Community Corner

Why Local History is Important

The president of the Morton Grove Historical Society hopes the just-released book of Morton Grove history will open people's eyes to what happened before, and may just repeat. The museum will be open on Farmer's Market days.

 

The book Images of America: Morton Grove has just been released (Arcadia Press, $21.99), and we took the occasion to chat with Donna Hedrick, president of the Morton Grove Historical Society.

Patch: What are some highlights of Morton Grove history from the book?

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Donna Hedrick: Where Harrer Park is, that was the floral industry they had here. Morton Grove was very known for greenhouses. At one time there were more greenhouses here than anywhere else in the country. They sold to the Chicago market. The last one closed about a year ago. 

One person at the World’s Fair won a prize for his roses.

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The greenhouses mainly disappeared during the Depression.  People didn’t have enough money. They barely had enough money to eat.

Did anything in the book surprise you?

There were a few things I did not know. I’ve lived in Morton Grove for 34 years, but I grew up in Glenview. The history I knew of Morton Grove was more recent history. I’ve been on the board for about 10 years.

What's the value of reading history?

Every time you examine anything in history, you find out something you didn’t know.

When you read something and they tell you more detail, it’s like "aha."

What ethnic groups founded Morton Grove?

Germans, English, Luxembourgers.

What were your hopes for the book?

To show awareness for the history of Morton Grove and for what the (Morton Grove Historical) Society does. The society does a lot of different things for the village and keeps records. I was hoping for more awareness and for people to become more involved in the history of Morton Grove.

We’ve gotten some new members, including a new secretary. She was someone that came up to me and said she was really interested in the book.

The book says it's by Mary Busch and Tim Mayse-Lillig for the Morton Grove Historical Society. How did you all put it together? 

The Morton Grove historical Society is the owner of the book and Mary Busch and Tim Mayse-Lillig  are the authors.

We had a committee of myself, Milton Langer, Mark Matz and Lorraine Strybel. We talked about things, and between Mary and Tim we went over everything.

Mark wrote the introduction and acknowledgments in the book.  We have to thank the (Morton Grove) park district because the Historical Society and the Park District run the museums. It’s a joint effort.

The park district owns the buildings and pays Mary's salary but we the society own all the artifacts. Mary and Tim are both part-time. Tim works about two days a week, and the society pays for half his salary.

How did you decide to do this book?

This was an idea a little over a year ago, we looked into it.  I talked to Arcadia and talked to the director at that time of the park district to have an agreement for Mary to work on the book.

In July 2012 was when we really started on it.

The society also does exhibits. Tell me about that.  

Two years ago, we had Women in History. Then we had Main Street Morton Grove.

The exhibit that goes along with the book, “Images of America,” opened April 28. On May 11, we have the fire department exhibit and the opening of the spring Farmer’s Market.

Every so often, we have one major exhibit that usually lasts a year and a half to two years. We had an exhibit of the 100th anniversary of Girl scouts, and then we had little exhibits, like a doll house exhibit.

This year’s big exhibit will be the Images of America exhibit. We have some pictures we couldn’t fit in the book because we were limited to 200.  And we have artifacts of Morton Grove.

Why do you find local history interesting?

Sometimes you see a parallel to something that’s going on now. It’s always struck me, “this happened before, and I can see it going along that line again.”  I think it’s important for people to know background, of yourself, your genealogy, and the town.

I lived in Glenview until my 30s, I’ve seen the changes in Glenview, I can point it out and say, “this used to be so and so.”

You have a museum here in the Haupt-Yehl house (the light green frame house between Harrer Park and the American Legion Civic Center). What do you have and do here?

We have the whole house, we have artifacts, it’s interesting to see the stuff we have. We get school groups that come in periodically, and during the summer, camp kids from the Park District come in here.

We have four to five speakers a year. The library had a historical reenactor of Juliet Lowe of the Girl Scouts.

We open up the house on Sundays, and on Farmers Market days, we’ll be open from 9 to 12. We feel people can come and see what we have.

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