Sentimental Sunday: Mom & Dad at Nana & Grandpa's, 2547 Hastings, Evanston, Illinois, ABT 1956

These are my parents, Geraldine Margaret Guokas and Frederick Henry Pape, in front of my paternal grandparents' home at 2547 Hastings, Evanston, Illinois.  As mentioned in a blog post from July 2011, this is the "house" (it's really a corner unit of a triplex) where I remember my grandparents, Paul Robert Pape (1896-1970) and Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000), living when I was a child, particularly a memorable July 4 in 1970.  I'm estimating that this photo was taken about 1956.

When my parents married in September 1954, according to church records, my grandparents were still living at 2093 West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, where Dad grew up in the 1930s and 1940s.  Dad was the last of their five children to marry, and I suppose, as empty nesters, they did not need such a big house any more.  First they moved to a duplex townhouse at 2027 Lake Avenue in nearby Wilmette, pictured at right in a photo from about that time.  This building was supposedly constructed in 1955, so I imagine they moved in around then.

The note on the back of the photo did not give the exact address (only "Mom & Dads townhouse on Lake Ave. Wilmette").  I used Street View in Google Maps to find an identical building and determined the address from that. It is directly across the street from Harvard Street, and just a few blocks from St. Joseph Catholic Church.   I also learned that this building (pictured at right in probably autumn, 2011), including the address 2025 Lake at left, sold for $370,000 in February 2013.  Each unit had two large bedrooms and 1.5-2 baths with a detached garage in the back off an alley, and a full basement.

The unit on Hastings was recently (August 2013) listed on the market for $340,000.  It was built in 1953 and has 3 bedrooms and a full bath upstairs, a half bath on the main floor, a parking space in a garage shared by the triplex, and a full finished basement (it was unfinished when my grandparents lived there, from approximately 1956 to about 1971).

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.