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Bowen Country Club
Hull House: Bowen Country Club
Vince Romano
November 2004
Taylor Street Archives
www.taylorstreetarchives.com
In India, they have a saying reserved for those individuals who had
influenced and reshaped our lives. That saying is, “You are my Gemma.”
The Gemma is a tributary to the Ganges River. From the point at which
the Gemma flows into the Ganges, the Ganges is no longer the same
river. Its course is forever influenced by the Gemma as it winds its way
down to the ocean--ultimately influencing and shaping the landscape of
distant shores.
“You are my Gemma.” A tribute reserved for those who had become our
Gemmas during our personal journeys through life. A tribute reserved
for those who made us something different than we would have been had
we not met them. If we became something different than we would have
been because of our experiences at the Jane Addams’ Hull House Bowen
Country Club (BCC), then, by definition, Bowen Country Club was a
Gemma to us.
Many of us have praised the Hicks, both Ada and Bob, and deservedly so,
for the experiences we encountered at the Bowen Country Club. Some
have done so with thoughtful eloquence as attested to by their writings,
which they graciously shared with us. The majority of us had not,
however, openly expressed the impact the Hicks’ and the other
ingredients that made up this phenomenon we know as the Bowen
Country Club had upon our lives. Our silence does not mean we were/are
oblivious to the impact of Bowen Country Club in shaping and defining
us.
“…and not so easily described, are those memories that travel the back
roads of our minds.”
Each of us came away with our own set of BCC memories. Some were
vividly imprinted upon our senses and emerge as the cognitive memories
of recognizable people, places and events. Other memories, not so easily
identifiable and not so easily described, are those affective memories that
travel the back roads of our minds. Those affective memories, blurred
feelings of bliss, are periodically awakened within us, Pavlovian style, by
a thought…a sound…a word…a summer breeze. Those memories were
imprinted upon us by that complex pool of Gemmas that made up our
Bowen Country Club world of campers, staff members, directors, and the
physical setting of BCC—(not necessarily in that order).
The metamorphosis that occurred on those 72 acres was subtle.
Recognizable or not, seeds that were planted decades earlier at Bowen
Country Club contributed to what we later achieved during our lifetime
and all that we eventually became.
For many of us, it was only after we had settled into our 3 bedroom
suburban air conditioned homes or only after we celebrated our children’
s breaking the blue collar cycle that we paused to reflect upon the course
our lives had taken and the impact our BCC experience had upon us. Not
only had our Bowen Country Club experience been a Gemma to us, it also
afforded us the opportunity to become Gemmas to the lives of those
whom we, in turn, later touched. Like Richard Bach’s Jonathan
Livingston Seagull, we did not remain “pages in search of a word.” We
became, in due course, “words in search of a page.”
“We welcome you to BCC; we’re mighty glad you’re here.”
Was it the song that made us feel so special…or was it the singer(s)?
“Those were the best years of my life”… “I can never forget that place
and all the people who meant so much to me”... “Simply and purely,
Bowen Country Club was Shangri-La for those of us who grew up on the
streets of our Little Italy (The Hull House Neighborhood)”…“How can
you measure bliss?” Comments such as these are heard over and over
again from those who were both participants in and beneficiaries of this
phenomenon called Bowen Country Club.
Each of us, as in the classic Japanese novel, Roshomon, had come away
with our own perceptions of what Bowen Country Club meant to us.
They came to us in a variety of shapes and forms.
Following are a handful of my BCC memories…and a glimpse of those
who became my Gemmas:
The exhilaration of packing my suitcase (shopping bags were not an
uncommon sight) in preparation for leaving the hot city streets that the
lake breezes rarely managed to penetrated. Taylor Street was the only
world any of us had ever known until our pilgrimages to BCC began.
The cinders blowing into the open windows of the Northwestern 400 as
we sped along the tracks to our BCC destination.
A Hutchinson boy (pre-pubescent obviously) asking Danny DeFalco, as
Danny put on his athletic supporter in the shower, “Why do you wear
that?” Equally memorable was Danny’s carefully crafted answer.
The first glimpse of a “blue” Lake Michigan on our initial hike to the
beach. So blue, there were arguments over whether or not it was the same
Lake Michigan whose waves washed over the sands of the Twelfth Street
Beach back home in Chicago.
“…and for a while there, we had a chance to be ourselves.”
A banner hung in the BCC dining room to commemorate the 257 known
alumni of Bowen Country Club who had gone off to fight in WWII.
