Burton Wells Rhoads

Burton Rhoads at the end of his life worked for advertising deparment of The Prairie Farmer Newspaper in Chicago and he kept working until his death on April 24, 1948 at the age of 77. Even in death, the newspaper he worked for could not resist a commercial plug in a news article obituary published about him in The Prairie Farmer on May 8, 1948:

"Rhoads had been head of the classified advertising department,and built it into the greatest in any farm paper in America."

The article continutes, "It is easy to remember the date of his birth, for his father, working on an Erie Canal boat nearing Buffalo, saw the great pall of smoke from the Chicago fire, Oct. 8, 1871." ((While this is exactly the way Burton told the story in a family legend, family history author and his grandson Gurrie C. Rhoads has speculated that his great grandfather might only have actually seen smoke for a huge Peshtigo Forest Fire in northeast Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that by coincidence happened on the same weekend as The Great Chicago Fire of Oct 8-9, 1871. The forest fire destroyed millions of dollars worth of timberland and claimed between 1,200 and 2,400 lives. But is was the legend of Mrs. Catherine O'Leary's cow starting the Chicago fire by kicking over a lantern that helped make the Chicago fire more famous in history. The legend was not true as Mrs. O'Leary testified under oath in an official investigation that she milked her cows at 5 pm and took the lantern with her back to her house. In 1924 before he died, a newspaper reporter admitted he made up the cow legend because he feared angry crowds might go after some neighborhood boys who were seen smoking in the O'Leary barn at 137 DeKoven Street on Sunday night in the belief they might have been the real culprits in starting the fire since all witnesses agreed the massive citywide fire started in that barn.)) The article in Prairie Farmer continues, "While Burton was a small infant his family moved ((from NY)) to Spotsylvania County in Virginia. 'Just east of the good land' was the way Burton described it later." This was only six years after Gen.Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulyses S. Grant at Appomatox in 1865 about 125 miles away from Spotsylvania.

• Residence: 4334 Prospect Ave, Western Springs, Cook, Illinois
• Residence: 1872 - Virginia, United States
• Residence: 1880 - Courtland Magisterial District, Spotsylvania, Virginia, United States
• Residence: 1910 - Lyons, Cook, Illinois, United States
• Residence: 1920 - Western Springs, Cook, Illinois, United States
• Residence: 1930 - Lyons, Cook, Illinois, United States
• Residence: 1935 - Same House
• Residence: 1940 - Western Springs, Lyons Township, Cook, Illinois, United States
  • Reference: FamilySearch Family Tree - SmartCopy: Dec 31 2022, 0:20:57 UTC