Reuben Henry Schell was born in Polo Illinois to Isaac Trumbaur Schell and Emeline R Huff , May 14 1876. Upon graduation of Polo High School Reuben attended C. A Steinmann's business school in Dixon Lee Illinois formally known as Northern Illinois Normal School and Dixon Business Collage in the early 1900s. C. A Steinmann's institution went out of business in 1906 and the building was destroyed by fire in 1915. During this same time frame Reuben began working at a Dry Goods store Carson Pirie Scott as a bookkeeper while living with his sister and Carrie and her husband Sheridan Elbridge Fry Attorney.   It is during his time at Carson Pirie that he meets Edith May Crawford who is also was also working at a Dry goods store (possibly the same one) as a salesperson. 1. 

In 1905 Reuben and Edith Married on June 21, and settled in Winnetka Illinois where in 1927  Reuben opened R. H Schell & Co. Dry Good Store on his own. Below is an image of the exterior circa 1927 Winnetka 

  

This image is from family photos of the displays at Reuben Schell Dry Good

This is the inside of Reuben Schell Dry Good 1927.  Reubens grew his business to at one time three locations.  One of his stores was crashed into by a wayward car, but they thrived for many years in Winnetka as a retail merchant in town. Much of the history of RH Schell Dry goods can be found in the Winnetka Talk 1927-1940

During the years Reuben and Edith had two children Marian Eleanor and Henry Crawford. Their home was located on Pine Street in Winnetka and their business was on 800-2 Elm. He and Edith were very social and attended many of the Schell Family reunions in Polo Ill  

Edith for the most part stayed home to raise the kids, was an avid sewer, and was quite social. Reuben was also a Police justice in Winnetka for a while. His original badge resides with his eldest daughter Diane.

He was part of the Rotary Club of Winnetka., he was the Village council president 1924-1926, and was also part of the chamber of commerce in Winnetka Illinois 1936-1930. In the later part of his career, he donated part of the land for Chestnut Court Books, which opened in 1940. Before retiring to Springfield Ohio in 1943 he sold the rest of his 800 block of Elm Street in Winnetka to National Tea Company which was a grocery store chain.

 He returned to sales working for Carson Pirie now operating the Boston Store as dept manager for the boy's Department. He attends the First Church of Christ Scientist as a worshiper.  Reuben died Nov. 24 1954 Thanksgiving after having been ill for six months, and is buried in Newcomer Cemetery Springfield Ohio. His wife Edith follows him in death a year later in 1956 and is buried beside him in Newcomer Cemetery. 

Joseph Moses Guttman and the history of Steelograph Company, Graphanally Eng. Co and steel engravings by Joseph Guttman

 As of 2023, the remains of the Steelograph company, its steel engravings, intaglio process, drawing, and variety of commercial work were donated by Mrs. Lea Guttman daughter in law and treasure (married to Harry Herbert Guttman)  of the firm's founder Dr. Joseph Guttman to the National Museum of American History around the 1980s

Joseph Guttman and a Jewish immigrant from Letitchov Russia ( now Ukraine) came to America by way of very unusual circumstances. Joseph Guttman was born to Isreal and Udel Guttman and was raised in Kamenetz Padolsk Russia where his family lived and thrived. In 1919 there was a violent pogrom that occurred that caused their family to flee. He came to the united states in 1920. When the family fled Kamenetz they separated for fear of being caught and persecuted and many of the family members arrived separately from each other to the United States. Joseph was the first family member to establish himself in New York. Upon arrival, he resides at 75 St. Marks Place, NY, At this location he resides with his wife Rebecca. 

Joseph establishes himself as a businessman after attending college in 1920 and founded his first company Graphanally Eng Co.NY as a solo entrepreneur producing steel engravings. Graphanally was active until 1933. He then founded Steelograph located at 1 Broadway, NY NY 10004. His original Steelograph company logo was designed by graphic artist Herb Lubalin. Steelograph expanded on his vision. He ran the original Steelography from 1933 until his death in 1963

Dr. J Guttman was the inventor of a unique steel engraving method that allowed his work to retain quality and workmanship while reducing the time it took to create each piece of steel art. His company specializes in creating steel engravings for high-end clients like Cartier, The Astoria, The Park Sheraton, The Gotham, Hotel New Yorker, The Fifth Avenue Hotel, The Benjamin Franklin Hotel in PA, and The Ambassador Hotel CA. Capturing images of real life and detailing the insides of these outstanding works of architecture. Some of his works include greeting cards, menus, postcards, wedding invitations, calling cards, and graphic works for small businesses like  Beatrice Morgan creator of beauty preparations, London Paris. One of his main lines was to create holiday cards for his clients to be created and sold in their gift shops. He then used famous artists and graphic artists like William Oliver Wilson, Edwin Stanton, Carl Muke, A. Peribonka, Otto Gebler, Sir David Wilke R.A., Hermann Prell, Francois Flameng, Robert Franz Curry, F. Nath, C.W.C Malchin, H. Stubenrauch, L. Matifas, F Willaert, G.H Boughton, to paint, colorize or illustrate these cards. His attention to detail was astounding and his graphic artwork was of the utmost quality. 

Some other examples of his work :

Upon Jospeh's death in 1963, his company changed hands to his son Harry Guttman who registered the company in 1975 under his and his son and wife's names. Harry took the business into the 2008's with his wife Ann as treasurer and son working its helm.

