50th Anniversary Only the Beginning of the Story

Anderson’s Bookshop recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary. But the shop’s Naperville roots actually go back much farther.

Dr. Hamilton Daniels operated a pharmacy in the building that now houses Ted’s Montana Grill. In 1875, William Wallace Wickel purchased the store from Dr. Daniels and started a family dynasty.

W.W. Wickel and his wife, Sarah, had a daughter named Susanna. Susanna graduated from North Central College and was later a member of the music faculty.

She met another North Central student who worked in her father’s drugstore, William Oswald, and married him in 1907. By 1915, W.W. sold the pharmacy to his son-in-law, who renamed it Oswald’s.

The Oswalds had a daughter of their own, Helen. Like her mother, Helen met a young man who worked in the pharmacy, Harold Kester. They were married in 1931. 

Harold in his turn bought the pharmacy from his father-in-law in 1953. While the store had always sold books, in 1964, Harold opened a separate shop, Paperback Paradise, above the drugstore. In 1971, Harold moved the bookstore into an old Woolworth’s building down the street. The store has been remodeled several times, but it’s still in the same location.

Helen and Harold raised two daughters, Jean and Anita. Jean carried on the family tradition by marrying pharmacist Robert Anderson who took over the business.

In 1991, Robert turned the family businesses over to the current generation: Bill, Becky, Tres and Peter. Bill runs Oswald’s Pharmacy, Becky and Tres run Anderson’s Bookshop and Pete runs Anderson’s Bookfair.

Fittingly, the Anderson family received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chamber in 2013 for their “long-time contributions to the Naperville community.

Someone Who Should Haunt Naperville

Last year we wrote about Edward Sanitarium, the precursor to our current Edward Hospital complex. What we didn’t tell you is that Dr. Theodore Sachs, the tuberculosis expert who conceived and ran the Sanitarium, committed suicide on the grounds and was buried on the property.

Dr. Sachs was a Russian immigrant of Jewish descent who arrived in America in 1891. Already armed with a law degree earned in Oddessa, Ukraine, Sachs studied medicine at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1895. He specialized in diseases of the lungs, becoming extremely influential in the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute. With the financial backing of Eudora Hull Gaylord Spaulding, he opened the Edward Sanitarium for tubercular patients in 1907.

But in 1913, Sachs clashed with Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson over political appointees
on the Chicago Sanitarium board. Thompson’s camp responded with accusations of financial mismanagement. Sachs resigned from the Chicago board in March, but became overwhelmingly despondent.

On April 1, he told the nurse on duty he would rest in his library where they found him the following morning, dead of a morphine overdose. He left two suicide notes protesting his innocence, one to his wife and one to the city of Chicago.

An enormous crowd attended Dr. Sachs’ funeral on that cold day and he was buried on Sanitarium property under a large bronze and stone monument. The grave was moved more than once due to Edward’s expansion, most recently in 1989.

Poor Dr. Sachs! If anyone has a reason to haunt Naperville, the good doctor does!

A Book Review Perfect for October

Graveyards of ChicagoThe People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke and Ursula Bielski
Lake Claremont Press

www.lakeclaremontpress.com

In 1982, I packed a wicker basket with tasty treats (including canned heat to melt butter for the lobster!) and took my new husband on a picnic. In Graceland Cemetery.

Just recently, I read the book Graveyards of Chicago; The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries and relived some of my favorite local haunts, if you’ll excuse the expression. I was also reminded that a few bad apples are ruining the cemetery experience for the rest of us.

Graceland, on the north side of Chicago, is lovely, peaceful and not at all a strange place to picnic. Families in many cultures have a tradition of gathering in cemeteries, packing respect for their ancestors along with the sandwiches. Unfortunately, while people in Chicago today may be fascinated by cemeteries, too many pages in this book recount the damage done by vandals and thieves in these historic parks.

