City Directories can tear down walls

I've decided to use this blog a more of as my family history journal, to document what I'm looking for and what and where I have found information.  As my own children are growing up, more online resources become available as well as a change in the industry I work for (not the career itself) I now find that I can spend more time researching and documenting our family and their histories.

In the past few months I have been very fortunate to finally find some information on my husband's family.   Despite having a few pictures of his paternal grandfather and great grandfather, both named Peter Joseph Horvath, we knew little to nothing about them.

Even though the last name was not that common, it wasn't very unique either.   Actually there are quite a few Horvath's in the US especially in the central part of the country where they were supposed to be from after migrating from Hungary.   What is even more I think the majority of the men were named Joseph Peter, but this just made searching for them harder in my opinion there were a lot of dead ends and climbing up the wrong trees.  I only had what little information from Peter's ex-wife - my husband's grandmother to go on.

Here is what we did know:   My husband's grandfather Peter Jr was a drinker, he died 24 Dec 1971 in Illinois, his mother was Irene and father was Peter Joseph Horvath.   According to my husband's grandmother (his wife), he drank every night after work to the point he would leave his entire paycheck at the bar.   For a while the bar would return the paycheck to the grandmother knowing that they had several young boys to raise.   However, after a while the paychecks stopped being returned, they were soon divorced  and she set about raising the boys on her own.    She had two pictures of his father, Peter, and two pictures of his mother, Irene.   Peter Sr was an ominous looking man, certainly a business man in the 1930s/1940s with a ganster type of look, in my opinion anyway.   And of course what family doesn't have family rumors.   Ours:   The family business was "Bootlegging" and their circle of friends "Al Capone".   Yes, the Al Capone!

Wow, now why can't I find anything about this side of the family then?   Until last fall I had resigned to believe that due to the nature of their business they were very good at hiding from most records.

My husband and I have been married for almost 26 years and throughout that time I have been researching both his side and my side of the family sometimes take a few years off for various reasons.    I found very little on my husband's side of his paternal family - well let me rephrase that in 26 years of searching I found these things items:

• the death certificate for his grandfather from the State of Illinois, 
• where the grandfather was buried through findagrave.com website, 
• the SSDI record for the great grandmother indicating she died in California from familysearch.org - but was this our Irene Horvath - I believe so based on the date of death but it could be a coincidence too.
• the death certificate for the great grandmother in California, and 
• the existence of a daughter also named Irene as taken from the death certificate 
• occupation of the great grandmother - owner of a restaurant
• Application of Peter and Irene's marriage in South Bend, Indiana from ancestry.com  - was this really our Peter and Irene - I still am not sure.

Then finally in the fall last year, actually it was after a Christmas shopping trip that I started to look again into this side of the family.  During that trip, I had a conversation with my father-in-law, he told me a few stories regarding his father and grandparents.   Like how they were "Bootleggers" and were friends with Al Capone, they used their grocery store as a front for selling the illegal alcohol.   When he was still a very young is father wanted him to come and help work at the family bar (a business...can you say flakes of gold...I should be able to find something there...), but his mother refused to send him.  He also told us that his grandmother was a force of nature, what she said went!  During a storm their roof was leaking, she told her husband that he needed to fix the leak...so out into the storm he went and out onto the roof.   He apparently fell off the roof and died sometime after the fall but not right away.  I was also informed that there was another sister, one who was kidnapped as a young girl but found later however mentally she never recovered.

After this conversation with my father-in-law I just knew that I needed to start researching again.  I started with someone I knew I could find...Al Capone.   I read various articles and searched for the names and faces of his "gang" thinking that maybe the reason I couldn't find their records was because the father changed his name, maybe he was arrested in connection to Capone and his men.  And I still came up short, I found nothing not a mention of the family not a picture that would match the faces.  

So I took a step back and looked at what I did know and what I had heard to be true.   I knew that Peter Jr had 5 sons, I started looking more at records of the grandmother (ex-wife) of Peter.   Opal, now that is a name combination that isn't too prevalent, Opal Horvath.   I got a hit on a newly indexed set of records, City Directories.   There she was along with her husband in 1938 Joliet, Illinois.   Wait when was she in Joliet - this came as a surprise to me actually I'm not sure why but it did surprise me nonetheless.   I have her obit which states she moved to Joliet but by the time her and Peter were married they were in another Illinois town not Joliet.   This city directory was after their marriage date and actually after two of their five children were born.   But there it was in black and white Opal and Peter in Joliet, but that was not all.  In the same address I found Irene, Peter Sr, the unnamed sister "Elizabeth" and an unknown brother John and the family tavern.  This was the first record that I found listing Peter Sr.  I was thrilled to say the least.

I started looking at the other information I had on the children of Peter and Opal, there it was the entire time!  One of their children (my husband's uncle) was born in Joliet.   I can't believe I missed that!   But I was too thrilled with the discovery to be too hard on myself.   Then the flood gates opened.   I was able to track the family between 1925 and 1942 through city directories, the business went from a grocery to a beer distributor to a bar and finally to a tavern.  The change from grocery to bar happened at the time that prohibition ended.   I guess that part of the family stories sure appears to be true.  Based on the address in 1925, I was finally able to find the family in the 1920 census under an incorrectly indexed name.  I am still locating more information on this branch of the tree all the time.   I still don't have on record much but at least it is a start and a lot more than what I had just 4 months ago.   I still have yet to find a death record or date for Peter Sr, but what I did find was interesting to say the least, more possibilities and my wheels are turning too.

