ENGLEWOOD — Elaine Hegwood Bowen was a little girl growing up in Englewood during the late 1950s, a time when the neighborhood was safe, thriving and fun.
In the 57-year-old's first book, "Old School Adventures from Englewood—South Side of Chicago," she discusses her childhood living on the western edge of the neighborood and what the area and its residents were like back then.
"This book is a collection of essays about my family, starting with my parents coming to Chicago from Shaw, Miss., in the early 1950s and later buying a home in Englewood in 1959," said Bowen, who now lives in Bronzeville and has one adult daughter. "The book also follows my family and myself until about the late 1980s, but includes my mom's 80th birthday last year."
Even though she moved out of Englewood in 2004 to be closer to her job Downtown, she regularly visits family that still lives in the neighborhood.
Some of the fondest memories Bowen said she had growing up in Englewood with her three sisters and one brother was when kids could play in their backyards without fear of being kidnapped or shot.
"Only grown folks sat on the front porch. If you were a kid you had to play in the backyard," Bowen said. "I think I was out of high school before I started sitting on the front porch."
One misconception Bowen said people have about Englewood is that it is filled with poverty, broken homes and people who don't care about the community.
"There are many working-class families in Englewood who care about the community," she said. "These are people who go to work every day, take care of their homes, gardens, and children."
According to Bowen, when she was a teenager, Englewood teenagers were getting good-paying jobs straight out of high school.
"That time has certainly changed. A lot of youths are dropping out of high school not realizing how much farther behind that puts them in getting a job," she said. "Gone are the steel mills and other industrial businesses willing to hire a high school graduate full-time."
She grew up at a time in Englewood when Kennedy-King College, 740 W. 63rd St., was located at 67th Street and Marquette Road and there was no such thing as a charter school.
Commerce is one thing needed in Englewood to improve the lives of its residents, said Bowen, who added that more education, jobs and a youth recreational center would also improve the impoverished community.
The self-published book by Lulu is available online for $17.99 and also is being sold at Women and Children First bookstore, 5233 N. Clark St.
"Although it is my story from Englewood, it is the story of black families in towns across the nation, who were once living in middle-class environments and now find [themselves living in] despair, poverty and crime," Bowen said.
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