My Lincolnwood Story- Beth Keno

“They bought the [library] building and a day or two later there was a big snow storm [of 1979] and the roof caved in.“

Beth Keno was only a year old when her parents moved to Lincolnwood from Chicago. In this interview she talks about growing up in Lincolnwood as well as the early days of the Lincolnwood Library. Beth’s mother, Madeleine Grant, was a driving force in establishing the Lincolnwood Library and served as its first board president. Madeleine Grant also served as Lincolnwood mayor from 1993-2000.

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's August 17 2020. And today, I'm interviewing Beth Keno for my Lincolnwood story, our oral history project. Beth, thank you for joining me, and what is your Lincolnwood story?

Beth Keno  0:19  
My gosh, I don't know if I have a single story. I guess I'll start with I lived there since I was about a year old. I think from '63 to probably '86, I think it was about, so I was there for quite a while, over 20 some years. Going back to my earliest memories, that early snow storm back in the, I guess the late 60s, and I found pictures, which I'm going to send to you, and just you're so little and you remember the mounds of snow. But you also realized that everybody there shoveled their own driveway, as you know they didn't have snow plows or trucks with plows on back then. So when you look at the pictures, you really appreciate the amount of snow and the effort it took to clear the driveways and the streets and all that. After I left my mom became mayor so that was pretty exciting, and watching her start her public career there with the Library; which she started the demonstration library with a number of other people and got that passed and built a library after the building roof collapsed a few days after they closed. So that was that was pretty exciting. We went to the Lincolnwood schools, we were across the street for many years on Harding, and as I got older I found it harder and harder to make it to class on time, even though we just had to cross Pratt. So it was a lot of fun. I remember going to some of the teachers, and going through the three different buildings, and all the great people that we met and friends we made. So I guess that's it. My earliest childhood memories of the school was I was an identical twin and so people like to talk to us and we were told as little kids, and I'm reminded sometimes as I run into people even today, they remember that we said we weren't allowed to talk to strangers. So anybody that would talk to us, we would say "we're not allowed to talk to strangers", even though they were other kids in our age or going to school. So it's kind of fun. We moved from Harding and then we went over towards McCormick and Pratt for the last probably 10 years and down from the Milk Pail which I just saw a feed on, on the Facebook group. So reminiscing about the Milk Pail, lots of fond memories, the Jewel there at the corner which is the library now, and being able to buy your chocolate bars with your allowance for that week and then turning into Pier One. Pier One then provided all the holiday gifts for our parents for years and our siblings. So those are some of my instant- and there's the food, then there's the bagels and Biasetti's, gosh that was like a throwback trying to remember what that one was. I worked at McDade for a couple of years. So a lot of fond memories of that and working and meeting lots of different people and ordering out and partying and having a having a good time.

Lev Kalmens  3:57  
Well, let's kind of start at the beginning with your parents. Were they originally, did they already live in Lincolnwood? I mean, they were living here when you were born. But where did they come from to Lincolnwood?

Beth Keno  4:12  
So they didn't live in Lincolnwood when my sister and I were born, they moved there a year, they were from Chicago, outside Chicago, so they moved when we were about a year old. My father's still there, my mother died, 20 years ago now in office when she was the mayor and my dad is still there. He's over at the Lincolnwood Place, just went to Lincolnwood Place about a year ago. But prior to that he was still active in the community, he was on the zoning board and some other committees so they've been active forever.

Lev Kalmens  4:51  
Do you know why they decided to move to Lincolnwood specifically?

Beth Keno  4:54  
I don't know specifically why Lincolnwood, I know the church Queen of All Saints was important, so we're not far from the church. We're raised Catholic so we went to church on Sundays. I honestly never asked them, it seemed like a great place to live so I thought it was a good choice.

Lev Kalmens  5:17  
They have lived in Chicago their whole lives prior to moving here, right?

Beth Keno  5:21  
Yes, my dad grew up in Oak Park, my mother lived in Chicago.

Lev Kalmens  5:28  
What did they do? Obviously before your mother became mayor, was she always involved in communities?

