A Sea of White: Historic Blizzards in Mokena's Past

   Braving deep snow, invisible ice and sharp cold, Mokena finds itself in the midst of a particularly nasty, biting midwestern winter. Looking back into our recent past, it’s easy to remember the Groundhog’s Day Blizzard of 2011, or Snowmageddon, as it’s been so dubbed by those of us who lived through it, and be thankful that things this time around aren’t quite as nasty as they have been. Nevertheless, that last big storm ten years ago, which looms so dauntingly in our collective memory, doesn’t hold a candle to several other catastrophic snowfalls in our past. Examining the pages of history, several other blasts of frozen vapor stand out on the record of the years. 

   The worst blizzard to hit Mokena in documented history was on January 26^th and 27^th, 1967, when a paralyzing 23 inches of snow landed on the village. Blustery 50 mile per hour winds created massive drifts that measured 15 feet. On the first day of the storm, Mokena teacher Dolores Barenz had reported for work at St. Mary’s School on 195^th street. By the time she got settled in, the snow had already begun in earnest and conditions on the roads around town were only getting worse. She was gathered with her fellow staff members, all commiserating on the rapidly worsening situation, when Father Cecil Koop appeared, wondering what the fuss was. Upon reflecting with the teachers, he made the decision to cancel class, and posted himself at the entrance to the school directing busses to take students home. Deep was the concern, as some of them had to be taken to Frankfort and Lincoln Estates, no small feat in the quickly deteriorating situation. Dolores and Marion Kruzich, her next-door neighbor and fellow teacher, followed each other home to Center Street, where Dolores’ car got stuck fast as soon as she got into her driveway. That night, the families hunkered down in the Barenzes basement, where a potluck dinner with Kruziches and the Weitendorfs, another family of close neighbors, was held. In Dolores’ words, “What started out as a “hairy” day ended up being a great neighborhood get together! A time to be remembered!”

                            Kurber's Pharmacy, then a new building, in the aftermath of the January 1967 blizzard. 

 

   Meanwhile, another Mokena educator was also living through the chaotic day. Richard Quinn, a history teacher at Willowcrest, showed the spirit of small-town helpfulness by not only giving rides home to some of his students in his trusty 1959 Studebaker Lark, but also to commuters he encountered. Many were caught unawares when the blast of white hit, and not a few were stranded on country roads in their cars, were some had to spend the night. Quinn remembers that Consola’s restaurant, located north of town on Wolf Road, had thrown open its doors for stuck travelers overnight, as did the Mokena taverns, who housed and fed helpless drivers.  

  

 

                Third Street after the 1967 blizzard. Visible at left is Richard Quinn's 1959 Studebaker Lark, with which he weathered the storm. (Image courtesy Richard Quinn)

   Also standing on the pedestal of memory is the great snow of 1979. Striking on January 13^th and 14^th of that year, by the time all was said and done, a whopping 21 inches of snow had fallen on Mokena, including the 10 inches that had already recently piled up. A bitter cold of 19 degrees below zero chilled residents to the core. In the wake of the snow’s complete whiteout, abandoned cars dotted 191^st Street east of Route 45, both of which were simple, rural roads at this time. Empty cars also choked the ramps leading to Interstate 80 at Route 45, which caused them to be closed for days. Local volunteers mounted on their own snowmobiles played a crucial part in rescue efforts. If a stranded motorist lived nearby, the good Samaritans brought them home, braving the deep freeze and gales of snow. If their homes were out of reach, they were brought to town to the village hall. Lifelong village resident and mayor Bob Teske, his wife Lynn, and some Mokena policemen led extrications from there. An avid CB radio enthusiast who communicated under the handle Chief Mo-kee-no, (which was to easier to hear over the airwaves then Chief Mokena) Teske and his crew took to the citizens’ band to communicate with those marooned in their cars. While Mayor Teske had been under doctor’s orders to lay low at home due to a bad case of bronchitis, Lynn Teske said “there was no way to keep him down.” Of those holed up at the village hall, six of them were from points out of state. Two came from Florida, two from far off Canada, and two truckers hailed from California. While guests in our village, they didn’t go hungry; Lynn Teske treated them to breakfast, and later a barbeque and macaroni salad lunch. 

