HS Board

Does MPHS have photographs:  Yes

Address in MP: Unknown

Birth Date: Unknown

Death Date: Unknown

Marriage
Date: Unknown

Spouse: Robert Freund

Children: Five Children

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:

Edith Freund was a local author and was very active in a number of community organizations. She wrote novels, including Chicago Girl; a series of short stories; at least one book of poems, Sit By Me; and had a column in the Daily Herald newspaper. She was very involved with the Mount Prospect Historical Society and wrote many of the early histories of Mount Prospect. She was also a member of the Mount Prospect School District 57 Board of Education and President of the Northwest Education Cooperative.

Does MPHS have photographs: Unknown

Date of Interview:  1/21/1996

Interviewer: Henry and Vi Graef

Text of Oral History:

FRENCH: This is January 21,1996, and my name is James B. French, and I’m here with Vi and Henry Grave in their home on Berkshire in Mount Prospect, and they want to know a little bit about me. Well, I was born 1921 down very close to the Ohio River in a little town called Cynthiana, Indiana, where my father was the superintendent of schools. Total population of the town might have been 250. My father was a small-town schoolteacher all of his life, put in thirty-five years in Indiana and then another fifteen in Illinois. I lived in a few places in Indiana, and I originally came to Chicago area, and I was here for a short while in 1940. After going in the service in 1941 to ’45 I came back to Chicago, lived on the Southeast side of Chicago out near the steel mills until January of 1950, when we moved to 701 South Elmhurst in Mount Prospect.
VI GRAVE: Now, by “we”?
FRENCH: Now, my wife and I and our ten-month-old daughter, Alicia. A sign on the south end of town said the population of Mount Prospect was nineteen hundred. There was absolutely nothing except cabbage and tomato plants and patches south of Golf Road. There was only seven houses south of the Willard Creek on Elmhurst Road. It was a two-lane road, and it was a nice, quiet little village. That was our introduction into Mount Prospect. I opened an account in what was the old Mount Prospect State Bank shortly thereafter, and, believe it or not, one day about two years ago I met –I think it’s George Busse, or Bill, whichever is still around there as the president emeritus, or whatever it is since it’s become a part of the big conglomerate, and he looked at that account number and he says, “You know, that’s probably one of the oldest accounts in this bank other than my own,” which it probably is. I lived in four different places in Mount Prospect. I lived at 632 East Shawbanee Trail, a town house over there that I owned while we were building a house that’s 623 South George, and we moved to the South George Street address in, I think, November of 1958. We lived there for ten years and then moved up to northwest comer of Arlington Heights, up in the Berkeley Square area, and we lived there for almost five, went on up to Libertyville for a couple of years, moved back to Mount Prospect up in the Camelot section with its 1402 Westgate for two years while I was in the process of having two houses built out west of Harper College in north Hoffman Estates, north of Algonquin and south of Palatine Road, west of Ela, where my wife and I and for our daughter Sue and her family. We’ve been out there now just a little over eighteen years. By the time we moved out there, we were again at the end of civilization, nothing west of us except open fields, and now then you got to get another fifteen miles west of us before you find open fields out there on the other side of Randall Road west of Elgin. So we’ve seen this area grow, and I mean really seen it grow. We became very active in South Church really in about 1952. Midge was much more active in those days than I was. She started in with our oldest daughter and took her to Sunday school, became a Sunday school teacher, eventually became the Sunday school superintendent, worked for many years with several of the people, especially with Bud Strong, who was for years one of the leaders in the South Church, along with many other people, but he and Midge were constantly in the Sunday school area of South Church for a good number of years. Midge served on practically every board and committee in the church, headed up the American Baptist Women, or whatever they’re going to call it now. I don’t know exactly what it is now.
VI GRAVE: _______ now.
FRENCH: And was president of it for years, ran the kitchen on so many occasions that everybody says it’s Midge’s kitchen.
VI GRAVE: I believe it.
FRENCH: Me? I became active first with the nominating committee and then with the board of deacons, and for about eighteen years I was either on the board of trustees and/or moderator. I have not since 1992 been on any board or committee in South Church. I was here when Jack Skiles came in, and I believe I served for the first full calendar year after he came here as chairman of the board of trustees. I have since then taken a little sabbatical and have been known as the trustee emeritus on several occasions. ..