In the 1940 census Peter Sr was not listed, or was he?   I did find Irene at the same address listed as the head of the house, but the next line down was crossed out, through the line you can make out "Peter" above the line are the words "In Sanitarium 10 years".   Another lead to follow!

A big thank you goes out to ancestry.com for those initial city directories, without those I don't think I would have this information today.

12 Tags of 2015 #1

Here is my first of 12 tags of 2015 inspired by Tim Holtz.    

His first tag is found here.    I started with a manila tag and glued down crinkled vellum that was stamped using Distress Ink in Broken China and background stamp from Tim Holtz Papillon cling stamps.   I distressed the edges removing some of the vellum in places.

The I layered Distress Paints fired bricks and antique linen with accents of picket fences Distress Stain.      I used Tim Holtz Alpha Parts - Numeric pieces painting two pieces using antique linen Distress Paint, the other was covered in Sky Blue micro glitter from Jewel Glitter Ritz.  

I tool four word beads that I had laying around and sprayed them using Distress Stain Spray in Faded Jeans, highlighting the edges in black.    I also used the stain spray on the entire face of the tag adding brushed pewter as well to give the tag a sparkle.

To finish the tag off I added Crinkle Ribbon sprayed in both the brushed pewter and faded jeans and added a metal arrow embellishment.

#12tagsof2015

Hive Missed You card

I stopped by Archivers the other day and saw a couple of great stamp sets by Inky Antics stamps.   The stamps are designed to be used with the age old Honeycomb paper.  

More information about the stamps can be found here: http://www.inkyantics.com/honeypop.htm

I tried to copy the sample used and shown at the store as best as I could to get a good idea of how these work.   I think it turned out pretty well.

Update

It has been a busy month for me, I started a new job and I'm loving it.   My mother was scheduled for surgery last month but it was postponed until today, so all her appointments have kept me hoppin'.

I've also been working on organizing my scrapbooking area (it is actually my front room - I share it with the family PC - our furniture is in our family room).    As soon as I am finished I will post before and after pictures (be warned the before pictures look like a tornado hit the room!

And I've been working on my flower beds outside, it has been a very warm spring and everyting is coming up about 5 weeks early this year.   But I'm not complaining, this is the first year in 6 years that I will have flowers so I'm really exicted to clear out my flower beds and plant plant and plant some more.  At my last house in MT, we had 6 deer that lived in our back yard, great to look at but the only flowers we could get to survive were plastic ones.    So I'm really excited to be back in Iowa and be able to have real flowers again.   My yard has not been cared for since we left (we were paying for lawn service but according to the neighbors no one actully did anyting), so we have a lot a weeds in the grass, and a lot of grass and weeds in the flower beds.   Maybe I will post some pictures of the beds after I get them cleaned up and planted.

I hope to post some projects that I have been working on this weekend, so check back in a few days...until then...have a great day!

Queen of my craftroom design team challenge - altered project

Over at Queen of my craftroom the design team was challenged this week to create an altered item project.    For this I created an altered lunchbox to hold all my buttons.   

I stained the outside of the lunchbox using Tim Holtz inks in both blue and green.    I then added some printed paper and embellished with a few buttons.

Jinger Adams Design Team Post

Did you know that Jinger Adams is looking for Design Team Members to showcase her new craft products?   Click here for more information.       

For consideration for these open positions, I would like to submit the following examples of my work.   The first is a set of cards that I recently made for Queen of my Craftroom, both cards are made using the cricut along with my gypsy and a cuttlebug embossing folder, they both use a Red, Black and White color pallet and are embellished with buttons.   

I created this tag album using Graphic 45 paper from their Botanicabella collection.    The album is made from recycled toilet paper rolls which are covered in black cardstock.   I cut strips from the paper to wrap around each flattened roll.   The rolls are binded together using my  Bind-it-All from Zutter Inovative Products.   Each flattened roll has a tag inserted into the open end.   Each tag is embellished with paper from the graphic 45 collection and a metal embossed tag.   The tags are distressed with Tim Hotlz Distress Black Soot Ink as well.  Each tag and roll is also wrapped in twine.

Graphic 45 Thank You "tags"

My husband asked me to create him 15-20 thank you cards for several of his customers.   I saw a tag that I liked on Pinterest and used it as a sketch for these cards.

I cut a 4.25" x 5.5" card in half, rounded the corners then inked the edges with Pealed Paint and Tea Dye distress inks.  Cut a rectangle 1" x 2.75" out of solid green cardstock then embossed that on the top portion running lengthwise with a stitch folder on the cuttlebug, I then inked the raised potion with the Tea Dye distress ink as well.   I added a solid dark green ribbon to the bottom edge as well.   I cut another 1.5" x 2" rectangle out of the same green cardstock then rounded the corners and inked the edges in Tea Dye as well.  I stamped "Thank You" onto the cardstock.   I cut  1 1/8" circle punch out of Graphic 45 scrap paper, as well as a 2.6" x 3" rectangle out of Graphic 45 scrap paper with the bottom two corners rounded and inked.     I added the circle punch to the top of the tag and added a shear ribbon and button with twine tied through the button holes.      The back of the card has another stamp saying "Thank you very much" with enough room for my husband to add a hand written note to his customers.