User Comments

Our community of users often find inspiration in our collections and are moved to share their memories of life in Des Plaines. Frequently, we learn historical information we didn't have before about people, places, things and events.

Have something to share about items you've found on Des Plaines Memory? Email us at dppl.digi@gmail.com and let us know. Add to the historical record of Des Plaines!

"26 cents used to get you a candy bar there." - Jonathan Wolf

"My mother would take us to Senne's Grocery in the early fifties. I remember the wall paintings of Elsie and Elmer the cows. My sister somehow walked about 8 blocks to the store by herself when she was only 3. Yikes! I would like to know if the owners ever had a store in Lake Zurich. Nice to see this bag!" - Ray Syverson

"I tried to buy one of the grocery carts from my grandparents store before the building was torn down. They wouldn't sell!" - Kimberlee Senne

"I knew the kids, Kelly and Kim!" - Kurt Schmidt

"The Longleys were related to the Kinders. Mabel Beaver was my Great Grandma Kinder's sister (Elizabeth Longley). Sorry it is being torn down. We need to restore our old buildings!" - Nancy Benson

"We used to hang out with the Longley's back in the 50's-60's. Great memories of a town with character and a warm feel. Now, it is cold and dark with concrete and steel of condos and office buildings." - Phil Heller

"That makes me so sad. I wish I had the money to stop it from happening. Mom would be beside herself over the demolition of that house." - Marcy Grove Doering

"The produce store on Ellinwood was owned by my grandfather, J. D. LaMantia. It was called Des Plaines Fruit Market." - Karla Jacobson

"That's my grandparents home! It looks wonderful!" - Debbie Hintz Gassel

"The Sugar Bowl! My first lunch in Des Plaines!" - Heidi Krueger

"I think this has to be the Thoma Hotel, very popular in Chicagoland until it was razed in 1927." - Aug Schiesow

"I remember the 1967 Blizzard! The drifts in Cumberland were 10 feet high! The circle was closed - traffic was stopped! Remembering pushing cars off the railroad tracks on Golf Road near Rand- the trains were running! Great Adventures for us kids" - Nancy Benson

"I remember coming home from college for semester break, Upper Iowa University. 7 guys from the Chicago area. We couldn't get off at Woodfield, due to exit ramps blocked. We got off by Nagel Avenue. 2 of the guys lived close together. 3 stayed over nite at one's house, and 4 at the other's house. The next day we walked across the Kennedy Expressway to get tro the Chicago Northwestern train. The Kennedy had no traffic on it. The train stopped in Des Plaines. It couldn't go further. I hitchhiked home to my house in Cumberland." - Larry Collins

I took swimming lessons there around 1958 or 1959. My neighbor Bonnie Gastorf and I, Carol Owen took together. It looks like her standing above what could be me. (Sitting in the middle with dark hair). But just a guess since not a clear photo. - Caroline Rowells Johnson

I worked as a Night-time Caretaker on the high-rise council flats in Dundee. Hans and his wife were tenants there. They had returned to see family in Magdeburg on a few occasions, although they said, life appeared to be very difficult under Russian/Soviet occupation. The last time I spoke to Hans was around ten years ago. He was in his early to mid-80's then. He may have passed on now. He always said that Scottish people treated him very well. (I felt very proud when he told me this.) He was a very interesting person to talk to. I only met his wife on a couple of occasions. She was a very charming lady.

Appears that he liked his time in the U.S. but the English didn't treat him as well. A few years ago I spoke with a former German p.o.w. Hans was originally from Magdeburg, eastern Germany. Said he was stationed near Boulogne, France. Captured by the Canadians, who told him that he should hide any money he had as he was going to be handed over to the British and they would take the money from him. He hid the money in his jacket collar. He was then taken to a p.o.w. camp in Devizes,Wiltshire, England. Treated badly there, he said. There for around twelve months, then moved to the Scottish Highlands with other p.o.w.s to help build the hydro-electric dams. Upon release in 1947 Hans moved to my home city of Dundee, where there was plenty of work to be found. Hans was an engineer before joining the German army. He found a job in a canning factory. One Saturday, while shopping in Woolworth's in Dundee, he met the lady who was to become his wife. Coincidentally, this lady was also German. Hans said that he was always treated with great kindness while living in Scotland. In England? He did not encounter so much kindness.- Jim Dunbar

My family was there eating the night the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan show the first time in 1963. - Michele Stover

My great uncle (Willie Bahnmaier) and aunt owned the Hapsburg Inn in the thirties. My husband and I had our wedding reception there when it was Kathryn's, a couple years before it was razed. - Mary Benecke Gutzke

The place to go!! I believe his daughter, Pauline, was a student at Immanuel Lutheran School 1930's - 40's. She married a Voller who later opened a new restaurant next door to the Hapsburg, He built a sail boat out of concrete which they sailed extensively for maybe 20 years. She now lives in Jensen FL. The Voeller restaurant was more of a supper club-banquet hall, the 'After Hours", absolutely one of the best. Frequented it many times, lot of class. Still there I believe. - Aug Schwiesow

Cool, that where I grew up as my mother was Pauline!!! - Steven Voeller

Ate here as a kid in the late 60s. We were always thrilled to throw my fathers pocket change down the wishing well. - Jay Schmitt

My father supplied Hapsburg inn with steaks in the early forties. My sister and I played with Pauline and Emil and Willie as kids. - Louie Muench

Former cop and former Des Plaines Mayor Herb Volberding used to tell an old story about a Des Plaines cop back then who responded to a report of a dead horse on the corner of Pearson and Prairie. First thing he did was enlist the help of a few bystanders to drag the carcass one block west to Lee St. because he wasn't sure how to spell Pearson on the report. - Rick Ornberg, Sr

Thanks for sharing a picture of our mother, Ruth. - Sandra & Carol Schallawitz

Jeanne is that Aunt Evaline? Second from the back on the left - Sara Schroeder

I worked there as a brazier fitter and promotion was to the panty girdle section. LOL.. that's what I told the guys when they asked what I did at a womans store I knew Cookie and Bud Brow was a good boss I actually was a stock boy and display window designer. made 1.25 an hr. - Anonymous

My father Franklin Kufke worked at Douglas aircraft during the war. He talked about working on the aircraft. He said there were some places he was too tall to fit into, (he was 6'4"), and they had a shorter man assemble parts in those areas. - Bette Kufke