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Email a link to this page to someone who might be interested. Internet Explorer is the
only browser that shows this page the way it was designed. Your
computer's settings may alter the display. April 24, 2004: Awarded "Best Web Site of the Year" by the Illinois State Historical
Society "superior
achievement: serves as a model for the profession and reaches a greater
public" |
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Marquee Lights of the Lincoln Theater, est. 1923, Lincoln, Illinois |
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David
Kindred's Memoir of His Grandmother Lena and the Forehands' West Side Tavern on Sangamon Street in Lincoln, Illinois |
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In providing information for his Web page in this site, Illinois Appellate Court Judge Jim Knecht wrote that he grew up in a second-story apartment above the West Side Tavern on Sangamon Street in Lincoln, Illinois. Jim mentioned that this tavern was owned by the grandmother of one of his childhood acquaintances: "another note on "Lena" Forehand's tavern--she was Dave Kindred's grandmother, and he spent every summer with her from the time he was 9 to age 15 because he played baseball and Atlanta--where he lived--had no Pony League or Junior baseball. I knew him and his sister and cousin-- Merle Helton. He went on to [Illinois] Wesleyan [University] and then became a sportswriter for the Louisville paper, the Washington Post, Atlanta Constitution, Sporting News, etc., and is one of the most respected writers in those circles today. . . . He wrote an article that was carried nationally when his grandmother died, and he wrote about the tavern" (email message from Jim to Leigh, 9-9-2003). Note: In a phone conversation I had with David Kindred in January of 2004, he said his first job in journalism was at the Lincoln Evening Courier, where he was paid in brand-new, crisp dollar bills. He said he wondered if they were printed in the back room. I wonder if they might have been printed in the office of the publisher--Mrs. Nugent. In that conversation, Dave gave me permission to re-publish his memoir in this Lincoln Web site. Many thanks, Dave. The photo below shows the West Side Tavern:
Schlitz Signs Denoting the Forehands' West Side Tavern
(Photo compliments of D.D. Welch and sent by Fred Blanford) |
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David Kindred's Memoir of the Forehands and Their West Side Tavern LINCOLN--It was seven-tenths of a mile from the tavern to Grandma's house on Sixth Street. Grandma [Magdalena "Lena"] and Tommy ran the tavern for 33 years. Every summer I came to stay at Grandma's house. I came so I could play Little League baseball. I don't know how much a guy's life is shaped by what happens from the time he's 9 until he's 15. Probably a lot. Grandma made that time wonderful. All I'd do every day is play ball. At dark I'd go to the tavern and read books and wait for closing time. The tavern was a great and mysterious place. Forehand's West Side Tavern sat next to the railroad tracks that run through the center of this county-seat town. You could get pie-eyed at Grandma Lena's place. She used that word all the time. Pie-eyed. What you couldn't do at Grandma's is get mean. Other places in town, maybe. Not at Lena's. She was hell on wheels behind that bar. Anybody who got pie-eyed and wanted another beer might as well move on. Grandma's voice could ruin your ears. She wasn't very big. Maybe 5 feet tall with legs that got more bowed every year. But you could hear her everywhere. One guy didn't listen. She said leave. He wouldn't. He was going to play the slot machine. Grandma's nose came about half-way up his chest. She raised up her foot and stomped her heel into the guy's toes. He left then. I mopped the tavern floor every night. For fun I'd go next door and read the comic books at Hap's restaurant. I listened to ball games. Tommy was Grandma's second husband, and he was a Cubs fan. I rooted for the Cardinals so we'd have something to argue about. What Tommy and Grandma did for me the most was make sure I played Little League every summer. They spoiled me. I climbed up the candy counters in the tavern. They'd give me some little chore to do. Take these potato chips to Joe and you can have that Milky Way. Every night I would go to sleep in a tavern booth. I'd lie down in the seat, and I wondered if I would ever be so big I wouldn't fit. Grandma always said she didn't have anything to do with it. But a customer gave me a baseball. Said he'd caught it at a Cardinal game. A real major-league ball. I kept it until I lost it. The only time I felt worse than after losing Grandma's baseball was the time I lost my father's catcher's mitt. I was at Grandma's house then. She hugged me and said it would be OK. Grandma was smart and loud and strong and sweet and she gave me everything a kid could ask for and a whole lot that kids don't even know they're getting until they get to be old themselves. She gave me love and time and attention. She showed me a woman can do anything. She showed me anybody can do anything if they really really want to. She said she'd give me a quarter for every "A" on my report card. I came home with 13 "A's" because in first grade they gave you a grade for everything including how you comb your hair. This was 1947, and 13 quarters could buy a case of beer. She made it a dime the next time, and we kept it up until I got out of college. Last Christmas my mother gave me a box full of my old stuff. Inside a high-school graduation card from '59 was a $20 bill still there. She said it is worth $50 now. I loved to see her laugh. My sister took a picture at Grandma's 86th birthday party last June. My sister made a cake with writing on it especially for Grandma. In the picture Grandma is laughing like a little kid. You should have seen her when she was young. There's a picture of her when she was 16. She wore a big hat and a dress with puffy shoulders, and she was so beautiful. She was born in 1896. She was 19 when her husband took her to Canada. He was trying to stay out of the Army. She had a baby. They lived in a one-room shack in the middle of nowhere. They called nowhere Saskatchewan. They burned cow chips for heat in the winter. She was going to have another baby, and so they moved back to Lincoln and had a girl who would be my mother. Grandma was diabetic and old and she had a little stroke in May of 1981. She fell that day. She never walked again. She had a wheelchair and Tommy took wonderful care of her. One day she saw a bug. She hated bugs. She told Tommy in her loud voice to get the bug. Tommy has had two cataract operations. He couldn't see the bug. Tommy told this story. He said Grandma shouted, "There!" And he said, "Where?" Tommy sat on the bed. He looked down at the floor. Grandma sat in her wheelchair 8 feet away. "Next thing you know," Tommy said, telling this story, "Grandma is sitting on the bed next to me, pointing her finger down at that bug. "There," she said. Turns out Grandma could walk if she really really had to. She died Jan. 9 [1982]. Just from being old. Tommy was there getting her something to eat. Thanks, Jim Knecht, for sending me this touching, informative memoir; and thanks especially to you, Dave, for writing it and for allowing me to use it here. Respond to David Kindred at Inkstained1@aol.com. * * * * * Note: Last
summer while I attended the Sesquicentennial Celebration of Lincoln,
Illinois, I bought a short video tape of scenes from the 1953 Centennial
Celebration. That tape was made by the Barricks of Barrick Trucking, holders
of the Budweiser franchise, and the tape very briefly showed the fronts of
several taverns, including the West Side Tavern. The tape showed a
bartender coming to the door in a long white apron:
Tommy Forehand. |
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"The Past Is But the Prelude" |
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