EPISODE 319: JRG

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

++ (LACK OF) RECOGNITION CEREMONIES ++

Last week I attended my nephew’s middle school graduation. Actually they called it a “Recognition Ceremony”. Most of what I found myself recognising was that 400 students watching their classmates get awards for two hours in a hot gym is no fun. (The middle school’s band was fantastic, though. Their “Summer Nights” from Grease just killed.)

The school has an unusual name: JR Gerritts Middle School. As soon as we got there I was bothering my niece about it: Who is JR Gerritts?

She knew nothing. Neither did my sister or her husband. The award presenters never mentioned Gerritts, either. In fact everyone referred to the school as JRG, like the name was created by some “intelligent” business-speak algorithm.

Even the school’s website seemed to have no information on him.

I don’t know about you, when I’m hot and trapped in a middle school gym I like to investigate mysteries, and then tweet about them. You know, like Holmes and Watson always did.

But things online only got weirder. Like Movies about the NSA weird. No matter what terms I used, I could not find a single thing about the human being formerly known as J.R. Gerritts. There were other Gerritts – Antone, who came to Wisconsin in 1872.

There were obits, like for James Gerritts, who had died locally in 2004. He was a lifetime member of the NRA and a one-time novice in the Norbertines. But his middle initial was F.

Then, just as the Recognition Ceremony was winding down to an assembly line of kids being handed diplomas as fast as the tired staff could get them out, I came across this (emphasis added):

John R. Gerritts. Died at what seemed like the right time and in the right place. And in a Catholic cemetery to boot.

That’s right, JRG. Comin’ for you.
++ RUSSEL IS WHAT HORROR SPELLS LIKE ++ Have you ever had someone from another country ask you where your city’s name came from? The first time someone asked me what “Chicago” meant, I was almost offended. This is my city you’re talking about, Sir. How dare you draw my attention to the fact that it has a history (that I am not aware of).

But when it came to my own little hometown, there was one name I was always aware of. At one end of our block, our street sign said “Russell”. But two blocks the other way, with no explanation, it was “Russel”.

It stayed that way my entire childhood, and long beyond.

Then, not too long ago, I started to notice that Amazon kept asking to change the name of the street to one “l”. I had spent my whole life as a two “l” guy and I was not about to change because some bad AI was afraid of a little ambiguity. One “l” was like a word that had been through a terrible amputation. It was hard even to look at.

(Not for nothing, even Microsoft Word thinks one “l” is a misspelling. I have never been prouder of a dancing paperclip.)

Then a few years ago I came home to discover the entire natural order of thing had been turned upside down. The street signs had been standardized, and Russell was gone.

Even worse, my father insisted it had always been this way. Don’t tell me history isn’t written by the winners, people. I have lived the nightmare.

But I would not be kept down/made to work when I could distract myself with this. Over the course of a few very important evenings on Google, I found information first mostly about our town, how the first white settlers were Yankees from New England, who signed a treaty with the Potawatomi (and that by “signed a treaty” what was meant was the Potawatomi, who had in part supported the British during the War of 1812, had been told if they wanted to continue to receive funds from the federal government, they had to sell much of their land. By 1837 the entire tribe had “emigrated” from Eastern Illinois).

Some of the city’s streets would later be given “Native names” in honor of the Potawatomi by the Mount Prospect Campfire Girls, basically our version of the Girl Scouts. Except it turned out the words weren’t actually Native, the kids and staff just thought they sounded it. (Examples: Hi Lusi; Go Wando; We Go; I Oka; Na Wa Ta – for reals.)

The first train came through Mt. Prospect in 1850, and brought with it more settlers. In 1871 a local resident created the four block residential area that would become the heart of the city. He called the town Mt. Prospect both because it sat on the highest point of Cook County, and as a sly jab at Chicago, which was surrounded by swamp land. #OHSNAP #19THCENTURYBODYSLAM

There were lots of interesting anecdotes. Like, in 1930 Mt. Prospect was the only village in Cook County that wasn’t broke. Mt. Prospect State Bank was one of the only banks in the country that stayed open during the Great Depression. The population had a 370% increase in the 1950s, as white families fled the city.

My school district came into existence only because women voted for it. (It was their first opportunity to vote; many local men didn’t want the government to spend their money on education. Because men.)