Those BCC family members, decades later, were recognized, and
rightfully so, as the “greatest generation.” One of them, Mike Garippo,
one of my early Hutchinson counselors, gave his life in that war. (Mike
was one of our home grown Taylor Street bred counselors.) Later, when
his memory continued to emerge, I made a case for his immortality. It
went something like this: If he had become a Gemma to us, and one of us
had become a Gemma to at least one other person (and on and on), could
one not make the case that he is still, and always will be, with us?
Ray DiJulio, blinded in WWII, often visited BCC. His presence removed
any misconceptions about the realities of war. He was a constant
reminder of what it took to be a member of that “greatest generation.”
Marrying his childhood sweetheart, Ray spent his honeymoon at BCC.
For the record, it wasn’t long afterward (circa 1970) that Alistaire Cooke
announced to the world, in a nationally televised program, that Alphonse
Capone was representative of the contributions made by Italians who had
emigrated to this country. I always wondered how Mrs. Garippo and Mrs.
DiJulio (and the other 255 mothers, for that matter) received that
announcement.
During that same time period, a resident artist of Taylor Street’s Hull
House, Willard Motley, had researched and written a best selling novel,
“Knock on Any Door.” The theme of that 1949 novel has been included
in every enlightened treatise on the development of human behavior.
That best seller served as a prophetic reminder that we had been
imprinted by experiences long before our encounters at Bowen Country
Club. For some of us, those early indelible experiences had inoculated us
against what could have been our latter day Gemmas. The source of
those profound failures is not so readily identifiable. At least, not to the
naked eye.
We were made of the stuff of stars...starstuff!
Who can ever forget the celestial beauty of the almost touchable sky, with
its shooting stars and, if you were lucky to be there at the right time of
the year, the northern lights? A billion stars in each of a billion galaxies,
as we later learned. During those memorable BCC nights, looking up at
the shores of that cosmic ocean, we somehow knew, long before
astronomers had discovered, that we were made of the stuff of stars. We
were “star stuff!”
Lady “Em,”(I believe I gave her that name during our first encounter)
who along with the other North Shore debutantes to be, was/were
important and necessary ingredients to this nursery from which emerged
that phenomenon we know as Bowen Country Club. I always felt that we
were as much of a Gemma to those who came from the North Shore as
they had been to us, their Taylor Street counterparts.
…a subtle reminder of the depth of the gene pool that had been
imported from the land of our ancestors
Vince Vitullo, another home bred counselor (2nd generation Italian-
American I later learned), but not your garden variety Taylor Street
resident with their “deez and doze.” (Yeah, we said “deez and doze”
instead of “these and those.”) Vince was a crucial part of the BCC mix.
He was a subtle but constant reminder of the depth of the gene pool that
had been imported from the land of our ancestors. He continues to serve
with distinction as a professor of law at DePaul University. How ironic it
would have been had Vince Vitullo also been involved in the only trial in
history in which the double jeopardy protection afforded by the
constitution had been challenged.
Who could ever forget Tony Barbaro and Jasper in Hutchinson Cottage’s
rendition of, I’m a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch? “Jasper, if
you don’t boo-hoo now, you will boo-hoo tonight.” I choose to preserve
that memory of Jasper and Tony Barbaro, along with some of my other
BCC Gemmas. Their names are harbored among the bricks making up
the recently dedicated memorial for Bob and Ada Hicks.
Had anyone ever taken the time to say, “Thank you” to Mrs. Caruso (and
Kirby Caruso for that matter) for that Caruso smile?
We all remember that Caruso smile (Lu, Sis, et al.). Greeting us each day,
it seemed to say, “Not only is this going to be a great day, but your being
here with us will make it that much more enjoyable.” I always wondered
whether anyone had ever taken the time to say, “Thank you” to Mrs.
Caruso (and Kirby Caruso for that matter) for that Caruso smile. As an
aside, who can ever forget Kirby’s reaction when Lu Caruso announced
that she was going to California to teach, “California (avenue)…that’s
close. You won’t have to travel too far to get to work.”
On another note, how many of us still remember the botanist, brought
into the mix, by whomever, to enhance and elevate our knowledge of
nature? As I recall, he, the botanist, managed to get only one tree
correctly labeled. But we didn’t need to know the scientific names of the
trees to become aware of our relationship with that ocean of green, which
began at the steps of Rosenwald Cottage and reached out to and beyond
the physical boundaries of our BCC world…and the cosmos that opened
up to us on that first overnight hike to those isolated beaches. Yes, Luke
Skywalker had Yoda but we had our Bowen Country Club.
