from the Glessner house. The Kimball family, made wealthy by the Kimball organs installed in thousands of churches across America, lived directly across the street from the Glessners. Marshall Field’s department stores were located mostly in downtown Chicago, but his house was just down the street from the Glessners’, as was that of the Armour family, the famous meatpackers.
The lifestyle in these opulent mansions, filled with fine furniture, antiques, and art treasures from all around the world, was grand and it took an army of people to keep them functioning. There were servants, butlers, doormen, cooks, housecleaners, mechanics, and tutors continually engaged in some task or another. Many of these domestic servants lived in the mansions, receiving food and board as part of their compensation.
Strong competition in Glessner’s industry in the early 1900s threatened to destroy some companies, but Glessner was one of the men who successfully helped to merge the corporation with some of the leading firms of the day, including McCormick Reaper and Deering. The new corporation took the name International Harvester and was an instant financial success. John Glessner was rewarded for his services by being named a vice-president in the new organization; he went from being a merely wealthy man to a fabulously wealthy one.
The Glessners were prominent members of Chicago society. John Glessner served as trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Orchestral Association, was director of the Chicago Relief and Aid Society, and was president of the board of Rush Medical College. Frances Glessner, John’s wife, was a member of the Chicago Society of Decorative Art and founded the Monday Morning Reading Class for women; the group met weekly in the Glessner house for more than thirty years.
The Glessners loved their Prairie Avenue home and lived there for fifty years, even as many of the other grand old houses surrounding them were closing up because of the enormous costs in operating them. The neighborhood was changing and, one by one, the wonderful old mansions were either being pulled down or were subdivided into boarding houses.
Today, only five of these elegant Prairie Avenue homes remain, although the neighborhood is enjoying a revitalization of sorts as affluent Chicagoans are rediscovering it. The Glessner House is the best preserved of the old houses. Mary and I were about to see how well preserved the old mansion was; the house tour was about to start.
We joined the dozen or so people milling about on the sidewalk before the massive wooden front door of the house. Kerry stood off to the side since he was not leading this group. Our tour guide soon joined us. She was a thin, grim-faced woman with a sharp profile who set off around the house on a double-time quickstep that soon left the elderly and portly among the group panting somewhere far behind us. She was every bit as well informed about the house as Kerry, and I supposed she liked her job, but she never smiled so I was not at all certain.
We entered the house, the first stop being the basement, which was like no basement I had ever been in before. No leaking water heater. No smelly, smoky furnace. No insulation drooping down from exposed rafters overhead. No, the Glessner basement, at least the portion we saw on the tour, was carpeted, paneled in maple and furnished with beautiful bookcases, tables and chairs. Yellow pine beams supported the ceiling. This room was the schoolroom, built for George Glessner, who suffered severe allergies and was schooled at home. Architect Henry Richardson designed an effective cross-ventilation system especially for the schoolroom to help alleviate young George’s sufferings.
The upper levels of the mansion were designed in imitation of an English country manor. Red-oak paneling lined the halls, the parlor, the library, and dining room, and was also used in the wainscoting in the spiral staircase and upstairs passages. Huge oak beams held up the ceiling in the main entry hall, library, and dining room. So much wood would have made any house dark as a medieval castle, but Richardson solved this problem by having all the rooms face out to the courtyard in the rear and including large windows on that side of the house to let in ample light.
Much of the furniture and decorations in the house were not actually owned by the Glessners, but were authentic to the time and similar to the possessions the Glessners might have owned. The library, however, was an exception in that almost all of the books and furnishings in the room were original to the Glessners.
The tour guide led us into the library, trying to squeeze us all into the narrow aisle defined by the velvet cord separating us from the interior of the room. We had rapidly outpaced the stragglers. As she began to tell us about the library, more of them arrived, plowing into the group, rapidly squeezing the oxygen out of the room. I saw Mary disappear in a corner and thought I would probably never see her again.
From what I could see over the shoulders of those in front of me, bookcases lined the room, filled with leather-bound books on a wide variety of topics. Framed prints and paintings lined the walls above the bookcases and valuable ceramic pieces stood on the top shelves. One of the ten fireplaces in the house was located in the library, this one faced with glazed tile.
A huge desk stood in the center of the room, covered with pieces of art, framed photos, and the usual desk clutter. A rare life mask of Abraham Lincoln, along with casts of his hands, rested upon the desk. It looked as though he were trapped inside the desk and struggling to climb out.
Somehow, we all filed out of the library—Mary had survived the crush after all—and followed our guide to the Glessner’s master bedroom. In one little alcove was John Glessner’s dressing room. A black suit coat of 1920s style hung from the back of a chair. A beaver top hat rested upon the seat. Upon a narrow shelf on one wall was arranged some of Glessner’s toiletries, including a bottle of bay rum and three bars of soap. This was the same soap that Kerry had smelled in the kitchen, although I could not detect its scent only a few feet away.
As the group left the master bedroom, I saw Kerry following behind us. I dropped back to talk with him.
We spoke in low tones, both of us fearful of being shushed by our school-marm tour guide.
“I didn’t smell it,” I said.
“No?” said Kerry.
I shook my head. “Of course, I have hay fever right now and can’t smell much of anything, so maybe what I think doesn’t matter.”
“There’s other stuff, too,” Kerry said, casting a glance at the tour guide up front. She was deep into her lecture and paid us no mind.
“I’ve heard my name called,” Kerry said. “There was no one else around and I heard it very distinctly, clear as a bell. ‘Kerry.’ Not once, but twice.”
“You’re sure there was no one else with you?”
“Positive,” Kerry said, “and, I know this sounds strange, but somehow I was sure the voice was that of John Glessner.”
Strange? Not at all.
We had followed the group to the kitchen at the rear of the west wing, the very room in which Kerry had smelled the aroma of Glessner’s soap.
“And I’m not the only one who has felt things here,” Kerry said.
He told me about a maintenance man who was working alone in the shop when he suddenly felt a strong hand grasp his shoulder. The invisible hand squeezed the man’s shoulder but, according to Kerry, the man said the squeeze was not painful or frightening, but was more encouraging.
“The guy said that it was as though Glessner were there supervising his work and giving him a gentle squeeze to show that he was pleased,” Kerry said.
John Glessner lived in the house he loved for fifty years and eventually died there. Maybe he has found it
