Читать книгу Fruitcake Hill: A History and Memoir of Life on the Hill in a Family of 15 - Gerald J. Kuecher - Страница 7

Chapter One A Farmhouse on a Hill

We lived on a hill. Historians and geologists called our hill Blackbird Island. It was one of a few islands some 15-20 miles southwest of Chicago that remained emergent following the most recent high water stage of Lake Chicago some 2,000-5,000 years ago. Other islands in the vicinity included Blue Island, Worth Island, Mount Forest Island, and Stony Island. These islands became local sources for construction sands and gravels in the 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries.

The lowlands surrounding the swale-like hills were largely composed of peaty topsoils and peats that accumulated atop ubiquitous glacial tills. Occasionally the peaty combustibles ignited and a slow burn ensued. Peat fires weren’t obvious to the casual observer. They largely burned below ground and for periods ranging between a few days and a few years. For those living nearby, the curse of these fires was the eternal smoky haze that hung over the landscape.

A log cabin home was built on one of these swale-like hills in 1853 by the Richard O’Connell family (all legal records indicate they preferred to be called Connell), Irish immigrants to America from County Cork, Ireland. The log cabin was abandoned in 1871 and a two-story, utilitarian farmhouse was built about a hundred yards west of the cabin site. Neighbors called our home “The house on the hill.” Family members affectionately called the hill and the human drama surrounding it “Fruitcake Hill.”

Descendants of the Richard O’Connell family have continuously occupied this hilltop property since 1853 and the farmhouse, specifically, since it was built in 1871. These descendants were directly or indirectly affected by the Irish potato blight of 1848-1853, the American Civil War of 1860-64, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903, the excursion boat Eastland disaster of 1915, the Great Depression of 1929-35, two great world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Our Lady of Angels Fire of 1958, President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, and the Oak Lawn Tornado and Big Snow weather events of 1967. These Irish immigrants knew tragedy, but they were nonetheless brimming with optimism to build a life in this new world.

The O’Connells lived, became sick, and died in or very near the farmhouse. There were no hospitals. And the causes of their deaths seem tragic in light of the medical improvements to which we have become accustomed. Scarlet fever, tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, and polio were the main killers and cripplers of children while peptic ulcers, tetanus, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, pneumonia, alcoholism, and work-related injuries claimed the majority of adult lives.

There is little doubt the O’Connells of 1871 and the residents of the farmhouse today would find each other considerably alien were they to somehow meet. And the photograph that follows clearly supports that contention.

Portrait of Margaret and Richard O’Connell, circa 1865.

Our Irish ancestors took up grain farming in an area southwest of Chicago that would become known as Palos. A poetic reflection on our Irish farming roots, written by one of the O’Connell descendants follows:

They were Irish farmers as we all know

I can picture them now using a hoe

Clearing the land, getting stuck in the mud

Yearning for Ireland and the taste of a spud

To their credit the O’Connells elected to give up on farming potatoes in America. Back in Ireland, potatoes brought their family a great hardship. So they tried their luck raising corn and oats. This was a gamble, in itself, because they knew very little about anything except potatoes. But they started with a new slate and made the best of it. And for that, one must admire them.

The 1871 farmhouse was a two story structure typical of homes on the plains in those days. It was painted white and had a very steep roof covered initially with cedar shakes and later with greenish asphalt-based shingles. It had a dank stone basement with steep stairs to the first floor, radiator heat, a bathroom and a dining room with a big west-facing bay window, and three bedrooms upstairs. A garage that was little more than a lean-to and a screened porch were added by the time of the 1885 photo. The garage led variously up a half-flight to the kitchen, up a full flight to a storage attic, and on the ground level to a wash basin room complete with a wringer washer.

The family room and dining room lay respectively between the porch (added to farmhouse around 1880) and the kitchen on the ground floor. The farmhouse had an 80 foot well for drinking water, a septic tank beneath the back yard and a drain trap in the front yard.

