My Lincolnwood Story - Paul Grant

“My wife came to me one night and said, “Paul, what would you say if I said I thought I’d run for mayor?“ I said I’ve been waiting two months for [her] to tell me that [she] was going to do this.”

Paul Grant has lived in Lincolnwood for the better part of the last 60 years. From the addition of the pool to the establishment of the library, he has seen a lot of change in that time. Mr. Grant talks about growing up in Oak Park, meeting his wife, Madeleine, teaching at Loyola University, and being active in the Lincolnwood community.

This interview was recording using Zoom.

The views and opinions expressed in interviews do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Lincolnwood Public Library, including its Board of Trustees and staff.



TRANSCRIPT:

Lev Kalmens  0:00  
My name is Lev Kalmens, I'm an Information Services Librarian at the Lincolnwood Public Library. Today is September 2nd 2020 and I'm interviewing Paul Grant for my Lincolnwood story, our oral history project. Paul, thank you for joining me and what is your Lincolnwood story?

Paul Grant  0:18  
Well, I've lived here for about 57 years. I became active in the village about 20 years ago, and my wife and a few others decided we needed a library. She headed up the library and I worked as a volunteer for years. Then when she ran for mayor, I also worked as a volunteer as [inaudible]. After she had passed away, after some years, I was appointed to the ad hoc sewer commission, which I served on for about 60 years. Then -- six years, I'm sorry, seemed like 60. I then served two four year terms on the Zoning Board of Appeals. I stepped down from there, I didn't accept your nomination about three years ago because my health was starting to fail.

Lev Kalmens  1:18  
So tell me, how did you end up in Lincolnwood in the first place?

Paul Grant  1:23  
Well I was a West sider, I grew up in Oak Park. After my marriage in 1959 my wife and I settled temporarily in Forest Park and then in Bellwood, and then began to look for, when she was pregnant, a more permanent home. She started to look at the north side and each week we'd look a little further north. Finally, she came home one night and said she thought she'd found the perfect place and it was in Lincolnwood. She just kept moving further north every week.

Lev Kalmens  2:02  
What are your initial memories of what Lincolnwood was like in the early 1960s?

Paul Grant  2:08  
It was a very well run village. I mean in the great storm, it was '63 I think it was, the streets were clear the next morning, but you couldn't get out of Lincolnwood. But everything seemed to be, except Mayor Proesel idea of Lincolnwood, and he professed this, this is not my opinion, was it was a dormitory community and that the people would really rest here, but could get their entertainment and their work and so on and so forth in Chicago. That ended a little bit when some people got him to hold a referendum on a swimming pool a few years later. That passed overwhelmingly, but it was the only thing done for many years really. Adding amenities to the life of the village. But the village seemed to efficiently run operations.

Lev Kalmens  3:05  
Do you think that like the addition of the pool was something that benefited the village in the long run?

Paul Grant  3:11  
Oh, I think so. I think it very much did.

Lev Kalmens  3:15  
So going back a little bit. You said you grew up on the west side? What do you remember about growing up? What did your parents do for a living? Tell me a little bit about your childhood.

Paul Grant  3:28  
Well, my father was an auditor with the Tribune. My mother was a homemaker. I was the oldest of six children, and there wasn't a lot of assets around the house, to say the least. You know, Park was a quiet suburb much like Evanston. They used to rival each other, as a matter of fact. They were both dry communities, both had good schools and both had little crime. We always felt boys and girls, we could go out any place and have our fun without worrying about anything. There weren't a lot of cars. This was just before during the war. I guess just before I think I moved, I'm sorry. Just before during the war, and I stayed, stayed through school. Then went into the service in '54 for about two and a half years. Uncle Sam wanted my presence a little longer than he told me it would take. Then I married in '59.

Lev Kalmens  4:42  
You said you served in 1954, what was the extent of your duty?

Paul Grant  4:46  
I was stationed in France in a reserve unit to the US Army Headquarters in Germany. My duties are classified.

Lev Kalmens  5:02  
Alright, and then so you said you got married in 1959, how did you meet your wife?

Paul Grant  5:13  
I met her in my senior year of college at Loyola. Somebody said he wanted me to meet a young lady. She was in a local coffee shop and I was introduced to her. We became friendly and when I went in service, I asked her if she'd write to me and she said yes. When I came out of service, she was engaged and so things trailed off obviously. About six months later and this must have been about '55 I guess, I bumped into her in the same coffee shop where I first met her; I found out she was no longer engaged so I asked her out. When we got married in '59, I didn't have a job; I'd been going to graduate school. When we came home from our honeymoon, I had three contracts waiting for me.