VI GRAVE: Right.
FRENCH: …because there are so many things around South Church that were never written down but that I was involved in, and on many, many an occasion they’ve called me and said, “I hope your memory is still pretty good because we need to know. ..”
VI GRAVE: Oh, yes, what about the –when they were doing the additions and you were able to tell them so many feet and –what was that again?
FRENCH: On several occasions the Christian education building has had the flood in the lower level. I’ve waded around over there in water halfway up your knees and finally found that the blueprints are not the way it was built. The drains are not where they’re supposed to be. There was no septic tank ever put out in the middle of the parking lot because by the time they got around to building it, the village had come along and put a sanitary sewer down through Shawbanee Trail, so we were able to bypass the septic system and change the setup and go direct to the sanitary, so there is no septic tank out there. We looked and looked and looked for it on the first occasion and finally realized that it wasn’t there, so about a year or so ago, maybe in the spring of ’94 –maybe it was ’95 –I don’t remember –it flooded again, and I get a phone call from Jack. He says, “I hope your memory is good. We’ve got a flood. Where is the drain in the Christian ed building, and how do we get to it? We can’t seem to find it.” So I was able to tell him that he wanted to go not to the east end of the building but to the west end of the building. Then it went out to Shaubanee Trail and that if you went out and measured nine and a half feet west of the west edge of the parking lot and fifteen feet south of the east-west parking lot along Shaubanee Trail, take that as a radius and start punching around there about eighteen inches at each _______and ________all around in a circle and you’d find a drain down there which had been covered over with about twelve to fourteen inches, and, sure enough, after about five punches they found it. Just one of those things that you remember because you go through these. Yes, I saw a lot of things around the South Church. Let’s go back a few years, back into the sixties when church was growing and we had two ministers, director of Christian education –you may be able to tell me, what was the woman’s name that we had?
HENRY GRAVE: That was _______.
FRENCH: No, no, no.
VI GRAVE: ________ The woman Wan-…
FRENCH: Wanda or …
VI GRAVE: Cramer.
FRENCH: Wanda Cramer, no Juanita Cramer.
VI GRAVE: Juanita, that’s it.
FRENCH: Juanita Cramer was the director of Christian education.
VI GRAVE: We did not know her. We came after that.
FRENCH: A young man was also –I can’t recall right now out of the top of my head I can’t recall– it was the second new assistant associate pastor under Pastor Steve, and then came John D’ Angi.
VI GRAVE: That’s when we came into the church.
FRENCH: In the meantime we had purchased the Frank Robinson property that was on Emerson Street, but it came all the way through to Maple Street, and we paid the enormous sum of $25,000 for all those lots south of the church all the way from Emerson all the way back to Maple Street. We subsequently built a new parsonage for John D’ Angi facing Maple Street right at the very north end of the street. I can’t right off at this moment tell you the exact year we built it. You could look that up.
HENRY GRAVE: It’s in the 1960s, I believe.
FRENCH: I’m sitting here trying to think. I’m thinking that it was in the early sixties.
HENRY GRAVE: Yes, early sixties. ________.
FRENCH: Because I believe John D’ Angi was here from about ’64 till ’68 or ’69, something like that.
HENRY GRAVE: A little earlier than ’64. He came around the time we joined the church. ..
VI GRAVE: He was already there.
HENRY GRAVE: …which was 1960.
FRENCH: Well, maybe he was ’60. The date’s slipped my mind right now, exact.
HENRY GRAVE: I know shortly after we came, or it was when they had the open house at that Maple Street. ..
FRENCH: Well, you see the Christian ed’s building, the Christian education building, the fund drive started in 1956, and when the finalization of the plans, it was started in ’57 and completed in ’58, so I was two years in making the plans.
HENRY GRAVE: It was finished when we came.
FRENCH: If I’m not mistaken, John D’ Angi was not here when that building was dedicated. ..
HENRY GRAVE: Probably not.
FRENCH: …but came shortly after, because by that time…
HENRY GRAVE: He came here about the time we came.
FRENCH: When did you come out here?
HENRY GRAVE: December of 1959.
FRENCH: He came here probably shortly after that.
HENRY GRAVE: Yes, and we joined the church in 1960s _______.
FRENCH: Midge and I were actually around here, but our official membership didn’t take place until 1957.
HENRY GRAVE: Oh.
FRENCH: Yes. There was a whole group of us. One in particular that I remember was Maude and Fred Feiffer…
HENRY GRAVE: Oh, yes.