Finally, in the middle of an oral history of the town, I found this: “On August 14, 1929, Albert Pick & Company divided part of the John Russell farm and called it Central Woods. It contained land between Central Road, Prospect Avenue, Lancaster and Kenilworth Avenues.”

There it was. My street name was not some arbitrary choice. It referred to the owner of the farm whose land had eventually become my entire neighborhood.

And his name was Russell, (DAD).

(You know, I should probably write our city about this, shouldn’t I?

Don’t look at me like that. How would you feel if your hometown insisted on misspelling your grandmother’s name? Or suddenly you were told Santa was actually properly spelled Senta? Or that Pluto was not a planet?) ++ NAH, SCIENCE, NAH ++ Seriously, how ridiculous is it that a bunch of scientists today can show up and just decide, Nah, Pluto, Nah.

++ THE SECRET ORIGIN OF JOHN R. GERRITTS ++

The point is, if I could break the Russell story wide open, did JRG really think he could hide from me?

I WON’T BE IGNORED, JRG.

Except even knowing his name and date of death, it was still weirdly tough to find information. In fact before I got anywhere with him I learned about his grandfather, Martin, who came from Holland in 1848. He was a prominent citizen – the John Russell of central Wisconsin, if you will.

He and his wife also had 13 kids, which turns out is a big part of why it’s hard to find anything about JRG. Six generations after Martin, there’s literally hundreds of Gerritts in the area. Like, way too many.

Gerritts-es, if you’re reading this, think about moving. For history.

Eventually though, I found this:

John R. Gerritts’ Gravestone. And Plot Twist: He had two wives! Grace died at the young age of 29, after having had two kids. Two years later John married Winifred, who would outlive him (and bring into the world two more children).

With Winifred as another search category, everything fell into place.

If you had to guess, what would you think JRG’s background was? Me, I’d have guessed local politician, local war hero or local benefactor.

In fact, JRG was a schools man. A Lawrence University grad who did advanced work at Madison, Illinois and Georgetown, JRG spent almost fifty years in education. He was a high school chemistry teacher, a librarian, a basketball and baseball coach, and for the last 26 years an administrator (first as high school principal, then superintendent, then business manager and curriculum coordinator).

Gerritts fought for more money to pay teachers, build facilities and buy land, and opened the area’s own high school in 1959. His signature seems to have been outreach; he’s constantly reported in local papers as explaining the schools’ needs to the community. As they prepared to open the new school, he did a whole pamphlet on the history of schooling in the area.

His death, May 14, 1961 was unexpected. Front page news. The whole school system closed down for his funeral.

A year and a half later, the old high school, now the community’s first stand alone middle school, was named in his honor. The opening pages of the yearbook had pictures of him along with photos of the recently deceased JFK. That’s how beloved he was.

That’s how much his world valued educators, too. It’s kind of brutal that the school doesn’t have his story plastered all over their everything. Their name is such a powerful message about what’s really important, and who this community has been and can be.

++ IN WHICH THE AUTHOR/HOSTAGE TAKER TRIES TO STOCKHOLM SYNDROME YOU ++

When we talk about pop culture, usually we’re referring to some kind of story-art form that thrives in a given community’s imagination. But really our whole world is a topography of pop culture, every street sign and school name an invitation into a hundred interesting buried treasure worlds of story.

I have a feeling this episode is like when your chemistry teacher spends the whole period talking incoherently about chemical bonds like he’s discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls, then realizes the class is still there and asks, “Isn’t the world amazing?” And the only response he gets is “Is this going to be on the test?”

This isn’t going to be on the test, I promise.

But isn’t the world amazing?

++ #!%!*! ++

Today I went to the Apple store to get my “a” key fixed, only to discover that the work I had done yesterday to try and fix it myself had ended up ruining it for good.

(Then the Apple guy told me I should get a new computer anyway because pretty soon my computer would no longer work. Why is that, I wondered? “It’s just so old, it won’t be able to handle the internet,” he said.

The computer is four years old and boots up super fast. Shut up, Apple guy.)

Anyway, I’ve spent this newsletter either typing “z” for every “a” and then find/replacing it, or cutting and pasting in “a”s. So forgive me if I leave it there before I lose my mind.

Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re not crazy, Solo really was pretty great. And so are you.

New week coming. Here we go.