Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

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or something like that, I met him out in the hall and he got to talking to me or something - I wasn't in the assembly then, I was working for Redmond - and he says, "I'm going to have a meeting at Starved Hock." And I busted out laughing. And he says, "Why are you laughing?" And I said, "Why hell, that's whcre 1 spent my honeymoon, that's all." I haven't been hack since. Q: Oh is that right. A: I haven't been hack since. How we come to pick that T don't know. We just went to Starved Rock, that's all. Q: It was just close, huh? A: Well we only had about three or four days. We were in session and that's why we decided to go there. Q: Do you remember when you decided to get married? A: I guess the minute I saw her, T suppose. Q: Oh really'! Wcll! no you remember when she accepted'! A: Oh I don't know. I had a lot of trouble I guess. 1 don't know. Q: Wcll! (laughter) A: Not right away. Q: Wcll. Well then, what did you do? set up housekeeping in Springfield then'! A: No. My mother was still alive and we lived in a duplex house - I lived in a duplex house, either one side or the other side, for 720 months, sixteen and a half years, so that would be 726 months. We just come down and moved in next to my mother and we lived there for - well until we moved out here. Q: Oh is that right? A: Yes. Moved to where we live out here from 926 Washington Avenue. Well this house wasn't quite completed and we took a little house in that Upper Alton neighborhood for six months before wc came out here, that's all. No we lived right there all of the time, our kids wcrp born and raised and went to school there and graduated from high school there and everything else. Q: Well, let's see. Patrick was the first boy'! A: Yes. He was born October 10, the same birthday as Adlai. October thc tenth, 1949. And Maurine was born August 28,1954, right up there. Q: Where did they go to school'! A: Well they went to St. Patrick's grade school. Pat went away to srhool. And Maurine went to St. Patrick's grade school, and then went to the Catholic high school, Marquette High School, in Alton. Rut Pat wcnt to St. Brdc's, hr lat~r went to Springfield Junior College for a c.ouple of years. And he transferred to SITJ [Southern Illinois IJnivwsity] at Edwardsville. Of course hr was living at home and whrn hc went up to Springfield Junior College he lived with a - I guess it drove him crazy. There was an Antontllli fanlily -
I believe there's a lot of that family in Springfield - he stayed there. I was in session. I'd see him a lot and take him out for supper. He was always broke of course. Whether he went a year or two, I don't know. I guess he went two years at Springfield Junior College and then in the summer, why, he got on down at the glassworks, and he worked - he always worked. Pat always worked. The summer of 1941 when he went away to school, he worked at a gun club across the river. And he worked down there on Route 3. We went by there when we came home from the retreat that way. We hadn't went that way, but I noticed when we come home that - he worked for Conoco down there one summer. They put in a big blending plant down there and he worked in that general area. He worked for Conoco. But he's with the Bass Specialty Company now and he's got a pretty good job. Pat's quite an outdoorsman. He hunts and fishes, and he's a good handyman around the house, and things of that nature. Q: Where does he live now? A: Springfield, Missouri. Down - well he works right in Springfield, Missouri, down on Hampshire Boulevard. We've been down there a couple of times. He married a girl from Grant Park, a Huber girl, and she's a very good wife to him. They have two children. Her parents go down there a lot. We don't go down too often because it's more than a day's drive, and you bother the kids when you stay overnight too much. We've been down there several times though but. . . . He comes home. He and Barbara come home a lot. They'll visit the Hubers first or us last and then take off or vice versa, it all depends upon their mood. They come home two or three times a year. Michael, he's the oldest grandson, he'll come up every summer for a couple of weeks. I don't know if he's eleven or twelve. He just had a birthday November seventh. What birthday it was - I guess the eleventh or twelfth. And my daughter's children, they're here in town and they'll be out this weekend. They'll be out this weekend, I guess they will, if we can stand them. They're five and seven. They're quite a handful. Q: I see. Well let's see now. You set up housekeeping here in Alton. Did your wife stay in Springfield then any length of time after you were married? Did she work there? A: Oh a very short time, a very short time, until we got prepared and got settled with the house. They had to do a little remodeling on the duplex house, put in another bathroom. A very short time. And she could have worked - before Pat came, she could have worked - 1949 - she worked about three months in the 1951 session for the secretary of state's office. But I didn't think much of that idea, so we just decided to call it quits and come on home, that's all. Pat was born . . . October 10,1949. Here's something I hadn't told you. money, and I wanted to keep going. When I got beat in 1954 and 1955, well I needed some I had read an ad in the paper that some fellow had a little vending route that he wanted to sell. It was over in the east end of the county, part of the east end of Madison County and the west part of Bond County, and well, I had to laugh at myself. It was a vending business that sold razor blades by vending in motels. Of course at that time the motels weren't as fabulous and as sophisticated as they are now. And, oh, I put eighteen hundred dollars in the original investment and I could see that it wasn't going to pay off and I had an understanding with those people that if - they returned over 50 percent of that money and I went - some guy said, "Why don't you get some cigarette machines?" So I bought a couple of used cigarette machines down in St. Louis and went to the National Vendors then and got a couple of good machines and, oh, at one time I might have had, oh, I guess a couple of dozen machines, but they'd fluctuate too. There wasn't none around Alton or
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University of Illinois at Springfie
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ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HIST
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Preface This oral history of Leland
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Volume I Leland J. Kennedy SESSION
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next to us was a duplex house and a
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Q: Were these family meals that she
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I was awful fascinated by politics.