FRENCH: …that came into the church the same day we did. A lot of people in the late fifties that were coming in when the growth of the church was just absolutely tremendous in those days, tremendous.
HENRY GRAVE: We had two and a half services –I said two and a half. The half was the early morning service. ..
FRENCH: I was chairman of the board of deacons. ..
HENRY GRAVE: …plus two regular services.
FRENCH: …and every Sunday morning I was at the church at eight o’clock, opened it up, and we had a church service from eight-thirty to nine-fifteen, another one from nine-fifteen till ten-thirty, and then one from eleven until twelve, and I –as I said, chairman of the board of deacons, and every Sunday morning I was out there in the narthex from eight o’clock until twelve. I had a lot of help, and there was no problem. I mean, get on the telephone and recruited, had ushers, but that was just one of the things that I was involved in constantly. At the same time Midge was in the Sunday school and…
VI GRAVE: Choir.
FRENCH: Ninety-nine Sundays out of a hundred she sang in the choir because the Sunday school did not hold forth at the eleven o’clock service, but we had people that filled the up rooms in the Christian ed building to take care of the youngsters’ nursery and the kindergarten and this and that when their parents were over in the church. It just kept on growing and growing and growing until I would say that in about 1970 we probably had a total membership, not all completely active, but a total membership of around a thousand. The records could be looked up to see exactly what it was.
HENRY GRAVE: Vi and I started the church school in the early sixties. We were in the seventh and eighth grade units. At that time they had sixty kids in just seventh and eighth grade.
VI GRAVE: Yes.
FRENCH: We filled up every room, every space available in the entire Christian ed building and still had classes and had curtains up over in the fellowship hall and used the library lounge and the chapel, as I recall it, for Sunday school classes.
HENRY GRAVE: Also the stage.
FRENCH: And the stage, especially at the one that went from nine-forty-five till ten-thirty. That was the most heavily attended service. With counting the children and those in the sanctuary, that was the most heavily attended service.
VI GRAVE: Jim, do you think you’d like to talk about the differences in the church now, how you see the changes. Perhaps we could even skip to some of the businesses and manufacturing in town and then go over to the Combined Appeal because I think that’s…
FRENCH: We got acquainted with you on Combined Appeal.
VI GRAVE: Yes, we certainly did.
FRENCH: I was just going to say, one of the things when I was talking about South Church, Pastor Steve really dropped the bombshell on the board of deacons in January of 1970 when he announced that he was sixty-five years of age. We all were taken aback, and it was his intent to retire at the end of 1972. We had two full years to plan his retirement, and it fell to my honor to be able to chair that entire planning of Steve’s retirement dinner and all the activities for that year. I was chairman of that particular deal. Four hundred and twenty-three people attended Pastor Steve’s dinner at the Casa el Royale over here in Des Plaines that evening that he retired. It was quite an event. Would you believe that I still have the tape of that evening?
VI GRAVE: Good. Do you know the library may even would like a copy of that.
FRENCH: I say I still have it. Come to think of it, maybe I don’t. I had it the other day. I’m wondering. I think I laid it back in there, because I got rid of a whole slew of tapes.
VI GRAVE: Oh, no.
FRENCH: I think it’s still up in the –see, it wasn’t with the rest of the tapes. It was up in the bureau, and I hope I didn’t. ..
HENRY GRAVE: That would be important to have.
VI GRAVE: Oh, that would be great.
FRENCH: Oh, boy. I don’t know. I’ll have to look now.
VI GRAVE: The listener is not able to know this, but Jim is speaking entirely without notes. This is all coming out, away it goes. He had no…
FRENCH: Extemporaneous, as you say.
VI GRAVE: That’s right and no notes in front of him. Okay, go ahead, Jim.
FRENCH: Well, that’s the way South Church, and then we saw the start as so many churches became predominant in Mount Prospect we saw the decline of the membership because up to the sixties there weren’t more than about three or four other churches in all of Mount Prospect, so we had people from various other Protestant denominations that came to South Church that when other churches came in that they were wanting to attend they –and then of course we were a highly transient community in those days, very highly transient community in those days –in and out, people here for a year or two and gone, many good people. So it declined, but Pastor Steve’s retirement and Reverend Paul Sandin’s resignation and moving away, we went through a period with an interim pastor, Earl Meadin, before the pulpit committee finally found Jack Clements, and Jack Clements was here for about sixteen years.
VI GRAVE: It’s hard to believe it.
