By Tim Moran
Villager Editor
Marquette University in Milwaukee is the college alma mater to a cluster of families living in the homes that surround 105th and Oakley in Central Beverly. Golden Eagle alums Jim and Erin Love found that out quickly when they moved into a home on the block earlier this year.
“One of my neighbors was even in my class,” said Jim Love, a motivational speaker and staffing professional who grew up on the South Side, including much of his high school years living at 99th and Winchester.
Jim met his wife, Erin, a pediatric nurse, at Marquette, and even though they both grew up in the Chicago Southland, they had lived in the Milwaukee area for the entirety of their adult lives.
“We loved Milwaukee and still do, but had always wrestled about the idea of coming back,” Jim said.
The couple welcomed a daughter, Eleanor, just under a year ago and decided it was time to move closer to family. Naturally, the Beverly/Morgan Park neighborhood was first on their list of where to look for their family home. Jim’s parents still live at 99th and Winchester, his sister at 103rd and Hoyne and Erin has family in near south suburban Orland Park.
Erin said the couple didn’t have to look long before they found their house.
“I wrote down a wish list of what we were looking for in a house, and this one checked everything off the list,” she said.
“It was the only house we looked at,” Jim added. “It looked really nice, so we wanted to go for it. It was a real short window of time from when we first looked at it to when we closed.”
One of the home’s previous owners works as an architect and had the home renovated recently in 2017.
“The owners were terrific,” Jim said. “They are good people and that made it really easy. We got along right away and didn’t need a realtor. They accepted our offer within an hour. We realized it wasn’t going to get any easier than that.”
Jim and Erin have already been welcomed with open arms by their neighbors, many of whom share their Marquette Golden Eagle pride.
“The people are great,” Erin said. “There was a block party just a few weeks after we moved in, so that was good timing.”
Two Mile Coffee and Beverly Bakery are among Erin’s favorite places to spend time in the neighborhood. Horse Thief Hollow is a spot both Erin and Jim knew about before and returned to, and “the entire Western Avenue bar scene is a fun one,” Jim added.
“The food is really good everywhere, too,” Jim said. “Franconello has world class food. We like checking out the concerts, too, and there’s a lot more discovery to come.”
Both Erin and Jim are devout Chicago White Sox fans and enjoy the convenience of having a Metra train station a few blocks away that can take them directly to the ballpark. It’s a bit more convenient than the 90-mile drive it would have been from Milwaukee.
“In Wisconsin, it was mostly just us,” Jim said. “We had no family up there, so it felt like we were on an island at times. We almost forgot about how everyone knows everyone here. Everyone seems to have no more than 1 degree of separation.”
