Pioneer Press,
Dec 23, 2004
Kenilworth woman marks 100th birthday at NSSC
BY KEN GOZE
STAFF WRITER
For Mildred Klatte of Kenilworth, the best answer to why she reached
100 years old this week might be that she never slowed down enough
for old age to take hold.
Klatte, who has lived in the same house since 1947, marked her
birthday first with a party at the North Shore Senior Center Tuesday
and a private party Wednesday at a neighbor's house.
For more than 50 years, and well into her 90s, Klatte taught
Sunday school at Church of the Holy Comforter, and walked there
from her home on the village's west side.
"She is a very slender woman and she walked everywhere.
She actually broke her hip in her early 90s, but because she was
so strong physically, she not only recovered, she walked again,"
said Beverly Kirk, a next-door neighbor of Klatte for 34 years.
"She was so dedicated as a Sunday school teacher, a lot
of the kids who had her in Sunday school are now grownups and
she remembered them all. They would come back and she would try
to find out about their married lives, their children. She had
a phenomenal memory."
More recently, Klatte has slowed down a bit, but still appreciated
the parties and receptions held in her honor, including a Dec.
12 event at the church where she was involved for so many decades
"She's OK. She goes to the House of Welcome three times
a week, which is the senior center. She has a caregiver here twice
a week and then I'm with her on the weekends," said Bill
Klatte, one of her two sons.
"She has a hard time walking but she can make it,"
he added. "She's hardly on any medication, just a blood pressure
pill. Her sight is still good. She forgets a lot but you're supposed
to at that age."
When she was born in Millvale, Pa., in 1904, much of the modern
landscape of the North Shore was just taking shape. New Trier
High School had opened, but not yet turned out its first graduating
class. Sheridan Road was a novel route and a vast new frontier
in electronics and radio was just being opened with the advent
of the vacuum tube.
Bill Klatte said his mother worked for a time in Millvale as
a secretary for the Armour Meat company and met her future husband,
Herman, when friends arranged a blind date at a local marketplace.
Herman Klatte had a career in retail and the couple moved to
Baltimore, Buffalo, N.Y., and then the Chicago area, first in
Wilmette and then Kenilworth. At that time he worked for Butler
Bros. in downtown Chicago as a stationary buyer and would move
up into other merchandise management positions.
They had two sons, Bill and Cal, and a daughter, Julia. Herman
Klatte died in 1984. Mildred Klatte has six grandchildren and
10 great-grandchildren.
Klatte said his mother never drank or smoked and gave up driving
in 1930 after a lesson ended badly.
"She was driving and she got nervous and she ran over the
parkway and hit a church. I guess the officer said it's not for
you Mrs. Klatte. She hasn't driven a car since," he said.
Kirk said Klatte recalled a time when most of the land along
Green Bay Road on the west side of the village was woods. Long
after her own children were grown, Klatte was very tolerant of
the noise and activity of younger neighborhood kids, including
Kirk's son, now U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-10th, who planned to appear
Wednesday's reception at a neighbors.
"In all the years we've lived here she has always been nothing
but kind and nice to us. To always be good natured, never mind
the cats and dogs and the balls that go over into the yard. She
was always that kind of person," Beverly Kirk said.
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