Pg. 21: Chicago
In June of 1941 I left 506 East Ninth in Hutchinson to “make my way in the world” as an engineer with Automatic Electric Company in Chicago.
Aunt Ethel had suggested that we drive to Chicago in her Plymouth coupe (“King”), which suited me just fine. I got to drive of course. She had made reservations in a hotel in LaGrange, which is where she stayed until she returned to Hutch a few days later.
That weekend Aunt Ethel and I attended the Fourth Presbyterian Church on Chicago’s Near North Side. This had been suggested by Hutchinson folks who knew that Harrison Ray Anderson, formerly of Kansas (Wichita I think), was the head honcho at 4th. That Sunday I had one of my most embarrassing moments —
We had just started to follow the usher down that long, long center isle of flagstones when one of my sock garters came unhooked. It flopped, flopped, on that hard surface — I was sure they could hear it clear down in the (1)Loop! We finally got to our pew, and I fixed the offending snap. Aunt Ethel never said a word about it, lady that she was.
. . . . . 1 The Loop was the rectangle formed by the elevated train system — the Rapid Transit — as it served the downtown portion of Chicago. It was (still is) about 4 blocks east/west and 8 blocks north/south. Lines branched off the Loop to serve the remainder of Chicago. While we were in Chicago, the long-awaited subway also went into service to augment “L” service.
Aunt Ethel headed on back to Kansas, and I started my telephone career — but let’s start with the most important thing that happened to me in Chicago, which was —»»
Mary
Mary graduated from Monmouth (Illinois) College in June of 1941. Someplace she heard of the Moser Business College in Chicago and decided to go there to get a “marketable” skill. Her folks drove her to Chicago to get her enrolled at Moser’s and find her a room at the YWCA on the Near North Side. At the YW she got acquainted with a gal whose home church had contacted 4th Church and asked that the gal be invited to 4th. (1)Mary went along, and that is how she got to 4th Presbyterian Church.
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I got to 4th because after the worship service which Aunt Ethel and I had attended there was a young fellow, George Adams, who invited me to come back for the evening young people activities. So Mary and I found ourselves in the same place at the same time.
The Young Peoples Department (YPD) at 4th Church was composed of about 50-60 young people, most of whom were college grads starting their adult lives in the big city. There was a goodly number of Midshipmen from the training school just a few blocks down on Michigan Avenue. There were just a few Chicagoans. We met in the morning for Sunday School under the super leadership of (2)
John Mulder, an attorney. Mae Ross Taylor was the staff person responsible for YPD activities.
. . . . . . .2 The John Mulder with National prominence in the Presbyterian denomination today is a son of the YPD Mulder.
Most of us sat together in church for good sermons under Harrison Ray Anderson. Evenings were food and fun time, often followed by attending the evening worship service if there was no get together at someone’s apartment.
The second year Mary and I were both on the YPD cabinet, and I really started to take notice of this nice little girl from Iowa. We had a few dates going to the movies, and I regularly saw her home after YPD meetings. For Labor Day of 1942 YPD went to Lake Geneva just over the line into Wisconsin. One night under the stars — actually, you couldn’t see the stars, it was overcast and chilly — I told her she was just the sort of girl I would like to marry. I don’t really know if I ever just plain asked the question, “Will you marry me?”!
That Christmas vacation Mary and I went to Newton, and I met her folks. They seemed to agree that it would be ok for us to get hitched. One Saturday we went down to the Loop and bought an engagement ring. The next day the YPD gang got the news of our engagement. And the next day I went to Bloomington for three weeks to make tests on A.E.Co. telephone equipment being installed there!!
The following July 10, 1943, we were married in the old U.P.Church in Newton, Iowa. My folks and Aunt Ethel came up from Kansas for the event. We honeymooned in Dad Campbell’s Buick down to Hutchinson. Gas rationing was in effect, but we had enough of Dad Campbell’s “stamps” for the trip. We came back to Newton via Lincoln, Nebraska — not knowing that Lincoln was to become home just over three years later.
Toughy Avenue
Our first Chicago apartment was clear up on the north side, Toughy Avenue, about a block from the lake. It was just a short walk from the “L”, so transportation to work was no problem. The bus was the best way to church, since it came right up Sheridan Boulevard. We mostly ate out in the evenings; ’cause when you turned on the oven, the cockroaches came running out! It was real bug heaven. But they left the rest of the apartment pretty much alone. Margaret and Ellsworth visited us once at the Toughy location.
