Peterson-Anderson Family History Issue 31 ● October 2015
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Peterson-Anderson Family History Issue 31 ● October 2015 Peterson-Anderson cars After seeing photos of Rob Ostash’s Mustang in the Montrose Christmas Parade last December, I wondered what cars the Peterson- Anderson families owned in the distant past. Based on the scanning that I’ve done of photographs in our family albums, the first image that came to mind was of Grandpa Glenn. In the photo, he appears very dapper and is leaning against his Willy’s sedan, parked in front of Aunt Sophie and Uncle Joe Joranson’s house at 315 S. Liberty (Route 25) on the east side of Elgin. Their home was a frequent location for family dinners and picnics, Dapper Glenn and his Willy’s sedan, taken in front of Aunt Sophie and Uncle Joe’s home in Elgin on Easter Sunday, 1937. Glenn was especially around birthdays and holidays. On working at Colonial at the time and had graduated from high school several occasions, Grandpa Glenn said that his about two years before. Yes, his car has 1937 Illinois plates Great Aunt Sophie was a very happy, “jolly” person who loved to laugh. He also said that family members always looked forward to visiting Aunt Sophie. She and Joe had no children of their own, but they loved to host relatives at their home. The Willey’s sedan was Grandpa Glenn’s second car. His first was a green 1929 Chevrolet. How do I know that? He left clues in an Army World War II letter he sent home to his parents. At the time he wrote the letter, he was stationed at Supply Depot G-47, near Westbury, England. Glenn was a member of Company A of the 1302nd Engineer General Service Regiment. As a member of “Service of Supply” (SOS), he worked there as a clerk, unloading and loading, sorting and shelving, assembling and routing, tabulating and inventorying supplies—primarily POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricants). Glenn’s unit was part of the supply chain for “Operation Overlord,” culminating in D-Day on 6 Jun 1944. Glenn spent much of his first six months in Europe unloading trucks, stacking pipe, assembling and packing pipe couplings. In his off-duty hours, Glenn washed clothes, attended worship services, sang solos and duets for worship services, and explored other towns near their camp, 80 miles southwest of London. One of the cities that Glenn and his buddies visited was Salisbury, about 25 miles southeast of camp. At Salisbury, they toured the Cathedral and other points of interest. Because of censorship, he wasn’t permitted to describe the location in a letter to his parents. However, he said the Cathedral has the same name as “the dealer Green 1929 Chevrolet, similar to in Elgin from whom I bought that green ’29 Chevrolet” (4 Jul 1944). Orlo Glenn’s first car. Glenn Salisbury was a car dealer on South Grove Avenue for more than fifty years. purchased his car from Orlo Starting out with the “Elgin Six” in 1917, he later sold the Overland, Salisbury’s dealership in Elgin Willys-Knight, and Reo. He became the DeSoto-Plymouth representative in 1933, and switched to Lincoln-Mercury in 1960. Grove Avenue was the Elgin’s first street to be paved and the first to have electric street lights in 1922. Elgin’s “great white way” soon became “automobile row.” Our family photo collection includes several cars older than Glenn’s first car. One with that honor goes to Godfrey and Christina. They owned a 1917 Chevrolet touring car. As shown in the accompanying photo, Christabel was in the driver’s seat for what may have been a July 4 parade. Note the US flags on the radiator. Christabel was born in 1911 and looks about 6 or 7 years old in the photo, so perhaps the photo was taken in 1917 or 1918, when she was visiting from North Dakota for a year. As a successful dairy farmer and breeder of horses and Holsteins, Godfrey could presumably afford an early automobile. However, in a 31 Dec 2008 interview, Grandpa Glenn said that Godfrey enjoyed farming and traveling with horses more than farm machinery and automobiles. Godfrey and Christina’s son, Roy (Melvin’s father), inherited that same love of horses. Roy, like his father, went on to farm This photo of Christabel in a 1917 Chevrolet was in a box of old photos stored in Grandpa Glenn’s desk for many years with horses at Oak Hill Farm, at the NE corner of Crane and Randall Roads. After he moved off the farm, he worked for Colonel Edward J. Baker on several of his farms, including Airport Farm (where Pheasant Run now stands), caring for his famous