Beth Keno  5:37  
She was never political, she was a teacher before she had the five of us and after she had the five of us, she went back and worked at some point after my youngest brother got old enough to go to school. She worked at the religious ed center at Queens and she would do a lot of volunteering. We always called them "meetings", so she always had meetings all the time. So she did lots of volunteering, my dad worked for Loyola University down on Lake Shore and he also taught one night a week, he taught labor relations. So that's what they did. My mom's kind of activism, I don't know where it came from, she volunteered lots of times. I don't know how she got roped into starting the library, but I know it was a passion of a number of people there in Lincolnwood, and she ended up kind of taking charge of it. She became the president of the library board, Lincolnwood Library Board board after they--

Lev Kalmens  6:44  
Right

Beth Keno  6:45  
After they were successful in the referendum. Then somebody, and my dad'll be a good person to ask, they like convinced her to run for mayor. But she had a long career before that. She was on the library board for many years, then she became the president of the North Suburban Library system. So she was all active and she won, I think there was a couple of winners, of Northshore Volunteer of the Year. Then she was convinced to run for Mayor, surprised all of us, but she had a little stint in real estate there in between all of the activism and all the volunteering. She knows, I don't know if you know, but they put an award in my mom's name, a Volunteer of the Year award, and [inaudbile] she was an avid volunteer and all of that, and you can do a lot just by volunteering.

Lev Kalmens  7:45  
What are your memories of growing up in Lincolnwood? So you said you went through all the Lincolnwood schools, what are your memories? Who were your childhood friends? What did you guys do?

Beth Keno  7:53  
Gosh well we had a lot of friends, we did like I mentioned, we literally lived right across the street from the schools. I remember playing girls softball, it was the 16 inch softball, and being Girl Scouts. I remember all that; we would go to the park district in the summer for camp and we'd ride our bikes there. I remember one of my favorite days was watermelon day, because we got watermelon and we had a lot of fun. Then eventually they put the pool in which wasn't there when we first started but a few years into it they added the pool, which was awesome, right? So you'd go swimming and hang out at the pool by the time we were preteens, we were having a lot of fun at the pool. So we had lots of friends, people live right by us, and people that didn't and we were pretty active with everything. Trick or treating oh my gosh, we'd walk for miles trick or treating, we'd spend the whole day going out because, it was safe and was a lot of fun. I just remember all those times when the snow- making forts, but the end of our street, I don't know what was there, I think it was the back of the bank and they always pile the snow there so I remember us making forts there and having kind of big snowball fights. My mother had a bell, so that's how she got us all inside to eat. My dad or my mom would ring the bell and then we knew to come in because we played outside all the time. We just didn't play inside, we didn't watch a lot of TV, we were running around the neighborhood playing over at the park. They had a great camp program there at Proesel Park so a lot of people went to camp there. I remember batons, I can still twirl a baton and I did win one year, won the baton award. I remember that they always had a big at the end of the camp, they always had a big fair or something where you could win gold fish and win all sorts of prizes and that was a lot of fun. A lot of people went and it was put on by the park district and the camp counselors and if you went to camp there, they always helped you win. I remember that, it was a lot of fun.

Lev Kalmens  10:37  
So what were some of your favorite restaurants or maybe some of your favorite places to order out from?

Beth Keno  10:44  
We just drove down Touhy Avenue a couple weeks ago and I was so disappointed. I don't know why it left but 31 flavors, I still remember the single column was 25 cents. You know it was like a big treat, we'd get so many different flavors. So that was one of my favorite places. Then when we moved over to the McCormick and Pratt area, a Dairy Queen, the Dairy Queen on Devon and St. Louis. I know there was a question out there on the Facebook page about that but it was St. Louis because we went there every other day or something to eat ice cream and because it was walking distance from our house so it was really easy to do it. It's kind of funny because we were trying to remember the name and it's Biasetti's, Biasetti's Pizza and the Italian food. I remember specifically when I worked at McDade because we always ordered out dinner and that was some of our favorites. New York Bagel, it's so cool that they're still there. That was and still is by far the best bagels. Before it was right there in the corner, what's the place right now that's on the corner of Lincoln? Lettuce Entertain your restaurant? 

Lev Kalmens  12:01  
It's L Woods now.