Mary’s first job was with an outfit down by the loop and didn’t fit her. She then worked for the national office of the PTA. Through one of the young people at 4th Church she then got a job as secretary at 4th. She spent part of her noon hours looking for a suitable apartment within walking distance of the church and found an unfurnished third floor “flat” at )219 East Superior street. We moved from Toughy to 219 in early 1944.
. . . . . . .A few years ago — I can’t remember the circumstances — Mary and I drove by 219, or rather where 219 used to be. It is now a parking building.
219 East Superior
We were able to find a bed, table, chairs, and davenport at Sears. The davenport was “wartime” construction and had no springs. The springs for the bed were mounted in a wooden frame. We still use those springs at 2115, and the table is currently in use out at the Briarpatch.
When Peggy was on the way, we were also able to find (at Sears I think) a (1)good baby buggy. We stored it under the stairs in the entry hall at 219, making it convenient for Mary to take Peggy out for buggy rides to the near-by grocery store or to the little park down the street.
. . . . . 1 That same baby buggy was used for all five of our children. Martha also used it for some of her offspring out in Stromsburg. It was a good buy.
On September 29, 1945, our first child, Margaret Marie, was born in Passevant (sp?) Memorial Hospital just a few blocks up the street from 219. After the birth I can recall the nurse bringing Peggy out and saying you have a girl, but there is a problem. On Peggy’s back there was this big blister “bruise” a couple of inches in diameter — a spina bifida condition in which the spinal cord is out of position. When I went in to see Mary, she could tell by the look on my face that all was not well.
Mary’s lady doctor obstetrician, Dr. Webster, recommended we consult about Peggy with Dr. (2)Loyal Davis, the best in the country on this type of problem. He was doing nuero-surgery research for the Navy. I can recall sitting across the desk from Dr. Davis wondering how many thousands of dollars the best in the nation was going to charge us for the impending operation. After explaining what was involved and answering questions about the operation, he asked, “How much is your obstetrician charging you?”. I told him the amount (think it was $150). He said, “Would it be fair if I charged you the same amount?”!!! Wow!
. . . . . . .2 2 Dr. Davis was the father (or maybe step-father?) of Nancy Reagan, later the First Lady.
The operation was a success. The little chapel at 4th Presby had a special service with prayers being offered for just such an outcome. Though we did not take it lightly at the time, we came to realize later just how fortunate we were that Peggy came through with no ill effects. It didn’t usually work out that way. Dr. Davis’ office continued to follow up on Peggy’s well being for many years afterward.
Peggy required extra care for the operation’s wound, so was kept at the hospital for 10 
days after Mary came home. When we went over to get Peggy, the nurses made us feel real good about what a beautiful and well behaved baby Peggy was, and they hated to part with her.
Meanwhile, my mother had arranged for a practical nurse, Mrs. Moon, to come up from Hutchinson and help take care of Peggy. She was a real help and knew just how to handle that little gal. I don’t know if we ever thanked Mom sufficiently for that action. Mrs. Moon stayed and helped a week or two (I forget).
Peggy got along just fine. Aunt Ethel came to visit when Peggy was a few months old. They adored each other and had fun giggling together. Mary’s folks also came to see the new girl. Everyone agreed that Peggy really was a beautiful baby — no prejudiced judgements of course.
Mary then settled in as a “home maker” for the third floor flat at 219.
Other 4th Church Items
About the second year in Chicago I was elected to the Board of Deacons at 4th Church. All I can remember doing was leading a Wednesday evening service in which we discussed the Roman Church and its perversion of the Latin American countries. Afterwards a sweet little lady came up and told me the program was a disgrace to do at a Wednesday service. She may have been right, but Mae Ross Taylor soothed my hurt feelings.
Mary was busy as secretary to Mae Ross and Mr. Walker, who was in charge of details for various luncheons. Wednesdays were especially full of lunch business, requiring a count of reservations, cancellations, etc. Mary usually came home with a headache on Wednesday evenings.
I was ordained an Elder at 4th just before we left Chicago. I was impressed by Harrison Ray Anderson’s insistence that at least half the church budget should be for Benevolences. Too bad that more churches don’t have that vision.
Room Mates Before Mary
What do you do for a room mate when getting to the Big City? You team up with someone from work. Dick Lynch from Ottawa, Illinois (and Purdue) was also a new 
Student Engineer at A.E. About the second day of class he asked me if I’d be interested in rooming with him up on the north side where he had found a room in a nice neighborhood. I said sure, and we moved into 6219 Winthrop (photo). It was very conveniently located just a half block away from the Granville Avenue elevated station. I usually had breakfast at a little greasy spoon under the tracks. Dick and I were room mates for several months, and then he went into the military.
