My Story, Won.1: Is There a Creative Power in Disintegration?

Introduction to Weber Generation 2

1930s Chicago suburbs attract upper-middles like magnets. They offer larger homes than do city accommodations. And some of the burbs, like Wilmette, have access to nearby private beaches. Wilmette is a bedroom community in the North Shore district. It offers a work commute to the city without having to face the glaring morning sun, which is of particular interest to money-making inventor, secretary, industrial engineer, and then-Entrepreneur Frank Weber. My maternal grandfather.

Generation 2 Frank's downtown business starts with a $500 loan from his mother, Anna. She is a hard-working washer-woman. With it he purchases his first production machine, and he rents a room in a building for the initial start-up with a friend. The name Accurate Springs Manufacturing is strategically chosen for a top listing in the Yellow Pages. He is practical and ever the strategic one.

Maple Avenue Home
(Just 2 blocks from my home today is a twinkie colonial brick)

In 1934, Frank purchases a colonial brick home on Maple Avenue in Wilmette. Charlton Heston is raised just down the street from the Webers. And, the owners of Crate and Barrel will live in Wilmette (some time after her divorce from Frank, my Realtor Grandmother sells them a home and a business property). In early 1950's, the Dr. Scholl's family will purchase the Maple Avenue home. The opportunities for Businessman Frank's three young children (Mom was the oldest of the three) will be better than his so-so upbringing in the city.

Meet Weber Generation 1

Great-Grandmother Anna Weber

In 1856, 7-year-old Frederick C. Weber emigrated to America, travelling with his mother, Annie. His then-47-year-old father, Christopher Weber, had come ahead of them. Frederick grew up in Chicago and eventually became a doctor.

The turn-of-the-century, engagement (my Generation 1 great-grandparents) was ordinary. Dr. Frederick and his betrothed, Anna, met in Brooklyn. As he anxiously awaited his marriage to Anna, he regularly gripped her stiff tintype photo. To stare at her features. Only a pure-bred German wife would do for Frederick's intolerant tastes.

Like a nervous tick, he may have regularly pulled a comb from his pocket, using it to slick back his worn hair. He recalled her walk and her talk. Anna was shorter, and a bit pigeon-toed, but sturdy enough. A small, official announcement appeared in the newspaper of their marriage and return to their Chicago neighborhood.

Frank knows that his German-born-and-bred middle-class parents tried their best. Family was important, even though extended family lived states away or overseas. Sadly, in their early years of marriage, the medical doctor and his wife (my maternal great-grandparents) experienced serious personal blows, like the deaths of many of their little ones. And Frederick's namesake Freddy had a slow mind. Finally, when my great-grandfather was 39 years old, his second son, Frank, was born and he lived. He was 17 years younger than is older brother Freddy and surpassed Frederick's and Annie's dreams.^* 

Childbirth survival rates were low in some early-1900s cities. Only 70% of infants survived to see their first birthday. Childbirth and childhood illnesses took their lives. And the statistics grew grimmer for making it to age 5; so, it was not uncommon to have a low-attachment to children aged 5 and under. To lessen the grief if a child was to become one of those somber statistics. Just two of Frederick's seven children grew to adulthood. In mathematical terms, a meager 18.6% survival rate. (Great-Grandma Anna Weber was a maid or type of washer woman, maybe throughout her 20s and 30s. Experts were not yet aware that her tasks, with repeated lengthy exposure to fumes and soaking of her hands in toxic lye and detergents, could negatively affect the developing fetus.)

The gloomy household survival average was ordinary life for the healing doctor and his wife. It took 17 years and too many of their children's deaths to produce second son, Frank. The dismal reminder of death was felt as he adorned the doctor attire of late-1800's medicine: a drab, black lab coat, the same formal color worn by clergy (2 decades later the coat's color changed to white for practical, sanitary reasons--white revealed the germs and dirt). After every successful or unsuccessful delivery of a patient's baby, or through hopeful positive interventions that he provided for sick children, there was the vivid reminder of his household's many sicknesses and deaths.

Maybe sole-surviving healthy Son Frank was overly protected and pampered. His mentally-impaired older brother would never pass on the family name, so the heritage baton passed through Frank. In later years, Frank felt responsible for and compassionate towards his older brother, and helped provide for him financially. After Frederick's death in 1939, Frank purchased his childhood home for his brother's continued residence.