Woman's tale shows how close we are to past

It would be interesting if every time we passed a McMansion in Arlington Heights, we were to consider that that home with its five bathrooms is only four degrees of separation from an Indian tepee.

Twenty years ago I interviewed Ruth Ewert who made that clear to me, if not in those exact words. When we spoke, she told me that her family had lived on this fabulous farmland-turned-suburb for generations.

Ruth Sigwalt Ewert was born in Arlington Heights in 1906. Sigwalt Street (one block south of Campbell) was named after her grandmother's brother, Uncle Charlie, mayor of Arlington Heights for six terms.

It was Ruth's Aunt Bertha who could remember seeing Indians setting up camp along the Des Plaines River. That means we are so close to the days when the Potawatomi used Arlington Heights Road as an Indian trail and camped on the Des Plaines River that we can say, in the current parlance, that there are only four degrees of separation from us to the Indians: the Indians would be the first degree, Aunt Bertha the second, Ruth Ewert, the third, and we and our neighbors in the McMansions, the fourth.

Parenthetically, Aunt Bertha lived to be over 100. On the Saturday night before she died, this woman, who had actually seen native Indians living on the river where now we picnic, played bridge. She confided to her niece that she regularly bid up her hands. "Ruthie, I don't want them to think I am a senile old lady and I make it most of the time."

Those same smarts that Aunt Bertha used to keep up her bridge game and remember the Indians stood her in good stead as a young mother of two.

Ruth Ewert relayed to me a second remarkable Aunt Bertha story about Aunt Bertha putting her children through Northwestern University. Her husband ran their farm. Aunt Bertha decided to raise chickens. She sold her chickens for 25 cents each. "It is my little project," she would say.

With those accumulated quarters, Aunt Bertha paid most of the tuition to see her children through college.

In a way this is another four degrees of separation story, as well as a reflection of the quality of people who pioneered our suburb. Aunt Bertha's son parlayed his chicken-fed education into a position as the head of the Chicago Bar Association. When the association planned a convention in England during his tenure, Aunt Bertha's son went to England to work out the particulars. There he was entertained by the king.

Again, four degrees of separation: from Ruth Ewert to her Aunt Bertha to Aunt Bertha's son to the king of England.

There is an interesting sidelight to this Ewert-Sigwalt story. Ruth Ewert's forebears came from Alsace-Lorraine. At one time, a Sigwalt relative married another unrelated Sigwalt. Ruth Ewert said, "Little wonder. The name Sigwalt was as common in Alsace-Lorraine as Smith or Jones is in this country."