There are a thousand memories that impacted upon us: Being greeted by
the Hicks’ and the emerald blue swimming pool at the end of our long
march from the train station…Becky and Goodfellow Hall… The ravines
that wound around and through Hutchinson, Mary Smith, Lansing, and
eventually beyond the boundaries that made up Camp French (“girls
coming”)…Oscar’s first appearance in the dining hall (“Come in, come
in…”)…Rose Ann and her gentian violet crusade…and on…and on…and
on…and on. Treasured memories too numerous to list here. Some of
those memories we mutually shared with our fellow campers. Some of
those memories were special to us alone and not mutually shared with
others. And then there were some memories which we, only later, came
to realized were not ours alone but were memories others had also
carefully packed away and stored in their BCC treasure chests.
Away from the hot asphalt streets…away from sidewalks shielded from
the lake breezes…and away from the matressed fire escapes, we were
afforded the opportunity to grow beyond the restrictions of our isolated
and secluded neighborhoods. Bowen Country Club, above all else, was a
Nursery…a Gemma Nursery. While we sought and received sustenance
from it, each of us, in turn, had contributed to and enriched the random
orchestration of that cosmic fugue.
“…remember, when you’re away. For you all belong to Bowen and
Bowen belongs to you.”
During our last evening at BCC, the entire camp gathered at the Bowen
Field campsite. It was time to say goodbye…not just to the new faces and
names we met there, but to the new friends that emerged from old
acquaintances. As the flames gave way to the glowing embers, we,
reluctantly, began our final trip back to our respective cottages. The
words and the melody finally succumbed to the silence of the night. The
memory, however, we carried with us…beyond our cottages…beyond
those 72 acres…beyond that brief span of time.
TAYLOR STREET ARCHIVES
www.taylorstreetarchives.com
This directory, the Taylor Street Archives, is primarily designed to
preserve the names and memories (via your stories) of those who:
Attended Bowen Country Club as campers and/or staff members, or
Emigrated to the Taylor Street neighborhood from Italy at the turn of the
20th century; or
Were raised in Taylor Street’s “Little Italy.”
For additional information regarding listing in the Taylor Street Archives
and/or to include your stories, contact:
Vincent J. Romano
1524 So. Sangamon #803
Chicago, IL 60608
Email: vromano@taylorstreetarchives.com
Business: 888-724-7392 (toll free)
312-443-6240
Cell: 312-218-4044
Vince Romano
November 2004
Taylor Street Archives
www.taylorstreetarchives.com
In India, they have a saying reserved for those individuals who had
influenced and reshaped our lives. That saying is, “You are my Gemma.”
The Gemma is a tributary to the Ganges River. From the point at which
the Gemma flows into the Ganges, the Ganges is no longer the same
river. Its course is forever influenced by the Gemma as it winds its way
down to the ocean--ultimately influencing and shaping the landscape of
distant shores.
“You are my Gemma.” A tribute reserved for those who had become our
Gemmas during our personal journeys through life. A tribute reserved
for those who made us something different than we would have been had
we not met them. If we became something different than we would have
been because of our experiences at the Jane Addams’ Hull House Bowen
Country Club (BCC), then, by definition, Bowen Country Club was a
Gemma to us.
Many of us have praised the Hicks, both Ada and Bob, and deservedly so,
for the experiences we encountered at the Bowen Country Club. Some
have done so with thoughtful eloquence as attested to by their writings,
which they graciously shared with us. The majority of us had not,
however, openly expressed the impact the Hicks’ and the other
ingredients that made up this phenomenon we know as the Bowen
Country Club had upon our lives. Our silence does not mean we were/are
oblivious to the impact of Bowen Country Club in shaping and defining
us.
“…and not so easily described, are those memories that travel the back
roads of our minds.”
Each of us came away with our own set of BCC memories. Some were
vividly imprinted upon our senses and emerge as the cognitive memories
of recognizable people, places and events. Other memories, not so easily
identifiable and not so easily described, are those affective memories that
travel the back roads of our minds. Those affective memories, blurred
feelings of bliss, are periodically awakened within us, Pavlovian style, by
a thought…a sound…a word…a summer breeze. Those memories were
imprinted upon us by that complex pool of Gemmas that made up our
Bowen Country Club world of campers, staff members, directors, and the
physical setting of BCC—(not necessarily in that order).
The metamorphosis that occurred on those 72 acres was subtle.
Recognizable or not, seeds that were planted decades earlier at Bowen
Country Club contributed to what we later achieved during our lifetime
and all that we eventually became.
