Postboxes in the city

Dry Bones Blog

Another slice of life from Yaakov Kirschen

An hour of power

I went to a rather trendy progressive Comprehensive School in the 1970s. It was stuffed with idealistic, radical teachers, and I have to say, I got a fantastic education there for five years. Most of the teachers were the “handpicked, cream of the crop” types. We had an award winning music department and some pretty good scientists strutting up and down in the designer labs.
There was one throwback to the “old school master” type however. He was our librarian. His name temporarily escapes me, but we all thought he was very eccentric and he could seldom keep control of us in our library hour.
He would regularly insist that a class of squirming, hormone rampant teenagers listen to LPs of bird song in his one hour of power. We were a captive audience. We were only allowed to leave the library for a different call of nature.
He would regularly give a monologue over the top of one of the recordings, telling us how to distinguish blackbirds from robins from chaffinches. It usually produced a cacophony of uniformed brats trying to be Kukaburras, parrots or that well known bird, the chimpanzee.
This evening, I was sat on our deck after a shower of rain, listening to the dusk song of birds well fed and settling down for the night.
I was able to identify every bird on every branch. And I know who I have to thank for that.

Number 37 Halevy Street

Through a strange series of “happenstances”, we have come to own a bundle of letters written by a family we never knew. The correspondence is from the 1920s and is between a family in Brooklyn and their relatives who have recently moved to Palestine.
The letters are written in English and Yiddish, and for the most part are the friendly banter of a family homesick for the familiarity of their native home, and yet enchanted by their new “exotic” neighbourhood.
One of the letters goes into some detail describing the house they live in, at 37 Ha Levy Street, in the relatively new town of Tel Aviv. They try to explain to their family living in a Brooklyn Brownstone how people use their covered balconies as sleeping areas during the hot nights.
My husband recently visited Israel on business; and he had a commission from his wife, to photograph 37 Halevy Street. I was desperate to see if the house still stood. Regrettably it doesn’t, an ugly concrete bank stands in its place. However, right across the street is a building that matches the description in the letters. Here it is, the original Tel Aviv in all its glory.

In the shade of the Family Tree

My dad has been researching his family history for getting on for twenty years; a task made much simpler because he came from a LONG line of hoarders. When my grandmother and great uncle died within a short space of each other, we inherited boxes and boxes of letters, photographs, photo albums and curiosities. The latter have turned my 78 year old father into a detective and amateur historian.
The internet has made geneaology so much easier, and we found after sowing some random bits of information on various websites, that the “fruit” came back to us in the forms of distant cousins, in the USA, Australia and the UK. Most of these folk were descendants of the rather prolific and fecund branch of the Sollitts.
A few years ago, Dad was contacted out of the blue from San Francisco. This cousin (several times removed) was also researching the Sollitt family. The US branch had an insignificant impact on the city of Chicago and as this newly found relative had a Doctorate, he was no stranger to digging around for information and cross referencing and making connections. The rest of us looked like happy amateurs compared to him.
So here follows excerpts from an article about my Great Great Uncle, John Sollitt, taken from an article housed at The University of Illinois Library, Kuhois Historical Survey Album of Genealogy and Biography, Cook County, Illinois.

JOHN SOLLITT, now in his eighty-first year, was in his younger days one of the largest contractors and builders of Chicago. He was born November 19, 1813, in Stillington, County of York, in what is one of the most beautiful sections of England. His ancestors were Huguenots, who emigrated from France to England some two hundred years ago. His paternal grandfather was John Sollitt, and his maternal John Cass. The former was a stone-mason, and the latter a carpenter. The father of our subject, John Sollitt, was also a stone-mason and a sculptor. All were prominent in their professions and lived and died in England.

At the age of six years the subject of this sketch entered the common schools of Stillington, and was graduated therefrom in his twelfth year, after which he began learning the carpenter's trade with his grandfather. He remained in his employ until his twenty-first year, when, in May, 1834, with his wife and child, he went to Canada.
He worked at his trade in Hamilton and Toronto for a year or two, when a friend, residing in Madison, Wisconsin, wrote to him glowing accounts of that country, and he decided to remove to that place. He started by way of the Lakes for Milwaukee, but, experiencing difficulty in reaching that point, on account of a storm raging on Lake Michigan, he landed in Chicago. This was on the 6th of June, 1838, and he had but $5 in his pocket. Chicago, at that time, contained a population of about four thousand.

