Memories of Life in Downers Grove

Chicken Joe

When we first came to Downers Grove in 1951 the elm and maple trees made an arch over Fairview from Ogden to the tracks and beyond.

There was a hardboard fence on the east side of Fairview from Gierz to Wilson, and behind it lived "Chicken Joe." He had a Polish last name and lived in a shack alongside a privy. His chickens, which he occasionally ate, lived with him. My mom would give him meals from time to time which I would carry through the gate in the fence. My friend usually went with me as I was a little apprehensive. The chickens would fly over our heads, startled by us, feathers hanging in the air.

One horrid, hot, summer day, my mom invited him to our house a block away on Fairview. He came toddling down the street in the best thing he had, a heavy ankle length winter coat. It still makes me cry to picture him. She was probably the only one to ask him to dinner in his years and he wanted to look his best.

He pumped water from a pump across the street where St. Mary's parking lot is now. He was only a squatter on the land which also had an open covered dance floor on the Polish picnic grounds.

When the park district wanted to put in playground equipment in 1955, the buildings were burned down, the fence removed and Joe went to a county home. He didn't last three months there. We went to see him a couple times. It was too pristine there, just a little room and no animals that he loved. My mom always said he died of a broken heart.

She wrote a poem about him, which was printed in the Reporter on the front page, some time in 1955 or 1956.

Rose Herlien