Requiem for a Requiem

When I started this blog, I thought it would run for a few weeks. A few weeks turned into a few months, and close to 40 posts later, I am finally wrapping things up. Not that I’ve said everything I wanted to say on the subject. For instance, I’d like to tell you more about:

-How I believe the house at 841 N. Maplewood was built in 1911 and after a discussion with realtor and west bluff resident Pat Kenny, we decided the house was a modified Craftsman

-The long crack in the living room ceiling that looked like Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair

-How we could hear the thunder of the races at the Speedway on Farmington Rd. like the cars were zooming down Western

-Making regular trips to Convenient to gorge myself on candy—to say nothing of Mr. Donut or Baskin Robbins. What a trifecta!

-The issues of development, land use, conservation, historic preservation (Maybe Cooper, Rebecca and the Uplands should consider trying to become a historic district.)

-Hitting tennis balls against Morgan Hall

-How far you can trust institutions, even institutions that are practically encoded in your DNA

-The day Maplewood changed its one way direction. I think this happened in the middle of the day with all the cars that had parked for the day facing the wrong direction when it came time to go home.

And, of course, I could go on, but requiems must end. I thought finishing this blog by the first day Bradley starts classes would be appropriate. Here are just a few more thoughts.

Before 841 N. Maplewood was knocked down, my brother Jim and I visited the house. We are only 18 months apart so our memory pools are similar. One of my earliest recollections from our home was bedtime. Jim’s room was at one end of the hallway and mine was at the other. From his baby bed, he would call out, “Wee-a!” the syllables and vowels in my name being hard for a toddler to say.

On the day we visited the house, we went down into the basement, the least changed part of the house. The musty smell was exactly the same. We walked through the room where the ping pong table had been and poked our heads into the small, dark room where we took refuge during tornado warnings. Jim pointed out a cutting board from our old kitchen that was propped up against a wall. My parents had later used the cutting board as a base for the Christmas tree stand.

“I think that’s the spot where we left it,” said Jim.

Out in the front yard, in the light of day, I talked about the sadness of the house going. Jim thought for a moment. “It’s good not to get too attached to things that aren’t permanent,” he said. This is true, and as a priest, he keeps the truly important things more in mind than his older sister.

A couple of weeks ago, West Peoria councilman Tom Dwyer told me he enjoyed reading my blog. “Yeah, it’s sad. The old neighborhood is gone,” I said.

“But the spirit stays alive with you,” he said.

A major part of my childhood occurred in the seventies, so I’ll close with the words from the following song. Sing along if you know them.

“I’m so glad we had this time together.

Just to have a laugh or sing a song.

"Seems we just get started and before you know it,
Comes the time we have to say ‘So long.'

"Good night everybody!”

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My mother gave us the above drawing after we moved from the house. The inscription reads:

"You never really leave a place you love: part of it you take with you leaving a part of you behind."

The Souvenir

Way back in late May, I showed up at 841 N. Maplewood on the day the students were to vacate the house. The front door was open and my husband, son, and I walked right in. I wandered around the house in an indignant state. I called Ken Goldin at Bradley to apprise him of the situation.

“Anyone could walk in here,” I said. “What if someone vandalizes the house?”

Now, you really are kind of a case when you’re concerned that a house that has an imminent date with a wrecking ball will be vandalized. But Ken was patient and told me that he would send Bradley security over to lock up the house.

I had another question for Mr. Goldin. “Would it be possible for me to take something from the house?” Again, more patience from Ken as he explained to me that Bradley had contracted with salvagers who would strip the house of things could be recycled.

“What is it that you want?”

I hesitated knowing that it would sound strange but in keeping with the whole tenor of the call, I said, “The front door door knob.”

Almost all of the door knobs in the house, including the one I wanted, were made of cut glass. This one had special significance. In the later years that we lived in the house, the door knob would simply not stay on. Often when we went to open the door, it would come off in our hands. When an unsuspecting guest was leaving and this would happen, my dad would pretend that they broke it. It was the set up for a never ending joke.

“Maria, your family lived there long enough. If you want the door knob, you can take it.”

So I did.

The Sleepy Visitor

Let me recount an incident that was scary, funny, and sad all at the same time.

