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Stan (left), Jack and Tom in a formal portrait sitting in front of the ceramic-bordered fireplace at 1810
In 1986, I visited the old neighborhood and knocked on the door of 1810. There I was met by Tom Edwards, his wife Nancy and their two children, Megan and Taylor, 5 and 6-months respectively at the time. It turned out that Tom is a noted mural artist and had painted the Western-themed mural on the Chicago and Northwestern overpass over South Main Street. I had often admired his work. And when i mentioned that I'd grown up in the house, he and Nancy were happy ot show me around. Ushered through the front door into the living, I immediately recognized the fireplace with its ceramic tiled border, still preserved after all these years. As so often is true, upon visiting a place familiar from childhood, the home seemed so much smaller than I had experienced it.
And the attached back garage was still there accessible through the kitchen door. A beautiful alteration to the plane double sash window at the landing of the upstairs stairway was the palladium window, visible on the north elevation in the photo below. letting in so much more light and adding to the airiness of the stairway.
In 1991, I returned to take photos of the home, one of which is seen above. The Edwards' no longer lived there. And I didn't introduce myself to the owners. I just wanted to make pictures of the home. It was newly painted and looking as beautiful as ever.
As is evident in the picture below, made with a Brownie camera in 1939, the porch in the background was screened in and configured differently. Now, as can be seen above, the open porch with pillars is much more attractive and welcoming.
The Pause That Refreshes
As a way of self-effacement that hopefully tempers what may seem to be self-promotion, I include here what for me as a young lad was an embarrassing picture. What teenager wants to have anyone see him is this half naked state?
At our home at 1810 Oxford Street, Rockford, as the morning sun streams across the back wall and surface of the front porch, the small boy stands proudly unassisted and unabashed in his training pants drinking a glass of milk hoisted high to his mouth.
Uncle Herb composed this picture of me and titled it “The Pause That Refreshes.” In later life, when I’d grown up, he explained how he entered the picture in a photo contest when he was working for Montgomery Ward.
His photographic work won him “honorable mention”, and my picture traveled with the other winners all over the country. Uncle Herb printed another copy of his picture in reverse--subject facing left--which he titled "Pause for Refreshment", perhaps to avoid legal action from Coca-Cola because he titled the first one with what might be confused with their motto and corporate slogan adopted ten years earlier. Perhaps Coke didn't mind since it took no legal action against Uncle Herb for titling the photograph pictured at the right "The Pause That Refreshes"--the picture that won his photography the Honorable Mention.
That story helped temper my teenage embarrassment. In later years I was to prize this picture for a number of reasons: first, as a special remembrance of my Uncle Herb, the early family photographer to whom we are indebted for his capturing so many of the pictures of the Westphal family and himself with Aunt Dee, many of which are featured in this website's collection of memories, and, second, because it gives testimony to a young child's early sense of accomplishment at perhaps his first act of multi-tasking: standing up and drinking...all by himself.
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