Lev Kalmens  6:11  
So what was your first job then?

Paul Grant  6:14  
I became an administrator and faculty member instructor in Loyola's Graduate School of Labor Relations, as a member of the full time faculty. I also was the assistant to the administrator. I handled most of the the academic paperwork, interviews and so on, accepting students, rejecting students or whatever.

Lev Kalmens  6:41  
How long were you at Loyola University?

Paul Grant  6:48  
For about 40 years. 

Lev Kalmens  6:49  
Oh wow!

Paul Grant  6:50  
I was asked to take over the university's pension programs. I did so and then after a couple of years, they asked me really to handle human resources. My title was an Assistant Vice President of Finance, but I was really the university's chief human resource director. In the late '50s, I was one of three finance officers who was delegated by the university to help integrate the brand new medical center we were building. We had never had a medical center that included a dental school, a medical school, a 500 and some odd bed hospital, and ancillary services. I don't think I'll ever forget the date of May 23rd, 1969; the day we opened the hospital. During all that time I continued teaching part time, and was considered a member of the full time faculty. I finally left the administration, I think its '91 and went back to teaching full time, then retired January 1 of 1996.

Lev Kalmens  8:15  
What did you find most fulfilling about teaching?

Paul Grant  8:19  
Well I'll tell you a story, one night probably about '94, I was standing at the elevator with the director of our program. We were both going to class and he looked at me as we were waiting for the elevator and he said "to think they pay us for doing this"; I pretty much agreed with him. I had a lot of different careers there, teaching, administration, and in about 1985 at the suggestion of one of the executives, I founded a credit union. I served as the chairman of the board, that's incidentally an unpaid job in Illinois, as chairman of the board for 15 years. When I retired from the university, I retired from that also, although it wasn't necessary. We had about 4000 members when I retired and it's still going strong.

Lev Kalmens  9:19  
I understand that your wife was very instrumental in the establishment of the Lincolnwood library. Tell me a little bit about that time; I believe that was in the mid to late 70s, and kind of how it all came to be.