By 1995, all of us had blessedly moved out from our home at 841 N. Maplewood, except my brother Joseph, who was out this particular evening, leaving my parents to enjoy some domestic tranquility for the first time in 35-odd years. My brother Mike, a new Bradley graduate, lived in an apartment not far away and was a frequent visitor at home to catch a meal or do some laundry.

On this particular evening, my parents, who were reading the paper and watching television in the family room, heard the back door open and close. As my mom turned the pages of the newspapers, she called out, “Mike?” and received no reply. Not thinking much of this, my parents continued their evening recreation activities. About a half an hour later, my mom said to my dad, “That’s strange that Michael hasn’t come in to say hi.” My dad probably shrugged, and my mom set off in search of him.

She went upstairs and checked his old bedroom. He wasn’t there. She went to the door of her large bedroom. Now my parents’ bedroom was actually composed of two room, connected by a French door way. She flipped on the light in the first room. In the back room, where their king size bed was, she saw a head come up from the pillow.

It wasn’t my brother’s.

Not believing what she saw, she turned off the light and then turned it back on again. Once again, what she thought was a head raised up from my dad’s side of the bed.

At this point, my mom hastened downstairs to summon my dad, who initially had a hard time believing her account of events. After he verified that the head coming up from his pillow was indeed happening, dad called Bradley security, who came to the house in a matter of minutes.

A couple officers carefully approached the figure in my parents’ bed. As they drew closer, one of them exclaimed, “Cornelius! What are you doing here?”

They aroused the man, who reeked of alcohol, from the bed and tried to ascertain why he was in my parents’ bed.

“I was tired, and I wanted a place to sleep.”

As it turned out, Cornelius was a—I don’t know what the politically correct term is now—transient? vagabond? occasionally homeless man?—local person who was familiar to the Bradley police.

I don’t know if this was the last day my parents ever kept the back door unlocked, but it might have been. My mom and dad didn’t press charges. I’m sure my mom prays for Cornelius—the tired trespasser.

The picture above is of the door to the furnace room in the basement of our house. Boo was painted there before we moved in in 1964.

The Long Good Bye

One time, more than a decade ago, I was visiting a friend who lived on the other side of Maplewood, the side that still exists. Her neighbor was obsessed with finding out how many unrelated adults lived in a certain house on the block. He had his suspicions that it was more than allowed. “Wow,” I thought. “He seems a little anal about this.”

I didn’t understand then, but I do now.

Ever since many of the houses became home to students--about ten years before this summer's destruction--the 800 block of Maplewood made for a sad ride. Now, I don’t have anything against, students, God love them, and have aspired to remain one all of my life. But those in the 18-23 year-old category aren’t really concerned about property values and curbside appeal, nor are their landlords.

It took an act of will not to speed up and avert my eyes as I drove past the bushes with the little white flowers in front of 841 N. Maplewood. We used to dive into those bushes and shake them, pretending the white flowers were snow. After awhile, the bushes were ripped out, exposing the brick base of the house.

The screens on the attic windows were out and I wondered how many bats had gotten into the place. My mother always said that summer hadn’t really started until we had a bat in the house. The screens were also off the side porch, which was perhaps my mother’s favorite part of the house. With the white wicker furniture on the cool maroon tile, she and my dad like to take their breakfast out there and watch our part of the world go by.

At least there were no couches in the front yard or no German shepherd poking his head out of an upstairs window with a beer can in his mouth on a Sunday morning, as my mother once saw at another student residence.

My parents moved out of the house in 1996. My dad was retiring from Bradley and four of their five children had moved on. The three-story, six-bedroom house was more than they needed. A few weird things had happened, too. Laundry was stolen off the clothesline in the backyard. And there was a scary but ultimately harmless visit from a man named Cornelius that I’ll describe in the next post.

It was a hard decision for my parents and one made with mixed emotions. On the day they moved out, my mom went around to each room to say good by and think about all the things that had happened there over the years. She insists the house was creaking and groaning as they left.

In Memoriam of a Maplewood Boy

Danny Dahlquist grew up on Maplewood. He lived with his parents and six siblings north of Main Street on the blocks of the Avenue where the cool Arts and Crafts houses and the maple trees still stand.

