SANDWICH – I love my hometown, Sandwich, Illinois.
I’m comfortable here, even as it’s gotten bigger and has SEVEN traffic signals on Route 34 within the city limits. If there’s more than seven, please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I take it personally when a traffic light turns red as I’m approaching.
Regular stop signs don’t bother me. They stop everyone. However, I confess I’m always counting, attempting to hit the fewest number of stop signs when driving on side streets.
I grew up with my family, living on the “hard road.” That’s what they called it before it became U.S. Route 34, around the late 1920s or early 1930s. My dad’s family, the Louie Malls, lived about two blocks south of our house, and my mom’s family, the Louie Klotzs, farmed and lived 5 miles north of town on the Somonauk Blacktop.
The Sandwich Fairgrounds has always been one of my favorite locations; it brings a smile to my face because I always get excited during the Sandwich Fair that starts the first Wednesday after Labor Day and runs through Sunday.
I feel like a kid at the Sandwich Fair. That’s where I smile, giggle, eat, smile, go in every exhibition hall to check out competition entries, smile, talk to everyone I know and don’t know, eat at favorite church stands, volunteer in the Sandwich Fair museum building so I can talk to visitors who want to know the fair’s history, then smile some more. You probably can guess that my face hurts by the Sunday night of the fair.
Other places that I recall were important to me in my youth included the movie theater, the skating rink and the schools. Woodward Memorial Hospital and the doctors in town were important to the community. When the new hospital, Sandwich Community Hospital, was built, a nursing home moved into the old hospital structure. Now we have two nursing homes, Willow Crest Nursing Pavilion and Sandwich Rehabilitation Center, with Ironwood as an assisted-living facility.
Through the valiant efforts of volunteers, Sandwich is the home of The Open Door Rehabilitation Center for adults with disabilities; and the Fox Valley Older Adult Services was established to help senior citizens with transportation, meals, adult day care, entertainment and home services.
There’s also a been a vocational school, Indian Valley Vocational Center, operating in Sandwich since 1974. One of those who was a driving force to create such a school was Dave Graf, a local boy who became an officer in the U.S. Army during World War II, then taught industrial arts at Sandwich High School. He and his wife also helped found The Open Door.
Sandwich always has been home to lots of churches, too. I just counted 11 churches with Sandwich addresses, four of them in the rural area, two north of town and two south of town.
I recall many individuals from surrounding towns and rural areas who have been influential with many of these local facilities mentioned. Sometimes it’s folks from surrounding states who have lent a hand. I don’t mean they cheered us on. I mean we couldn’t have what we have in Sandwich without them.
Yep, I really like Sandwich and the whole area around it.
I really laugh when I recall a story my grandson told us about an experience he had in military basic training. After he and the other enlistees in his barracks had made everything spic and span, an officer entered to make an inspection.
The officer asked him where he was from. Standing at attention, my grandson replied he was from Sandwich, Illinois. The officer asked the location of Sandwich, Illinois, and my grandson told him it was northern Illinois. The officer asked him again and my grandson told him Sandwich, Illinois, was 60 miles west of Chicago.
When the officer asked him for even more details, my grandson replied, “Sandwich, Illinois, is the Center of the Universe, Sir!”