My Lincolnwood Story- Lawrence H. Miller

“At the time, when I was there, the population of Tessville was 450.”

Lawrence (Larry) H. Miller was born in Morton Grove and moved to Lincolnwood with his parents and siblings in 1925 to a house on Kostner Ave. and Chase Ave. In this interview, Mr. Miller talks about being in the first graduating class of Niles Township High School, coaching little league baseball, his background as a graphic artist and more. He is interviewed by his son, Chuck Miller. 

Click here to view footage of the construction of Lincolnwood School provided by Mr. Miller.

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:

Chuck Miller  0:00  
Good morning. This is Chuck Miller and my dad, Larry Miller. It's April 18, 2019. I am interviewing him about his time when he grew up and knew Lincolnwood and Tessville. So dad, can you tell me who was the first Miller in the family that came to Tessville before you?

Larry Miller  0:24  
The first one who came here was my grandfather, Henry Miller. And he built the house, and it had to be before 1900. 

Chuck Miller  0:41  
You found records. Where was the house? 

Larry Miller  0:45  
On Kostner Avenue, about 7241? I think North Kostner. And according to the Census Bureau -- in 1900 was Henry Miller, my grandfather, Clara, his wife, and three of his oldest children. The oldest one was Charles, my father, and then Henry and Clara. That was in the 1900 Census.

Chuck Miller  1:23  
All right. Now, was the house, you said, on Kostner, which was between Chase and Touhy. So just north of Touhy Avenue.

Larry Miller  1:31  
Yes. 

Chuck Miller  1:32  
Okay.

Chuck Miller  1:33  
And you mentioned greenhouses. What can you tell the people what they mean by the greenhouses? He was in the greenhouse business.

Larry Miller  1:43  
Well, a greenhouse business was where growers -- they were wholesalers -- and the greenhouses were what they used. They were a unit. Each unit was called a house, together it was the greenhouses, and they totaled 66,000 square feet.

Chuck Miller  2:10  
Wow. Okay. That was quite a big greenhouses setup then.

Larry Miller  2:15  
I think so.

Chuck Miller  2:16  
Okay. Now, when he built that -- your grandfather, or when he was there -- he wasn't actually the builder. But he was out there working the land to get it ready for somebody to build. Is that correct, or --? 

Larry Miller  2:32  
My father and another man, who handled a horse, did most of the leveling of the ground, preparing for the builders when they came in.

Chuck Miller  2:45  
And then when it was all built, your father and brothers bought the house? They bought the greenhouse and everything from them?

Larry Miller  2:56  
My dad and his two brothers bought the greenhouses from my grandfather. And they were now the owners of -- at that time was called Miller Brothers Greenhouses or Miller Brothers Florist.

Chuck Miller  3:15  
But then sometime later your father bought out your brothers.

Larry Miller  3:20  
My dad was drafted -- went into the army in 1917 -- [during] World War I, and came out in '18. Shortly after that my two uncles decided to sell to my dad, and they went into a different business. So somewhere around that time, my dad purchased the greenhouses from his two brothers. 

Chuck Miller  3:49  
Okay. I think you had told me at one time you were born in Morton Grove. 

Larry Miller  3:58  
I was born in Morton Grove because when my dad came back from service, my uncle Fred had the house next to the greenhouses. My dad and mom rented a house in Morton Grove. And my sister, who was born in 1920, was born in Morton Grove, and I was born in Morton Grove also. Shortly after that, about 1925 or thereabout, my folks moved into the house that my uncle Fred had originally built when they bought the greenhouses from their two brothers.

Chuck Miller  4:43  
Now, when you lived in what was then Tessville, do you remember what the population was?

Larry Miller  4:51  
At the time when I was here in a population of Tessville was 450. 

Chuck Miller  4:55  
[laughs] Okay. And a lot of a lot of policemen and people would take care of the town?

Larry Miller  5:05  
Yes, we had one policeman. His name was Lawrence Shea. I don't know how you spell it, if it was S-H-E-A or S-H -- I think that's the way it was spelled.

Chuck Miller  5:18  
You were telling me he used to do something every summer for the kids in Tessville.

Larry Miller  5:25  
Every summer they had Tessville day, which was an all day party in a park, or sort of park, next to where Henry Proesel, the mayor's house was. Lawrence Shea, the chief, would make the rounds of all the homes in Tessville that had children and give each of them five free tickets to Tessville Day. These tickets were worth five cents apiece. But they were good for pop, or hotdog, or whatever.

Chuck Miller  6:07  
You told me you remember a big fire back in the day. It was at Becker Box Company or Beaker? 

