Rose Densler

Rose Densler Interview*

History of Uptown, Summerdale District/Period around 1887, Document #27b

Source: Mrs. Rose Densler, 5319 Ashland Boulevard, came to Summerdale in 1884, so she has lived in the district for thirty-seven years. Interviewed in November, 1927.

We built a home at Summerdale and Paulina Street about forty years ago. My father was a fireman and because he was in poor health he wanted to get away from the city also asked to be transferred out here. My husband liked it here too and told a friend of his to come out and start a store because there wasn’t any them. So Mr. Beck came out and ran the first store at Ashland and Prairie. Bardas came too because we were here and now these people have made so much money that they spend their winters in California. The fire station was at Balmoral and Ashland. The city had police stations in Lake View too and there was one at Robey on Foster. The Congregational Church at Farragut and Ashland was the oldest one in Summerdale. The picnic groves were at Carmen and Clark and Winona and Clark. The latter was Unger’s Grove.

We went to the Catholic church in Bowmanville before we had our own. Bowmanville was quite a village. They had picnics there that we all went to. But Rosehill was never much of a place.

* Rose Densler was born 29 Nov 1856 in Chicago to James and Mary Lennon, both born in Ireland. She was married on 27 November 1878 to James F. Densler, born in 1856 to a father from Germany who farmed in Lake County, Illinois. James Densler worked as a lantern tinner in 1900 and later operated a barber shop at 5323 North Clark Street until his death 5 October 1914. Rose died 31 August 1931. They had three children who lived to adulthood.

Cover page: Documents: History of the Uptown Community, Chicago. Prepared for the Chicago Historical Society and the Local Community Research Committee, University of Chicago. Research under the direction of Vivien M. Palmer; staff investigators Marion Lindner and Beatrice Nesbit. These documents contain data just as it was secured form old residents and from existing documents. A final check of the data will appear in the volume of the Social History of Chicago.

Format: Photocopy of a typescript without page numbers in the Chicago History Museum library; volume 2 of a 6-volume set containing documentary information on 20 Chicago community districts/areas.

Publication date: 1925-1930.