 

   Of all the nasty blizzards that Mokena has been through, the storm of January 6^th and 7^th, 1918 was probably the worst, at least in terms of chaotic effect. In total snow accumulation, it was bested by the other two blizzards, this time a “mere” 15 inches of snow were recorded, but village old timers said it was easily the worst since 1885, but others in town scoffed and said there definitely hadn’t been anything like it since at least the 1860s. It came at a scary time, World War I was in full swing, lots of local boys were in the army and on their way to France where an uncertain fate awaited them. 

   To only compound the stress of the snowstorm, the village was also undergoing a coal shortage due to the war. Many Mokenians were completely without it at this time, and to heat their homes, were soaking old coal ashes in their stoves with oil and burning it this way. For the first time in living memory, trains on the Rock Island railroad completely stopped running. The last train into town steamed in at 4 o’clock in the morning in the middle of the storm, having left Chicago at 6:10 the night before. J.D. Rosenbaum, our village doctor, wound up being stranded in the city the whole weekend. 

   Acute cold also caused the town streetlights to malfunction, plunging the village into darkness. Bill Semmler, Mokena’s correspondent to the Joliet Herald-News noted that “several people froze their faces by walking from their homes to the business part of the village.” All church services at the village’s four houses of worship were cancelled, but the public school at the corner of Front Street and today’s Schoolhouse Road stayed open, managing a “fair” attendance. 

   Just about all roads leading out of town were completed blocked by the snow. What is today Wolf Road, leading south from the Rock Island tracks was totally snowbound for weeks, being covered by a massive snow drift about 600 feet long and six feet deep. It wasn’t cleared until the middle of February, when Mokenian George Marti was hired by the village board to cut through the drift. Not a few of our neighbors in Frankfort who relied on the Rock Island trains in our village came here by foot in this time, trudging over a temporary road which had been blazed across fields and through the woods. Correspondent Semmler noted matter-of-factly that “this new route makes a considerable short cut between the two towns.” 

 

   In the meantime, we continue to dig ourselves (and the village) out of the latest icy accumulation, and also enjoy the look of beauty that the fresh snow has brought to our surroundings. When the going gets tough, as it certainly already has this time around, it never hurts to remember the Mokenians who have fought the same winter hardships in years past.

Witness to History: The Story of 11028 Front Street

  Front Street is the face of our village. Every building, whether not-so-old or ancient, contains something like a life of its own, a soul containing memories of every deed done there. Behind every familiar façade is a story, some are of great success, some of storied Mokena personages, and some even reach back to the earliest days of the village’s narrative. One of these many landmarks is the old building at 11028 Front Street. What nowadays holds a quiet real estate office along with a skin and beauty bar, is actually a spot well-steeped in community history. 

11028 Front Street as it appears today.

   The story of this location reaches far back into the 19^th century. As is often the case for the Mokena of this era, the exact beginning is nebulous, hard to pin down in the fog of time. However, when the mists are parted, the figure of Valentin Scheer arises, a Bavarian harness maker who bought this lot of Henry Bock for the princely sum of $1,400 in the summer of 1869. The son of a brave pioneer family, Valentin’s father and mother, Johannes and Philippine Scheer, first settled the wilds of what would become Frankfort Township in 1847, at a time when the villages of Frankfort and Mokena, not to mention the local railroads, were but a distant fantasy. One of twelve children, Valentin Scheer was born in the southwest German village of Siegelbach on December 1^st, 1844, the second to last child to be born to the Scheer clan while the family still lived in Europe. 

 

   Around the time of the Civil War years, Valentin moved to Mokena proper, then a flourishing hamlet along the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, and by and by entered the town’s business circle. On April 12^th, 1868, he married Henriette Heim, the daughter of a local saloonkeeper, their nuptials being carried out by Reverend Wilhelm Meyer of the German United Evangelical St. John’s congregation, of which both families were founding members. By the summer of 1870, Valentin Scheer had fully established himself as a harness maker in Mokena, and it is likely from this period that the building at the center of this story dates. The stately two-story structure features Italianate-influenced decorative brackets in its eaves, as well as window frames that appear to harken back to the Greek Revival style. Inside, Scheer’s shop sported hardwood floors and a lavish stamped tin ceiling. 

The Front Street harness shop and feed store of Valentin Scheer as depicted in an 1873 lithograph.

