Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1912 — Old Mansion May Be Sold for Taxes [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Old Mansion May Be Sold for Taxes

pHICAGO. —Remnants of what once As was the Reber mansion, Chicago’s pride in ante-bellum days, will be sold for taxes by Cook county some time In March. Ft>r forty years county, state and city have attempted unsuccessfully the collection taxes on this last vestige of the Reber estate. And the proceeding will not be without its pathos and romance. By It the home will be sold over the head of Gertrude V. Reber Backus, who in her eighth decade of life is alone in the world. In her eighty years she has seen the mansion of old transformed into a forfeited hoyeL The property is at Ellis avenue and East Fortieth street, in the heart of a chplce residence district Lots of 50foot frontage there are > valued at SIO,OOO. Tax complications have destroyed title to the Reber property and Mrs. Backns has been dinging to her home In the fSco of impending

For thirty years tax buyers have grasped the Reber property at each delinquent tax sale. In those years the residence, with its site, was accepted as a good risk by tax buyers. As years went by and the aged owner dung persistently to her abode, eves in defiance of law, the tax buyers abandoned It Si a bad proposition. Since 1001 the county has levied on the property regularly. Delinquency notices were served with no effect Court procedure had as little effect The gray-haired defendant let everything go by default gad held stead faatly to her abode. "••• - -