The farmhouse was oriented not on today’s x-y coordinate system, but rather about 25 degrees skewed. This made reference to what became known as the East Bedroom and the West Bedroom a bit of a stretch. And before WW2, a chicken coop and granary was located at the hill’s break in slope, about 40 yards to the east.

The farmhouse on the hill (photo circa 1885).

The old banister hand rail that graced the stairwell joining the family room to the upstairs bedrooms deserves some notice. It had a simple but elegant style and stood up to decades of kids sliding down it solo and down the adjacent stairs in baby baskets. Children typically watched movies after hours from atop the landing and scattered to the winds if an adult made a move to chase them. Several accidents occurred on or near the banister, including a pencil stuck in a hand, numerous falls, and a near-tragic shooting when our father mistook one of the children coming in late for an intruder.

The farmhouse was drafty because little to no insulation was built into the walls. And getting dressed on school mornings when the temperatures fell to zero and below zero required a spot on prized real estate, i.e., above radiator ducts and in front of the open oven. Getting a spot in these few square feet often meant the difference between a pleasant morning and a bad one.

The farmhouse contained a number of treasure drawers. Old drawers became rich hunting grounds largely because nobody took time to sort them. One might encounter old Indian head pennies, buffalo nickels, mercury dimes, silver dollars, old switches, shotgun shells, and other assorted paraphernalia. And loose floorboards were occasionally encountered, beneath which our ancestors may have stored their savings.

A brick addition was added to the old farmhouse between 1965 and 1966 because there simply was no room to maneuver. The new addition included three bedrooms, a large family room, two additional bathrooms and a full-sized basement. That was the good news. The bad news involved the bricklayer contracted to build it. He was a tireless grouch with a nasty mouth. “Get outta that sand pile!” he would roar. And the kids would scurry for cover.

A grove of spectacular oak trees could be seen through the dining room’s bay windows, their black, deeply furrowed trunks topped by lime green canopies that changed in rhythm with the wind. Squirrel, deer, fox, and coyote frequented this verdant landscape, especially in the early morning and early evening sun. And because acorns were the fundamental food supply for the characters in this daily play, the dining room became affectionately known as The Acorn Room, and it was decorated accordingly.

The farmhouse on the hill (white, wooden structure) exhibiting the west-facing bay window and the new addition (brick structure) finished in 1966. Photo circa 1995.

Perhaps the most inconvenient aspect of the old farmhouse was its single bathroom. One could imagine the scene when two or three children may be in queue and patience wore thin when the one in the bathroom did not share the same sense of emergency as those in waiting.

Humans were not the only animals to take residence in the farmhouse. At one time, a family of 11 raccoons lived in the attic. They were trapped and taken far away (at least that was the story the adults told the kids). Mice also took occasional residence because over 135 years of continuous meals were delivered to those that lived there. Trapping the mice earned the children a bounty but it was always awkward explaining the snap of these traps to guests invited for dinner.

Changes happened slowly on our hill but the march of progress was a determined foe. By the year 1862, the O’Connells owned 240 acres of farmland in the Palos area; perhaps more later. But they sold these holdings over the years to Warren’s sod nursery and by the time World War 2 ended, only 3.6 acres remained. This remains the property of the family today while all surrounding properties belong to Moraine Valley Community College.

The taxes on the property were only about 100 dollars per year back in 1950. But today, the hill and all its history is going the way of all open properties in land-hungry suburbia, i.e., covered by the stuff of cities. And life in the vicinity of our property slowly changed. First there was one house, then another and another. Then a high school was built. And before we knew it, the village had become a city (1958), the city approved an ordinance against discharging firearms (1970), and our rural hunting paradise was gone forever.

This story focuses on the experiences of Babe and Bob Kuecher’s family on this farm property. These stories may be difficult to appreciate in their current cultural context. But this was the case in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago in the 1950’s and 1960’s, where townships more appropriately described the city fringe than towns, and suburbia in its modern sense had not yet arrived.