Beth Keno  12:03  
L Woods yeah, so it was Bones before that. That I remember and then it was something else before that, I'm not very good at remembering all the old names, but something was always at that corner. Someplace that we all loved going and having dinner there. Then you had your Bunny Hutch and your miniature golf that was right there right behind or right next to Bunny Hutch so had your lunch, and your golf and there used to be a sub sandwich place that was really good. I think that was up on Cicero, I think it was Cicero and Devon somewhere over there was a sub and I can't remember the sub place; I'm terrible at names. Those are some of the best memories I- then there was the one that you threw the peanut shells on the floor, Ground Round. I remember Ground Round is there on Lincoln Avenue, on Devon and kind of Lincoln I think it was it was right over there. That place was you walked in, you're crunching on stuff and it had the free popcorn. So you started with the free popcorn. You had the peanuts and you threw them around and a lot of good times at Ground Round.

Lev Kalmens  13:19  
Going kind of back to family life, so you said you mentioned you have there's a total of five of you? So you have four siblings? What were some of the family traditions? Or maybe vacations you took together? Not specific to Lincolnwood, but just kind of more so in general.

Beth Keno  13:40  
So I had an identical twin sister, we were the oldest and we have three younger brothers. So we would always kind of go either to Michigan or to Wisconsin. Wisconsin Dells was a big one for vacations because there were five of us, my youngest brother was, I think five or six years younger, so it took him a while to be able to play at our level. But you know, we had a we had a, you know, small little baseball team, so we would, you know, go over to school, you know, because they had the front lawn and you know, practice our softball skills. I still remember that because, you know, there was that my, my dad and all of us, you know, six of us then going out and and getting a little baseball game going. And playing and going you know, going to the pool was something we all loved doing that and the concession stand was always a favorite at the pool. And in doing those things, you know, we we all like I said we were always outside. So we were on our bikes all the time. We actually when we went to camp, we rode our bikes unless it was raining. So so we rode all the way from you know, cross the street Pratt and Harding all the way over to Proesel, for many years.

Lev Kalmens  14:56  
What are some things that you remember about going to school in Lincolnwood

Beth Keno  15:00  
I still remember I think it was called Mr. Pollster was the science teacher every year and I don't I don't know if they still do this or not. But, um, you had, it was a science project where you had to take an egg that was not cooked. And you had to create--and I think there are dimensions like you couldn't be any bigger than certain dimensions--and you had to secure this egg so it wouldn't crack when it was thrown off the roof. So the project, what you know, with every year is a date and you had to build your thing and wrap your egg. And then Mr. Pollster would go up to the roof, and he would, you know, throw everybody's project down onto the ground. And then, based on whether or not your egg broke, it's kind of your grade. But it was I know, there was supposedly some science, I don't remember that part of it, I just remember how much fun that was, you know, to come up with some way to help, you know, to create a contraption. So once thrown off the roof of Lincoln Hall, it didn't, it didn't crack. And I still remember and I don't remember what I wrapped it in. But I did not break mine did not break. So I did that new thing I remember, I don't know why I just remember this the other day was, I don't know if it was it was first science class. Again, I don't know what grade it was, it was probably in Lincoln Hall again, where you had to go collect leaves from different trees. And then there were the bonus trees. And you know, you got extra points if you get leaves from these trees, and you had to press the leaves. And it was quite the project. And, you know, again, got graded on how well you pressed the leaves and which leaves you've got and how complete you made your project. So I I still remember those, those big projects, and they were they were a lot of fun. Another one I remember and this was early, this must have been like second grade first or second grade, I remember you had to write a story about your mother. And you had to go through magazines and pick out a picture. And I didn't know it at the time. I didn't, didn't figure it out for a long time. But somehow I managed to pick a picture of Marilyn Monroe. And I don't know if people see my mom, but my mom's not even blonde. And so, so I hopefully she was flattered. Um, you know, because my mom saved that stuff for a long time. And I remember going, "oh, this is Marilyn Monroe" when you had to go pick a picture of your mother, but she was that beautiful to me. Um, so those are some of my, you know, kind of school things that I remember growing up anyway.

Lev Kalmens  17:42  
Did you remember what you wanted to be?