For many of us, it was only after we had settled into our 3 bedroom
suburban air conditioned homes or only after we celebrated our children’
s breaking the blue collar cycle that we paused to reflect upon the course
our lives had taken and the impact our BCC experience had upon us. Not
only had our Bowen Country Club experience been a Gemma to us, it also
afforded us the opportunity to become Gemmas to the lives of those
whom we, in turn, later touched. Like Richard Bach’s Jonathan
Livingston Seagull, we did not remain “pages in search of a word.” We
became, in due course, “words in search of a page.”
“We welcome you to BCC; we’re mighty glad you’re here.”
Was it the song that made us feel so special…or was it the singer(s)?
“Those were the best years of my life”… “I can never forget that place
and all the people who meant so much to me”... “Simply and purely,
Bowen Country Club was Shangri-La for those of us who grew up on the
streets of our Little Italy (The Hull House Neighborhood)”…“How can
you measure bliss?” Comments such as these are heard over and over
again from those who were both participants in and beneficiaries of this
phenomenon called Bowen Country Club.
Each of us, as in the classic Japanese novel, Roshomon, had come away
with our own perceptions of what Bowen Country Club meant to us.
They came to us in a variety of shapes and forms.
Following are a handful of my BCC memories…and a glimpse of those
who became my Gemmas:
The exhilaration of packing my suitcase (shopping bags were not an
uncommon sight) in preparation for leaving the hot city streets that the
lake breezes rarely managed to penetrated. Taylor Street was the only
world any of us had ever known until our pilgrimages to BCC began.
The cinders blowing into the open windows of the Northwestern 400 as
we sped along the tracks to our BCC destination.
A Hutchinson boy (pre-pubescent obviously) asking Danny DeFalco, as
Danny put on his athletic supporter in the shower, “Why do you wear
that?” Equally memorable was Danny’s carefully crafted answer.
The first glimpse of a “blue” Lake Michigan on our initial hike to the
beach. So blue, there were arguments over whether or not it was the same
Lake Michigan whose waves washed over the sands of the Twelfth Street
Beach back home in Chicago.
“…and for a while there, we had a chance to be ourselves.”
A banner hung in the BCC dining room to commemorate the 257 known
alumni of Bowen Country Club who had gone off to fight in WWII.
Those BCC family members, decades later, were recognized, and
rightfully so, as the “greatest generation.” One of them, Mike Garippo,
one of my early Hutchinson counselors, gave his life in that war. (Mike
was one of our home grown Taylor Street bred counselors.) Later, when
his memory continued to emerge, I made a case for his immortality. It
went something like this: If he had become a Gemma to us, and one of us
had become a Gemma to at least one other person (and on and on), could
one not make the case that he is still, and always will be, with us?
Ray DiJulio, blinded in WWII, often visited BCC. His presence removed
any misconceptions about the realities of war. He was a constant
reminder of what it took to be a member of that “greatest generation.”
Marrying his childhood sweetheart, Ray spent his honeymoon at BCC.
For the record, it wasn’t long afterward (circa 1970) that Alistaire Cooke
announced to the world, in a nationally televised program, that Alphonse
Capone was representative of the contributions made by Italians who had
emigrated to this country. I always wondered how Mrs. Garippo and Mrs.
DiJulio (and the other 255 mothers, for that matter) received that
announcement.
During that same time period, a resident artist of Taylor Street’s Hull
House, Willard Motley, had researched and written a best selling novel,
“Knock on Any Door.” The theme of that 1949 novel has been included
in every enlightened treatise on the development of human behavior.
That best seller served as a prophetic reminder that we had been
imprinted by experiences long before our encounters at Bowen Country
Club. For some of us, those early indelible experiences had inoculated us
against what could have been our latter day Gemmas. The source of
those profound failures is not so readily identifiable. At least, not to the
naked eye.
We were made of the stuff of stars...starstuff!
Who can ever forget the celestial beauty of the almost touchable sky, with
its shooting stars and, if you were lucky to be there at the right time of
the year, the northern lights? A billion stars in each of a billion galaxies,
as we later learned. During those memorable BCC nights, looking up at
the shores of that cosmic ocean, we somehow knew, long before
astronomers had discovered, that we were made of the stuff of stars. We
were “star stuff!”
Lady “Em,”(I believe I gave her that name during our first encounter)
who along with the other North Shore debutantes to be, was/were
important and necessary ingredients to this nursery from which emerged
that phenomenon we know as Bowen Country Club. I always felt that we
were as much of a Gemma to those who came from the North Shore as
they had been to us, their Taylor Street counterparts.
