Road Toward Maturation
by
Leon A. Carrow

Delivered to
The Chicago Literary Club
May 15, 2000

Humboldt Boulevard is situated in the near Northwest side of Chicago at 3000 west, midway between California Avenue on the East and Kedzie Avenue on the West. The broad four-lane boulevard extends only six blocks from North Avenue, the northern entrance to Humboldt Park, south to Palmer Square where it becomes Sacramento Avenue. On either side of the boulevard there is a grassy parkway sixty feet in width, which doubles in size only on its eastern side as it approaches Palmer Square. On either side of the parkway a two-lane thoroughfare exists which allows for one way vehicular traffic. This then, perhaps the shortest boulevard in the city of Chicago, is the road.

By the mid 1930's all of the land along the boulevard was occupied; by typical three flat apartment buildings, a few multiple apartment structures, a large Lutheran Church and Jewish Temple, and opulent two or three storied single family homes, with mansion-like proportions set on oversized lots. Those living in the neighborhood surrounding Humboldt Boulevard were of a diverse ethnic background; most families were of European origin, primarily immigrant or first generation native born, with the predominance being Scandinavian and Eastern European Jews. Sprinkled among the others were Germans, Irish, Italians, and Poles. Since, at that time with families generally more cohesive, it was not unusual to have three generations living in the same household; thus, many of those entering the first grade of the Richard Yates School were truly bilingual.

Not having the experience as a two year old in pre-schooling sessions, or nursery school learning the intricacies of finger painting and play dough, or rough housing in some summer camp, or even kindergarten, entering the first grade was the initial experience for many of us in a break from total reliance on the family. Surprisingly, friendships were easily formed, first at recess time and later at some spontaneous after school play, usually on the boulevard parkway. By the time of the third grade, an informal group evolved; beside myself, some six or seven others were around most of the time. All lived on or within two blocks of the boulevard, either in a three flat or larger apartment building, with the exception of Bobby, who lived in one of the big houses. We all figured that Bobby's father must be rich, but we never asked since it was more important that he could pitch or catch a football or whatever we were doing as a team, since we were totally immersed in sports. The others, besides myself, included Freddie, Oscar, Davey, Jerry, Eugene, and Erwin. Freddie was the unofficial "leader" of the pack, or gang as we called ourselves, for several important reasons; first, he was bigger than any of the others, maybe a year or more older, (some of us thought that he had been held back at the first or second grade at another school, since he had come to Yates only in the past year), stronger and a better athlete than any of us, and mysterious since he never mentioned his family. No one ever did ask him how old he was. Davey was my best friend, but not only because his father owned the neighborhood bakery on Armitage Avenue. Erwin was the only one who wore glasses, which gave him the distinction of having a real nickname, namely, "Four Eyes". His glasses didn't make him any smarter, and more important didn't help him catch a baseball.

Whenever there were enough players for a baseball game it took place on one of the neighborhood streets or on the concrete schoolyard. The parkway was too narrow, and no matter what the configuration the outfield would either be inside the front door of the church or onto the boulevard. But with a baseball in hand, all sorts of games were devised, always within a competitive mode. Once the baseball season ended, a football appeared, and with the given position of trees and articles of clothing the parkway was transformed into a field complete with yard markers, out of bounds lines, and goals. Only the goal posts were missing. The hearty group soon found that ordinary touch football was too tame, and the rules were changed to two hand touch which provided for significantly more body contact, with an excuse to throw the carrier forcefully to the ground. Having passed that barrier, the game of tackle evolved which produced a variety of fortunately, non-life endangering anatomical changes such as black eyes, welts, and bruises which required some fanciful explanations once we got home. Even with his physical impairment, Four Eyes was not excluded from participating in the rougher version since he was not fleet afoot, and in the few instances when he had the ball, he could gently be eased onto the ground. We even went so far, but just once, to allow him to score a touchdown.

