Those Places Thursday: 2093 West Lunt Avenue, Chicago, Illinois

Recently my cousin Terrie and her daughter Lisa checked out the house our dads and their siblings grew up in, at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in the Rogers Park area of Chicago. These photos are courtesy of Terrie and Lisa.

The house is on the corner of Lunt and Hamilton, and one record I found said it was built in 1927. That sounds about right. Terrie's dad, my Uncle Bob Pape, was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in January 1926. Bob and my dad's sister Betty was born next, in October 1927, but in nearby Evanston. My dad, Fred, was born in February 1929. They all appear, along with my grandparents Paul Robert and Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape, at this address on the 1930 census.  My dad says,

Your grandfather Pape had the whole attic refurbished into three rooms plus a bathroom with a tub...Your great grandfather Massmann built this bungalow along with his mansion which was one block [east] at the northwest corner of Lunt and Ridge Avenues...

In the picture of the west side of the house [below] there is one small window behind the front door [for a hall] where people could take off or put on coats which were put in a closet across the hall.  In this same picture you can see two large windows which were part of the good sized dining room. The kitchen then was directly to the [right, in the photo] of the dining room.

Dad says his and Bob's bedroom was the one on the second floor at the front of the house, in the photo below. He said this "was a good size room there which [Bob] and I occupied for many years until [Bob] was recalled into the Navy and I went into the Air Force during the Korean War....On the second floor in the same picture you can the chimney abutting another dormer which was on the second floor bathroom."  Their parents' bedroom was on the main floor, in the first (front) area that juts out on the left.  The bedroom shared by their younger sisters, Rosemary and Marilyn, is in the second (back) jut-out area.   Terrie says there is stained glass at the top of the windows in the front; I assume this area was the living room.

Below is a view of the back of the house. Dad says,

In the picture taken at the rear of the house, the two windows to the right of the back door were part of the third bedroom on the first floor. When we had a live-in maid she had that room. Later it became a guest room and Mom's sewing room.  Also in the rear house picture on the second floor, that dormer was part of your Aunt Betty's room until she entered RN [nurse] training at St. Francis Hospital [nearby in Evanston; the hospital where I was born] where she lived while in training. 

In the same picture the window to the left of the back door faced on the breakfast nook where we ate most of our meals during the summer. The kitchen was directly in front of the breakfast nook.In the shadowy area right below that window were the steps that led to the outside door of the basement. The basement ran the full length of the house and was furbished enough for parties or a great play area when we were young kids.

Dad also says,

The old 2093 Lunt Ave. house has not changed much in the last 53 years except the landscaping looks much better. There are more shrubs and flowers. The roof is different also. We had an old heavy Spanish tile roof. The tiles were made of a stone material which I thought would last forever but they were breakable...

In the middle of the back yard (most of which you see) there was a large sour red cherry tree. Another sour red cherry tree stood next to the garage. In summer time friends and neighbors would ask to pick some of the cherries in pails which they brought. The folks usually gave their permission.

 Terrie said the neighborhood was safe and clean. Records I found online show that this house has 1881 square feet and two bathrooms and a detached garage (not visible in these photos) on a 8,850 square foot (0.20 acre) lot.  It last sold in May, 1983, for $98,000, and is estimated to be worth $338,500 today!

I have a number of photographs taken outside this house in the mid-1940s that I will try to post soon.
View Evanston and North Chicago, Illinois in a larger map


Other family members lived very close by. Dad's grandfather John Pape and his third wife, Agnes Hedwig Burkhardt Reimer (about 1873 - 1937), lived at 1949 Lunt in 1930; while his other grandparents, Frederick and Elizabeth Dienes Massmann, lived at 7000 Ridge Boulevard (at the intersection with Lunt) for at least 1927 through the mid-1930s. Dad's cousin Jack Bleidt and his parents, Charles and Martha Pape Bleidt, lived across the street at 2084 Lunt in at least 1936. Nana and Grandpa (Paul and Elizabeth) were married at St. Jerome's, 1709 W. Lunt, in September 1924. And my parents were living at 2059 W. Touhy, at its intersection with Ridge, just a few blocks north of Lunt, when I was born in 1957.  Click on the pins in the map above to see these places today.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.