SIMON CALDWELL was born in 1847 in Rhinebeck, New York. He moved to Chicago in 1871 and became a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Five years later, he married Elsie Hawkins, the daughter of a local minister. They ended up having three children, and they raised Simon’s nephew Tommy as their own. In 1896, Simon tried to establish his own paper, the Chicago Courant. The Courant failed within six months, after which Simon went to work for the rival Chicago Times-Herald. Over the course of his career, Simon reported on events like the Haymarket Affair, the Iroquois Theatre Fire, and the Eastland Disaster. He died in 1928.