FRENCH: Fifteen or sixteen years. Of course, with his retirement we had already started looking and had located and found Jack Skiles that’s now starting his sixth year and it doesn’t seem possible. ..
VI GRAVE: It doesn’t.
FRENCH: …that he is starting his sixth year up here in Mount Prospect. And since Jack Skiles came in, the church has taken on an entirely new format. As a church it is directed to the youth. We oldsters are perfectly welcome, but it is strictly a youth-oriented church. Up to this point Jack Clements, Pastor Steve, Earl Meedin were all of the sixty-plus group, the grandparents such as I’m sitting here with you two right now, so the focus was more on the older people, but with Jack coming in and his wife, Reverend Lynn James now, the church has taken on an entirely new approach, and the young people –I go over there and half the people I don’t even know, when there was a time when I knew everybody. One little thing that I should put it on here, when Randy Bateman was in charge of the search for a new pastor, I was either moderator or chairman of the board of trustees –I don’t remember which now –I made a remark to him. I said, “Well, do you want to find an individual somewhere between the age of thirty and forty-two that has either got one or two children or is looking for one and has a wife that is interested in the Christian education and is not interested in going out and working as a schoolteacher or a salesclerk or an administrative office but is really active in the church.” Randy Bateman turned to me and said, “Well, you’ll never get two for the price of one.” Well, it has worked out that we got two of the best people that we could possibly come up with Reverend Dr. Jack Skiles and the Reverend Lynn James.
VI GRAVE: Right, right.
FRENCH: My prediction to that extent has come true.
VI GRAVE: I remember when you said that too.
FRENCH: You remember you heard me say that.
VI GRAVE: Oh, you bet, you bet.
FRENCH: But it’s going in the right way. There’ve been many, many changes made. There’s been a lot of improvements at the present time, a new heating system that’s been sorely needed for several years. I spent many a time over there on a Sunday morning getting that heating plant to work and calling up Brent Barr and Allied Heating and we’d go in and have to do things to get it working. Yes, a lot of us put in a lot of time in maintenance, and now then fortunately there’s been some endowments left to the church that have enabled them to do a lot of things that have been needed over the years. You want to ask me any questions about South Church _______ try to jog my memory, I’ll sit here and talk about it but I think I’ve pretty well covered the forty years I’ve been around South Church.
VI GRAVE: Just you might say something that during this time too about the founding of the Yomarcos group, which you ________.
FRENCH: The founding of the Yomarcos group actually was Pastor Steve’s doing in 1947 after returning from World War II and the beginning of a little bit of growth within Mount Prospect. Pastor Steve went out and walked around to all the youngsters and said, “What can we do that would make life better for everyone here in the community, especially those that are in their twenties?” A group of them got together and formed and said, “We should get together, leave the kids at home. We have a pitch-in potluck dinner on the second Friday of every month, and on the fourth Friday of every month we have some kind of a party a little later, but we’re away from our kids. It’ll get us away from that.” It finally became known, and somebody wrote down, “What do we name it?” The name came out Young Married Couples, which abbreviated means, as -said, Yomarcos. That’s how it was formed, and it had nothing to do with anything as far officially as South Church was concerned. It was open to anybody and everybody that was a young couple that wanted to come into it, and probably over the years there’s probably been a thousand members in and out of Yomarcos, some only for a year or so when they were here and some for a long, long time. Midge and I joined it in 1956 and have been active with it ever since, almost for thirty-nine years.
VI GRAVE: Yes, and you were presidents four times.
FRENCH: Four or five.
VI GRAVE: Oh, _______.
FRENCH: Well, when nobody else would take it, they’d ask us and we’d take it.
VI GRAVE: That’s right, that’s right.
FRENCH: I know four. I thought maybe it was five. I’m not exactly sure which…
VI GRAVE: It could be.
FRENCH: …but it’s in the book. But it’s a very easy job to do as far as that’s concerned, but of course most people are scared to death to take on a job like that because they’re afraid to ever get up and say anything to anybody, and me, you can’t shut me up. That’s the whole problem.
VI GRAVE: Jim was always able to talk, and of course Midge was the original one with the one-liners before even it was given the name of one- liner. She would just come up with something from Indiana from the farm, and there it was.
FRENCH: Yes, that was it. Yes, and it survived, and what would you say right now? Active members are probably thirty, thirty-two or thirty-three. It’s down, it’s down.
