Rev. John R. Cortelyou (Transcript Only)

 

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
Interviewer Sandra A. Remis
 
Interviewee Rev. John R. Cortelyou, C.M.
IT’S MARCH 25, 1986. I’M SANDRA A. REMIS. I’M INTERVIEWING FATHER JOHN CORTELYOU FOR THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT: EDGEWATER, ITS PAST, ITS PRESENT. FATHER, WILL YOU PLEASE TELL US YOUR FULL NAME.
My name is Father John Cortelyou, c-o-r-t-e-l-y-o-u.
OKAY, FATHER, TO START OUT WITH: How old are you, and how much time did
you spend in Edgewater?
I was born in 1914, so that makes me 71 years of age as of today, and I
lived in Edgewater for Oh, goodness gracious, for a good fifteen years.
THAT’S WHEN YOU WERE MUCH YOUNGER–
Oh, yes. I was growing up and we lived over on Winthrop Avenue; then we lived over on Wayne Avenue, then we lived over on Glenwood–and I spent the most of my time in Chicago at 5506 Glenwood Avenue. Okay?
OKAY! Uh–were your grandparents still living?
My grandparents–my grandparents–I was raised mostly with my grandparents–my grandmother and an aunt. Then I had a brother, William. He’s passed away since then. William was also a priest and he served at DePaul University like I have. I’ve been at DePaul for 43 years–and fourteen of my years here, no, seventeen of my years at DePaul I was President of the University. For the past five years, I’ve been the Chancellor. Prior to that I was a faculty member in the Biological Sciences of DePaul. And I got my PH.D at Northwestern University. Okay?
WHAT WAS IT LIKE BACK IN EDGEWATER IN THOSE DAYS? WHAT WERE THE HOMES LIKE?
Well, the vast majority of them west of Broadway were all single-dwelling homes, and I would say that we were all on, by and large, medium-income/medium-income families. Some a little less medium; and others a little higher than medium. On the by and large, it was of medium-income families there. And there was what I would call very peaceful, serene–you got to know certain neighbors and other neighbors you didn’t get to know. It was just the group you got along with, and I went to St Ita’s School for my grammar school–all eight years of it, and so we began to group together friends, and so on and so forth, and we would play in the streets baseball, street hockey, all the kinds of things that kids play–always very, very friendly with the young ladies in the neighborhood. They were always very, very respectful. We tried to defend them whenever the occasion would call for it. So, I would say that we were a group of maybe 45 or 50 young kids, male and female, that hung around with each other, and so on, but as far as boys were concerned, wehad to play in the streets. There were no playgrounds immediately available. If we wanted to go and play baseball, we had to go all the way over to Winnemac Park and the way that we got there was walk.
THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY, HUH?
Yeh, Yeh. So the kids, the boys in the neighborhood, we would group together to play basketball. We were a basketball team; we were called The Magnolias and we used to play down at the Clarendon Beach gymnasium that they had down there. We played there on Saturday mornings. And as a team, we played for every church in the area. We played for the, I think it was, the Unitarian Church, over on Magnolia and Balmoral. We played for an Episcopalian Church, we played for St Ita’s Church. We were ecumenical long before ecumenism came to be. So—wejust had a lot of fun together, that’s all. We didn’t get into too much trouble.
DID YOU PLAY a lot along the Lakefront during the summer?
Oh, yeh, every summer, of course, it was go down, go swimming in the afternoon
when your mother didn’t have some chores for you to do, and we would walk down–
we used to go to Bryn Mawr Beach; we went to Foster Avenue Beach, and once in
awhile when somebody had a car and would take us all the way up to No Man’s Land,
which is in Wilmette. But that wasn’t what you’d call a regular Saturday
 
afternoon—the majority of the time we were at the beaches at Bryn Mawr or Foster—
they had no problems. It was a lot of fun then, too.
DID A LOT OF ACTIVITIES GO ON CENTERED AROUND THE CHURCHES AT THAT TIME?
I wouldn’t say so–I wouldn’t say , at least so far as we were concerned. We were more or less self-organized rather than organized through any church affiliation at all. We didn’t have a St. Ita’s boys club, or St. Ita’s girls club so we just kind of made our own clubbing.