The boulevard parkway remained as the congregating spot, and when there were just two or three a game of catch could go on for an hour or more interspersed with a profound discussion of the details of Chicago Cub statistics, strategies of a given game, and individual accomplishments. Each had a favorite player without whom the team would fall into a dismal slump, never to recover. Here, at age eleven or twelve, when I would throw as far as I could to Oscar down the parkway, it was actually a throw from KiKi Cuyler to second base, and his would return as a fast ball from Lon Warneke. But when more of the gang was around, and it was early spring on a Saturday afternoon, and baseball filled our thinking processes, we would grab a ball and a couple of bats and walk south the three blocks to Humboldt Park.

The entrance to the park at North Avenue was, to all appearances, guarded by a majestic statue of the Polish general and patriot, Kosciuszko (whose name none of us could pronounce), sitting defiantly on his horse. Just inside the park there lay a large meadow, bare excepting for two baseball diamonds and the tennis courts on its western border. There were no organized activities for our age group and no adults were present, so we solved our own problems such as they were. Participants in a softball baseball game depended on who was there, but often we added to our nucleus and faced a group who lived on the other side of the park, the Division Street gang. Compared to our gang, they were bigger, a grade or so ahead of most of us, and more eager to start a fight after a disputed play; but fortunately we had Freddie, who with a few well placed blows with his fists, assumed the role of peace maker.

My own moment of glory occurred one day when I rounded third base in the ninth inning with the potential winning run in a closely contested game. Choosing to ram headlong into the catcher rather than sliding resulted in his dropping the ball, our team winning the game and my ending up with a bloody nose. Running home hoping that the bleeding, which was my badge of honor, would not completely stop, I was crushed that my mother was far more concerned with my physical well being rather than with my major heroics. Baseball progressed from softball to fast pitching hard ball, and since I was the classic good field no hit model, it became pure fantasy for me to continue envisioning myself, as I was dropping off to sleep, as the perennial shortstop of the Chicago Cubs.

Our journeys down the boulevard to the park were almost exclusively sports driven; primarily baseball and football, either playing it or on occasion watching an organized adult contest. We rarely took a leisurely stroll through the rose gardens, crossing "Humboldt Drive" to its eastern side where the impressive boathouse opened onto the larger of the two Park's lagoons. It was not in the interest of the pre-adolescent to spend a lot of time watching multiple row boats circling the lagoon each manned by a muscular oarsman gazing at the cross legged woman seated opposite him. However, this and the smaller lagoon adjacent to the fieldhouse took on greater importance in the winter. Both froze, and those who were fortunate enough to acquire skates took to the ice. Since the annual Silver skates competition was held at Humboldt Park, all neophyte skaters wore racing skates; no hockey or figure skates were seen. Once again, without formal instruction, the learning process was prolonged, shortened perhaps by the ever present ankle straps which in theory at least speeded the transition from leaning on the inside of the ankles to that of flying on the blades of the skates. None, however, envisioned himself a champion in this sport, weak ankles or not.

There were opportunities for many activities within in the park fieldhouse itself, chief of which were the basketball courts, affording us the chance to hone our rudimentary skills and to pick up impromptu games easily. I noticed that often, both before and after our stint on the courts, when the weather was tolerable, two old men were playing chess on a stone table near the outside railing. They sat for hours barely saying a word, oblivious to the silent observer who slowly absorbed some of the nuances of the game. One day only one was there, and he asked me if I would like to play. His name was Mr. Rosen, and he taught me the game in our frequent meetings over the course of several weeks. We did not play in silence since I had to be tutored in strategic moves, and almost always there was time to talk about my school subjects; English, geography, and especially history. One day, he asked where the name "Humboldt Park" came from, and I answered that there was a statue of a man named Humboldt near the boathouse. "What do you know about him?" he asked. "Not much", I answered. "Then", he said, " go back and study that statue, and we'll talk about him and the park, too."

