‘History’ Archives
Phillips Oral History Project Nov. ’26
This month, Mary Ellen Kaluza talks about organizing a neighborhood credit union. The South Side Federal Community Development Credit Union that was organized for Lake Street and originally had been in a building near Abbott, across the street from Abbott. Abbott bought that property and the credit union had to move. It moved next to Robert's Shoes. I was a volunteer for that and eventually came to be on the staff. It was closed, that was during the Reagan years so the National Credit Union Administration got very conservative. Plus it was the savings and loan crisis. I can't even describe it. So banks and credit unions were closing. That was community-owned and it could have survived if there had been the will on the federal regulator's part. Then a group of us got together to organize a new credit union that went into the Arts Bar. That was the Wendell Phillips Community Development Federal Credit Union. We had to include the ‘Community Development Federal Credit Union’ [...]
Willam Anthony Hazelquist: 140 Day Soldier Died Two Days Before WWI Armistice
By SUE HUNTER WEIR 251st from Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery… Historians are fond of saying that they “fell down arabbit hole” when they start out researching one topic andwind up somewhere unexpected. This is one of thosestories. There is a small connection to the cemetery but alarger story about a man who lived in what was to becomethe Phillips neighborhood.. In fact, he lived three doorsdown from my house. Private William Anthony HazelquistCompany B 353 rd U.S. InfantryBorn in Minneapolis on March 29, 1890Died on November 9, 1918, from wounds received at the Battle of Meuse-Argonne. William Anthony Hazelquist was a homebody. He was28 years old but had never spent more than a few daysaway from home. He was inducted in the U.S. Army onJune 22, 1918, and after completing his training, he wasshipped out to France. He died there on November 9,1918. William was born in Minneapolis on March 29, 1890,the fifth youngest of Swedish immigrants, John andSophia [...]
Phillips Oral History Project: Oct. ’26
This month, Janis Lodermeier returns to talk about hitchhiking. A lot of people hitchhiked. Like hippier types, but then it started to get really spooky, not just in this neighborhood, just anywhere. It never was safe. I should not have been doing it. But I didn't have a lot of choices. And sometimes you meet up with somebody that was hitchhiking and it could be fun. Until it wasn't. And there were times I even told some people that I hitchhiked, that gave me rides, I said 'you should be careful too of who you pick up because they're crazy crazy people too.' Some of the rides were fun and…most of them were not memorable. I wouldn't remember and then they, it was just getting to the point where there were, it was bad most the time. my brothers told me 'you shouldn't be doing this anymore.' And stuff, but I would not recommend it. Times were different. You'd have to be plum crazy to do it now, for real. Even then it was just a brief period where it was all it was fairly [...]
