New to Town

When my Parents moved from Brooklyn to the Chicago suburbs, they initially rented an apartment. The apartment building was close to a park.

Money was tight, so Mom did not spend a lot of money on decorating the place. Buying curtains for the unit was out of the question. Mom and my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, instead hung the fabric woven for the skirt of my Mom's folkdress over the picture window. The fabric was a festive substitute for drapes.

When my Parents first arrived in the Chicago area, it took a some time for them to meet the Lithuanians who had settled in that suburb. One day, a woman knocked on the door and asked if the family was Lithuanian. The woman had correctly identified the traditional patterns of the woven skirt fabric hanging over the window.

Our family lived in that apartment for about two years. They moved into my childhood home when Mom and Dad learned that they were expecting me.

Suburban Chicago, Summer 1955. The unit that my family occupied was on the second floor of the corner building.

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Suburban Chicago, Summer 1955. There's the big picture window across which Mom and Tatjana hung the folkdress fabric. That's the family car on the right.

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Suburban Chicago, Summer 1955.  Here's Dad, standing in front of the apartment building, next to the car.

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Suburban Chicago, Summer 1955.  This is a view of the street, looking north from the apartment building.