Ron the Yarn Spinner

 

“Wazner on Milk was Like Sterling on Silver.”

 

If you drive through Chicago neighborhoods, you might just see a name chiseled into a building’s stonework. Sometimes it was just a name for an apartment building (The Andrew). More commonly it was the name of a bank carved in big letters on the lintel above the door to present an image of strength, security, and longevity. The Illinois Constitution of 1879 specifically prohibited branch banking but starting in 1967 and into the 1990s, things opened and eventually there was a wave of branches, mergers, and acquisitions. Stakeholders of smaller banks that were profitable were subject to attractive offers of stock and cash from larger institutions and many local banks were sold and the name on the door was irrelevant and the building itself was often sold. Business too sometimes had their names prominently displayed in stonework. Wanzer Dairy was one.

Wanzer pioneered selling milk in glass bottles, used science to determine the milk’s butterfat content of milk, installed mechanical refrigeration for milk storage, and pasteurized milk using the process invented by Louis Pasteur to kill bacteria in milk.

Sidney Wanzer & Sons housed its main plaint on 55th Street. Two others were located farther south. Wazner also had a north-side distribution on Lawrence Avenue near Wolcott. I worked across the street for twenty years.

Despite the Wazner name, the building was part of the auto service center connected to the nearby Sears Roebuck store. The Wazner name always brought back memories of growing up in Chicago. No matter that decades had passed since I first heard their jungle, I never forgot it. Broadway theater actress and pioneer in early TV, Carmelita Pope was the spokesperson for Wazner’s television commercials. She would hold up a half-gallon carton of milk and say, "Wanzer on milk is like Sterling on silver." She could sell me anything.

Beginning in 1958, Pope started appearing on TV’s first (non-radio) soap opera, “Hawkins Falls.” “I also got pulled into doing commercials “every other day” for the show’s sponsor, Surf detergent,” Pope recalls, “I enjoyed doing commercials. And they were live.”  Her on-camera skills promoting products made her a household name. Before long, she was doing ads for Bell Savings, (At the weather Bell corner of Monroe and Clark – remember that too.), Northern Illinois Gas Co., PAM cooking spray, and Wazner. Pope politely refused to hawk products she did not like. So much television exposure, however, took its toll with the law of diminishing returns. Pope became so associated with on-air advertising in Chicago that, it started to work against her. She says, “One day I went to a local audition because I heard they were looking for a “Carmelita Pope-type.”  But, when I got there, I was told, ‘We are looking for someone like you, but not you.”

There was another Pope on television at the time- actually several.

In 1942 these Popes (Francois and Antoinette) opened a 3,000-square-foot school at 316 N. Michigan Ave. with an auditorium for 150 students, experimental kitchens, and laboratories. Homemakers, even Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner, together with doctors, lawyers, home economists, food editors, caterers and restaurant owners attended the school.

The Popes' school reached more Chicagoans when in 1951 it was aired on local and network television. The "Creative Cookery Television Show," featuring Francois Pope and sons Frank and Robert, was aired daily until 1963.The Popes taught basic cooking with sound techniques in an elegant American way. Many TV viewers speculated Francois, Antoinette, Frank, and Robert were all related to Carmelita. They were not.