Throughout the 1860's numerous groups in the fast growing population, composed of property owners, real estate developers, city planners, purely civic minded citizens, and others were widely advocating the need for public parks within the city and the outlying territory, envisioning a series of parks with connecting boulevards. Three groups were in the forefront of this drive, namely representatives from the North, West, and South sides of the city. Finally, in February of 1869, the State legislature by separate Acts, established three major park systems in the Chicago area: the North, or Lincoln Park District, the South which now comprises Jackson and Washington Park, and the West District. The act legalized the creation of the West Park Commissioners, consisting of seven members appointed by Governor Palmer, who first met on May 5,1869; in June a committee was appointed with the charge to suggest an outline for three parks, North, Middle, and South as well as an outline of routes for the proposed connecting boulevards. At the meeting of October 21st, a communication signed by many citizens petitioning the Board to change the name of North Park to that of Humboldt Park was read. Action therein was postponed on motion of Commissioner David Cole.

In October '69, the majority of residents surrounding the proposed site of the North Park were those of German and Scandinavian extraction, with Norwegians predominant in the latter group. In his book, The Germans of Chicago, Hofmeister tells us that the first German immigrants arrived in Chicago in 1825, and by 1870 some sixty thousand German born citizens constituted almost twenty per cent of the city's total population; further, the percentage of all of German-Americans was, of course, appreciably higher. There were, at that time, sixteen wards in the city, with each having two aldermen. Of the thirty-two aldermen, fully one third were of German extraction. Little wonder, therefore, that there was considerable public and political clamor that the park closest to the concentration of the German population be named in honor of one of the most prominent figures in German life. At the November 4th meeting of the Commissioners, two weeks after the first petition was presented, the motion made by Commissioner Henry Greenebaum to grant the petition was unanimously approved, thereby designating that the proposed North Park be officially named "Humboldt Park."

Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin on September 14, 1769, the second son of an officer in the Army of Frederick the Great, and of a younger mother, she of Huguenot descent with strict Calvinist belief, who had been left a considerable inheritance. Both he and his brother were privately educated, not only in the Classics, language, and mathematics, but also in political history and economics. Alexander became fluent in English, Spanish, and French, later learned Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Italian, and possessed excellent knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. His formal education, commencing in 1787 at the University of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, opened the vistas of pure and applied mathematics as well as engineering; but this period also gave birth to his passionate interest in botany, resulting in his collecting and classifying specimens in the surrounding areas of Berlin. A year at the University of Gottingen extended his knowledge of natural history, and a trip to the Low Countries, England, and France heightened his desire for travel and adventure. It has been said that the year at Gottingen opened the world of science to him, with initially, a focus in geology and mineralogy. There followed two years of study at the School of Mines in Freiberg, Saxony after which, without benefit of degree, he accepted a post as a government inspector of mines in Prussia where he remained until 1797.

By this time, Humboldt had decided that his goal in life was that of scientific exploration, and he undertook, on his own, a program to gain a thorough knowledge of the systems of geodetic, meteorological, and geomagnetic measurements. Moreover, since both parents were now dead and he was financially secure, he would lead his own expedition, and could do so at his own expense. He asked Aime Bonpland, a young French medical doctor and botanist, whom he had met in Paris, to join him. Humboldt had had for years the desire to explore the tropics, and with this in mind the two first traveled to Spain, where the Saxon minister at Madrid procured for them an interview with King Charles IV. This resulted in the King's granting permission for them to visit the Spanish colonies in Central and South America, and to make investigations of everything that might lead to the advancement of science. These colonies were at that time accessible only to Spanish officials and the Roman Catholic mission. Such extensive privileges had never before been granted to any traveler.

David McCullough has exquisitely detailed the exploration of Humboldt and Bonpland to Spanish America in his book, Brave Companions. After having purchased in Paris some forty of the finest scientific instruments of the day, the two set sail aboard a Spanish frigate, arriving off the coast of Venezuela in July 1799, to start an extraordinary expedition that would last five years. For three months, according to McCullough's account, they explored and mapped the coastal plains while collecting some sixteen hundred plants, identifying six hundred new species. Next they paddled up the Apure river to its confluence with the Orinoco and then via the Rio Negro, discovering and documenting for the first time the connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon. The seventy five day round trip in open boat and canoe was undertaken in the most severe conditions; stifling humidity, continual attacks by hordes of mosquitoes, and torrential rains which ultimately destroyed most of their provisions, resulting in their subsisting on bananas, ants, an occasional fried monkey, or ground up wild cacao beans and river water.