Larry Miller  6:18  
Yes, Becker Box Company was located on Lincoln Avenue just east of Touhy. It was quite a large box factory, all wood. And when that burned, it was quite a tremendous fire.

Chuck Miller  6:37  
And what building then came there later?

Larry Miller  6:45  
The building that you're referring to, I think, was the restaurant and so forth at Lincoln and Touhy, that later on was the Purple Hotel. And I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but that burned also - it was quite a fire. Quite a few fire departments in the area were there for that one.

Chuck Miller  7:15  
Now, when you were growing up, you went to school in what was called Niles Center. 

Larry Miller  7:22  
[overlapping] That's correct --

Chuck Miller  7:23  
Which later became Skokie. 

Larry Miller  7:25  
Right. 

Chuck Miller  7:26  
Okay. You told me you remember the first Tessville school bus? And there was something unique about that?

Larry Miller  7:37  
First of all, I think that Tessville school bus was really the first school bus for the area around there. It was, I remember, green and wicker seats. In fact, if I want to go further, double seat on the left and a single seat on the right, 

Chuck Miller  7:58  
Okay. 

Larry Miller  7:58  
It's my memory of the Lincolnwood school bus. Now, that took care of East Prairie School in Tessville and also St. Peter's Catholic School in Skokie; at that time was Niles Center.

Chuck Miller  8:16  
Right. Okay. You went to high school. You said you spent a year at St. Gregory's High School and then you transferred after that.

Larry Miller  8:32  
I transferred my sophomore year into the brand new Niles Township East High School. So I was in actually in the first graduating class from Niles East.

Chuck Miller  8:48  
Okay. And in your senior year, you met somebody there who you got to be close to for quite a while.

Larry Miller  8:59  
Well, I met Ruth Oppice. We dated a few times. At that time, when you got out of high school, you could anticipate going into service and so it's 1942. So, I was in service from '42 to '46. And after I came back from service, we got together again and got married in 1948.

Chuck Miller  9:31  
Okay, and married quite a few years, as I recall. 

Larry Miller  9:37  
Fifty-six.

Chuck Miller  9:38  
Fifty-six, holy cow! That's not very common nowadays. But congratulations on that.

Larry Miller  9:44  
Thank you.

Chuck Miller  9:46  
I think I was there some of the time.

Larry Miller  9:50  
I believe you were.

Chuck Miller  9:53  
And then you moved into a house in Lincolnwood in, what - 1953?

Larry Miller  10:00  
I think that was -- I'm not -- 

Chuck Miller  10:02  
Somewhere around there. That's when I was born in '53. 

Larry Miller  10:07  
Okay, you were born in '53 then it was a couple of years later -- no, it was right after you were born when we moved there, yeah.

Chuck Miller  10:20  
Okay. In one of your notes, you told me that there was something interesting that all the houses in Lincolnwood had to have.

Larry Miller  10:29  
Well, at that --

Chuck Miller  10:30  
 [overlapping] Which I hated. 

Larry Miller  10:31  
At that time the rules were when you built a house, a house had to have an incinerator in the basement, so that you could burn your garbage and trash because they didn't have garbage pickup at that time. So every basement had an incinerator and that's where you put your newspapers in, whatever food stuff we weren't using went into the incinerator in hope it burned completely.

Chuck Miller  11:07  
One of the things I remember you telling me about was there was a place at Lincoln and Devon that you used to go to that was a root beer stand.

Larry Miller  11:20  
I don't think anything like that could ever exist now. It was a root beer stand and the price of root beer was 5 cents a glass. Now, the important thing was when you got a glass, you had to wait until all the foam settled because otherwise you couldn't drink more than one. But you hung out and it was an unusual situation, I think.

Chuck Miller  11:49  
Well, an interesting sidebar to that, at Lincoln and Devon, there was a bowling alley at some time, across there called Devlin.

Larry Miller  12:03  
Devon Lincoln.

Chuck Miller  12:06  
Now the sidebar is, my wife's grandfather owned that bowling alley. She lived in Morton Grove, but we have some photos.  There was a photo that shows her grandfather's greenhouse, which was about eight blocks away from the greenhouse where you grew up.

Larry Miller  12:28  
That was the Fortman's Greenhouse.

Chuck Miller  12:32  
So when you had the house and Lincolnwood what would be like your fondest -- was there a fondest memory or something of the house or the neighborhood that you would pass on to people, something that you really liked about it?

