My father had rented a house on Park Ave. in Kenosha the corner of Selma St. Green Ridge Cemetery was nearby. Note: For those of you uninformed with the former street names it was near 7th Ave. and 75th St. The Kenosha Country Golf Club had been located just east of our house between 68th St. and 75th St. and included the area to the west of Lake Michigan. The club had moved to its present location in Somers Township a year earlier.
Art, Oscar and I had never seen a body of water as large as Lake Michigan, and we spent a great deal of time on the beach. We caught enough perch for many of our meals. The other kids had school to look forward too, but I needed to locate a job, since I was sixteen. I learned right away that I had to attend school at least one day a week until I was eighteen in Wisconsin.
I was relatively small in both stature and weight; this became a problem each time I applied for work. One day I saw an ad for a farm work in the town of Paris, so it was back to farming. I was hired to cultivate corn rows on a farm just west of the present I-94. The farmer lived in the town, and I rode out the Paris each day with him. The first day I appeared he didn't know if I knew anything about farming. He had me harness the team of horses and hitch them to the corn plow. The job lasted about six weeks, and I was back looking for work.
I searched Kenosha, Waukegan, North Chicago and finally found work delivering groceries and working in the stores for Wm. Stevens Groceries. My home base was the store on the northwest corner Fremont and Selma Ave. (14th Ave. and 75th St.)
I attended vocational school then located on the corner of 61st St. and 18th Ave. one day a week as was required. My job at the store was mainly to deliver groceries with a ford truck. I had moved a car around the yard for Mr. Hennesey in Minnesota, but I had never driven on the highway. I had been afraid to tell Mr. Stevens I couldn't drive figuring I could get by if he gave me the opportunity.
I had a tough time for a few days but by the weekend I was cruising around. town. The store chain also had a Reo Speedwagon truck, I learned, I had to drive on each Wednesday afternoon to supply the five stores with merchandise. The supplies were located at the northside store located at 43rd St. and 8th Ave. My first stop that first Wednesday was the store located on 58th St. between 6th and 7th Ave. It was the building next to the late clothing store.
I had learned to maneuver the small ford truck on Monday, but I had to shift gears and that was a very large problem on this trip downtown. I drove through 6th Ave. in first gear and was scared to death, but I managed. I never got the truck out of second gear on my way to the 58th St. store. It did not take long to become acquainted with the truck but as I mention it certainly was scary. (Note: Some of you might be interested to know there was no such thing as a drivers' license. The first Wisconsin license came out in 1928 and cost 25 cents.)
In addition to my truck driving, I worked as a clerk in the store. I few times I called on customers who had accumulated bills and tried to collect all or part of the food bills that had been charged. I spent a great deal of my free time looking for a different job.
On my day a week at vocation school I tried training in the machine shop, but it didn't seem to be the kind of job for me. I changed and began to study electricity in class. I also began an apprenticing with the electricians from the Josephson and Thomey Co. on 22nd Ave. This continues for two years until I became eighteen and no longer had to attend vocational school. The training in vocational school became the basis for my first steady job in 1928.
In 1925 we moved to 1015 7th Ave near 85th St. and became residents of Pleasant Prairie. We moved into a two flat house and lived upstairs. We were also back to a well with a pump and an outhouse. Art, Ida and Mert now went to a school located on Sheriden Road near 81st. It was called the Lamb School. Oscar was still at Lincoln Junior High. The Pleasant Prairie school district did not have a junior high or high school. The Pleasant Prairie high school students attended the Kenosha or Zion city schools, and the town paid their tuition.
I had a new job, driving a cab for the Yellow Cab Company. The drivers were paid according to the number of customers we were able to get, and our commission was one third of the money we earned. There were ten drivers for the three shifts, four for the first and second shift and two worked the late-night hours. Our principle, source of fares was from the Northwestern Train Station or the North Shore Train Station. The Northwestern had about five trains a day and after the train stopped in Kenosha it went on to Racine and Milwaukee. A few trains then headed up through Wisconsin to the Twin Cities.
The North Shore had trains from Chicago to Milwaukee and from Milwaukee to Chicago. They stopped in Kenosha each hour during the day with only an occasional train between midnight and six in the morning.
I was only seventeen and another seventeen-year-old boy, George Fox, worked the day shift. The other drivers called us the boys scouts. We didn't make much money, but it was interesting work. I can remember the fair from the North Shore station to Nash Motors office was 40 cents, and we usually received a 10-cent tip. The ride to downtown or Simmons Bed Plant was 90 cents, and we usually got a 10-cent tip. We were paid once a week, and I gave my check to my mother as I always had since I had a job of any kind. My mother gave me an allowance, I don't remember how much this amounted too.
