Religion - Bob

 Bob, Chris’ father, wasn’t much keen on formal religion.  Jan tried hard to make him a church-going man but he resisted.  She’d get the boys all dressed up in their little suits. She'd put on her own nice hat for their Sunday outing.  Nevertheless, Bob stayed home almost every week.

These photos of the family going to church must have been taken on Easter.

Chris, Gregory, Bob circa 1955 - (photo taken by Jan)

Jan, Matt, Chris, Bob about 1955 (photo taken by Gregory)

Religion was a bigger part of Bob’s childhood than of his adulthood.  Bob’s early childhood was spent in China.  Bob’s father, Howard, was born in Hwanghsien to Baptist missionary parents.  He lived there until Bob was about seven. 

Howard had long since stepped away from his parents’ fervent missionary zeal.  As a young adult, he worked in business. Howard’s fluency in both Chinese and English made him a valuable employee in Shanghai and Chefoo.

Bob’s mother, Fleeta, also came from a strong religious family.  Her father was an itinerant preacher,  traveling through the USA.  He brought his large family with him in a covered wagon.

Howard and Fleeta brought young Bob, and his older brother, to live in the United States when it became extremely dangerous to continue living in China.

The family settled into a pleasant town of Columbia, Missouri.  Other members of the Stephens family had established themselves there.  Howard and Fleeta joined a bible study group that lasted for decades.  Those group members were dear friends of one another.

Bob went to church with his brother and parents.  Even when he’d grown, married and brought his own children back to visit Columbia, he was expected to attend church on Sunday.

When Bob’s sons got a little older, they occasionally visited their grandparents in Columbia alone.  Chris went quite a few times. Of course he went to church with them, but it was to Chris’ brother, Matt, that Howard taught the Fly Catcher game.

One can play this game when sitting in church and listening to a long sermon that doesn’t quite engage your interest.  Howard explained how it worked to young Matt.

1.  Sit very still

2.  Hold your hand in a loose fist, and raise it up so it’s the highest thing for inches around (flies like height)

3.  Rest the thumb against the curled forefinger in such a way as to create a tempting spot for flies

4.  Wait

5.  When conditions are perfect, a fly buzzing around the church will land on your bent finger, its legs in the tiny crevice formed by thumb against finger

6.  Close thumb nail against the finger, thereby trapping the fly’s legs.

7. Hurray!  You’ve caught a fly

Matt asked his grandfather how long he’d been playing this game in church.

“Oh goodness, for ages,” said Howard.

“How many flies have you caught so far?”

Howard’s exact answer does not come down clearly to posterity.  What is clear is that Howard was a good man.  There were some things he looked very much about religion and others that he didn’t.

It was the same with Bob.

It is the same with Chris.  Even now, though Chris has completely detached himself from organized religion, he continues to admire the memories of majesty and music of the services at St. Luke’s church.

Religion - Chris and St. Luke's

 

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St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, in Evanston Illinois, had a fabulous organ. Chris loved that organ. Its music filled the huge church and filled young Chris’ ears and heart.

The church was architecturally beautiful. It served a large, affluent congregation just north of Chicago. This grand church appealed to Chris’mother, Jan. She started bringing her boys to St. Luke’s soon after they moved to Chicago.

The music, the windows, the ceremony, the special feeling of awe and reverence in the church, all of these appealed to Chris.

Chris joined the boys’ choir when he was 7 or 8. There were about 25 boys, led by a somewhat stern choir master. The master got results though. Chris really loved the sounds the choir made in the big church. “We were GOOD,” Chris tells me now.

Chris’ mother drove him to choir practice. The choir boys were paid for practice and for singing on Sundays - about $4.35 each month. That came to less than 25 cents per hour. Chris was tickled on payday each month but he wasn’t in it for the money. He was in it for the music.

Chris’ pure boy’s voice began to change after several years. At age 13, boys were allowed to become acolytes. Chris did. The acolytes assisted the priests in their religious ceremonies. He liked having the responsibility and participating in the ritual. He continued to love being in St. Luke’s.

Chris loved going to church more than anyone else in his family. He might have been the only one to really love it.

Louisa Scioscia Stephens, March 26, 2023

480 Hazel Avenue - 1954

 1954 - 1963

More Adventures

 in first glencoe neighborhood

Winter Ice Planet

 Wind raged for several days while the temperature froze every bit of moisture. Breathing hurt. Chris was about 10 years old. He was restless. One clear day he dressed warmly and went outside. He walked about a half mile, through the cold wind, to Lake Michigan.

This beach that was closest to their apartment was not a good for summer swimming. A floor of rocks, not sand, lay under the water and at the edge. On this freezing winter day, however, the beach was fantastic.

An other-worldly ice-scape rose up off the lake. Wind had whipped up big waves and the moving water froze in motion. There were ice mountains and valleys and caves. There were also oddly shaped structures, like ice tunnels and high twisted ice towers. Some rose up 10 feet off the surface of the frozen water.