WHAT DID the Lakefront look like at that time? I assume it was different–way back in those days. They hadn’t done the landfill-and–
Yes, Yes it was. There was there the rather large Edgewater Beach Hotel, a very magnificent hotel, and that had its own lakefront area where only residents of the hotel could go swimming in the beach there…but along Sheridan Road there were these individual homes that were, what I would call, more elegant type of home than what you would have seen over west of Broadway or even the apartment buildings that were along Kenmore Avenue, Winthrop Avenue, east of Broadway there. So on Winthrop and Kenmore there were apartment buildings also, you know–three-flat buildings, or two-flat buildings, but over west of Broadway there were all either two-story houses or single dwelling homes and so on, so there was a difference then. (There were what I would call apartment buildings also.)
WHERE WERE the shops or stores located? What kinds were there?
Oh gosh, Whiz, there was the North Shore Cleaners and Dyers along Broadway, there was a big Yellow Cab barn. It would have been in the 5400 block of Broadway. It was a real huge Yellow Cab barn. I won’t tell you some of the things we did to these Yellow Cabs.
YOU WON’T?
No, No, No! and then there was a hotel right next to Newgold Pharmacy on
the southwest corner of Broadway and Catalpa and right next door to that there was an apartment hotel, and it was mostly single men, more for men getting up in years and so on that resided there. It was a very, very nice place, and then there was–would call it more of a candy store–novelty shop that was right across the street on the southeast corner of Broadway and Catalpa. And I forget the name of the owner–there were a couple of owners and so they weren’t in competition with Newgold Pharmacy because they themselves were not a pharmacy. And then there was of course this large St Ita’s Church on the corner –the northwest corner of Catalpa and Broadway and over on the northeast corner of Magnolia and Balmoral, there was what, I think the title was, a Unitarian Church. Then over on Bryn Mawr, I think it was either on Kenmore Avenue–I forget whether it was an Episcopal Church or a Lutheran Church, but it was a very beautiful church and I would hope that it is still there today.
Other shops that were there were small, really small. I don’t remember the names of all of them, but they were small, individual entrepreneurs that did business along Broadway there.
AT THAT TIME, THEY HAD LIKE INDIVIDUAL grocery stores and butcher shops?
Oh, no, there was a famous grocery store on Broadway on the west side of Broadway
just north of the St It’s Church. It was called Meltzer ? Brothers–that was a
–it wasn’t a super market or anything like what you see today, but it was a neighborhood grocery and you could get everything there from soup to nuts. They had a butcher shop in there–in the back of the store. It was a very elegant
butcher shop. So a lot of people in the neighborhood used to go to Meltzer Brothers for shopping. And, uh, I don’t remember going shopping over on Clark Street for anything. There was a famous butcher over there, but I forget what it was.
Also, there was another drug store on the corner of Bryn Mawr and Broadway and if
I remember correctly, its name was Ulborne’s? It was a very popular drug store. I think it’s there even now.
There used to be–there was a store, whether you’ll believe this or not, there was a shoe shop on Bryn Mawr Avenue just east of the elevated, and to get to the shoe shop you’d have to go up some wooden steps to get to the shoe shop and it was really an elegant type of place, but to think in today’s terms of anyone walking up a wooden structure with a wooden platform with a wooden framed shoe shop, you wouldn’t believe it. But there it was–and everyone went there.
DID A LOT OF THE CHILDREN HOLD JOBS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD?
Oh, yah, yah, yah–in those days–of course, in the depression years of ‘32 people you know lost their jobs, and so on, but on the by and large I think that the area was not as badly hit by the depression as a lot of other places were. And all of
the homes were always very, very well kept. It was a very, very neat clean environment, and even on Kenmore and Winthrop–I don’t like to say that on this thing for recording, so you can use whatever you want to–but when I came back to Chicago and saw the decline that went on in the neighborhood, over on Winthrop and Kenmore, I was really shocked to see it going down as it did.
WELL WE’RE TRYING to repair the damage now.
Oh, I’m sure they will, I’m sure that they will do that. It’s a neighborhood that’s just too beautiful to let go down the tube.
WHAT DID YOU DO IN YOUR JOB AT NEWGOLD PHARMACY?