Paul Grant  9:33  
Well it's sort of funny, she was looking for something to do really. One of her friends asked her if she wanted to join the League of Women Voters, she said "why don't you go to a couple of meetings?" So she did and she came home and she said to me, "you know Lincolnwood is the largest village in the state that doesn't have a library", or words to that effect, and I said no I didn't. At the time Mayor Proesel believed that since we had a small double storefront library up just short of the railroad tracks on Devon up past Central, he felt this was all we needed. A Lincolnwood resident I think could get a card for $20 a year and he didn't see the need for anything else. So my wife and about six others decided to see if they could form a library, and they did! They got some consultative help, and eventually went down before the county board and the county board swore them all in as the [inaudibile] members I guess, of a library board. Then they had a referendum in the village which the village did not support, because Mayor Proesel didn't want it. But the referendum was almost 70% favorable; this is a highly educated village. I guess I was surprised it wasn't 80%. After that they swore themselves in, they named themselves, and the board elected Madeline as President. They then needed to find a library and there was a Pier One store all by itself, at the corners of Lincoln, Pratt and Crawford that was not renewing its license. It was almost ideal from the standpoint of the library because it was just across the street from the school. Of course a library really is very important with the school system. It would have been nice not having to cross a busy street, but that was the only negative. So with their new powers, they condemned the property. The Pier One had decided not to renew its lease; I believe the building was actually owned by Jewel. We moved in in '56 there was a small Jewel store where the library is now. It went out of business and Pier One took over, so Pier One was not going to renew its license and so they went through the condemnation process. By this time they had a skillful library attorney, they were guided throughout by highly skilled people. Being now a government agency even though it had not gotten the tax bill up, much less collected any money, it was now an official government agency and had the right to levy taxes. Virtually every bank in the country I think at least in the Chicago area, called up happy to loan money. So they had money through loans even though they had not that got any from taxation yet. After the referendum they had the right to levy taxes and they did so. That night, I think it was in February, I can't even remember the year. But at 12:30 one night, we had snowed terribly all day. It was heavy, wet snow. In fact, we couldn't get the car out of the driveway to go to the grocery store that day and dragged a sled all the way to the Treasure Island that used to be in Lincolnwood village. We live in that general area and 12:30 at night as we are about to go to bed, the phone rings. With five kids you're always nervous when the phone rings. The man identified himself, "this is chief of police Lester Flowers and I want to speak to Mrs. Grant", so I gave it to her and I listened because this was something really unexpected. I listened as he told her the building had collapsed. It was now an attractive nuisance at law and that she better get some guards over there to keep kids and others from getting into it. She [Madeline Grant] called the library director LaDonna Kienitz. At that time, and I'll come back to this in a moment, but at that time there was a demonstration library and LaDonna and she called detective agencies. We had Chicago phonebooks and called detective agencies for about 45 minutes and given the circumstances, no one would come out under any circumstances. You couldn't get to Lincolnwood! The Ls weren't running, the buses weren't running, no cars could get through, it was really one of the two most terrible nights I think I've seen in this village. I finally, I think it was me because I wasn't busy, I thought of the answer! I said to her, "Mad, I think off duty policeman often do this kind of work" and she said "I'll give it a try." The police chief had told us he would sit by his phone until he heard from her. It's now 1:15 I guess, and so she calls Chief Flowers and she said, "Chief there is nobody going to come out tonight like this. But don't off duty policeman sometimes? Well yes, I think they do sometimes Mrs. Grant." I'm paraphrasing obviously, this is it, this is the meeting though. He says, "I will see if I can't find some people to come over and take care of that; and you know, they charge." She said, "of course I know that." He said, "in the meantime, I'll put a police car in for the library to make sure nobody gets in until I can get some people there." He had told us just less than an hour before no police cars were available. But from then on, he was very friendly. We then went through the process of building the library. But before that the state of Illinois had provided what's called, I think it was called, a demonstration library. An actual physical library, which I think was in the building that Harris trust now occupies. It was sort of a double storefront. They provided the books, they provided the rent, all of the expenses, and the village supplied the manpower. The board had hired a woman named LaDonna Kienitz who turned out to be an inspired hire. She worked for the village for about 10 years and went out to Orange County, California where she eventually pretty much ran the county. She had picked up an MBA while she was at Lincolnwood, she picked up a law degree in Orange County and she had a previous library masters. The library then hired architects, cleared the property hired architects and it was insured, luckily. The judge had set the price for the condemned property. What judges normally do, I don't know if you're familiar with this, what they normally do in the case of a condemnation, is they hire some assessors to assess the property's value. Then from the assessments they make a decision, a binding decision on what it will cost the people who are condemning the property. As I remember the library people thought it was a very fair settlement price. So with that they hired architects, they built the library. They are now larger because later on they were able to buy one of the houses abetting the library. So they are now somewhat larger; the library itself has been enlarged a couple of times. Not hugely, but a couple of times. There was one day that the library moved its books from the demonstration library to the new library. On that day I'd imagine 50 to 70 of us, volunteers all, carried the books in our arms, out the door across Lincoln Avenue into the new library. The police chief was kind enough to give us a policeman to help direct traffic.

Paul Grant  18:25  
So since then, it's been a very positive experience. For about four or five years, they did something that maybe other people may not recall. But we had a library festival each year, in the spring and we would bring in some famous authors; they would speak. It never never really took off in terms of numbers. It was eventually given up because it was costly. But the idea was to get the name in the papers, get the media's attention, which we did and also to make people enjoy it. I'll tell you a little story I just thought of this morning as a matter of fact. I'm a Roman Catholic, but I am probably the only person in Lincolnwood who ever had two Jewish Nobel Prize winners in his house. They were Isaac Bashevis Singer and the famous Nazi hunter... oh what was his name?

Lev Kalmens  19:24  
I believe it was Elie Wiesel

Paul Grant  19:27  
Elie Wiesel! We had receptions for them; we had a pretty good sized house. So we had receptions for them, quite an experience. I sat and talked with, Robert Parker who wrote the Spencer books - 

Lev Kalmens  19:46  
Yes

Paul Grant  19:47  
Mystery stories and "Spenser For Hire" on television. We sat at lunch together at my place because I'm an economist by trade. We sat at lunch discovering the economics of writing books. Not personally, I mean, he didn't tell me what he made or anything. 

Lev Kalmens  20:03  
Right

Paul Grant  20:04  
But a little bit about what it was like to be an author and how many people could make money being authors, that sort of thing. Very interesting, he also told me that once he wrote a book, or wrote a chapter, and finally a book, he never looked back. He never went back and reread it, never copyread it, or proofread it, it was finished. We had other writers tell us at some of these festivals that they've gone over their own writing probably 100 times, but he didn't.

Lev Kalmens  20:40  
How did the library being a relatively new organization in the early 80s, manage to attract these big names to come and speak here?

Paul Grant  20:52  
They didn't, authors are always apparently looking for publicity and their publishers push them to do these things. We did, in cases where they were from out of the area, I think that the library paid their expenses. I'm fairly sure they did, that'd include airfare, hotels, the Purple Hotel was probably where they all stayed at I think, and meals and so on. I don't know anything about how many people rejected it, but I knew we had some very, very famous writers.

