Veterans Day Tribute to World War I Dead
In honor of Veterans Day I posted yesterday an essay about my uncle Frank Ebner Gartz, a World War II navigator. Today I'd like to post about a tribute to a family member who lost his life in World War I.
Animal Tales in Chicago
We were a city family but with the animals one would expect in a rural home. From rats to rabbits, cats to crows, lambs to Lucifer the boa constrictor, we never were without a pet that set my friends' eyes a-goggle. Here's an "outtake" that didn't make it into my book.
Rural Health Care-W. Eugene Smith “Country Doctor” Life Magazine
Rural health care, far away from cities is hard to come by. But the dedication of a country doctor may have saved my grandmother's life.
The “Mankini” as cutting edge beach fashion
Chicago and family history buffs (no pun intended) –and anyone who enjoys a good laugh, should get a kick out of today’s blog post. Summer is waning, giving way to back-to-school ads (sigh), and later sunrises, but the Lake Michigan [...]
Evicted
At age 17, my mother became the sole support of her parents The Depression had destroyed 50% of all manufacturing jobs in Chicago. Her father was a tool and die maker, a machinist–and sixty-years-old to boot, so...tough luck for him. He got the boot. When the banker came around to demand their mortgage payments, he said, "Why don't you take your daughter out of school and send her to work to pay the mortgage?"
“He knows all the little innuendoes of kissing…”
Oh it was heavenly! He knows all the little innuendoes of kissing and I ain’t so bad m’self, if I do say so We kissed for about an hour and a half. Tonight was like a page from a storybook, and he definitely is the man I want to marry. Dear God, please let it come true!!
An Era of Riots – 50 years ago
Two of the nation’s deadliest riots exploded 50 years ago–in July 1967, within two weeks of each other. July 11th 1967, The Newark Riots blew up on an early Sunday morning, after a cab driver was brutally beaten by Newark police. After four days of rioting, looting, and destruction, 26 were dead and hundreds injured. On July 23rd, 1967, Detroit erupted in a riot triggered by a police raid of an unlicensed after-hours bar, where 82 African Americans were celebrating the return of two local GIs from the Vietnam War.
“…threatened with Negro Encroachment.”
“…district threatened with Negro encroachment” is a direct quote from the portion shown here of a 1940 map of Chicago area neighborhoods, illustrating the color grade given to various areas by the New Deal’s creation, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC).
