The Young Weekes Family in the 1890s

The two pictures show you a silver necklace with an engraved disc that belonged to Viola Hawley Weekes, Ruth's grandmother.  One side (above) shows the date, "1891", in the center.  The other bears the word "Mother".   The necklace is not shown in Pieces of a Life, though I am in possession of it.   

That is the year, 1891, that Viola and William's fourth child, Leroy, was born in April and died in August.  I suspect that William gave the necklace to Viola some time during that year to commemorate Leroy's death.  More tragedy was to come with the passing of oldest son Walter in Feb., 1894 and the death of Viola herself in Jan.4, 1896.

Yes, at that time there were many deaths of infants and children as well as mothers.  Yet it no less sad because it was common. Viola was 38 when, after 6 months of illness, she was taken by "Chronic Catarrhal Gastritis".  The dictionary says catarrh means 'inflammation of mucous membrane, usually the nose and air passages."  The gastritis is "inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach."

When Viola died, that left just William and the two remaining children, Carlotta Lola Lucretia, who we know as "Lottie" (Ruth's mother) at age 9 and her little brother, Lewis Henry at age 7.  The family lived at 325 W. Randolph St., in what is now bustling downtown Chicago.  Neither Viola nor William had relatives in Chicago. Viola was 3 when she came from the East Coast with her mother, who must have died years earlier.  William traveled from Wilkes-Barre PA after the Chicago Fire in 1871 to find work as a carpenter in the massive rebuilding of the city.  

Lottie lived with Mrs. Millard, a family friend, for 4 years, though I am not sure which ones.  Perhaps she and Lewis lived with William from 1896-1900.  Lottie would have had responsibilities beyond her age during Viola's months of sickness, so she she became a surrogate mother for Lewis from ages 7-11.  She is not shown on the census in 1900 with her father and brother.

William was a carpenter.  Perhaps by age 11 Lewis could go with his father on jobs when he wasn't in school.  Lottie, my grandmother, told me that she had dropped out of school in 8th grade "to keep house."   Whose house?  Do I wish I had asked more questions of her?  Of course!

 

1930- 31: Climbing Out of the Depression

I'll have to give John Kellogg credit for always believing in himself - that he could overcome whatever odds were lining up against him.

The picture of Ruth and John was taken in 1930, almost a year after the Crash in 1929.  Ruth lost her job at Montgomery Ward.  Any wives whose husbands also worked at Wards were let go quickly, so John's job lasted a year or so longer than Ruth's.  Then John worked for a newly-created division of the Welfare Commission in Chicago. Luckily he was hired by his former boss at Ward's, though that job only lasted 8 months.

Always on the lookout for an opportunity, John found one.  "Meanwhile I was searching for something new that people would buy.  I first saw a roll of Sealtex at a social meeting of a Bible Class.  I bought a dozen 2x60 rolls for 25 cents each and the next night sold them directly for 50 cents each.  They sold very fast.  For the next several nights, I repeated the above.  Then I felt sure I had located something that had a future.  Mom and I sold two shares of AT&T we had jointly bought after we were married to buy the rights for all sales in Cook County.  Long before that our car had been stolen and wrecked.  We had been using public transportation for many months.

Our son, Kenneth Alan, was born September 6, 1931."

John didn't talk about the family again until I was born in 1936.  His focus was on succeeding in business, much more difficult than it would have been before the Depression hit.  Everyone was impacted, so at least one didn't feel alone in trying to survive.

New Year's Day, January 1, 1941

The picture shows Ken and Diane Kellogg (me) on the front steps and stoop at 5458 W. Iowa in Chicago where our grandparents, Jim and Lottie Meredith, owned a two-flat for over 50 years.  You can see the sandy beige stucco on the porch behind us.  At that time, we lived upstairs in the smaller apartment.

In Pieces of a Life, Ruth's diary reports on the beginning of that momentous year, 1941.   "Drove down to factory with Papa and Jim to see new Aids machine in operation. Back again for New Year's Day dinner of Chicken and Duck with folks.

Just had time after dishes to get dressed and go to Florence and Clyde's.  Her folks came too.  We had a nice cold meal at 8.  Home 10:30"

"Papa and Jim" are my Grandfather Meredith and Uncle Jim.  The Aids machine mentioned might have been the long tunnel-like drying mechanism for the surgical bandage my father, John Kellogg, made.

Interesting about the food served on New Year's Day.  I have one vague recollection of duck and chicken or turkey being served for Thanksgiving at my grandparents' home when I was very young.  The custom must have ebbed away.

The other people Ruth mentions are the Ballentines, Florence and Clyde, who were their close friends. Florence and Ruth met when they both worked as stenographers at Montgomery Ward in Chicago.  By this time, Ballentines had a daughter, Bonnie Kay, who was one year younger than myself.

What Excitement! In 1904 John's Father Bought a Steven-Duryea

Okay, this is not the Steven-Duryea automobile that Charles Kellogg bought in 1904.  Continuing his father's fascination with cars, John bought the one pictured much later.  Shown in 1939 with John and children  Diane and Ken, it's a blue 1938 Lincoln Zephyr, the first expensive car John purchased.  John loved showing it off.

Pieces of a Life quotes John Kellogg's autobiography in talking about that other car, the Steven-Duryea. "In 1904 Buffalo received four new cars; one of them was ours.  I was five years old.  Cars then lacked windshields, tops, doors, mufflers and many other things we now take for granted.  To keep clean, folks had to wear goggles and linen dusters.  Vividly I recall the family driving the 25 miles to Buffalo to get outfitted.  I was asleep and they did not waken me.  I was heart-broken.

Our car came from Massachusetts and was a Steven-Duryea.  Like all others it had one large cylinder that shook the car when it exploded.  Cars were so very simple then.  If something broke, there was no service station to which you took it for repairs.  The village blacksmith forged your parts back together.  Each person with a car kept their own wood barrel of gasoline; recall, ours was down in the apple orchard.

Lacking mufflers, cars made a terrific racket.  Horses were just plain scared of them.  Horse owners at first tried to minimize the impact by putting blinders on horses; with these the horse could see only straight ahead.  These helped some.  Still the noise was so loud that often the horses ran away or their owners held them at great risk.  I have been in a car many times when the frustrated owner would lash out at us with his whip.  We went much faster, so in several seconds were out of danger.