Old Montgomery Through the Eyes of Catherine Stathis

A few years ago I interviewed Catherine Stathis for the Historic Preservation Commission’s taping project. We laughed a lot throughout the interview. She had such great stories to tell, and I was sorry when it ended. Excerpts from that interview follow:

Cathy Stathis was born in 1917, and the family soon moved to Montgomery, to a duplex on Main Street. Her parents were both born in Greece, and her father worked at Lyon Metallic (as it was then called).

The family grew to include Dora, George and Chris, and they moved to a small house on Railroad Street where they kept goats in a shed in the back yard. People routinely kept chickens, ducks and rabbits, so small goats would not be too unusual.

In those days Montgomery had a population of around 300. On warm summer nights when their windows were open, families living on Railroad Street were used to the sound of irate drivers, yelling and blasting their car horns. When this happened they knew that “Old Bill” Filkens had fallen asleep in the tower again without lifting the gates after the last train.

Cathy’s eyes sparkled when she talked about her friends and the adventures they had. She remembers seeing the electric streetcars travel down Main Street on the way to the Fox River Park. Her memories aren’t as vivid of the actual park, since she was only eight when it closed. She does remember going down there for water. People would take large containers and fill them with the magnesium spring water.

One warm summer day, Catherine and her friend Peggy Dickson, who lived in a  boarding house, decided to take a detour to the river on the way home from Sunday School. They found a raft on the shore and climbed on, still wearing their Sunday dresses.

There was a pole on board and Peggy pushed the raft out into the stream, accidentally dropping the pole in the river as they drifted away. In a panic, they jumped out to retrieve the pole before it was swept downstream. Two wet and muddy little girls trudged home that day to face the music.

She shakes her head at the difference between today’s teenagers and when she wasyoung. In high school she remembers playing outside in the twilight hours with her friends. Imagine suggesting games like “Run My Good Sheep Run” and “Hide and Seek” to anyone over 10 years old today!

When she was young, a movie cost a dime, and the bus fare was a nickel. For a quarter, you could add a treat from the concession stand. One of the boys in her crowd always insisted they sit in the back row, and that he had to sit on the end. Finally, Catherine questioned why. He said in case of fire he wanted to be the first out the door to get his dime back.

Such forward thinking was evident even then. The boy was Willard Fox and he would become an executive with Anchor Brush.

Catherine still lives at the same address on Railroad Street. Not one to move, she lives in a modern brick home that replaced the little house that was torn down in 1966. She was a bookkeeper at Superior Beverage for 42 years. She is active and frequently walks to the Montgomery Popcorn Company in nice weather, and keeps up with her friends at a yearly luncheon meeting of the “Montgomery Girls.” With so many close friends and relatives in the village, she has never considered changing her address.