Back in 2002 I wrote a piece for the Chicago Reader about an old house I tried, and failed, to save from the wrecking ball. For the story I did some research about some of the early owners of the house.

Along the way the Higgins family, and especially its matriarch, Jane, came alive for me, and I began to empathize with them. Lately the way the economy seems to be going, I've been thinking of Jane again. Here's her story, pulled out of my 2002 story:

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William and Jane Higgins bought the house in 1880 for $3,000. Records indicate the money came from Jane. Perhaps she had an inheritance, since it's hard to see how they could afford such a monstrously big house on William's earnings as a passenger agent on the Illinois Central Railroad.

The Irish Catholic couple—he was born in New York, she was off the boat—had seven children: Nelly, Jenny, Frances, Flora, Stella, Gertie, and William Jr.

I have a map showing all of the buildings in the neighborhood in 1886. Even at that late date-after an influx of immigrants had caused the city to swell westward-the neighborhood was still spread out. There was no building on the lot next door to the Higgins house.

By 1900 William had died, and Jane had apparently also lost two children-Flora and Gertie don't appear on the 1900 census. ...

By the early 1900s, West Town was no longer the sylvan setting in which Nathan Huntley had built the house. In 1910 the neighborhood's population, teeming with working-class Polish and German immigrants, peaked at 220,000. The house at Paulina and Pearson was full of Poles and Germans too, because Jane Higgins was sharing her home with 16 renters. The house had been cut up into apartments.

The Siemieniewski family lived in the front. Husband Anton was a shoemaker who'd emigrated from Poland in 1881; his wife, Mary, came over the following year. In 1910 they were in their mid-40s and had ten children, the oldest 21-year-old Kasimir, the youngest a small child named Gertrude.

Another boarder was Costas Sarelas, a Greek widower who'd emigrated from Germany. An elevator operator, Sarelas also had two grown children living in the house.

No matter how cheerful and even-tempered I imagine Jane Higgins to have been, it's hard to believe she relished sharing her house with so many.

Alone at 61, she was surrounded by strange languages, smelling strange foods, putting up with all those children.

Jane was suddenly in the wrong neighborhood.

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We all have a Jane Higgins in our life or in our heads—a person who shows us that, despite our optimism, it is indeed possible to lose what we have, personally or professionally. And, just as importantly, that it's possible to go on living.

When foreclosures, job losses, market setbacks dominate the business news, whose story of misfortune and survival do you reflect on?