Lev Kalmens  21:25  
Okay, so you mentioned that you have five children - 

Paul Grant  21:29  
Right

Lev Kalmens  21:29  
Talk to me a little bit about raising them in Lincolnwood and what family life was like for you?

Paul Grant  21:39  
Well we bought a two flat, just north of Pratt on Christianna, I guess it's Christianna. We had a mother in law and an aunt living above us, so we had built in babysitters. We moved in, I think it was '64 and the girls were not quite a year old I think, and my wife was pregnant with the third child. We had three and thirteen months, four and thirtynine months and they went to the Lincolnwood grade schools, and the girls were identical twins. They're very well known in the village and they worked at various places in or near the village. They were always in the school system and they told us this advance that they would keep them separate, that they didn't want to put twins in the same classroom. They always did but one day when they were in seventh grade, about Thanksgiving time, we got a call just before six o'clock at night. The principal is on the phone and she was upset. She said they had just realized they had "X", "X", [inaudbile] and contrary to their policies, put the two girls in the same classroom; what do we think about that? We said, "well we don't know anything about that, but we don't care really, we'll ask them", and we call them in, and we said, "are you in the same classroom?" They said, "yeah", and we said, "didn't you think you should tell us about it? Why? Do you mind being in the same classroom? No. You want to stay? Okay." So the school had really been concerned with something that really didn't have anything of interest to them. They were just as happy together or apart. We always sort of joked to each other, we thought we had the right names for them. We were never absolutely sure. People who met them, and like kids would invite them to a party when they were in school and the mothers would tell us later, "we had no idea which was which you know? They introduce themselves but from then on we had no idea." So that was a big part of the early thing. My five kids turned out to have no athletic ability at all, although all of them played Little League, but they were pretty bad at it.

Lev Kalmens  24:18  
Were you yourself athletic when you were growing up?

Paul Grant  24:22  
No not much, I had the interest but I didn't have the abilities. My father had been a semi-pro baseball player, so I was surprised that one of my younger brothers was a superb basketball player. But too small, only 5'6'', too small to really make the big time. So there was athletic ability in the family it just didn't rest with me.

Lev Kalmens  24:45  
So how many siblings? You say you were the oldest of six correct? 

Paul Grant  24:52  
I was the oldest of six. 

Lev Kalmens  24:54  
What was your relationship like with your siblings?

Paul Grant  24:56  
We were pretty close. We didn't have the things to do you have today when you're young, we didn't have television. That came in when we were a little older, most of us a little bit older and so on. So really it and particularly during the colder weather, we were all together with each other. We didn't have a car and so we weren't taking people out to visit their friends and so on in the winter, we were just tied together. So I think we turned out to be a pretty close family. We still are pretty close. There's only four of us still alive but we still are in touch with each other pretty constantly.

Lev Kalmens  25:34  
Are they spread out all across the country or still kind of in the Chicago area?

Paul Grant  25:39  
No they're not, and this is sort of an interesting thing. The six of us really stayed together in the Chicago area. Even now the four that are left are in the Chicago area, although one of them travels a bit. My five are, well, four of us are fairly close together. I have a daughter in Skokie, another daughter got a chance to go to the suburbs, they've moved out to Highland Park, and my son just down at the lake front almost directly east of me, and I have one son in Joliet. 

Lev Kalmens  26:14  
So how would you describe your your relationship with your children today?

Paul Grant  26:20  
We're pretty close. I've had, we are now allowed I mean assisted living here, we're now allowed to have outside visitors. Although you have to be outside with them, three of the four that can make it have been over. The fourth one has just suffered some serious physical disabilities recently and he can't get over. But they pick up food for me and other things that I need dropped off and they're busy, they're busy people, they either work or -

Lev Kalmens  26:53  
You've lived in Lincolnwood for the majority of your life, in what other ways do you think the village has changed in the last 60 years?

Paul Grant  27:01  
It's become much more polyglot, if I could use the word, in it's people. About three or four years ago I was reading an article in the newspaper that said that the Lincolnwood schools at that time, the kids spoke 37 different languages at home. I don't think that was true when I moved in by any means. The village, like Skokie, was largely Jewish. It was changing as with Skokie at the time and as was the same with some of the other suburbs, into more mixed groups. So I think that's been one of the big changes. We find, for example, that at least I am told that participation in voting is not as common as it was 60 years ago. I thought it was regarded more 60 years ago as something you just did. But now it's said that many people don't because they're afraid of being put on jury rolls and things like that. I don't know how true that is.

