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Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Tech Tuesday's Tip - GDPR Compliance, continued



A little more on my efforts to comply with GDPR - the General Data Protection Regulation, which took effect on May 25.  I first talked about this in an earlier post.

I'm still working on a more detailed privacy policy (elaborating on the one currently at the top of the sidebar), but in the meantime, I did find an e-mail subscription service, MailChimp, that advertises itself as GDPR-compliant (if you use GDPR fields in sign-up forms to collect consent).  I also chose MailChimp because others I respect use it, and because they offer a free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month.  This should work fine for me with my four-that-I-know-of e-mail subscribers to my blog posts (no marketing or selling).

It took a little tweaking (like all of the holiday) to get it to work.  I discovered that it is best NOT to send my blog post subscription e-mail messages from a Gmail or Yahoo account.  It seems to be working fine with our Charter.net address, so I'm about to start them tonight.  If you subscribe to my blog (under "Follow by E-mail" in the sidebar to the right), and if there is new content, you will get an e-mail no more than daily at 1 a.m. Central Time.  If there is no new content, then no e-mail notice.

Besides sending from Gmail and Yahoo, there can be problems for recipients with those addresses, so I've subscribed three of my own just to monitor them.  If you have such an address and can let me know if you're getting the blog post update e-mails and they look alright, I would appreciate it! 

I do ask for your first and last name in the sign-up process.  That's because, with Gmail in particular, the blog post update e-mails are more likely *not* to be treated as spam if they are addressed to your real name (with the magic of mail merge) rather than "ABT UNK Reader."  If the latter is what is showing up in your messages and you'd like it changed, let me know and we can fix that.  I also enabled double opt-in for sign-ups to further protect my readers' privacy.  That, and a required reCAPTCHA while signing up, will hopefully turn away spambots and discourage other spammers.

As it happens, one of my four readers e-mailed me separately to tell me his e-mail address had changed, and he has already re-subscribed with MailChimp.  I'll be contacting the three other legit Feedburner subscribers and asking them to resubscribe.  I also picked up another new subscriber yesterday thanks to a blog post share in a Facebook group.  I hope more of you will sign up too.  Welcome!

And now - hopefully - back to some REAL blogging!


© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Monday, May 28, 2018

Military Monday: Korean War Veterans Memorial, Wayneville, North Carolina

This year, in honor of Memorial Day, my recently-deceased dad (a Korean War vet), and for The Honor Roll Project, I decided to transcribe the Korean War Memorial in Wayneville, Haywood County, North Carolina.



The center panel says:
Korean War
June 25 1950
July 27 1953

Erected by Citizens of Haywood County 2003

And at the botton of the memorial, it says:
Bravely They Sacrificed Gratefully We Remember


The photos below are cropped from the one above.

Names on the left-hand side:

Cogdill, Kenneth C.
*
Conard, Lester
*
Green, Grover G.
*
Hollifield, James R.
*
Messer, Rayford K.
*
Saunders, James
*
Hannah, Jack L.
*
Welch, William C., Jr.
*
Brown, Charles
*
Rhinehart, Billy C.
*
Morgan, Arnold L.
*
Wilson, Charles B.
*
Israel, Paul E.

Names on the right hand side:

Coleman, William N.
*
Dolen, Bobby J.
*
Headrick, Herman
*
Sanford, Bobby R.
*
Cagle, Erastus E.
*
Wood, Gerald D.
*
Burgess, Charles E.
*
Sizemore, Zemera V.
*
Miller, Bobby
*
Rogers, Gerald E.
*
Messer, Billy
*
Stiles, Frank E.
*
Sutton, John R.


© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Sentimental Sunday: My Stuff in a Museum Exhibit!

Back in January, I was contacted by the exhibit curator at the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) in San Antonio, who was working on an ITC 50th anniversary exhibit that would open in April. A colleague shared a blog post I'd done about the ITC with her, and she wrote to ask if I might let them use my photo of the ITC taken in August 1968 from the Tower of the Americas (part of Hemisfair '68, the 1968 World's Fair).

Of course I said yes!  I pointed them to my Hemisfair blog post, and they wanted to borrow a postcard (front and back) from that as well.  I sent high resolution images of all three.

Last week I was in San Antonio for a workshop, and went by the ITC briefly to view their Viva Hemisfair exhibit.  I knew from the exhibit's web page that my stuff was there, but I wanted to see it for myself.