What did I do? Well, believe it or not, I worked as a delivery boy for
with Mr. Newman and Mrs. Newman and I also worked as a soda jerk–if you can call it that–I might have been a jerk, but I would do those kinds of things around the Newgold Pharmacy, then I also was a soda jerk over on Ridge Avenue and I think it was Wayne Avenue that extended through there at the corner of Ridge–and I worked as a soda jerk there also- 
WAS THAT ANOTHER DRUG STORE?
Was that another drug store? Yah, it was a drug store–Right! but they didn’t seem to be doing much of the pharmacy end of it, but they sold cigars, cigarettes, sodas, and all that sort of thing. And then during the summer time I worked as a caddy out at the Edgewater Golf Club. Now that, of course, is in the Edgewater area; it’s on the corner of Ridge Avenue and Pratt Boulevard. And I spent a lot
of time caddying there. Then we also went out to Wilmette Golf Course to caddy–the pay was a little better out there.
 
HOW DID YOU GET out to Wilmette? Did you take the El?
My little old bicycle took me there. That’s how I got up to Edgewater Golf Course, too, sure–and then I went to DePaul Academy for four years after I got out of St Ita’s School and my transportation was walk over from Glenwood all the way over to Bryn Mawr El Station, get on the train, and go down to DePaul. In the afternoon come back, and next day do the same old thing. But transportation was very good. In those days they had street cars running up and down Broadway and Clark Street and not the buses they have today.
WHAT WERE FARES LIKE?
Pardon me?
DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT WERE THE FARES LIKE? DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT COST YOU TO RIDE THE STREET CARS?
Oh, golly whiz! If I remember correctly, if you were, I guess, under seven years of age, or under eight years of age, you could get on the street car for 3 cents. And I think it was 7 cents for adults to get on the street car, if my memory serves me correctly on that. But I think it was a dime to get on the elevated. But going to school, they had passes for us; for high school students–that was real good– so we would get a book of these little tickets that would last us a month. So that’s how we got back and forth.
WERE THE SCHOOLS VERY CROWDED BACK THEN?
What? St. Ita’s?
ST ITA’S OR DePAUL ACADEMY?
Oh, no-no-they were very crowded. There was a school over on Bryn Mawr just west of Glenwood–it’s hidden away by apartment buildings. It’s called Pierce School and that was an excellent school and they had oodles and gobs of students there. They had a lot a recreational facilities out there–they had baseball, track and
that sort of thing. And there was a gentleman there, I forget his name, but he was a real, real wonderful guy to us kids and he would supervise all of the base­ball games that were going on in the lots there, and I think that it is still there – ­at least I hope it is. But I heard that he died, just not so long ago. He was very very good to us kids. But if you got out of line, he let you know about it.
YOU COULD JOIN IN THE GAMES, EVEN THOUGH YOU DIDN’T GO TO PIERCE?
Oh, no–it was a public park. Sure! It was all cinder stuff; it wasn’t like
nice lawn and all that, but that didn’t make any difference–as long as we had a
place to play baseball other than in the streets. A rather interesting thing- 
when we would play baseball in the streets, the neighbors didn’t like it and I can
look back at it and say I didn’t blame them, but in those days I didn’t have their
point of view. So when we would play baseball in the streets, the neighbors used
to get exasperated with us and they would call the police. Well, the police in
those days drove around in what was called a–it was a Ford automobile, kind of
open, and it was painted yellow. YELLOW? Yeh, you could see them way off. We
used to call them the Yellow Flivver Squads—and you could see them coming from
miles away and I think they probably rode around deliberately so that you’d see
them first–but as soon as you saw the Yellows, Whoops–you went! It was really
fine. So the neighbors, I guess, used to get exasperated; we’d be hitting the
ball, and running on their lawns and all those crazy things.
KIDS WILL BE KIDS, RIGHT? YOU HAD TO DO SOMETHING WITH ALL THAT ENERGY!
Oh, Yeh, yeh, we managed all right. But there was no such thing as gangs in
those days, or anything, at least not in the Edgewater neighborhood, that I know
of. And there weren’t any in Rogers Park that I knew of, or the Lakeview area
or anything like that. So they were very interesting and very wonderful days.