 

   Valentin Scheer flourished as one of Mokena’s early tradesmen, while advertisements of the day referenced a “first class harness shop”, boasting a large salesroom where “sets of harnesses of every kind needed” were available for inspection, from “heavy work harnesses” to “fancy buggy harnesses.” After being in businesses at this spot for several years, he eventually branched out into feed and flour sales as well, also dealing occasionally in baby carriages, trunks and valises. The harness shop was a product of its era, and also hearkening to its place in the 19^th century is the 1878 ad showcasing fine horse blankets and buffalo robes to be had. 

 

   Illustrative of his rising position in the community, Valentin Scheer was elected to the post of trustee on the first village board in the spring of 1880, and the board’s very first meetings were held within these historic walls. The trusteeship was held by Scheer until 1885, at which point he still appears to be in business at this location, as is indicated by his continuous advertising in area newspapers in this timeframe. The harness maker relocated to Chicago at some point in the second half of the 1880s, where he met a tragic yet mysterious end.  A Cook County death certificate exists for him bearing the date of March 16^th, 1890, indicating that Scheer’s demise was caused by “shock from frost bite – hands, feet and ears.” On the same sheet, a note in the margin cryptically states “man insane.” In the register of the dead of the St. John’s congregation, pastor Carl Schaub’s German language inscription records that Scheer died “as a result of frozen limbs.” Nothing has ever surfaced on the historical record to indicate what caused his psychological break, and why he wandered outside on that cold March night. His mortal remains were borne from Chicago back to Mokena, where he was interred in St. John’s Cemetery on what is today Wolf Road. 

 

   The 1890s are an uncertain time, an epoch of many unknowns in our village’s history, due to the fact that there was no local newspaper to report happenings in town, and thus no consistent record. The community, as well as the nation at large was in an economic depression after the Panic of 1893, causing many Mokenians to move elsewhere. Just enough evidence exists that villager Jacob Weber may have conducted a saloon in Scheer’s old harness shop at the end of the decade and into the first years of the 20^th century.            

 

   The history of this old landmark comes back into focus in the spring of 1903, when hardware merchant David Kolber set up shop here. His arrival in Mokena is marked by the uniqueness of his background; in a village made up of mostly German-Americans, Kolber was an Austro-Hungarian Jew. The 1911 birth of his son was heralded in local media as being that of Mokena’s first Judaic citizen. The Kolbers would come to be esteemed residents of our town, and their hardware store would be remembered as a “first class business and tin shop” in its early years. 

 

   David Kolber built a solid business at this location, and within several years, it outgrew the shop here. During his tenure, it appears that he was a renter at this address, for the structure was still referred to as “the Weber building” in local parlance of the era. Coinciding with the relocation of the hardware store a few doors to the west in 1911, Katherine Sippel opened her dry goods shop here, herself having moved from other quarters farther down Front Street. Once its doors were thrown open to the public in November of that year, it was boasted of as being the biggest and best store in town. The sister of the aforementioned saloonkeeper Jacob Weber, Kate Sippel was born in Mokena on September 12, 1856, the daughter of a Hessian stonemason whose handiwork was the foundations of many of the village’s oldest buildings. A capitalist par excellence in the village, a contemporary hailed Sippel as a “courteous and very efficient business woman;” while another noted her store as a place where “any products could be purchased.” Aside from selling general merchandise, Mrs. Sippel was a well-known maker of women’s hats, having learned the art of millinery while a young girl. 

This circa 1910 image of Front Street looking east from Mokena Street depicts the property (at third from left) as it appeared when it came into the ownership of Kate Sippel.

 

   Once this property came into the hands of Kate Sippel, it underwent some significant changes. In the summer of 1911, she had a small extension on the west side of the building torn down, and a considerably larger wing on the east side detached from the main structure, and moved to the north side of the lot close to First Street, where it was converted into a storehouse. Finally, a large addition was tacked on to the north side of the Front Street building. Another big improvement came in the spring of 1913, when the building was fitted out with electric lights. Mrs. Sippel’s right-hand men in her business were her two adult sons, Elmer and Christian. Aside from being known among local folk for their friendly manner, they also were very civic-minded. They improved a patch on the eastern edge of their lot into a “town beauty spot” that contained a small pond teaming with fish and two public horse shoe pits, as well as later sponsoring some of the first outdoor film screenings with other Mokena businessmen. 

 

   After the death of Kate Sippel in 1922, her son Elmer took over operations here and continued trade until his own sudden passing in 1942, when the store closed its doors for good. This building would play a key role in Mokena’s home front activities during the Second World War, when Elmer Sippel’s widow offered the store’s vacant space for use as the headquarters and sewing room of the village branch of the Red Cross. Here local members gathered and engaged in various patriotic activities, such as the preparing of surgical dressings for use on wounded soldiers. 

