I’m not going to pretend that I don’t love to find old stuff, things that mean something to me and my family. I love doing a little research on the items I’ve found and share with others. I’ve kinda got stuck on a couple of things and hope some of the readers of The Extra can help out. The items come from the early 50’s, that much I know. My mother and two of her friends were inseparable. They roomed together, took trips together, and one of the “friends” would later become my aunt. Before they split up for married life, they had made a trek to Chicago for a vacation. Here is what I found: a matchbook with my mother’s picture on the cover. A real neat black and white photo of her in a restaurant setting. On the back of the matchbook are the words “Eitel’s” and “Old Heidelberg 14 W. Randolph St.” A simple google search found that it was in Chicago, but apparently closed some time ago. If anybody remembers this place in Chicago and can give me some information about it, I would be grateful. It looks like it was quite the place for its time.

The second item is a photograph, probably from that same trip. In the picture, which is in color, mom is standing on a pier on Lake Michigan. I was told the photo was taken in Chicago by the daughter of one of my mother’s friends on that trip. Her mother has since passed but if you look at the building behind her and recognize it I would love to hear from you. I’ve had some guesses but nothing firm as of yet. There was another photograph in black and white of the three standing near a busy highway, but I would later find out the palace behind them was identified as the old Wrigley Building. The skyline of Chicago wasn’t even close to the skyline of today.

I find things like this fascinating, and have done plenty of detective work in finding things that have had some family value. This internet thing has made it easy sometimes, and other times just provided new questions about the past.

So if you can help me out…please drop a note. Anything on Old Heidelberg and that complex behind my mother behind all that green shrubbery.

Thanks folks!