During the final 20 years of her life, Peg Weaver, born Margaret Mary Glessner June 3, 1910, shared more and more of her childhood memories. In her 1994 memoir Rememberings of a Eighty-four Year Old Grandma, she described her childhood experiences. When possible I will use her own words in reflections here and also the writing on the cards themselves. She had a Post Card Collection from her childhood that had cards going back to about 1910. Her parents likely gave her the ones from the relatives in California...the Chappelears around LA. Then the common 1 cent post cards that were the common way to communicate before instant messaging and email of the past 15 years....
Harry Chappelear Glessner, Margaret Glessner's father, traveled extensively by rail in developing his business with his father, Leonard Cowles Glessner, founder of the Glessner Medicine Company in Findlay Ohio. Here is the La Salle Hotel in Chicago where he wrote to his wife, Inez as "Mrs Harry C Glessner" mailed Sept 30 1920, when Margaret was 10 years of age.
"Had a pretty busy day - ate at the Madarin (sic) Inn tonight. Rushed all day. Having wonderful time. Harry"
I looked up the Mandarin Inn in Chicago and found reviews that in that time on Wabash
http://chuckmancollectionvolume13.blogspot.com/2011/03/ad-chicago-mandarin-inn-414-s-wabash.html From his collection
From Peg's Rememberings, p 9 "One summer I visited Frances and her parents at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, where they were spending most of the summer Strictly vegetarian foods were served, featuring such concoctions as "nut meat loaf' and "nut gravy". Frances and I played pool in a large recreation room on the top floor and enjoyed swimming in an outdoor pool. Frances and her family had to move to East Liverpool, West Virginia, when we were in grade school. Many, many years later, when I was working in Columbus, Ohio, I had lunch with her at the Miramour, a fancy eating place."
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Here is an Aug 1923 email from Minne Owen, Frances Owen's mom, when Margaret visited her best friend Frances. "Dear Inez, Your daughter arrived all O.K. Ten last night - and she and Frances have been on the go all day. It is a find place for children, and we will take the best care of her. Have enjoyed all your letters. Love Minn
The main building of the Battle Creek Sanitarium pictured on the front of the card mailed as below
July 1923 post card describing the visit of Minn Owen at the Sanitarium.
The success of the place went down hill after the 1929 Stock Market crash...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Creek_Sanitarium
June 23 1922 "Dear Margaret, We certainly are having a wonderful time. We saw both of these today. We are at Colorado Springs, Frances Owen.."
Here in Rememberings p 18, Peg reflects on her youth and travel to Chicago "My mother and I would sometimes accompany my father on his business trips to Chicago, driving on the two-lane Lincoln Highway which was designated with red, white and blue stripes circling the telephone poles. Our route took us through Ottawa, Lima, and Van Wert in Ohio, Fort Wayne, Goshen, Elkhart (where Conn band instruments were made), South Bend (with the gold dome of Notre Dame University). 1 Gary and Hammond in Indiana, through the poorer working class homes and factory areas. Although the two-lane roads were paved, no Interstate Highways existed.
In Chicago we usually stayed at the La Salle Hotel. For a treat we once had reservations at the fancier Drake Hotel on the shore of Lake Michigan, but it was so very windy and cold on the lake shore that we returned to the La Salle. My father often took in a baseball game. Sometimes we would join him in the hot afternoon sun. More often my mother and I would shop at Marshall Fields, visit the Field Museum of Natural History, the Chicago Art Institute, where I admired a painting by El Greco, or the Shedd Planetarium, where the stars were projected onto a dome-shaped ceiling. One evening we all went by trolley to Ravinia for the outdoor presentation of Verdi's opera Aida. At the spectacular Chicago Theater (a movie house), the pipe organ was raised from the orchestra pit to show off the virtuosity of an organist under a spot-light. "
1924 Marshall Fields in Chicago when Peg was 13 a card from her dad, who met with a Mr Watson for lunch. Later in the 1950's my mom's mom, Inez Glessner would take me here as a kid as well. It was a very city like experience for a kid from rural Minnesota to visit Marshall Fields and the Museum of Art....
