Nicki and I finally finished remodeling our kitchen and living room this past week. The project seems like it took forever but it was just a little over two months. Everything looks great and we are getting used to the newness of it all. During upheavals like this (particularly in a 149-year-old house), you always come across some adventures and surprises.
When we stripped the old living room wallpaper we discovered four different paper hanger’s signatures penciled on the East wall. The oldest was too hard to read. The second was signed by S. Baumgartner, October 1897! The third was John Widder September 18, 1940, and the fourth was Bud Widder, November 29, 1975. We had Jim Wehrli of Wehrli Home Decorating hang the new wallpaper and he added his signature to the other four! How cool!
Finding Pharmacy Relics
As we cleaned our drawers and cupboards we came across a lot of pharmacy-related stuff. One of the highlights was a jar of DeLaire’s Bust Food that had a label on the bottom of the jar stating that it was “Guaranteed under the Food and Drug Act, June 30, 1906”. We found a Rexall 75th Anniversary Country Cookbook from 1978 and a North Central College Homecoming Souvenir Program from their Silver Anniversary – October 31, 1942. On the back was an ad encouraging alums to come down to Oswald’s to enjoy a delicious soda or sundae made with delicious Hydrox ice cream.
The program also advertised two other drugstores – Foucek’s (127 S. Washington) and Cumming’s Walgreen Agency which later became Naperville Pharmacy and lunch counter located at the corner of Washington and Jefferson. Other advertisers included Naperville Candy Kitchen, Prince Castle, Boecker’s Menswear, Rassweiler Hardware, The Naperville Clarion Newspaper, and Oliver Beidelman, Funeral Director and Ambulance Service.
North Central College 1931 Souvenir Book
We also found a page that was torn from a book that was printed in 1931. I’m not sure if it was taken from a Naperville Centennial souvenir book or an advertising piece for the Centennial. Over half the page was taken up with a picture of Great-Great Grandfather W.W. Wickel. The text gives a wonderful history of the pharmacy. In 1931 the store was celebrating its 56th year in business and 50th year being run by our family. It mentions that the store underwent a total facelift in 1915 when Louis Oswald took over.
Grandpa Oswald added the soda fountain two years later. At the time the store was the exclusive Naperville dealer for Rexall Remedies and the aforementioned Hydrox Ice Cream. For a long time, Oswald’s was even the town’s only Eastman Kodak Agency! I know I must have seen this page some years ago, but I didn’t remember a lot of the details. It was very neat going over the piece and getting a free history lesson. It’s kind of weird to think that in twelve years the page will be 100 years old and Naperville will be celebrating it’s Bicentennial!! That should be one heck of a party—we’ll see you all there!
