28 Days of Soul Food: Day 12
Charles H. Smiley was a caterer to the wealthy and elite at the turn of the 20th century.
Canadian-born Charles H. Smiley — whose parents had been enslaved in America yet escaped and fled to the town of St. Catharines, Ontario — started his hospitality career as a driver in his hometown for $3 a day, eventually working his way up to the position of waiter when he moved to Chicago.
Smiley saved his money to open a catering business in 1894 in what’s known today as the South Loop. His services were so well regarded that his clients included Chicago’s well-heeled society types, political elites and others, who paid top dollar for his food and hospitality.
At its most prosperous, Smiley’s business was worth $100,000; in today’s dollars that’s more than $3 million. When he passed away in 1911, the Chicago Tribune wrote an obituary. According to the University of Chicago, his $11,000 estate set aside $3,000 to endow the Charles H. Smiley Scholarship for Black students at the University of Chicago, yielding $150 a year.
Smiley’s express wish was that the scholarship should be used to provide support for “poor, but promising students, preferably of the colored race.”