The Jordan Story

Elizabeth Priscilla Jordan Chapters

Settling in Chicago

by Dave Jordan

After Elizabeth Jordan, her mother Elizabeth Steward and her two boys Charles and James Jordan arrived in Chicago from Poplar they settled in with her son James Oscar Jordan and her brother Charles Steward. Although the data is a sketchy, it appears the family stuck together in the years to come. They moved up and down Fillmore and sometimes to a perpendicular street in the area. James Oscar moved away briefly after his marriage in December 1896, but then moved back to the same neighborhood. By the 1900 Census, the family was at 1153 W. 13th. Elizabeth was the head of household, son Charles and James lived with her as well as her brother Charles Steward. Elizabeth began entering herself in the Chicago Directory as "widow Oscar", perhaps a nostalgia for her first husband from a quarter a century before.

Around 1904, son James Henry Jordan, then 25 with mechanical and electrical abilities took an opportunity in Madison Wisconsin with the Northern Electric (N.E.) Company. He went back and forth for a while but finally settled in Madison and married there in 1907. He would spend the rest of his life in Madison. Around 1907, the whole family temporarily moved to Madison and got jobs at the N. E. Company. James H. Jordan as a patternmaker, Charles Jordan as a fireman, and a John O. Jordan, an alias we believe for James Oscar Jordan. Meanwhile Elizabeth Steward took ill while they were there and was put in the Dane County Poor House. She died on April 12, 1908.

My grandfather remembered that he once visited his great-grandmother Steward in an old people's home. He remembered it being a long trip and by a big river. My grandfather, Herbert also remembered a long trip from Chicago as a young boy in and they had 7 flat tires. It is possible these remembrances are the same trip. Herbert would have been 10 years old in 1908.

By late 1907, James O. Jordan had returned to Chicago. Elizabeth Steward's obituary also suggests that the others had returned to Chicago also. However, neither Elizabeth Steward nor Charles Jordan can be found there until about 1911. By 1911, Elizabeth Jordan and settled in the old neighborhood at 2049. W. 12th Street. And after his separation from Margaret in 1911, James Oscar Jordan moved in with his mother. It is thought that Charles lived there also.

Elizabeth was still at 2049 W. 12th for the 1920 Census and so was her son Charles. James O. Jordan was there in 1928 so it is likely that Elizabeth, James O. and Charles Jordan lived there from about 1912 to about 1930. In 1928, at age 75 she was working as a laundress with her son Charles at 62nd and Wentworth, quite a ways away. Just before her death in 1931, the family moved around the corner to 1107 S. Robey.

To get orientated, Twelfth Street is the same as Roosevelt Road. On a map of Chicago, some of the old street names such as Grenshaw and Fillmore, and Damen (Robey) are still there. The area where they originally lived is generally around 12th Street (Roosevelt Road) and between the present day University of Illinois Chicago on the East and University of Illinois Hospital on the west. The 2049 W. 12th is to the west of the University of Illinois Hospital and some of the old addresses may still exist.

On April 22, 1931, Elizabeth died at age 84 of cancer of the right breast. Her three sons and some of the grandchildren attended the funeral. My dad Edward and my Uncle Harold recall attending. She was later cremated at the Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois. It was the end of an era. She was the link with the Holloways, the Stewards, Knut Scholdberg, James Jordan, and the town of Poplar.

In 1992 I had the opportunity to submit names for the Centennial Edition of the American Immigrant Wall of Honor at Ellis Island. At the time, Ellis Island was being refurbished and turned into a National Park for its 100th anniversary in 1993. I recalled that Elizabeth Jordan was among the first arrivals there when it opened 1893. As a way of honoring her for her role in keeping the family together and getting all her family to America, I arranged for the Elizabeth Priscilla Holloway Jordan name to be inscribed on the American Immigrant Wall of Honor at Ellis Island. If you see it when you visit Ellis Island, say a little prayer for her. She had a difficult life. But she got us here and through her we became Jordans.

Notes

1. Initial Web Publication Date: 2/5/2003
2. Modified:
3. Desktop Master file: Stories_Jordan