Dusty Streets
By Barbara Schock
When Carl Sandburg was
growing up, the streets of Galesburg were mostly
dirt. Originally, in the center of town, six
streets had been laid out at right angles. As more
streets were added to serve a growing population,
some angled streets, such as Grand Avenue and
Monmouth Boulevard, were added as short cuts to
Knoxville and Monmouth.
The dirt streets became
dusty during dry weather in the summer, and muddy
during wet periods in summer and winter. Of
course, the droppings of the horses added to the
mixture of airborne particles and odors.
One of Sandburg’s earliest
memories was of enjoying the feel of the dust
between his toes on South Street where his family
lived from 1879 until 1882. He was just a toddler
wearing a long white dress hand-sewn by his
mother. That was the customary way of dressing
children in those days.
August and Clara Sandburg
also had three daughters. They didn’t play outside
as much as their brothers. They were taught to do
household tasks, such as sewing, embroidery and
simple tasks in the kitchen. Mrs. Sandburg may
have made corn-husk dolls for her girls to play
with at home.
The girls could play
tic-tac-toe, hide and seek and hopscotch with
their brothers. Dominoes might be played on cold
winter nights by all members of the family.
As he grew older, Carl
found many kinds of games to play with his
friends. They used the wooden sidewalks for
spinning tops and spilling jackstraws. When they
could get chalk, tic-tac-toe was the game of
choice. Mumble-peg was played on the grass. How
the boys secured a knife to play the game must
have been a mystery to some parents. Older boys
commonly had jack knives to carry in their
pockets. They came in handy for all kinds of
repairs and opening of containers.
Baseball was a very popular
game which boys everywhere played. The dusty
street, a cow pasture, any open space could be
laid out with makeshift bases. The ball and bats
were also improvised from string and scrap wood.
When the City of Galesburg
installed an electric light at the intersection of
Day and Berrien Streets, the boys played baseball
at night. They used their voices to shout for
themselves if they were winning. They also shouted
if they were losing the game to cheer themselves.
The police came in the
patrol wagon to warn the players about making so
much noise. On another occasion, a railroad worker
who was trying to get his needed sleep so he would
be ready for work the next day, came out of his
house and shot a revolver into the air. Some of
the boys ran away. Others decided playing baseball
in the evening in the street wasn’t worth the
risk. They found other things to do.
All of the boys had been
told by their mothers to wash the dust from their
feet before they came into the house for the
night. That was easy enough to do under the pump
of the well in the backyard. It was fun to stretch
the foot under the spout and lift the handle at
the same time to bring up the cool water.