Eddy Street:

These are a few things I remember from 1936 to today. I was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 16 1936. I lived at 6139 Eddy Street. It was a brick bungalow on the northwest side of the city. Our telephone number was Pensacola 7427.

The house had a small living room with a false fireplace containing electric logs and false coal that seemed real when lit. The room had one long couch. A couple of chairs, a tall 1930s console radio, a large upright piano, my father’s guitar, and an old rug weaved by my mother, which covered the center of the room. The dining room had a large wood table and six large chairs. This room was only used for holiday dinners and also for doing homework. One wall contained a large buffet and the center of the floor was also covered with a carpet. A hallway connected the dining room to the next rooms. The hallway was only about six feet square. It contained a telephone that was mounted on the wall. In order to make a telephone call we had to insert a nickel in a coin box, and then the operator would answer. We gave her the telephone number we wanted to talk to, and she would connect us to the person we were calling. Once a month the telephone man arrived at our house and collected all the nickels from the telephone box.

The kitchen was south of the hall. It was large with a sink on legs. The kitchen also had a pantry, which was used for cans, onions, jars, bread, and spices. There were no cabinets in our kitchen. There was a small, black radio, which was mounted on a shelf on the west wall.

Parallel to the east wall was a large homemade table with a six foot long wooden bench on each side to sit on. There were also two chairs that were used by Mom and Dad. There were no televisions in homes yet except in the very few households. While we did the dishes we always listened to the radio. I washed and Hank dried them. One day while Hank and I were doing dishes we were argueing, about what, I don't remember. After a while we were pushing each other and at one point while Hank was drying a large kitchen knife, I grabbed for it. At the same time Hank pulled it away from me, unfortunately for me, I was' holding the blade, not too bright. I was taken to a doctor where he applied six stiches to the cut. Anyway back to the radio. A few of the radio programs that we listened to were The Lone Rangerand Amos and Andy and Tom Mix. Mom also listened to this radio while she was ironing, doing dishes, or cooking. She loved the “soaps”, yes, there were plenty soaps on the radio before television appeared in homes.

When I was young, before my teen-age years, we had an icebox in the pantry. It had a small door in the rear where a deliveryman could insert one or two pieces of ice. The iceman came to our house every other day and put a large, clear square chunk of ice in the box. The iceman drove an old truck filled with squares of ice. Whenever he stopped for a delivery, kids would come running and ask him for chunks of ice. Most of the time he would throw a few chunks on the street which we would quickly grab and eat. It was almost better than icecream. The chunks of ice for our icebox were about 24 inches square. A refrigerator replaced the icebox before I was a teenager. On the other side of the hall was a bathroom. It contained a toilet, a bathtub on legs. Wnen Hank and I were very young we had to take baths together. There wasn't very much hot water so we had to share the tub. It was a very happy day when I could finally take a bath alone. The floor in the bathroom was covered with small, one-inch ceramic tiles, which my father installed when I was very young. We did not have a shower, but we hung a hose in the basement, just above a sewer, and the older boys used this shower. Very few people had showers in their homes then. Off the same hall was one bedroom facing south and another bedroom facing north. Both bedrooms were about 9 feet by 10 feet. The hall also had a stairway with about fourteen stairs that led to the basement. The basement was unfinished, with a large coal furnace and a room that was used for coal storage in the winter months. Also, there was a hot water heater that was fueled by wood or coal, and a dark gray Maytag washing machine. Connecting the furnace were large round ducts covered with asbestos, heating each room and one going upstairs for heat. A large chimney was also part of the system. The job of keeping the fire burning all day and night, during the winter, was always given to the boys when they became teenagers. They also had to clean the furnace every day, and once or twice a week take the ashes out to the alley to the garbage cans. It was a lot of work to take care of the furnace.

During the spring and summer months when the rains came, the basement usually flooded a foot or two after every heavy rain. After the water subsided we had to scrub the floor. We did that with straw brooms and soilax soap. We used the garden hose to rinse it completely, and usually opened all the basement windows in order to dry the floor. Off the kitchen was a back porch. It was enclosed with French windows that ran completely across the back of the house. It went behind the kitchen and the bedroom facing south. It had an outside door and stairs leading to the back yard sidewalk. The porch was not heated; therefore we only used it during the summer when it was used constantly. It was a great place to play games during thunderstorms. At the bottom of the stairs was a peach tree. There were a few years when we harvested great amounts of peaches, and they always tasted great. Our back yard was very small. It contained a small goldfish pond that my father built many years ago and a large apple tree. When the apples were ripe, Mom always baked the best apple pies and apple strudel that I have ever eaten, with plenty of sugar. The east and west side of the yard was lined with flowers that my Dad planted and loved to pamper.

