Mi Casa's
The homes of John N Shankland
An Autobiography
Having participated in genealogy for many years it is always frustrating that very little personal information is available for our distant relatives. No one, including family historians, writes any kind of a personal history.
The summer of 2005 I drove up to Chicago from Florida and on a whim decided to go through Birmingham AL where I was born and photograph the house my parents where living in at that time. I have a few more pictures of other homes I lived in and thought it might be an interesting web page of photos for this site. Expanding on this idea I thought it could serve as some sort of personal history.
I am not a writer as you will soon see. I dislike that part of genealogy, and rather spend my time researching, but alas it is a necessary evil.
I am trying to tell a story here and it is only as accurate as my memory. By in large, I haven't check the dates etc. however dates given in full are correct. Other pertinent information might be found here in other pages.
My father John Howard Shankland
graduated from the Missouri School of Mines with a degree in engineering in 1941
and soon after married my mother Frieda Irene Sethne, his high school
sweetheart.
He took his one and only job in the mines as a safety engineer in
Birmingham AL. They lived there at 604 Fulton Ave.
My
Aunt Ruth once mentioned to me that it was an apartment so I assume that while
it is a home it was rented to more than one family. I was born in Birmingham,
April 5th, 1942 (Easter Sunday) while they lived in that house. I was due on April 4th my
mother's brother Norman's birthday. He was my godfather and namesake.
Shortly after my father was in the
Army Air Core and severed for the duration of the war at Midway Airport in
Chicago. During or just prior to that time we were in Arizona then my mother and
I stayed in Kenosha WI in a rental house shared with my father's first cousin
"Bud" Shankland's wife. My earliest memories were of my father coming home for a
visit probably on a Friday night past my bedtime. I was allowed to get up and
say hello. Just as the war was ending my father and a friend
were having lunch and they were approached by a man from Western Electric, the
manufacturing arm of Bell Telephone, saying he wanted to hire them as soon as
the war was over.
He took a job there and bought his first house at 6342 S LeClaire Ave across the
street from Midway airport. We, my mother, new baby brother Gordon, July 29th,
1944 and I moved down from Kenosha to join him. I attended Hale School from
kindergarten through 2nd grade.
The school was located inside the Southwest corner of the airport and on the approach of the longest runway. I clearly remember TWA constellations flying 15 feet over the tops of our heads. As hard as it would be to believe today we used to walk home and take short cuts through the airport and hangers. the school has since been moved to a safer location nearby.
In the summer of 1950 my father
bought a home in unincorporated Hinsdale at 618 N Phillippa on the extreme
western edge of Cook County. I say home but it was actually a 3 bedroom brick
ranch shell, unfinished on the inside. Amazingly, without any real experience at
this he finished it. This included al of the inside work, plumbing, wiring, and
finishing. We must have stayed in Kenosha for the Summer and returned in time
for school. He got done what he could before
having to work around the family now consisting of 5 of us. Rhonda was born on
September 14th, 1947 while we were still in Chicago. We attended John Laidlaw
elementary school in Western Springs, then McClure Jr High, Western Springs, and
Lyons Township High School in LaGrange.
It was a long walk to these schools.
We lived in what now seem like an idyllic area, about one mile square slowly being developed into a residential area. We were one of the first 10 house there. I have no idea why it remained undeveloped until then for Western Springs and Hinsdale were nearly fully developed yet there was this "no man's land" in between. For years I thought it was a prairie, but later realized that it was really abandoned farm land with overgrown grasses and ragweed. We led a country existence in the middle of one of the most developed areas of Illinois. I have 3 life long friends that moved in that neighborhood at a later date, Paul Shoener, Dennis Boland and George LaMotte. We enjoyed playing in the ragweed, almost a square block of it. We made complicated mazes with hidden passages and forts on the inside. As we got a little older my father mowed the vacant lot next door and we played baseball with the neighbor kids. The lot next to the field was an abandoned hole (basement) for a house never built. In the hole on a fly was a homerun and on the ground a double.
I started baby sitting at the age of 12 then had a paper route. At 14 (Summer) I worked at the refreshment stand at the 10th tee of the LaGrange Country Club. 10 hours per day, 6 days per week, $1.00 per hour. I got paid every 2 weeks put $20 in my pocket and $100 in the bank. I was never richer! :) I also washed dishes, set pins, and worked at National Tea as a stock boy. On my 16th birthday I got my dream job working at Dukes Sinclair Station at York and Ogden in Hinsdale. "Duke" Francis DuQuette , was my first mentor. He taught me the ways of business and was always a friend. He and my dad where also friends and about this time I started hunting deer with them in Northern Wisconsin with a bow and arrow. Through Harry Butcher I met another positive influence in my life Elmer Tomek. Elmer was an Explorer Scout Advisor and talked me into rejoining scouts for the my remaining eligible time. We had some great adventures at Region 7 canoe base and Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico.
I wasn't a great student, managing to graduate and go on to DeVry Technical School for an Associate Degree in Electronics. In later years I discovered my problem was boredom, I got the point the first time and was frustrated when the classes were taught at the lowest level. I would say that my outside interests were also a distraction.
My parents moved to 4141 Howard
Street in Western Springs and I lived with them for a short time. I was somewhat
head strong and a little rebellious and my father asked me to leave his house at
the age of 18 and a half which I did with excitement.
We soon resolved our differences
but I moved out anyway. During these 2 years I lived first in a boarding house
on Addison near Pulaski in Chicago and worked part time at a gas station as a
mechanic while attending DeVry at 4141 Pulaski. This was a pretty miserable lonely existence. Later a school friend
and I moved to 6161 North Winthrop, just of off the lake to an apartment hotel and life was looking
much better. The building was full of young adults in the same circumstances.
I took a career type job with Victor Comptometer Corp repairing adding machines and switched to part time school. This was my favorite job for years, 4000 moving parts inside a case about 12 by 12 by 4 and I was very good at repairing them. Upon graduation Paul Shoener convinced me to come to California where he was and still is living. I went out there in the fall of 1962 and stayed about 4 months. It took 3 months to find a job and then I was laid off after 1 month because England cancelled the Bluebird missile contract. 100,00 people were laid off and with my 30 days seniority I lasted about 10 minutes. Discouraged with the Golden State, I decided to go back to Chicago. That was the only job I ever had strictly in the electronics business.
I had visited Hank Trenkle at school in Colorado on the way out and he convinced me to take the Burlington California Zephyr from Denver to San Francisco a trip I have always remembered fondly. I decided to do something I had always wanted to try and hitchhiked from California back to Chicago. I was able to get from to California to St Louis in 2 rides. I took the train home from there.
During this period of my life I had a lot of contact with my relatives. Grandma and Grandpa Shankland drove down from Kenosha frequently and at Christmas went to Aunt Kay's on Christmas eve. We had what seemed like an unbearable wait until Xmas morning when they showed up at our house. Additionally we spent Thanksgiving at Aunt Kay's, Easter at our house, and Mother's Day at Grandma's. My grandfather died when I was 10 and I was devastated. We had frequent visits with other Shankland relatives and a couple of times I was able to visit "uncle" Burrell at his farm in Floyd Iowa. Burrell and his family were great and it was always a highlight visiting or being visited by/with them. His son Steve and I maintain a close relationship.
On the Sethne side, grandma and grandpa retired to a small cottage in Whitewater WI and we made frequent trips to visit them. Each summer there was a wonderful family reunion of the Sethne Aunts and Uncles and all of the cousins.
This connection to family is the reason I am sure for my interest in genealogy.
1963 - 1970
1971 - 1986
1987 - 1996
Present