Humboldt Park, Norwegians and Leif Erikson

Humboldt Park area of Chicago housed a large Norwegian population in the late 19th and early 20th century. My grandparents lived in this area. We attended Syttende Mai (seventeenth of May Norwegian Constitution Day) parades in Humboldt Park proudly waving Norwegian flags. In the 1960's my grandfather died and my grandmother returned to Norway. By that time Humboldt Park was changing. The Norwegian population was generally gone with the exception of a few older folks. A large Polish population had also moved into the area and were now also dispersing. The area became largely Puerto Rican and remains so today although there is an influx of Mexican, Dominican and other Latino groups.

The bronze statue is 9 1/2 feet tall,
the granite boulder Leif stands on is inscribed
"Leif Erikson Discoverer of America"

In 1901 Norwegian Americans raised $10,000 dollars to erect a statue of Leif Erikson in the park. Quite a sum in that time! Norwegian born sculptor Sigvald Asbjørnsen (1867-1954) created the monument that was dedicated  October 12, 1901 amidst scores of flag waving proud Norwegian-Americans.

**right click and save to your computer where you can enlarge and read "Hearst's Chicago Morning American"**

School Days in Chicago

 

Chicago Public School - Mozart School

Mozart school is located in the Humboldt Park area of Chicago. I am guessing  this picture to have been taken about 1938. The area at the time was heavily Norwegian and it is a good bet that many of the children in this photo were second or third generation Norwegian/American. These kids have known nothing but the "Great Depression" so perhaps their smiles belied the harsh reality of life. 

Here is a close-up of my Mom, Grace Sevald. She remembered that she entered kindergarten speaking only Norwegian and she told her mother "they talk funny at this school".  She picked up English quickly.

The Syttende Mai Parade

Yesterday a Syttende Mai parade was held in Park Ridge, Illinois. I did not attend. I have not attended since the parade left Chicago. Boy, that was decades ago.

A little explanation is necessary. The Syttende Mai is the 17th of May. It is the day Norwegians celebrate the writing of their constitution in 1814. When I was a kid it was a day of national pride for those of Norwegian ancestry living in Chicago. It is hard to believe that Chicago once held a large Scandinavian immigrant population. The Swedes hung out in North Park, Andersonville and Lake View. The Norwegians were in Humboldt Park or Logan Square. In any of those neighborhoods today you would be hard pressed to find a person of pure Norwegian or Swedish blood. In a lot of ways I really wish I lived in a part of the country that still has folks that relate to being Norwegian. Stoughton, Wisconsin is one of those places. I highly recommend their Norwegian Heritage Museum "Livsreise". At the side of this blog is a link to it. But Chicago.....no.

When I was growing up those Chicago neighborhoods were already beginning to break down, turning into dirty, depressed, crime ridden areas. They were the neighborhoods of the Scandinavian grandmas and grandpas who just couldn't leave the old neighborhood even though their more educated and affluent children, now married to folks of all different back-rounds, had long since done the "white flight" thing and escaped to the suburbs. The Syttende Mai parade drew them back if only for that day. It was held in Humboldt Park and was a pretty big affair, bands, floats, dancers. We would meet in Grandpa and Grandma's apartment on Pierce Ave. and walk to the park.  After the parade we returned to their apartment for coffee and cake. Lots of fun and flag waving but you got out of there before the sun went down. It just wasn't "safe" anymore.

1964 - my sister, waiting for the parade to begin

Time passed. Grandpa died and Grandma moved back to Norway. The old Humboldt Park Norwegians died or joined their kids in the burbs. The Syttende Mai parade left Humboldt Park and also fled to the suburbs. It moved to squeaky clean Park Ridge. I did attend a Syttende Mai parade in Norway one year while visiting my grandma. Park Ridge? even Norway? It just wasn't the same. It wasn't Humboldt Park.

Funny thing...many of those same Chicago neighborhoods are now doing a turn around. They call it "gentrifying"and it costs big money to live there.  Sure, you can again walk the streets in relative safety but I don't feel like I would belong there either.
Where are the grandmas? the coffeecakes? the Norwegian flags?

Gratulerer med dagen!

