Two of my brothers and I can say that Bradley has claimed three of the homes of our youth.
From 1960 to 1964 when I was a wee one and only one of my four siblings was on the scene, my parents rented a house from Bradley on the corner of Main and Maplewood. It’s been a grass lot for a long time now.
The house at 841 N. Maplewood, where we all grew up, will soon be history. Then for two years, my youngest brother lived in the Sigma Chi house on Glenwood which also has a date with the wrecking ball.
And for one memorable year, my family lived in the Alumni house on Glenwood, which has also been sacrificed to Bradley University’s $90 million expansion.
The year was 1970. President Van Arsdale thought it would be good to have a university administrator on campus to hopefully temper the tumultuous political activity. So my mom and dad, who was Dean of Men at the time, packed up their five kids, all their possessions, rented out their Maplewood home, and moved a block away to the Tudor house on Glenwood, next to the stately Chi Omega sorority house.
We lived there for one year. The new president, Martin Abegg, decided that Bradley should provide no housing to its employees, including him, so back to Maplewood we went.
I can’t image what an ordeal this must have been for my parents, but to me it was a wonderful adventure. I thought the new house with its finished paneled basement, complete with exotic travel posters was way cool. The front door had a doorbell—more coolness—and I loved the sunken front entry way.
There were lots of bedrooms; for awhile my sister and I shared one. Then I moved to my own little niche in the attic, a small room with angled ceilings that I had to be careful not to bang my head on. But I tacked a map of the United States to the wall and it was my own hideout.
I remember that during this year my California cousin Mike, who was about 21, stopped in Peoria as he and his friend Little John hitchhiked their way from New York City to Los Angeles. Mike had long hair and seemed to know everything. I was working on a book report about Ulysses S. Grant. “He was a terrible president,” said Mike. “He was a drunk who would pass out in gutters.” The sanitized children’s biography did not mention these details. I quizzed Mike on other presidents and he enumerated all their flaws, though when I asked about Lincoln he grudgingly said, “He was okay.” This conversation with my cousin was my first intimation that maybe the textbooks and those in authority weren’t always right.
The Alumni house was just far enough away from our Maplewood neighborhood to seem
attractively different, but close enough that we could still hang out with our old friends. As adults, we forget how much bigger the world is to children. The extra two or three feet of height that adults possess, to say nothing of our accumulated experiences and knowledge, shrink the world.
But to me as a child, when we lived on Maplewood, the far reaches of my territory were the five houses from the corner of Maplewood and Laura, and the four houses behind us on Cooper. Mystery lurked beyond the Richey’s house down toward Bradley Avenue. And the 900 block of Maplewood was completely uncharted.
The known world was small and so comforting in its familiar details. If you have a happy childhood, as I did, there seems to be an inevitability about the make up of the world and one’s place in it. When I learned that my parents had almost bought a house light years away on Moss Avenue, I shuddered at the unknown ways in which my life could have been different. I calculated in horror all of the people I would not know. A near disaster had been dodged, and I gave silent thanks to the people who snuck in their bid during the night that my parents were sleeping on their decision.
But living in the Alumni house was a happy interlude to my good Maplewood memories.
From 1960 to 1964 when I was a wee one and only one of my four siblings was on the scene, my parents rented a house from Bradley on the corner of Main and Maplewood. It’s been a grass lot for a long time now.
The house at 841 N. Maplewood, where we all grew up, will soon be history. Then for two years, my youngest brother lived in the Sigma Chi house on Glenwood which also has a date with the wrecking ball.
And for one memorable year, my family lived in the Alumni house on Glenwood, which has also been sacrificed to Bradley University’s $90 million expansion.
The year was 1970. President Van Arsdale thought it would be good to have a university administrator on campus to hopefully temper the tumultuous political activity. So my mom and dad, who was Dean of Men at the time, packed up their five kids, all their possessions, rented out their Maplewood home, and moved a block away to the Tudor house on Glenwood, next to the stately Chi Omega sorority house.
We lived there for one year. The new president, Martin Abegg, decided that Bradley should provide no housing to its employees, including him, so back to Maplewood we went.
I can’t image what an ordeal this must have been for my parents, but to me it was a wonderful adventure. I thought the new house with its finished paneled basement, complete with exotic travel posters was way cool. The front door had a doorbell—more coolness—and I loved the sunken front entry way.
There were lots of bedrooms; for awhile my sister and I shared one. Then I moved to my own little niche in the attic, a small room with angled ceilings that I had to be careful not to bang my head on. But I tacked a map of the United States to the wall and it was my own hideout.
I remember that during this year my California cousin Mike, who was about 21, stopped in Peoria as he and his friend Little John hitchhiked their way from New York City to Los Angeles. Mike had long hair and seemed to know everything. I was working on a book report about Ulysses S. Grant. “He was a terrible president,” said Mike. “He was a drunk who would pass out in gutters.” The sanitized children’s biography did not mention these details. I quizzed Mike on other presidents and he enumerated all their flaws, though when I asked about Lincoln he grudgingly said, “He was okay.” This conversation with my cousin was my first intimation that maybe the textbooks and those in authority weren’t always right.
The Alumni house was just far enough away from our Maplewood neighborhood to seem
attractively different, but close enough that we could still hang out with our old friends. As adults, we forget how much bigger the world is to children. The extra two or three feet of height that adults possess, to say nothing of our accumulated experiences and knowledge, shrink the world.
But to me as a child, when we lived on Maplewood, the far reaches of my territory were the five houses from the corner of Maplewood and Laura, and the four houses behind us on Cooper. Mystery lurked beyond the Richey’s house down toward Bradley Avenue. And the 900 block of Maplewood was completely uncharted.
The known world was small and so comforting in its familiar details. If you have a happy childhood, as I did, there seems to be an inevitability about the make up of the world and one’s place in it. When I learned that my parents had almost bought a house light years away on Moss Avenue, I shuddered at the unknown ways in which my life could have been different. I calculated in horror all of the people I would not know. A near disaster had been dodged, and I gave silent thanks to the people who snuck in their bid during the night that my parents were sleeping on their decision.
But living in the Alumni house was a happy interlude to my good Maplewood memories.
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