John J. and Mary Louise (Jewett) Mitchell John (1853 – 1927) was born in Alton, IL, and came to Chicago with his family as a young adult. He started his career as a bank messenger at Illinois Trust and Savings when he was 20 years old, but just six years later in a scene out […]
Lillie (1887 – 1910) was the oldest of four children born to William H. and Minna (Goldmeier) Falkenstein. William was a butcher, and Lillie worked as a hairdresser, which likely explains her very elaborate coiffure in her cameo portrait. She was predeceased by her little sister, Ruth, who was only seven when she died. William […]
Patriarch Jacob Birk immigrated to the US from then-Prussia around 1853. He met and married Magdalena Welflin (from Alsace-Lorraine; then Germany, now France) in 1859, and together they had 12 children, 8 surviving childhood. Jacob did well in business and on the 1880 census is listed as the proprietor of a boarding house (per other […]
1833 – January 28, 1868 Kate Warne’s early years are a mystery beyond the facts that she was born in Erin, New York, and was widowed by the time she was 23. It was unclear to me if Warne was her married or maiden name, but she used variations on this name throughout her career […]
Carl Frederick Jaekel (1823 – 1882) was a tailor and patriarch of a large family, many of whom are buried on this extensive family lot. In pride of place on the shared marker are the names and dates of his second oldest daughter Paulina and her husband Nickol Hoelzel. Carl and his wife Ernestine (Knopf; […]
4 October 1896 – 24 July 1915 The Eastland, one of five chartered excursion boats meant to ferry employees, their families and friends from Chicago over to the Michigan City shore for the annual Western Electric Company picnic, keeled over into the Chicago River while still at dock, trapping hundreds inside its hull and leading […]
Inez Clarke/Briggs 20 September 1873 – 1 August 1880 The story of this gravesite is pretty fascinating, and deep-dive research has already been done on it by Chicago historians and genealogists. Someone has helpfully appended the entire write-up to Inez’s findagrave.com record, and I recommend it as a very good and interesting read. In summary, […]
Benjamin “Bennie” A. Haertel, Jr. 15 June 1895 – 24 July 1915 The Eastland, one of five chartered excursion boats meant to ferry employees, their families and friends from Chicago over to the Michigan City shore for the annual Western Electric Company picnic, keeled over into the Chicago River while still at dock, trapping hundreds […]
4 May 1890 – 24 July 1915 The Eastland, one of five chartered excursion boats meant to ferry employees, their families and friends from Chicago over to the Michigan City shore for the annual Western Electric Company picnic, keeled over into the Chicago River while still at dock, trapping hundreds inside its hull and leading […]
Frances Manette Pearce Stone 29 June 1835 – 12 March 1854 Frances was the second wife of grain tycoon Horatio Odell Stone, a man who was 24 years her senior. They appear to have married when she was just 16 years old. Stone’s first wife had died just a year before after many years of […]