Rotary Global History Fellowship
"On the night of February 23, 1905, the first meeting took place at Gus’ office in the Unity Building. Silvester and Paul had dined together at an Italian restaurant on Chicago’s near north side. Gus, by prearrangement, had invited a personal friend, Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor, a native of the village of Litchfield, in the State of Maine, to…
“On the night of February 23, 1905, the first meeting took place at Gus’ office in the Unity Building. Silvester and Paul had dined together at an Italian restaurant on Chicago’s near north side. Gus, by prearrangement, had invited a personal friend, Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor, a native of the village of Litchfield, in the State of Maine, to whom he had previously introduced Paul. The meeting was enlivened by the relation of personal experiences, after which Paul unfolded the general purposes of his plan.” Paul P. Harris “The Founder of Rotary” 1928.
I have come across the book “Dining in Chicago”, a book written in the early 1920s about the best places to eat in the Windy City. Thanks to my alma mater the University of Illinois, the book has now been digitized and is available on the internet. In particular, there is a review of the restaurant, complete with history of Mme. Carmelinda Galli and how she made it to Chicago from Italy and eventually opened a restaurant. It evens mentions how Rotary began there!
It is a fascinating four or five pages, indicating the likely menu that Paul Harris and Silvester Schiele would have eaten that night. When presenting this to members of my club, they thought it was highly amusing that they probably had chicken for dinner, as sometimes it feels that every meal we have at Rotary seems to be chicken!
I hope it is of help to you. Apart from a short letter to the editor of the April 1975 Rotarian magazine, it is the best reference I have found about the restaurant which holds such great historic interest to Rotarians. Members of my club loved the story.
Yours in Rotary, Adrian Nelson, 2005/06 President, Rotary Club of Glen Eira D9800, Australia
Source:
Dining in Chicago [c1931]
Author: Drury, John, 1898
Subject: Dinners and dining; Chicago — Hotels, taverns, etc
Publisher: New York, The John Day company
Possible copyright status: Public domain. Published 1923-1963
with notice but no evidence of copyright renewal found in Stanford Copyright Renewal Database.
Contact dcc@library.uiuc.edu for information
Language: English
Call number: 1098213
Digitizing sponsor: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Book contributor: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Collection: Americana
This record is part of the growing RGHF archive. Details are reviewed by volunteer curators before final publication.