One day, the following ad showed up in the Vintage Ads LJ community (back when people still used livejournal) and I immediately became enamored with it.

I am really into old ads and Chicago history, and the ad copy filled me with joy. I loved the idea of a female PI working the South Side of Chicago during the Progressive Era. My mind almost immediately started concocting stories and cases for her (historical fanfic? Is that a thing?). Cheating husbands, missing daughters, crooked alderman, maybe even a murder in the Stockyards. I was sure she had an affair with Upton Sinclair and her nemesis must have been H.H. Holmes.

I resolved to find out as much about her as I could. I never would have guessed that I would find so much and that she completely lived up to my expectations. So here is a timeline and documentation of everything I could find out about her (or at least as much as I could while spending no money and "researching" from the comfort of my couch). I HIGHLY recommend you click the links and read the articles. They're amazing.

I'm glad I can share this with the rest of the internet, feel free to hit me up via email or twitter with any comments, questions, or extra information you might have.

I've tried to visit Cora's grave in Chicago's Rosehill Cemetary. While the area and plot number she is in are legible in the cemetary records, the row unfortunately isn't. The vast majority of the headstones in that area are gone, overgrown, or so completely weathered to be unreadable. I can get to within about of 100 feet of where she is, but the exact spot remains a mystery. But she's there.