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Michael and Louise
Schalck
Michael Schalck (1850–1944) had emigrated to
America in 1872 after serving in the war of 1871 for
France, his native land. Throughout his life he
considered French to be his primary language. Using his carpentry skills,
he built a contracting business then in retirement
operated a summertime fruit farm for ten years in
Benton Harbor, Michigan while wintering in Chicago.
Louise Berkes (1860–1932) moved from New Orleans to
Chicago as a child in 1865. The pair
married in 1879 and went on to have seven children, of which
four lived to adulthood.
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In the years after the fire
The Schalcks lost two children in
their infancy but
the accidental gunshot death of Walter A. Schalck
in 1905 at age seventeen would have cut
more deeply and made it harder to see their
youngest boy, Arthur, go off to Europe to serve
in World War I. He returned home safely
and became an officer in the Cyclone Fence company
but the family was not yet done with war.
Grandson Walter S. Schalck went into the
Navy after graduating from Purdue University shortly
after Pearl Harbor. He too returned from war
uninjured.
The Schalck family spent most of their lives in a home
on Mozart Street in Chicago. Located in
the Logan Square area, the city renumbered the
address in 1909 from 799 to 1722 N. Mozart.
The structure was rebuilt in 2012. The
picture below is from 2000.
Louise Schalck died at age seventy one from
injuries suffered in a car accident on Polk St
and Sacramento Ave in Chicago, a few miles from
their home. She died at home
and the newspaper did not report who was driving
or if she was taken to a hospital.
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