This is a 1940s Royal typewriter. Yes, my novel takes place in the 50s, but this is the typewriter I remember my mother using from the time I was born until I left for college. Don't know where it went after that. 

I was tremendously in awe of my mother's skill at this behemoth. She typed 90 words a minute! I can't imagine it. No wonder she had such arthritis (she familiarly called it Arthur) in her hands. I know I had to pound on the thing and I had bigger stronger hands than she. 

And then there were those blasted ribbons! Ugh. They'd twist into a mess at the slightest breath on them. And remember, there were no printers or copiers to make copies of your work, one used those messy carbons. Or a delete button to correct mistakes and make edits! But mother didn't make mistakes. Nope. Not like yours truly who usually gave up and hand wrote whatever it was she thought she was going to type.

When I went off to college in 1967 I proudly carried this smaller, sleeker beast into my dorm room. Still no delete key and I'd have to use carbons for copies, but I didn't have to pound quite as much. I became grudging friends with the thing after many papers written during late night, last minute marathons.

Now my main character in my novel probably used something in between these two in her job as an Editor in a crime novel publishing house. And she would have no benefit of printers or delete keys either. Nor did she have the benefit of Wite Out which came about in 1966. 

All I can say is be grateful -- very very grateful -- my younger friends, for the advent of the computer!

Babo Cleanser 1951 by DwightFrye

I actually remember this commercial. The main character in my novel uses it to clean her shower head. It certainly would NOT be appropriate these days! Sheesh! Pocahontas and John Smith? 

1950s Chicago Skyline taken from the Shedd Aquarium

That skyline looks a lot different from today's skyline. Chicago is a very different place from back then. I remember taking the El train into Chicago with my mother. The backs of apartment buildings would whizz by and I'd wonder how people could possibly live in places like those, piled on top of each other in dingy soot stained buildings. 

This picture shows what folks would like to remember, but not what the reality was. Mom and I would go to Marshall Field's and Carson, Pirie, Scott to shop, but not venture much further than that. Just a block or so either way and the El would rumble overhead, the buses belched fumes and people would be hunched in doorways sleeping off an ill-spent night. Trash littered sidewalks and questionable sorts would catch you by the arm and ask for change.

Of course, some of that still exists in certain areas of Chicago, but not so much the Loop. That all changed during the second Daley's reign as "da Mayor." The Loop is a much cleaner and attractive place to be. The skyline exhilarating and the architecture magnificent. A summer afternoon spent on a boat tour of the Chicago River is a surprising and gorgeous experience now. Back then no one would have ventured it or would even have thought of it.

This is the photo that got me started on this journey. Photos have always been starters for my writing. I see an image and my mind goes wandering. This particular image is from the Vivian Maier collection found on John Maloof's blog. 

Vivian was an itinerant photographer whose photos were only discovered recently by John. Her story is mysterious and fascinating in its absence of information. But her photography! Amazing and stirring in so many ways. It started me writing a novel set in Chicago, 1956.

Now there may be some of you who actually remember that Chicago in that time. I happen to be one of them. But I would have been seven years old at the time and the things I remember may or may not be useful to my novel. So, this is where this blog comes in to being. Research! Hah! That dreadful and frustrating, but sometimes gloriously satisfying excursion into the past for a writer.

I hope you will enjoy the adventure with me!