Friday's Faces From the Past: Fred and Lucky in the Snow, Chicago, Illinois, December 1951

Been thinking about my dad, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), a lot lately, because Monday would have been his 90th birthday.  This particular photo was taken in December 1951 when he was home on leave for Christmas.  He is posing with the Pape family dog Lucky outside of the home where he grew up, 2093 West Lunt Avenue in the Rogers Park / West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago.

The picture is also fitting because of the extremely cold weather Chicago has experienced this past week.  Between December 14 and December 25 in 1951, 33.3 inches of snow fell on Chicago.  The snowpack was 17 inches deep on Christmas morning.

Dad said getting home for Christmas was a problem.  He said Colonel Lee, who commanded the 3605th Navigation Training Wing at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, where Dad was getting his navigator training, released some planes, and two were going to the Chicago area. Dad managed to get into O'Hare (this was back when it was being used by the Air Force and wasn't the commercial airport it is today) when all other Chicago area airports were closed.


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