Here's the wall that my three items are on.  They are just to the right of the big "Hemisfair '68 Souvenirs" sign, and just to the left of the white magnet board where visitors are invited to share their own Hemisfair '68 memories.





Below is an enlargement showing the three items (or really two, as the postcard had a reverse side) that I gave permission for the ITC to use in the exhibit.




Here is the photo (enlarged in the display) on the right in the grouping above, which I took in August 1968, along with the caption the ITC staff put below it:





It reads, "Eleven-year-old Amanda Pape captured this photo of the Texas Pavilion from the Tower of the Americas.  She wrote about her visit to the fair in a postcard to her pen pal Mimi.  Courtesy Amanda Pape."

On the left hand side of the grouping are the front and back (enlarged of course) of a postcard I purchased at Hemisfair to send to my Girl Scout pen pal Mimi.






On the back of the postcard, I wrote, "Aug. 15 - Dear Mimi, Hemisfair was great!  We didn't get to see everything, though.  The best thing[s] were the Texas and Italy pavilions, the IBM [and] Coke pavilions, Tower of the Amer[icas], the Laterna Magica show, and the rollar [sic] coaster.  Many other things are good, too, but I can't remember them right now and I'm in a hurry.  I bought a Japanese fan, in a Japanese shop.  I'll tell you about more things at Hemisfair later on.  We're having fun. ALP!"

What a thrill!

I plan to go back with my husband later this year (the exhibit is open through December 31, 2018), to explore this exhibit and the ITC's 50th anniversary exhibit in more detail, as well as to re-visit the displays of the ITC, which was the Texas Pavilion during Hemisfair.  The ITC still documents the contributions of various immigrant and ethnic groups to Texas history and culture.

© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

GDPR Compliance




I've been distracted all week with the GDPR - the General Data Protection Regulation, which took effect on May 25.  It's supposed to protect the privacy interests of citizens of the European Union (EU), particularly data collected and stored by organizations, groups, and websites.

Since I have this blog, and since I know it has readers from EU countries (particularly Germany and Lithuania, where my ancestors are from), I thought I should pay attention to this, even though I may not have to.

Judy G. Russell, who blogs as the Legal Genealogist (she is a lawyer by training, although she is adamant that she is NOT giving legal advice about GDPR), notes that "genealogists with family websites, individual hobbyists with blogs and even professional genealogists or societies that hope to earn money from their web presence are not the main targets of the EU, and some aren’t covered by this rule at all."

This is followed by a footnote where she cites her source (the reason I love Judy is that she is *always* citing her sources): "See GDPR Recital 18: 'This Regulation does not apply to the processing of personal data by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity and thus with no connection to a professional or commercial activity.'”

My family history blogging is entirely personal; I don't make any money from it.

However, even Judy outlined steps she took with her blog, and I am following them as well.  I do want those in the EU to feel comfortable commenting on my blog or contacting me via e-mail.

I took a look at this blog and removed some of the widgets on the sidebar to the right.  I got rid of feed and e-mail subscription links, because I couldn't find proof that any of the outside sources providing those services (like NetVibes and Atom) were GDPR-compliant.  I also removed the Google/Blogger Followers list, as well as links to some of the blogs I follow.  This was more to protect the privacy of those people, since their Blogger/Google profile photos show in the Followers list.  That may have been overkill and I may be able to bring those features back when I learn more.

I believe if you are subscribing to my blog via e-mail or an RSS, you should still get the feed, but I have not been able to figure out who was subscribing with those tools.  The exception is with Feedburner, which Judy recommended not using as the site has not been updated in years.  I was able to see my subscribers' e-mails there, but I believe most of these are spammers - all but four were outlook.com addresses with nonsensical names.

IF you have an outlook.com e-mail address and want to follow my blog, please send me an e-mail (you can use the link at the bottom of this post or in the sidebar) and let me know.  I will be contacting the four people, all of whose e-mails I recognize, to get documented consent for their e-mail subscriptions.

Google is already providing a cookies notification for EU users, and the more secure Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) web protocol.  I put a very brief privacy policy notification at the top of my side bar, but I am working on a more detailed one that will be a separate page you will be able to access from one of the tabs next to the home tab.  I'll use the top of the sidebar to notify my readers when that is in place.