VI GRAVE: It’s down.
FRENCH: Most of us now then are at least grandparents, and some of us are great-grandparents.
VI GRAVE: Yes.
FRENCH: And they’re hoping that it will survive for another two years so they can celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of it.
VI GRAVE: Correct.
HENRY GRAVE: How about the outreach at South Church? You want to talk about that. Pastor Steve, I think, was great for getting people involved in community affairs. That’s one thing you became involved in.
VI GRAVE: Oh, yes, which is heading toward…
FRENCH: Pastor Steve was probably one of the best-known and best-liked individuals in all of Mount Prospect. There were a few other people around, but I don’t think there was anybody in the late thirties, all through the forties and the fifties and even up to the sixties that didn’t know Pastor Steve. He was an institution, and South Church was an institution. He got me very much back into the church after I decided that it was too expensive and too dangerous to continue to fly around in an airplane on weekends. So I gave that up. He got me involved in the church and got me involved in several things, along with a few other people. One of the things that came about that really was talked about in about 1956, ’57 or ’58, along in there, was the fact that Lloyd Johnson and I both lived in the 700 block of South Elmhurst, and every month we went out to collect for the Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts, the Campfire Girls, the Heart Association, the cancer drive, cerebral palsy, blah, blah, blah. We counted up thirteen different organizations that we were called on because we were the suckers to go knock on the doors. It got to be a little bit annoying to all of us that we’re doing the same thing at least once a month, and somebody came along with the idea, and I’m not exactly sure whose idea it was, but I was approached by Guy Courtney about forming a united fund drive and getting all of these organizations to go in. In October we would go out and knock on everybody’s door and say, “Look, this is a united drive for all these charities. We’re asking you to give one donation for a year, and that’s it. We won’t bother you anymore.” Mitzi Vaver and her husband, Helen Becker, Malcolm James, Kathy Walters, Carl Hameril. Busse from the bank –those four were our financial people, eventually all Mount Prospect State Bank executives and officers –the pastor of the old Lutheran church –what was his name? Father Mueller, was that it? Was here for years.
VI GRAVE: Yes, that was Mueller.
FRENCH: Father Mueller –the first priest at St. Raymond’s, was there for so many years –and Pastor Steve. They became involved in the united fund drive, and I got involved in it. Lloyd Johnson, who lived down the street from me, got involved –Bud Strong, Leon Jerose, various other people that I knew. I recruited probably fifteen or twenty people from South Church. So we formulated a plan. We decided that Mount Prospect geographically is four areas. East and west of 83 is two, but north of the tracks and south of the tracks is the fourth. So we divided Mount Prospect into those four zones. Then we took and found that actually the population was pretty even in all four of those, so we decided that if break it down to where that we ask no one person to make more than ten calls, preferably on the block or within a couple of blocks of where they live, it’s no great burden on anybody to do it. Now, this is what the executive group, or whatever you want to call us, that met and kind of planned to do, planned it, and we had no idea exactly at that time how many houses we’d be calling on. So on a couple of evenings Midge and I bundled up our two kids, at the time –no, our three kids. Penny was also –we had Penny Vance –and we got into the station wagon and drove over every street in Mount Prospect, counted every house on both sides of the street, plotted it on a map that I had made up to where that we knew at that time –and I think this was 1960s –we knew when we got all done, there were just over four thousand houses in Mount Prospect. We were able to chart it out, so we took the thousand in each one, broke that down into ten areas, which meant a hundred houses and then broke that down to ten people. So we had ten people, ten captains, ten zone chairmen, and Wendell and Dorothy, Christine and Midge and I became the kind of co-chairmens of the united fund drive, and we still at that time hadn’t named it, united fund drive collection campaign, the solicitation campaign. At other meetings we finally came upon the name and called it the Combined Appeal. We hoped at one of our meetings just prior to the final drive to get it done was that we could raise from 4,500 homes somewhere around $50,000, which was not an unrealistic goal, even though in those days, you know, most people didn’t want to hand you but two bucks, but a lot of them realized that, well, we’re only going to do this once, and there’s thirteen charities in it. Maybe we can afford to give ten or twenty.

