The Rowes
Over the years the Rowes have turned to H.O.M.E. several times for upkeep and repair including weatherization, painting, and a new hot water heater. The Rowes learned about H.O.M.E. around 2009 through a local neighborhood association. When Mike Laz, H.O.M.E.’s Community Programs Director came out, “we clicked right away,” Karleen Rowe says. “He established immediate rapport and it’s been that way ever since.”
They say opposites attract, and Karleen and William Rowe are a case in point.
When they met, Chicago-born Karleen, 16, was a student at Wendell Phillips High School; her family ran a jitney cab business to help people travel around Bronzeville. William, 19, had just moved to Chicago from Aberdeen, Mississippi, to join his brothers working in the meatpacking industry.
The two tell the story of how they first saw each other at a skating rink on the South Side:
“I was with my best girlfriend,” Karleen recalls. When he saw me he said…”
“… Lawdy lawdy, look what’s coming in,” William chimes in.
“… And that was it!” they laugh together.
The two were married in 1964. William worked in the stockyards manufacturing district for the same company for 43 years, retiring in 2003.
Karleen got her degree at Chicago State University in 1971 and joined a wave of teachers who integrated Chicago Public Schools, becoming the first African-American to teach in her Northwest Side building the following year. She worked there nine years before moving on to another school. “I had to work harder to earn my reputation and prove myself to be a good teacher,” she says.
After Karleen’s mother passed away in 1987, they bought the home where they now live with their dog, Lucky, in the Rosemoor neighborhood on the South Side.
“One thing we have noticed is, Mike sends the best out,” Karleen and William said. “We recommend H.O.M.E. to other senior citizens. They make you feel appreciated, and it is reciprocal.”
H.O.M.E. fills a significant need for the couple: their equity and savings have been severely depleted since the economic crisis of 2008. Financially, they say, life is getting harder, not easier: “After we pay our bills, there’s not a lot left over, so H.O.M.E. really comes in handy.”
