Lisle train station is only a part of his local history

Long before folks in Lisle called its historic train depot a museum, Ray Schmidt called it home.

Together with his parents, Raymond and Gertrude Schmidt, and a younger brother, George, the family of four resided in the living quarters of the train depot that is now the namesake of the Museums of Lisle Station Park.

"We lived at the Lisle depot between 1928 and the first part of 1930," Schmidt said recently from his home in Anaheim, Calif. "Then my parents moved back to Chicago, and I stayed with my grandparents to finish first grade at St. Joan of Arc School."

The two Christmases his family spent living at the depot were "something special," he said.

"Christmas was being home with family and a time to honor Christ's birth," Schmidt said. "The magic was waiting for Santa and the presents we hoped he'd bring."

The family's living quarters were on one side of the depot's baggage room, which was situated in the center of the building. The agent, the big warming stove and the benches lining the waiting room walls were on the opposite side of the structure.

"We weren't allowed to play on the station platform," Schmidt said. "In front, some old-time cars were parked waiting for people who used the station. There was one man who always parked in a special place, and he left the car open for us to play inside. I remember a spotlight in the center of his windshield and I would wonder how it was used."

From the depot, situated on the north side of the tracks, Schmidt ran errands for his mother to the nearby grocery store and across the tracks to Reidy's Hardware and mailroom on Front Street.

The mail would be dropped off at the station and picked up using a hanging hook that came from a train's mail car. Large metal milk cans were a common site at the station, picking up and delivering milk for the Lisle Milk Association.

"I don't know what my father did at the station," Schmidt said. "I know he was not the station agent; perhaps he was a custodian. I was too young to think about those things."

The young brothers slept in the upstairs front bedroom in the family quarters, next to the "toy closet" that was in the hallway. Although money was tight during the Depression, the closet was always a source of fun. Two little boys using a broomstick easily unlatched the small hook at the top of the door.

The parents occupied the back bedroom above the kitchen.

"The kitchen was the best room, because at the kitchen table we had Christmas dinner," Schmidt said.

His grandmother, Mary Hitney, who operated a 5-acre truck farm with her husband, Frank, on Front Street, was a great baker, and at Christmas the kitchen hummed with activity.

The family Christmas tree took its place of honor in a corner of the front room. Each branch was decorated with silver tinsel, garland and tinfoil ornaments in shapes of bells and Santa. There were no lights on the tree at that time.

"On Christmas in 1929, Santa brought my brother and me a wind-up train that my father and Uncle Lawrence played with most of the day," Schmidt recalls.

Fond memories of living in the depot and his little wind-up train began Schmidt's lifelong fascination with trains. He reminisced about the sounds of the steel giants, the huge engines, the hissing steam and smoke billowing out of the smoke stack as the trains roared through the village.

After serving in the Air Force in World War II, Schmidt married Lisle native Marion Kungle in 1946 and settled in the village to raise their four children. He worked as a Lisle police officer, proudly wearing badge No. 1.

Marion Schmidt remembers her own grandmother walking to school with their lunches, and that they would walk to the depot to enjoy their meals while sitting on the benches in the waiting room. Then the pair would walk back to her public school on Main Street.

Today, Ray Schmidt is busy volunteering at the front desk and training volunteers for the Anaheim police force. He is an amateur radio operator and train collector.

"Whenever we travel, we still take the Amtrak; we love the comfort of the train," he said. "In fact, I have a garden railroad that I put up every Christmas in our living room. When I set up my trains, I have a depot similar to what we had in Lisle."

Schmidt also has a round house, switch tower and miniature houses in a scenic display that takes up most of the couple's living room. He enjoys working the trains and blowing the whistle, especially for the children who come to visit.

The experience brings Schmidt back to the electric HO-scaled train scene he built for his own children in their Lisle basement, and the little 3- by 6-foot layout of the wind-up train he shared with his brother starting with the Christmas of 1929. His seven grandchildren all have enjoyed his yearly large-scale train display.

This Christmas, a new generation will be introduced to Schmidt's fascination with trains that started at Lisle Station Depot. The couple's first great-granddaughter will experience the trains and start her own story.

"I can't wait to see her expression," the proud great-grandfather said.