It was a life of sports and school and church, and I’m sure, a lot of fun. Danny started his adult life on the Hilltop playing soccer at a place that he grew up with, that employed both his parents, that has fielded nationally ranked teams with players that went on to the pros.

As his obituary said in sweet, heart breaking, haunting lines: “Danny was a sophomore at Bradley University and was living his dream. He was where he wanted to be, being a Bradley soccer player.”

How many of us can say this of ourselves now? Of any time in our lives?

Dreams often seem the province of young people, those who haven’t become hardened by life’s difficulties or weighed down by its debts, those whose lives stretch out before them with a myriad of glorious possibilities. How wonderful that Danny was living his dreams.

Along with dreaming, risk taking is also often a feature of early adulthood. Several years ago, I was talking with some people from work about the risky behavior that young people engage in. I made the trenchant observation that many, many people were lucky to get out of their early twenties alive. A week or so later, the son of one of the women I was talking with died in an alcohol-related accident.

I have always hoped that my comment didn’t cause my friend extra pain.

In 1995, Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich addressed the subject of risks much more eloquently. She wrote about a 22-year-old man from Champaign-Urbana who was killed while running with the bulls in Spain.

She writes, “We all tell stories of the crazy things we did in our 20s, at least all of us do who were lucky enough to have done crazy things in our 20s and luckier yet to have survived them. From the safety of later adulthood, we reminisce fondly about the risks we took in those days, back when we were greedy for sensation and bold enough to seize it. . . The rides we took as hitchhikers. The rides we gave hitchhikers. The weird places we slept. The dangerous streets we walked alone. The strangers we accompanied to even stranger places. These are our purple hearts of foolish courage, our badges of experience, cherished souvenirs. We are proud of the reckless things we did at 20, 21, 22 even though at this age we would be too smart to do them, or maybe just too scared.”

I once read that one of the best ways to find the presence of someone who has gone on is by seeking him out in what was the best about him. In other words, if a person was friendly and welcoming, we will meet him when we act the same. Certainly Danny had a lot of virtues to emulate.

Danny’s family has their faith to help them deal with the loss of their boy who was living his dreams. It has to be a searing reality. But it isn’t complete. As smart as we are, the universe is still more filled with mysteries than explanations. A better place beckons all of us.

A place with great soccer fields.

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming. . .

. . . to comment on the new Bradley president, Joanne Glasser (and may there please be a moratorium on referring to her as “a little lady”).

This is an appointment that almost everyone seems to be raving about. I’ve polled many of the BU people in my life, and they all think she is a smart choice.

My biggest hope is that she is as good as she seems. My greatest fear is that she is as good as she seems and won’t be here very long. Well, this isn’t my greatest fear, but she does seem to have been in demand over the past several years.

Three years ago, she took her name out of consideration as one of the finalists for the Illinois State University presidency. Before that in 2001, she withdrew her candidacy from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas after the board of trustees unanimously chose her as the president. Despite this disappointment, here is what one SFA student prophesized according to Towerlight, the student newspaper of Towson University, then Glasser’s current employer:

“SFA graduate student Jason Gomez, who served as the only student representative on the University’s presidential search committee, said Glasser was well received at SFA, and many admired her choice to explore the campus on her own rather than take a guided tour like the other candidates.

“‘She was very, very charismatic,’ Gomez said. ‘A lot of people commented on her being inspirational. Although she is not president of our University there is a lot in store for Joanne Glasser.’”

Hopefully, Mr. Gomez was unwittingly talking about Bradley.

Since she’s interested in hearing from stakeholders and with two degrees from the Hilltop (for a total of seven in my immediate family), I consider myself one of them, here are my top ten unsolicited suggestions for Madame President on how to improve Bradley University.

1. Do something radical, trend setting, and right: pay adjunct (a fancy work for part-time) faculty the same—or close to the same for teaching a class—as full-time faculty.

2. Watch the tail: yes, basketball is great and from a president’s perspective, wonderful for keeping the alumni financially involved. But we have to make sure we don’t allow Bradley’s recent success to turn the team into an NBA farm club. I think we have the right people in place to prevent this from happening, but cheating is a constant temptation.