After a short trip to Cuba where samples of the plants, rocks, fishes, reptiles, and skins of animals were stored, the two returned to South America, spending the next two years in Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru. Crossing and recrossing the Andes taking measurements of mountains and valleys, and observing vegetation on the slopes prompted one biographer of Humboldt to write: "He began to see what nobody had understood clearly before him; that life's forms and their grouping with one another are conditioned by physical factors in their environment, that atmospheric and geologic conditions need to be known if we are to learn the meaning behind organic life." It was during this period that the two explorers set out to climb Chimborazo, the snow capped extinct volcano standing at 20,561 feet, the highest mountain in Ecuador. Without the help of any modern mountaineering equipment, ropes, crampons, or oxygen supply, the two were finally stopped by an impassable ravine at 19,286 feet, higher than anyone had been before. This record would last for thirty years, and it would be another seventy-eight years before the peak of Chimborazo would be conquered.

In December of 1802, they sailed for Mexico, and skirting the shores of Peru, Humboldt took detailed temperature readings and soundings of the north flowing current of the Pacific, which subsequently were the basis for naming this the Humboldt Current. After his stay and exploration in Mexico, Humboldt sailed for Havana, retrieved his stored collections, and then embarked for the United States. There, he spent several days with President Jefferson, and subsequently returned to Europe, where he wrote extensively culminating in the work which would involve the last twenty five years of his life: Cosmos. McCullough writes: "The final work, the grand summing up, was something called Cosmos. It was to contain all Humboldt knew of art, nature, history, all branches of science portraying as never before the grand harmonies of the Earth and universe. He wished to convey the excitement of science to the intelligent nonscientific reader." He completed four volumes, and was working on the fifth and final volume when he died on May 6, 1859, in his ninetieth year.

Humboldt Park was actually designated as such some two weeks before the committee working on an outline for the three parks and connecting boulevards reported their recommendations to the full Board of Commissioners; these were formally adopted on the day of presentation, and no substantial changes have ever been made in the original outlines. South Park was subsequently named Douglas Park and later middle Park became Garfield Park. Early 1870 marked the purchase of three-fifths of the land for Humboldt Park, and the remainder was acquired the following year. The park boundaries included a four square block from North Avenue to Division Street on the south, from Kedzie Avenue on the west, to California Avenue on the east. A two square block extended on the southwest encompassing Kedzie and Sacramento Avenues to Augusta Boulevard. The grounds were described as: "a flat treeless, uninviting prairie, an unbounded expanse of bleak plain destitute of vegetation, except for low prairie herbage and a distant line of spindly young trees, hardly more sylvan in appearance than telegraph poles. In the foreground were stagnant pools of water and an unfenced, upgraded prairie trail; barren, lone, and desolate as could well be conceived."

It fell upon the shoulders of the West Park Commissioners to appoint the individual who would transform this barren land into a scenic park. At that time Frederick Olmsted was the foremost landscape architect in the United States, championing the cause of naturalistic design. He and his partner, Calvin Vaux had, over the course of two years, completed the design of Central Park in New York, leading to its opening in 1859. Their efforts, spurred on by the concept that parks would have a positive public health advantage for urban inhabitants and have a civilizing benefit for the under privileged, created as reported by Grese in his book, Jens Jensen, "central meadow spaces with network of roads and looped pathways at the perimeter to show how rural scenery could be adapted to a park in an otherwise urban context." Olmsted's philosophy carried on by many that followed him included: "Type of scenery to be preserved as created ought to be that which is developed naturally from the local circumstances in each case. Smooth hollows of good soil hint at an open parkland scenery. Swamps and abundant water supply suggest ponds, pools, or lagoons."

