I grew up on (Chicago’s)134th Street half a block from Wolf Lake. My memories are many of the 50s and 60s. I was a paperboy and I delivered papers to the Delaware House. I was 11 years old and I delivered the Chicago American which was an afternoon daily, and I had a rare experience of being inside the Delaware House. They left the door open for me to go into the library. Again, 11 years old, scariest thing in the world. This big building and there was nobody there. And there was this wall lined with books and such, and a big table. I would find my $2 or whatever it was, and then, whoever it was, left me a cookie and a glass of milk.
Even before then they had drained Wolf Lake. I was told they had drained it because they needed sand to build the Calumet Expressway, now called the Bishop Ford. And they cut off and then drained the north end. And then a couple years later they drained the south end. And then they had cranes come in and dig out the sand. When they drained the lakes. of course, all the fish were there. And they all rotted, and so it smelled like hell. So as kids we’d go by and see these big carp.
They looked to be 24 inches long—huge fish. So that’s what you did—you know as kids 10 or 11 years old. Running around those little trenches and stuff, and little birds would make nests inside the trenches, and would come out. What they were, I didn’t know. They weren’t dikes. The cranes came in and just dug out the sand and left the trench, and then ultimately I guess they just allowed the water back in. I don’t quite know.
Relative to the Delaware House, and that experience—it’s a big ol’ house with 4,000 square feet. I have a couple of photos, and I think Ron has a couple at the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum. And I met a young woman from Los Angeles at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry who did an animation of the World’s Fair. That put you literally person-point-of-view, you literally get on a gondola and go down through the channels at the fair. And then it would stop and you would go into the buildings, like the fine art part of it, and you would literally see different displays as you walk through the building. But she didn’t have any on the states. And of the states only 23 states provided an exhibit. Delaware was one of ’em. California and New York were the biggest of the two. And so that was my experience with Wolf Lake.
Throughout the process—there was also a place called Popular Grove. There was a person there named [Michael W.] Wesolowski--they called him Choo Choo, and he used to rent out boats. It was 101st Street and Avenue M, they used to rent out the tree grove for picnics: VFW, America Legion Sukta Post. And it would have Polish bands playing in the morning, and as kids we would go by there and pick up tickets cause the guys were drinkin’ and when they would drink they would drop their tickets. So we’d come by and scoop up the tickets and eat hotdogs all day. Many memories.

Bob Brandys, Rockford, IL

Of AWLI’s three annual festivals, the first was the wetlands festival. It was held in May of 2000. The 12th annual wetlands festival featured the rowing crew from Calumet College of St. Joseph. See video by Kevin Murphy for more detail.