Memories Announcements

facebookWe are on Facebook!  Become a fan of  "Park Forest Historical Society" and of "1950s Park Forest House Museum!" We have joined Facebook (like us!) and have a Facebook page for the museum (like our museum page!). (Active links are further down the page.) There is a Facebook group, "Grew up in Park Forest".  It formerly had some wonderful memory streams going, but that changed with Facebook's new format.  It is still a place to reconnect with people who grew up here. We still accept memoirs sent to us via email.  We hope to get a "Park Forest Memories " group started sometime to capture those entries, but are looking at other social networking sites.  If you are interested in helping with that, contact us. We have joined Facebook (like us!) and have a Facebook page for the museum (like our museum page!). 

Remember to make a copy of your memory and submit it to us, too.  And, you will notice, you can write a much longer memoir to be put on our website to share with people.

If you see a topic there and want to expand on it, please share it with us!  Remember, many people are not on Facebook and don't read memories, there.  We may know something about your question.

I think the absence of emails to us is a result of the Facebook page, BUT if you have tried and we have not answered your email, please try again and put something in the subject line to draw attention to the fact. I have gotten some legitimate messages but a fraction of what I formerly received. I receive a lot of spam messages. I worry that I am missing some that don't come through as legitimate.

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I will be adding the memoirs and sending you emails to let you know that yours is online. Hopefully this will go smoothly. When you get your email, please be sure to notify friends and relatives to come look at our site.

Let us hear from YOU!!

If you are reading and enjoying these memories, (and I can tell that you are by the web statistics) send yours along. You do not need to add your contact information for the website. Please let us know what information you want to include. Your memory can be a few sentences or an essay.  Our Memories stay up for years to come.

 

Be sure to read our story on this year-long project with South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society.  Our program on September 20 will be on this. Read more in News and Programs. Be sure to contact SSGHS or PFHS if you have any information on farms in the Park Forest area.

Do you have photos of St. Irenaeus School or your class photos from your time there? Please contact us through our link. The Class of 1959 recenetly had a reunion in Chicago and we discovered St. Irenaeus School history files at the church had inadvertently been thrown out. Please help us and St. I's reconstruct the files.

Did you or your family attend St. Anne's Catholic Church before St. Irenaeus was built? We have people looking for history and photographs of the church. Do you know what happened to the original building? The museum has a lovely painting of the church hanging in the bedroom, donated by Terry Ruehl who moved to PF in October 1948 and attended the church. Terry has since moved and passed on. If any of you can help reconstruct the history of St. Anne's please contact us.

On June 13, 2009 thirty-nine or more people came through the museum on a special tour arranged by Jack and Becky Black. The reunion first went on a tour of Rich East High School, then came to the museum on a bus provided by the high school. Everyone enjoyed sharing memories of their years growing up in Park Forest.
We have since had tours for the Classes of 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, and 1967.
Having a reunion?  Be sure to book your tour of the museum as part of your activities!
Class of 1964 Reunion 

The 1950s Museum is in GroupTour eMagazine, Spring 2013 issue, page 26.  You can download the issue here.

The 1950s Museum was in the Chicago Tribune Metro section on Sunday February 3, 2008. We had a color photo and text on the front page and more photos and text on page 5. If you go to chicagotribune.com, put "1950s Museum" in the search box, and you can go to the article, but now you have to pay to read it there. If you Search the internet for "1950s Museum" the article should come up in another site where you can read it for free.

Read more ...

by Robert Long  October 5, 1998

My father, C.B. Long (my mother is Hazel Long now living in Sun City Center, Florida) was a career (45 years) employee of Swift & Co. (edible oils division) and was transferred to Chicago in the spring of 1950. I was nearly 7 years old, my older brother Chip was 9 and my younger brother, Bill, would be born in January, 1951 in a Chicago Heights hospital. We moved directly into an apartment at 161 Park Road. (As I recall, their were no houses for a couple of years thereafter.) In 1954 we bought a new home at 448 Shabbona Dr. and lived there until my father's transfer in the summer of 1960. For me, it was a wonderful place to spend the formative years (between ages 6 and 17 in my case).

Kids galore to play with, great schools, happy parents and neighbors and places everywhere for me to play any and every type of ball (whatever was in season). What a place! Chicago was merely a city somewhere close by where my father and three or four other men would take turns driving in their "carpool" during the week and where we kids would go once a year on "field trips", usually to the Museum of Science and Industry. Anyway, I was happy and my appreciation of Rich High (Rich Township H.S.), where I started in 1957, has only increased through the years. I played basketball for Rich and was a starter as a junior in 1960 (I was Rob Long then). We were the only completely average team (13-13) in a general period of athletic excellence being enjoyed by Rich. When we would travel for away games to such places as Evergreen Park, Reavis, Joliet, Wheaton, and Kankakee we all became aware that Park Forest was very special and that Rich High was, perhaps, the best high school anywhere. I still hold to this belief.

In 1994, after an absence of 34 years, I returned to Park Forest, visited both home sites, all four of the schools I attended and went into my beloved high school, which looked completely unchanged (actually looked better) after over three decades. The sign in front now read Rich East High School, Home of the Rockets. On this particular day, totally by coincidence, Rich was having an open house for parents and when I walked in I was actually greeted and welcomed as if I were expected. (The faculty members naturally assumed I was a parent of one of the students). I quickly cleared this up and was given a tour of the school and couldn't believe how sparkling clean and new looking everything appeared. It was a twilight zone experience. It was 1959 all over again. One teacher I met had married a classmate of mine and was able to fill me in with the lives of many schoolmates and friends whom I wondered about through the years. Then she said "Do you remember Don Hanson? He's still here." Don Hanson was one of our coaches who and just graduated from the University of Illinois and had joined the Rich faculty in perhaps, 1956 (the year before I started). Loved by everyone, Don Hanson was and is the embodiment of what was so special about Rich High (and Park Forest). Anyway, I was directed to "Coach Hanson's" office and spent an hour with this hero figure. He pulled out the 1960 Lagoon, found me in the basketball section, and said very convincingly that he remembered me well. Whether true or not, it was good enough for me, as was my entire visit in 1994, and all of my memories of my Park Forest from 1950 to 1960. Park Forest was very good to me!

(Rob writes from Boone, NC)