[Side 2]

FRENCH: …most of them training organizations and most of them were held over at the YMCA. Just as much as I outlined, we introduced all of those that had volunteered to be the four zone chairmen. Each one of the four zones had about ten area chairmen, and the balance of them were the “streetwalkers.”
VI GRAVE: What a nice name.
FRENCH: That’s what I told them at one of the meetings, and of course, just like you, everybody got a laugh out of it. “You’re the streetwalkers. You’re out soliciting. Just don’t get caught.” We did have some fun.
VI GRAVE: I don’t know what I was. You were good at handing out, any time anyone said they’d volunteer, they didn’t get away from you _____.
FRENCH: I think that Weber Printing. ..
VI GRAVE: I could have been an area _______.
HENRY GRAVE: I know I was from house to house.
FRENCH: You had house to house.
VI GRAVE: I wasn’t, no, no. I did the work over the phone. I did the…
FRENCH: You probably solicited workers, phone work. If I recall, practically everything that we had in the first year with the Combined Appeal was donated, such as Weber Printing. I think they printed everything for us and charged us nothing for it. One of the largest contributors in those days at that time was Bruning. Charles Bruning and Company was one of the largest contributors out here. Heinz Printing was another big one. Was it Illinois Tool Works?
VI GRAVE: Illinois Range.
HENRY GRAVE: Illinois Range.
FRENCH: Illinois Range. Another one that was right up here on Prospect, what was it? I can’t remember it now. It’s been a long time ago. But anyway, everything went very well as planned, and we solicited only, I think it was, on a Friday night, Saturday and Sunday and cut it off at dusk on Sunday. All the workers reported to their area captains, turned in all of their moneys, everything. The area captains turned it in to the zone captains unless the zone captains asked them to take it direct to myself and Wendell Christine. When we got all done that night, we had a stack of money on my dining room table at 623 South George like you wouldn’t believe. We didn’t have all the business pledges down there, but we had over $20,000 in cash and checks laying on the dining room table that we were running the accounting on and putting together. Fortunately, I had made arrangements with the bank, put it all in a bag and had a key to the drop box. Wendell was terribly nervous and upset about transporting up to the bank, says, “Okay, we’ll call the squad and have them come down and escort us up there with it,” which they did. I don’t remember the exact figure but it was a very successful drive, and that first year we came up not with our full 50,000, and I don’t remember the exact figure –you wouldn’t by chance have it? Somebody would have it, but it was well over $40,000. That was the beginning of the Combined Appeal in Mount Prospect.
VI GRAVE: What is now called the United Fund.
FRENCH: It is now called the United Fund Drive. We were among the very first, here in Mount Prospect, to put together a United Fund drive, and it worked so successful that Des Plaines contacted those of us that were on the board and asked us if we could come down and give them help in forming one in Des Plaines, the same thing in Arlington Heights, Prospect Heights, Elmhurst, even as far out as Elgin and Carpentersville. There were two or three of us that were very busy over the next two years in the community chair helping put it together. Eventually we formed the Northwest Suburban Community Fund Drive with those of us that were in this and working together so that we would have it all together and work it out. On one occasion when Chicago got into the whole idea and decided that they were also going to run a united fund drive, Hanson — was that ______?
VI GRAVE: Carl.
FRENCH: No, the wife.
VI GRAVE: Oh.