It was a nice place to grow up in.
WERE THERE ANY GOOD RESTAURANTS TO GO TO?
Well, I guess there might have been, but in those days–in those days you had mostly meals at home. Breakfast, lunch–no, lunch you carried with you to school and dinner you would have at home. Our family was not great on going out for dinner. I’m sure there were some nice restaurants, but I don’t recollect going to restaurants very much.
WERE THERE ANY SPECIAL FAMILY TRADITIONS YOU CELEBRATED AT THE HOLIDAY TIME?
Yah–it was the traditional–you know all through the neighborhood, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner at home, the Easter dinner at home, Christmas, Christmas Eve everybody goes to church, goes to midnight Mass, or whatever midnight service they had. Then back home to open up the presents and uh–I don’t know what time every­body got up in the morning on Christmas Day, but my brother and I used to get up early on Christmas Day to see what the ___ was for Christmas and thenthere were family get-togethers at the homes. One Christmas the Christmas celebration was at our house, or another Christmas it would be going to our aunt’s house for Christmas dinner. So it was–I would suppose it was not much different from what goes on today, but really not going out to restaurants or anything like that.
DID RELATIVES SEEM TO LIVE CLOSE TOGETHER–IN THE SAME NEIGHBORHOODS?
No, no, relatives were dispersed around so that there wasn’t what you’d call a family area within, you know, but at least not any that I noticed. We were all dispersed pretty well.
 
 
 
DID ETHNIC GROUPS SEEM TO HABITUATE IN THE SAME AREA OR WAS EDGEWATER JUST 
You say Ethnic groups? a-huh, No, I wouldn’t say so, but in our area there were a lot of Irish, there were some Germans, Swedes, but they weren’t what you’d call clustered together.
MORE OR LESS LIKE A MELTING POT?
Sure, Sure! Sure!
I THINK SOMEONE MENTIONED THAT SOME HIGH SCHOOL HAD something like 60 (sixty)
different nationalities attending.
That probably is true, but we didn’t see a large concentration of Asians or a
large concentration of Irish in one particular settlement–they were pretty
diversified in the nationalities.
ALTHOUGH MOST OF THE RESIDENTS OF EDGEWATER, AT THAT TIME, WERE WHITE!
White?
WHITE!
 
You can bet your sweet cooky they were. I don’t remember a black family in that
area at all. I could have told you from Foster all the way to Ridge Avenue–from
the lake all the way to Ashland Avenue in those days. But that doesn’t mean any 
thing. The south side was where the blacks lived and the north side was where
the whites lived.
NOW WE’RE MIXED!
What?
NOW WE’RE MIXED!
Yah, uhum! It was the wrong way to live, but that was part of the evolution of
Society.
INTERESTING–IN ONE OF THE OTHER INTERVIEWS, someone mentioned they were doing
research in Rogers Park to find the oldest family that resided there, and it
turned out to be a black family.
Really?
YES–IN ROGERS PARK–I THOUGHT THAT WAS REALLY INTERESTING.
Oh, that is interesting. I don’t remember seeing any blacks at all. You would
see them there. They had a nice black fellow who worked at Newgold Pharmacy, but
he went south every night. And there were black people working for the Yellow Cab Company in the Yellow Cab Barn, but you didn’t see them as residents.
JUST WORKERS–AND AT THE EDGEWATER BEACH HOTEL?
Oh, yah, yah–and of course the Edgewater Beach Hotel was a very fine hotel and
accommodated people from out of state, out of the city, and so on. It had more of an international clientele. But they were always–they were well-to-do people who would go and reside there. And then they used to have dancing every night. I can remember when Wayne King was playing there and I’m trying to think of other fellows that—Eddie______ played there. So they had some famous orchestrasin those days. But as kids we weren’t allowed to go there.
DID YOUR PARENTS EVER GO?
No, No–my father and mother were separated and my grandparents for sure didn’t
go. (Both laugh) So that’s pretty much the story–
WHAT CONVINCED YOU TO BECOME A PRIEST?
