Donald Frederick Lemke

I was named after him but have always gone by Cathy, my middle name is Catherine after may grandmother Gertrude Catherine. There's a bit of a story to this. My mother was in the hospital for some time after my birth and my Dad and Gertsie sent out announcements and added Cathy in quotes and that's how it started. I always got the feeling that my mother had wanted me to be called Donna but she let them win that one.

He wasn’t a big man, probably average height and a little scrawny. He balded early so I never remember seeing him with hair but always a hat, usually a cowboy hat. He was, I suppose, what you call gregarious, loved people, loved to laugh and tell stories, some might be considered ‘tall tales’. He was a machinist and worked in different factories. He made rattan furniture at one of his jobs and I also remember him working for Burns Detective Association, not sure in what capacity. But in later years before he died, he owned in partnership with Hugh Miller, The Red Barn on North Lewis Avenue. Later, he owned The Treasure House on North Peoria. I spent many hot summer days in either of those two places among ornate armoires, tables with ball-and-claw feet, coffee grinders and old pump organs, not realizing I was acquiring a love for old things. Things that most don’t appreciate anymore. I’m pretty sure he was much happier with the freedom these two ventures provided. He was what you might call a “Wheeler Dealer”. I often went with him on Saturdays to the Collinsville auction. He went to auctions, sales, and clearance sales to buy just about anything to resell. He was kind-hearted to a fault and gave away many dining room sets, sofas and beds to families in need. As a child, I never knew that by many we would have been considered poor ourselves. The house my grandparents lived in, in my younger years, had no indoor bathroom. A bath meant heating water on the stove and pouring it into an aluminum tub on the porch.

He died on August 4, 1962.

– Donna ‘Cathy’ Gibbons Reedy