Kerry's Jewish grandfather found success here
February 10, 2003
BY LYNN SWEET SUN-TIMES WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF Advertisement
The maternal roots of presidential hopeful Sen. John Forbes Kerry
(D-Mass.) go back to colonial Massachusetts. What Kerry did not know
was that his paternal grandfather, born Fritz Kohn, came to Chicago
from Europe and quickly became a successful businessman.
The story of Frederick Kerry intersects with that of prominent Chicago
merchant prince George Lytton, son of Henry C. Lytton, a famed State
Street retailer.
More details about Kerry's roots are coming to light and are of
interest because Kerry is most often taken as a Boston Brahmin. People
who are close to him have assumed--in error--that Kerry, a Catholic,
is Irish-American.
The Chicago chapter was uncovered by the Sun-Times with the assistance
of Charles B. Bernstein, a lawyer and well-known genealogist of the
Chicago Jewish community, who searched naturalization records at the
Daley Center and old Chicago directories.
Kerry only learned last month from a Boston Globe reporter that his
grandfather was Jewish and that he committed suicide in 1921 in a
Boston hotel washroom. Kerry learned about 15 years ago that his
paternal grandmother, Ida Lowe, a Catholic convert, was born Jewish.
Kerry did not know that his grandfather, from an Austrian town now in
the Czech Republic, started his U.S. life in Chicago, spokesman David
Wade said Sunday.
Frederick Kerry--who changed his name from Kohn while in Europe--
probably came to Chicago shortly after landing in the United States on
Dec. 21, 1905. The two witnesses on his naturalization petition,
George Lytton, who said he was a merchant, and Frank Case, listed as a
manager, swore he lived in Illinois since January 1906.
Lytton lived on Prairie Avenue, then the home of the city's elites.
Records show that Case worked at Sears and was socially prominent. The
senator knew that his granfather had some connection with Sears, Wade
said.
Kerry's emigrant saga is unusual because "he immediately is residing
in a middle-class neighborhood and has a white-collar occupation,''
said Bernstein.
Kerry filed his initial citizenship papers in Cook County Circuit
Court on June 21, 1907. At the time Lytton and Case witnessed Kerry's
naturalization petition, on Feb. 6, 1911, he was living at 4868
Sheridan, then part of upscale Uptown.
Frederick Kerry was listed in a 1908 directory with an office on
Dearborn in the Loop, and by 1912, he even ran an ad in a directory
billing his firm as "Fred A. Kerry & Staff'' under the heading
"Business counsellors.'' By 1910, Kerry was listed in the Chicago Blue
Book, a listing of prominent Chicagoans.
The Chicago paper trail ends in 1912. The senator's father, Richard,
was born in Brookline, Mass., in 1915.
Bernstein said Kerry and the Lyttons had something in common.
According to research by Norman Schwartz of the Chicago Jewish
Historical Society, Henry Lytton was originally Henry Levi.
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