The History of the Society - Part II

How We Began - Part II, by Rita Schneider

In 1971, still a fledgling society, it was decided by a very active Board of Management that we should seek a place to house the collections we seemed to be amassing.  Speaking for myself, I had records and artifacts in closets, under the beds and in the basement. All the members of the board were doing the same and some, particularly the historian, were running out of space.

 We had chosen the house at 23 W. Maple and presented the possibility to the Lombard Historical Commission to see how we might manage a purchase. The Commission appealed to the Village Board for an agreement between the Lombard Historical Society (LHS), the Village of Lombard and the Lombard Historical Commission (LHC) to purchase and maintain a Victorian house museum. The agreement proposal was for the Village to own the land and the building, including providing the exterior maintenance on the structure, and the Society, at their own cost, would  furnish and maintain the interior and conduct the business and activities of the Society. The Society/Commission contributed $5,000 to the purchase. The Village Board agreed and entered into a purchase agreement. On January 17, 1972, the keys were handed over to Pat Wallace, our first President.

From that date, until the opening on October 15, 1972, the Society worked to restore the interior to the vision of the Board. It was to depict a typical home in the 1869-70 time period (the timeframe of the incorporation of the Village) in a “suburban commuter town.”  The Chicago, Galena and Union Railroad was an important part of the enticement that Josiah Lombard and others, such as Isaac Claflin, used to attract some of their influential Chicago friends to move to Lombard and build their homes and families here.

It was decided that the house would portray a Victorian Parlor, a less formal Dining Room, and a typical 1870 working Kitchen on the first floor; a Victorian bedroom with Cottage furniture on the 2nd floor, an upstairs hall leading to a Municipal Room for local history displays, and a room for a Victorian Research Library /  changing Display Room. The basement (known as the cellar) would also be a part of the display with domestic implements viewed from the top of the stairs. Even a Victorian garden plan was developed.

The transformation began with help from several nationally prominent historians: Gerald Perkins was a Colonial Williamsburg Restoration Architect who gave us valuable expertise on the building and helped guide the restoration; our own Lombard expert, Mildred Davidson was a retired Textile Curator from the Chicago Art Institute; and William Jedlik was a Chicago Historical Society Museum staff person. Repeatedly calling on these three individuals, the Lombard Historical Museum took shape. 

Volunteers were relentless in their work.  We needed to be ready for the October 15th, 1972 opening. The bathroom in what would become the Municipal Room was an obvious modern addition that would need to be removed - along with the plumbing.  A coat closet between the kitchen and front hall was also removed.

Each of the rooms was assigned Board Members: Front parlor – Pat & Jack Wallace and Sena & Bob Krieg; Dining Room – Barb & Harry Graves and Ruth & Bill Hammerschmidt; Kitchen – Herb & Phyllis Dahm and Pat and Frank Poskocil; Victorian bedroom – Joyce & Bill Kleck; and the Victorian Research room – Gerry & Bill Watts and Chuck Herrick, and Art Williams to build the display cases.

Old wallpapers were removed, and historic papers were chosen with the help of William Jedlik, who was now the Regional Curator for the US Department of the Interior in their Philadelphia office. Trips were made to southern Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan to search out antique furnishings appropriate to the period of 1869-70. The Battenberg Lace curtains and the In-grain carpeting are examples of items found on those trips. Other furnishings, such as the 1846 Rosewood melodeon in the front parlor, the secretary in the dining room and the cottage furniture in the Victorian bedroom were donated. (Gerald Bassett, a descendant of the Churchills donated the Melodion.)

The oak flooring was removed, revealing the original cedar wide board flooring that was sanded and painted. Local 701 electricians volunteered their work on the electrical service. In 1870, a house of this kind would have been heated by the fireplace and wood stoves. To show this aspect, more modern evidence of heating (radiators) was eliminated, and electrical elements were put in the ceilings of the house. This was one of the professional jobs that was required. Another was the ceiling plastering and then the floor sanding. Those three were the only professional jobs that were required. All else was done by volunteers.

Carol and Ron Fippinger chaired an “Attic Auction” with all funds going toward the restoration. Residents were asked to donate an antique item in exchange for an admission ticket with the professional Dunning Auction Service volunteering their services. The items donated could be used in the museum or sold to benefit LHS.  That event was a huge success.

