Waveland Park Neighborhood Association

Then and Now: 1940-2005

Mar 19, 2005

I was pushing our eldest child in his buggy down Polk Boulevard one fall day in 1940 when I saw a vacant house with a ?“For Sale?” sign at 1130 Polk. I pushed Steve up to the steps, climbed on the porch and peered in to the low front window. I saw a 27 foot living room with a fireplace flanked by diamond paned high windows in this small cottage and knew - this is for us! We toured it later by flashlight, made an offer, secured a loan, and with aid of friends, moved in Thanksgiving weekend. Happily, here I still am, 65 years later.

There have been many changes in the house, in our family, and in this neighborhood. I want to describe for you what this neighborhood was like 64 years ago. As for the house and our family, stop by and call on me and I?’ll be glad to show you why I?’m still in love with this house and this place and why it is still a focal point for this family.

Polk is an old street. All the houses in this block were here then except around the corner with University. On my side of the boulevard, there was the house next door, 1134, then a vacant lot which supported a Victory garden in World War II, next the ravine extended almost to the street where the duplexes now are. Then came Don?’s Service Station, which had a garage and gas pump, with a Register and Tribune branch hut behind where the paper boys picked up their papers both morning and afternoon. Finally, on the corner facing University, stood the Arrow Drug. Mike Drenan, the pharmacist, not only filled and delivered prescriptions but had a popular soda fountain, two pinball machines, and sold boxes of good candy, cosmetics, etc.
Also on that side of University was a barber shop, I think a shoe repair, and Rundberg?’s Grocery. Mr. Rundberg would take your order by phone, deliver your groceries, and keep a tab for you to pay at the end of the month. For me, he had an added service. During WWII when I was left to keep the home fire burning, he would split up his orange crates for kindling for me when I was in need.

On the north side of University across from the Arrow Drug was Rovner?’s Market, Stanley Hardware, a beauty shop and cleaners, and on the corner of 48th Street, Don?’s Meats and Groceries. Don?’s ham loaf mixture was famous, and his first cut making porterhouse steaks was thicker on one side than the other. He would sell me that lop sided one for $.35 and we?’d have it for a special dinner. Royal would have the thick side and the thin side was just right for me.

With all these shops and services at the corner, you can imagine what a community friendly and busy place it was. You met your neighbor almost daily on errands there.

Of course in 1940 there was no TV, no air conditioning. People sat out on their porches. No wife worked away from home so children played in their yard and your yard and you knew them all. No family we knew had two cars. The curbliner stopped every 7 minutes in front of the Arrow Drug. Since all department stores, doctors, lawyers, banks, etc. were downtown, the convenient and economic way to get there was on the curbliner.

Before the curbliner was the streetcar with even better service. It ran on rails and got its power through a trolley. The curbliner used the trolley for power but no rails, and could pull over to the curb for exit and entrance. The old University street car used to turn around where the entrance to Waveland Golf Course is today, but the curbliner went farther west, perhaps beyond 63rd Street. I never rode to the end of the line. My stop was Polk and University.
The Eddy Apartments (1120) was a long established and integral part of the neighborhood. Newlyweds found it a good first apartment, but most residents were long term, single adults who worked downtown and found it convenient and desirable to enjoy apartment living in a residential environment.

Al Morey, the bandleader whose orchestra played nightly in the winter at Younkers Tea Room and in the Greenwood Park dance pavilion in the summer, lived there in the 30?’s. Miss Duncan, for years the vocal music director at Roosevelt High School, lived at the Eddy during the school year while also maintaining her home in southern Iowa. Mrs. Bond, our beloved baby sitter lived there, and also two sisters in the front, first floor corner apartment. They were cat lovers and no pets were allowed there then. So every morning, early, when our cat Katrinka jumped up on their window sill, they opened their windows, fed and brushed her and put her out again when they had to leave for work. When we?’d get up, there was Katrinka, shining and purring on our door mat, ready for her next breakfast.

The hollow in the south lawn of the Eddy originally was a pond, but had been drained by our time. But park benches were scattered around the lawn under shade trees where residents often sat and visited. In the winter, small children used the hill for sliding, but the golf course was not fenced then, and bigger children pulled their Flexible Flyers down Lakeview and had really good sliding in the golf course. Before the tennis courts were flooded for ice skating, children lugged their skates to the pond in Waveland, warmed themselves at the campfire the older boys built, and skated on the often bumpy ice.

It all seems, and now I realize it, a lifetime away. However, for me, the Waveland Park neighborhood then and now is home. I am very happy to still be here.