Setback - Wrong Railroad

Well, research does take the wrong turn sometimes ... I got the following feedback from Craig, the Genealogical Archivist of the C&NW Historical Society: "I could not find him in our "Retired Personnel" file, our "Work Record Cards" of the 1920 - 1940 period, or in the 1936 - 1970 Social Security Applications file we hold. It is most curious that, if Mr. Ludde did work for the C&NW in 1936 and 1937 he would have had to have signed a Social Security Application to remain employed. We do not have that application. He certainly should have been in our "Work Record Card" file if he were an C&NW employee. He may have simply been an "as needed" day laborer for the C&NW. Sorry"

Still, we did get to see those remakable railroad pictures & postcards and got to know a great railroad - just the wrong one! I have since found more historic photos of Chicago and of what it looked like on West Chicago Avenue. Due to the fire of 1871 the buildings had to be made of stone, but the roads were still pretty muddy.

Craig was kind enough to point me to some other options: " Mr. Ludde could have worked for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific - the noted "Milwaukee Road", for the Chicago Great Western Railroad, or the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in those years. There were over a dozen other railroads in Chicago in that time which started with a corporate name "Chicago". Also, there were "traction (electric) roads which were called by such names as the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee".

So - no reason to give up!

First Results

As so often, the most fascinating pieces of information turn up by chance ... When investigating the boundaries of wards 15 & 16 of the 1910 census enumeration districts in Chicago I discovered that W.Chicago Avenue is very close to the"C.&N.W. R.R" (Milwaukee Division). This is the Chicago and North Western Railroad depot. It turns out that this was a pioneering and successful railroad with an enormous network spanning some 7,702.76 Miles in 1910 - I found a map and a detailed historical account of its development, including a bankruptcy in 1936 on account of the great depression. Robert can not have been affected by this if he gave away money two years later and retired. But the most remarkable discovery are the historical photographs and postcards collected by the Chicago & Northwestern Historical Society. Set these on "slideshow" and you are taken back to the world Robert lived in. It is as is he is giving us a guided tour of "his" railroad!!

This is definitely where I will focus next - There are card records of personnel who were able to retire under the railroad sponsored pension plan between 1909 & 1940 as well as seniority records ... and I am rather hoping his name will turn up there.

Another area of activities has been the search for census records. There is an exact match in the 1910 census in Milwaukee. In the draft registration of 1917/18 he appears as Robert Bernhard Ludde, living in Cook. No matches are found in the 1920 census or in the land purchase index of Illinois. A certain Robert Luddie appears in the 1930 census living in Cook, I have no information regarding the 1940 census. No newspaper entries have turned up at the time of his death in 1944.



Finally, I was able to obtain the "Coroner's Certificate of Death" above in record time thanks to some really fast work by the Illinois Department of Public Health. Here is what it tells us:

He was unmarried, still living in Cook on West Chicago Avenue and died of Chronic Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle with similar symptoms to a heart attack. He is described as a retired "old aged person". Apart from his age at the time of death - 67 - and Germany as his land of origin most entries are "unknown". This suggests that neither the coroner nor any friends he may have had searched for an identity document. His burial at "Wunders" cemetery is confirmed, as is the fact that he had lived at this address for some 10 years at the time of his death.