In 1870, the Commissioners appointed William Le Baron Jenney as chief engineer and architect with the responsibility of designing the entire West Park system. Jenney was a friend and colleague of Olmsted, having collaborated with him two years earlier in the planning along with architectural designs of Riverside, Illinois, the first planned community in the United States, proposing essentially a rural village, with winding streets and parks, and open spaces along the DesPlaines river. It is known that Jenney wrote Olmsted seeking advice on the design for the West Parks.

Jenney initially felt little inspiration from the unimproved sites, asserting that they were not offering a single suggestion for the design of the future park, nor possessing a single tree worthy of preservation. However, his plans for transforming this flat, swampy site into a naturalistic landscape were completed in the year following his appointment. His original plan called for a large picturesque lake with islands and peninsulas covering 2/3 of the park, along with a formal entrance which was linked by a long esplanade to a terrace housing a music pavilion. Jenny's original plan was never fully carried out. When the park was officially opened in 1877, only its eastern 80 acres had been improved; the formal entrance, the entire outer perimeter drive, and the eastern portion of the lake with its two islands were developed in accordance with his plan. An artesian well had already been built, with a proper sewer system to provide surface drainage, as well as a small boathouse whose landing launched eight row boats onto the lagoon.

The opening of the park was greeted with great enthusiasm, and was well patronized throughout the year. Jenney remained in his position for three years and thereafter continued in a consultant capacity until the appointment of Oscar F. Dubuis as West Park Commission Engineer in 1877. A summary of the essentials of the park in 1881 included in part: total area 200+ acres, with improved areas of 95 acres; trees and shrubs planted, 43,470; earth excavated, 28,000 cubic yards; artesian well 1,155 feet deep; 10,000 linear feet of graveled driveways; 12,690 feet of graveled walks; lagoon 13 acres in extent; a Pavilion Building; and five greenhouses. Into the early 1890's, Dubuis planned additional improvements, particularly for the unimplemented sections of the park. One of his major efforts was the plan which would have extended the lake by as additional 39 acres, but under his supervision only a 4 acre portion of the new lake was excavated, and further improvements progressed very slowly. It was during this time that Jens Jensen came into the realm of Humboldt Park.

Jensen's childhood and early adult life, including his education, travels, and military experiences, are well documented in Grese's Jens Jensen, and Eaton's Landscape Artist in America. He emigrated from Denmark in 1884 at the age of 24 with his fiancee, leaving his family who refused to sanction his marriage to one whose family was of a lower social position. They moved from Florida to Iowa, and finally settled in Chicago in 1886, residing in the Scandinavian community around Humboldt Park. He found a job of gardener with the West Park commission, taking on the most menial of chores. In order to familiarize himself with and understand the indigenous plants of the locale, he and his family took frequent trips to the open areas near Chicago, and as well found winter nursery work with a Swedish landscape gardener. Two years after starting his labors in the large parks, Jensen, now the foreman of the small Union Park, planted in one of its corners the American Garden, a collection of mostly native perennials, marking the first of his major public landscape designs. The stock for this garden had been gathered with a team and wagon, since nurserymen had never before been asked to supply such materials. To his great satisfaction the transplants flourished, the garden became very popular, and remained in the park through the 1890's.

Jensen continued to work under Dubuis until the latter was terminated in 1893, and then under his successor who served only until '95. During this period the West Park Commission was severely in debt, very few improvements took place, and Humboldt Park was greatly in need of repairs maintenance. In spite of this, two pieces of sculpture were donated by members of the community and placed in the park. One, erected in 1893, honored Fritz Reuter, the noted German novelist. The other was that of Alexander von Humboldt, erected in 1892. A gift of Mr. F.J. Dewes, (who like Humboldt was born in Prussia) this statue, cast in Germany, was described as a masterpiece of Felix Goerling. Standing 10 feet high and in bronze, it depicted Humboldt in the position of lecturing. In the half raised right hand he held a flower, while the left, in which is clasped a book representing Cosmos, rested upon a tree trunk that stood by his side. At his feet, besides an iguana, a globe was partially visible.

