“Family Archaeologist” explores a century of family letters, diaries, and artifacts, and how they illuminate history and our shared humanity. To get an overview of the blog, click: “Welcome to Family Archaeologist”
LATEST BLOG POSTS
Mental Health Month – My Family’s Trial with Mental Illness
It's Mental Health Month, so I’m going to tell you of my family’s experience with mental illness, starting in the early 1940s. What is it like to live with a mentally ill family member when you have no support, no medication, and few options for care? The anguish escalates when mental institutions, which should offer support and a safe place [...]
Chicago’s Riverview Park and the Racist Dunk Tank
Photo Credit: Chuck Wlodarczyk Chicago’s iconic Riverview Amusement Park closed fifty years ago, in 1967. Riverview was a place of carnies and pink spun cotton candy; where the Bobs roller coaster careened around tight curves and plunged down steep tracks so fast that thousands of women’s clip-on earrings tore off–later to be displayed in a huge trunk on [...]
Valentine-Be Mine across the century
Happy Valentine's Day to all. History.com writes that 85% of Valentine's Cards are sent by women! That makes this sweet little card even more unusual-because it was sent from a man, my grandfather, Josef, just one month after his arrival in America January 1911. (Read about Josef's adventurous trip at these posts: Terror Atop the Train, Threats to the Dream, Out to Sea) He sent [...]
Perfect Valentine gal to commitment-reluctant guy
An adorable Valentine for a gal to send! (Scroll down to see entire card) Lil was already madly in love with Fred, but he found it hard to express his emotions. (Sound familiar?) So what's a girl to do? Can't appear too eager...yet...want him to know you care. Is this perfect or what? Feel free to print and make your [...]
Chicago’s Record 1967 Snowstorm and Race Relations
My dad and my two brothers, ages nineteen and thirteen, started shoveling out our car that had been mired for two days in snow after the city's greatest twenty-four hour snowfall had brought Chicago to a standstill. They were down near thirty-third and Wentworth, close to IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) where my older brother, Paul attended, but commuted from our home on Keeler near Montrose. As they dug in their shovels around each of the tires, tossing snow over their shoulders, a group of twelve African American men moved toward them with determined strides.
Martin Luther King-Dream Speech: a remembrance of 8/28/68
Martin Luther King made his "I have a dream" speech on August 28th, 1963. It was held that day in honor of the anniversary of Emmett Till's torture and murder on the same date, in 1955. King murdered: Then in 1968, after King himself had been murdered, Chicago hosted the most infamous of all party conventions: The Democratic National Convention [...]
Harriet Tubman-a woman for all seasons
The choice of Harriet Tubman for America’s $20 bill thrills me because it acknowledges two under-represented groups in our country: women and African Americans. When the face of Susan B. Anthony, a champion of women’s rights, was emblazoned onto a one dollar coin, back in 1979, it was doomed from the start. The size was too similar to a quarter, [...]
World War II combat, end, and stealth attack
After arriving overseas, Ebner was allowed to tell his family only that he was stationed in Italy. It wasn't until I discovered the Second Bomb Group website (in 2009) that I found out exactly where he was in Italy, the missions on which he had flown, and the crew members with him on each mission. He was stationed in Amendola, Italy, on the Adriatic, just east of the town of Foggia.
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