The above work assembled by Pamela Reinemann 

The Pogrom in Urkrane can be clearly understood by reading 

https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Kamyanets_Podilskyy1/kam016.html

80/20 eating rule

80/20 my daughter shared with me this idea when she can home for Christmas... stay on your food path (diet) 80% of the time and reserve the other 20% for screw ups/ indulgences and deviations. If you know me you'd know I am about the worst person to stick with something in it's original form. I always change the formula, try for something new, or plain out give up and start something different, when it comes to sticking to one kind of eating.

IN our goal to be more self sustainable and grow much of our own food, back in November we began eating "whole foods". For us whole foods are all foods that are not mass produced and are basically single ingredient foods. I shop for produce at our local Brennans I buy local grass feed meat at Jordandal Farms. We buy enough to get the lower price then freeze it all until we are ready for using it.

Both Carl and I quit eating most grains and flours that we now know were causing a lot of allergies for me and well, frankly carl was fine, but since I cook a lot he's on the plan with me by default...

I read the book "Wheat Belly" and it was a bit of an ahhh haa moment to realize just how much wheat producers have messed with the genetics of wheat and how we as consumers have been unaware of how the basic structure wheat has been altered.  ( I guess the scientists forgot to include the consumer in on this experiment) The take away message for me in the book was a realization that we are NOT consuming our fore fathers early wheat products and what the scientist have created in the lab by Genetically Modifying wheat has made it something of a drug. I now only buy NON GMO foods because of it. For me I'll leave the testing of genetically modified foods up to someone else.

This far I can say I have not gained weight and I have not lost weight. Of course my goal is to eat well and lose weight, however because I am slow to move the scale downward I am happy with the fact that I am not gaining any weight and have managed to change mine and Carls food habits to a healthier lifestyle. Once the winter lets up and we can get outside I am hopeful that I will actually shed a few LB's...by moving more.

As for sticking to the 80/20 plan

, we are doing awesome, for whatever reason the freedom to deviate with out thinking that you "fell off the wagon" has allowed me to look at our lifestyle eating in a different way and I feel ok if we mess up or choose to go out of our "whole food " eating for a night out.

Beginning Homemaking

My husband and I started to realized that after both our kids moved out of the house we were tired of maintaining the large four bedroom three floor home we had been living in. So,we put it on the market and purchase a smaller 2 bedroom home with one bath, a great yard, in an older neighborhood with more mature trees and better dirt.

In our early conversations we fine tuned that fact that each of us didn't want to work so damn hard to keep up with the lifestyle we had created. We both wanted a simpler life that had less of a carbon footprint. For me living in the new neighborhood with a newly built house was unknowingly impressing on me the idea that keeping up was getting expensive and hard.


Now mind you I am not the person that sticks with things very well and I dread the idea of starting all over again. God knows I have done that WAY to many times in the past and as such I can become quite the bitch when it comes to lots and lots of physical labor ( moving). Even still, both me and my husband knew we would be better off starting over in our "prime" .

So we set off moving and downsizing our large home to a small home and began the process of refining our skills and desires (at least on paper in in my mind). The move took us about 6 weeks ( we were to cheap to spring for movers) and a whole lot physical labor..... ugg. We held an estate sale, sold off many of our precious keepsakes and thinned down to just the basics. I'll add that before we began this whole adventure, the idea went a lot smoother in my head then how it actually did in real life. When the actual moment came to fruition I was seriously having second thoughts. I kept thinking , Oh my god we are slipping back into pre married life, I thought, how could we have worked so hard to get to where we where only to let this all go. I though a lot about what our neighbors and family where thinking and I started to feel sorry for myself, like this was happening "too" me and I was just the pawn... What the hell..I seriously had to go through both withdrawals and detox to let my previous life go and start this one.

Once moved, I'd drive by my old house and think about what I would be doing at this time if I were there and what my neighbors might be thinking about us now. Months passed and I started to feel a lot more comfortable in our "older" home. I realized that I do like the feeling of not working for my life, but living a full life that include the work I loved to do. I became really comfortable maneuvering around my kitchen and loved the idea that our older house had cold storage, a root cellar, a huge garden shed and workshop and that it dated back to 1893 in it's farming roots.

So we tilled up our back yard and I am beginning with Garlic and Onions ( it is September) so they can harvest over winter and see what comes up. My hope it to have storage of these items so that I can use them through the year. I am making about 80% of all the meals we eat. The other 20% of the time we eat out. I have stopped buying prepared meals, with the exception of the occasional pizza. I am buying clean food that I know is either locally grown, made with as few un-natural things as possible. I am making my own salsa and pickles to start with and more will come as time moves forward.

The idea we stated with and still are working to achieve is to make a more sustainable home/life that produces most of our own food and to recycle all we can. These are our beginning goals. As I know myself these goals will grow but I wanted a place to put down my thoughts/ recipes and reflect back on what worked and what didn't work so I can improve on and keep finding my happy place.

1880's Reproduction industrial cart

Reproduction 1880's Industrial Cart

We were approached to build a reproduction of an 1880's Industrial Cart that a client had seen at a large hardware retailer, that had a very hefty price tag.  I had already built a very cool harvest table out of some old sawmill lumber for them, and they wanted to compliment that project. 

This cart is built from douglas fir, with a douglas fir flooring top, two heavy drawers, it is 5 feet long, 34 inches high, and 20 inches deep.  All of the hardware is new production, but I stripped it all down from a bright and shiny look, and gave it a rusty patina (through a very simple household chemical process). All the hardware is finished in a matte lacquer, and the entire project is sealed with a catalyzed medium rubbed effect laquer.

Here are some photos of it under construction.

Here is the final project in our store Legendary Antiques:

This unique piece of furniture could be used as a dry sink, sofa table, kitchen island or entertainment center. Custom pieces like this one can be handcrafted in any design, size, or color you may desire, just ask for details.

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