Rudolph Vokoun - The Ill-fated Cordwainer

 I'll bet you don't know what a cordwainer is.

Neither do I, actually. I had to look it up. A cordwainer is someone who makes new shoes using new leather. A cobbler, on the other hand, is someone who repairs shoes. You can thank the British for codifying the difference. Until I wrote this, I had never before considered the possibility of making my own shoes. Alas, the practice is still alive. If inclined you can make yourself a pair through The Cordwainer Shop. Jan Vokoun the family patriarch didn't inherit the family land. So as was apparently the custom in Bohemia, he learned a trade and became a mistr obuvnický, i.e. a master shoemaker. Rudolph was the son who learned his father's trade.

Rudolph Vokoun was born April 17, 1860 to Jan Vokoun and Anne Bechyne. He was the couple's third child after Vaclav and Frantisek (Frank) and the second to survive to adulthood. After the family immigrated he was the oldest child living at the tenement on Forquer Street in 1880.

Lydia Otradovec was born in 1860 in Bohemia to Josef and Frantiska Otradovec. Josef had a brother, Karel, who also lived in Chicago and is listed in Josef's probate record. Frantiska's obituary lists three daughters, Lydia Vokoun, Anna Maruska, and Sylva Dudar. This 1880 census record matches the family. Joseph was a stone mason. Lydia and Anna worked in tailor shops which might explain how Lydia and Rudolph met. So far, I have been unable to learn more about the Otradovecs. 

Lydia and Rudolph married on February 18, 1884. They had five children. Joseph Francis was born in 1886 and Louis Charles in 1888. There was a single daughter, named either Jennie or Bessie, who was born in 1890 but died at the age of 2. Finally, there were two younger sons, Rudolph William Jr born in 1897 and Edward Matthew in 1901.

John and Rudolph's work in shoe making may have mirrored his brother's Frank and Charles work as tailors. As with the clothing industry, Chicago figured prominently in the transition of shoe making from small shops and individual craftsmen to corporate behemoths. Perhaps best known of the Chicago corporations was the Florsheim Shoe Company which launched in 1892 when Siegmund Florsheim and his sons added the manufacture of shoes to their thriving retail store. They initially employed 125 shoemakers but would grow to having 2,500 employees, 5 factories, and nationwide retail sales by the 1920's.

I had mentioned that many of the garment makers were working out of their homes supplying clothing for retail tailors or department stores. Rudolph seems to have been more entrepreneurial with his own shop, Rudolph Vokoun and Company, listed in the 1900 city directory on South Centre Avenue separate from his home.

Unfortunately, we will never know how far Rudolph might have gone with his own business as fate intervened. Another industry was undergoing a technological revolution in Chicago that would change the life of Rudolph, Lydia and their family. That industry was public transportation.

While it is hard to envision horse-pulled carriages and trolleys in modern cities, the sight would have been quite familiar in the era of Bohemian immigration. Official horsecar service began in  Chicago around 1860. It was supplanted in the 1880s by a large network of cable car lines that moved by means of an underground cable. Then something happened. Electricity caught the public's imagination.

In 1893 Chicago got the chance to host the World Columbian Exposition marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the Americas. It was THE World Fair of the 1890s which meant that it functioned as a exhibition for new technology and electricity was the technology of the day. Westinghouse beat out Thomas Edison's General Electric for a contract to power the fair with electricity. There was an Electricity Building with a statue of Benjamin Franklin and displays of indoor and outdoor lighting, the seismograph, and the Morse code telegraph. Nicolas Tesla, himself, demonstrated a wireless light using a rotating magnetic field. I can not confirm that he arrived in a Tesla Model 3. I can, however, confirm that a many fair goers were transported via an elevated electric street car built for the fair. The picture below is of one of those street cars.

Electric street car on 61st Street circa 1893. (I really hope this photo was staged.)

In the aftermath of the fair, electric street cars powered by above ground power lines proliferated throughout Chicago and the cable car was all but gone by 1906. During this period numerous streetcar companies vied for market share and control of lucrative lines. As axiomatic then as today, growth occurred first, city planning occurred second. The result was the Chicago Traction Wars, a political and legal conflict among the street car operators. Two decades later the various companies holding franchises for different parts of the city merged into a single system known as Chicago Surface Lines. Chicago's streetcar system would grow into one of the largest in the world with more than 500 miles of line by 1935. One of the major players the consolidation of the Chicago's streetcar system was the Chicago Consolidated Traction Company. 

On May 10, 1903 Rudolph tried to board the rear of a Chicago Consolidated Traction Co trailer # 310. Instead of stepping up, the trailer rolled over his foot. He died seven days later of sepsis and pneumonia as a result of the injury. The story has been passed down in the family but I tracked down a copy of the death certificate to confirm the details. Notice that younger brother, Joseph E Vokoun, is one of the witnesses.

Ironically, that his death occurred in such a dramatic way probably accounts for my ability to get a copy of his death certificate. Death certificates of other family members have proved more elusive. That his death occurred less than a year after Jan Vokoun's no doubt made it possible for me to get a copy of each obituary from the Denni Hlasatel. The obituaries together proved invaluable in confirming the members of the Vokoun family and especially in connecting the correct Frank Vokoun since he did not appear on that 1880 census record with the rest of the family. Frank's address on Throop Street listed at the bottom of the page was a crucial connection.

Rudolph's probate record is notable as well. John William Vokoun is listed as executor and Vincent Vokoun is one of the sureties.

Rudolph left behind Lydia, Louis, Rudy, and Eddie living in the house. Joe seems to have moved out by this time. He would marry Rose Montgomery in 1906 and move to California by 1910. Louis died in 1911 at the age of 22. Rudy and Eddie found themselves fatherless at ages 5 and 18 months. As one would expect, Eddie, my grandfather, had no memory of his father and never told us much about what he did know.

Lydia was able to purchase a house on Bishop Street. I have wondered if she received some type of compensation for Rudolph's accident as there is not much in the way of employment to explain her ability to purchase that house. I have found a google map location for the house. The greystone house at that location could well have been there. Chicago Greystone houses were built between 1890s and 1930s as the grey limestone construction was prominent in the era following the Chicago fire. The one recollection that Eddie shared about his mother was her sending him to the corner tavern to pick up beer for her. He wasn't old enough to enter the tavern so he waited outside until they brought it to him. Wish I could send my kids on beer runs. Ahh, the good old days.

Lydia died in 1917 of pneumonia. She seems to have been ill for awhile as she was able to complete a will about a month before she died. Her death left Eddie and Rudy as teenage orphans in Chicago. Rudy entered the navy for WWII while Eddie moved west to live near Joe and Rose. After the war Rudy joined them in Oakland. I will tell more of the family's story in another post.

Rudolph's tree is below. He has two living grandchildren, Edward Matthew Jr and Rudolph William Vokoun III, who also happen to be the last living second cousins.

Fate is strange. On one hand, the story sounds tragic. Young boys without a father and then teens without parents. The situation surely had a significant impact on their lives. On the other hand, my family, as I know it, might well not have existed without Rudolph and Lydia's early deaths. It is hard for me to conclude otherwise. Blessings can arise from cruel twists. On that, I feel both ambivalent and grateful.