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The Chicago Memoirs:
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, 1967-1972
Chicago, South Side, 1970 (Part Three)
“The police stayed outside and the Panthers stayed inside, and the day ended without anyone getting busted or shot. By now Our Redeemer was a marked spot, and the phone tap was on again.”
— Joel Nickel, The Chicago Memoirs
In August we took a camping vacation in Wyoming, visiting our favorite campsite at Louis Lake, high above sea level in the mountains outside Lander. It was far removed from the Chicago pressure-cooker, a sabbatical place where we could commune with nature and catch trout. While we were absent, Otis and Don handled the worship services among the committed remnant of believers. The one debate we never had to have was the question of what our mission was. The mission was always at our doorstep, just like Jesus’ parable of the man who fell among thieves on the way to Jericho. Sometimes it was a question of whether we were strong enough to accept all the risks in such a mission — open door, open resources, open hearts — but there was never any chance of evading the mission. This summer the incidences of arson picked up dramatically, this time not the result of carelessness on the part of tenants but the result of absentee landlords having “insurance fires.” Professional arsonists made good money and the resultant wailing sirens became a fixed element of the audible environment. Englewood was burning down.
On our return from Wyoming we stopped in St. Louis to visit brother Jim and accompany Don Marxhausen to a meeting at Concordia Seminary with the LCMS colloquy board. Don was a student at LSTC at the time (he had completed his vicarage some years previously at our Springfield Seminary, but was refused certification for ordination by Jack Preus, then president of the seminary) and wanted to enter the ministerium of the LCMS. Don’s fault was that he was too honest and direct. When asked his interpretation of John 3:16, Don’s answer went far beyond the simplistic answer that would have satisfied the board. It’s funny how aptitude for ministry, personal commitment and faith take a backseat to narrow doctrinal definitions and fear of the historical critical method. Two years later Don would be a pastor in the LCA.
This fall we were faced with taking care of postponed maintenance and expensive repairs of the church building. First the roofers came and charged us $2000 to tar the valleys where the slate roof met the raised side walls. There was no way I could continue to keep up with all the leaks with my solitary bucket of roofing cement. Climbing up onto the roof of the church allowed one to have a sweeping view of the streets six stories below (see “The Our Redeemer story” on CD). I always took a few moments to meditate while up on the roof above the sweltering pavement, usually at the front facade where there was a statue of Jesus “in one of his familiar poses” (a quote from the 50th anniversary booklet). Jesus had his arms extended downward, blessing the action on the street below. I liked to sit up there next to Jesus and ponder what he would have me do next.
The second major repair was finally having the gas company run a line to the furnace room where we converted our coal fired “monster” to a gas fired unit. Gone was the malfunctioning auger, the coal dust, the dented shovel we used when the auger broke down, and the clinkers that had to be removed. We nailed shut the trap door from the alley where coal was delivered which was often used by night “visitors.” These repairs depleted what was left of the Ladies Aid nest egg that had been built up over the years of rummage and bake sales. It took the gas company weeks to get around to digging their trench from the street, and the cold weather hit before the gas furnace was functioning. We worshipped again in the parish hall, sitting close together for warmth.
This fall I began attending classes at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts a few doors west of Michigan Blvd. on Randolph Street. Downtown! The mental transition from Englewood to CAFA and later in the day, from CAFA back to Englewood, always took time, even though there were some similarities between the helter-skelter environment in both places. Our routine was that Sue and I would deliver Philip (and later Joy) to Ancona School, drive down the Outer Drive along Lake Michigan, and deposit me at Randolph and Michigan. It was her school bus run. In the early afternoon I’d take the Englewood “L” back to the south-side. The positive creativity that art school allowed was in stark contrast to the destruction in the “hood.” Wrecking companies made monthly appearances and their techniques were interesting to watch. One wrecker operated with an old bulldozer that had a long steel battering ram attached to the big blade. He would take a run at a wall, knock in in, then raise and lower the ram which had a huge hook on its end and pull the wall back out...and so the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. Debris were loaded into dump trucks. It usually took about three days for a tenement building to get flattened into a vacant lot. We live in a throw-away culture.
Hilda Knoelk was one of the dear, committed members of Our Redeemer. Hilda was a source of encouragement through all the changes which the parish encountered. She was elderly but still managed to travel about an hour each way to church via CTA buses, displaying a bravery most white people of younger age would hesitate to consider. It was only when hip pain became too great for bumpy bus rides that she transferred her membership to a church closer to where she lived. Hilda and her friend, Mary Hezel, had 100 years of Sunday School teaching experience between them. Mary was the one who told me, “Pastor, you know why people are leaving Our Redeemer? Its because they’re looking for a comfortable Christianity.” She would speak the words “comfortable Christianity” through tight lips to emphasize her contempt.
