When I was growing up, a great day out for my mother and me was a trip east down 111th Street from our apartment in Morgan Park, past the high school, two neighborhoods over to Roseland, home of Gately’s Peoples’ Store. Gately’s was kind of a combo department store and discount store before there was such a thing.
The southernmost neighborhood in Chicago, Morgan Park was a leafy hilly place, site of a private school with a handsome campus, and of a limestone library that we could see from our second floor apartment. Roseland was plainer, with its modest houses and tidy lawns set in a firm grid, the home of our rival high school. But it was one of our favorite haunts, thanks to Gately’s.
There was nothing fancy about the store. I remember squeaky wooden floors and glass-topped counters, and a giant center staircase. It had all the typical departments – ladies dresses, hosiery, fabrics and notions, childrens’ clothes. There was even a crowded lunch counter with tall skinny stools, I think in the basement, where you could grab a Coke if your shopping wore you out.
We’d look for whatever was the excuse for the trip – a dress for a special occasion, play clothes, a pattern and fabric that would make it to the living room closet but probably not into production. We always had more ambition than follow-through.
The best part was located in the center of the first floor – the bargain bins piled high with turtlenecks, mittens, sweaters, blouses, pajamas, socks. We’d leave with a dark green bag with Gately’s written in yellow script, as satisfied as hunters dragging home their prey.
On the way home, we’d stop for dinner at White Castle on 111th just west of the store. Nestled next to the multi-story YMCA, it had an Edward Hopper Nighthawks quality. We’d order sliders, those mini-burgers steamed and covered with onions, each tucked into its own cardboard box, and then for dessert, lemon meringue pie. As we ate, we’d rate our bargains, reliving their pleasures as golfers do the great putt on 14.
Money was not a big issue then in my life, just a means to ends like turtlenecks, food, fun, something to spend as little as possible of but not to worry about. I know now that my single mother was doing the worrying while successfully hiding it from me.
Since then, I’ve had my run-ins with money – the bounced checks for my $5 a week expenses once I went away to college without a clue about how to balance a checkbook, for instance. And much later the midnight anxiety about how on earth I was going to make payroll when I had my own business and my customers didn’t pay me on time, or at all.
But my modest start did me a favor – my financial setpoint is firmly and permanently fixed nice and low. I definitely love bargains more than I love spending. Nowadays, on the rare occasion that I overdo it on one big purchase or a flurry of smaller ones and take myself over my long-established threshold, I’ll be sorry. Even though I can afford the splurge now, I feel a little sick and a little guilty, as if I had eaten the whole lemon meringue pie myself.
I’ve transferred my allegiance now to consignment shops and outlet malls, but the thrill of those outings with Mom is long gone. I’d give a lot to wander back through Gately’s aisles for an afternoon with her and see how much of what I remember was actually there.
Do other people have Gately’s memories too? Apparently they do if my discovery of http://www.gatelysstoreinroseland.blogspot.com/ is any indication. The next time I get an impulse to shop, I think I’ll explore there instead. Think of the money I’ll save.
CBH 8/08
