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Peter Kirscht (1861-1942)
My name is Peter Kirscht. I was born
here in 1861 and lived my whole life of 81 years on the Kirscht Farms on Gross
Point Road and Church Street. I was born almost 20 years before old Niles Centre
was organized. In those days our address was simply "Niles Township". There were
only about 500 people in the whole township.
My father and his two brothers were
trained as carpenters in Prussia, so, in addition to operating their farms, they
also built many of the early buildings in Niles Township.
I remember that when I was about seven
years old, they built the first St. Peter's church. It was a wooden building - -
not grand like the building that you see today. But it was a big event for 1868.
Before then, we had to travel up Gross Point Road several miles to attend church
at St. Joseph's in Wilmette. Traveling that far on foot or horseback was not
pleasant in bad weather.
I fondly remember the first school
built in Niles Township - a small two-room schoolhouse . . . . no heat . . . no
plumbing. It stood on Gross Point Road about one mile north of our family farm.
We called it "Sharp Corner School" because it was near the sharp cornered
intersection of Gross Point and Niles Center Road.
Oh look, here are the attendance books
(start calling names). The school was attended by children of the pioneer
families who lived north of Main Street, which was the boundary of old Niles
Centre.
We lived by the axiom, "Waste not;
want not." The old schoolhouse was not destroyed after a new one was built in
1930. My cousin, William, bought it and moved it down Gross Point Road, to near
his parent's farmhouse.
Real estate developers had great plans
for Niles Center but those plans collapsed in the 1930s and hundreds of
subdivided blocks, complete with sidewalks and streetlights, were left
undeveloped. Cousin Bill's five houses on Gross Point Road stood alone and came
to be known as "Kirschtville".
As the eldest son, I helped my father
with the farm until I was 22. Then I worked as a clerk in the general store in
Niles Centre for three years until I saved enough to building greenhouses and
start a floral business..
My brother Nick joined me in the
business around 1890. We were known as "The Bachelor Kirscht Brothers". Our
greenhouses stood on the Kirscht farm on the south side of Church Street, west
of Gross point Road, behind our big white farmhouse. We grew roses, carnations
and violets for the Chicago market.
Nick and I led quiet lives. Our weekly
recreation was singing in the choir at St. Peter's church. Once a year, we went
to a big flower grower's show in Evanston. We looked forward to that all year.
It wasn't a lucrative business, but we
enjoyed growing flowers. We did have one luxury for a while - a 1926 Studebaker.
We kept it in mint condition; only drove it to church on Sunday and to Evanston
once a year.
Our niece, Martha Dotzuaer, kept house
for us. She is buried here, too.
The depression years took their toll
on our floral business. People who were out of work couldn't afford luxuries
like flowers. Coupled with that, the advent of airplanes brought competition
from California flower growers, who had a year-round growing season and didn't
have the expense of heating greenhouses.
One winter, I had to sell my
Studebaker to pay the coal bill to heat the greenhouses. After that, Nick and I
had to close our business.
Along with the greenhouse business, I
served as Niles Township Assessor from 1888 to 1897. I conducted the 1890
Federal Census of Niles Township. You can see my signature on each page. At that
time, Niles Township only had about People and I met virtually every one of
them!
Transcript from a Cemetery Walk
1990
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