The period of the 1920's was the prohibition period and there were no saloons, but there were illegal speakeasies where you could purchase moonshine, gin and homemade beer and wine. I mention this because rarely were one of us boy scouts sent when a call came in from one of these places for a cab. I do remember one New Years Eve when I had been asked to work and was sent to pick up two passengers at a local Speakeasies. I will not mention the address. When I arrived to pick up the two people, a husband and wife, my passengers were just only able to navigate with some help. (Note: I need to tell you the cabs we drove were the European type with an enclosed back area that could hold four people and the front seat for the drivers was not protected from the weather.)
I must say when I picked up these passengers, I had to turn on the heat in the passenger's area. This turned out to be a mistake because when I arrived at their destination both were unconscious. I had been told the two lived in an upstairs apartment and there was an outside stairway. When I found my nearly unconscious passengers, I tried to encourage the man to go upstairs but he was unable to, and I half dragged and carried him up the stairs and got him into a chair in the kitchen. However, when I tried to get the women upstairs, she could not help herself at all. So, I threw her over my shoulder and carried her up to the apartment. I was fortunate she didn't weigh 200 pounds. When I got her upstairs and deposited in the bedroom, the man had recovered enough to pay me for the cab ride. The meter said 40 cents. I believe he gave me a dollar.
My job as a cab driver was often interrupted when I worked as a clerk in the A&P grocery store. The Atlantic and Pacific Company was the largest chain of grocery stores stretching across the United States. There were four A&P stores in Kenosha. When I wasn't working there, I was back driving a cab. On one trip back at the cab company I got fired for an accident I had on Roosevelt Road and 36th Ave. It was winter and icy, and I tried to stop for a car crossing the road, the cab swung around and hit a post breaking the rear spring. I went back the A&P; however, later Phillip Nelson who ran the cab company rehired me.
The work week was six days with Sunday being free. The work was eight or ten hours. Sunday was our day of rest and recreation. My mother father had not joined a church of any kind since leaving Sweden. My mother, however, would send us to Sunday School to whichever church the neighbors children attended.
During the early 1920's radios had become popular and there were few stations such as KYW located in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania that could be picked up with a small set if the atmospheric conditions were right. We could not afford one to buy such a set, but most papers and magazines showed pictures of sets and printed diagrams of how to construct one.
In 1925, when we lived on South Park Ave. I decided to build a radio set, not the popular crystal set but a one tube affair I seen plans for a newspaper. Sunday was our free day and most of my building of the set was done in those free hours. The limited knowledge of electrical circuits I had picked up at vocational school was some help. I purchased the necessary parts and after some months I came up with a set.
I still remember the Sunday evening that I got it to working. The first station I received was a choir singing in a Zion, Illinois church. I called my mother and placed the earphones over her ears. She knew nothing about radio waves and was amazed that we could pick up music, singing, etc. from all over the United States and foreign countries. Her remarks that first Sunday, "you can get this sound without opening a window." I assured her it was true.
With this radio set and others more sophisticated as time went on, we sat around the radio evenings listening to programs, like Fibber McGee and Molly, One Moss Family, Jack Benny Show, and George Burns and Gracy Allan. We also listen to Wayne King, Guy Lombardo, President Roosevelt's, Fireside Chats, and major league baseball games from the Cubs and White Sox ball parks. Radio was our principal source of home entertainment until the advent of the television set in the late 1940's.
Early in 1926 we moved again this time to a rented house just south of 75th St. and 40th Ave., still in Pleasant Prairie. It was here I purchased my first car. A beat-up Ford built in 1919. It cost $52.00 and needed work and I became a car mechanic and learned about gasoline engines and Ford type transmissions. As I remembered it seemed the engine of the car was hanging from a large tree branch in our back yard being repaired more times than it spent in the car frame. When the car would run, we really enjoyed the rides. On some Sundays we drove as far as Paddocks Lake for our picnics. We almost always had to change a tire or two that went flat on the way out or back.
As I look back in later years, I believe a real change had come over all the members of our family. It seemed we decided the move to Kenosha was the end of our wandering. Here we were going to stay, I never heard anyone say so in any specific words, but our actions and attitudes supported this concept, no words were needed.
