Plum Street was home to people who spoke Russian, Gaelic and Greek in its tenements. Although we don’t know the language used by the couple in the undated photo to call their geese and pigs into the courtyard, we do know much about their block near the river. Roofer Patsy Ford lived at 212 Plum and fought to have him declared living after a body floating in the Mississippi was mistakenly identified as him. Effie Winns lived at the same address and devised a daring rescue plan to retrieve Lovey her stolen dog. She climbed through the thief’s window at night to get out, but she found that the dog was tied to the man’s wrist. The caper didn’t end well. A bolt of lightning once set a flourmill ablaze, causing damage or destruction to everything nearby. A crude oil mill, a sewing machine factory, “two homes of ill repute”, frame cottages… A priest named Father Emmanuel preached on the second-story landing at Second and Plum in Aramaic. This is the language many historians believe Jesus used.
