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 Deborah Lewis Dougherty Posted 9/15/05

My family moved to Park Forest in the summer of 1956. My father, Paul Lewis was with the Prudential Insurance Company and moved us so that he would be able to make it home for dinner every night. My mother, Doris Lewis, was a stay at home mom, like so many women in those days. We lived at 462 Talala, in a long ranch house that sat on what appeared to me at the time, to be a very high hill. The house had a sunroom instead of a garage, with what looked like leather walls and a beautiful bar. When we stepped out of the side door, there was a red patio in the shape of a round balloon. I thought it was just heaven!

The Dwyers were our next door neighbors and I immediately become best friends with Denise. Unlimited possibilities for fun and excitement were ahead. We lived very close to the woods at Tampa and Monee Road. Denise and I spent many of our summer days hiking in the woods and finding beautiful rocks and often, we would find Indian arrowheads. I used to have quite a collection of arrowheads.

Other summer days were spent at the Aqua Center, which was an all day event. I used to love to buy the ice cream sandwiches at the refreshment stand. I still have one of my picture badges, which of course was the identification to get in to the pools. The children's pool was great and but then we moved up to the adult pool. We had prove that we could swim across some part of the pool in order to make this transition. I thought that the high dive was so high and scary. It was a right of passage to be able to dive off that board.

A quarter for a bus ride also brought us to the Plaza and we did this as early as the age of 7 years old. Those were amazing days-1957. Our parents gave us such freedom because the town was so safe. Marshall Fields, Mayama's book store, Stuarts for clothes, Goldblatts, the Holiday theater, it had everything that we could ever want. In 1960 when Nixon came to town to speak, Denise and I were standing right at the circle drive. The Nixon's walked past us to their car and Pat Nixon took off her corsage and gave it to Denise. We thought that was pretty neat. Possibly the best of the best at the Plaza was the Art Fair that was held every summer. I will never forgot how exciting it was, with people so nicely dressed enjoying the artwork. Does anyone else remember the Jazz concerts that took place on some evenings under the clock tower? Mom used to take me and we stood there and swayed to the music.

Kresge's holds many memories for me. I used to buy my goldfish there, in the back of the store. You could pick out your fish and they would scoop it out and deposit it a plastic bag, with water in it. Then it was placed in a box that looked like Chinese takeout. The lunch counter holds the funniest memory for me. My sister was 11 months older than I was and to say we didn't get along would be an understatement. I was looking at the Evening in Paris blue bottle of cologne in the makeup section and happened to notice my sister at the counter with a girlfriend. In front of her was a great big glass of coke. She turned her head and I jumped in and grabbed her coke and started to drink, knowing the moments were numbered for me when she caught me. Instead she saw me and just kept looking at me. It slowly dawned on me that something was wrong and then she told me it wasn't her Coke, they hadn't cleaned the counter yet from the last person who sat there.I never did that again!

My mother used to shop at the Jewel Food Store at the Indianwood shopping center, which also had a doctor's office (Dr. Alex White) and a pharmacy. Doctors made house calls in those days and I remember being sick, laying on the sofa and having Dr. White taking my temperature.

Sweet memories of a simpler time of life....oh what I would give to live another day there as a young girl and be able to run into the house for dinner and see both of my precious parents (now deceased) sitting at the kitchen table. So many wonderful experiences that I will never forget!

Thank you for letting me share my memories with you....

Deborah Lewis Dougherty