We kids started having different interests. My dad joined the local mason's union, and my mother became friends with the neighbors. She attended a few meetings of the Modern Woodsman's fraternity with a neighbor lady and joined the organization. My dad and mother applied for citizenship papers and became United States citizens. All of kids were under eighteen years of age at the time and became US citizens automatically.
My dad had always been the dominant person in the family, but now my mother began also to have a life of her own. She was not as depended as she had been on my father. Another change that was taking place was my earning wages. I had always brought my paycheck home to my mother, and she allotted me a small amount for my personal use. My wages made my mother less dependent on my father's income.
The biggest event to bring this to a point was our father purchased two lots, one on 40th Ave. and one on 41st Ave. He had plans for building a home. In 1928 we moved into a new constructed home at 7618 40th Ave. We finally had our own place, of course with a mortgage of course. We had not owned a home in the new world since 1915, in Beverly, Canada.
In 1926, I found a job that paid the highest wage I had heard of, it was 40 cent an hour. A contractor had a job of constructing a bridge over the Des Plains River on state highway 50 about a mile west of I-94. One of the neighbor boys and I applied for jobs and got them.
We started digging large areas that were to become the base for the bridge. One on each side of the river. This work was new for both of us and almost killed us in the beginning. My friend lasted two days. I asked for a half day off on the third day but got back on Thursday and finished the week. The week was six working dates then.
The following week was difficult, but I lasted through it and then the next weeks became a piece of cake. The digging and mixing cement were 90% hand work. We only had a small gas engine cement mixer to help. My salary was raised to 45 cents an hour after about a month. I was on my way to becoming another John Astor. (Note: John Astor was a business magnate and one of the wealthiest individuals in the United States who died April 15, 1912, on the Titanic.) We completed the bridge in the late fall. This bridge was replaced and a new one installed at the time Highway 50 became a four-lane highway. A few years ago, I was present to witness its demise.
During too balance of 1926/27, I returned to driving cab and clerking in a retail store until the middle of 1928. I had applied for work with the Wisconsin Gas and Light Company in 1927 and now in June of 1928 I was hired to work in the streetcar system. It was owned and operated by Wisconsin Gas and Light. I don't know what I was paid but it was not as much as 40 cents an hour. I remained as an employee until June of 1942.
In 1928 the streetcar lines were centered at 56th St. and 6th Ave. (Market Square and Main St. for you old timers.) The home base, the carbarn was on the eastside of Sheriden Road between 53rd and 54th St. from 56th and 6th Ave. One streetcar line ran north on 6th Ave., joined 7th Ave., then proceeded north to 38th St. St. Catherine's Hospital was at the end of the line. Another streetcar line ran south from the carbarn turned west to Sheriden Road and proceed south to Sheriden Road junction with the Northwestern railroad tracks about 73rd. St.
A third carline ran south from the carbarn on the same tracks as the previous line except at the corner of Sheriden Road and 63rd St. it followed 63rd St. west to 27th Ave. to the location of the North Shore railroad station. A fourth carline ran directly west from the carbarn to 25th Ave. and the Nash Motors plant, there it turned south on 25th Ave to 60th St. to the location of the Cooper Factory, and the Allan A Company hosiery plant. The streetcar then proceeded south to 63rd St. A fifth carline ran west from the carbarn ran west on 52nd St. to 27th Ave and the Nash Motors plant. The final carline was a part-time carline operating from 6am to 10am and again from 4pm to 8pm in the evening. It started at the carbarn and headed north up 7th Ave.
Here I need to remine the reader of a third railroad into Kenosha. An electric line that ran from Milwaukee through Racine and ended in Kenosha at Market Square, (56th St. and 6th Ave). The carline ran parallel to the east of the Northwestern railroad line from Milwaukee proceeding through the city of Racine south to Kenosha. It was called the MRK railroad line. Its tracks came south just west of the east Northwestern tracks, crossed the Northwestern tracks just north of Mac Whyte factory from there down Sheriden Road and 7th Ave. to the square. This electric railroad was owned by Wisconsin Gas and Electric Company. The Wisconsin State law then, as it does today, requires all public transportation vehicles to come to a stop before proceeding over railroad tracks. In addition, this law in 1928 required a streetcar about to cross a railroad track to stop, send a person across the tracks, look both ways up the tracks and if no trains were approaching then signal the streetcar across the tracks.
