Wyonella Smith, 1921-2020 (Courtesy of Marie Ellis.)
Wyonella Smith had a love affair with Chicago. With a forward nature in her eyes, she saw the hopeful texture of its baseball seasons and she navigated local media in its black and white years. Mrs. Smith was the wife of trailblazing newspaper columnist and mid-1960s WGN-Channel 9 sports anchor Wendell Smith. Mrs. Smith died on Thanksgiving Day at the Montgomery Place Retirement Community in Hyde Park.
She was 99 years old.
Mrs. Smith lived in the same retirement center as Mary Frances Veeck, the wife of Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck. Wendell Smith [...]
Phyllis Jaskot at her bar, early 1960s (Courtesy of the Jaskot family.)
In a city known for unique taverns, Phyllis’ Musical Inn, 1800 W. Division, is the full dance card.
Phyllis and Clem Jaskot Sr. opened their Chicago bar in 1954. The club has since taken on at least three historic personalities: the cornerstone of a 1950s polka music strip known as “Polish Broadway,” a minimalist country-rock club that in the 1980s featured live sets from Souled American, Green and many others, and now, the last interesting drinking establishment on gentrified Division Street.
Beloved matriarch Phyllis Jaskot [...]
Layne Greene photo courtesy of The Daily Yonder.
The drumbeats of a pandemic, crime, cost of living, and divisive national leadership have planted the seeds for an urban exodus. Should some of that happen, forward- thinking communities in rural America could blossom.
The Daily Yonder is an ambitious online newsletter published by the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, Ky. The Daily Yonder covers rural news on a national scope. Tim Marema is editor.
Over yonder from today’s dehumanizing conversations, what are the good things that humans do?
“We’re in a society that allows us to be [...]
Ronny’s Steakhouse closed over Labor Day weekend in Chicago’s Loop.
It was another signal in the shift of the urban community as a result of the pandemic. At one time there were six Ronny’s steakhouses in downtown Chicago. The last one standing was on the ground floor of the Thompson Center building. Government workers came to Ronny’s. Bank tellers ate there. There were wayward tourists. The late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was a fan, most notably stopping in around 2010 when he was directing the “Long Red Road” at the nearby Goodman Theatre.
They are all ghosts in 2020.
Ronny’s was a place out of time during its time, which helped explain [...]