Finally - because this *is* so time-consuming and I'd rather be researching and writing than messing with this - I made some of my blogs (such as Bookin' It, where I review my reading) private for the time being, and I am removing myself from a non-work-related group blog - as I'm not an administrator and cannot do anything to improve the GDPR compliance of that blog.

© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Dad and Nana, April/May, 1952, Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois


This photo was taken on the front entry of 2093 W. Lunt Avenue in Chicago in either late April or early May, 1952, when my dad was visiting home after his commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force on April 11, after completion of navigator training at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, en route to reporting on May 14 for B-26 bombardment training at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

Standing are my dad, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), and his mother, my grandmother Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000).

This image is from a recently-found Kodachrome slide.

© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Those Places Thursday: Udelhofen Homes at 1962 Morse, Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois

I ended a previous post, about houses along the 6900 block of N. Ridge Avenue in Chicago, with the following image:


At this point in the clip from a 1927-28 home movie, my grandmother, Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000), on the right, and a woman on the left who I think is her friend, Marian Udelhofen (1904-1939), had turned and started walking towards the camera.  Note the two houses in the background.

I think the house on the left is the one picture below, 1962C Morse, which was built sometime in the 1890s.





The house on the right in the black-and-white image is, I believe, the same as the one pictured below, at 1962B Morse, also built in the 1890s (and apparently the first house built on this lot).





The house at the front of the lot, which has the "plain" 1962 W. Morse Avenue address, may be the newest of the three, although the tax assessor's records also indicate that it was built in the 1890s.




So what do the census records tell us?  Click on the images to make them larger:


"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DKRQ-25H?cc=1325221&wc=9B72-7M7%3A1030552601%2C1031967101%2C1034752701 : 5 August 2014), Illinois > Cook > ED 777 Precinct 38 Lake View Chicago city Ward 25 > image 27 of 39; citing NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).


In 1900, living at 420 (later 1962) Morse are John (1866-1946) and Mary [Maria Brenner, 1873-1970] Udelhofen and children Barbara "Birdie" (born March 1895), Joseph (born July 1897), and Henry (born September 1899).  John and Mary were both German immigrants, John arriving in 1887, and Mary in 1892; they were married about 1894.

Just down the street, at 432 (later 1952) Morse are Nicholas (1845-1913) and Katherine [Katrina Reck, 1851-1933] Udelhofen and children Robert (born December 1883), Gertrude (born May 1887), and John Joseph (born April 1890).  Nicholas and Katherine married about 1881 and immigrated in 1883.

At 438 (later 1946) Morse are Jacob (1837-1907) and [Anna] Barbara [Nelles, 1848-1905] Udelhofen and their children Helena Stolze (born October 1870, a widow with one child), Joseph (born April 1872), Barbara (born February 1876), Jacob (born April 1880), Marie [Dena] (born August 1882), Peter (born February 1885), Gertrude (born June 1886), and Nicholas Charles (born October 1891), the only surviving child born in Illinois.  Three other children had died before 1900.  Jacob and Barbara married about 1865 and immigrated in 1889.

Marian's name is engraved on the same stone as Jacob Sr. and Barbara Sr., so she's definitely related to them.  I'm thinking Jacob Sr. and Nicholas Sr. are brothers, and Marian's father John is the son of one of them - perhaps Jacob Sr. due to the location of Marian's grave at nearby St. Henry's Cemetery (they are all in the same plot, 38-6).



"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RJJ-W2K?cc=1727033&wc=QZZ7-7JJ%3A133640201%2C135332401%2C141121301%2C1589218903 : 23 June 2017), Illinois > Cook > Chicago Ward 25 > ED 1037 > image 30 of 50; citing NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).


On the 1910 Census:   Edmund (born 1902) is a new addition to the John and Mary Udelhofen family at 1962 Morse.  The family appears to be living in the middle of the three houses with this address (a house they own, just as they did in 1900), while the other two houses at this address are rented.  If these other two houses existed in 1900, they apparently were vacant.

Oddly enough, their youngest child, Marian, is listed separately on a supplemental sheet, pictured below.  No telling why she was not listed with the rest of her family.


"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RJJ-WKZ?cc=1727033&wc=QZZ7-7JJ%3A133640201%2C135332401%2C141121301%2C1589218903 : 23 June 2017), Illinois > Cook > Chicago Ward 25 > ED 1037 > image 46 of 50; citing NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).


In 1910, my grandmother Elizabeth and her parents and brother are living at 1938 Morse.  It must have been around this time that Elizabeth and Marian became friends.