**click → SO WHAT EXACTLY IS SYTTENDE MAI?   **

Fun in Chicago

When I was a kid, living in Chicago, my parents would take my sister and me to various fun activities. We went to Riverview, a fun old time amusement park that closed unexpectedly when I was fifteen. We went to the museums and I don't know how much it cost to get in but I bet it was way cheaper than the entrance fees today. The Field museum scared me, all these stuffed animals in glass cases. The Shedd Aquarium was okay but how many fish can you look at? And Dad agreed with me. It was right on the lake though and sitting outside eating a peanut butter sandwich sitting in Daddy's lap was the best. The museum of Science and Industry was my favorite. You could see baby chicks hatching, fetuses in bottles of formaldehyde, a giant heart you could walk through, and the coal mine. Big fun for a kid. One year my sister who had run up the stairs to the second floor ahead of us turned and yelled “look Mom”. She stuck out her tongue, put it on the brass railing and ran back down the stairs. My Mom nearly had a heart attack. She couldn't have been more than 5 and most likely wouldn't remember it but let me tell you it was the highlight of that visit for me!

The best activities were those that really didn't cost much of anything except maybe a little gas in the car. Activities that maybe don't sound like much now but boy we sure enjoyed it. Taking the toboggan over to the Jensen slides after a snowstorm. Going to Buckingham fountain to see the lights come on or checking out the window displays at Fields at Christmas time. We also would drive down to the beach, along with my parents friends and their kids, spend the day swimming, picnicking, laughing. My Dad seemed to have a fun way of looking at the world and a silly sense of humor. On a hot summer night he would head for O'Hare airport and pull over and park on a street real close. We laid on the front hood or top of the car to watch the planes flying in. We would scream as they came closer and flew right over us. It seemed like inches away to a little kid like me. You can't do that anymore because of terrorism. I don't think you can even get anywhere near the flight paths.

About the time we moved to the suburbs it changed. I have talked with my younger brother about our childhoods and it seems his and mine were different, very different. He doesn't remember Chicago. By the time we moved to the suburbs the dynamics of the family, and therefore of my Dad, changed. He was crabbier, serious, worked a lot, worried about money, worried about health. I think I now know why, in spite of the inevitable teenage fights, my Dad and I always got along. I remembered. I remembered when Dad was young, healthy, happy, silly and carefree. And he knew that of all us kids, I, the oldest, was maybe the only one that remembered. Remembered who he was. I remembered Chicago.

with Dad, first day of spring, Montrose Beach

My childhood home

My childhood home
I never lived in a single family home until after I was married. My Dad owned our home but it was a two flat or three flat. With the income from the other apartments it was easier to pay the mortgage, maybe we even lived technically rent free. Saving a dollar was always a priority for my Dad, probably from living through the Great Depression.

My parents bought our first home when I was 1 year old.  It was a wood frame two flat with asphalt shingles in a working class, north side, Chicago neighborhood. We lived in the second floor apartment. It was small. There was a living and dining room combination with a small kitchen separated from the living area by a peninsula we used as a kitchen table. There was one bathroom and only one bedroom. After my sister was born my Dad renovated the attic into two bedrooms. You went up these very steep stairs to reach the first bedroom and then you had to go through the first bedroom (my parents room) to get to the front bedroom (my and my sister's room). The bedrooms were so small an adult could only stand up in the middle of the room as both side walls sloped inward at the angle of our steep  roof. It could be cold in the winter but we had down comforters my grandma had brought us from Norway. We had a space heater in the living room that gave some heat from a hole my Dad had cut in the ceiling of the living room/floor of the bedrooms. He liked to turn the heater off though at night to "save money". That was okay but in the summer? Whew, it was hot and I mean hot. I don't think anyone had air conditioning then. Only bowling alleys and movie theaters were "air-cooled" and as fundamentalist Christians we never were allowed to go to any of those "sinful places". On steamy Chicago summer nights we would drag our mattress into the front room and leave the front and back doors open. Dad would put a fan in one door blowing in and another sucking the hot air out of the tiny apartment. Mom always warned us "don't let the fan blow directly on you or you will wake up paralyzed" and Dad insisted "if you put your finger in the fan it will serve you right if it cuts off your fingertip, that's what happened to Cousin Arthur you know." I was always real careful about my fingers but it was often so hot I tried to get as close to the fan as I could. It was totally worth the risk of paralysis.

 1953 Chicago - Grandpa & Grandma, Mom and Me

We had a washing machine on our back porch but no dryer. My Mom hung the laundry on a pulley line that went from our porch to the top of the garage in back. Boy, those sheets and towels did smell good. Our front stairs went directly to the second floor. I remember them well because of my grandfather. He would whistle from the outside when he arrived and I would run to the front door. He would do a little fancy tap dance up the stairs and when he reached the top I would get a kiss and a piece of candy he had hidden in his pocket. We moved to the suburbs when I was entering the fifth grade. We moved to a nicer apartment building which my Dad bought in a nicer area but I always felt that little house on Monticello ave was my real home. Life was good then. Mom and Dad were young, happy, healthy.....and Grandpa could dance.