A book like this is a mixed blessing:  I’m sorry to make it easy for those bad apples to find cool places to vandalize, but I’m so thankful to have these graveyards documented for posterity. 

Graveyards of Chicago is written by Matt Hucke and Ursula Bielski, both of whom are involved in the paranormal community. Judging from the amount of research that went into the book, you can see that these two are concerned with preserving the cemeteries rather than exploiting them. The research is so detailed, however, that you probably won’t sit down and read this from cover to cover. Reading Graveyards is more like an afternoon of sightseeing:  After a few parks, it’s time to take a break, but you’ll enjoy visiting a few more on a future afternoon.

In fact, on these lovely fall days you might want to actually visit these cemeteries with Graveyards of Chicago as your guidebook. Just remember to be respectful of the property and clean up after your picnic.

October Chicago Portage Walk

The “Friends of the Chicago Portage” would like to announce their next public walking tour of the Chicago Portage National Historic Site, Saturday October 4th, 2014 at 10:00 A.M. Please join veteran tour guide Jeff Carter who will explore the “Birth Story of Chicago” from the geological beginnings of the Portage to how it is still functioning in Chicago today. One of only two national historic sites in Illinois, the Chicago Portage site is the only place where you can stand on the same ground walked by all the early explorers, early settlers, and creators of Chicago. The Tour is approximately ½ mile in length on a gravel path through the woods and will take about 2 hours. Wear long pants and walking shoes or boots. The Tour will run rain or shine.

The tours will continue on the 1st Saturday of the month through November 1st, 2014.

The late Tribune columnist John Husar, after touring the site, called it “Our sacred ground”. It is certainly Chicago’s “Plymouth Rock”.

This is a must-see event for history lovers, historians, educators, tour guides, and anyone who communicates the stories of Chicago to others.

All tours are free and open to the public.

Location: The Chicago Portage National Historic site is at 4800 S. Harlem which is on the west side of Harlem Avenue (7200 W) just 2 blocks north of the Stevenson Expressway (I-55).Meet at the monumental statue of Marquette and Joliet and their Native American guide at 10:00 am.

Sponsor: Friends of the Chicago Portage
Contact: Gary Mechanic at 773-590-0710 or visit www.chicagoportage.org.

The Other Naperville

Our town may be the first one named “Naperville,” but it wasn’t the only one.

While it is now known as Naper, a town in Nebraska was originally called “Naperville” as well. They dropped the “ville” to avoid confusion with the Illinois community.

The name is not just a mere coincidence. Naper, Nebraska was founded by Ralph Robert Naper, a grandson of our founder Joseph Naper.

When Joseph traveled from Ohio, he and his wife Almeda already were parents of three children:  Robert, age 6; Elizabeth, age 3 and Maria, age 1.

Robert, like his father, was elected President of our town and was also a village trustee. He operated his father’s mill, opened a dry goods store, and served as postmaster as well.

Robert married Amelia Morse in 1852 and they had two sons, Joseph and Ralph Robert, who was born in 1863.

As an adult, Ralph Robert moved west, opening his own mercantile establishment in Nebraska. He married Lydia Cornelia Wright, known as Lily. The Napers had four children:  Harold, Donald, Maria and Howard.

Along with another early Nebraska settler, George Hoteling, Ralph Robert donated the land on which the town of Naper was built.

Naper, NE is located just over a mile from the South Dakota border. It may be a tenth of the size of Naperville, but they are just as proud of their history as we are.

Naperville's First Business Partnership

This week in 1831 was when the first settlers arrived in Naperville, including Joseph Naper, his brother John, their sister Amy and their families.

We don’t know the exact day, but it was around July 15. The Napers’ schooner, the Telegraph, left New York around the first of June and after nearly four weeks of sailing the Great Lakes, anchored near Fort Dearborn.

Some of the families onboard stayed in the settlement that would soon be known as Chicago, but several others hitched oxen to their wagons and walked alongside for three days until they reached the DuPage River.

