Parish Family Papers

Parish, Martha Ellen Luey. Parish Family Papers, 1884-1896.
0.4 linear feet (1 box)

Consists mainly of correspondence from Martha Ellen Luey Parish of Chicago, IL to her father, Lester Lyman Luey, of Greenfield, Massachusetts. Also included are a few letters written by his son-in-law, Charles Pomeroy Parish. The letters concern domestic matters and touch upon such community topics as electrification, the bicycling mania of the late 19th century, fires and fire insurance, and the remains of the World's Columbian Exposition. There are also several letters discussing an alcoholic brother.

Martha Ellen Luey was born in 1850 in Greenfield, Massachusetts, the daughter of Lester L. Luey and Mary Moody Luey. The third of five children, she lived with her family in Greenfield until she married Charles P. Parish on December 27, 1881. Charles Parish’s family was from Omaha, Nebraska, but Charles and Flora, his sister, grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Flora married Sam Tobin; one of their children, Kittie, married Frank Lloyd Wright.

Charles and Martha Parish settled in Chicago, Illinois, where they raised five children. Charles co-owned a cabinet hardware and upholstery goods manufacturing company in Chicago called Gibson, Parish & Company. For a number of years the family lived in a house on Kimbark Ave. in Chicago, living next door to cousins on the Parish side of the family. They later bought and moved to a farm in Homewood, Illinois. Martha Luey Parish died on June 8, 1925.

Call number: Midwest MS Parish
Finding Aids: Collection level catalog record
Inventory: Online

Martha Ellen Luey sent correspondence to her father from 341 N. Clark St.(now 950 N. Clark St.) when the family lived there from 1883-1885. From 1886 until the end of this collection's run, the family lived at 4147 Kimbark Ave.