Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

occasion. Not a lot, but there's some. Of course the women are all dead, but the - they'd
meet every two weeks. Of course they'd come by - they couldn't - nobody had a car, they'd
come by the dinkeys we called them, the one-man streetcar. In those days of course though
they had two-man streetcars.
Our social life. My dad would take my sister and my brother and I for car rides. We'd
get on those in the summertime, those open-air streetcars you know, open on both
sides. You've probably saw pictures of them. I don't guess you're old enough to remember
them. But we'd go from Upper Alton to North Alton and back, and, hell, you could go for
a nickel, a nickel or a dime. And we'd do that.
My mother's relatives would come, and Nana would come and Uncle John, but we never had
any - I doubt if there was two cases of beer served in my mother's home in forty-five to
fifty years that she lived there. We weren't a drinking family.
And hell, I never got to - none of kids got to go in the front door. We always had to
go around to the back. She was an immaculate housekeeper and we'd get in the front door
when? Maybe Christmas time, to even go in the frontroorn. We spent our time in the
kitchen or we had a little room down in the basement. She was, as I said, an immaculate
housekeeper. And we didn't frequent the frontroorn. Of course after my father died, Homer
and I - my sister was married - Homer and I were at home and we used the front door
then naturally as we were getting older and grownup.
My brother is in Springfield. 1 don't know whether you know him. He and his wife both
work for the Calvary Cemetery.
Q: No.
A: They live on Second Street. He used to be president of the bank in Edwardsville, but
then again it changed hands and he lost out. Of course that's been a number of years ago
but . . .
Q: Now his name is Homer . . .
A: Homer, J. Homer Kennedy.
Q: J. Homer.
A: My sister's name was Margaret. She married Jim Bennett. Jim's still alive but Mamie,
as we nicknamed her, she died, oh, three years ago next month, in 1979, the twentieth of
October 1979.
Q: Now Homer was older than you, was he?
A: No. He's younger. My sister was the oldest. Margaret was born in 1906. I was horn
in 1908 and Homer was born in either 1918 or 1919. No, he was born in 1917. I believe
he was born in 1917. He'll be sixty-six in January.
Q: What about education in music? Were you interested much in that then?
A: No. I was interested in education. I read a lot. But no, I never took any vocal lessons
or any music lessons. My brother took music lessons and Margaret may have taken singing
lessons. No, I never - I worked, 1 played ball, and a little basketball and a little football,
but no, I never took any music lessons. I wasn't the, as I said, the valedirtorian. I wasn't
a poor student, but I was just a - I read a lot. As I said I sold papers, and anything pertaining
to world events fascinated me.