The ceremony of the unveiling of the statue was conducted under the auspices of the German Press Club of Chicago. Its committee included Edward Uihlein, great-grandfather of John Notz, and its Chief Marshal was Henry Greenebaum, one of the original West Park Commissioners. The statue was placed to the south of the large lagoon and boat house, originally facing east, but was later moved facing west at the roadway which eventually was to become Humboldt Drive, which bisected the park in a north to south direction. Uihlein reluctantly accepted the appointment urged upon him by Governor Altgeld in 1894 to become a Commissioner of the West Park System. His reluctance was no doubt based on, at least in part, the history of the commission as described in a reference prepared by the Chicago Park district: "the personnel of the Board, changing from time to time, experienced difficulties in securing funds to carry on the extensive programs of parks and boulevards, and in addition there were legal, taxing and construction problems arising constantly, so that the position of the Commissioner while considered a high honor in local circles proved no enviable position from the standpoint of responsibility and duties to be executed." All of this, plus the constraints of the political system, both state and local. Even so, Uihlein, as the Board member in charge of improvements was able to accomplish much in two years. His reward when Governor Tanner was elected in 1896, was his dismissal along with all other members of the Board.

Meanwhile, Jensen was moving up the ranks, reaching the position of Superintendent of Humboldt Park in 1895. Subsequent to the issuance of a bond in that year, the major improvement was the construction of a receptory building in the south-east corner of the park; this receiving place included stables, offices, workshops, and storage areas. In all likelihood, Jensen designed the surrounding landscape which included a small lily pond. As Superintendent of the park, Jensen had to deal almost on a daily basis, with the unbelievable corruption of municipal politics. Ward bosses of the city, dependent on the votes of recently arrived immigrants, used the parks and other city departments as an avenue to secure jobs for the numerous unskilled laborers. Eaton describes this as a kind of a cow which could be milked at the expense of the public at large. More distressing was the graft resulting in contractors providing cheaper materials than specifications called for as well as shoddy workmanship, or providers delivering short weights of supplies to the park while charging for full weights. In the latter category, Jensen was not rewarded for exposing the coal grafters. Instead, he was summarily fired in 1900.

Initially, Jensen experienced a period of financial struggle, but remaining with his family in their home on Augusta Boulevard, he turned to the private practice of landscape gardening. He spent much of his spare time botanizing in nature, becoming even more familiar with Midwestern plants; in 1902 Mayor Carter Harrison appointed him to the Special Parks Commission, a quasi public group who were concerned with the urban development of areas at the expense of natural expanses in and around the city. In 1904, he and the architect Dwight Perkins published recommendations that would form the basis of the future forest preserve districts. In 1905, at the insistence of Govenor Dureen as well as that of the new Chairman of the Commisioners Bernard Eckhart, Jensen was persuaded to return to the parks, now as Superintendent and Landscape Architect of all of the West Parks.
In that same year, the voters approved $2 million in bonds to refurbish and extend the parks. Jensen found Humboldt Park to be in a dilapidated condition; the entire western portion was essentially bare land, the lagoons had no official edge, lacking any plantings on its borders, and in many areas in place of lawns there was just dirt. Now having the freedom to hire competent help, he had the opportunity to explore both formal and informal design elements using both exotic and native plants, with the intent primarily to produce a naturalistic setting. After demolishing the deteriorating small greenhouse, he set out to create the revolutionary concept of a waterway that would look like a natural river coursing through a prairie. First, after adding a narrow extension to the south west portion of the "new lake" which had been developed under Dubuis, he designed hidden water sources which supplied two rocky brooks that fed the river and adjoining existing lagoon. The resulting waterway was1,650 feet long, with a width varying from 52 to108 feet; its branches had several cascades with rock formations resembling those of the Rock river. Only native plantings adorned the river- reeds and marsh plants at the edges, with a perennial garden and surrounding masses of wildflowers.

