If walls could talk: Local residents share vintage items they found in their homes

We’ve all heard the phrase “if these walls could talk,” and it conjures up a home with a long history of secrets that remains unrevealed. 

Sometimes, those secrets are revealed after they are disturbed during a renovation. Several local homeowners share stories of history uncovered in their homes.

Debbie Borman has found a number of items in her River Forest home, which was built in 1911. She laughs because people are always expecting to find three things hidden in walls: money, guns or alcohol.

She hasn’t found anything too alarming. Her contractors did discover three bottles from the 1960s in her ceiling, and while renovating an older home in Oak Park, she said that a contractor found a small pipe and marijuana bag, which, she noted, “were not ancient.”

In her current house, she’s found some older items. When she had work done on her bathroom, contractors discovered very brittle newspapers in the rafters. The article remnants dated to December 1917. 

“It’s so ironic, they were talking about some of the same things we’re talking about now,” Borman said. “It’s very cool to imagine who lived here then.”

Earlier this summer, she uncovered a toy bus under the stairs. With some research, she determined it dated to the 1940s or 1950s.

Borman keeps tabs on neighboring homes as well. 

“All of the houses on my side of the street were built by one builder between 1911 and 1913,” she explained. “Whenever anything’s being done, I always ask my neighbors if they found anything.”

Borman’s neighbor Trudi Ross has lived in her house for 47 years and said she’s fourth generation River Forest. Her bungalow was built in the 1920s and she found newspapers dating to 1926 in the attic when they added insulation to the home.

After her husband dismantled a pantry added by former owners in the basement, they found an advertisement for bread painted on a board. Ross saved the sign and hung it in their kitchen.

Ross said her husband Jim likes to dig in the garden, which is where he found an old milk bottle and toy car.

Ross grew up in a home around the corner that her great grandfather built in the late 1800s. Her parents lived in the house for more than 60 years, and when they sold it, Ross found photos of the front and backyard of the farmhouse. She made copies and gave them to the new owners, along with a copy of an early property tax bill, reflecting taxes of $47.

Marta Stewart-Bates benefitted from a similar kind act. When her family moved into their Oak Park home in 2021, the seller, who had lived in the home for 50 years, left behind a box of items found in the walls.

A kitchen renovation in the 1990’s yielded a newspaper dated 1898, as well as a number of small objects. Stewart-Bates said the seller left them in a box with a letter asking that the items be passed down with the house. 

“We were thrilled. We didn’t expect this,” she said.

She called the items “so neat.”

“They came out of the box and are now on display in our living room,” she said. “Houseguests love to look at them.”

When Stewart-Bates had a ceiling light replaced, the contractor found some of the original wallpaper with a pattern of red berries, and she framed a fragment of the paper to enjoy the intricate pattern.

She said that if her family ever moves, they plan to leave the items for the next homeowners.

Dave Ksander of Von Dreele Freerksen, an Oak Park general contractor, said that workers often discover items hiding in the walls of the local historic homes they renovate.

Items run the gamut: a board signed by a home’s original carpenters, a 1900s-era pipe, toys from the 1870s, a Japanese battle flag. Ksander said that homeowners are always excited when historic items are discovered. 

The company documents some of the treasures on their website at: http://vdfconstruction.com/interesting-finds

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