The Ongoing Story of Samuel Halls Jr.

Slowly the veil draws away on Samuel Halls Jr.  I have written about Sam before in this blog.  That he was a high flier amongst Chicago society and builders.  That he married Drucilla Brisco, and that sometime around 1912 his life began to come apart, so much so that by 1920 he is living in Chicago, and widowed according to the Census.  Meanwhile his wife Drucilla is alive and well in Portland, Oregon, and she's widowed too!!

A few days ago I received a picture of Sam, and what a picture.  It was taken at New Year, 1928.  Sam is dressed to the nines, and hanging over his shoulder (literally) is a sweet young thing, who is pretty well dressed herself.  Sam looks, for lack of a better word, smug.  He is obviously a pretty happy man, and so is his companion.

Th inscription at the bottom reads, "From Unice and Cousin Sam to J.P.H."  J.P.H. was John Philip Halls, who lived in Beloit, Wisconsin.  So the question became, who was Unice.  So I did some searching and came up with a newspaper article from the Appleton Post Crescent, dated March 29, 1929.  It read, "Sam Halls and Miss Eunice Eisentraut of Chicago ... arrived here [Sugar Bush, Wisconsin] Saturday to spend the weekend in the AA Eisentraut home."  It seems vastly unlikely that Unice/Eunice could be anyone else other than Miss Eisentraut.  A little more digging indicated that Anson A. Eisentraut did have a daughter Eunice, who had been born in 1905.

Almost exactly one year after the article was written in the Post Crescent, Sam was dead (April 1, 1930).  One expects that Eunice was upset, she and Sam had been together from at least New Year's 1928, probably longer judging by the inscription.

But Sam still has more in store for us.  His death certificate indicated that his place of death was Crystal Lake, McHenry County, Illinois - and that the name of his wife was Becky.