This past weekend, a friend asked me, “How far back can you go on your tree?” and I wasn’t sure of the answer. I know that on my mother’s side, some branches go back to pre-Colonial America…. But “back” has never been my focus. As I explained to her, I’m always more interested in the context I can add and the color I can give to my ancestors’ stories.
About 12 hours later, looking at my great-grandfather’s draft card, I was reminded again how much that part of genealogy excites me.
This is the WWI draft card for my great-grandfather Zvonimir, who I’ve been researching as part of my long-going series about the house on Hull Street. Searches hadn’t turned it up before, probably because it had been catalogued under “Brooke” instead of Brovet. Searching by only his birthdate finally helped me find the right card (the same strategy I used successfully here).
I was excited to see he was still living on 611 East 45th St. in Chicago, where my great-uncle Ben was born. But I was most interested in two facts:
- It tells how long Zvonimir served in the Austrian military, which helps me understand his pre-immigration years. It also says he was a surgeon, which I suspect is incorrect. I know barbers and surgeons have some shared history, but nothing else in his life indicates that he had any medical training. I think it may just have been a mishearing of “sergeant.”
- Second, it says he’s working in a barber shop at 5406 S. Lake Park Ave. for a man named Louis Hetz.
Give me a name and an address, and I can go to town. So I started to look up Hetz. Interesting to me, he and Zvonimir shared some similarities.
- Zvonimir was a Croatian immigrant, born 1889, married 1915.
- Louis was a German immigrant, born 1890, married 1914.
- Louis’ first son, Walter, was born in January 1916.
- And Zvon’s first son, Benjamin Walter, was born in August 1916.
So they were two men of similar ages, life stages, and backgrounds, working together in Louis’ barber shop for several years. Louis and Zvonimir even registered for the draft on the same day. My hunch is they got along well together. I mean, Walter and Benjamin Walter… What are the odds?
It’s always good to remember that our ancestors didn’t live in a vacuum, and not just with family. They existed in a sphere of employers, friends, church members, and neighbors. Doing the work to fill in those details can provide a fuller picture of not just where your relatives lived, but how they lived. ☗
© 2026 Tori Brovet/All rights reserved. Email me at GraveyardSnoop + gmail.com.
Graveyard Snoop 