The area had previously been inspected by Joseph Naper and he had contracted to have some land cleared and a cabin built before the group’s July arrival.

Naper and a friend from New York, P.F.W. Peck, intended to go into business together, trading with the local native population as well as with the growing number of homesteaders.

They brought supplies with them to stock their trading post such as calico cloth, whiskey, and other necessaries not easily obtained on what was then the western frontier. Glass beads were also popular trade items with the Potowatami and other tribes who lived in the area.

Peck and Naper’s business plan was to operate two trading posts:  One at the DuPage River settlement and one at the Fort Dearborn settlement.

By the following summer, trouble was brewing between Chicago-area settlers and some of the native tribes who rallied behind the Sauk chief, Black Hawk. While the 1832 not as bloody a conflict as others in Illinois’ history, it spooked Peck enough to dissolve his partnership with Joseph Naper.

Peck remained in the larger Fort Dearborn settlement and became instrumental in building early Chicago. He amassed an impressive fortune through real estate.

During the Great Fire, Peck lost  a substantial amount of property and he was injured during the conflagration, dying a few days later. But his family rallied to become wealthy pillars of the early Chicago community.

The archeological dig at Naper’s cabin in 2007 uncovered glass beads dating from the time Peck and Naper were trading post partners.

For more photos of the Naper statue that was erected last year on the original cabin site, see
JosephNaperHomestead.com.

Naperville Marketing History

When perusing the Holland Business Directory of 1886, the first of its kind in Naperville, you are immediately impressed with how genteel the advertisements are.

Certainly humans have been advertising since probably forever. Caterwauling peddlers are part of our history and are still present today in certain bazaars and marketplaces.

Of course now the caterwauling doesn’t stay in the marketplace. Advertisements show up in our mailboxes, on our televisions, along our highways and on the phone in our pockets.

Modern marketing isn’t actually all that old. Mass manufacturing in the late 1800’s and relative prosperity in the early 1900’s was the impetus for the swell in merchant advertising.

Today’s business owner might want to keep in mind comments about marketing made in 1926 by President Calvin Coolidge:

“Advertising ministers to the spiritual side of trade. It is a great power that has been entrusted to your keeping which charges you with the high responsibility of inspiring and ennobling the commercial world. It is all part of the greater work of regeneration and redemption of mankind.”

Now that’s a refreshing spin on marketing we should all get behind!

Businesses that Reach across the Decades

 While we in Naperville enjoy our reputation as active members of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor, we also love our history. So it’s no surprise that our business community reflects the same innovation and traditional ties.


Historically, woodworkers who normally crafted furniture and cabinetry also made coffins when the need arose. Serving as the community’s undertaker became a logical second profession.






In the early twentieth century, undertakers could be counted on to have a vehicle long enough to transport a body on a stretcher, so their hearses often pulled double duty as the city’s ambulance service as well.


Oliver and Arthur Beidelman were brothers who worked for their uncle Fred Long and Long’s partner Peter Kroehler at their furniture and under-taking business on Washington and Jackson.




At one point a chapel was added to the building specifically for funeral services. The Fitness Experts are currently in the chapel’s ground floor.

Oliver’s  son took over the funeral parlor operations with partner John Kunsch and his granddaughter continues to run the family furniture business.


Charles Friedrich was another such furniture maker and undertaker who had a shop on Jefferson Street. In the 1930’s he moved his business to Henry Durrand’s expansive home on Mill Street. Friedrich’s son Ben continued operating the funeral home after his father died and eventually hired an assistant in 1967 named Ray Jones.


After Ben Friedrich’s passed, Jones purchased the business, adding his name to Friedrich’s and keeping the beautiful Mill Street house. Son Dave and daughter Stephanie are now part of the Friedrich-Jones team. Ray Jones was honored by the Naperville Chamber with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 .

The funeral director profession certainly has changed over the years, but service to our community obviously has not!

