Iroquois Hotel
EUROPEAN
A First Class Place for Tourists and the Traveling Public
Excellent Dining Room Service
JNO. B. SNELL, Prop.
Dixie Highway, Watseka, Ill.,
3/9/24
Dear Arthur:-
This will introduce my nephew, Dan Schlotman, whom I am sending to you in the hopes you can offer him something more attractive than what his is now doing.
Dan has had one year at Illinois and is, I think, trying to accumulate enough to take him thru at least another year. Don’t try to talk him into going to Michigan.
We are planning to close down at Nortonville April 1st., or would place the young man there.
Any courtesies shown will be very much appreciated.
Sincerely,
R. L. Schlotman
Mr. A. C. Green,
c/o Goodman Mfg. Co.,
Chicago, Ill.
Notes
This letter was written by my 2nd great-granduncle, Bob Schlotman, to introduce his nephew and my great-grandfather, Dan Schlotman, to Arthur Green in hopes that it might result in employment. I don’t know how the interview, assuming there was one, went, but to my knowledge, Grandpa didn’t end up working for Mr. Green.
The circumstances Grandpa Schlotman, hereafter referred to as Dan, found himself in were difficult. From what I have been told, Dan had a small inheritance from his mother, Anna, who died when he was eight years old. The money was in the care of his father, Oscar, and it was to be used for Dan’s education.
Dan was valedictorian of Sheldon High School, class of 1921, and attended the University of Illinois College of Engineering for one year, from 1922-23, following in his Uncle Bob Schlotman’s footsteps. Bob was working in Kentucky in the mining industry and had gifted his nephew Dan with a drafting set to use at his alma mater.
When Dan came home from his first year at U of I, Dan’s father told him that he wouldn’t be going back to the university because he’d bought farmland with the money and needed Dan’s help to work it.
This was surely a crushing blow to Dan and so he apparently attempted to make enough money to fund his own education. In the meantime, he farmed with his father. I don’t know at what point Dan gave up trying to go back to college, but that is what happened eventually.
I’m sure that this situation was frustrating to Uncle Bob. This attempt to help Dan, though fruitless for unknown reasons, would have placed Dan in a job in the mining industry, as the Goodman Manufacturing Company of Chicago built locomotives, loaders, and coal cutters for it.
Arthur was Arthur Crandell Green, who lived from 1882 to 1950. He was a mechanical engineer and a graduate of the University of Michigan. He seems to have worked for Goodman his entire career.
Dan worked with his father at farming and held several jobs including census enumerator and Texaco station operator before he won the position of rural mail carrier for Sheldon, Illinois. He worked for the postal service until his retirement.
While it’s sad to think of what Dan’s life might have been if only his father hadn’t stolen his college money, we must remember this — if Dan had continued his education, his career would likely have taken him far away from Sheldon. He probably would have never met and married country schoolteacher Clara Light. And so we descendants simply would not be here today.
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