Nicholas and Katherine Udelhofen are still down the street at 1952 Morse, only son John Joseph is still at home.  Jacob and Barbara Udelhofen have died, but some of their children, single siblings Barbara, Peter, Gertrude, and Nicholas Charles, are still at 1946 Morse, along with niece Lillie Stolze, age 16, and nephew Frank Muno, age 7.  Frank is the son of the siblings' sister Anna Maria Udelhofen (Mrs. Henry) Muno, 1874-1903, who must have been married by 1900.


"United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9R66-CDK?cc=1488411&wc=QZJP-FP3%3A1036473701%2C1037511801%2C1039675101%2C1589340558 : 14 December 2015), Illinois > Cook (Chicago) > Chicago Ward 25 > ED 1409 > image 1 of 22; citing NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).


On the 1920 Census, John and Mary Udelhofen are still in the main house at 1962 Morse, along with youngest children Edward and Marian.  Oldest child Barbara has married John Mertes (born 1889) and they rent one of the other houses on the property, living with their three-year-old son John.  The third house must be vacant at census time.

My grandmother Elizabeth Massmann is living at 1833 Morse on this census.

Nicholas Udelhofen has also died, and sadly, his wife Kate is now a servant in her former home at 1952 Morse, now owned by someone who does not live there.  Son Robert and his family (wife and two daughters) rent another part of the house.

Siblings Barbara and Peter Udelhofen still own and live at 1946 Morse along with sister Gertrude Blanke and her husband Fred, and their nephew Frank Muno.



"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RH9-KKH?cc=1810731&wc=QZF3-3W1%3A648807601%2C648807602%2C651679801%2C1589292243 : 8 December 2015), Illinois > Cook > Chicago (Districts 1751-1976) > ED 1863 > image 19 of 62; citing NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002).

On the 1930 Census, only Marian is left at home at 1962 Morse with her parents John and Mary, along with two lodgers.  Sister Barbara's family, now including a second son and two daughters, rents the front house, and a single woman rents the far rear house.

Marian's good friend, the now-married Elizabeth Massmann Pape, lives just a few blocks away at 2093 W. Lunt Avenue.

The Udelhofen's son Joseph, his wife Mildred, daughter Virginia, and son Joseph Jr. live just a few blocks away - in the rear part of 7000 Ridge, the home of my great-grandparents Frederick Henry Massmann (1875-1948) and Elizabeth Camilla Dienes Massmann (1876-1946).  Joseph is their chauffeur.


"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9R4L-QZH?cc=1810731&wc=QZFS-XRF%3A648807601%2C648807602%2C651679801%2C1589292670 : 9 December 2015), Illinois > Cook > Chicago (Districts 1751-1976) > ED 1914 > image 32 of 40; citing NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002).

The situation has improved a little at 1952 Morse, with Katherine Udelhofen no longer a servant but renting with her widowed daughter Dena Clarke and granddaughter Dorothy Clarke.  Son John Joseph, his wife and family rent the basement.

However, all the Udelhofens and their kin are gone from 1946 Morse.


"United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9MB-RJ42?cc=2000219&wc=QZXT-V6L%3A790104501%2C791862901%2C802364101%2C802376001 : accessed 17 May 2018), Illinois > Cook > Chicago City, Chicago, Ward 50 > 103-3214 Chicago City Ward 50 (Tract 4 - part), Apartments at 1900-10 W Farwell Av, Apartments at 1900-12 W Pratt Av > image 10 of 32; citing Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012.


On the 1940 Census, John and Mary Udelhofen still live in the main (B) home at 1962 Morse.  Daughter Marian died in 1939 but single son Edmund is living with them again.  Daughter Barbara Mertes and family are still in the front (A) house, which they rent.  However, now the far rear house (C) is owned by John and Mary's son Joseph and his family.  Joseph now manages a retail store.

All the Udelhofens are gone from 1952 Morse now too.

An article in part 3, page 4N of the July 10, 1949, Chicago Tribune, "Learns Roses Do Not Grow in Florist Shop - Neighbors Laud Garden on North Side," talks about the garden of 54-year-old Mrs. John J. (Birdie) Mertes, mother of two sons and two daughters, at 1962 Morse.  The article also states that husband John, age 60, is a salesman, and that there are two other houses on the property.  Her mother (Mrs. John Udelhofen, pictured with Birdie in the article) and two brothers and their families also live in the houses.


© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Fred, Nana, Bob, Mare, Rho, April or May, 1952


This photo was taken on the front entry of 2093 W. Lunt Avenue in Chicago in either late April or early May, 1952, when my dad was visiting home after his commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force on April 11, after completion of navigator training at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, en route to reporting on May 14 for B-26 bombardment training at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

Standing are my dad, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), my grandmother Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000), my uncle Paul Robert Pape Jr. (1926-2008), who was in the Navy at the time, and in front are my cousins Marianne Streff Gustafson and Rosemary Jean Streff Grandusky (1949-2016). 

This image is from a recently-found Kodachrome slide.

© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Sentimental Sunday: Happy Mother's Day to My Mom!



Geraldine Guokas Pape, in Chicago, Illinois, 1956 or 1957, when pregnant with me.

© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Those Places Thursday: 1314 Railroad, Houston, Texas - working backwards from 1907

My great-grandfather Charles (Kazimieras) Guokas Sr. (1863-1939) owned a house at 1314 Railroad in Houston, Texas, from about 1895 until his death in 1939.  He left it in his will to his daughters from his first marriage to Stefania Jasilionis (died 1899).  The house is long gone; the railroad is still there, but the actual street (if there ever really was one in this area) is also gone.

I decided to work backward in tracing this house.  An ad I found in The Houston Post in January 1907 gave 1314 Railroad as Charles Guokas' address, and indicated that a new house at 1717 Shearn was for rent.  The Guokas family had moved to the latter address by the time the 1908 Houston city directory was published.

The wooden structures with an address of 1314 (and 1314 and 1/2) on Railroad show up on the 1907 Sanborn maps. The yellow coloring indicates that they are made of wood.  Note that the house falls between what were then Hickory and Oak streets.  Oak was renamed Goliad sometime after 1907 but before 1924.  Also, this section of the map looks about the same on the 1924 Sanborn map, at least as far as 1314 Railroad is concerned.



Sanborn Map Company. Houston 1907 Vol. 2 Sheet 1, map, 1907; New York. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth550296/m1/1/: accessed May 6, 2017), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.


The 1314-and-a-half building is not on the 1896 Sanborn map, but the other two buildings are:



Sanborn Map Company. Houston 1896 Sheet 47, map, 1896; New York. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth551114/m1/1/: accessed May 6, 2017), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.


I found my great-grandfather listed in the 1895 Harris County Precinct 1 tax roll (click the image below to enlarge it).  This gives the legal description of the property:  Baker Addition Lot 2 Block 473, Evans Survey Block O.


"Texas, County Tax Rolls, 1837-1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939F-WD9M-W?cc=1827575&wc=M636-7N5%3A161548701%2C161401301 : 21 July 2016), Harris county, Precinct no. 1 > 1895 > image 285 of 317; State Archives, Austin.


There's another reference to a similar legal description in a July 1, 1897, newspaper notice on real estate transfers from the previous day. "Gus Guokus [sic] to Stafania Guokos [sic], 50x100 feet in Sweatman [sic] tract, part of lots 1, 2 and 3, block 473, Baker additon, N. S. B. B., $1."  I believe Gus was supposed to be Chas (a common abbreviation for Charles), and notice that Guokas is spelled two different ways, neither of them correct.  The N. S. B. B. stands for North Side Buffalo Bayou, and 50x100 feet was the common dimension of a lot in this area.  A map further down in this post will show that lots 1, 2, and 3 make up the lot that 1314 Railroad is on in the 1896 and 1907 Sanborn maps.  I'll also explain the part about the (misspelled) Sweetman tract, and the Evans Survey mentioned in the 1895 tax roll.  Given that this transaction only cost a dollar, I believe my great-grandfather was simply putting the property in his wife's name.




The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 56, No. 99, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 1, 1897 [Page 3], newspaper, July 1, 1897; Galveston, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth442409/m1/3/?q=%22block+473+baker+addition%22: accessed May 6, 2017), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Library Consortium.


The 1890 Sanborn map, pictured below, doesn't show any development in this area (click on the map to enlarge it), the large rough-rectangle north of the railroad, west of the Old Cemetery, south of Dart street, and east of Houston avenue.  I believe my great-grandfather acquired his land in this area in 1895 and built a home there no later than 1896.  Daughter Mary Margaret ("Mamie") was born in February 1895 in Hearne in Robertson County, but I think the family moved to Houston soon after that.  Note in this map, the area is referred to as "Hollingsworth," which was the original name of the survey in this area, done by S. P. Hollingsworth and filed in July 1838.



