Quite a Romance
Someone who has known Mr. Doerner since his first arrival in Chicago told me his story. He was a civil engineer, and lost his wife and child in the same year. Grief and disappointment turned him against his profession. He inherited at this time something like twenty acres of land in Chicago, which were in those days outside the city limits, but are now the most valuable property in the city. He was waiting for a final settlement of the estate, and used his idle hours looking about the book-shops in Chicago. Soon he was well known and well liked by all the book dealers. He purchased books and his knowledge of books was astonishing. About twenty years ago Chicago was a great center for book auctions. Ship loads of books from England were sold here, and Mr. Doerner soon became a frequenter of the auction rooms. Early printed books were his hobby. Once he could not resist and put in his bid of several hundred dollars for a rare collection. The books went to him. He could not pay, but gave as security a mortgage on his legacy. In subsequent auctions he bought large lots, increasing the mortgage upon his real estate. Then came the day when the auctioneers demanded payment. They foreclosed the mortgage, bought Mr. Doerner’s property at auction for a ridiculously small amount of money, at once quit the book auction business, parceled out Mr. Doerner’s twenty acres of land into building lots, and became—millionaires.
Mr. Doerner bore his misfortune with equanimity. He continued his regular trips to the book dealers and one day a proposition was put before him. A book-seller on Wells Street, one of the oldest in the city, died suddenly, and his stock of books had to be catalogued in order to be sold at public auction for the benefit of his estate:
“Would Mr. Doerner undertake to catalogue the stock and appraise it; the estate would pay him three dollars per day for his services?” Mr. Doerner accepted, and, to make the story short, at the end of six months, the cataloguing and appraising were not yet finished, the book-seller’s heirs were unwilling to pay Mr. Doerner’s fees, which amounted to several hundred dollars, upon the dubious chance of reimbursement by public auction:
“Would Mr. Doerner accept the books, themselves, in payment of his claim?” He would.
And so he found himself the proprietor of a book shop.
Mr. Doerner has made discoveries during his career which were of the utmost importance to American history. His collection of paintings, especially of American paintings, would fill a private museum. He hates commercialism, he loves weak humanity, and, strange to say, the disreputable men and women of Wells Street love him, and he and his possessions are safe in the most dangerous part of the city.
Or is it true, as he once answered in a rather pessimistic mood: “If they suspected that I had only one thirty-second carat of a diamond in my place, they would murder me and loot my shop in order to find it. But books or paintings, who cares for them in America?”