Ron

How long have you lived in North Chicago?

73 years. My parents came here from Evanston somewhere around 1941, '42. I was born here.

What's the best part about living here?

Well, for me, because I've been here all my life. I know just about everybody, especially the old families. And everybody knows me. There's real sense of community. And it's good to be known by everybody– it's good for business. Many of the old timers who have been founders in this area, they feel the same way that I do. And I would say that in this community, especially in the black community, there are perhaps about 50 to 60 older families who have been here raised their children and grandchildren here and have been in this area for 50 or more years. And they are the core group of the community. So I'm one of them.

How would you describe North Chicago to a newcomer?

North Chicago is a blue collar, factory town– but now, most of the factories and the industry are gone. The major industry that is still here is Abbott Laboratory, which does not employ a lot of our people.The other major employer in this area is Great Lakes Naval Training Station. And then of course, the Veterans Hospital. So it's a good area for people who are blue collar workers–who can either work close by or go– what we call– down the line. "Down the line" is a term that we've always used in this area, meaning that we leave Waukegan or North Chicago and go south– down the train line. The Union Pacific North Metra train. There was a train line called the North Shore Line [ended service in 1963] that was a little bit west of the Union Pacific. Many domestic workers would leave here– women especially, and laborers– but many of the domestic workers would get on the train or travel by car and go down the line to work in the richer suburbs of Chicago, starting at Lake Bluff, through Wilmette, Winnetka, and into Chicago.

Although many people have been here, and their families have been here for many years, they there's are now an influx of people from Chicago. Not a whole lot, but more than before. A slow but steady influx of new people who find out and feel that this community is a little safer. Not as fast not as much to do. But we here in North Chicago, like the fact that we are about 50 miles from Chicago, and 50 miles from Milwaukee. An equal distance if at anytime we want to go to the big city.

What do you aspire to?

Nothing. Nothing at all. At my age, you aspire to just maintain until you die.

Tell me tell me about something that perhaps– when you did have aspirations– that you set out to do, and accomplished?

The first thing that I aspired to, and set out to do when I finished college in 1966, I aspired to be a small town advertising agency that could provide a low cost means or way of advertising and communicating with others in this area. That has been successful now for 50 years.

Was your degree in advertising?

Advertising design. Yeah. from University of Illinois. At that time U of I was at Navy Pier. Around '64-'65, they opened The Circle campus. before that, I was at Navy Pier campus. So that was one of my aspiration was to open that business and keep it alive. I've been successful doing that.

If you could wave a magic wand over your community that you've been a part of for 73 years, making it everything you wanted it to be, hat would that look like?

Well, the main thing I would love to do with a magic wand is to wave it and cause everybody to put down their guns and quit shooting up everybody. We don't have that much of a problem up here...just a little bit. We've solved that police problem. But if we were to be able to do what you said and wave that wand, I would eliminate all the violence, the gun violence and the criminal activity that goes on, especially in Chicago. Some of that has crept in to our community just a little bit.

I love my community because I feel very much a part of it. And it is a friendly community. And the good thing about it is that it is becoming even more diverse because more Spanish people are coming, and more Caucasian folks are coming by back into the area, either as residents or landlords. And so we have a diverse community where everybody here has learned or is learning how to live together in peace and harmony. So that's that's one good thing that I did not mention. It's a diverse community where there is peace and harmony just about all the time.

Edited and condensed, this conversation took place in 2016.