Memories of Life in Downers Grove

A Lifetime in Downers Grove

I have lived in Downers Grove for seventy years. I lived at 1040 Grove Street and 4837 Oakwood Avenue. The Methodist Church bought our house on Grove Street and it was torn down. There is a parking lot there now. Across the street was Avery Coonley School and Evangelical Bretheren Church. There was a creek in back of the Congregational Church. My brother and I would wade and step on the big rocks. It was polio season. My brother got a whipping with a razor strap for being in the creek. I used to play baseball with the boys across the street. The Baughman Buick garage was where Emmett's Ale House is now.

I went to Immanuel Lutheran Church on Grove Street. It was a stucco house. I was married in the newly-built church which is our library now.

I graduated from Lincoln School which is Lincoln Center now. I remember walking up the steeps stairs of the library. My mother worked for Mrs. Baylor in a building where the library parking lot on Burlington is located. My mother, Alice Zarn, also worked in the Village Hall next to the cemetery and what is now Cellar Door. There were no traffic lights on Main and Curtiss. My husband Ralph, a policeman, use to stand on the sewer lid and direct traffic. I remember my dad giving me a ride down Main Street in a two-wheel cart with a Shetland pony pulling it. I used to be in the July 4th parade with a miniature Chihuahua in my bicycle basket.

My grandparents had a farm at 83rd and Woodward. I fed cats, cows, horses and pigs. I sat on bales of hay on a hayrack and drove horses. I kept the oats in the barn from piling up when threshing occurred. I fed pigs, went to an outhouse, pumped water and worked in a big vegetable garden. The kittens and dogs were everywhere and there was a dirt road.

My dad had a tractor and plowed victory gardens in town. My dad rented a field at 63rd and Main. Corn and soy beans were planted. I picked corn by hand. As a reward my dad bought our family at television. I was the first to have a television among my friends. It has been donated to the local museum.

I remember hearing the loud crash when the Burlington Zephyr hit the depot. In the middle of the night I sat up in bed and was scared.

I remember the dime store on Main Street. It had many choices of penny candy. Selig Sisters store was tiny, but had hats and sewing needs. There was a big Sears store, Mochel's Hardware, and Giesche Shoe Store. I remember my dad's one-room school house on 83rd Street and Lemont Road. My grandfather Zarn was a school board member.

Dolores Harrison