Souvenir photograph taken February, 1939 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, IL. Adeline Thuerks corsage was a gift from John Sundblad for her 20th birthday.
By Donna Sundblad
Charlie and Frieda Thuerk owned a small store at 1500 Main Street in Evanston, Illinois, for sixty years. The home where they raised nine children connected to the mom and pop operation known by locals as the Royal Blue Store. Their sixth child, Adeline loved flowers and children and as she grew older helped in the store, usually around dinner time.
In 1938, at the age of nineteen, she worked as a housekeeper and nanny for the Bowe’s family’s one-year-old little girl, Betsy.
This is the year Adeline met the love of her life. Twenty-one-year old John Sundblad lived one block from her, but she didn’t really know him except for the fact that Johnny came into the Royal Blue regularly to buy cigarettes.
Adeline traveled by bus to and from her job. One day after work she headed toward the bus stop and approached the five-story Orrington Hotel. From a distance she spotted John Sundblad standing on the sidewalk in front of the pillared entrance working as Bellman and waiting for residents to pull up.
He looked handsome in his uniform, his curly, dark hair tucked under a hat.
Hello, Miss Thuerk, he said with a smile. If you’d like a ride home, Ill be getting off work in five minutes. That’s my car across the street. He nodded toward his blue convertible, a 1934 blue Buick Roadster. Go ahead and sit in the car.
Thank you. Adeline climbed in and admired the car while she waited. Johnny Sundblad drove her home without much conversation, but a week later he came into the Royal Blue and asked Charlie Thuerk if he could take his daughter to a movie theater that night.
Adeline’s dad came into the house and told her that John wanted to take her to see a movie.
Do you want to go? Adeline said, Yes, and that date began a two-year courtship. At the theater the show began with a vaudeville act, followed by about fifteen minutes of live organ music, and finally the movie. After this first date, they enjoyed the movies about once a week and started getting together with other friends.
As a group, they drove to a dance hall in Chicago called the Aragon Ballroom. We usually went there every Saturday night, and had a great time with all of our friends and also two of my brothers and their girlfriends. It was fun. The men wore jackets and ties and the women wore Sunday dresses.
In February, 1939, John bought Adeline a corsage and took her dancing at the Aragon for her twentieth birthday. Men wearing tuxedos monitored the dance floor to be sure the dancers didn’t dance close or jitterbug while the band played. Little lights dotted the ceiling high overhead. It looked like you were dancing under the stars, Adeline recalls.
The following Christmas, John gave Adeline an engagement ring for Christmas and on October 17, 1940, they were married at the Evanston Lutheran Church by Rev. Wacherfuss. Adeline used her hard earned money to buy a lovely satin gown and John wore a tuxedo.
The newlyweds settled into a one-bedroom apartment above a grocery store for $35 a month. The short bathtub in the tiny bathroom forced one taking a bath to sit with their knees up to their chest. They found jobs within walking distance, which worked out just fine since John no longer owned a car. They took the bus or walked to go anywhere.
John brought home $18 a week as a milkman for the Bowman Dairy Co. while Adeline made $12 a week in a golf-ball factory. The small apartment served as their home for two years before moving to Chicago where John accepted a job for more money.
Adeline was expecting their first baby so they rented a two-bedroom apartment. Their first child, Pamela, was four months old when the Army drafted John to go to war. Two years later a hand delivered telegram informed Adeline John had been injured in France and would be coming home. John recovered and arrived home happy to see his two-year-old daughter and wife.
John and Adeline Sundblad eventually settled in Des Plaines, Illinois, where they raised four children, Pam, Glen, Dan and Richard. John died in a car accident in November of 1972 and Adeline currently resides in southwest Florida.
Published U.S. Legacies Feb 2005
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