"On the night of February 23,
1905, the first meeting took place at Gus’ office in the Unity Building.
Silvester and Paul had dined together at an Italian restaurant on
Chicago’s near north side. Gus, by prearrangement, had invited a
personal friend, Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor, a native of the
village of Litchfield, in the State of Maine, to whom he had previously
introduced Paul. The meeting was enlivened by the relation of personal
experiences, after which Paul unfolded the general purposes of his
plan." Paul P. Harris "The Founder of Rotary" 1928.
I have come
across the book “Dining in Chicago”, a book written in the early 1920s
about the best places to eat in the Windy City. Thanks to my alma mater
the University of Illinois, the book has now been digitized and is
available on the internet. In particular, there is a review of the
restaurant, complete with history of Mme. Carmelinda Galli and how she
made it to Chicago from Italy and eventually opened a restaurant. It
evens mentions how Rotary began there!
It
is a fascinating four or five pages, indicating the likely menu that
Paul Harris and Silvester Schiele would have eaten that night. When
presenting this to members of my club, they thought it was highly
amusing that they probably had chicken for dinner, as sometimes it feels
that every meal we have at Rotary seems to be chicken!
I hope it
is of help to you. Apart from a short letter to the editor of the April
1975 Rotarian magazine, it is the best reference I have found about the
restaurant which holds such great historic interest to Rotarians.
Members of my club loved the story.
Yours in Rotary, Adrian
Nelson, 2005/06 President, Rotary Club of Glen Eira D9800, Australia |
Source: Dining in Chicago [c1931]
Author: Drury, John, 1898
Subject: Dinners and dining; Chicago -- Hotels, taverns, etc
Publisher: New York, The John Day company Possible copyright status:
Public domain. Published 1923-1963 with notice but no evidence of
copyright renewal found in Stanford Copyright Renewal Database.
Contact dcc@library.uiuc.edu for
information Language: English Call
number: 1098213 Digitizing sponsor: University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign Book contributor: University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign Collection: Americana |