FRENCH: Can’t remember her last name right now, Martha, Mildred. Anyway, they lived right up here, and Ira contacted and asked if we could attend a kickoff dinner at McCormick Place. And, of course, we were more than delighted to go, and there I find myself seated with such people as the chairman of the board of directors of Standard Oil Company, Sears and Roebuck, Marshall Fields, Ward. Any of the big names that you can possibly think of are seated at this, and we were finally introduced to the whole bunch there at McCormick Place. I wish I could remember Hanson’s first name. _____ name out there and I can’t recall it. As one of those that were among the very original people, the founders that came up with idea of the United Fund Drive, and I think that was in 1970, as I recall, 1970.
VI GRAVE: You see, we didn’t know about…
FRENCH: It was either 1965 or 1970, and something tells me it was 1970, but maybe it was 1965. It had to be one of those two years, and I can’t tell you now which it was, because I know where I was working at the time. Anyways, I was working for Lattoff Chevrolet. It came out in the paper, and the write-up was in there. Nick Lanoff with his Lithuanian accent came out and says, “Mr. French, why didn’t you tell me that you were so active in the community fund?” I’ll never forget it, so I say it had to be either ’65 or ’70 because that’s when I was with him up there two different occasions. But that was one of the things that grew and has kept on and I guess is still ________.
HENRY GRAVE: It’s still growing. Now it’s by mail.
FRENCH: Yes. Most of it is. I was with it as long as I was here. I was with the United Fund Drive up until I moved away in 1968, when I moved to Arlington Heights, then was no longer involved with it here. Yes, I was because I was involved up in Berkeley Square, put it together up there for Arlington Heights, but not in the Mount Prospect one but in Arlington Heights. But, yes, there’s been a lot of things _______.We worked with those that put together the YMCA, all the work that was done with that. Gil Lebenow was always pounding on my door to have me help him with the library.
VI GRAVE: Library, oh, yes.
FRENCH: It was another one of the things. I think you were involved in that too, weren’t you? Library, YMCA.
HENRY GRAVE: ________ involved with United Fund.
FRENCH: How about the YMCA drive and all that? Were you involved with it too?
HENRY GRAVE: No.
FRENCH: You weren’t.
VI GRAVE: We were busy at South Church, I think, at that time.
HENRY GRAVE: We were superintendents.
FRENCH: You were superintendents of the Sunday school. You came, what, after Midge or before? You were. ..
VI GRAVE: After.
FRENCH: …after. You were after her. Some of these things…
HENRY GRAVE: We took over McNabb’s position. He had the. ..
FRENCH: Oh, yes. Now, Bud Strong was superintendent there for so many years ________.Midge was assistant or…
HENRY GRAVE: That was before McNabb.
FRENCH: That was before that.
HENRY GRAVE: Yes.
FRENCH: There’ve been a lot of superintendents who was in all that.
VI GRAVE: Oh, yes.
FRENCH: But, anyway, those were some of the things that we had then when this area around here was first being built and started in about 1956, started the building in here. As it grew, we finally got around and formed a Southeast Civic Organization. I served as president. ..
VI GRAVE: Is that still in existence, the Southeast. ..
FRENCH: No, I don’t think so. It was formed in about 1961 or ’62 with a few problems that we had one way or another. A lot of us that were involved with that Southeast Civic Organization lived over in George Street, and I was president of it until I left here in ’68.
HENRY GRAVE: What were some of their major projects?
FRENCH: Oh, the flooding of Weller Creek, sewers, that big sewer that went through. Garbage pickup wasn’t what it should have been over here, and some various stop signs that were sorely needed. I’m trying to think what all was involved in it. Just the usual things that you run into in any new subdivision that –right off the top of my head, I just can’t recall it because I hadn’t thought about it for so long. But when I left, there was just a few dollars left in the treasury, and Mr. Seelich was the treasurer, and he asked me what to do with it. I said, “Well, those of you that are living over there, you can decide what you want to do with that. Turn it over to somebody or whatever.” It wasn’t that much. But that was one of the things that I was involved in. I never was involved very much in the PTA here. That was. ..
HENRY GRAVE: Midge.
FRENCH: That was Midge that was in PTA.
