George Marcos Ivall (1902-61), Migrant from Greece to USA

There is a small group of Ivalls in the USA who are not related to the Canadian and English Ivalls. They are descended from George Marcos Ivolotis who emigrated from Greece to the USA and changed his name to Ivall.

George was born on January 2^nd 1902 in Corinth, Greece. He was a son of Marcos and Ellen Ivolotis. George migrated to the USA in 1921, aged 19. In 1929 he married Hannah (later known as Ann) DuBree. He was aged 27 when they married, she was aged 16. She was born in Indiana, a daughter of James DuBree, a coal miner, and his wife Ellen.

The 1930 census shows George, a cook at a restaurant, and Hannah at 1421 E 69^th Place, Chicago. They were living in the household of John Ferrare (aged 30, a mechanic at a motor manufactory), his wife Wilma (25) and their four children. Wilma was Hannah’s sister.

In 1934 George and his wife were living in Kankakee, Illinois (a town 60 miles south of Chicago), when their first child Ronald George Ivall was born. Later that year they moved to Monticello, a small town (1940 population 2,523) in Illinois, 150 miles south west of Chicago, and George started work at a restaurant called Bill and Pete's on the north side of the town square. Their second child, Jerry, was born in 1940. The census that year shows the family living at a rented house in E Lincoln Street, Monticello. The household consisted of George (age given as 40, although he was actually 38), his wife Hannah (listed as Ann aged 26) and their sons Ronald (6) and Jerry (3 months). George was working at a chef in a restaurant and had been paid $960 for 52 weeks work in 1939. Also living with them were Hannah’s siblings Frank DuBree (19, a clerk in a grocery store), Thomas DuBree (21, a labourer) and Louise Nolan (25). In 1943 George took over the business and renamed it Ivall’s Cafe.

 

The 1950 census shows George, aged 47, divorced, as a lodger in Monticello, with his son Ronald, aged 15. The census record says that George was a cook in a restaurant, and worked 72 hours in the previous week.   

George's son Ronald started working with his father in 1952. Travel records show that George arrived on a flight to Chicago in 1959, when his address was 106 West Washington Street, Monticello. 

George died on September 9^th 1961 aged 59 in Kirby Hospital, Monticello and is buried in Monticello Cemetery. His wife died in 1980 aged 67.

George’s obituary published in a local paper

(IOOF = Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal order dedicated to helping others)

George's gravestone

Ivall's Cafe was managed by George’s son Ronald from 1961 to 1971, when the business moved to a new location south of  Monticello as Ivall's Country Inn. The reason for the move was to make room for the expansion of the next door National Bank of Monticello.

Ronald Ivall was Monticello's superintendent of city services from 1976 to 1996 and the town's mayor from 2001 until his death in 2003.