Beth Keno  17:45  
I wanted to be a lot of things. I mean, I still remember we did a project on architecture. And we had so I for a while I wanted to be an architect. You know, you know, when you're young, everything is kind of interesting. I knew I didn't want to be a doctor, because I really wasn't into science. I hated dissecting, I still remember the dissected the, frogs. That was really disgusting. And so I don't know, you know, I ended up getting a degree in psychology and moving into, you know, doing consulting work. And I've had a couple of businesses, so I don't really know if there was anything, really my early childhood education that kind of, you know, moved me in that direction. I'm sure my mom's influence of liking to take charge of things helped. helped move me in a direction that was about taking charge of things.

Lev Kalmens  18:37  
So tell me a little bit about your family now?

Beth Keno  18:40  
I have one daughter, we grew. She grew up in Highland Park. And she's now she's now back in Chicago. She was in New York. She she she got her Master's in Public Health at the University of Michigan, went to undergrad at University of Michigan and then went out to New York and got started in her career and came back almost two years ago. So she's down in Chicago, and now she's, you know, working from home because everybody's working from home. So she's, uh, she's, she's pretty engaged and really likes doing, you know, in what she does and has a real passion for public health. So it's exciting to see her--

Lev Kalmens  19:19  
Have you passed on any of your own childhood traditions onto her?

Beth Keno  19:24  
Well, that's a good question. I mean, we for years we did we always had our we had certain holidays, you know, and then then, when my mother passed, those holidays had to get shifted over especially Christmas. And so so we still have or I don't know what we'll do this year, but we still had the whole Christmas and for years, we did the Easter egg hunt. And that was, you know, until the kids got too old and now we've got some yeah, maybe not quite. Yeah, they're probably old enough. Some some I have some great nephews now so that we can, you know, go back to that tradition, once we, you know, get back to our old normal.

Lev Kalmens  20:08  
What do you remember about your mother's involvement in getting the Library off the ground?

Beth Keno  20:13  
Yeah. So I remember, because we were child labor for the books, we stacked the books and lots of donated books, and we helped the editor in yeah, I remember, you know, I guess my dad will be a good one, because in fact, I was talking about a few months ago, and we kind of reminisced about the fact that when they bought that building, and I think they, you know, they one point they wanted to put a McDonald's there, and my mother was, you know, my mother and a number of other parents were "That is not going to happen on our watch." And, you know, Rita Morton, Rick Kadota, I'm trying to remember I was looking at some of the pictures, I'm trying to remember all their names, um, you know, they were super active, there was a kind of a team of them. And they, they bought the building. And then, just a day or two later, they had that big snowstorm and something. Was at [19]76? I mean, and the roof caved in. My mother didn't really you know had no experience. I mean, what what do you do when a roof caves in? And I don't know, my mom called was a middle of the night because the police call her and tell her the roof caved in. And she didn't know what to do. And they I don't know, who she was talking to, and, you know, someone at the police station, and they said, "Well, you know, there's off duty officers that are, you know, looking for work, they'll help protect the building." And so that and, you know, then they had to demolish, I think they demolished it and rebuilt it. And I just still remember us stacking books, there's a lot of books, and Ladonna was the first library and I don't remember how that you know, how that vetting or how they found her. But she was, you know, you know, became a family friend. And I think a good friend of my mom's and was, you know, we knew her for many years, it was a lot of fun, and we'd go there, and we'd study but I just remember working a lot. I just remember the books, we had to float. We had to carry books all the time, so that people were donating all the time.

Lev Kalmens  22:22  
She put you to work.

Beth Keno  22:23  
Oh yeah, oh yeah, you got five kids got to do something with them. One of the things I was remembering as I was looking through some of the pictures, which I think I might just drop off for you, um, was that I don't know, if they still do Lincolnwood Library used to host authors. And they used to have, you know, this presentation, and then they would come back to our house. Now, I was, we were young. I mean, we're, you know, I know. I was trying to figure out why maybe 10-12. So those authors weren't necessarily you know, people that I remember, even though I found I found a picture of something so sweet Scott Turow is one of them. So pretty cool to look at that. But I still remember we met. As name first name, Jim Edgar, this was before he was, you know, he was invited because they would invite I don't know, when he wasn't the governor at the time. But I remember, you know, he's in the house and his secret service, or whoever his protection was sitting in the car, we felt bad for them, because they were sitting in the car. So we, we brought them, you know, drinks and some food so that they wouldn't go hungry. And I still remember that. And I just kind of stuck out when I was thinking about and going through the pictures of the library. Library stuff that we have.