Mary was a beautiful spinster. She had grown up in a poor Chicago neighborhood and was involved with the first social work experiments at Hull House in Chicago. She was always intent on teaching “Christian hospitality” to all children, black and white, in our Sunday School, and they always respected her. She had long ago paid her dues. John Mitchell, then our congregation president, a social work supervisor for the Cook County Department of Public Aid, and faithful black member of Our Redeemer, provided transportation for Mary every Sunday to and from church. John’s personality included a mix of gentle patience with vigorous energy, tolerant and forgiving of the imperfections in human nature that he confronted daily — a mix that allowed him to survive in his thankless tasks as casework supervisor and president of Our Redeemer. For Hilda, Mary, John and all the rest of us, our declaration at the communion rail meant a great deal: “The love of Christ unites us!”
Denise Armstrong began to kid me about my propensity to be late, even starting worship services ten minutes late, which she connected to my ghetto acculturation. I was now operating on BPT — ”black peoples’ time”. I never conducted a wedding at Our Redeemer for a black couple that started on time, and now that expectation of casual timing extended to the Sunday worship service. When Tom Gieschen again took over the organist’s duties from his protege, Wendell Clark, who was away for a year of practice teaching, he had to anticipate when to open up all the stops on the big organ not by WPT but by BPT.
Tom was a very punctual person, but things had changed in his brief absence. On his first Sunday back he ended his prelude, but the pastor hadn’t vested and the acolytes in their red daisikis weren’t even at church yet. One black wedding was memorable for its untimely and curious denouement. Despite my conscientious pre-marital counseling with this couple, neither of whom were members of the church, and despite a careful wedding rehearsal the night before, the families, guests and groom waited almost two hours for the bride to appear. I thought, “Okay, this will be a wedding formal in attire but casual in punctuality.” The groom paced in the narthex around the table stacked with neatly wrapped gifts, worried. He sensed what I only belatedly discovered, that the best man, who had the rings and license in his possession, was also delayed. The bride and best man had eloped, and everyone went home emotionally depleted.
On Sunday morning, November 1, Betty Armstrong was suddenly called out of church during the service. Whispers spread through the congregation. Finally a note was passed up to me through the chancel door before the sermon that Betty and Les’ home was on fire. After a shortened sermon, prayers and benediction, a large crew of us walked over to Parnell Avenue a few blocks west of the church . Three old wood frame homes were gutted and two more substantially damaged. The Armstrongs and the Strattons lost everything. The home between them had had a faulty oil furnace. Before walking over to the laundromat that morning, the woman who rented the first floor flat turned the thermostat up to 90 since she wasn’t getting any heat. The furnace soon exploded, sending a ball of fire through the Armstrong’s dining room window. Les was lucky to get out alive. Their dog didn’t make it. In a matter of minutes their entire home was engulfed in flames. Twelve years of struggle turned to ashes: making house payments after buying into a formerly white neighborhood, the stress of racial integration, leading a block club, and rearing four children, paying high insurance rates (the insurance pool mandated by state law made buying insurance possible). We helped the Armstrongs sift through the debris after the fire engines left, salvaging what we could before night came and the looters moved in. Eventually Betty and Les rented an apartment around the corner from our parsonage and became apartment dwellers ever after. Les gave me his new aluminum extension ladder, saying dejectedly that he wouldn’t be needing it. I gave them one of my paintings in return — not much of a trade for them. I still have the ladder, and with each use remember Les and Betty and their house fire. We took up a door collection for the Armstrong and Stratton families. It wasn’t much, but it did pay their first month’s rent and allowed them to buy new clothes.
Josie Moses died December 1. Her death prompted in me a rage that is still kindled by memory. Josie was a divorced single mom with two young children. She lived with her sister and taught kindergarten in the public school system. She was creative, hard working, compassionate and very effective as a teacher of small children. She was a beautiful person. She was 33 years old when she died. About two weeks earlier she had been driving with her mother near St. Luke-Presbyterian hospital when she felt an intense pain in the abdominal area. They drove right to the emergency room at the hospital, but because she didn’t have a doctor on the staff, they at first didn’t want to admit her. But Josie could be stubborn; only after she refused to travel to another hospital because of the intensity of the pain, did they admit her. The diagnosis was appendicitis, and surgery was performed. I visited her on Tuesday, Nov. 17 and everything looked routine. But the pain didn’t diminish and they took more x-rays, discovering then that her large intestine was twisted. They operated again, removing a section of the intestine, but by this time gangrene had set in. I visited Josie again in the intensive care ward. She was surrounded by machines, bottles, and heart monitor, lying immobile with fear etched in her face, a tracheotomy impeding her speech. Josie was a woman of faith, but she had no time to adjust to the sudden catastrophe which had overtaken her. The drugs weren’t antidote enough for peritonitis. We prayed. I held her hand for the longest time, noting the “isn’t it a shame” glances of the nurses. Death is a monster. The rage I felt came from my own sense of impotence, but also was directed at careless diagnosis. Jesus too died at age 33, but I’m not sure what practical comfort that was for Tim and Melody growing up without their mother. They would be raised by their aunt and grandmother, capable Christian people, but there was deep sorrow and emptiness to contend with. Resurrection hope seemed far away. Didn’t God hear our prayers?
