When I left off, the Weizeorick clan was on the cusp of the final move, to Lisle. Dad actually took the job and started before they could sell the house in Minneapolis. For many months (almost a year), Dad would fly home to Minneapolis on Friday night and fly back out to Chicago on Monday morning. Mom was on her own with nine kids for the weekdays. I was fortunate to have a long conversation with my sister Debbie about this time frame. On Monday mornings, Mom would wake up Debbie and Jeannie and move them to the couch at 4:00 or 5:00am. Mom would then drive Dad to the airport. Debbie and I looked it up, and the airport was ten to fifteen minutes away. As Debbie recalls, she sat up in terror during her half hour of babysitting, contemplating how she and Jeannie would get their seven young siblings out of the house in case of emergency. Knowing that Debbie had a plan, Jeannie would fall immediately back asleep on the couch. Debbie knew that she could count on Jeannie to do whatever she told Jeannie to do. Debbie was ten and Jeannie was nine. Before you go judging, back in the day, ten-year-olds regularly babysat. And Debbie was no regular ten-year-old. 

I distinctly recall Mom telling the story of looking at the Lisle house, that would become the family homestead for many years to come. As the realtor drove down Maple, most of the Meadows (our subdivision) was clearly visible, because it was so young in 1967, and still under construction. Mom said, “We’re not looking at houses there, are we? There are no trees. It looks so dirty.” Indeed, they were looking at a house there. Mom fell in love with the raised ranch with three bathrooms, and eventually six bedrooms, after Dad converted a large unfinished area to two small bedrooms. The laundry room was huge, and didn’t require a two story trek to bring laundry up and down. In fact, there was a laundry chute (which many of us eventually travelled through)!

Finally, in the summer of 1967, the Weizeorick family moved to Lisle, Illinois. A few short months after the move, Catherine was born. 

I am not sure why Catherine warranted a photo alone with Mom and Dad, but here she is. Dad still looks a bit overwhelmed.

And here is a cute picture of the girls: Mom, Debbie, Jeannie, Teresa, Sharon, and Catherine. Those gold drapes were around for many years!!

Tom and Teresa received their first holy communion together at St. Joan of Arc parish, where the whole clan would eventually attend school. It is the only school that all twelve kids graduated from. 

I’m not sure what this picture commemorates, but it’s all ten kids up to this point. Also, Dad looks pretty happy here, so I needed to put it in.

This appears to be a church service in the basement of St. Joan. Not sure why we were there at this point. I remember using the basement while the new church was built, but I thought there was actually a previous church. Anyway, if I remember it, it can’t be this picture because I am not born yet. Girls had to have head coverings in church back in the day. 

This picture is in front of the Lisle homestead. Mom and Dad continued to vacation with the McGuire family, who were neighbors and friends from Minneapolis. In 1967 or 1968, Mom had the great idea to invite the oldest three McGuire kids back to Lisle with the family after vacation. In some universe, it seemed okay to pile nine or ten kids (I can’t be sure if Catherine was born yet), two adults, and three additional kids into a station wagon for a drive of a few hours. I don’t even know how this was possible. Apparently, Mom McGuire was running after the station wagon, waving widely, while all the kids waved back. She had changed her mind after seeing the bumper barely above the pavement. In the days before cell phones, there was no way to stop a run-away station wagon, so the kids went to Lisle anyway, where she came to retrieve them some time later. This photo commemorates the retrieval. 

The pack of ten: five girls and five boys.

A cute picture of Greg, Richard, and Catherine. Richard and Catherine are the final pair of Irish twins at roughly eleven months apart.

These last two photos are probably around Easter 1969.

This appears to be summer of 1970. Can you imagine trying to find bikes and trikes for this motley crew? Debbie is probably taking the picture.

After nearly three years, I finally made an appearance in 1970. Poor Teresa is cut out of the left side of the photo. The biggest break in family ages occurs between Catherine and me. I always said that perfection takes time. Actually, Mom had her only miscarriage between us, which is probably the reason for the HUGE gap. Dad’s parents again hazarded a visit in this picture. According to Debbie, they loved visiting our huge crew. They both passed away within a couple years of this photo.

I had to throw in a few photos of Christmas in the Weizeorick house. Christmas was HUGE and chaotic. I am not sure how Mom and Dad managed it. Birthdays were frequently shared with siblings that had birthdays close to yours, but Christmas was a cacophony of gifts and crazy. I think that I’m the little one in the last photo, which would make it 1971. 

I needed a picture of the Meadows pool, since it played such a big part of our life in Lisle. Here is Teresa, Sharon, Larry, and Catherine. Debbie shared that the first summer, Mom sent Debbie and Jeannie up to the pool for swim team, when they couldn’t even swim. They were sent home with instructions to sign up for lessons first. After much hemming and hawing, Mom signed them up for lessons. Debbie remembers being the oldest and tallest in her beginner lesson, and it wasn’t close. The instructor took pity on her and gave her extra time. She was a quick study, and joined the swim team the following summer. 

I wanted to close with the arrival of Phil in the summer of 1972. Since I was sent those pictures from Debbie, I am not sure why we skipped to Phil crawling and nearly a year old. This is surely summer vacation of 1973, when we started going back to New Jersey to visit with the Philadelphia cousins. I recently learned that we were referred to as the Chicago cousins, which seems fitting. I will continue next week with more on Phil, maybe some pictures where he is smaller, and the arrival of the blue van. Actually, it was already there in the summer of 1973. 

Have a great week everyone! Sorry for the late post. I had technical difficulties importing photos today.