Walking through our home in Forest Park, I sometimes wonder about the folks who previously lived between these same four walls. Who was here before we moved in? What were their lives like? With the help of Jill Summers of Ordinary Houses, the history of our house was revealed through newspapers articles and public records. It was so much more fascinating than I could have hoped for.
Santa beards on fire? Fist fights? Abbott and Costello? Apples in January? An inventor? What interesting people slept under the same roof as I do now! Summers also provided me with copies of the materials, which really brought the history of the house to life.
I asked Summers about her process. She usually starts with the Chicago Public Library’s interactive fire maps, online newspaper articles, Ancestry.com, and then goes “…where those lead me.” She looks for building notices and building permits to establish build date, builder, and architect; names of former owners and interesting bits and pieces about their lives. And in a perfect world there are old photographs of the house or occupants. She said a lot of information is available online, but it’s best to get a copy of the house’s tract sheet from the Cook County Recorder’s Office archives, which can sometimes require an in-person visit. (The tract sheets for my house are fascinating – with some familiar Forest Park names like Dunlop and Roos.) Depending on the house, Summers said there may also be collections with specialized information based on the neighborhood. She also recommended reaching out to neighborhood historical societies.
If you want to look into the history of your home, Summers’ advice is to be “…unyieldingly dogged in your research. Sometimes something will turn up the third time you look in the same place…” and “…don’t trust anything you can’t verify yourself with at least a couple of good sources.”
Summers said she started this work because she loves old houses. As a child, she moved often (six times by the time she was 11 years old). One place that her family almost moved into was an old farmhouse with a wrap-around porch. She said she thinks of that farmhouse to this day.
A couple of houses she researched stand out. There was an old Victorian farmhouse on Kedzie that was home to the Hedlers, one of the first European families to settle in the area in the 1850s (that stretch of Kedzie was once named Hedler Street). She also remembers a home that in 1916 federal agents had to break into using a chisel – the current owner told Summers he had recently repaired a part of the old front door that had damage from what could have been that 1916 chisel.
Homes are more than just buildings — they can shape the course of our lives. Summers said she sometimes wonders if she might have been a different person had her family bought that old Victorian house instead of the newly-built home they moved into.
Would you like to learn the history of your home? Send in a request to the Forest Park Review (Dan Haley at dhaley@wjinc.com) and every two months or so, one lucky reader will be chosen to have their house researched and featured in the Review. (Houses will be chosen based on the information available for that property.)
If you’d like to work directly with Jill Summers, you can see previous house histories online at https://www.facebook.com/OrdinaryHousesFB/ and reach out to her at ordinaryhouses@gmail.com.