…a subtle reminder of the depth of the gene pool that had been
imported from the land of our ancestors
Vince Vitullo, another home bred counselor (2nd generation Italian-
American I later learned), but not your garden variety Taylor Street
resident with their “deez and doze.” (Yeah, we said “deez and doze”
instead of “these and those.”) Vince was a crucial part of the BCC mix.
He was a subtle but constant reminder of the depth of the gene pool that
had been imported from the land of our ancestors. He continues to serve
with distinction as a professor of law at DePaul University. How ironic it
would have been had Vince Vitullo also been involved in the only trial in
history in which the double jeopardy protection afforded by the
constitution had been challenged.
Who could ever forget Tony Barbaro and Jasper in Hutchinson Cottage’s
rendition of, I’m a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch? “Jasper, if
you don’t boo-hoo now, you will boo-hoo tonight.” I choose to preserve
that memory of Jasper and Tony Barbaro, along with some of my other
BCC Gemmas. Their names are harbored among the bricks making up
the recently dedicated memorial for Bob and Ada Hicks.
Had anyone ever taken the time to say, “Thank you” to Mrs. Caruso (and
Kirby Caruso for that matter) for that Caruso smile?
We all remember that Caruso smile (Lu, Sis, et al.). Greeting us each day,
it seemed to say, “Not only is this going to be a great day, but your being
here with us will make it that much more enjoyable.” I always wondered
whether anyone had ever taken the time to say, “Thank you” to Mrs.
Caruso (and Kirby Caruso for that matter) for that Caruso smile. As an
aside, who can ever forget Kirby’s reaction when Lu Caruso announced
that she was going to California to teach, “California (avenue)…that’s
close. You won’t have to travel too far to get to work.”
On another note, how many of us still remember the botanist, brought
into the mix, by whomever, to enhance and elevate our knowledge of
nature? As I recall, he, the botanist, managed to get only one tree
correctly labeled. But we didn’t need to know the scientific names of the
trees to become aware of our relationship with that ocean of green, which
began at the steps of Rosenwald Cottage and reached out to and beyond
the physical boundaries of our BCC world…and the cosmos that opened
up to us on that first overnight hike to those isolated beaches. Yes, Luke
Skywalker had Yoda but we had our Bowen Country Club.
There are a thousand memories that impacted upon us: Being greeted by
the Hicks’ and the emerald blue swimming pool at the end of our long
march from the train station…Becky and Goodfellow Hall… The ravines
that wound around and through Hutchinson, Mary Smith, Lansing, and
eventually beyond the boundaries that made up Camp French (“girls
coming”)…Oscar’s first appearance in the dining hall (“Come in, come
in…”)…Rose Ann and her gentian violet crusade…and on…and on…and
on…and on. Treasured memories too numerous to list here. Some of
those memories we mutually shared with our fellow campers. Some of
those memories were special to us alone and not mutually shared with
others. And then there were some memories which we, only later, came
to realized were not ours alone but were memories others had also
carefully packed away and stored in their BCC treasure chests.
Away from the hot asphalt streets…away from sidewalks shielded from
the lake breezes…and away from the matressed fire escapes, we were
afforded the opportunity to grow beyond the restrictions of our isolated
and secluded neighborhoods. Bowen Country Club, above all else, was a
Nursery…a Gemma Nursery. While we sought and received sustenance
from it, each of us, in turn, had contributed to and enriched the random
orchestration of that cosmic fugue.
“…remember, when you’re away. For you all belong to Bowen and
Bowen belongs to you.”
During our last evening at BCC, the entire camp gathered at the Bowen
Field campsite. It was time to say goodbye…not just to the new faces and
names we met there, but to the new friends that emerged from old
acquaintances. As the flames gave way to the glowing embers, we,
reluctantly, began our final trip back to our respective cottages. The
words and the melody finally succumbed to the silence of the night. The
memory, however, we carried with us…beyond our cottages…beyond
those 72 acres…beyond that brief span of time.
TAYLOR STREET ARCHIVES
www.taylorstreetarchives.com
This directory, the Taylor Street Archives, is primarily designed to
preserve the names and memories (via your stories) of those who:
Attended Bowen Country Club as campers and/or staff members, or
Emigrated to the Taylor Street neighborhood from Italy at the turn of the
20th century; or
Were raised in Taylor Street’s “Little Italy.”
For additional information regarding listing in the Taylor Street Archives
and/or to include your stories, contact:
Vincent J. Romano
1524 So. Sangamon #803
Chicago, IL 60608
Email: vromano@taylorstreetarchives.com
Business: 888-724-7392 (toll free)
312-443-6240
Cell: 312-218-4044
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