Sorry to report that long-time member Dale Francisco passed away on New Year's day. Dale was active in the historical society for years, and his wife and daughter are both on the board. Information about visitation and funeral services can be found on the Kisselburg website:
http://www.kisselburgwaucondafuneralhome.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=1354763&fh_id=13417.
Open House: The annual Open House/ice-cream social at Cook House was held on Sunday the 24th. It was a bit hot outside, but the AC held up! We had quite a good turnout, including several people who once lived in the house as well as a number of life-long residents -- for a while quite a few of them sat around in the front room reminiscing and answering questions from visitors. Thanks to Terri Suda of the Wauconda Area Library, and to the historical society's Cindy, Roberta, & Peg for helping to organize the event and make it such a success.
Civil War Journal: This year marks 150 years since the Civil War in the U.S. To commemorate this occasion, I am transcribing the journal of James Leroy Burnside, a civil war soldier who settled in the Wauconda area. The journal covers his experiences in the war, and later parts of it talk about life in this area at that time in history. The journal was donated by Mr. Tim Kernan, one of Burnside's descendants. I hope to post the journal to this site when I get it transcribed.
Scanning project: Quite a few Wauconda Leader articles and other items relevant to Wauconda's history were found in boxes when a storage room at the library was cleared out in May. These items are mostly from the 1980s and cover a wide range of topics. The library has given me an external hard drive to use for history-society storage, so I will be scanning these items over the next few months. Some of them will end up posted here.
Wauconda Leader: Ever since the demise in 2006 of our 100-plus-year-old local paper, we have been trying to find a way to preserve the issues that have survived. Right when we needed their assistance, state and federal newspaper preservation projects all lost their funding in the recession and had to shut down. Because we are such a small town, there just hasn't been much interest outside of Wauconda in preserving this irreplaceable record of our local history.
Now it appears that our problem may be solved. The Wauconda Area Public Library has told me that they are going to try to find a scanner big enough to allow for digitizing these papers. Even if the scanner has to be borrowed, they share our concern that these papers not be lost. This is wonderful news! These papers will not only survive, but they can be made accessible to anyone who wishes to use them, now and for years to come.
June general meeting: The general meeting, on 6 June 2011, was quite a success. We had about 15 people there, which is a very good turnout for our society, and the discussion was lively and informative. Virginia Reardon, who grew up in Mylith Park in the 40s and 50s, and Williams Park residents from the same era, Doris Aimers-Voss and Peg Redmore, shared their memories of life in these Slocum Lake settlements. All of them began as summer visitors to the resort town of Wauconda, then settled here permanently just as others began to do the same. Another Williams Park resident, Dolores Jarchow, then told us about her memories of a slightly later time. It was interesting to hear how things had changed, and what had remained the same. She also gave us an update on recent changes in the area, including the FEMA buyout about a decade ago and the changing demographic of the neighbourhood. It was a very interesting evening.
Article on the Elm Theater appeared in the Lake County Journal, edition of March 17 to March 23, 2001.