Larry Miller  12:49  
Well I liked the house and I liked the area. Across the street, directly across the street from me, was a small park which was about maybe 90 feet in width. The kids in the neighborhood used to play ball in there and if we didn't watch them, they would get a league ball and --

Chuck Miller  13:14  
[overlapping] Smack some windows -- 

Larry Miller  13:16  
-- a couple of times I went out in front of the house and played left field not by their request but to protect my picture window in the living room.

Chuck Miller  13:29  
This house was on Kildare, which was also between Touhy and Chase, and still there. 

Larry Miller  13:36  
Yes, still there. 

Chuck Miller  13:37  
The park is still there. I've driven by there and it's twice as small looking as it was when I used to play there.

Larry Miller  13:43  
Oh, it's a beautiful park, you know.

Chuck Miller  13:48  
But other than that, yes, I thought it was a very nice, quaint neighborhood, something you would always see in a TV movie. And one of the things I remember is when I would ride my bike down the street, it was always very shady. The trees grew over and it was just this beautiful tree lined street. And then at some point later something came in and took care of all that and changed it forever.

Larry Miller  14:19  
Well, and during the Depression years, Mayor Proesel hired a lot of young fellows who are unemployed and they build and planted elm trees throughout all of Lincolnwood -- or Tessville, I think it was Lincolnwood by that time. And this would have been just a beautiful -- every street covered with trees, curb to curb. Later on Dutch Elm disease came in and everything was cut down and destroyed because of the Dutch Elm disease. So we lost all the trees that would have been just beautiful.

Chuck Miller  15:20  
You noted something about Fourth of July with fireworks or fireworks stands.

Larry Miller  15:28  
Well, at Touhy, and, you might say at Touhy and Kostner was a great old place called the Kenilworth Inn. And next to that was always -- maybe two or three weeks before Fourth of July -- would be a firework stand and across the street at tullian Lincoln was another firework stand. Now, the Kenilworth Inn was a bar and many of the slightly inebriated people from the bar would start shooting off fireworks for a couple of weeks before Fourth of July near our house, which was just a block away. We heard much, much fireworks at that time.

Chuck Miller  16:31  
And then I think years later the big empty lot over there that was right off Touhy and Lincoln became a driving range for golf. Or a lot of years later, I think.

Larry Miller  16:43  
It would have been really if Kostner had gone through it. We would hit the old Kenworth in which was still there at that time and just to the east of it was a golf driving range for a couple of years. That's long gone.

Chuck Miller  17:03  
And then Kenilworth moved, kind of accross the street.

Larry Miller  17:07  
Kenilworth was torn down and a new one was built across the street and that building is still there. I'm trying to think -- 

Chuck Miller  17:17  
[overlapping] I don't know if it's L Woods or --

Larry Miller  17:21  
Yeah, I'm not sure the name now.

Chuck Miller  17:25  
And I think your dad used to be a patron of the old Kenilworth in the evenings sometimes, because he had to do something over at the greenhouse.

Larry Miller  17:35  
Well, some times the greenhouse used to have a fireman, which stayed through the night to make sure that the boilers were going and temperature was up or you would lose the entire crop. And during the war years it was difficult to find someone to do that sort of work and my dad would go over and stoke the boilers and then maybe late evenings go over to the Kenilworth and sit for an hour or two with the owner and have a few drinks and come back about two in the morning and restoked the boilers again until the crew came in early on next morning.

Chuck Miller  18:33  
Now during the time that you were in Lincolnwood you knew of, I think, one mayor? 

Larry Miller  18:40  
Well it was one mayor that started, I think, before I was there and was still mayor years and years after. I don't know how many years. Henry Proesel was mayor of Lincolnwood

Chuck Miller  18:57  
You were pretty good friends with him?

Larry Miller  19:00  
Well --

Chuck Miller  19:00  
[overlapping] or you knew of them or everybody knew everybody?

Larry Miller  19:03  
We knew the family and I knew his son and daughter. I knew Henry also.

Chuck Miller  19:11  
And your father knew him obviously from being on the school board.

Larry Miller  19:16  
I'm not sure. I think my dad might have been on the village board but I'm not sure. I know later on he was on the school board.

Chuck Miller  19:28  
Someone else that knew him was your father in law. Because when your wife, when mom, Ruth Oppice, moved to Lincolnwood, and then when you guys got married later, her father lived in Lincolnwood. Off of Pratt and Kilpatrick over there. 

Larry Miller  19:48  
Yeah, Kilpatrick.

Chuck Miller  19:49  
I know he was pretty good friends with Mayor Proesel.

Larry Miller  19:53  
I think he was on the village board also. He was also, I'm trying to think of what year that would have been, about 1951 or so. He was president of the American Dental Association. [inaudible] the first before that president of the Chicago Dental Association, and then later the American Dental Association.

