By Susan Marschalk Green ~ The next time you open your refrigerator and stand there contemplating the appeal of its contents, you might also consider that this move probably would have landed you in big trouble in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Why? Because ice was a precious commodity in the days before residential electrical service became a ubiquitous source of power for…
By Susan Marschalk Green ~ Like many 20th-century American couples, my parents chose to relocate and raise their kids in a community that was quite a distance from their respective hometowns. Visiting the folks meant loading up the family station wagon once or twice a year to make the daylong trek from east central Florida to about halfway up the Georgia-South Carolina state line,…
By Susan Marschalk Green ~ Every vintage building tells its own survival story, just by dodging fiery blazes and the wrecking ball. But Hildebrandt’s, a corner grocery store-turned-delicatessen in downtown Augusta, Georgia, also traces the remarkable survival of a family business. The Hildebrandt enterprise that began in 1879 has remained in the same family’s hands, even as it weathered such formidable challenges as: the…
By Susan Marschalk Green ~ Timing is everything, as they say, so the reaction you might get from a Chicago North Side resident when you say the name “Edgewater Hospital” today is likely to be a wrinkled nose and a shake of the head. The once-venerable institution closed at the end of 2001 amid scandals that included rampant fraud and shocking disregard for human…