Business was very dull in this city then, and he had difficulty in obtaining employment; but he finally made an arrangement with Azel Peck, a prominent contractor and builder, in whose employ he remained for three years. He then entered the service of Peter Lewis Updyke, with whom he continued for five years. On the expiration of that period he entered into partnership with Messrs. Peck and Updyke, and their 's became the leading firm of the kind in Chicago. Mr. Peck died in 1848, and the partnership was continued between Mr. Sollitt and Mr. Updyke until the latter's death, in 1850. In the fall of 1849 they erected the old Tremont House, which was destroyed in the great fire of 1871. Mr. Sollitt then carried on building operations alone, with great success. He erected several of the finest buildings in Chicago, including the old courthouse, built in 1852-53, and having acquired a competency through thrift and enterprise, he retired from business, and has since given his time to his private interests and the enjoyment of a well-earned rest. Soon after his retirement from building operations, he purchased large tracts of land in Kankakee and Will Counties, forty-three miles from Chicago, and there moved his family, hoping the country air would prove beneficial to his wife's health. This hope, however, was disappointed, for she died in 1871. During this period Mr. Sollitt spent a portion of his time in Chicago and the remainder with his family. The town of Sollitt, in Will County, was named in his honor, and he gave to the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Company $1,000, with which to build a new depot at that place. After the death of Mrs. Sollitt, he brought his family back to Chicago, and now resides in his handsome home at No. 515 Jackson Boulevard.

When scarcely twenty years old Mr. Sollitt was joined in wedlock with Mary Smith, daughter of Thomas Smith. Her father, a farmer by occupation, resided in Tollerton, Yorkshire, England. Her uncle, Thomas Pollard, carried on a large and popular hotel, called the "Angel Inn," situated near Tollerton, on the main stage road between London and Edinburgh. Mrs. Sollitt died of cholera in Chicago, in 1850, and was buried in Graceland Cemetery. Eight children were born of their union. Elizabeth, now a resident of Englewood, has been twice married. Her first husband was Alfred Bromfield, and her present husband is William Ivers. By each marriage she has had three children. Mary died in childhood. Hannah, deceased, was the wife of Henry Curtis. Jane, deceased, was the wife of Thomas Wallin. James J. lives in Sollitt. Oliver died when one year old. John resides in Oklahoma; and Fanny died in Chicago in 1865. In 1854 Mr. Sollitt was united in marriage with Anna Rowntree, who was one of a family of seven children. She was born in or near Richmond, Yorkshire, England, and came to America with her parents, who located in Rochester, Racine County, Wisconsin. On their deaths she went to live with her brother Christopher, who resided near that city, and at his home was married. After a happy wedded life of seventeen years, which was all passed in Chicago, with the exception of one year in Sollitt, she died of consumption, and was laid to rest in Graceland. She had two children. Charles, who resides in Sollitt, where he follows farming, is married and has two children, Leslie and John. The daughter, Blanche, is the wife of Nathaniel Board, a solicitor for the Chicago & North- Western Railroad, residing in Oak Park.

In 1874 Mr. Sollitt was married in the town of Waterford, Wisconsin, to Anna Blackburn, and they have a son, Walter, a bright and promising youth of seventeen years, who is now preparing for college in a Chicago academy.

Mr. Sollitt cares little for society, preferring to give his time and attention to his family. He was reared in the Episcopal Church, which he attended for a time on first coming to Chicago. Later, he joined Robert Collyer's Unitarian Church, and occupied a pew there for a number of years. He erected the first Unitarian Church built in Chicago, its location being on Washington Street, between Clark and Dearborn. Politically, Mr. Sollitt is a conservative Democrat, and has, with few exceptions, voted that ticket. He is an advocate of free trade, the advantages of which have been made evident to him since leaving England. While never aspiring to office or taking an active part in politics, he ran for Alderman in 1852 and County Clerk in 1854.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that his great great niece also lives in a windy city in the southern hemisphere, we are still wandering Hugenots!

Bee apartments!

Foxglove Hollow

The first summer we were in our home, we were aghast at the number of foxgloves which appeared on the hill at the side of our driveway. We decided to dub our little haven "Foxglove Hollow". They have come early this year.