Chuck Miller  20:31  
When you lived in Lincolnwood, you belonged to a few groups or organizations. You were in American Legion. You are a member of the Legion, right?

Larry Miller  20:44  
American Legion had a very nice building there, a nice post. In fact, I think, you worked there part time.

Chuck Miller  20:57  
I worked there part time. Yes. For some weddings and dances and stuff. But it was quite a -- you had a big group of members, I think, in there, didn't you?

Larry Miller  21:10  
Yeah.

Chuck Miller  21:12  
And then later on I remember you helping out with coaching in Lincolnwood when they had Little League. I mean, I remember having you as a coach one year.

Larry Miller  21:23  
Yeah. Well, your older brother Tom, was the first one in little league from our family. And you were the second and I was an assistant coach, I think, at that time. As I recall from that, our coach used to get in some unusual spats with other coaches and the rules finally came out that he was not allowed to step across the foul line. And if there was any discussion or description or discretion going on, I was to take his place because if he crossed the line, we forfeited the game. 

Chuck Miller  22:10  
I know who the coach was, but I'll refrain from naming them [laughs] for posterity. In case one of his children happens to hear any of this. You noted something about Lincolnwood fastpitch softball. What was that? 

Larry Miller  22:27  
Well, that was a softball league that had teams from -- we had one from Lincolnwood, there were a couple of them from Skokie, and a couple from Morton Grove. And these [players] were mostly from about 18, 25, 30 years old, something like that. That league dissolved during the war, and then after we came back from service, it continued for a couple more years.

Chuck Miller  22:58  
Now, fastpitch and slowpitch are two different things. So what is the difference?

Larry Miller  23:04  
Fastpitch was a 12 inch ball and slowpitch was a 16 inch and very slow. The pitch had to have an arc on it. Fastpitch was as fast as the pitcher could throw it.

Chuck Miller  23:24  
I think now you'll see sometimes in Hollywood, the celebrities will play softball. They all were mitts. Now they're playing 16 inch with a mitt. Chicago is, I think, is the only area where they do not wear mitts to play 16 inch softball.

Larry Miller  23:41  
Well, Chicago was about the only place where 16 inch slowpitch was played. I played one season there. No, we never use mitts for 16 inch softball.

Chuck Miller  23:58  
When you lived in Lincolnwood, you worked where? You worked in Chicago, right? In a number of places.

Larry Miller  24:08  
Yeah. And studio in Evanston, and then downtown Chicago.

Chuck Miller  24:15  
Well, you were on Michigan Avenue.

Larry Miller  24:23  
Michigan and --

Chuck Miller  24:24  
Wacker.

Larry Miller  24:25  
Wacker. Right.

Chuck Miller  24:26  
Which is now a hotel. 

Larry Miller  24:28  
Yes. I think it was the Stone Container building.

Chuck Miller  24:32  
The old Stone Container building, which moved years later. And the type of work that you did, I remember growing up, you had pencils from when you had your studio and it said "advertising art". And then years later it was transferred to really be called graphic arts. You know, you grew up as a graphic artist.

Larry Miller  24:57  
That was it. Yeah.

Chuck Miller  24:59  
And you went to school. You went to art school in Chicago.

Larry Miller  25:03  
Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. 

Chuck Miller  25:08  
That's where Walt Disney went. 

Larry Miller  25:09  
Oh. I didn't --

Chuck Miller  25:11  
He wasn't in your classes there. 

Larry Miller  25:12  
[overlapping] He wasn't there. No.

Chuck Miller  25:13  
[laughing] Okay. You stayed in Lincolnwood and then you finally moved out in - what was that about? 1986? Something like that?

Larry Miller  25:26  
I can't -- don't recall it the year. 

Chuck Miller  25:35  
Since then you've driven by the old neighborhood a few times to see how it looks and everything. I'm sure you're going to say things changed a little bit?

Larry Miller  25:47  
Well, after we sold the house, those people who bought the house resold some years later, and it was enlarged quite a bit. From the outside appears to be the same. But inside it was enlarged and improve quite a bit.

Chuck Miller  26:18  
What would you think was the biggest change from when you grew up in Lincolnwood to when you left Lincolnwood? And now that you're been away from there,  what do you think was the biggest change that you've noticed? If anything? Just the population or -- ?

Larry Miller  26:39  
Well, the population for certain I don't know what the population is now.