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Q: Yes sir. (chuckles) What part of
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that much about it, about the makeu
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out and there was the number of my
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A: Well. Yes, I always remember one
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Q: Was it a paddle wheeler or what
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een that far back, in that era, may
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that wanted to take roomers or boar
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A: As you go by, that's the Alton W
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Q: Oh? Were you a pretty good corn
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A: Maybe it makes good talking to m
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A: The Fourth of July and Christmas
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A: I mean his wife is I think, and
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golden handshake. They'd give you m
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A: . . . and the twenty-five. But y
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day I would say that half of the fo
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Young Democrat convention, elected
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in Edwardsville, and you had to pay
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- and we were for Smith, and fighti
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work. I never was drafted for nothi
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more German than I was I guess. (la
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Of course there were war clouds han
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A: Twice a month. Q: Twice a month?
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There was neighbor against neighbor
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A: And they did, so that's . . . Q:
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SESSION 4, TAPE 7, SIDE 2 Q: That w
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' I 59 you couldn't get across that
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A: Well they didn't have none of th
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A: Oh no, never saw any. I saw some
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VOTE FOR LELAND J. KENNEDY DEMOCRAT
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Q: Now when you first went in did y
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A: A port of embarkation or for sup
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A: Oh yes. I'm sorry about that now
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A: Alright. August. I'll tell you -
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And he got out before I did, but he
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A: No no, never said a word. Oh the
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though. He was a good talker, and o
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play cards or just talk. Women like
Page 91 and 92: Q: Yes sir. A: We had a strike in s
Page 93 and 94: Of course you'd have a lot of lawye
Page 95 and 96: A: Well that was - that was the bes
Page 97 and 98: polls in a particular city and he's
Page 99 and 100: Q: Yes. A: Bond never did like bein
Page 101 and 102: wife and family when you're out, or
Page 103 and 104: of Illinois) library and muse aroun
Page 105 and 106: A: Well legislative process, commit
Page 107 and 108: A: Yes I think so, had a column. We
Page 109 and 110: A: Well I recall - I guess they're
Page 111 and 112: state central committeeman. Now sta
Page 113 and 114: not an Italian name, but what those
Page 115 and 116: Q: Oh? WOKZ in Alton, Illinois? A:
Page 117 and 118: This is going back, and I don't hav
Page 119 and 120: had twelve in the pool. I think it
Page 121 and 122: Q: Oh is that right? A: Oh my first
Page 123 and 124: a federal gasoline tax thirty years
Page 125 and 126: Q: No sir, no sir. Well let's see,
Page 127 and 128: they changed those desks after reap
Page 129 and 130: Q: He started that in the 1951 sess
Page 131 and 132: That wasn't a bone of contention a
Page 133 and 134: Q: Oh I see. A: I think they'd do t
Page 135 and 136: Talking about lodging, 1'11 always
Page 137 and 138: his wife's sister. Of course they w
Page 139 and 140: A: Oh did she? Q: Yes. A: Well some
Page 141: And a lot of those people are all g
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