About

Me & My Shadow is where Chicago history gets personal.

Frances O’Cherony Archer blogs about the intersection of Chicago history with personal memories and experiences, her own and those of others. She was born and raised in Chicago and still lives in the area.

Although Frances has fierce ties to and much affection for the city, she was the first of her family to be born in Chicago. It wasn’t much of a choice for her parents back in 1956: remain in Havana amidst increasing violence in the streets or start over in a completely foreign, cold city where one institution, Michael Reese Hospital, offered her father an opportunity to become licensed as physician, for the second time in his life.

Growing up in a bilingual–English/Spanish–and bicultural–Jewish/Cuban–home gave Frances an early start towards understanding how people from different countries feel right at home in Chicago. After more than 50 years of practicing medicine in his adopted hometown, her father still maintained he spoke more English in Havana in the ’50s than he ever did in Chicago.

When Frances started blogging about her childhood neighborhood on Chicago’s Far North Side, former neighbors, classmates and complete strangers posted comments, filling in the blanks of her memories. The result is Me & My Shadow, a blog that serves up the memories she recalls as well as the ones she’s found on the Internet. Read this interview with Frances to find out more about her take on blogging.

When not blogging, Frances is a social media consultant with her own company, Content First. She works with small business owners and nonprofit organizations to establish and maximize their social media presence.