A reporter’s great-grandfather was poisoned in Chicago in 1935. She set out to learn if it was an accident — or murder

CHICAGO -- My great-grandfather, Irving, followed in his older brother’s footsteps when he emigrated from Poland to Chicago a century ago. This was a crucial move for the brothers because three of their siblings who stayed behind in Europe later died in the Holocaust.

But Irving would meet his own untimely death in Chicago. What happened on that warm night in 1935 led me on a very personal hunt through Cook County public records and the Waldheim Cemetery, west of Chicago, for clues.

I started looking into Irving’s story late in 2020 when I discovered his death certificate while cleaning out my family’s storage space. I was able to obtain the inquest into Irving’s death through a Freedom of Information Act request that took months to process because the papers had been folded for decades. Heavy books were used to flatten them so they could be photocopied.

The 33-page typewritten transcript provides a glimpse into the hardships experienced by a Jewish immigrant during the Great Depression. Even more, it revealed allegations that he was slain, offering the rare chance to hear from witnesses in their own words as if I was in the jury room with them.

The case of a long-lost family member’s demise was officially closed as an accidental poisoning, of all things, but was it?

A fateful journey, a name change, a wife gone

Born in Lomza, Poland, in 1895,