Carol Landow believes writing a memoir presents a unique challenge — one that can take a long time, at least for her.
“Your autobiography never stops. You’re always living it,” she said.
Though she’s not quite done living it, Landow recently completed her autobiography at age 103, finishing a work she began decades ago while raising her children. A niece had typed up a version of the memoir, but it lay dormant for years.
It wasn’t until Landow took a writing class at Peace Memorial Village in Palos Park, where she’s lived for 23 years, that she resumed her literary efforts. She wrote and illustrated a children’s book last year called “The Adventures of Missy,” the story of a cat who gets lost and the animals he meets as he tries to get home. She sold and gave away 550 copies.
Not long after that book was completed, she decided to finish her autobiography, partly as a way to keep her mind sharp.
Although the memoir tells her story, it’s organized by different subjects rather than chronologically.
“Each chapter has a topic. It doesn’t read like a regular book,” said Debi Pope, a friend of Landow’s for more than 20 years who helped with the project. “It’s more like articles rather than sections, with topics like transportation and education.”
She and Landow met once a week to work on the book, revising what her niece wrote because that was more chronological. “We wanted to organize it this way,” Pope said.
“It was easier to write,” Landow shared. “I tried to remember everything … I’d think about different schools, for instance. But it overlaps. I met people at school that were important in my life.
“That’s the good thing about autobiographies. Those things are buried back there. … It makes you feel young. You’re not over the hill yet. Well, I guess I am, but I don’t have to admit it,” she said with a smile.
Landow was so focused on the project that she lost five pounds. “I would forget to eat. The clock would chime, and I would have skipped the meal,” she said. I would take two to three hours every day to write.”
She has quite the story to tell, Pope said. “She remembers details about what it was like to live back then. She gave me a glimpse of what life was like to be born in 1920. … I learned a lot about life in general, what kids did for fun. I think that’s why topics are good.”
Landow, who was born in 1920, grew up on Chicago’s South Side with eight siblings. A ninth sibling, a brother, died when he was 2 months old. She graduated from Morgan Park High School in 1937 and in 1942 she married Ernest Landow, an only child. They went on to raise a son and two daughters, and she now has six grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.
One fact she shared about her early life was that the house her family lived in was moved down the street to make way for the Dan Ryan Expressway.
“It got put on a truck and taken to Racine Avenue,” she said. “It’s still there. You can see it from the expressway if you know where to look.”
Her husband didn’t want her to get a job, so she “found things to fill the time,” she said. One of those opportunities was at the Field Museum’s Place of Wonder, where she volunteered for 22 years.
It was a dream assignment for Landow, who had always wanted to go to college but couldn’t because her family was too poor. “I worked with schoolkids. On the weekend I was a teacher. Since I hadn’t been to college, I didn’t have a degree. I was able to use my ability. … The Field Museum gave me more confidence and a purpose.”
The position also led to Landow learning to speak Spanish, so she could talk to all of the children who visited Place of Wonder.
“That was one of her crowning glories. She wanted to be a teacher but couldn’t go to college so she volunteered at the Place of Wonder and taught kids anyway,” said daughter Kathy Landow. “She’s the proudest of that of anything in her life. She was Volunteer of the Year one year.”
Kathy Landow, who’s responsible for her mother’s care, said her dedication to the museum included health risks, such as providing fresh poison ivy pressed into a book, which the daughter would often pick because she’s not particularly allergic to it.
“She is highly susceptible to poison ivy, but she would bring it in every year and would end up getting it,” the daughter said. “Of all the people to be doing it, it would have to be that person.”
She described her mother as “a force of nature. She’s not overtly overpowering, but she’s got soft power from within that helps her do that she does. She’s very old-fashioned, sometimes to a fault” because she still sees the world the way she was raised.
“There is so much that has changed. She’s like a being from another planet, but she’s functioning well here,” Kathy Landow joked.
She’s grateful for all her mother did for her. “She took over a Girl Scout troop because I didn’t have one. I was in another troop that didn’t want me there, so my mother formed a new troop and we were all misfits but in a wonderful way.”
One of the Girl Scout projects that stands out for Kathy Landow happened during the Vietnam War era. “She got lists from the local churches of men who were serving in Vietnam and their addresses. We baked Christmas cookies and put them in coffee cans in July and sent these out so they could get to Vietnam to the guys who needed them by Christmas.”
She’s proud of her mother completing her autobiography.
“She has found her voice and always wanted to write a book,” she said. “She’s very humble. She doesn’t like to toot her own horn, but sometimes you have to. Stop being so submissive, Mom. You’re amazing! She always stood up for the underdogs, especially the ones who were quiet and withdrawn, especially the kids, and would find a way to try to reach them.”
Now that Carol Landow’s autobiography is done, she’s started a new literary adventure: a book of poetry.
“I’m writing poems. I’ve probably written 50 of them,” she said.
“It’s her way of getting her feelings out,” Pope explained. “Instead of journaling, she writes poems.”
One of those poems was inspired when she was 18 by someone stealing her boyfriend – one of her sisters. After reciting the entire poem from memory, she emphasized the last sentence: “To me, a man is nothing more than a 10-cent buy in a dollar store!”
“I found by writing poetry, it was therapy for me. I was able to handle the situation,” Carol Landow said. “It’s like having a good day. You feel better.”
She’s pleased that she can stay busy.
“I feel better about myself that I found a way to keep happy without a lot of riches. I’m really proud I was able to conquer a goal and feel I was able to make people happy,” she said. “Maybe that’s how I lived so long. All my life I never thought I accomplished anything. … I’m still looking for things to do.”
Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