My new job was to ride each streetcar that followed the route up Sheriden Road and 52nd St. to the Nash plant. A railroad track ran from the present main Northwestern tracks to the Simmons Manufacturing plant on the lakefront via 55th St. I flagged the streetcar across the tracks if it was clear. I returned to the streetcar, rode up 52nd St. to the railroad tracks at 13th Ave., got out, flagged the car over these main tracks so it could go west to the auto plant. There was a short area of double of tracks just west of the Northwestern tracks where a streetcar going west could meet a streetcar meet and pass one coming east. I would switch the streetcars and take the east bound car over the Northwestern tracks down to 55th St. and continue down to Sheriden Road and then flag it across this track and ending up again at Market Square. This was my job for each eight-hour day for about three months.
In September, I heard of a job that would be available in the carbarn at night for someone to sweep out the cars and wash the windows when they returned to the carbarn. I applied for the job and began working in the carbarn about October 1st. My hours were 4pm to 12am. One of the problems was to get home, I had to walk or ride a bicycle. There was no transportation during those hours, and I could not afford one the cabs I formerly drove plus my Ford was unreliable.
In the winter months in addition to cleaning the cars it was my job to clean the ashes from the heating stoves in each car, refill the bins with charcoal, prepare each stove with tender sticks and paper so they would be ready for lighting the heaters for the next day. I never counted the number of bushes basket of charcoal I carried from the stockpile to the streetcars bins each night. The next spring, 1929, there was an opening for a mechanic to work in the carbarn replacing brake shoes and working on the electrical controls, etc. I got the job partially because of the training from my electrical classes at the vocational school.
During this time since beginning work for the streetcar company and prior to that I had not been idle in my off-working day and evenings. I had learned to play softball and basketball and during the cold weather skating at Lincoln Park Lagoon. I belong to the new YMCA; it is now the KYF. A man named Harvey Borman, who would have a great influence on my life, oversaw the Y. I belonged to the Y to practice basketball and occasionally I would go to the pool. There were several of us young adults and Mr. Borman persuaded us to become leaders for the younger boys in the club. Each group met with a leader, and they talked, played basketball, swam in the winter months and softball in the summer. The leaders met with Mr. Borman at regular intervals to discuss the boys' activities. The focus of these discussions was how we were addressing problems including our efforts to help the boys with both their athletic activities, with their personal and family lives as well.
While we were doing our best to help the boys clubs, Mr. Borman was helping each one of the leaders talk about community affairs and how we could take part and make a difference in events affecting peoples' lives. My father had always urged us to become friends with other children and to take an interest in the community in which we lived. Mr. Borman expanded this to an understanding of how the Government operated, City, County, State, and Federal bodies. He taught me how to read a newspaper to better understand the contents and just as important why certain stories were featured and others were placed near the want ads. When the YMCA became the Kenosha Youth Foundation, Mr. Borman left Kenosha to follow his career with the Y.
One of the results of my increasing interest in the community was to join a community group that was opposed to the City School Board bring in a ROTC curriculum into the high school. Mary D. Bradford, a former high school principal was the chairman of the committee. For those of your who are unfamiliar with the ROTC, (Reserve Officer Training Corp.) it was a training program in many parts of the country established as a high school program. The committee was able to persuade the School Board not to place the program in our high school.
I did not realize at the time what an opportunity I had to meet and work with Mary Bradford. In later years the Kenosha High School was renamed in her honor. When the new school was relocated to 39th Ave. and Washington Road it carried her name to the new location.
Another project I became involved in was the newly established Protestant Youth Council. I had begun to attend the First Baptist Church, then located on 59th St., across the Kenosha Youth Foundation building. I was asked by the church to attend a council meeting for the purpose of bring the Protestant Churches in the community into a loosely formed organization to engaged in athletic events together. There was already a PYC bowling league that was to grow to twenty-eight bowling teams. I believe one of the reasons for the beginning of this group was the example displayed by the local Catholic Youth Organization.
I became one of a group of five representatives to bring about an organized program for the PYC. Father Martin of the Episcopal Church became chairman, Gilbert Petzke of the Emmanual Methodist Church was a member as was I. There were two more individuals, but my memory has failed me, I cannot remember their names. The committee recommended was to form the Protestant Youth Council. The foundation was a bowling league, as an example, and rapidly became involved in softball, basketball league organized within Kenosha's Recreational Department. We also received some financial help from the then established Community fund. A permeant home for the PYC was set up when the Council purchased the former German American Club building on 52nd St. and 18th Ave. Later the organization was joined by the CYO to become the present Christian Youth Council supported by the Protestant and Catholic Churches in Kenosha today (Note: today the CYC/CYO is now incorporated in the Boys and Girls Club of Kenosha, located on 52nd Ave. and 13th.) I had the honor of acting as President of the CYC for a term in the 1950's. I also served as President of the Kenosha Community Fund during this same period.