Lev Kalmens  23:42  
She became mayor in was it in the early 90s?

Beth Keno  23:46  
Yeah, she would have been mayor [19]90, I think would have been had been [19]93. Yeah. Because she had she had won her first term. And then she won her second term, and then she was going to run again. But, you know, her cancer kind of took her, took her out. And yeah, I think we were all--I was surprised. I mean, you know, at that point, I had a young daughter and I had moved to Highland Park and was working. So I was, you know, not as I don't think I knew as much you know what she was doing. You know, and so I was surprised I remember the campaign office that was over there at gosh I think it was where the the second time Kinny's was so Kinny's used to be over where Binny's is now and then I think it moved down kind of where the Fannie Mae is. There's a strip center and then they had her campaign office over there. Both times and you know, helping her a little bit. You know, with that and certainly being there and counting, you know, helping out doing the counts from all the different areas and you know, remembering you know, like, days. So those were always a lot of fun. And I think we would go over a number and I don't know, if we ended up at Monastero's, I know, monasteries was a place we would end up my dad used to run musician, Musicians Association election in Chicago every few years, and we were put to work there as well, because you had to actually count the balance. And then we would always end up at Monastero's. I know technically, that's not Lincolnwood. But it's right across the street. You know, afterwards to to have some dinner and celebrate our era are counting a lot of counting. Bella counting.

Lev Kalmens  25:44  
So you're saying that your family was kind of surprised that she was, that she was elected?

Beth Keno  25:49  
I think I know, she was elected my sister probably was,  then I'm sure my dad wasn't because he was, you know, with her every day. But, um, I think when they asked her they suggested she run I think she was, you know, she she might have been a little surprised. I mean, she didn't had never, you know, run for anything before. Volunteerd. But, you know, this was, you know, an effort. I mean, should, you know, been the Library board president and the North Shore Suburban Library. So she, you know, been in that end of, you know, dealing with, you know, small into politics, I guess. In knowing and meeting a lot of people. I do remember, when she was mayor, you know, [Bill] Clinton came here, he came over to Myron and Phil's, and, but they didn't know ahead of time, because, you know, you know, they don't like publish a schedule, and she got this call from I don't know, the police or something, you know, come on over and, you know, meet meet Bill Clinton, you know, President Clinton at the time. And, you know, she, you know, that was a lot of fun. For a long time I think that picture had been up there. And then in the restaurant for a very long time. It was funny, because Myron and Phil's eventually, I don't know whether they're related or not. But it turns out, my sister used to ride down to Loyola, with the owner. And he wasn't the owner at the time, but they ended up taking it over was, you know, two people, two friends, she met and they ended up, they ended up taking for Myron and Phil's. And then we were a little surprised to see they were the owners and my sister remember them? You know, everybody always thinks that I'm her. So they'll always say "Maura!" and I'm like, "No, [I'm] Beth." So it's, you know, sometimes, you know, fun and sometimes going okay, but I don't know you, but cool.

Lev Kalmens  27:49  
What is something in your life that you are most proud of?

Beth Keno  27:52  
Oh obviously, you know, my daughter, having my daughter and having her, you know, find success and happiness in her life and being a pretty good parent, I think if she came out as good as she did, oh, pretty proud of that.

Lev Kalmens  28:05  
[laughs] Any the other memories or anything else that you'd like to share?

Beth Keno  28:10  
No, I as I said, I was a great you know, I just, you know, I can't remember. And I'm not I don't really focused on a lot of negative things. But I just remember, you know, really enjoying growing up in Lincolnwood. And in all the kids that I went to school with, I don't you know, I don't have any negative memories at all, you know, I only have fun memories and being a Girl Scout was okay, but no, it was fun. Because you're with you know, your other friends. And as I mentioned, the camp was, you know, camp was a lot of fun. And don't know I just remember and our neighbors and everybody was nice back then! I just it was it was friendly, and it was safe, and you didn't worry about your kids going outside. And you know it was fun, you know, growing up and learning to ride your bike outside and then riding everywhere you know, and getting your allowance and going over to first it would be Jewel for your candy bar and then it would be Pier One for you know, they had like sticky candies or something. It was, it was a good time.

Lev Kalmens  29:22  
Well, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me and share your Lincolnwood story with us.