Back in late Spring 1948, I was walking home from school with several of my friends and one of them mentioned that he received a dollar a week allowance! Wow, I thought. That’s 10 ice cream cones or 20 candy bars!
At supper I asked my dad if I could have an allowance. He looked at me and said, “You already get an allowance. You have a roof over your head, clothes to wear and food on the table. If you want spending money, go earn it!”
So, starting in June of ’48 I got a paper route. My area was the tracks to Ogden on Center, Ellsworth and Brainard streets. I delivered the Chicago Daily News, Herald American and the Aurora Beacon. It was an after-school route that started about 4PM. I got $3.50 a week, and my mother made me bank $2 in a savings account at Naperville National Bank at 3.5% interest.
My spending money introduced me to the stores downtown Naperville. Almost all were family-owned businesses. I will mention a few such as Broker’s, Beidelmen, Boecker’s clothing store, Rasweiller Hardware store, Ben Franklin and several bakeries.
There were eight small grocery stores scattered around the town. Kreger’s, Voss’s on the west side, the East Side Grocery at Ellsworth School, Baumgartner’s by Ss. Peter & Paul, Bohlander’s on the corner of North Ave. and Center, Dooly’s on Chicago Ave. and in the downtown was Faulhaber’s City Market and Hiltenbrand’s Royal Blue.
There were also two funeral parlors, five taverns and three drug stores. I probably have missed a few, but these are the ones a 10-year-old boy with a $1.50 a week spending money remembers.
Downtown was always a treat and then there was the summer fun of swimming at The Beach. In those days, if you lived in the City of Naperville, you got a beach pass for free!
By the time I was in 7th grade, in addition to delivering papers, I also was mowing lawns, usually 8 or 9 a week for $1 each! Man, was I making money!
During those grade school and early junior high years, I also began to practice seriously my tuba and music became a very important part of my life. My mom and dad both encouraged me to practice and I attended all the Naperville Municipal Band concerts in Central Park. I played my first public tuba solo with the band when I was in 7th grade.
Editor’s Note / Yes. The writer of this column is the very same Ron Keller who has been conducting the Naperville Municipal Band since 1966.
On July 8, 2020, the band announced “its difficult, but responsible, decision to cancel the remainder of the 2020 summer concerts.”
Meanwhile, the community is invited to continue enjoying encore performances of NMB classic concerts at its usual time, 7:30PM Thursdays, thanks to NCTV17, from the safety and comfort of your own home or yard. Follow the Naperville Municipal Band on Facebook, newstips@NCTV17.com, and at www.napervilleband.org.
According to the NMB Board of Directors, viewers can watch in two ways on NCTV17. First, on TV on Channel 17 on both Comcast and WOW! and Channel 99 on AT&T. NCTV17 is only available on cable television. Second, is online at NCTV17.com where the channel is streamed live and available via on-demand video. All band concerts will be shown at 7:30PM on Thursdays.
