15 December 1893 – 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 […]
28 October 1900 – 16 August 1920 Violet was born on her mother’s 22nd birthday, and she would be her parents’ (Caroline “Carrie” Kepschull and Joseph “Jack Blank” Blankenstein) only child. Carrie has differing information on the public records about her place of birth, but she was either born in Illinois or immigrated as an […]
Eliza E. “Mother George” (Hamilton) George 20 Oct 1808 – 9 May 1865 Eliza was born in Bridport, Vermont and was the second wife of Woodbridge Cottle George, a man almost 20 years her senior. The couple started their lives together in New York where their three children were born (Eliza, Sterling, and Maria). Eliza […]
3 March 1879 – 6 February 1947 Philomena and her first husband Vito were both born in Italy. On the 1920 census – the first one I can find for them – Vito lists his immigration year as 1899, but there isn’t a year listed for Philomena. From their ages, I presume they married in […]
22 November 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 […]
Maria Carmela Russo born 23 May 1839, Laurenzana, Provincia di Potenza, Basilicata, Italy died 11 June 1898, Chicago There isn’t much to find out about Maria Carmela as she died in that census gap after 1880 and prior to the 1900 census (which is really quite a good one for fact-checking other records because it […]
John and Julie (Houle) Benoit John (1847 – 1903) and Julie (1845 – 1903) were both born in Quebec and came to the US as young people. There are some conflicting census records, but it appears Julie’s family emigrated when she was a toddler and several of her younger siblings were born in Illinois. John […]
9 Nov 1835 – 17 Dec 1922 John H. Bass was born in Salem, Kentucky, and came to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1852. He first worked as a grocery clerk while he studied bookkeeping at night school, then worked for a railroad concern as an auditor. The next year, he joined his brother and some […]
16 March 1851 – 18 April 1915 Mary was born in Ireland as was her eventual husband John O’Brien. They met and married in the US in 1871, after he had immigrated to get into the lumber trade around 1867. He arrived as a recent graduate of Christian Brothers College in Dublin (which was a […]
This absolutely stunning building also sits by the lake near the more famous Getty mausoleum. It is quite large, and Graceland’s index lists 23 people interred from four generations of the family. Going by the interment records, this mausoleum appears to be quite old compared to many of its neighbors. The earliest entombment listed was […]