I scurried around and found three other A.E. fellows who were losing a 4th mate and could take me. We had an apartment down near Diversy. This lasted for just a few months, and then some of them were called i
nto service. I then hooked up with my favorite, Horace Talcott (photo) from Strawberry Point, Iowa. He was a red head. He and I stayed a few months on the Near North side and then found a place at 5643 Sheridan Road, overlooking Lake Michigan! Horace also went to YPD at 4th Church and was lots of fun.
Automatic Electric Company
I had visited A.E.Co. on the K-State engineers’ inspection trip and liked the idea of their being a supplier of “communication-type” equipment — primarily automatic telephone stuff. I didn’t particularly like the idea of the big city, but that is where you were going if you were an engineer. Harry Peterson and Don Wilkins, K-State classmates, also went to A.E.Co.
The A.E. factory was a series of five buildings about eight blocks west of the loop. The “address” was 1033 West Van Buren, which was “building #4″, housing Sales, Drafting, Engineering, Executive Offices, Laboratories, and the cafeteria. Three other “factory” buildings were in the adjacent block. They were all typical “factory-type” buildings — seven floors high, wood beam construction. If one had ever caught fire and gotten a good start, it would have been a disaster. Building #5, the “Curtis building” was a block away and of more modern construction — concrete.
The first assignment at A.E. was to attend the Student Training Course, consisting of circuit study and getting to know the ins and outs of the Strowger (1)switch, the back bone of the step-by-step telephone system manufactured by A.E. I really liked the circuit study. I was surprised — and very pleased — when the head of the training school came around near the end of the school and asked how would I like to be the circuits instructor for the next session!! Of course I would, and did.
. . . . . . 1 A “switch” might be anything from a mechanism having a moving shaft with attached wipers to a metal base with several dozen relays.
After teaching Circuits in the training school for two sessions, I was assigned to the Testing Bureau, headed by (2)V.E.James. He was a super boss, giving you just enough guidance to keep you out of trouble. My first activity was to write “circuit explanations” for newly-designed equipment. This was a narrative description of what the circuit was supposed to do, and a (3)relay by relay detailed description of how it was accomplished. Some of the circuits used dozens of relays, the blueprint covering the entire desk top. I loved it.
. . . . . . . .2 My deck was immediately in front V.E.’s (as he was called), so I couldn’t help hearing his end of telephone conversations. I picked up from him the non-threatening expressions (when indisagreement with the other person), “I find myself wondering ——” and “I have this problem with that —–”. (The problem is with me — not you.)
. . . . . . .3 A “relay” is an electro-mechanical device in which a magnet attracts an “armature”, which in turn activates a set of contact springs. There could be from 2 to 26 springs on a standard”telephone-type” Class A relay.
Sometimes you got to a spot in which you were convinced it would NOT do what the design engineer had intended. This brought you face to face with some of the best circuit engineers in the business. You better be pretty sure of yourself before suggesting his circuit had a bug in it!!
Most of the circuit engineers were very patient and would take kindly to changes if there really was a bug in the circuit. One of my favorites was Harvey Balzer, a very gentle person. Other engineers that contributed to my telephone background were M.A.Clements, Imre Molnar, M.E.Griffins, Frank White, C.E.Lomax, V.E.James, Clarence Obergfel (neat writer), Bruno Mandarino, Fred Kahn, Joe Haefner, Harry Evers, Ross Herrick (radio type), John Voss, and more whose faces I can see but can’t put a name on. After going to L.T.&T. I dealt as a customer with many of the preceding. (1)There were no women engineers.
. . . . . . . 1 The factory was full of women workers, but the only women I recall in the engineering building were secretaries, clerks, and a few draftspersons.
One of the Testing Bureau’s chores was to make “consolidated tests” of complete systems. The consolidated test was intended to catch problems so that the factory could make corrections before the equipment shipped. The test engineer would study the job specifications and requisition enough of each type of circuit to test all features of the system. A “dial toll board” was one such system.
A.E. was one of the earliest, if not THE earliest, manufacturer of dial toll boards — a complicated system requiring lots of pieces of equipment to speak correctly to each other. The toll operator had no “cords”, using keys to control the switching equipment which actually made the connections. She dialled with push buttons! (It’s long since “old hat” — and obsolete — but at the time the waters were uncharted.)
