A Member of the First 4-Year Graduating Class of Rich Township High School Remembers the Beginning of Park Forest and the First Year of Classes by Elaine Umland-Brownlee: September 15, 2001
Born in 1938, I grew up in the area surrounding Park Forest before there was a Park Forest. My family owned 5 acres in what is now the Lincolnwood section of Park Forest. Sauk Trail was a dirt road then with a few farms dotting its skinny shoulders. Lincoln Highway was paved but was only a two-lane road. It was the route to Chicago Heights for shopping and Saturday afternoon movies. Western Avenue was also paved; it led us to the city of Chicago with a frequent stop in Blue Island for White Castle hamburgers. My father and brother hunted pheasants and trapped muskrats for their pelts in the marshy fields and bogs. We raised turkeys and chickens for sale. Cornfields and daisy-strewn prairies were my playgrounds.
Charles Miller, January 6, 2001
My name is Charles Miller. My family and I were among the first 100 families to move into Park Forest in 1949. I was four years old at the time. I remember watching the sidewalks being poured, and the other apartments being built. My mother is Reeva (Ricky) Miller, who at 85 years old, is living in Leisure World in Seal Beach, California. My father, who died in 1990 at the age of 82, was Harry Miller. He occasionally wrote for the Park Forest Star. His columns were Contract Bridge, Grist from the Miller, and Out of my Mind.
February 10, 1999
What a joy to find you on the Web! The photo of the clock tower in the shopping center brought back so many memories of my idyllic childhood in Park Forest. I remember the billboard announcing the creation of the village that beckoned my family off our route to a long-awaited vacation in Indiana. We spent the afternoon plodding through muddy lots that we were assured would some day become grassy lawns. As we left the fledgling village, our family voted - vacation or move? Later that summer we moved to our little home on Apple Lane in what the billboard had told us was a "Wonderland for Children." I assure you that for a family trying to flee the tenements of near-Northside Chicago, Park Forest certainly was a wonderland.
Although I have spent more of my life in Madison, Wisconsin, when I'm asked where I'm from, I always say, "Park Forest."
My sisters and I attended Forest Boulevard School before any elementary schools were built. Classes were held in living rooms and bedrooms of the townhouses. We hung our coats on the shower curtain bar and put our boots in the tub. When the library moved to the Lakewood Boulevard address, I took part in the parade of citizens who hand-carried the books to their new home (mid to late 1950s).
Thank you for the opportunity to share memories of our community with my parents and my sisters, who will be receiving the calendars I am ordering.
Sincerely,
Lynn Rotman Ansfield
by Julian Roberts December 13, 1998
My father, Clyde Roberts, had gone ahead of us to start his new position as a designer for Argonne National Laboratories. He had located a home for us, but warned my mother, Alice, that construction was still in progress. He said it might be a few months before we were able to move in.
