Memories of Life in Downers Grove

A Downers Grove Youth

With the exception of several years when my parents and I resided in Westmont when I was very young, I spent my youth and young adulthood in Downers Grove. The following are my Downers Grove Memories:

Grade school at Lincoln school and being petrified of the principal Miss Moorehouse! Her persona as a real fire-breathing dragon had reached near urban legend status among the students. Recently in the Library, I happened upon a picture of her in a book on Downers Grove history and had a good laugh at my own expense. There she was but… no horns, no tail, just a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman. What was I so scared of!

Speaking of Downers Grove urban legends, I grew up hearing "don't go into Denburn Woods on Halloween." Just exactly what went on there on Halloween or what would happen to one so foolish to venture into Denburn Woods then was never made clear to me.

We moved to the north side of the tracks when I was in fourth grade, and I transferred to Washington School. And I recall all of us kids lined up in the gym to receive the new Salk polio vaccine in 1954. Some of the kids were screaming, and some were stoic – or too naive to know what was coming!

My Girl Scout troop met at the Hummer House in Hummer Park. I remember our wonderful Scout leader Mrs. Stormer and one particular meeting where she was teaching us girls to embroider dish towels. I stitched the damn thing right to my little green uniform...twice! (Sorry Mrs. S., and thanks for all your hard work and dedication.) Hummer House was a wonderful old turn-of-the-century home, and it's such a shame it was torn down.

I'm one of those dinosaurs who recall North as being the only high school in D.G. There were two gymnasiums then: the "old one" that was part of the original building and the "new one" that was added when the building was renovated. And when I was a student, the girls got the old gym and the boys used the new one. It's funny, that seems so chauvinistic now but nobody thought anything of it then. Of course, the boys should have the better gymnasium; that was just the thinking then. There have been so many additions and alterations to North since I was a student there that the Main Street entrance is unrecognizable to me. I'm just glad that the beautiful Forest Street entrance has never been altered.

The Tivoli Theater was an important part of my teen years. That was before VCRs and DVDs; boys and girls and going to "the show" was a big deal – not only entertainment-wise but socially as well. Kind of a social barometer, if you will. "She was there with him" or "He was there with her" were words that were heard buzzing about the halls of North come Monday morning. At the Tivoli, I saw Elvis in his first picture, Love Me Tender, and I recall my friends and myself screaming like crazy. Such was the King's effect on my generation.

On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, I was walking past the old Sears store on Main Street (now offices and a causeway) and saw still pictures of President Kennedy on the TV sets that were in the display window. I then went to Grant Nash's grocery store (now Heritage House Florists). The radio was on and that's when I learned of the president's assassination.

When I got married in 1970, I moved to Westmont. But in 1990 I took a part-time job at the Downers Grove Public Library. So to paraphrase an old phrase: "You can take the girl out of Downers Grove, but… she'll come back!"

So there you have it, the memories of a local girl of growing up in a town that my friends and I called "Downers."

Donna Hankiewicz