Pheasant Hunting in St. Boniface Cemetery During WW2

Bill Matteson
Uptown Chicago History Correspondent

There were times during the war years we ate pretty good. Perch from Lake Michigan and Pheasant from St Boniface Cemetery. St. Boniface ran along Lawrence from Magnolia west to Clark Street.

We would sneak into the cemetery from Magnolia, mainly because there wasn't any traffic and we did this towards dark so we wouldn't attract attention. You had to be careful climbing over the wall, which was high and concrete, because some mean person put broken glass on the top to keep people from doing exactly what we were doing.

One day, a few friends and I decided to sneak into the cemetery and play war and hide and seek. While walking around through the tombstones, we would kick up a pheasant or two. We also noticed that they weren't afraid of us; they were tame, and fat, maybe to fat to fly.
Me and my buddy John went back sometime later and brought a gunny sack with us and a half of an old broom stick, with tape around the handle, that we would also use for fast pitch. I would chase the pheasants close to John and he would whack them over the head and then wring their necks. We would put a couple in the bag and take off. We always left before it got totally dark. That place was scary enough in the daylight.

My mom knew how to dress them out, and pluck all the feathers. Pheasant and Lake Michigan perch are some of the best meals I ever had.

I still have my WWII ration books, Mom says to keep them, just in case.

Between John and I, over a two- year period, we must have taken 8 birds. We never wanted to thin out the flock, so we practiced some sense of conservation. I wonder if there are any left?

When I told them this story, one of my grandkids didn't understand what plucking feathers was, and another wanted to know what a gunny sack was.

Regards
Bill Matteson

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.

Scrap Metal Drive, Buena Park Uptown, 1942

I found this WWII series of photos one day while digging through the Library of Congress archives. They show a group of children from Block 8 Zone 2 donating scrap metal and other materials to the war effort. Block 8 Zone 2 was bordered by Sheridan, Montrose, Broadway, and Sunnyside.

The first image showing the little girl is captioned: "Jaqueline Halloran, 4424 North Sheridan Road, bringing in a load of tin cans for scrap to her block Office of Civilian Defense headquarters, 1942. Her father was a switchman on a railroad in Chicago." None of the other photos are labeled with the names of individuals, just the event.

What I particularly like is the photo showing the names of men who lived in the district who were off fighting in the war. It would be nice to have something like that in Uptown now. I have no idea which of my neighbors are in Iraq.

Click each image for a larger view.