3. If you are looking for a three word motto for your term, here’s a suggestion: excellence with diversity. Let this apply to Bradley’s faculty, student body, and board of trustees.

4. Private money might be the lifeblood of Bradley, but academic freedom is its oxygen. Lots of times, there’s tension between money and truth. Large corporations and wealthy individuals don’t always like the messy, rabble rousing process that accompanies the search for the truth.

Let me quote from my own alma mater the University of Wisconsin’s 1894 Board of Regents: “Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the Great State University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

Let the sifting and winnowing continue unabated (i.e. if you have to err, please err on the side of academic freedom).

5. Promote Bradley’s graduate programs. Bradley will likely always be primarily an undergraduate institution, but its graduate schools are excellent and unheralded outside of central Illinois.

6. Do what you can to insure the survival and prospering of Cooper and Rebecca. It’s good to have faculty and staff live near the university, and the beautiful houses on these streets make ideal homes. Don’t knock them down to put up a parking deck. If you somehow find yourself unavoidably having to do this, please be upfront about the University’s intentions so that home owners and residents have fair warning.

7. Strengthen Bradley’s ties with St. Mark’s Grade School and other neighborhood schools. Okay, this is a little shameless of me, as my husband and I are graduate’s of St. Mark’s and our son will likely attend there. But I think a closer relationship would benefit all institutions.

8. Before students graduate, require they pass a test on the life of Lydia Moss Bradley. Knowledge of her life inspires compassion and humility.

9. With a few exceptions, Main Street around the University looks terrible. There is no way a lot of Campustown can be considered progress. I know this is asking a bit much, but anything you can do to help make this area safer and more aesthetically pleasing would be a boon for the area and Bradley.

10. You have used your one chance to publicly utter the phrase “play in Peoria.” I now charge you with coining another, less annoying motto for your new home.

Welcome to Peoria and Bradley Madame President, Joanne Glasser!

More Field House Memories

I’ve been in a little bit of a posting slump since 841 N. Maplewood came down. Now, except for the big machines and a huge mountain of dirt where the old house used to stand, what were formerly the 800 and 900 blocks look barren. The whole scene seems a bit like “The Road,” the apocalyptic novel by Cormac McCarthy. I’m sure that comparison is overstating the case, but, on the other hand, how do you describe destroying charming, quality—the kind of quality that’s not built any more—100-year-old houses to put up an undoubtedly unaesthetic, concrete parking deck for fossil fuel burning vehicles? It’s definitely not the New Urbanism.

Dirt and destruction aside, I do have a few more memories and thoughts to share before I rap things up.

Not by my design, both my dad and my husband played basketball for Bradley University. My dad was a starting player on a Mt. Vernon team that won back to back state championships in ’49 and ‘50. His inclusion on the role of Bradley basketball players is a little more obvious than my husband’s.

John barely made his freshman team in high school and didn’t play in any games. His sophomore year was basically a repeat. However, he kept working and growing, and by his junior year, he started some games for a 1970 Spalding team that finished fourth in the state. He had a strong senior year, and as a freshman at Bradley, tried out for the frosh team and made it. After his first year on the Hilltop, he received a scholarship and played on the JV team his sophomore and junior years. He was voted the most valuable player his junior year and led the team in scoring and rebounding.




John came by his basketball success through hard work and perseverance. In basketball and many other areas of his life, especially his work providing medical care to Haitian children, he reminds me of the following Calvin Coolidge quote:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

When we were dating, John said, “Let’s go shoot baskets at Haussler.” We both loved to shoot around. As we walked down Glenwood toward Haussler, the side doors of the Field House were open. We could see a lot of activity going on around the floor. “Hey,” said John. “Want to shoot baskets in the Field House?” Now, you have to understand that I view the Field House much like the Ark of the Covenent. Even though I had passed the open side doors of the quonset many times, I would never think to step foot on the sacred floor. But with John leading the way, we hopped up on the hardwood. There were seemingly about three different teams, including the woman’s volleyball team, practicing, which I know attests to the need for a new facility. No one seemed to mind the two interlopers, so we shot around for about a half an hour. It was a lot of fun.