were some houses that faced …
 
RA: The lake?
 
FG: South…it would have been south. Well some of those facing the lake are still there, but the ones that were facing south were all taken out and the part of the park that would be just to the south of their country club
 
RA: They're south of Lake Ave. Right….
 
FG: I mean south of Fourth street. [indistinct]
 
RA: South of Lake Ave. It runs into the water works, I believe. There was a row of houses that is now park where you go into the parking lot. I remember those. And there were oh, about six or seven of them all along in there. 

FG: Quite a number
 
RA: And then they bought them for the park. And by that time the back yards of most of those houses were gouged out
 
FG: Yes going down
 
RA: And people could see the handwriting on the wall if something wasn't done. But when the Park Board took over they started letting the sand take over and the dredging of the canal for the harbor helped too and they built it I believe someone told me
 
FG: It was a long process making that harbor
 
RA: Dredged
 
FG: Dredged. It needs it quite often now I understand
 
RA: They do do it.
 
FG: Oh I remember once, this was when my sister Abby and her husband Jim Crossley were already in their home out here and I had gone with them and some man and we'd gone to the theater in the city. And we got to Central St. and thought we were going to get a little trolley that ran up to Wilmette, I remember. Well anyway, the canal was already dug, the water was not in it. But the bus had stopped running. It was midnight. And there was nothing for us to do but to walk across that tressel all the way across that cut. We had a great time. Getting home.
 
RA: Then when, in the beginning, the El did not come all the way to Fourth and Linden. It came to Central Street. 

FG: That's right
 
RA: I though I had remembered coming to the end of the El at Central St. when I was in high school and had come to a Northwestern football game. And that that was as far as it went.
 
FG: That's right
 
RA: But then there was some kind of a little trolley
 
FG: Yeah there was
 
RA: .. that ran? But not at night?
 
FG: No. That's right. Not after midnight. We figured that out…
 
RA: I see. And when Frances, then did it come all the way through?
 
FG: [pause] I'm entirely vague on the year. But it did come through, and we were all very grateful to have it.
 
RA: Yes..but it took quite a while didn't it?
 
FG: Yes it took quite a little while. Because, of course, the town didn't like it at all. It was going to turn us into a second Wilson avenue. We were quite sure of that. We were just as sure of that when the Linden Crest was built at Fifth and Linden. Having an apartment building there, you know...
 
RA: A highrise!
 
FG: It was just going to spoil the whole town

Creators

Goodhue, Frances A., 1886-1983, Interviewee

Adler, Rhea Saul

, Interviewer

Karen Miller

, Transcriber

Media Type

Audio

Text

Item Type

Audiocassettes

Description

Interview with Frances Goodhue by Rhea Saul Adler about 1977 in Wilmette, Illinois. Transcribed by Karen Miller, June 2009.

Place of Publication

Wilmette, Illinois

Date of Original

1977

Subject(s)

Oral histories
Wilmette (Ill.) -- Residents

Local identifier

R 977.31 GO

Language of Item

English

Geographic Coverage

Bahai Temple

Illinois, United States

Latitude: 42.07447 Longitude: -87.6845

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Copyright Date