Chuck Miller  26:45  
Probably 470 now or something? If it was 450 back then it's probably grown alot. Okay. Oh, because when I drive back, I look and I notice it's a town of Walgreens, I think. There seems to be a Walgreens at every corner. But yes, it's grown a lot over the years. I don't know. I know you said your favorite memory was that, you know, it was a pretty town and you really liked the quaintness. Was there anything else about Lincolnwood that, you know, [is there] one thing you could say about Lincolnwood?

Larry Miller  27:25  
Well, it always seemed to be a very well kept, clean town. And as the years progressed, I think there were almost every lot was filled with homes. So very seldom did you find a vacant lot around Lincolnwood after many years,

Chuck Miller  27:50  
As opposed to when you were growing up, looking at the pictures that you gave me. It was pretty empty. And I remember when I was growing up, there were a lot of empty lots, which were fun for us, because we would go play in the construction sites of houses, but you'd get in trouble. Yeah, but one of the things I recall people telling me about Lincolnwood was years ago the taxes were reasonable. And if they needed certain services they would get them from other communities. Like, before they had a fire department, it was Chicago and Skokie. They would just call them when they needed them and paid per --

Larry Miller  28:20  
Yes.

Chuck Miller  28:38  
But then since then they've got their own Fire Department. More than one policeman now. 

Larry Miller  28:46  
Yes. 

Chuck Miller  28:50  
Were there any businesses in Lincolnwood that you, you know, have fond memories of? Oh, I really like this place or that place? Or I remember the little grocery store that used to be on Touhy by Keystone. There was Linwood, I think was when I was there.

Larry Miller  29:08  
It was an IGA grocery. That was about the first large grocery store in Lincolnwood. 

Chuck Miller  29:20  
Now did you know the people that owned that, or --

Larry Miller  29:23  
No, not the IGA. There was a very small grocery shop, you might say, prior to that, we knew those people, but that was just very small. 

Chuck Miller  29:53  
You remember the two hardware stores in Lincolnwood? They were both Touhy Avenue.

Larry Miller  30:00  
I just remember the one -- trying to think, I think I had a name? I don't recall the name.

Chuck Miller  30:08  
The one that was closer to Cicero or Skokie Boulevard had an interesting sign that would flash. It was called Sam the Hardware Man.

Larry Miller  30:20  
Right, Sam Lerner I think was his name. And there was a drugstore, a small drugstore next door to him. I can't remember -- well, we dealt with him. I can't remember his name. That was before the the giant Walgreens and so forth took over.

Chuck Miller  30:46  
And a couple of doors away, I remember, was the First Bank of Lincolnwood.

Larry Miller  30:52  
Well, First Bank of Lincolnwood was at Lincoln and Touhy.

Chuck Miller  30:57  
I thought it was right by the railroad tracks on Touhy. But maybe not. I remember the one at Lincoln and Touhy but I thought prior to that it was there but -- 

Larry Miller  31:08  
Could be.

Chuck Miller  31:10  
You're kind of old. What do you know?

Larry Miller  31:11  
[overlapping] Yeah, I'm getting old now.

Chuck Miller  31:13  
And you do remember the Purple Hotel, which I always knew it as the Hyatt House.

Larry Miller  31:22  
I think the nickname always still prevails, they still refer to it as a Purple Hotel. Because it was purple.

Chuck Miller  31:35  
And over at the big Lincolnwood Park, as we called it, now it's Proesel Park, they used to have a day camp there. And I remember all of us kids going to the Lincolnwood day camp. Do you remember what the fee was for that? By any chance?

Larry Miller  31:58  
Gosh! I don't even remember if there was a fee? Was it $5? 

Chuck Miller  32:03  
I think it was $5 a kid for the summer. I think the guy in charge was Mr. Gundy. I think he was a principal over at Lincolnwood School for a number of years. Just a big memory there. But yeah, it was quite a quite a park. Anything else you can think of that you want to pass on about your life growing up and Lincolnwood and spending a lot of time there?

Larry Miller  32:38  
I enjoyed my time there. I don't know what else to say.

Chuck Miller  32:45  
Would you move back?

Larry Miller  32:47  
Would I move back? At this time? At age 94? I don't think I would move back into a house. I'm in a condo now.

Chuck Miller  33:01  
Anything you would want to tell people about maybe if they thought about going to Lincolnwood or what they should look for? To say something to finalize your interview.

Larry Miller  33:15  
I would say if you're planning to go to Lincolnwood check with realtors and find out what's available. It's not going to be the same price as it was when I built there.

Chuck Miller  33:33  
But you had many happy years there and lots of good memories, it sounds like. I know I did. I want to thank you for coming here with me to take the time to do this interview.

Larry Miller  33:45  
Well, it was my pleasure. I'm sure. 

Chuck Miller  33:50  
Well thank you again.