Louise and Elizabeth Sattler were sisters of my Grandmother Effting. When Louise was growing up she was very talented and outgoing. When a traveling group of actors came to town to put on a play they hired local people to perform bit parts. They hired Louise and they liked Louise so much they asked Louise to join the troop but her mother wouldn’t let her. She was employed in many different jobs throughout her life. But, she ended up as a designer of ladies hats at a prestigious company such as Lilly Dachet or Dach`e. She had twenty girls in the room sewing under her. When we went to visit our Grandmother, Louise would pull out a bottle of navy blue stain and brush it over my Easter straw bonnet and put a new ribbon on it and stuff like that.

My Great Grandma (Philomena’s mother) lived with Louise and Elizabeth in her later days in a nice apartment in Chicago. My Great Grandmother would look out the window at the women walking their dogs and she would say “Them girls they should be pushing baby carriages” because she had ten children.

They all spoke German at home and we sang German songs and had German prayer books. Your Grandma and Aunt Hildegarde spoke German till they went to school. Grandma Effting (Philomena) was so busy starting the store she said she didn’t know what language they were speaking.

Back to Louise—She was a very attractive woman. It is said an insurance agent followed her down the street. He couldn’t believe how old she was. Louise and Elizabeth used to come to Morris. When they came they would have brought nice things for Mother and Hildegarde.

She married a man we knew as Uncle Mack. His last name was McNiff so we never knew what his first name was.

He looked like a French chef with his sparkling eyes, mustache and gotee beard. He owned a shoe factory, downtown Chicago, up on a floor, say the fifth or seventh floor of the capitol building and the floor underneath him was where they made Capezio ballet shoes. He hired a room full of tailors from Europe who worked there and would send their money home. Aunt Marie worked there as a bookkeeper. After Uncle Mack died, Aunt Louise ran the shoe factory for several years until she sold it before she died.

The food vendors came around to the back of Aunt Louise’s apartment like in the musical “Oliver” and one was calling Peachy Peachy. Aunt Louise said I’ll see your peaches but when he came up to the back porch upstairs. She said “those aren’t peaches they’re apricots” and he said “no can say apricotee me say peachy”.

The big apartment building where we lived in was shaped like a U it took up a whole block on one side and the other and a half block on two sides going up. The vendors rode wagons up one side and the other and there was a rag wagon that came by and there was such a melodic tune for the rags that I wanted to write a symphony for the rag call when I grew up. Grandpa says the rag call in Schenectady was also lovely.

Aunt Elizabeth was secretary to the managing attorney of a big food company. Their best brand was called Richelieu, very fancy canned vegetables, and their standard brand was called Baby Stuart. His name was Jay Devore Miller and we and everybody called him Uncle J.D. They lived in an apartment in the Plaza Hotel in Chicago which was at the corner of Clark and North Streets. It’s across the street from Lincoln Park where there is a statute of a seated Abraham Lincoln. She had a Mary party for me, my cousin Mary Louise Brennan, and Uncle J.D.s granddaughter, Mary Miller. There is a snapshot of the three of us girls sitting on this statute. They had an upright Victrola. They would invite me over for one day at Christmas and one day in the summer. I would crank out pieces on the Victrola all day long. I remember “Too much mustard” and “Cohen and Kelly on the telephone” and “Two Black Crows” and another record sung by a daughter of Uncle J. D., he had seven grown children. This record had “I’d like to call you my Sweetheart” on one side. On the other side was “There’s a little white house”:

I’d love to call you my Sweetheart. Honest I love you I do. I’d love to call you my Sweetheart When I dream I dream of you Boop Boop e Doop. When I dream I’m dreaming when I pray I’m praying I’d love to call you my sweetheart.

There’s a little white house on a little green hill where the red red roses grow.
There’s a little white light in the window at night and it glows for me I know.
Oh the sun shines east the sun shines west vo-do-dee a do but I know where the sun shines best. She’ll welcome back her rowdy to the little white house on the little green hill where the red red roses grow.

I had to hide when Uncle J.D. was coming home from work and he would find me in the closet. He was a lot older than we realized because when he died he was 80 and he was still working. He had been a doctor and raised 7 children in Iowa. They all seemed to live in Chicago. He became a lawyer, the managing attorney of Sprague Warner Co.

Aunt Elizabeth was his secretary for many years and they got married. Then they lived in the apartment in the Plaza Hotel.