At this point let me go back to late 1920's. My mother had encouraged me to join the Modern Woodman Organization to which she was now a member. The Woodman group was sponsoring a drill team, and I almost immediately became a part. This broadened my acquaintances into a group I had met prior to this time. The captain of the drill team was John DeYoung, he had some military training, and our Woodman Chapter formed a team. We practice about twice a month for drill competitions held each summer in the Midwest. We competed in Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis and Milwaukee during this period. Our exhibitions were many times at the state fairs in the Midwest. My old Ford was one of our means of transportation and many flat tires were replaced on our trips to exhibitions and the return. (Note: We were a good drill team and won first place at many of our meets. These meets were usually judged by returning army officers.)
Locally we planned parties and dances, etc. The members would bring their girls; I usually danced with one of the fellows' sisters. To this point, I had never dated a young lady. The momentous event would not take place for a few more years. I know it is difficult for some of you who know me today and who may read my memoirs to believe I was a very bashful young man.
My brothers, Oscar and Art, had both become very interested in the Boy Scouts and had joined a troop. Their interest in Scouting was to continue through their adult lives. Both became Boy Scout Executive and were stationed in various communities around the Midwest.
My sisters, Ida and Myrtle also were very active. Ida never became an athlete, but Myrtle did, and she was an excellent ice skater and very good softball player. At one point she was selected as the Wisconsin All-State leftfielder in softball. She played at that time with the Pugh Coal Racine team. Even today she is always near the top average in bowling. Last year she was one of the top average bowlers in her league. Ida was an avid fan for her brothers and sister whether we were playing softball, basketball, skating, football (Art), or swimming/diving (Oscar) or bowing. Along the way I bowled three 700 games when the feat was rare, and your picture was usually printed in the sports page of the Kenosha paper.
I spent most of my summer spart time playing softball or pitching horseshoes with my father. He excelled at this sport therefore I could seldom win a game. (Note: In 1938 father won a trophy at the Wisconsin State Fair Rural Horseshoe Competition.)
The Gas and Electric Company have a fraternal organization called the Employees Mutual Benefit Association (EMBA.) The EMBA sponsored softball and basketball teams. I don't remember our softball team winning any league championships, but the basketball team won its division championship a few times. I also played softball in a Sunday morning league with the Sam Poerio's All Stars. Some might remark about sports on Sunday, but you must realize most of us worked six days a week. Sunday was our only free day.
Golf and I did not become acquainted until the early 30's. My brother, Oscar came home one day with a pair of golf knickers and a set of golf clubs. The set of clubs included a driver, mid-iron, a mashie, a niblick and a putter. He was ridiculed by the whole family, but he managed to get me out the Washington Park Golf Course one Sunday with a set of borrowed clubs, the permit fee to play was 15 cents. That test game that summer day converted me into a golf nut and golf has continued to be my principal sport until this day.
I joined the young people of the First Baptist Church when I met a young lady named Kay Muller who was the store manager for a jeweler whose store was located just east of the present expanded Kenosha News complex. The reverend Robert Gordon was the pastor of the church. Our family had no formal church affiliation. My mother would attend St Paul Lutheran Church located on Roosevelt Road and 26th St. occasionally with a Swedish friend. This happened only on rare occasions and for special events.
I became active with the Baptist church young people though I did not join the church until many years later. Most of my new friends were active members of the Baptist church. The group was very active in sports both in the state and the Walworth Baptist Church area events. I attended some of these doings. I also took part in their church sponsored theatrical dramas; these amateur plays were present to the church membership. The admission charge was usually 25 cents. The cast had a wonderful time. Our plays were not very well portrayed, but the church membership loved them. Later I was to become part of the Kenosha Little Theater group, and I took part in many dramas, but no one came forward with an offer to take me to Hollywood.
It was at the church that I met Irene Hansen, and we would be married on June 1st, 1935. My close friends in later years were the people I met at this church. I became a member of the church in 1943, I am still a member in this year, 1999. I have just completed three years as moderator of the church. The new church building was erected on the corner of 47th Ave. and Washington Road in 1982.
In 1929, some pages ago I had reported my promotion to the job as a mechanic on the streetcars for the Wisconsin Gas and Electric Company. This was a job where I returned to working days. I enjoyed the work, and I attended night school to increase my understanding of the electrical trade.
