Katharine
Mary PREVENAS was born 10 Aug 1921. She was the youngest child born to
Peter Demetrios and
Mary (ZABSKI) PREVENAS. They lived at Racine Avenue, 2804 N.
Clark Street, in Chicago, Illinois, until Katharine was two years old.
The family moved to 2627 Hadden Avenue around 1923 when her father bought a restaurant at 2757 W. Division Street on the corner of California Avenue.
"When she was a baby it was my job to rock her to sleep before I could go back to work after lunch. I would sing to her 'Mama Mama. Papa Papa. Anna Anna. Fani Fani.' If she wasn't asleep by the time I got down to her, she would have been history. I still dream about it." [*HPT]
"When
she was a baby, we had a big beautiful yard with the lawn along the
side of our kitchen window. In the house along side of that lived Uncle
James boyfriend Joe. And she just loved him. When she would see him coming
down those steps she would get so excited. 'Doe! Doe! Doe!' So, we started
calling her Dodo." [*HPT]
"And,
I've been branded with that name ever since. Only Brad Brown won't
call me Aunt Dodo." [*KPL]
Kay went to 1st Grade at Lafayette School, 2700 W. Augusta Blvd.
About 1928, her father bought the Villa Rica restaurant across from the train depot, and the family moved to La Grange, Illinois. Kay attended 2nd and 3rd Grades at Cossitt School in La Grange.
During her 4th Grade year, they went back to Haddon Avenue.
In
1935, she graduated Lafayette Elementary School. This was the only
graduation her father attended.
From 1935 - June 1939, Katharine attended Waller High School, 2000 N Burlington Street, at Armitage Street. (The name of the school was changed in the 1960s or 70s.) "I did not want to go to the high school in my district, so I attended Waller as Violet did. I gave Anna's address and Anna as my guardian in order to get into Waller. It took two street cars to get to school." [*KPL]
"… up until 5 years old, all kids at home. Christmas: opened presents on Christmas eve; remembered tree and big get together! had to go to Easter church 8-midnight for Greek church, 3 days; had to go so she could get new clothes; Easter, got hard-boiled egg, cracked two eggs together, and if yours cracked another, you got their egg. In Greece, her father got a rock to fake a egg and he got a beating when he got caught. 40 days after death, went to church and as you left church, got a handful of barley at church, tasted great. '… just waited for people to die!' Ha!" [*JW]
In
June 1939, Kay started working as a waitress at Pete's Economy
Restaurant at Halsted & Clybourne Ave. In Feb 1940, she began at Twin
Orchards Country Club in Bensenville IL, where George Thein worked in the
locker room. (Twin Orchard was later torn down for the O'Hare Airport
expansion.) She worked as a companion to the manager's wife, who cooked and
did the dishes. In the Spring of 1940, she started waitressing at Twin
Orchards Country Club.
From June through October in 1941, Kay stayed at Channel Lake, Antioch, Illinois, with her mother, sister Helen, and the kids.
Katharine worked as a waitress for her brother, Tommy, who was the head chef at Howell's Restaurant at the corner of Cicero and Madison (considered a better class restaurant). Then, she worked as a waitress at the Berkshire Hotel Coffee Shop and Restaurant on Ohio Street across from the Mediah Temple. There were a lot of weirdos as customers - very interesting. Katharine went back to Howell's Restaurant in the winter.
When
her father died December 21, 1941, Katharine moved to 2958 N.
Rockwell Street, in Jimmy's house, until she married
Raymond LANGNER 14 Aug 1943.
Weding party pictured left to right: Harney (killed in 1944), Annie
Celusta, Helen Prevenas Thein, Eddie Wojciechowski, Priscilla
Prevenas (flower girl), Grace Lonquest Prevenas (matron of honor),
Herbert Langner, Vandenburg, Helen Harris.
Ray and Kay lived with the LANGNERs and PIETRZAKs at 5056 W. 35th Street in an attic bedroom, while again working at Howell's.
For one year, while husband, Ray, was stationed at Glenview Naval Air Station, she lived in an apartment on Central near Chicago Avenue. They lived in Fort Lauderdale for a couple of months while he was stationed there. Ray drove them to Norfolk, Virginia from Florida when he was sent overseas. His parents, Marty and Bess came to Virginia to drive Kay and the car back to Illinois
While Ray was in Africa for nine months, Kay stayed with brother James and her mom, and worked at Howell's. During that time Fani married and moved upstairs as tenants.
Ray was expecting to get out of the service because he earned enough points (so many per month of service plus so many per month overseas) but he was sent to Pleasanton, California, instead. They rode together on the train until the military personnel were split off to a military train. Kay was on the base first. Ray was been shipped right out to the Pacific. (Ray wrote his story in paper.) But, never got to the Pacific campaign because the A-bomb was dropped.
James
sold his house in Rockwell. Ray was discharged November 11th, 1945.