There were ropes hanging in the yard which Mom used to hang the laundry to dry. I remember when she got older she always asked me to carry the laundry baskets from the basement to the yard, and when the clothes were dry she would ask me to carry the baskets back into the house. They were too heavy for her to carry. In the dining room was a stairway, which led to the attic. My father made three rooms upstairs and there were no doors between the rooms. Instead we had sheets separating the rooms. The front room was my room, which I shared with my brothers Hank and Ray. The middle room was for my two sisters. The end room was for my father and mother. My two older brothers used one bedroom downstairs, and my two oldest sisters used the other.

We did not have any fans upstairs or downstairs. Sometimes during the hot summer months we were allowed to sleep on a sheet that was spred on the living room floor because it got pretty hot upstairs. When I was almost a teenager my father brought home a small electric revolving fan. It was very exciting to us and we kept it in the kitchen for my mother. I remember it was dark green and was about one foot tall with four blades. After my father died, Bob and I built a one and one half car garage for my sister Theresa. When I was a teenager and got my drivers license, I almost lived under my car. I loved working on cars and almost always had my car disassembled. That was my home.

My family consisted of four brothers and four sisters. Starting with the oldest was Rosemary, Rita, Robert,and Raymond who was mentally retarded, Theresa, Richard, Regina and Henry. My father was Hank Dittmer and my mother was Marie (Brand) Dittmer . My father’s family consisted of four boys. Uncle Tony and his wife Aunt Lill, Uncle Carl and his wife Aunt Julia, Uncle Andrew and his wife Aunt Rose, and my Dad, Hank. They were the only Dittmers in the Chicago phone book at this time and all the brothers except Uncle Tony lived within a few city blocks of each other. My mother’s family consisted of four sisters and one brother. Aunt Betty and uncle Dick Brand (my mother's brother), Aunt Bern and uncle Matt Gilmore, Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Bill Naylor, Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Matt Cargel,and Aunt Virginia and Uncle Mack Combs. My uncle Andrew and Aunt Rose, and Uncle Dick and Aunt Betty were my favorite relatives.

Mom

My mother’s name was Marie Dittmer/Brand.

Her mother's name was Maria Magdalena Markgraf

Her father was Adam Richard Brand

Mom was an uneducated girl who only finished the third grade of grammar school.

Mom worked for the telephone company as an operator until she married Dad. I believe my parents married when they were about twenty-five, but I am not sure of this. They lived a very hard life. They lived during the depression and somehow supported nine children. Mother died at the age of sixty-four of a heart attack, December twenty nine, 1961. I was about twenty-four. My mother was a very generous and compassionate person who didn't have many possessions. She was short and stout and usually was dressed in drab work dresses, which hung almost to the floor, and most of the time she was wearing an apron.

Her shoes were black, flat, and very old fashioned, even for those days and she always walked slowly. She never wore makeup, because she thought this was only for young girls. I remember one evening my two sisters, Theresa and Regina, put makeup on my Mom and she was totally embarrassed. Mom always seemed happy even though the effects of poverty, diabetes, heart problems, and worry were always evident. Her manner of speech was crude and sometimes even seemed childish, probably because she only had a third grade education, and yet she seemed to have the wisdom of a scholar. She was the mother of nine children and this was during the years of the great depression. I don’t remember any of the depression because I was too young at that time.

My father worked six days a week, left the house at five-thirty in the morning, and didn’t get home until six in the evening. Therefore, my mother managed almost everything concerning the house. She tried to pay the bills on time, but they were usually months late. I remember my Mother giving me an envelope with some cash inside. This was the month of October, and She told me, "Take this to Leidecker's house and tell him it is payment for last years coal." Three weeks later she called Leidecker on the phone, and ordered a truck load of coal for this winter.

Most housework was extremely hard. Mom walked to the grocery store, bought the groceries, and carried them home. Most shopping days she pulled our little wagon to carry the groceries. We didn’t have an automobile to use for shopping. Our home was heated with a forced air coal furnace. The coal furnace was located in the basement and also a large 10 foot by 8 foot room that was used for storing the winter’s coal . Coal heat was filthy and by the end of every winter all the walls and ceilings had to be scrubbed with soap and water, and this usually was the chore reserved for Mom and the older children, girls and boys. As we children aged, we took our turn helping wash the interior of the home. We would wash all the walls and ceilings with soap and water, in the entire house every year just before Easter. It usually took a week to get the house completely finished.

My mother would do the family clothes washing and drying on Mondays, and that work ordinarily consumed the entire day. There were no automatic washers or dryers for doing the laundry. She would usually begin in the early morning, before we left for school, and finish near dinner time. The washing was done in an old, dark gray, Maytag washing machine located in the basement. It sounded like a slow drum roll, while the clothes were tumbling inside. When the clothes were clean, she put them in a basket and carried this heavy basket up the stairs and into the back yard. Here she would hang each piece on a line, which was stretched from the house to the alley and was about five feet above the grass. She used 1" by 2" poles to hold the line high off the ground. Later, when the clothes were dry, she would put the clothes in the basket again, carry it up the porch stairs, and bring it into the house. I remember the clothes always smelled so nice then.

