Novel Notes of Local Lore

Bessie Skalicky was born on March 11, 1901 in Polhora, Slovakia, a village at the foot of a mountain near the Polish border.  Her parents were Jozef and Aneta Jelen.  Jozef worked as a lumberman, [...]

Michal Havelka was born on March 28, 1898 in Chicago to Michal Havelka, Sr. and Ivana Beran, both immigrants from Czechoslovakia.  Michal’s father worked as a house painter, and the family lived [...]

Evelyn Feldman was born on October 31, 1922 in Chicago to Russian Jewish immigrants, Aron and Riva Mayer.  In Russia, Aron worked as a tailor, but once in Chicago he went into the “junk [...]

Lois Wright was born on March 23, 1911 in Chicago.  Her parents were Thomas Wright, who was on the Chicago Board of Trade, and Ida Carroll, who stayed home to care for their eight children: [...]

Irene Miller was born on November 4, 1913 in Chicago to Slawomir Kotwica and Maria Pestka, both of whom were Polish immigrants.  Slawomir made a living as a tailor, and Maria cared for their [...]

Sadie Margaret Perez was born on January 21, 1931 to Mississippi sharecroppers, Leland Brown and Flora Jefferson.  Flora often worked in the fields beside Leland despite the fact that she had [...]

Annie Flemming was born on November 18, 1900 in a small town in Wisconsin.  Her parents, Myrtle Jones and Howard Gilman, were of English and Irish descent.  Howard worked in a flour mill, and [...]

Rosemary Tsukuda was born in Santa Cruz, California on March 10, 1913 to Japanese immigrants. Her father, Chihiro Hayashi, left Japan as a young man in search of adventure. His travels took him [...]

Barbara Bianchi was born in Chicago on February 9, 1922 to Polish immigrants – Wislaw Gawrych and Olga Kobylinski.  Olga worked long, long hours sewing table pads in a factory, and Wislaw worked [...]

Jadwiga Jurkiewicz was born on December 26, 1906 in Pennsylvania to Polish immigrants, but she later changed her name to Judy Jurka. She was one of six children, including two sets of twins, of [...]