The Old Kellogg Home in Lancaster NY

This is the house, built sometime in the 1800s, where John Kellogg lived until age 13. It's somewhere between 16 and 20 rooms.  He said both in his book. The photo, taken in 1940, shows the house next to another, sitting on a paved street with little land, compared to the 3 1/2 acres on a hill where it was in 1899 when John was born.

In Pieces of a Life I quoted a section from John's autobiography called "Life in Lancaster in the Early 1900's".  John sketched the small town atmosphere back in the 1870's and 1880's when his father, Charles, had his first three children with his wife, Clara Shotwell, who died.  They were born in the 1870's:  Charles, Kittie Clara and George.  These were John's much-older step-brothers and step-sister.

"Now let's go way back.  What was life like when Father lived in the little town of Lancaster?  Perhaps 5,000 people walked or drove buggies or wagons over dirt roads.  The sidewalks were of wood planks as were the cross walks.  Sometime later the Village paved Main Street with brick, which was a big improvement."

"Our house had been built many years before we bought and had about 20 rooms.  It had two floors, plus a cement floor, full basement.  In the basement there was a furnace in which we burned hard coal and which gave hot air through two ducts to the two living rooms and dining room on the first floor, also to both second floor front bedrooms.  The first floor also had a large kitchen and pantry, which were heated by a large range primarily used for cooking or baking."

John goes on to say that his room and those of the hired man and woman were not heated, yet "I did not feel bad about that for none of my friends had rooms with heat.  You piled on the blankets in zero weather and dressed fast in the morning."   When John speaks of the heat, "it brings to mind the fact that he turned off the heat at night in our house in Oak Park.  In the belly of the winter when pipes might freeze, he put on just enough heat to avoid that.  So I, too, remember bundling up at night and getting dressed very quickly in the morning."  

Summertime in the Back Yard on Iowa Street

Brother Jimmie and Ruth look intently at the photographer in the summer of 1940 or 1941 while Diane appears bored and Grandma Lottie looks away, probably unaware of the photo because of her increasing deafness. Was it young Ken behind the camera - or maybe Grandpa Jim Meredith? They're seated on a bench behind the Meredith two-flat, the kitchen window and basement door behind them.

On June 12, 1941, Ruth wrote, "Most of the Radio Stations are elaborating on the sinking of United States merchant ship 'Robin Moor' by a Nazi sub-marine.  There is much speculation about it.  So far only 11 survivors out of 46 crew and passengers."

On June 14, 1941 Ruth reported in her diary an incident that could have been a tragedy.  "Part of a punch press Papa was working on broke and fell on his head.  Made a cut about an inch long.  He had to to to company [Western Electric] hospital and have it taken care of.  Then he went back to work.  Everyone marveled that he wasn't knocked out.  Piece weighed 12#."  Western Electric did start to investigate why the piece loosened and fell.  It was just three years later that Papa (James B. Meredith) passed away at the age of 64.

Life is smooth for the Merediths and Kelloggs, but a bumpy road is ahead with World War II on the horizon. This picture is not in Pieces of a Life, nor are the quotes from Ruth's diary.

Timing is Everything, They Say...

I quoted my father's autobiography in Pieces of a Life.  John Kellogg said, "In October of 1929 a serious depression started.  Mail order houses (branches) quickly reflect any change in orders for houses they operate on a percentage of sales.  In 1930 the Chicago House [of Montgomery Ward] sold about 10% of what it had sold in 1928.  This meant that the House Manager had 2 million dollars in 1930 to do what he had done with 20 million dollars in 1928.  This called for the most vigilant curbing of all expense.  

We liked our little flat building, but with things so shaky we traded the 3-flat for vacant lots west of Wilmette; the payments on the lots were so low I was reasonably sure I could carry them.  I was not sure I could carry the 3-flat;suppose that some of the tenants lost their job or we did?"

This didn't work out as John had hoped.  The land ended up being taken for part of an expressway and, from what I heard, John didn't get all of his money out of it.  Yet no one could have predicted the terrible financial hurricane that was coming.  

The picture shows John and Ruth in Ann Arbor just weeks after their wedding in 1929.

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.