Storrs Family Papers

Storrs, Marguerite Deville Chabrol. Storrs & Deville Chabrol Family Papers, 1850-1964, bulk 1875-1945.

Primarily the correspondence, personal materials and writings of Marguerite Deville Chabrol Storrs and her family.

In 1914 Marguerite Deville Chabrol Storrs met and married the American sculptor John Henry Bradley Storrs, who had come to Paris to study with Auguste Rodin.

Marguerite Storrs published many novellas, short stories and art reviews under the pseudonym Marc Debrol, and also worked as a reporter for French newspapers. She and John Storrs traveled frequently between Chanticaille and the United States, primarly Chicago, where John Storrs had grown up and his family still lived.

Storrs family papers consist primarily of correspondence to and from D.W. Storrs, father of John Storrs, who ran a fairly successful real estate business. There are also a few items related to his Chicago real estate business, and other family correspondence. There is a small amount of material related to John Storrs, including a few letters, notes and doodles, exhibit catalogs, and the manuscript of a Russian general's autobiography, which John Storrs evidently encouraged the general to write while they were both prisoners of the Nazis in 1944.

John Storrs is probably most well-known as the artist who designed the ‘Ceres’ statue that sits atop the Chicago Board of Trade Building at 141 W. Jackson Blvd.

Call Number: Midwest MS Storrs
Finding Aids:
Inventory online
Collection level catalog entry

From 1887 to 1901 the Storrs family lived in a large house at 6732 S. Wentworth in Chicago. The family sent and received several correspondences from the “homestead” during this time that is included in this collection. In addition, the collection contains several photographs of this property with various Storrs family members included.

After the Storrs sold the house, the building at 6732 Wentworth was turned into a Masonic temple.