When Naperville Had "Service Stations"

Some of us still remember a time before “self-service” gas stations. You would pull up to the pump and roll down your window to tell the uniformed man how much gas you wanted.

He’d ask you to pop the hood and while the tank was filling, he’d squeegee your windows and check your oil.

You would then hand him a few dollars through the window and be on your way, without ever leaving your car.

America has long been in love with their cars and Naperville was no different.

Downtown used to be full of service stations. In the 1940’s, two of them, Ernie’s Phillips 66 and Nelson’s Pure Oil, were situated across the street from each other on the corner of Washington and Van Buren.

Both service stations were long-time fixtures in town. When Ernie retired, he sold his Phillips 66 station to one of his employees. Buzz Nelson took over Lee’s Pure Oil following his father’s death.


In the 1947 telephone directory, Ernie’s and Lee’s have lots of competition in the “Automobile” section. And  check out the phone numbers:  Ernie’s phone number has only four digits and Nelson’s
has only three!





Lee Nelson’s service station is immortalized along with other favorite Naperville transportation memories in the mural painted on the Washington Street side of The Lantern restaurant. The mural is called “A City in Transit” and features trains and planes as well as automobiles. Look carefully the next time you walk by and see if you can find the sign for Lee Nelson’s Service Station.

Naperville’s All Zip-a-dee-do-dah in 1947

The Disney song was number two on the charts during 1947, emphasizing the buoyant mood of Naperville’s residents and Americans in general.

With World War II over, the soldiers were home, ready to jump back into their lives by going to school, getting jobs, finding spouses and settling down to raise babies.

Certainly there were bumps on the road. Housing was in short supply for all these  new young families. The Chicago Tribune regularly posted a list of suburban building permits which showed a huge increase in estimated value over the previous year as builders tried to keep up.

North Central College stopped accepting student enrollment when they reached capacity in June, with 175 students still on their waiting list.

New beginnings was a world-wide theme. Princess Elizabeth married the Duke of Edinburgh. India celebrated its independence and the United Nations moved Israel one step closer. Thor Heyerdahl finished his grand Kon-Tiki voyage and some weird reports were coming out of Roswell, New Mexico.

In Naperville, Mayor James Nichols was serving his fourth term in city hall. Mrs. Annie Merner Pfeiffer made the final donation from her family that included Pfeiffer and Kaufman Hall and Merner Fieldhouse, donations valued at $17 million in today’s money.

After years of “doing without” during the War, people were eager to go, do and spend!

Cars were huge and glamorous — when you could buy one. It took a while for manufacturing to catch up to the demand. Old-timers recall buying a new car sight-unseen after getting word that a local dealer was able to snag one from the manufacturer and hide it in a neighborhood garage.

The Naperville telephone book for 1947 had seven full pages of auto dealers, repair shops and service stations, more than any other trade.

All over America in 1947, people were humming “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” and Naperville was humming right along.

Naperville Business Circa 1886

The business community of Naperville published its first directory in 1886, decades before forming the Naperville Association of Commerce, our Chamber’s first incarnation.

The Holland Publishing Company created these directories for many area cities in Illinois and Wisconsin, financed by advertisements purchased by local businesses.

Those ads are marvelous bits of history, noting who owned what as well as where businesses were located,. They also showcase what everyday people bought, where they shopped and the jobs they held, giving us a window into a world that disappeared more than a century ago.  

The Directory “respectfully suggests” that our town consider numbering lots in a “systematic plan,” which apparently hadn't happened yet.

But Holland also praises Naperville as having “a valuable location, shipping facilities, social, religious and scholastic advantages of high merit and a full complement of liberal business men...not surpassed and but seldom equalled, in any other village of only three thousand inhabitants.”

Last year our Chamber of Commerce celebrated its first century and Naperville can still be said to be unsurpassed and seldom equaled. We are fortunate to have the advantages and opportunities found in our community.

We look forward to business growth in new year and the next hundred years! Excelsior! Ever upward!