Kay's mother fell and broke her hip and went into the hospital. Kay and her sister Helen Thein switched twelve-hour shifts being in the hospital with their mother. Mary came home December 31, 1945. "Your father and I took care of my mother 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for three months, with not one day off. When we couldn't take it anymore, Jim and Helen put her in a nursing home, where she died one week later." [*KPL]
Then Ray's parents built a couple of rooms in their basement for them to live in while he went to Morton Junior college. "For years, there was an odor in one room that smelled like a dead cat. No one could understand where it came from. Long after your folks moved out, there was some repair work done on the rooms. In taking down a wall they found what was left of a leather 'flight jacket' that your dad had worn. It was there decaying behind the wall and giving off the unknown odor." [*CMP]
"I was just out of college. I had just bought my new 1947 Packard. Dodo said to me, 'Do you want to go to Chesterton, Indiana, to a Psychic camp?' 'Sure, I'll go.' I went and picked her up and off we went. Uncle Ray came the next night. You stayed there in camp at night. Well anyway, I was open to all this. So, we went into a tent and there were trumpets flying all around. And she believed it all. They described things about Grampa. Well, she was giving them information. And, she believed all this. We came out of the tent and I said, 'Dodie, if you believe all of that you are as wacko as they are.' She said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Dodo, those things floating around there were on strings. You could see them if you looked!' I didn't go into any more tents with her and I don't think she wanted me to. Then your Dad came and the two of them went in the tents together. I didn't go in any more tents after that because I couldn't see spending all the money on it. I drove home alone and your Mom and Dad went home together." [*HHD]
"Your mother really believed in that stuff and I can see why because Gramma. Gramma used to say, I was just a little kid, if a dog was howling or a clock was ticking, she would have a story. And Gramma could tell you specific things where as my mother would say, 'I have a bad feeling but it is not going to effect our immediate family.' Or she would say, 'Something good is going to happen that will effect us.' But my mother could never tell specifically what it pertained to, how, who, ... but Gramma could, specific things. I have heard through someone, not your mother, that your mother saw Gramma several times at the foot of her bed in California. I think it was just after she got over all that that she finally became pregnant with your brother, Marty. They had been trying for a long, long time. Kathy in Alaska saw Grampa. She said to Auntie Vi, 'I was talking to the nicest man by the fence.' Auntie Vi said, 'What man? What did he look like?' So, Kathy described Grampa. 'He had blue eyes, bald head, ...' I guess that happened once or twice. So I guess there is something in the family that carries this ability. They usually say that people with blue eyes are more susceptible to it but, my mother had hazel eyes, her mother had brown, your mother has brown." [*HHD]
"Yes, we went to a spiritualist church. We tried to do stuff, send messages to different people We would sit in a circle. The woman would have a basket and pass it around the circle. Everyone would have to put something of theirs into the basket. Then, they would pass the basket around and everyone would have to pick out something. Then you had to sit there and tell her how and what you feel while holding what you pick in your hand. She tried to help you develop your senses so you could tune in and do it. There were a couple times that I would say something and the next week the person would come in and say what turned out. That was when I first heard the peacocks. We heard a horrible screaming like someone was being murdered." [*KPL]
Ray
and Kay moved to California where Ray went to UCLA. They bought a
house in a newly constructed neighborhood at 12938 Wingo, St. in Pacoima,
where they lived when Marty was born November 29th, 1949.
"I liked California. That was my dream to go there to live. When he got out of school, he couldn't get a job. That was when the Korean War started. There just weren't any jobs there for him. Dadsie had a beautiful rose garden in California. He did a lot of work putting in the yard. He was proud of the curved sidewalk we put in too. We didn't want to leave California but he just couldn't find a job. When we came back to Illinois they said he needed a couple more classes to teach in Illinois and we just didn't have the money for more schooling." [*KPL]
They
returned to Illinois and lived with Ray's parents and
Marie's family in Western Springs. After moving into their own home in Cicero,
Norma was born September 14, 1954. They moved to Glenview around
1956, to Breezy Acres in Rockfalls, Illinois, around 1958, and to 1028 S. Neltnor
Blvd., West Chicago, DuPage County, Illinois, in June of 1960.
Kay became heavily involved with Girl Scouts during 1963 - 1965, where she meet life-long best friends Elnora McGuyer, Jean Wisniewski, Marlene Dantos, and through them, Marie Knapp and Sharon Bitner. She did many different craft projects, needlework, and oil painting with them.
Pictured
at Butch and Andrea Thein's wedding reception in August 1976, left to right:
Marty Langner, Marie Langner Pietrzak, Harry Pietrzak, Thomas Prevenas, Ray
Langner, Katharine Prevenas Langner, and Denise Dahle Riehl.
After Ray retired, they moved to Sparland, Illinois, to live with Marty in 1978.
They
were in the process of buying a winter home in Phoenix when Ray died in
October, 1990. Kay completed the purchase and went to 16439 N. 32nd Street,
Phoenix, AZ 85032 the day after Thanksgiving in 1990. During her winter
stay, her home in Sparland burned to the ground.
Pictured together in Arizona in 1992, from left to right: James Prevenas, Peter Prevenas, Helen Chmura Prevenas, Katharine Prevenas Langner.
Katharine
LANGNER died 02 Jan 2007 in Phoenix, Arizona. Her ashes were spread in a
rose garden on Marty's property in Sparland, Marshall County, Illinois.
"We did get to visit with Aunt Dodo just a few months before she died. It was a great visit! Jack and Fred brought their computer and typed lots of notes about family stories." [*KCW]
[*CMP Carl Martin Pietrzak, *HHD Helen Harris Dahle, *HPT Helen Prevenas Thein, *JW Jack Webb, *KCW Katharine Coghlan Webb, *KPL Katharine Prevenas Langner ]
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Our thanks to Marsha Bryant for graciously hosting this LANGNER Family History website on her server.