Belgian horses, well-known show horses. Roy later lived at Colonel Baker’s Red Gate Farm, caring for race horses, including Greyhound, Baker’s world champion trotter and owner of 14 world records, including one that stood from 1938 to 1969. When Greyhound died, Roy and Melvin hand-dug his grave and buried him on Red Gate Farm, 2 miles NW of downtown St. Charles. Grandpa Glenn said that his Uncle Roy was “a very good farmer. His first love was horses.” Godfrey’s earlier transportation was a carriage pulled by a fine team of horses, which he likely bred and trained as a “road team,” but because of their large Godfrey’s transportation before he owned a car. This photo size (height and hooves) may have also been a “field was mounted in Great-grandma Mabel’s photo album; she team.” In the photo (left), Mabel’s youngest sister wrote the pencil notation on the photo. It was taken c. 1900 in Godfrey and Christina’s orchard Hazel is seated in the front seat between Godfrey and Christina. Two young women are seated in back, each wearing a white, high-collar blouse with puffed-out sleeves. Mabel often dressed like this in other photos. The young woman in the big hat and long dress is Ethel, Mabel’s younger sister. Another older photo in the family collection shows Melvin standing next to an unidentified car or truck. The running board has a basket containing a bundle, perhaps a tire jack wrapped in canvas. Also in the running board basket is a tool box; both are useful on road trips. This photo was made from a scanned negative using Photoshop. It was found with other negatives in an envelope that Great Uncle Fridolph dated 4 August 1929. Melvin was born in 1921 and looks about 5 or 6 years old in this photo, so it was likely taken about 1926 or 1927. Other negatives in the envelope showed Mabel and Fritz’s family in North Dakota about 1925. According to Mabel’s family history notebook, Fridolph and Ida visited in North Dakota “twice when we lived on the old place [1912-18] and once when we lived on the Sanden Farm [1920-23].” Additional negatives in the envelope show Sunday school and church groups picnicking in Fridolph’s yard at 516 Prairie Street. As Sunday school superintendent from 1922 to 1945, Uncle Fridolph and Aunt Ida were active in hosting church groups at their home. Perhaps the oldest car photo in the family collection is not of a Peterson- Anderson car, but rather one owned by a neighbor of Mabel and Fritz when they lived in the home that Fritz designed at 508 Prairie Street. The neighbor was Everett Johnson, who lived next door to the west of Fridolph and Ida. The photo (left), part of a page in Bertha’s first photo album, shows Bertha, Christabel, and LeRoy at the wheel of Everett Johnson’s old car. It looks old enough to have gas instead of electric lanterns on the front fenders. It appears to be a 1909 Brush runabout Model D. These early cars were made with wooden axels, not metal. Christabel was born in 1911 and looks about a year old in the photo, so perhaps the photo was taken in 1912, just before they moved to North Dakota. Also on the same page of the photo album were several photos taken the same day by Fritz. (Bertha, LeRoy, and Christabel are wearing the same clothes and the lighting looks similar.) Everett Johnson’s sister, Cleora, became a close friend of Mabel and Fritz’s family. Bertha’s album contains six to eight other photos of the Johnson family. Two years later, Mabel and Fritz’s family were farming in North Dakota. Many of the families in Antelope Township of Richland From left, Fritz, Mabel, LeRoy, Bertha, Anna L., Mrs. Lillestol, County were of Norwegian origin, including Christabel, Harvey L., Olive L., and Myrtle L. This 1914 photo was the Lillestols. They, like Mabel and Fritz’s also mounted and labeled in Bertha’s oldest photo album family, attended Homestead Lutheran Church, where Mabel was organist and Fritz was choir director. In the accompanying photo, the two families are posing with Arne Hjelseth’s ragtop touring car, a 1911 or 1912 “Tin Lizzie” Ford Model T. (Arne was the Lillestol’s hired farm hand.) Eight years later, Olive F. Lillestol was Grandpa Glenn’s Sunday school teacher. On 2 July 1922, she signed a certificate attesting to Glenn’s perfect attendance the previous year. Here they are again, five years later in 1919, this time with a larger Anderson family and a 1917 Ford Model T. By this time, Ethel (middle) and Glenn (left) have arrived on the scene. All are modeling sweaters knitted for them by Great Aunt Ida, Fridolph’s wife and Fritz’s sister.