Going to Chicago

In 1952 I married Wallace Gaarsoe and went with him to his hometown, Chicago. It was like moving to the Moon.  Outwardly it did not look much different from the Texas in which I grew up.  But the culture was totally different  

Wally’s ancestry was Danish.  His mother and stepfather lived in a neat, red brick “Chicago bungalow” on the far northwest corner of the city.  Years later, when Wally and I went to Copenhagen, we stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in a similar red brick bungalow.  The newer neighborhoods in Denmark’s capital looked almost identical to the one where Wally’s parents bought their brand-new home in Chicago in 1940

Wally’s parents lived in Norwood Park, a neighborhood of Scandinavians and Germans.  Restricted to “Caucasians”, my mother-in-law said proudly, “We don’t let any of them Caucasians move in here!”  She had disdain for the “Polocks” who lived in the adjoining Jefferson Park.

My family attended College Avenue Baptist Church morning and night on Sundays and again every Wednesday evening.  His parents came to Texas for our wedding.  They were disappointed  with cake and non-alcoholic punch at the reception.  Louie said, “Where’s the beer?”

In the 15 years I knew her, my mother-in-law went to church less than half a dozen times.  They came to Episcopal churches for the baptisms of our children.  She also went to church after the burials of her husband and brother.  She explained, “After a minister conducts a funeral, you should go to church the following Sunday as a courtesy to the minister.” . 

The childhood of Wally’s mother was harsh.  From the time she was only five years old, she and her brother, Holgar, lived in to the Danish Orphanage in Chicago.  She only went to school through the third grade, then was placed with a woman who ran a boarding house.  She literally grew up in a boarding house. 

One evening at supper, I asked, “Please pass the butter.”  Wally’s stepfather, head down, concentrated on forking up his baked potato.  He looked up and said, “What’s the matter?  Don’t you have arms?”  

Except for Sundays with his parents, Wally and I led an exciting life as young marrieds in Chicago.  We found a basement apartment in Rogers Park, a Jewish neighborhood with a Chinese restaurants, where we ate chow mein and egg foo yong once a week.  We rode the “el” to the Loop, where I worked at The Billboard, while Wally attended Roosevelt University, in an historic building on Michigan Avenue. 

On evenings when he had a late class, we’d meet for supper; then he would go to his history class and I’d walk down Michigan Avenue to the Art Institute of Chicago, where I took courses in interior design.  After class, I would go upstairs and, in an hour or so before the building closed, I wandered through the galleries, delighting in seeing “original” paintings where before I had seen only cheap commercial prints.  I especially enjoyed the Monets, sun-drenched seascapes and fields of poppies in one of the World’s greatest museums.