I felt everything was now out of my control, events moving so fast that there was no time for planning or reflection or halting the onslaught. The day after Josie’s funeral, the Black Panther Party asked Otis to permit them to hold a memorial for Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, Panthers killed by the police, in our building. Supposedly it was to be part of a city-wide observance with similar meetings going on at other locations. Otis checked with me, and I reluctantly gave my approval provided they use only the parish hall and not the church itself, limiting attendance to 150. Big mistake! I was extremely uneasy since I didn’t have a good relationship with the Panther leaders anymore. They were still doing a good job with the breakfast program, but the leadership changed after the purge. Donna, the red haired Panther leader was no longer with the group. The Panthers didn’t keep their word. Unbeknownst to us, they made Our Redeemer the central rallying point following smaller meetings in other locations, and because of the large turnout, moved into the church space. Their rhetoric was inflammatory. And by this time there were three police helicopters flying overhead and 30 police cars parked three abreast on Harvard Ave. It was a miracle that direct violent confrontation between the police and Panthers didn’t happen, since both groups were spoiling for a showdown. Otis handled the situation very well, acting as a mediator between police and Panthers. The police stayed outside and the Panthers stayed inside, and the day ended without anyone getting busted or shot. By now Our Redeemer was a marked spot, and the phone tap was on again. This time I didn’t blame the police and was thankful for their restraint.
Their double-cross marked the beginning of the end of our relations with the Panthers. Our church council took Otis and me to task for permitting the Panther gathering in the first place, questioning our supervision and lack of wisdom. We were duly chastised. We ended the breakfast program, sending notes home with the children explaining what happened and offering to provide families in need with free breakfast cereal and powdered milk. In response we found out that a number of families no longer permitted their children to come to the parish hall because of the rhetoric of the Panthers, who had become a serious liability for us. And as expected, we had the visit of a fire inspector to contend with who found a dozen or more violations that we had to correct or be immediately shut down. One violation was our padlocked fire escape on the rear wall of the parish hall. It had been locked up to keep it from being used for clandestine entry. Since we seldom used the second floor except for storing clothes and food, we had taken this step to prevent break-ins. So more building security was necessary, along with meeting the fine details of the fire code.
Master scavengers
They spent the nights in the vacated apartments and during the day stood around a fire which they kept burning in a large metal drum. Fuel for their fire came from the buildings: doors, flooring, window frames — they were master scavengers.
Since the old coal room in the basement was no longer needed thanks to our new gas furnace conversion, we cleaned out the coal dust, white-washed the walls, built shelving and moved all the canned and boxed food down to the new basement pantry. Dale Hanson’s congregation in Wausau, Wisconsin sent a truckload every November, which provided for our needs through January. This winter the population of drifters who congregated in the vacant lot at the corner of 65th and Harvard had grown to about 20 men. They spent the nights in the vacated apartments and during the day stood around a fire which they kept burning in a large metal drum. Fuel for their fire came from the buildings: doors, flooring, window frames — they were master scavengers. We would provide them with bread every day, plus some cans of food, usually soup or baked beans. They were lined up at the door of the parish hall at 9 a.m. each morning, and were served by Oliver Carter, who we hired as Otis’ assistant now that Don was in school. We were their only means of support, and they helped us with janitorial chores in exchange. Otis always claimed that we served more people each week than the Urban Progress Center which had 100 times our budget.
During the bleak winter months we became food scavengers ourselves: the Campbell Soup warehouse gave us about 30 cases of damaged cans, and Oliver worked out a “buying club arrangement” with a meat packer on 59th Street where he purchased quality meat at low prices. Day old bread came from the Wonder Bread bakery in Woodlawn. Oliver, Otis and I had come to acquire the reputation for being the softest touches in Englewood. It would be nice if hunger were indeed illegal. Each person requesting food was interviewed and the causes of their financial difficulties were addressed which helped to short-circuit the usual “hardship stories” calculated to evoke sympathy but were basically untrue. People were always invited to join EWRO. By this time we had developed a good working relationship with the local public aid office because “the squeaking wheel gets the grease.” Usually all it took to straighten out a problem was a phone call from Otis.
All of a sudden Christmas was upon us. I was out on 95th Street coming home from making a hospital call late one afternoon, and realized it was December 23rd. I saw a Christmas tree lot that still had a few trees left, and pulled over. The proprietor was about to close up, not having much merchandise left. I asked if he had any good looking trees, seeing the few scragqly “Charlie Brown trees” lined up against the back fence. “Well,” he said slowly, “there’s one over here by the office, but most people didn’t want it because it is too big.” “I’ll take it,” I said, and he practically gave it away and helped me load it into the back end of the VW van. The trunk of the tree rested heavily on the dashboard, and the tree was so long we had to tie down the rear door with rope to the back bumper with about five feet of treetop still sticking out. It was the best Christmas tree ever, filling the parsonage living room, its top needing trimming to fit under the eleven foot ceiling. Sue started crying, thinking that I’d completely forgotten about preparing for our family Christmas. Almost.
Next: The Chicago Memoirs of 1971 (Part One)
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