Juxtaposed to the naturalistic river landscape, Jensen developed a formal rose garden which is described in detail in the listing of Humboldt Park for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. The garden, officially opened in 1908; at its east entrance Hugh Garden of the firm of Schmidt, Garden and Martin placed two large ornamental lanterns designed in the prairie style. Recessed to the west of the lanterns were a pair of bronze cast bison, which flanked the entrance stairs. Slightly north of the statue of Fritz Reuter, on the East Side of Humboldt Drive facing the rose garden, Jensen placed an open, rectilinear Music Court.

The music court formed the southern border of what would become the most significant building in the park; with Jens Jensen as its landscape designer, Hugh Garden built the Humboldt Park Refectory and Boat Landing (Boathouse Pavilion) in 1907 which has been described as: " a building conveying a powerful visual presence while, simultaneously, blending unobtrusively into a naturalistic setting;" this written by the staff of the city's Department of Planning and Development in requesting designation of the Boathouse as a Chicago Landmark. Below the pavilion, at water level, the boathouse accommodated the storage and rental of rowboats in the summer, and served as a warming room and changing facilities for skaters in the winter. The most striking feature of the structure were the three semicircular arches each 30 feet wide which defined the architectural character of the pavilion's central structure. In addition to their strong visual appeal, the arches framed dramatic vistas of the park, whether viewed from the inside of the shelter or, through it, from outside the shelter. Just a few years ago, the Boathouse was selected as a Chicago Landmark, designating it as one of the most important buildings in all Chicago parks.

Jensen remained with the Park System until 1920 when his plans for a "Greater West Park system conflicted with the wishes of the Board of Commissioners. Later he was to write: "Parks are a necessity for the cultivating and preserving a love of nature. They are the seats of learning for the average city-bred being, and their influence is plainly visible in streets and pretty home surroundings. Parks are practical schools of horticulture, and the bone and sinew of art out-of-doors. They are necessary for the self preservation of those who by free will or through forced circumstances have made their homes in a large city."

One day in late Fall of 1936, the students of the 8th grade of Richard Yates School, anxiously awaiting their graduation the following February, were notified of the high school to which each was being assigned, based on residential boundaries. Most of my friends, I soon learned, would be going to Roosevelt rather than Tuley, to which I was headed. Besides the imminent loss of my neighborhood pals, I dreaded the thought of daily association with the Division Street gang , all of whom would be at Tuley. Moping around in the schoolyard that afternoon, I decided walk down my road, Humboldt Boulevard, to the park. "Where are you going?," someone asked in a friendly voice. I turned, and to my surprise it was my classmate, Gracie, who suggested that she join me. As we started, I consciously assessed myself; a shy, skinny, five foot one inch, unimpressively skilled athlete thirteen years old, who seemed years away needing to shave. We talked all the way to the park about my high school problem and disappointment until we stopped at the edge of the lagoon, looking at the boathouse with the imposing figure of von Humboldt just beyond. The sun, low in the autumn sky, cast its brilliance through the arches of the boathouse onto the still water. I leaned toward Gracie who did not move except to turn full face toward me. I kissed her on the lips, but just barely. Even so, I immediately, knew the truth of that which had been talked about in the evenings on the street corner: it wasn't like kissing your sister.

Gracie moved back, stared at our peaceful setting, and said quietly: "I want you to go to Roosevelt, and you can get a permit to change."

"How do I do that?" I asked unbelievably.

"Simple, just go to your alderman." I wasn't sure as to how that would solve my problem, but what a fantastic, worldly girl, I thought.

Walking back along the boulevard, intermittently holding hands and suppressing the urge to loudly proclaim my good fortune, I felt worldly myself. My mother grasped the reasons, at least those which I told her, for seeking a change in schools, and seemed to understand the aldermanic mechanics for achieving our goals. The alderman met us on the night he set aside to see his constituents (all of whom were seeking a favor of one sort or another), and he quickly approved a permit that very night for me to attend Roosevelt, after my mother vowed complete allegiance from her and the rest of the family to the Democratic Party.

For me, the innermost joy at being at Roosevelt was short lived. Gracie very soon was spending all of her time outside of class with a tall, muscular, football player, whom I was sure, shaved. If I had known the saying, I would have said it: "That's life, I guess."

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