Saturday, July 19, 2008

Hotel Moraine

I'm still going through the box of old photos from my late mother's collection. I ran across another one I don't remember ever seeing before.

Left to right: My grandfather (mom's side), me, my father.

On the back, in my mother's handwriting, it says "Father's Day Breakfast Hotel Moraine". She lists my age as "48 weeks".

Hotel Moraine?

Of course, I turned to Google and found out the Moraine Hotel still exists:
The hotel is located on Chicago's beautiful North Shore between Highland Park and Lake Forest, 30 minutes from downtown Chicago and from Ohare International Airport, 1/2 mile from a metro station with trains to downtown Chicago every 30 minutes.
Well, my grandparents lived in Highland Park at the time, so I have to assume this is the same place and that my parents went up to see my mom's dad on Father's Day 1961 when I was almost 1. We lived in Metamora, near Peoria, at the time. My grandfather died a little over 2 years later. I, of course, have no memories of this day and only a few of my grandfather. But I'm glad I now have this picture.

I might also add that this is one of the few pictures I have of my grandfather where he doesn't have a pipe in his mouth. Sadly, it was the pipe that ultimately lead to his early death (at 52) from jaw cancer.

And hey, I just thought of something else; I just turned 48 YEARS old this week. That makes me 52 times older than I was in the picture.

2 comments:

JeromeProphet said...

You are related to J. Edgar Hoover?

Anonymous said...

The current Hotel Moraine is not the same Hotel Moraine that existed in 1961. That hotel was a huge luxury resort that was built right on Lake Michigan in northern Highland Park back in early 1910s and was torn down in the late 1960s or 1970s. The location is now a public park called Moraine Park in Highland Park. Remnants of the old buildings can be found there. There are many pictures of it on digitalpast.org, search on moraine hotel.