Visiting Grandpa Sevald's grave

It started out as a genealogical journey. My hubby and I were headed into Chicago to take a picture of my grandfather's grave and headstone at the Irving Park Cemetery. Although only an hour drive away from my suburban home, I had not been there since he was buried in 1971. Not that I didn't care about my grandfather, quite the contrary. He was a wonderful and loving God fearing man whose memory I cherish. My family just doesn't go in for that sort of thing. I am not judging those who do but for us? Fake flowers and cheap plastic crosses on holidays and birthdays? Crying over a body in a box long returned to dust? Absolutely not. We believe his soul is gone and prefer to keep alive in our minds and hearts the sweet memory of him. After all, in a sense, he is always with us. We are who we are because he was who he was and that is what we choose to celebrate. Life, not death. Okay Ranae, off your soapbox and back to the point...

I knew exactly the row and grave number and the cemetery office verified it. We traveled up and down the rows and could not find his headstone. We concluded that an empty spot must be his grave and perhaps there was no headstone? My grandmother returned to Norway after my grandfathers death. I remember her telling me that she returned to Norway in possession of only $500. Perhaps she felt she could not afford a stone? Or maybe she felt it superfluous since she was leaving the country? Even if she had not returned to Norway she most likely would not have visited his grave. Oh, well.

As we wandered up and down the rows my husband made a surprise discovery. He happened upon the grave of a young man we had known as kids, who had gone to our church. He had joined the Marines and must have had some unknown cardiac problem. We heard that his heart had "exploded" during a Marine exercise and he dropped on the spot. He had been quite a popular young man, smart, strong, good looking and a bit arrogant. He would not have looked twice at average, short, ordinary me. But mom told me "Whoever told you life would be fair?" His name was Mark Yercich and he died at 24 yrs old. Now I am only 6 months away from Medicare. As a wife, mother, grandmother, how blessed? lucky? have I been to have the wonderful life I have had?  Funny....in his early 20's it seemed to me that he had it all.... but that is all he ever would have.
You were right Mom "Whoever told you life would be fair?"

R.I.P. Mark

The better way to remember Grandpa.

Grandpa and me 1955

my maternal grandfather

Paul Skoglund Sevald

b: 25 Aug 1894 Kragerø, Telemark, Norway

d; 05 Sep 1971 Chicago, Cook, Illinois, USA

**click on photos to enlarge for easier viewing**

Minnekirken 3rd Annual "Taste of Norway"

Looking ahead to November 21, 2015 here is a great outing to put in your calendar for those of us of Norwegian-American heritage in the Chicago area.

Minnekirken  

The Norwegian Lutheran 

Memorial Church of Chicago

presents its 3rd annual "Taste of Norway"

November 21, 2015

10:00 AM — 3:00 PM

They will have traditional Norwegian goods and sweaters, Christmas cookies, julekake (Christmas bread), lefse, waffles, ertesuppe (traditional pea soup luncheon). Docent-led tours of their neo-Gothic church's sanctuary. *

Minnekirken is the last remaining Norwegian language church in Chicago, Illinois. The church is located at 2614 N. Kedzie in Logan Square. Logan Square in the early 20th century had a large Norwegian speaking population. The area changed to Polish and then Spanish speaking population. There once was about 30 Norwegian language churches in Chicago and now Minnekirken is the last surviving one. It is however a thriving congregation although most of its members no longer even live in the Chicago area proper. Minnekirken, which means "Memorial Church" in Norwegian, is the last remaining Norwegian language church within a radius of 400 miles of the city. Minnekirken is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

* for more information *

   CLICK HERE TO GO TO MINNEKIRKEN WEBSITE

The "Great Chicago Fire" started this day

On this day in 1871 the "Great Chicago Fire" destroyed more than half of the city, killed some 300 people and left 9,000 people homeless. The fire was famously blamed on Mrs. O'Leary's cow  but that has been debunked. The city was composed of mostly wooden structures, the air was dry and fires were almost a daily event in Chicago. The good news is that rebuilding Chicago caused an economic boom and a hugh increase in population that made Chicago a major player. Chicago's opportunity for work made her a prime draw for young immigrant men and women with the skills to help launch Chicago into the 20th century.