Stories & Memories

Growing up in Ida B. Wells

"As a teen in Ida B. Wells I was voted Top Teen by the Chicago Park District and Junior Citizen by Chicago Housing. Our 3-story walk-up was surrounded by community resources. There was the YWCA, the Park District, and the Public Library all offering classes, after school activities and summer programs to keep young minds active and involved in learning. I went from Ida B. Wells to the University of Chicago (for a Masters degree is Social Service Administration) and a listing in The History Makers for my work with victims of Domestic Violence."
Diane McCoy-Lee, Atlanta, GA

Thanksgiving:

"I was a resident of Jane Adams Housing from 1956 to 1971 . The fall was the best time of the year Thanksgiving was when we would all come out after dinner for the annual Thanksgiving Snow ball fight. It never failed to snow on Thanksgiving morning. By late afternoon the snow ball battles were on. I really miss those times because we were all like one big family."
Connie Fitzgerald

Lathrop Homes:

Marge Kelly, Marwen

Childhood Memories:

"Born March 11, 1958 at Cook County Hospital, I would spend ages one through fifteen residing at 835 S. Ada on the first floor of a three-story walk-up in the Jane Adams Public Housing Project. I have fond childhood memories of sledding in the winter, and beautiful multi-colored flowerbeds planted each spring. The custodian and his family lived in the same complex he served. All elementary school students attended the neighborhood public Jacob A. Riis School, one and one half blocks away. The average family was a two-parent household, with one or both parents in low-level government jobs. Through summer time, the community was safe and secure; we children lived daily for the privilege of being able to go outside to play. The two-month summer vacation from school felt like an endless weekend of fun in the neighborhood. In the daytime we went to Vernon Park at the north end of Ada. For some reason we called it "Peanut Park. " We played baseball until lunch, and more after lunch. From there, dinnertime in each household was announced between about 5:30pm to 6:00pm. Every one was called to their family's dinner table, usually by a sibling. After dinner, as the city street lights came on in the evening, it was time for on the block games; "Kick the can", "Catch one catch all", and "It." By nine o'clock, curfew kicked in for the young, and we prepared for ten o'clock bedtime. By teen years we could stay on the block at later times, and the card game bid whist was the nighttime delight.

Our complex's central courtyard was home to a vast array of concrete jungle animal statues and swings and monkey bars. It was also home of the largest neighborhood softball games, played mostly on Saturdays after chores. Players were chosen by two captains, with mixed teams of males and females, young and old, children and parents. Objects as first, second, and third bases would vary, but home base was always the largest concrete statue with several animal figurines carved altogether at the north end. In my youth, the figurines seemed enormous and the stretch around the "bases" long and adventurous. If I made it, there was no greater joy than to finally reach, touch home base!

On January 28, 1967, my mother Helen, who worked for the Internal Revenue Service downtown, died of a massive heart attack at age 46 at 835 South Ada in the midst of great Chicago snow storm. My sister says that she and Daddy had to help paramedics and neighbors carry the stretcher through the snow up Ada to Taylor Street. Ada was impassable. Everyone tried to help, but I understood my mother had passed before the paramedics walked up Ada Street to our apartment. I was eight years old and asleep, and awakened in the wee hours of the morning by my sister Nancy's grief-filled cries. I returned to Riis School, determined to make my mother proud. I graduated class president of 1972.

Much changed in the nineteen seventies. I remember the character of our little community changing a little at a time. I would later find out that in the early 1970's Chicago Housing Authority policies became more stringent, increasing pressures and rents on families who could afford to move up and out. I remember intact, stable families moving out; the Caston's, the Sostand's, the Payton's. In 1974 my oldest sister and elderly father co-mortgaged a five bedroom, two bath house in the Austin Community out west. The Hatch family was gone as well. For the first time in my life I had my own bedroom.

I have been blessed to obtain three post-graduate degrees, teach at the seminary level, fellowship at Harvard University Divinity School, appear in the inaugural edition of Who's Who in Black Chicago, travel extensively and globally, and now serve as senior pastor of a large ministry on Chicago's Westside. In about 2003, when I saw 835 South Ada was being prepared for demolition, I stopped by one afternoon and claimed a piece of a brick. It may only be meaningful to me and families who lived at that address. A couple of years later, when I read in the newspaper that the largest animal statue would be relocated and preserved, I vowed to find the place it will rest. I purposed to take my children to see it, and perhaps even touch it. I'll do my best to explain how it will feel to me at this stage of my life journey, to touch home again."
Dr. Reverend Marshall Hatch, New Mount Pilgrim M.B. Church, Chicago