Sanborn Map Company. Houston [October] 1890 Sheet 1, map, 1890; New York. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth551431/m1/1/: accessed May 6, 2017), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.


Here is the 1885 Sanborn map for the area.  What I like about this map is the block numbers along Dart street - these will be relevant later.  Again, there is no development in the large area bounded by Dart on the north, John on the west, the railroad on the south, and Tenth on the east.  


Sanborn Map Company. Houston [August] 1885 Sheet 1, map, 1885; New York. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth550211/m1/1/: accessed May 6, 2017), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.



The next map comes from the Kosse and Scott map of Houston dated 1867.





Here's an enlargement to the relevant part of the First Ward of Houston (the yellow line on the map, an extension of downtown's Congress Avenue, being the southeast boundary of that ward).  Note the area just above that line and to the left of the blue square City Cemetery:




Here's the relevant part of the map enlarged a little more (click on the image to make it even bigger).  Note the parcel labeled "Swetman," a misspelling of Sweetman.  It is part of this piece of property that became 1314 Railroad.






This area of Houston has a complicated history in the deed records, according to some research done by Kent McMillan, a land surveyor.  He references a map called "Plat Showing the Baker, Shearne [sic] & Riordan Add.[ition]" that is also called Map No. 300-A, in the records of the Houston City Engineering Department and held by the present Houston Department of Public Works and Engineering.  He believes this map was originally created prior to 1857,  because it does not show the Houston & Texas Central Railway tracks on West Street [later Railroad Street] that were reportedly laid in 1856.  The map is not the original; it also has some handwritten notes dating from 1894 and later (for example, Oak becoming Goliad after 1907).  Click on the image below to enlarge the map.




On both the map above and the closeup below, the additions of block numbers in red and the yellow highlighting of three lots are mine.  There appears to be a seam or fold line on the map right where the block numbers would have been; 471 had already been handwritten in to the block to the left of the ones in question.  The numbering is consistent with the sequence used in the area just below, and 473 matches up with the legal descriptions for the property in the 1895 tax roll and 1897 real estate transfer notice.  The three lots highlighted in yellow are the lots 1, 2, and 3 referred to in that 1897 notice.




Apparently sometime between this roughly-1856 map and the 1897 notice, my great-grandfather purchased parts of lots 1 and 3 (he apparently owned lot 2 in 1895) to create a new lot that fronted on Railroad Street.  The standard lot size at the time was 50 feet by 100 feet, and that's about what his new lot was sized (according to the scale on the 1907 Sanborn map).  It's just that now the 100 feet runs north-south instead of east-west.

Here (colored in green) is what I believe to be my great-grandfather's lot on a present-day map, from the Harris County Appraisal District Parcel Finder:




Note that its perimeter measures 50 feet - 100 feet - 51feet - 110.4 feet, because it's not exactly rectangular due to the railroad.  The legal description for this lot is "TR[act] 2 BL[oc]K O EVANS."  The City of Houston has owned it since at least 1988; the area is currently used for a police tow-away compound, and the buildings on it are long gone.

Take a look, below, at the plat (from the Harris County Clerk records online) for a small development at the southwest corner of the intersection of Dart and Hickory (click on the image to make it larger).  Tracts/Lots 5 and 12, just above my great-grandfather's Tract 2 in the map above, are referenced below as "Lot 5 (or 12) Block O Evans (unrecorded").  The development in question is part of Block P Evans.





Here is the legal description on the plat for the development pictured above.  Note that it references the Hollingsworth Survey in the John Austin Two-League Grant, Abstract No. 1, North Side of Buffalo Bayou, as well as the Evans Addition.





Apparently, even though the Evans plat is unrecorded, that seems to be what most of the legal references now use, as opposed to the (also unrecorded) Baker addition.  That might be because Baker's 1856-ish plat subdivided some lands he did not own!

According to McMillan's research,  the relevant land in the Hollingsworth survey was conveyed to Henry Evans in December 1839.  Sometime before February 1866, Evans gave power of attorney to Charles Shearn, who in turn conveyed a tract to T. W. Sweetman that was described in the deed  (Book 2 Page 365 Harris County Deed Records) as “including Lots Nos. 1, 2, & 3 in Block 473 as shown by W.R. Baker’s Map.”