The following day she would Iron the clothes. This was a very hot job, especially in the summer, and usually took the whole day and sometimes two. I remember one day while she was doing the washing. She was wearing a scarf around her neck and it got caught in the ringer. She hollered for help and it was lucky that someone was home to turn off the washer and remove the scarf from the machine.

Almost everything was ironed back then. Our tee shirts, pants, shirts, and dresses had to be pressed. These two household chores had to be repeated every week. There wasn’t much time for leisure then, only work. I guess that is why I don't have sympathy when people complain about the work they have these days. Compared to those days, it's a joke. Anyway, We did have a radio in our living room and a small a/m radio in the kitchen, but very few people had a television then. Hobbies and leisure were a luxury that few people could enjoy, and my mother wasn't one of them.

With all the hard work, late bills, and very little food, you would expect this lady To be tough and hard. She was tough and hard in some ways, she demanded respect and would enforce this with punishments. She expected our chours to be done and done correctly. But my mother never forgot our feelings, or the feelings of other people. She always believed other people had worse problems then us, and she would help if at all possible. She was very sympathetic towards anyone who had any problems, especially if they had family or financial problems, and understood the necessity to help others in need. I remember seeing the evidence of her compassion and her act of mercy many times. One of my favorite memories of this was in the early morning, during the hot summer. Go to "The hobo story" contained in Stories section.

Sometimes she would join my brother and me when we went fishing at Belmont Harbor in Lake Michigan.

We used to laugh because it was the funniest thing when she caught a fish. She would pull the line over her head and the fish would land in back of her. While we were fishing, she always told Hank and me, how she went fishing with her grandpa at Navy Pier and how happy they were together. She was very proud of her grandpa. I wish I would have asked her about her grandpa and grandma, and her father and Mother. I never did, so I don't know anything about them. Another Picture

She loved to play pinochle with my father and others. Saturday, in the evening, when the work was finished in the kitchen, she would bring out the cards, set up a card-table, and they would play cards. They used to play three cents a game and two cents a set. It seemed so great to hear my mother, who was always busy working, and always doing things for others, finally having some fun. I remember lying in bed, in the attic, and feeling so good listening to the voices and laughter downstairs, until I finally fell into deep sleep. Hank and I could hear everything said downstairs by putting our heads next to the heat ducts that were in the floor.

Also, once or twicw a year, during the day, my mother’s sisters all came to the house. They played cards and also played bunko with dice. The girls had a great time together, talking and laughing all the time. They usually stayed for about four hours.

Father:

My father was Henry Dittmer , but everyone called him Hank. His father's name was Johann Anton Ditttmer.

His mother's name was Anna Marie Christian.

Dad graduated from high school with straight As. He was inducted into the army during the First world war and was in combat in Germany all of the time. During the depression he worked in the coal mines and took any job available. Later he drove a bread truck, and when I was young he was driving a delivery truck for Sunkist Pie Company. He awoke at five thirty in the morning, and drove to the south side of Chicago to load his truck. His day usually ended about five or six in the evening. Dad was also a union organizer during the 30s, 40s ansd 50s. One week a year, he would go to Washington for a convention. Friday after work, he always brought home three or four pies for dinner desert. They only lasted a couple of days with nine children sharing them. My favorite was strawberry pie.

He bought his first car after the second world war, when he was forty-eight years old. It was a 1947 Kaiser, six cylinders, gray four door. It had no power stearing, no power brakes and no radio. Many days in winter he would not get home until late evening. He drove for the pie company until he died. He died July fourth 1951. I was fourteen years old then and Hank was only twelve. His big dream was to retire in the warm state of Florida He always wanted to buy a motel to supplement his retirement. Unfortunately, his dream never came true. My father and mother were both of German decent. Both spoke German well, and whenever they did not want the children to know what they were discussing, they spoke in German. My father was a tough man. He believed in the adage that children were to be seen and not heard. Most men did not get involved in the children’s life until the children were in the upper years of high school or college. This was left to the mothers. While I was growing I idolized Dad, even though he was very tough. Yet, I don’t ever remember one time that my father and I ever talked or laughed together. I believe it was because times and conditions were so rough on adults that they did not have much time for fun or kids. These years that I knew Dad were the years immediately following the depression.

I never knew any grandparents. My grandmother Brand died when I was seven or eight years old. She lived with my Aunt Betty in Desplaines, and when my grandma died; the wake was held in their parlor room for three days and nights. This was common practice in the 1940s. Most people thought it was terrible to have a wake at a funeral parlor, and it was worse if it only lasted for two days and two nights. People believed it was very impersonal and disrespectful to have the funeral ceremonies away from home.