Photo 55-BLA-5

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Ethel's Farm Stand. Now Deer Park Town Center on Rand Road in Kildeer. The farm stand would literally be in the road that enters the shopping center "N Deer Park Blvd". The square building was a recycling center in recent years before being torn down to make way for a currently stalled development.

Johnson's Market and Ethel's Place. There was a single larger building here in 1938. These buildings appear in the early 1950s. These buildings were razed in 2000 as they built the shopping center and put in the new road.

Our family were migrant field hands who worked summers for the Dahm family farm from the time I was six years old, until I was 15. Our parents worked very hard and Mr and Mrs Dahm’s (Ethel) children attended the same schools we did. They had three children—Anthony (Tony), Jimmy, and Helen. My Dad would leave our home in Texas in March to help Mr. Dahm (Erwin?) plant the crops. Mom and all six kids would follow at the end of May when our school year was over and helped pick the crops. There were other families working there, but their children did not attend school. Dad would drive the farm trucks to the Cambell Soup Company during August (tomato season. After Labor day we would all be on the school bus (five of us and two cousins), and work after school usually until the first snow fall, then head south to Texas and our schools there. I do not know what became of the Dahm children, but my siblings and I all finished high school and over time finished our college degrees. Good memories.

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