Don’t ask me that question; I can’t answer that. No–there were some priests
that came from DePaul to St Ita’s to help out on Sundays and I became very
friendly withthem and so we just got to be very friendly. And then, of course,
I went to DePaul Academy where Vincentian priests taught, so I got to know a
lot about them. And so I said, I would just like to model my life according to
what they think and whatthey do and so that’s what motivated me to become a
priest.
WERE YOU AN ALTAR BOY AT ST. ITA’S?
Oh, sure!
THAT’S WHAT EVERY SELF-RESPECTING BOY DID, I ASSUME.
Oh, absolutely! No, I was an altar boy–I used to have to get up at 6 o’clock
and bring my grandmother to 6:30 Mass.
OH MY!
Oh–that was awful–
ESPECIALLY WHEN THE WEATHER WAS COLD!
Very much so.
WHAT TIME DID SCHOOL START?
What time?
WHAT TIME DID SCHOOL START?
Nine o’clock, yeh, we went from 9 to 3. We had 45 minutes off for lunch. Of
course, it was no problem to walk from Magnolia to Glenwood to go home and get my
lunch. Once in awhile it was a great treat to be able to brown-bag it, just get
a sandwich from home, and just stay at school–and–but that wasn’t too often. And, of course, there were no dining facilities there. There was a room down­stairs where you could bring your sandwich and milk or whatever you had.
DID THEY SELL MILK AT SCHOOL, OR DID YOU HAVE TO BRING EVERYTHING YOURSELF?
I don’t recall that. They may have–I don’t recall that. I’ll tell you one
thing they didn’t serve: they didn’t serve Jack Daniels and Coke.
I WOULD HOPE NOT! (Laugh)
Well as I grew older, that became my favorite friend, but I didn’t learn that at
St. Ita’s; I learned other things.
THEY’LL BE HAPPY TO KNOW THAT!
Right! Yeh! They were good days there.
Later on my mother came to live with us and then my brother Bill was also there.
We lived on the first floor of 5506 Glenwood Avenue. For awhile we lived at
5427 Wayne; I forget what it was on Winthrop. But we went from Winthrop to Wayne
to Glenwood.
DID YOUR GRANDFATHER WORK IN THE AREA?
No, he worked downtown in what’s called the South Water Market. He was in the
produce business. He worked for a company called Emil Cahn (?). I don’t know if
you ever heard of them, they specialized in baking potatoes–Idaho–Idaho goes for you, or something like that, and then they had a picture of this great big beauti­ful baking potato on the billboard and Emil Cahn and Company, and that’s where my grandfather used to work. And he would take me down to the South Water Market on a Sunday once in awhile and the other thing that was interesting in the neighbor­hood–probably people don’t think about it too much–but the dairy companies delivered the milk to the back door—sure! and you –
YOU JUST LEAVE A NOTE FOR HOW MUCH YOU WANTED EACH DAY?
Sure–and the iceman used to come down with his ice wagon and you left a sign in
your back porch window: 50 pounds, 25 pounds, 100 pounds. And, of course, we didn’t have refrigerators. We had ice boxes. This guy would come in with the ice slung over his shoulder. There was another guy who would come up and down a lot of alleys–they were called rag pickers and the guy would be coming up and down the alley with his wagon, driven by a horse and he used to be saying "Rags a-lion, rags a-lion, rags a-lion" and you’d hear him coming up and down the alley. Now, I think what he was really saying was "Rags or old iron", but it just sounded like "Rags a-lion" and if you had anything that you wanted to sell, you went out and
sold it. He’d buy it from you, but for a very, very small fee. So, we used to
have that.
DID THE GRINDERS EVER COME AROUND? Oh, sure! sure!
FOR SHARPENING KNIVES AND THINGS–
Sure, you betcha. They had a lot of services delivered to your back door that you now get in stores when you go out to a shopping mall and get all of those services in some area in the shopping mall. Of course, cars in those days were very modest automobiles. We had an automobile we were fortunate in having, but most of them were very, very simple types, not the sleek looking things that you see today.
DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOUR GRANDFATHER GOT IT?
I sure do! Sure do! I forget what year it was, but I remember the day he died. He died suddenly in his sleep. He slept on the back porch and I remember waking up and my mother telling me "Grandpa is dead." And I tell you that just shocked me and so they got me out of the house when the undertaker came, because I was very, very close to my grandfather.