Sometimes a tight customer schedule made it necessary to ship a system with only a minimum of tests — “the customer needs it now, and if something is wrong, we’ll fix it in the field”. In those cases a test engineer was sent to the site and started a “consolidated” test as soon as installation had progressed far enough. I was involved in such tests at LaPorte, Indiana, and Bloomington, Illinois. (With due modesty I have to admit my bosses were convinced I was a pretty good circuit engineer/bug finder.) I went to Bloomington the very next week after Mary and I announced our engagement to the guys and gals at 4th Church. Was there for three weeks.
. . . . . . . Brother Bob stopped off on his way to Fort Sheridan one evening. We had some soup together — and a good visit about our respective “war” activities — in the cafe across the street from my hotel. I had cream of tomato soup, which has been a favorite of mine ever since.
One of my most interesting projects involved a real mess up in “communication”. A.E. had a contract with the Air Force for “relay” equipment to be used as part of a radio system to control aircraft remotely. The idea was to control a test airplane remotely and not risk the life of test pilots when the aircraft (probably a jet) was put through its paces. Too many test pilots were going down with the plane.
I was given the job of testing the relay units — metal boxes about half the size of a portable typewriter and chock full of aircraft type (small) relays. A second box had the toggle switches and “stick” which the control pilot used to fly the controlled aircraft. The “controlling” unit encoded about ten types of signals — flaps, gear (landing gear), prop pitch, throttle up, throttle down, etc. — to be passed to the radio transmitter. The “controlled” unit took signals from the radio channels, decoded them and sent the signal along to the correct function of the airplane.
During the testing I found that the “gear” signal would not always work properly (because of a “race” between two relays). Harry Evers, the engineer who had designed the circuit — he didn’t very often have any bugs in his circuits — had recently taken a job with another company. I had to solve the problem all by my lonesome.About that time V.E.James asked me to get on the telephone with engineers calling from Bell Aircraft. Bell Aircraft had gotten a high-priority order to divert units intended for Wright Field. They wanted to use the stuff for remote control of the Bell jets. They were having a problem with the “flaps” control — not the “gear”! Here’s where the mess up in communication took place — I neglected to ask the guy if he was using the toggle switch labeled “Flaps” as manufactured to control the flaps. (You can see where this is leading.)
The Sales Department folks made the travel arrangement for me to go back to Bell Air to work on the problem. So I boarded the train with Firstname? Crabtree(1), the Sales representative, for Niagara Falls with what it took to fix a “gear” problem but not having the foggiest notion what could be wrong with “flaps”. I worried all the way as to what I had overlooked in my own testing.
. . . . . . . 1 Crabtree called our waiter in the Dining Car “Captain”, which is where I picked up the idea of addressing waiters and other strangers with the term.
As soon as I reported to the Bell plant, I was taken (after a check of my security, (2)birth certificate, etc.) to the hanger where they had the equipment set up. Eureka!! My problem was solved. Those guys had taken the toggle switch intended to be used for the “gear” and put a temporary label of “flaps” on it. I just told them I could fix the problem and set out to modify the equipment. It was worth the whole trip to hear the guy say, “That’s more like it!” when they tried out the modified unit, and it worked to perfection.
. . . .. . . 2 I learned a lot more about Bell jet aircraft from an article in Business Week than I did while in the factory!
They had me stay over a day to see that all continued well, and I got to see them controlling one aircraft from a pilot in a second plane. (The “controlled” plane actually had a “hands off” pilot in it.) I assume they eventually used the units for heavy testing of jet planes, but I never heard for sure.
After the Testing Bureau I was assigned to the “Circuit Standards” group under (3)M.E. Griffin. Here we took the customer’s stated requirements and decided if there were existing circuits which would do the job, which was most of the time. The major concern was to be certain that the equipment manufactured would interface ok with what the customer said was at the other end. This required getting questions and answers via the Sales Department — engineers did not deal directly with the customer except with Sales people in on it.
. . . . . . . .3 M.E. (no one ever used his first name) had a perpetually messy desk. I again had the desk immediately in front of my boss, and could hear his end of telephone conversations. After he had hung up from one call, he pawed around in the stack of stuff piled on his desk and said, “Well, there’s another one I solved by ignoring.” Just this side of too-long procrastination, a guy can save effort sometimes by not being too quick at jumping in with solutions to a problem.
As the war started to wind down, orders started to come in with lower priority status, mostly from telephone companies trying to catch up with demand. One day I was part of a conference with the Head of the Traffic Department of Lincoln Tel. and Tel., C.C.Donley. A few years hence I would have Donley as my boss at L.T.&T.
