Chicago, Cook County, Illinois

Built on muddy marshland at was once the delta of the Chicago River on Lake Michigan, Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Algonquin word Shikaakwa ("Wild Onion", specifically ramps, Allium tricoccum, which grew abundantly at the site). The city was long the second-largest in the United States but has fallen into third place behind New York City and Los Angeles. The first immigrant resident of the area was Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable in the 1780s. In 1800 John Kinzie purchased his homesite. DuSable moved downriver to what is now Saint Charles, Missouri. Under orders of the Secretary of War, Captain John Whistler (Army, not naval captain) surveyed the route from Detroit, where he was then stationed, to Chicago and built Fort Dearborn on the southern bank of the river across from the Kinzie home.

Although a significant city in the development of modern architecture, Chicago is better known for its politicians and gangsters. It is also associated with elevated commuter trains, the source of the terms "The El" and "The Loop".

According to the website, The Encyclopedia of Chicago, the first Jews to permanently live in Chicago were emigrants from Germany in 1841. They were followed by others from Eastern Europe who often came to escape the oppression  as well as pogroms of their homelands.

Living Beyond the Pale | What and Why?

My mother's mother, the only of my grandparents I ever knew, died in January 1971. Years later I found her husband's WWII Draft Registration online. The writing on the form was not his except for the signature. This man who had always been a figure in fairy tales suddenly became real.