WICKER PARK — A cannon in the front yard of the home Carol Sommers shares with her husband Nick has garnered so much attention from passersby over the past 39 years that the Wicker Park family eventually installed a plaque explaining the back story behind the hard-to-miss artillery.
"We have seen cars almost rear-ended when one would slam on the brakes as they took a double-take. The main response from onlookers is, 'Why it is there?" Carol Sommers said.
Constructed in 1912, the howitzer U.S. Navy cannon was used for training in World War I and was one of 600 built. The cannon was not sent overseas.
The cannon belongs to north suburban-based Naval Station Great Lakes, which placed the artillery in the yard at 1558 N. Hoyne Ave. in 1934 to mark the charter of American Legion Pulaski Post 86, which at the time was in the building that now serves as the Sommers home.
The Queen Anne style mansion was originally built in 1878 for C. Herman Plautz, founder of the Chicago Drug & Chemical Company. After the American Legion Hall closed in 1972, a previous owner converted the hall back to a single-family home.
Plautz, born in 1844, died inside the home in 1901, according to historian Elaine Coorens, who featured the home and cannon in her book, "Wicker Park From 1673 Thru 1929 and Walking Tour Guide."
Shortly after Sommers moved into the home in 1977, some boys knocked on the front door to ask her if they could retrieve a ball that had been accidentally thrown into the yard, she said.
Had there not of been a cannon in the yard, she doubts the boys would have asked for permission to get their ball back, Sommers said.
She soon plans to adorn the cannon and yard with white lights for the holidays, an annual tradition, she said.
Recently a woman was walking by with her son and asked Sommers when the lights would be turned on.
"I told him he had to wait until after Thanksgiving," Sommers said.
The cannon's future in the yard was threatened when a legionnaire wanted the cannon for his American Legion Post in DeKalb, Illinois and asked the Sommers family for the cannon.
"We and the Old Wicker Park Committee said no; it had been here so long, that this is where it should stay," she said.
The legionnaire wrote Navy officials for the cannon. "They wrote him a letter saying he could," Sommers said.
"We wrote Great Lakes also and they agreed with us and the other neighbors that it should stay here," she said.
Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill fought to keep the cannon in the yard and the Sommers say they have a letter from Washington stating that it belongs in front of the home. Sommers said that Rostenkowski's father was a leader at Pulaski Post 86 as well as a former alderman.
Despite that assurance, Sommers recalled how one day 38 years ago, a few men showed up with a flat bed truck.
"I asked if I could help them, and they said they didn't know they would have to tear down a fence. Then, I saw that the legionnaire and a police officer were also there. The legionnaire had shown the original letter to the police and came to take the cannon, even though he knew that it was supposed to stay here," Sommers said.
Sommers said she told her son, then five, who was out in the yard with her, "Guard the cannon!"
She ran upstairs to get the letter from Rostenkowski that officially said the cannon should remain in the yard.
The police officer and legionnaire ended up leaving with an empty truck.
"The experience may have had an influence on my son, because after two other careers, he is now working for the United States State Department in the diplomatic corps," Sommers said.
A plaque with details about the cannon's history. [Photos by DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser]
The howitzer at 1558 N. Hoyne Ave.
It is hard to miss the cannon in the Sommers' family yard.
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