So somewhere this land picked up the designation as the "Evans Addition," with blocks "numbered" with alphabet letters.  I'd love to find that map, as well as one with the block numbers for the Hollingsworth Survey.  Note that while the description above mentions that survey and some lot numbers, no block number is given.

Nevertheless, I'm confident that I've identified the "right" piece of property that was in the Guokas family from at least 1895 through at least 1939.


© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Sentimental Sunday: Missing Dad

It's been six months now since my dad, Frederick Henry Pape, passed away. I miss him.







This photo was taken on the back steps of 2093 W. Lunt Avenue in Chicago in either late April or early May, 1952, when my dad was visiting home after his commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force on April 11, after completion of navigator training at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, en route to reporting on May 14 for B-26 bombardment training at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.


© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Those Places Thursday: East Side of 6900 block of N. Ridge Boulevard, Rogers Park, Chicago, 1927-28

Here is a short clip from the 1927-1928 home movie I found in my father's belongings a few months ago.  One of the women walking is my grandmother,  Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000), and I believe the other is her best friend, Marian Udelhofen (1904-1939).  But the reason I'm doing this post is to explain how I figured out the setting for this clip.





The background is the 6900 block of N. Ridge Boulevard in Chicago, specifically the east (Rogers Park) side of the street.  It took some trial and error with initial incorrect guesses to figure this out, but here is my process.

First, I captured some still images from the movie.  Here is one, from about 10-11 seconds into the clip:




There are three houses in the background.  Here's a zoom-in (from a bit further back in the clip) of the first house on the left:




You really can't see enough of the house in the clip to be sure, but I believe it is this one, at 6979 Ridge, which was built around 1918 (photo below from Cook County Assessor's Office website):




I did not feel confident about this until I identified the next three houses in the clip.  Here are the first two of those again, in a little closer view:




And again, a little closer still:





I feel the first house, on the left, is the one pictured below, which is 6975 Ridge, built about 1909.  The roof lines match, as do the number of windows on the upper floor, and the chimney.  It looks like the front part of the house was perhaps a covered porch in 1927-28 that may have since been turned into a room, with the entry door moved forward.




Here are some closer views of the next house down.





Note that this house appears to have its main entry on the side.





Also note that there is a significant space between this house and the next one on the block.





I think this third house is the one pictured below.  Unfortunately the landscaping around this house is rather overgrown, but again, rooflines, windows, the third level dormer, and even some of the wood trim match up.  This house is 6971 Ridge, built about 1915.




In this view, it is easier to see the entrance area on the right side of the house, as in the 1927-1928 still photo.




I mentioned earlier the space between this house at 6971 Ridge and the next one in the home movie, pictured below.  There is a house between these two today, at 6969 Ridge, but it was built about 1956.

Here is a pretty clear still shot of the next house on the 1927-1928 block, at 6963 Ridge:




Here is a photo of 6963 Ridge taken in August 2008 for the Cook County Assessor's Office.  I feel confident this is the same house, even though the Assessor's records indicate it is only 72 years old - thus built in the late 1940s.  Real estate sites imply the same, that it was built anywhere from 1944 to 1948, but some of those also describe it as ranch style, which it is not.  Other real estate sites indicate there is a smaller garden apartment in the building - perhaps it was remodeled in the 1940s to create two units, and that might account for the discrepancy.  You can also tell from photos at the sites linked to above that the front porch was enclosed sometime between August 2008 and March 2015, when the most recent photos were taken. Still, the light-colored details in the masonry (particularly the downward-pointing isosceles triangles on the posts) are the same in all the photos.




My grandmother Elizabeth and her friend Marian continue walking down the block.  There is another house in the home movie, but it is long gone.  To the right of 6963 Ridge there is an apartment building today (at 6959 Ridge), built about 52 years ago.  But by this point I was confident I had figured out where this clip of the home movie was filmed.

There was another vacant lot or two on Ridge after the house formerly at 6959 Ridge, and at that point in the clip, my grandmother and her friend had turned and started walking towards the camera.  Note the two houses in the background, though, in the next block east.




I think those are two of the three houses on the property belonging to Marian Udelhofen's parents, at 1962 W. Morse Avenue in Rogers Park.  But that is a subject for a future post.


© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.