Part 3

The move to 65 LaSalle Street placed us in Corpus Christi parish, the church where my parents were married. Mary was starting the seventh grade, I was starting the fifth grade and Kathleen was starting the second or third. My mother thought it best for us to continue going to St. Joseph’s rather than transfer to Corpus Christi. All our friends were at St. Joseph’s—and all the nuns knew us. The new apartment house was more conventional than Morningside Avenue. There were four apartments on each floor-two at the front and two at the rear- and ours, at the rear, was the one immediately at the top of the second landing. There were three bedrooms off the living room and each one had a door. My room faced the airway between our building and the next one. Mary and Kathleen had a larger bedroom, which faced the rear alley, and my parents’ bedroom, adjacent to the girls’, also faced the rear. The purpose of the airway and the rear alley are lost on today’s generation. Almost all families washed their clothes and linens at home using a wash board, then rinsed the clothes, wrung them out and hung them on a clothes line in the airway or out the rear window. There were tall poles like one would erect for utility wires in the rear alleys and families would attach the clothes line to a pulley shoulder high on the window frame and connect the pulley on other end to the pole. When clothes were dry, they would be taken in and the starching and ironing would begin.

 

We lived directly over the Ryan family and they, in turn, lived over the McGirr’s. The McGirr’s lived next door to the McPartland’s. Across the hall were the Hanley’s and directly below them were the Stanton’s. (the Stanton’s lived across the hall from us on Morningside Avenue. Above us lived the Montenegro’s and on the top floor were the Myer’s and the Jaick’s. Everyone knew everyone else so in all likelihood, news of anything that happened on the street would get home before you.

 

For my parents, the move to LaSalle Street was a return to their first address after they were married. For me it meant a longer walk to school and getting to know a new group of people my own age. World War II was underway and blue star pendants could be seen in many windows indicating that a son was in the service. There were two gold stars that I can remember indicating that the son had been killed in the war. Within a year, a large banner was strung across LaSalle Street showing the number on young men and women who had enlisted or were drafted into the service. There were Civilian Defense Officers and volunteers and air raid wardens with World War I tin helmets painted white, all of whom participated in periodic air raid drills, street meetings and other organized events to fire up enthusiasm for the war. They prepared us for gas attacks, bombing by Germans and Japanese and every other conceivable catastrophe.