HOW OLD WERE YOU?
Golly! I can’t remember, I was just a tyke. But he used to take me every Sunday
afternoon up to the K_____ Theater at Clark and Balmoral. I forget what’s
there now. But that was a real shock to me. We were very, very close. And he
was a strict disciplinarian. He was an Irishman and he was a strict disciplinarian
if he had to be. But a very kind and gentle man. I remember when my grandmother passed away,butshe passed away after I was ordainedand hadcomebackto Chicago.
WHAT DID YOU USED TO SEE AT THE _____ , AT THE MOVIE THEATER?
Pardon? What did we see at the movie theater? We saw silent films. Then later
what came in was called vitaphones–and there would be Wild West Shows, or you know, war stories, or something like that. Nothing like what you have today.
DID THEY HAVE ANY VAUDEVILLE OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT IN THE MOVIE THEATERS? OR WAS IT JUST A FILM?
It was a film, yeh–Now over at the Bryn Mawr–over at the Bryn Mawr Theater, they used to have five acts of vaudeville and a movie–Yeah!
BRYN MAWR IS STILL THERE!
Yeah, that’s still there, but back in those days and this is umpteen, umpteen years ago now–remember I was 17 or 18 years of age then so that would be, what, 63 years ago–they had five acts of vaudeville there. People’d come out and they’d have dancing contests. (He knocks on wood.) Oh, what was the name of the dancing con­test? But anyhow, people from all over who could dance would get up there and -­oh, what was the name of that dance (knocks again in frustration.) One was called the Black Bottom, but this was another. THE CAKE WALK? No-o-o-o, not the Cake Walk. This one you’dcross your legs and you’d cross your arms–what the heck–I can’t remember it. But anyway, the contestants would get up there and do their dance and then after everybody had performed, they would line up and the Master of Ceremonies would put his hand over a couple and you’d clap, and then over another couple, and so on–and whoever would get the largest applause got the prize.
WHAT DID THEY USED TO GIVE AS PRIZES?
I forget what they used to give. I think it was money–maybe it was $5 or $10 or
something like that. It wouldn’t shake you out of your wits.
DO YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT WAR YEARS OR HOW THE COMMUNITY PULLED TOGETHER
OR REACTED?
Not really, not really. Because at that time–you mean World War II- 
YEAH! – YOU WERE OUT OF THE AREA BY THAT TIME?
By that time I was in the Seminary and then when I came back from the Seminary
I lived down in the DePaul area so I would just go up to visit my mother or my
grandmother periodically. I’d go up there on Sunday, or such, so I really can’t
say much about what went on during the war years.
DEPRESSION WASN’T THAT BAD?
Not by that time, No!
And, of course, once the war started, then jobs became more prevalent. People
went to work in the war industries. But during the time of the depression,
things were really tough. Yes, they were.
WE STILL HAVE PEOPLE OUT OF WORK—AND THINGS STILL COST MONEY. WE HAVE TO EAT!
Yeh. That’s correct, and you have to pay the rent.
WHICH SEMINARY DID YOU GO TO?
The Seminary is called St. Mary’s Seminary in Perryville, Missouri. That’s where
they educate priests for the Vincentian Community. I belong to the Vincentian
Community. We’re called The Vincentians because we were founded by St. Vincent
DePaul and our nickname is Vincentians after Vincent. And that’s where we were
educated. So, I was in Perryville for eight years. Then when I finished at
Perryville, I came back to DePaul and I’ve been there ever since. I taught for
three years in DePaul Academy, then moved up to the University, went and got my
doctorate at Northwestern, and then after that I came back and taught in the
biology department at the University for twenty years and they made me the
president, and I’ve been going downhill ever since.
(BIG HA-HA). COME ON NOW, THAT’S QUITE AN HONOR FOR YOU TO BE PRESIDENT AND NOW
CHANCELLOR.
Well, I just simply say to people, you know what the Peter Principle is, and they say, YES–WE DO, and I say, Well, I’m reaching the pinnacle of the Peter Principle—I’m getting to my highest level of incompetence.
I SAY THAT AT WORK, TOO!
Yeah, Sure!
Do you have any more questions? I’m sorry
(abrupt ending)