Obviously Chris was intrigued. He climbed over the ice covered shore rocks, onto Lake Michigan. Near the edge, the water was frozen solid. He wandered into the ice-scape. He explored. He tried daring slides and impossible climbs.

When he got too cold, he went home - but he came back the next day, and the next. The wind continued and giant ice shapes were changed each time he came back. The dynamic elements re-sculpted them again and again.

Chris did not think playing on this other planet - this ice planet - was incredibly dangerous. He did have enough sense, though, to realize some might. He wisely refrained from mentioning it to his mother. These adventures on Lake Michigan’s magical winter wonderland were so thrilling that it was hard not to tell anyone at all.

Chris told his younger brother. Greg was six or seven. Chris’ enthusiasm was contagious. Greg was enthralled too. He wanted to go. He pestered Chris so much that Chris finally agreed.

The next day the young boys bundled up. They walked to the lake. It was every bit as incredible as Chris had described. Huge and fantastic shapes rose from the frozen surface. It was, truly, a winter ice planet.

I can see the scene. In one direction, the Chicago skyline makes sharp points against the clear blue sky. White winter lies against the endless blue, in the other direction. Lake Michigan stretches away from the shore to a distant horizon.

In all that white and blue, too cold for most, two lone boys clamber over bizarre and outlandish ice shapes. It was sensational. They had a splendid time.

first house in Glencoe

 The family only stayed in the bright Greenview apartment for about a year.  It was nestled up near the boundary between the city of Chicago and Evanston, the first of the northern shore suburbs. Those suburbs -  with good schools, wide lawns, and classy residents - beckoned Jan.  This was where she wanted her boys to live.

In about 1952, when Chris was 9, the family moved to a house in Glencoe.   The house, on Jackson or Linden, was very near the elementary school.  It was positioned diagonally across the street from a small park (now called The Robert E. Everly Wildflower Sanctuary).

Although this park was only about one acre, it was teeming with small wildlife and woodland flowers.  Chris spent time wandering the trails and exploring nature.

Chris also wandered much further afield.  There was an open lot some ways south of their house.  It was littered with broken glass, metal machine parts and other odd bits of man-made discards.  Chris liked exploring here also.

One day, on the empty lot, Chris found a fascinating treasure.  Mercury!  It was in a large container.  The container was too big and heavy for Chris to bring home, but he wanted some mercury.

Chris ran back to his house for a little jar and a spoon.  Back in the abandoned lot, amidst the broken glass and other rubble, he carefully spooned the liquid metal into his glass jar.  The mercury slid over the glass, gliding not sticking.  It didn’t stick to the spoon either.  

Mercury used to be called quicksilver.  That name fits well.  The quicksilver/mercury seemed to move in slow motion, independent of the usual laws of physics.  The liquid balled in the spoon or in Chris’ hands.  It was fun to roll the liquid across a surface.

Back home, Chris kept this almost magical treasure a private matter.  Instinct told him his parents wouldn’t like him having it.  And they didn’t.  Jan and Bob were horrified.  

“Dangerous!  Ingested, it’s poison!  Don’t handle it!  Mercury’s toxic even through skin!”

Chris’ parents took it away from him.

Chris was disappointed.  He was enchanted with the peculiarities of this elemental metal and would have liked to continue playing with it.  

Fortunately there were plenty of other appealing activities from that house in Glencoe across from the park.

Comic Books

Chris’ mother didn’t approve of comic books.  My mother didn’t either.  Neither of us were permitted to buy comics.  We weren’t exactly forbidden from reading them though.

I remember the extreme pleasure I had one day when my parents dragged us over to their friends, the Hardins, for a family to family visit.  The Hardin children were permitted comics.  They had comics galore upstairs in their attic family room.  My brothers played trains,or something, with the Hardin boys.  I read through the treasure boxes of Archie and Veronica, Superman and Lois Lane, Nancy, - even Mad Magazine and Action Adventure comics.

Chris had much better, more regular, access to the restricted material.  Every week the Stephens brothers had a hair cut. The barber shop kept an ample supply of comics on hand. Chris read while he waited and even read while his hair was being cut.

Beyond the barber shop, Chris continued his interest in comics.  Somehow he acquired a few, which he put into his little red wagon.  It was the start of his first book business.  Chris wheeled the wagon back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the empty lot.  He traded comics - one from the wagon in exchange for three from the customer.  The ratio worked.  The customer had already read, any times, the three he gave up.  They were devalued in his mind compared to the one he hadn’t read yet.

Chris’ little wagon comic business prospered.  The wagon filled up and then some.  Now, seventy years later, Chris likes to speculate on the value of that inventory.  Millions probaby! The inventory didn’t make it through their next move though. The comics “mysteriously” disappeared.  Chris’ mother never did approve.

My mother might well have committed the same judgemental high crime and dreadful waste of a future fortune.

In this handful of photos of Chris that Isabel’s Uncle Gregory gave her, the one all the way on the right is the comic book entrepreneur himself.