The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-10-06
A CHAT WITH JOHN
KINZIE'S GRANDCHILD
From the c hicago journal.


To see and hear Eleanor Kinzie Cor
don one would never dream that her
years are 6s. She is alive in every fibre
of her slender body. Her hair still
shows its original darkness, and in her
cheeks comes and goes a delicate pink
you would judge her casually to have
seen some fifty summers. To-day she
is the typical Chicago woman-vigor-
Gus, full of nervous energy, determined,
overlooking with wit, good sense, and
good humor-and not afraid to state
her honest opinion in positive terms.
She is keenly interested in all the de-
tails of the centennial celebration.
Mrs. GOrdon-still Nell and Nellie to
the white heads and gray boards who
were companions of her young days
is the granddaughter of John Kinzie,
Chicago's first resident. She was born
in Cobweb Castle-old S. b. Cobbs Chi
cago residence-on the 18th day of June,
1885 She is a daughter of John II.
kinzie aud is one of the seventy-seVen
surviving descendants of old John Kin
zie. The great-great-g grandchildren now
Der twenty-nine. And if you had seen
the prompt and methodical fashion in
which Mrs. Gordon counted them up
for my information you would have
wondered at the quickness Of her brain
and her accuracy of her memory.
How do you manage to look so
young?" she was asked the other even
ing.
4 don't intend to get Old" she
quickly retorted. Il feel young, and
my heart is ysung."
Her answer was just as much to the
point when old MIR. Gordon Hubbard
marched up to her in the rooms of the
Historical Society and exclaimed:
why, Nellie, what makes you so
thin?"
Because 1 never was any fatter, I
suppose" dryly responded Mrs. Cor
don.
1t was during this visit to the His
torical Society that Mrs. Gordon was
the center of scene not often wit
messed by the average looker-on.
Among the "old settlers" was Mrs.
Potter Palmer's father, Mr.. Honore-
white of hair and feeble of limb. With
the gallantry of the old school he Of
fered his arm to Mrs. Gordon in or
der to show her a picture of her father
painted by her daughter Mrs. Leigh,
now a resident of London. On the
way an old schoolmate, Lockwood
Brown, came up, and clasped the free
hand of the little lady. And so,
with locked arms and swinging hands,
this reunited, happy trio found their
way together to the portrait of the
man so well known and loved by them
all.
Her fund of good stories seems in
eXhaustible and they are all entertain
ing. She tells them with a gusto that
infects her hearers and she makes her
point as well as a man. She sat back
of a big plate glass window in the
Journals editorial room Tuesday night,
while the parade passed. surrounded
by a coterie of her relatives-and the
scenes before her eyes called forth re-
membrance after remembrance, and
story after story.
When the cheers announced that
Mayor Harrison was passing she half
rose from her chair to get a good sight
of him.
And to think" said she, that I
went to school to the mother of his
stepmother! Mrs. Sternes used to
keep an infant school in the old days.
Let me see-when did I see the
first torchlight procession? l remem-
Der II just as well--it was at the time
of Fremont's campaign-in "a, l think.
That was Chicago's first torchlight
procession.
Those are your aldermen you say?
Now, / remember the time'-and she
laughed silently for a moment-"I re-
member the time when fourteen of the
common council were in the bridewell