Card sent to Margaret in Findlay "Were you ever in here? Got here alright - ate lunch with Mr Watson...- Lots of love, Daddy"
Downtown Detroit in 1923.
Personal message from Edyth, who with Jack visited Detroit in 1923. Note the incomplete address in Findlay that made it to Mrs Harry "Inez" Glessner anyway.
http://www.pittsburghtransit.info/incline.html
"Had a pretty busy day - ate at the Madarin (sic) Inn tonight. Rushed all day. Having wonderful time. Harry"
http://chuckmancollectionvolume13.blogspot.com/2011/03/ad-chicago-mandarin-inn-414-s-wabash.html From his collection
The University Club on Michigan Ave
Sept 9, 1920 "We ate lunch at the University Club today. Seeing "aphrodite" tonight. Be good, Daddy" Harry C Glessner to Margaret Glessner age 10.
View of Lake Michigan, Municipal Pier Tower in 1920's Card sent by Leonard C Glessner "Grandpa" to his granddaughter Margaret.
"We didn't go bathing today, a little too chilly. Tell Daddy saw Mr Seiffe and he is on the job and is watching Vick's. Will leave in an hour or so. Lovingly, Grandpa"
From Peg's Rememberings, p 9 "One summer I visited Frances and her parents at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, where they were spending most of the summer Strictly vegetarian foods were served, featuring such concoctions as "nut meat loaf' and "nut gravy". Frances and I played pool in a large recreation room on the top floor and enjoyed swimming in an outdoor pool. Frances and her family had to move to East Liverpool, West Virginia, when we were in grade school. Many, many years later, when I was working in Columbus, Ohio, I had lunch with her at the Miramour, a fancy eating place."
LHere is an Aug 1923 email from Minne Owen, Frances Owen's mom, when Margaret visited her best friend Frances. "Dear Inez, Your daughter arrived all O.K. Ten last night - and she and Frances have been on the go all day. It is a find place for children, and we will take the best care of her. Have enjoyed all your letters. Love Minn
The main building of the Battle Creek Sanitarium pictured on the front of the card mailed as below
July 1923 post card describing the visit of Minn Owen at the Sanitarium.
The success of the place went down hill after the 1929 Stock Market crash...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Creek_Sanitarium
In 1922, Frances Owen and her family visit Pike's Peak and the Garden of the Gods, by Colorado Springs CO.
Here in Rememberings p 18, Peg reflects on her youth and travel to Chicago "My mother and I would sometimes accompany my father on his business trips to Chicago, driving on the two-lane Lincoln Highway which was designated with red, white and blue stripes circling the telephone poles. Our route took us through Ottawa, Lima, and Van Wert in Ohio, Fort Wayne, Goshen, Elkhart (where Conn band instruments were made), South Bend (with the gold dome of Notre Dame University). 1 Gary and Hammond in Indiana, through the poorer working class homes and factory areas. Although the two-lane roads were paved, no Interstate Highways existed.
In Chicago we usually stayed at the La Salle Hotel. For a treat we once had reservations at the fancier Drake Hotel on the shore of Lake Michigan, but it was so very windy and cold on the lake shore that we returned to the La Salle. My father often took in a baseball game. Sometimes we would join him in the hot afternoon sun. More often my mother and I would shop at Marshall Fields, visit the Field Museum of Natural History, the Chicago Art Institute, where I admired a painting by El Greco, or the Shedd Planetarium, where the stars were projected onto a dome-shaped ceiling. One evening we all went by trolley to Ravinia for the outdoor presentation of Verdi's opera Aida. At the spectacular Chicago Theater (a movie house), the pipe organ was raised from the orchestra pit to show off the virtuosity of an organist under a spot-light. "
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