Ruth Becomes a Senior Citizen!

Ruth Kellogg. my mother, is pictured with John, my father in Clearwater FL. Standing next to them are Dan, Lynn, Cindy and Kate.  This was taken at Easter 1977, so the girls were 10, 9 and 6.

Monday, July 5, 1971 - "Today I am a Senior Citizen - 65 years old!  I have gained a little in the 3 1/2 weeks since returning here - and have to watch that after getting into smaller clothes, etc.

We played doubles again from 8:30 to 10:00.  Then went directly from Ken's shop to mark off with chalk where boxes and rubber are to go when they arrive soon.

Very hot in sun but good breeze helps.  We took  a few hours - from 2 to 4 to visit Ethel & Ernest Betts.  She is doing quite well with her walker but will be using it the rest of the summer."

This diary held surprises for me.  I thought that Ken and Beth had divorced before he and the boys moved to Florida, but they must have broken up later.  She was "very nervous" about the move to Chicago, according to Ruth.

Also, Ruth was very focused on her weight.  She had been in the 130 - 140 range earlier/  On Jan. 1, 1971 she was 128 1/2, dropped to 112 on June 10, popped up a bit to 113 1/2 by July 5.  She doesn't say just how she was losing weight, whether using some weight loss product or just by eating a healthier diet.

The Betts were unknown to me.  They may have been friends through their building,  Horizon House, or through church.  Ruth and John knew a lot of couples. Visits with friends, bridge games, tennis were the fabric of their lives as retirees.  Ruth also spent a lot of her time sewing, knitting and helping her mother, Lottie Meredith, and brother Jimmie near Clearwater.  They had lived in Mt. Prospect for a few years after Ruth and John left the Chicago area.  I was their driver/helper then, but also had 3 little girls and a house to take care of.

"Ken's shop" was the new Florida location of the bandage business John had started in the late 1930s.
Ken took over when John, his father, retired.   He bought a house and a "shop" for making the bandage.  Their home in Des Plaines IL was sold that summer.  Ruth mentioned that I seemed depressed in a letter because I was the only one left in Illinois from the Kellogg family.

Amazing! Within Walking Distance of Me in West Bucktown is...

... MY FATHER'S FIRST FACTORY BUILDING

As I grew up in Oak Park in the 1940s and 1950s, I was very aware of a certain Chicago address:  2014 W. Wabansia.  That was the first factory building my father, John Webb Kellogg, bought in the late 1930s.  (See picture on the right.) He was proud of owning it and of the 6 1/2 day work weeks he trudged through to pay his costs as the Great Depression gradually ended.

From age 6 or 7, I saw it rarely, but heard about "the factory" or "Wabansia" every day.  Dad occupied the first floor, which was 8 or 9 stairs up.  Beneath it was an English basement, which was several stairs down and had a low ceiling.  All but Dad's floor was rented to industrial tenants.  There was a parade of them during the many years he owned Wabansia with constant stories about tenants, complaints about late rent,  about skipping out without paying at all, being hard on the floors, walls, seeing poor management etc.

What did Dad do on his floor?   Earlier when he was selling for them, Dad bought a surgical bandage company that was going broke.  He moved that business to Wabansia.  This was cohesive bandage
rather than adhesive, meaning it stuck to itself instead of the person using it.  He had 2 brands,
Sealtex and Quick.  At first he did all of the work himself, working 18-hour days.  By the time he bought Wabansia, he was able to hire Polish women from the area to roll and box the bandage after it was processed.  Years later, a client wanted unusually wide bandage.  Either Dad or my brother, Ken, who worked with him, found it was being used to support racing horses' ankles, especially when there was a wet or muddy track.  That turned out to be a valuable piece of business.

Dan and I live in West Bucktown in Chicago.  We found 2014 W. Wabansia one day while looking for the local branch library.  The factory is no more.  It's an upscale rebuild with a small grocery store on the first floor and condos above.  There's no English basement.  When my brother in FL heard about it, he was stunned, thinking it was still a Polish neighborhood with a mixture of modest homes, apartments and industrial buildings like his.  He bought the business after Dad retired.