It was the 122nd Will County Fair, and it was the first time all 5 Kiefner children had been to the fair together in close to 50 years. It all started when my dad’s dad, Conrad, immigrated from Germany and entered Ellis Island on Sept 11, 1906. Lets not tell ICE agents about that!
As an adult, he married Rosemary Offerman; and they settled on a farm that 100 years later would be occupied by Heros West restaurant at the intersection of Interstate 80 and Houboldt Road. They would have 4 children, referred to as “the greatest generation.” My dad, Robert, was the only son; his sisters affectionately called him Bobby. The oldest, Dorothy was married during the World War II. Her husband spent the rest of his life physically and mentally disabled as a result of the war. The youngest, Eleanor raised a family in Shorewood with her husband just a short distance away from the Dupage River and the Ward farm.
That brings us to Rosemary, also known as Rosy. I last talked to Rosemary about 1 year ago on her 100th birthday. She wanted me to find out if the famous Minooka Offerman as well as the village official were related to us. I could not fulfill her wish; she passed away 3 months after her 100th birthday. She outlived most of her siblings by 20 years. Most, if not all, of what I have gleaned from our family’s history came from Rosy. My mom and dad were not talkers, yet alone story tellers. They were the most private and guarded people you would have ever met or never met; that’s the way they wanted it. Rosemary taught me the quote, “You can always tell a German, but you cannot tell them much.”
There were stories of riding bikes into the pasture by the Rock Run Creek to bring the dairy cows in for milking. Skinny dipping in the creek with the neighbor kids from the Bruss turkey farm, or the Fox, McMillin, Fronek or Dibble families. She stated they had no concept of nudity, and everyone was too poor for swimsuits. Stories of a tornado that just missed the farm and lightning striking trees in the yard. Once my dad fell into a haystack and his sisters pulled him out before he suffocated. Another time, as an unattended child, he wanted to be a beekeeper like his father and opened the hive only to be stung mercilessly and whisked to the basement to have his wounds tended to by his mother.
The family was raised during the depression and pre-war era. Stories of using eggs and chickens as currency at school or to barter for other provisions were common. She remembered the thick goose down quilts for keeping warm in the winter in the farmhouse and how her mother would warm rocks on the stove and then tuck them into the quilt at night for warmth when they went to bed. There was no electricity to blow heat to the upstairs rooms in those days.
The farm was only 1 mile south of the Joliet airport. Before the war, aviation was primitive and exciting. Rosy remembered one plane crash that the neighbors all rushed to see. She stated that the men had circled the wreckage and would not let any children come close to the carnage, except Bobby; they let him in.
There were also references to hobos who traveled the train line just south of the farm. One time when the family was pulling equipment into a rear shed in the dark of night, a travelling hobo hurriedly gathered his things and exited. He had tried to sleep under the roof for the night.
Another story comes with more questions than answers. One night Conrad encountered a thief or thieves stealing bees, chickens or honey. The police were summoned; the suspect had quite the history with law enforcement. She remembered the police reprimanding her father for using a firearm in the incident. She said as a child the incident was terrifying and so preventable, her parents would have gladly shared with anyone in need during that time of economic strife.
Once when I was a child and we attended the county fair my dad chided me for not sneaking into the fair. He claimed that when he was a boy they went to the fair and he jumped the fence since the family did not have the funds to buy a ticket. This year all of his children attended the fair. This was one of the few times we have gathered that did not involve a wedding or funeral. None of us climbed the fence, I’ve yet to fulfill the challenge he made some 50 years ago.
I have more 3rd party stories, which I believe legal experts would call hearsay and I “never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Unless you are a centenarian yourself and lived in those gone-by days this article may not be very interesting to you.
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