House in Progress Diary

Who slept here?

Now, to the history of the bungalow...when we moved in, we were given a pile of old papers...deeds and so forth, like this:

This provided some tantilizing clues to the history of the house prior to the owner who sold to us. And, of course, I was intrigued. So I did a search for the oldest last name associated with the house...Kjeldsen. I found the email for a student at a university in the state...and, goofy as all get out, sent her a rambling note. "This is such a long shot...but the name is unusual...lah, lah, lah."

But she was really cool and passed the note on to her mom, who traces the geneaology of the family and who is a crackerjack researcher. Long story short, we are pursuing some leads. But this is what we DO know:

We have heard that the house was built in 1914...the Cook County Assessor has it down as 87 years old (1916) but we don't know when they updated their files. Niels and Margarethe Kjeldsen had a survey taken of the house in October 1924...perhaps the year they bought it? At the time, the name of the street was different...and we cannot find a record of the City of Chicago changing it. So that is a mystery!

The Kjeldsens took out a 2nd or 3rd mortgage on the house in 1928...the total amount at the time for 2 mortgages (there was possibly a 3rd) was $5500+. The next document we have is for an agreement for "Joint Tenancy" between the Kjeldsen's "spinster daughter", Inga, and a family named Meissner in November 1928--the Meissners agreed to take on the mortgage for the house. (A month after the Stock Market Crash that preceded the Great Depression!)

We don't know if the Meissners were related to Inga in some way? I imagine that it would be desperate times to enter into Joint Tenancy with strangers...

Inga then disappears in our papers...but our snap researcher, J, may have found her in an obituary in Whittier, CA in 1969. She writes:

"Inga M. Kjeldsen of Whittier CA. died June 28 1969. sister of Arent P.
Kjeldsen of Atlanta GA and Howard Kelsen (shortened the name) of
Whittier, CA." So Inga is an unmarried ( spinster) sister. The Social Security
genealogy lookup has Inga--born 26 Dec 1891 and died in CA. The card was
issued in IL , so she worked in IL when card was issued. (I think they first issued cards about 1935?)

She's amazing, isn't she? I told you that she was a crackerjack researcher.

For awhile, things get a little complicated around ownership.

Frank and Anna Meissner entered into an "Article of Agreement" with Ehrenfrid and Anna Palm on Mar. 1, 1930. But something happened, perhaps a default (?), so it returned to the Meissners. Then the Meissners signed a "warranty deed" to Frank and Lucille Lucansky on June 26, 1931. And then the Lucansky's deeded the property BACK to the Meissner's on July 3, 1931. (Confusing!) Eventually, the property went to previous owner's grandparents (Reynolds) sometime after 1931 and prior to 1939.

After the Reynolds bought the house, they rented to the Palms for awhile (yup, those SAME Palms! Ehrenfrid and Anna!!). The Palms were evicted for non-payment of rent (they had not paid for 3 years) in 1941 and tenancy was signed over to their daughter, L and her husband, W. They received the deeds to the property in May 1949. L and W entered joint tenancy with their unmarried daughter in 1991. When W passed away in 1998 and L in 2000, their daughter became the sole owner. She sold the property to us on May 2, 2003.

And so it goes...

I really need some sleep tonight.

Posted by jeanne on July 12, 2003 at 7:19 PM (2)