This was the period when the United States was hit by Black October and the big stock market crash. The newspaper carried stories of traders jumping out windows, etc. Contrary to general opinion the crash had very little effect on the people in our neighborhood, no one owned any stock. I had about 20 shares of Cities Service stock, a gasoline station operative association. I lost this investment, but it sure didn't affect our lifestyle.
The stock market crash, which did shut down a great many industries, and people lost their jobs. People did not have the money to buy cars from Nash Motors, a new bed or mattress that were manufactured by Simmons Company, or brass fittings, etc. from the American Brass Company. Also, companies like Frost, Mac Whyte, Hall Lamp, Wells Machine, Dynamitic, Peter Pirsch Fire equipment were all Kenosha companies affected by the crash. These companies could not sell their product; employees lost their jobs and income with the collapse of the Stock Market. This part of the crash affected us and our neighbors very severally. I was fortunate to be working for the Gas and Electric Streetcar Company which provided a necessary form of transportation at a very low cost. I am not sure, but I believed the streetcar fares were five cents. My father had no work; new building construction stopped for all practical purposes. My brothers were both in high school and my sisters were in elementary school. I became the wage earner for the family. Our neighborhood gardens became the principal source for food, a great deal of it was canned so it would be available for the winter months.
My brother Oscar got a parttime job in at a small grocery store that was located near the present restaurant. Even his meager pay helped to keep our family going. In the former days my father would have been searching in other cities or states for work, but with the present situation, there was no other area that appeared better off than Kenosha.
In the latter part of 1928, my dad had bought one of the new Ford Model "A" sedans and had learned how to drive. Now it sat in the back yard, we did not have money to buy gas. My father had also purchased two lots one of 40th Ave. and the other just behind on 41st Ave. He had started to build a home for us, a rather small one for our family of seven on the rear part of the lot with plans to build a larger home in a few years on the front part of the lot. My dad never lived to build the larger house.
Returning to my job history, I had become a mechanic repairing and maintaining streetcar in 1929. I continue this until this until 1930. During the 1930's the Electric Company planned to discontinue it streetcar business and turn to trolley buses, a relatively new trend all over the country. With this decision made, the company discontinued all by the very minor repairer on the streetcars. I was the last mechanic hired, and I was laid off from repair work. However, I did get a job as a streetcar conductor. I filled in for the regulars on their days off. The streetcars operated seven days a week.
The target date for the new trolley buses was the fall of 1931. The company ordered twelve new trolley buses from the General Motors Company and ten new buses from the St. Louis Car Company. Here in Kenosha new electric lines had to be installed. Under the new system two trolley wires were required where there was only one for the streetcars. (I will describe the new trolley lines and where they ran later in these notes).
I enjoyed driving a streetcar and meeting people. My hours were pretty much all over the day and night and were determined by when I relieved the regular conductor on each of the carline. I remember a few of our problems like young boys pulling the trolley poles off the electric line. We had to replace the trolley shoe and pole on this livewire. We occasionally had to help a passenger who may had imbibed to freely at the local speakeasy. Once they got off the streetcar they were on their own.
There were not many cars and trucks, but it seemed one would always be driving down the street straddling the tracks causing a delay. You couldn't pass anyone with a streetcar you had to stay on the tracks. I remember one amusing instance while I was running a car on 7th Ave. during a very warm summer evening. The tracks on 7th Ave. were probably the most solid tracks in the city, because the Electric MRK Railroad line with their large railway cars ran over the 7th Av. streetcar tracks as they proceed to Market Square. I also need to tell you something about the streetcars braking system. The streetcars wheels were steel as were the tracks and in damp weather when you applied the brakes the wet steel on steel had the tendency to slide. To control the slide, you could spray sand on the tracks with the brake controller. If you had a pretty good slide on occasion the stalled wheel with the sand would produce a flat spot on the car wheel. I usually took about a day running of the car to get rid of this flat spot.
I was telling you about driving a streetcar with one such flat spot down the most solid tracks in town, north 7th Ave. The night was very warm, and most people had their windows open to catch any cool breeze. (Note: There was no such appliance as air conditioning.) The banging of my flat wheel made a very disturbing racket as I ran back and forth on my route. The telephone began to ring at the carbarn demanding that the trolley be taken off the street. It only a short time before I got a replacement streetcar without a flat wheel. I continued this work until 1931, along with my training in the electrical field with special classes.