Newsletters were produced by board members - who also hand addressed them using an ancient mimeograph machine – and used to keep everyone up to date with news of the restoration.

We were ready! On October 15, 1972, the program began in the Maple Street Chapel. After a welcome by Patricia Wallace, and a speech “Why an Historical Society” by Dr. Robert Stanger, President Emeritus of Elmhurst College, the attendees walked to the Historical Museum where the Village President, Howell Holloman, and Patricia Wallace, cut the ribbon and invited everyone to the first tour. Volunteer costumed guides, who had been trained with a dialogue about the village and the place a home of this kind played in the early development of the town, toured over 100 people through the building that day.

An article in the Lombard Spectator declared that Lombard has a new jewel in its cultural crown.

The opening of the museum gave us the capacity to accept donations of memorabilia and documents and to have a home for all the collections in board members’ homes. Areas in the museum were designated to house these artifacts and the Collections Committee and Historian began the cataloguing of a tremendous number of materials. To think - we now have an ARCHIVES that houses all these items brings me a great deal of satisfaction  - it all began in 1972.  And I was a part of it.

Museum tours were held on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1-4 pm during those early years - always by volunteer guides in costume.  Our first Christmas saw the Girl Scouts and the Lombard Garden Club decorating the exterior and interior of the museum. Handmade ornaments for the tree were made by some artistic members of the Society and made it a very authentic 1870 home.

We continued to work as a volunteer society through 1973 and 1974.  We received an award from the AASLH (The American Association of State and Local History) for Excellence in a small museum without the benefit of a paid Staff.

When 1974 rolled around, we received a $5,000 anonymous bequest earmarked to produce a new history of Lombard. We also received a $2,300 matching grant from the American Revolution Bicentennial Committee for the same purpose. We received donations to match the grants and persuaded Lillian Budd, a best-selling author and former resident of Lombard, to write Footsteps On The Tall Grass Prairie: a history of Lombard, Illinois.  The research was done by members of the Society Board and others. Hours upon hours of research was sent to Ms. Budd. We took prepublication orders and finally were able to publish in 1977 with a book signing event with Lillian presiding.

1974 saw another project, this one by Roger K. “Bud” Lidicker who developed a video production, featuring the museum and depicting a typical day of a resident and an evening dinner party. The video was fun and entertaining and the actors (society members) enjoyed their brief stardom when it was shown to the public.

There were members of the society who were very interested in Genealogy. No one more than Clarence and Florence Price. They asked the Society Board to sponsor a genealogy society which the Board agreed to do. That was the beginning of the Lombard Suburban Genealogy Society – later, and still known as the DuPage County Genealogy Society. It became a very active organization which is now planning their 45th Annual Conference next year in March 2023.

The Society planned a new event, the “Kerosene Kaleidoscope,” at Christmas 1974. One of the reasons for only daytime museum tours was that a good deal of the lighting in the period rooms were authentic kerosene fixtures. Not wanting to light those a couple of times a week meant that we needed daylight to conduct the tours. But on one festive night in December 1974, the kerosene chandeliers were lit and the museum, dressed festively in Christmas boughs and festooning, welcomed visitors who toured the museum, guided by costumed docents. Luminaria lined the walks leading up to the museum. Visitors could enjoy an authentic Wassail and cookies in the kitchen and make a purchase of hand-made Christmas items in the back area. This event was to be held for several years during the Christmas season and was a popular program.

Sometime in 1974, we acquired an “outhouse,” or “back building,” as they were sometimes called. The “double holler” was from a farm outlying the village and installed in the rear yard. When Victorian yard plantings were being researched the committee learned that trellises and privy lilies were part of the scene in the period. We did such a good job with the research and development that the AASLH decided that we needed some publicity. The back cover of their February 1975 “History News,” a nation-wide publication, carried a full-page story on our work on the “necessary building” and its restoration.

I’m afraid I’ve only covered a few years in these pages, but I plead your indulgence since we were such a busy group of volunteers. The thing that I find so important about these years, is the level of dedication of the people involved in the Society. Everyone pitched in…never failing to step up to help in whatever capacity they were needed.