Joliet opens grocery museum in Slovenian neighborhood

The Slovenian neighborhood grocery museum, which opens Sunday, gives a nostalgic look at the past while providing reminders that the current passion for locally sourced foods harkens back to an urban way of life that was familiar to many in Joliet until the 1960s.

The Martin & Emma Planinsek Grocery & Meat Market Museum at 1314 Elizabeth St. is opening as part of the festivities for the Slovenian Grape Harvest Festival. The festival runs from 1 to 9 p.m. at the Rivals Park Picnic Grounds, 1423 N. Broadway St. in Joliet.

The new museum, standing at the corner of Elizabeth and Russell streets where the Planinseks lived and ran their grocery from 1926 to 1961, is across the street from the Slovenian festival.

The museum includes the living quarters of the Planinsek family and also depicts the story of immigrant life in the U.S., particularly as Slovenians joined other Europeans who made Joliet their home in the early 20th century.

“We feel that their story is the American story,” Kailee Lowry, project manager of the museum store for the Joliet Area Historical Museum, said of the Planinseks. “They came here in 1921. By 1926, they had built their own grocery and their own property. It’s really the American dream.”

One of their daughters became mayor of Shorewood, where she is remembered by her married name as Bertha Hofer.

Mexican immigrants of today may take note of how the store reflects the grocery businesses in their own neighborhoods.

Joliet-area baby boomers and their elders may delight in the signs advertising two local dairies, Weber’s and Crombie’s, that once provided much of the milk consumed in town. Some may remember the “Best by Test” slogan used in the Weber’s sign.

One shelf contains an empty can from Adler’s Jim Dandy Lard produced in Joliet.

“That’s actually where Martin worked before he opened here,” Lowry said.

Bottles of Reimers’ soda and a case of Citizen’s beer, both made in Joliet, are more reminders of how people here once not only did their shopping in the neighborhood but typically bought products made close to home.

A can of Thomas J. Webb Co. coffee and a package of Swift’s Selected Beef Brains show some of the other food items brought in from Chicago.

“About 90% of what we have on display is original to the site,” Lowry said.

Fortunately, for posterity, the store was left almost completely as-was after its closing, and Emma did very little updating of the furnishings as she continued to live there until her death in 1990. Martin died in 1955.

The tools that Martin used to butcher meat are in place in the room where meat was butchered.

“We’ve had several people come in looking and ask if we had fresh meat and deli service. I said, ‘I hate to disappoint you, but we’re a museum.’ ”

—  Kailee Lowry, project manager of the museum store

The small bedroom and living room look much like they must have looked in the 1940s. An old Zenith TV, most likely built in Chicago, was brought up from the basement to be part of the exhibit.

The Planinseks had three children. Bertha Hofer and Theodore Planinsek have died.

The youngest child, Irene Odorizzi, and her husband, Ken, who no longer live in Joliet, have provided the store and family home to the Joliet Area Historical Museum.

The store still lives in the memories of many in Joliet. It was opened during last year’s Slovenian Grape Harvest Festival and put on display in its unfinished state.

“We had a lot of people who came here last year who remember coming here when they were kids,” Lowry said.

Others who have stopped while the museum has been undergoing preparations for its opening suggest there may still be an interest in the kind of business that helped Martin and Emma Planinsek make a life for themselves in the U.S.

“We’ve had several people come in looking and ask if we had fresh meat and deli service,” Lowry said. “I said, ‘I hate to disappoint you, but we’re a museum.’ ”

The museum is just a couple of blocks off Broadway Street, which is part of the historic Route 66. The Joliet Area Historical Museum hopes Route 66 tourists along with local residents will provide visitors to the Martin & Emma Planinsek Grocery & Meat Market Museum.

Admission after Sunday is $5, with children age 3 and younger allowed in at no charge. The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays until mid-December. The plan for next year is to open the museum from March through October.