Teaching Chores
For the war effort many companies needed to retrain their employees for the new technical-type output. I taught evening classes at Illinois Institute of Technology that were designed to give background info to factory workers. This was about three nights a week for a session lasting about six weeks. I did this for two or three sessions, can’t recall for sure. In any event, it meant that Mary was alone in the flat a lot of evenings.
I also taught some classes right in the factory of Thordarson and Hallicrafters. The extra money helped, but we didn’t get rich over it.
Victory
The entire country was jubilant when that beast Hitler was defeated in Europe — June of 1945. I don’t recall what Chicago did to celebrate “V-E” day, but I do remember watching low-flying jets scream overhead at an amazing speed. When Japan was defeated later that year, people crowded into the streets of the Loop. I think we stayed away from that mess.
It was time to start doing “what we are going to do when the war is over”.
Enough of the Big City
When the war was over, jobs were unfrozen and Stromberg-Carlson enticed many A.E.Co. engineers away with lots more money. We dismissed the idea very quickly, because it would have meant moving to Rochester, New York, which did not appeal to us.
Mary and I decided we had had enough of big city life, though I really liked my work at A.E. Co. and wanted to stay with them. We decided to try for a suburb — probably west of town, ’cause you had to go a long ways north to get to affordable territory. Throug
h an acquaintance at 4th Church I was able to get a reasonably serviceable 1936 Dodge for transportation. Don’t recall what I paid for it. We named it “Henry”.
Mary and I would put Peggy in a car seat and drive out to look at lots in the suburbs west of Chicago. Real estate outfits were offering package deals in which if you bought a lot from them, they would also give you a priority on their list to get a house built. There was a real scramble for building material, because industry was in the process of phasing out of war production.
Two-story ordinary houses were selling for about $4,500. We bought a lot for $2000 in Elmhurst, cashing in most of our “war bonds” to do it.
We had started on this course to move to Elmhurst and build a house, when one evening Mary said, “You might like a job some place else too!” While we were about it, maybe there was something closer to Kansas and Iowa. So during vacation in the summer of 1946 I made contact with TWA (don’t remember how I got on to that), and they flew me down to Kansas City for an interview. They offered me a job, but I decided it was a little too exotic for my style.
We went to Newton, Iowa, in Henry for vacation — had two flat (1)tires on the way. I went over to Des Moines to talk to (2)Northwestern Bell about job possibilities. They said they could use me. We didn’t exactly like the idea that promotions in the Bell System usually meant a change in location. But it was a good outfit and lots better’n the Chicago area. I accepted the offer, and upon returning to Chicago after vacation told my boss I had accepted a job with Northwestern Bell and would be leaving in two weeks, the standard notification period.
. . . . . . .1 After I wrote of this to the Hutchinson folks, Dad scurried around (tires were still in short supply) and shipped me two brand new tires for Henry. We sure needed them.
. . . . . . .2 Right now I can’t recall the name of the man I talked to, but some years later when I was coordinating an L.T.T. project with NW Bell I ran across him again. I told him of the Des Moines interview. He said he also remembered — but he may have been humoring me.
About the next day I was asked to go down and talk to Ken Graybill, one of the head people on the Executive floor. He was interested in knowing if I had some complaint about A.E.Co. I told him I loved my work at A.E., but that we were determined to get out of the big city environment. He asked if I would be interested in staying in the “Independent” segment of the telephone industry. I said of course.
A few days later I was on the train on my way to be interviewed by the Chief Engineer of the Lincoln Telephone and Telegraph Company, H.H.”Hi” Wheeler. L.T.&T. had an engineer (Tom Risser) retiring in three years, and they could use me to work towards taking Risser’s place as Equipment Engineer. I accepted the offer, getting the same salary as at A.E. — $250, which amounted to a small increase because of lower living costs. I never was much good at negotiating.
I wrote to Northwestern Bell and told them thanks but I had accepted an offer with L.T.&T. We gave notice to the landlord and started in earnest to get ready to leave Chicago. The guys at A.E. said a lot of nice things and gave me a watch as a going away gift.
The movers came the last day and took all the furniture. We had arranged with 4th Church friends out in the west side to stay with them the last night. The final morning Mary, Peggy, and I got into Henry and drove away from Chicago. Peggy was in her car seat between Mary and me, happy as a lark and taking in all the scenery. Mary said it was sort of a dirty trick on Peggy, ’cause she didn’t know we were leaving Chicago for good. We had had mostly good times in Chicago, but I was glad to be on our way out of there.
(END of CHICAGO DAYS)