 

   After having been the property of the Weber and later the Sippel families for decades, the structure was acquired by Irwin Howes in the summer of 1943. The owner of a small grocery store that was part of the Royal Blue chain, Howes relocated his combined store and meat market to this location after his previous Front Street quarters became too small. However, his presence in the day-to-day affairs of the business turned out to be short lived, as he was inducted into the Navy as a radio technician in early 1944. In his absence, his wife Edna ran the affairs of the store, but shortly after the end of the war, Irwin Howes found himself no longer desirous of running the enterprise, and ultimately sold it to Joe and Vicky Grobarcik of Joliet in 1947. 

A 1946 view of Irwin Howes (right) in his store. His customers are Herman Schweser (left) and Paul Lembke (center).

 

   Previously the keeper of two stores in the county seat, Joseph Benedict Grobarcik was born February 17^th, 1913 in that place, and ultimately married Victoria Bernice Jankola, also of Joliet. The kept a well-rounded store in our village, and still under the Royal Blue banner, they offered “groceries, fresh and smoked meats, vegetables and frozen foods.” In January of 1948, a Mokenian could buy three cans of Campbells tomato soup for 29 cents, 46 ounces of grapefruit juice for 19 cents, and a pound of butter for 85 cents. After eight years of successful business on Front Street, the Grobarciks had their store completely remodeled, setting up a new frozen food cabinet, a vegetable cooler and new shelving, and topping it off, the biggest improvement being an addition to the main structure, a new space 45 by 16 feet on the west side of the building. 

A scene in the Grobarcik store in Mokena, circa 1950. Left to right are Vicky Grobarcik, Jean and Joan Cooney, Eleanor Muehler holding Rick Muehler, unknown, and Joe Grobarcik. In the foreground is Patty, Rick Muehler's dog. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)

 

   Still lovingly remembered in the village to this day, Joe and Vicky Grobarcik are universally described as nice people, good neighbors and hard workers; Mokena is a better place for their having been a part of it. In the rural community of their day, just about everyone in town was a customer soon or later. The Royal Blue store was also able to compete with The Shopping Bag, a modern supermarket that opened on Wolf Road in 1955, and later Ordman’s Park and Shop. The Grobarciks’ was a very homey, one-of-a-kind place. A jar of pickled pigs’ feet greeted customers, and the signs in the store were all homemade, written in black crayon. At the end of every night, it was common to see Joe or Vicky scrubbing down the butcher block with a wire brush. A makeshift kitchen, made up of three walls, existed in the back of the store, fashioned out of empty cartons and boxes. The Royal Blue existed in a time where a Mokenian could call the store, place an order for groceries, and have them ready upon arrival. Adding machines didn’t come until much later in the Grobarcik’s tenure, and as such, all bills were written out by hand on a pad with carbon paper. Fresh donuts were delivered daily to the store, and cost five cents each. However, one had to be there early to get one, as they went quick. The Grobarcik store on Front Street is fondly remembered by countless Mokenians as the place in town for penny candy; not only for the wide selection that could be had there, but also for the shopkeepers’ sunny disposition towards local children, who allowed them behind the counter to make the selections his or herself. Popsicles, fudgesicles, dreamsicles, and even drumstick ice cream cones could also be had, all for a nickel. 

Vicky and Joe Grobarcik in their Mokena store, 1978.

 

   After nearly 31 years in business in the same spot, Joe and Vicky Grobarcik retired and closed up shop in February 1978. So admired were they, that the village presented the couple with a certificate of appreciation upon the store’s closing, and soon thereafter, the Mokena Chamber of Commerce bestowed upon Joe the Outstanding Citizen Award. Down the line, the building was the home of Baker Interiors, and a faithful restoration of the building’s historic façade, restoring elements that had been obliterated for decades, was carried out not too long after the turn of the 21^st century. 

 

   In the spring of 2002, the property suffered a disastrous fire, the conflagration being so intense that it melted the store space’s original tin ceiling into a heap of charred wreckage. The place’s future was in serious question, but luckily for the community and for future Mokenians, this time-honored spot was able to be saved. It has been a part of our village for decades, gracing Front Street for at least 151 years. May it stand for 151 more.