Lev Kalmens  28:09  
Now, speaking of elections, your wife was also the mayor of lincolnwood from '93 till 2000, correct? 

Paul Grant  28:20  
Right.

Lev Kalmens  28:21  
So, tell me a little bit about how she got elected? How did all of that happen?

Paul Grant  28:27  
Well, she had been elected twice, by the village to the library board. The board itself chose its chairman, and they elected her Chairman each time. So she was well known in the village. They had a problem that became very serious in the preceding four years. The mayor at the time, I can't think of his name. He didn't handle controversy well, and one of the board members began to question some of the things he was doing, a woman named Cohen. It began very slowly and without much rancor, then it got very, very, rancorous. The members of the board, the village board chose up sides. One newspaper called them, after a year or so, the "Lincolnwood Loonies". Meetings constantly went over one o'clock in the morning. One time after Mrs. Cohen had had an operation, she was still recuperating in bed at home. They were divided one night, so divided that they called a recess and sent someone to get her out of bed and back to the village hall where she could cast the deciding vote on something. When it got really bad, the mayor and Mrs. Cohen both decided to run for election, he for reelection and she for election, and then a gadfly in the village a pretty well known good speaker, he decided to run to. My wife came to me one night and she said, "Paul, what would you say if I said I thought I'd run for mayor?"  I said, "I've been waiting for two months for you to tell me that you're gonna do this." She said, "what do you mean?" I said, "every time you hear the papers come in, the Lincolnwood papers come in, you want to read it first or as soon as you can, and you constantly asked me [inaudbile]". I went to a couple of meetings a matter of fact, and she questioned me I remember I said it was pretty obvious to me. Then I said, "but I'll tell you one thing I don't want you to run unless you're gonna win" and she said "oh don't you worry I'll win." 

Lev Kalmens  30:56  
[Laughter] She was confident.

Paul Grant  30:56  
Well she was but she was well known as I said because she'd won two elections. She was out there, walking the streets and ringing doorbells and so on for a couple of months. In the four way election she went about... it's a long time since '92, '93, but I think around 47% of the vote, with four people running. The mayor [inaudible] I think about 24, Mrs. Cohen close to that, the fourth man was down around 14 or something. Incidentally, going back to the library at one point, I don't have a copy of it myself, at one point, my wife Madeline Grant and LaDonna Kienitz the library director, wrote an article in the I think, the Illinois State Library Journal, on the trials and tribulations of founding that library. It was an excellent article but as I say, when I moved in here, I lost an awful lot of papers and books and magazines and so on. So I don't have a copy. But-

Lev Kalmens  31:06  
We could see if we could find that, find that article somewhere in the archives of that publication. Any other final memories? I don't want to keep you much longer. I know you have other commitments, any other final memories about your life or living in Lincolnwood that you would like to share with us?

Paul Grant  32:36  
Well I don't know, I think I've had a very good life and a very good marriage. The kids aren't in jail. I'm now expecting my third great grandchild, although, given the fact that, the circumstance of life right now I doubt I may ever see at least two of them again. But this is how life goes. You know, I grew up in a world in which people lived maybe to their 60s, there were almost no great grand people, children around. Now people live regularly, and we have we have about 50 people in assisted living here, at least four of them are over number 100 years old. 

Lev Kalmens  33:20  
Wow.

Paul Grant  33:20  
I'm 89 and I sit at a table with two 90 year olds and a woman who's only 73. But we have quite a few in their 90s and this just didn't exist. Kids didn't have to have their parents a burden on them that long back then. I'm very conscious of this although, I still can get around all right and mentally I think I'm okay. I've had a good life, I had a good career, it was varied enough so that it was never boring. They're good neighbors too, good friends that we made. We got out into the community with Madeline, particularly with me trailing along, got out when the library was going and then when she was Mayor and so on. Then she was very active in both the North Suburban Library Association which she headed and the North Suburban Mayor's Association which she was to be the head of the year she died. So we met a lot of people, a lot of good people, a lot of very nice people. Funny things happen, I remember one time we met the alderman [inaudible] to joining us in Chicago because the aldermen had heard that somebody wanted to put a carwash in on the north side of Devon avenue. The alderman didn't like it, my wife said, "well you don't like it, I don't like it even worse than you don't like it! It's not coming in! It's not going to come in on Devon avenue".

Lev Kalmens  35:10  
Well, I would like to thank you for for your time and taking the time to talk to me and sharing your your Lincolnwood story with us.

Paul Grant  35:18  
It's been enjoyable.