Lake View High School, Ashland and Irving

My grandmother Elsie graduated from Lake View High School in the 1930s; I forget which year off hand. She married my grandfather Edwin shortly after.

Elsie Soby Asala

It's a week for birthdays and memories. Today would have been my Grandmother Elsie's 89th birthday. We all called her Gramsy. She was quite the woman. She was one of three children born to Finnish parents, and my father's mother. She graduated from Lake View High School at 4015 Ashland, and almost immediately married my Grandpa Edwin. She was only 17.

This photo of her was taken at the Century of Progress Chicago World's Fair in 1934. She was standing in a cutout made to look like fan dancer Sally Rand (see 2nd image). Ms. Rand was quite the sensation of her day, dancing nude (or appearing to) with only her two fans to cover her. When my grandmother came home with this souvenir photo, she was nearly whupped by her own mother, who thought she really had bared her behind at the fair.

Gramsy had three children, my father being the youngest, and when my grandfather died in 1953 (I think it was), she became the sole provider for the family. The family lived in various apartments in and around Andersonville. I don't think any of them are still standing.

Eventually, when her children moved out to the suburbs with their own children, Elsie followed, getting an apartment in Wheaton, right on the train line, and continuing to commute to Chicago for her job. She was a key punch operator.


Gramsy died when I was very young, still in junior high. My favorite memories of her are when I got to stay overnight at her apartment by myself. There are eight of us grandchildren, and she always made the effort to spend one-on-one time with us. I have a pair of antique elephant knickknack that belonged to her, which I keep on top of one of my antique radios, and a turquoise ring. In every memory I have of her, her hands were covered in these large rings. Each of her granddaughters received one after her death.

I've always admired Gramsy's strength to be able to raise three young children on her own. She never remarried. She was a fun, slightly crazy, generous, warm person, who loved all of us. I only wish that she could have lived long enough for me to get to know her as an adult. The memories I have are a child's memories, and when she passed away, a great deal of family history was lost with her.

Lon Dawson

Yesterday would have been my grandfather's 84th birthday. He graduated from Robert A. Waller High School, named for the developer of Buena Park. (It's now known as Lincoln Park High School, located at 2001 North Orchard Street. You can read about its history on the official Web site.)

After high school, he entered the Navy, and was stationed in California when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He was immediately shipped out, and was there a few days after the attack. He served most of his time in the Navy aboard the USS Trever.

When the war was over, he returned to Chicago. He had married my grandmother Emma, who also graduated from Waller, while on a brief leave. For a while, they lived in an apartment building owned by my great grandfather, and eventually ended up on Hermitage with their daughter. Mom graduated from Senn.

If any of you readers were living in Uptown in the sixties and seventies, you may have seen my grandfather at Sears. He was the display manager at the Lawrence store, in the days when individual stores could decorate and arrange the displays as they saw fit. (Nowadays, all decorating decisions are handled at corporate headquarters. There's little creativity left in the job. ) He also worked the art fair circuit, specializing in a style of painting that looked like stained glass. If anyone out there has his work, signed Lon Dawson or Pennilon, I'd love to see a photo of it.

My grandmother passed away in 1980. My grandfather remarried, and retired with his new wife to Southern Illinois, and there began a second career as a writer. In the 1990s, they sold their house and moved to the Veterans Home in Quincy. It was their last home. My grandfather died of cancer four years ago this coming January.

I was very little when my grandfather lived in the neighborhood; my parents had taken me out to the suburbs when I was just under four years old, and I moved here five years ago. I don't remember much about his apartment, or the first house he bought. But I've heard enough stories over the years, so that there are certain places in Uptown that I can't walk past without thinking of him—particularly the Sears store.

I know that a lot of us have lost our grandparents over the years, and some of us our parents. My grandfather was just an average guy, but he meant a lot to me, and I wanted to take a moment to share a few memories of him, and put a real face on some of the people who once called this neighborhood home.

Update
My grandfather had written a book chronicling his adventure during World War II about the USS Trever, which is now available through Amazon: Cradle Cruise.

Great Aunt Lydia and Great Grandma Marta

My father was furious with me—and rightly so—when I snuck this photo out of the family album and took it to school for show-and-tell in the fifth grade, snapping it in half in the process. It is of my Great Aunt Lydia Alhsteadt Ranck, sister of Agnes Marta Alhsteadt, my great grandmother. Lydia is wearing a variation of the national costume of Finland, where my dad's family is from. (Unfortunately, I don't have a similar photo of my great grandmother.) This branch of the family was from Helsinki.

While Lydia stayed in Finland, my great grandmother made the journey here to Chicago by herself, at the age of seventeen, to live with another one of her sisters. It was 1913 or so when she arrived in Chicago. I'm not sure what year she found her way to the north side. She ended up marrying a nice Finnish boy and had three children, including my grandmother, Elsie, who would grow up to marry a nice Finnish-American boy of her own and have three children as well, including my father, Ron.

Every once in a while, I pull out this photograph of Aunt Lydia, and wonder what it would have been like if my great grandmother had stayed in Finland as well. I wouldn't be writing an Uptown Chicago blog, that's for certain. It's strange how the decisions we make—where we'll live, who we'll marry—have a lasting effect on those who come after.