VI GRAVE: Of course, Midge was the one that nominated Henry, and then he was in for two years at Alliance Park School and then two years in the coordinating council, but then he returned the favor. He nominated Midge for president at Alliance Park School.
FRENCH: For another two years. I know what you mean.
VI GRAVE: So we always do for others, you know, unto them. ..
HENRY GRAVE: Others do for us.
VI GRAVE: …that they would do to you.
FRENCH: No, in those days when I was here, I was leaving the house at seven o’clock in the morning and getting home at seven o’clock at night. On most occasions I was working on Saturdays at least a half a half a day on Saturday, so I didn’t have quite as much time as some people would have had. What time I did have, a lot of it was just telephone and planning work that I could get done such as putting together the United Fund Drive and all that. You could get that done with telephone. Finally decided that I had so many phone calls that that’s when I decided I had to have two lines.
VI GRAVE: But, all in all, living in Mount Prospect was not bad at all, was it?
FRENCH: No, no, no. Living in Mount Prospect was not anything in the way of an unpleasant experience except with the flood of ’60 –or was it ’67, the summer? And the snow was ’67.
HENRY GRAVE: Sixty-seven was the snow. The flood…
FRENCH: And the same thing in June, wasn’t it –or was it before –oh, it was before. ..
HENRY GRAVE: Either before or after the big snow.
FRENCH: It was before that. It was in ’58. The big flood was in ’58.
HENRY GRAVE: There was one in ’58, but there was another one in ’67.
FRENCH: Sixty-seven.
HENRY GRAVE: Yes, either ’66, ’67, somewheres in there.
FRENCH: Yes, because we were living on George Street, and the water was clear up on our front yard.
HENRY GRAVE: Weller Creek flooded.
FRENCH: But ’58 was another big one that hit because that’s when I was in the town house up here. While we were building between selling on Elmhurst and building over here, we were in the town houses that we had up here. Oh, yes, we’ve seen floods, we’ve seen snowstorms, and we’ve seen it hot weather. We’ve seen Mount Prospect grow from 1,900 to what, 70,000 now?
HENRY GRAVE: Well, 55.
FRENCH: Officially, 50-55.
HENRY GRAVE: Probably well over 55, but that’s with the ______.
FRENCH: Fifty-five. Well, that’s pretty good growth. Of course, I’ve never forgiven our good mayor that sat up here at a town meeting back in the fifties and said, “No way will I ever allow us to annex any land south of Golf Road.” So as a result, that area that’s south of Golf Road and east of Elmhurst is Des Plaines, and it never should have been Des Plaines. Eventually, of course, we annexed everything all the way down to the toll road, but that was one of the biggest mistakes that the town council and the mayor ever made was not annexing that all the way over to where we should have to Mount Prospect Road years and years ago. Of course, I sat on the school board caucus back in the early fifties, and the fact that the students from Mount Prospect were the stars of the Arlington Heights basketball team caused a group of parents between Arlington and Mount Prospect to defeat a referendum to build Prospect High, and that was the sole reason, because they wanted those three or four youngsters that were excellent basketball players, that were in Arlington that would have been transferred to Mount Prospect had the school had been built. As a result, it cost us $3 million more money to build it when we built it if we had gone ahead and built it to start with.
VI GRAVE: Oh, my goodness.
FRENCH: Oh, yes. And I was one of them that was very vocal for building it and very much against them. When I found out that they had hired professionals to, fund raisers to take the negative end of it and defeat it, I became very upset, almost at the point at where they are ready to throw me out of the town. That was in the early days of –it just was so evident that you were going to have to have it, and the longer you delayed it the more it was going to cost. But that was a meeting that was held up at the old Central School, which no longer is there. The library is there now?
VI GRAVE: Yes, yes.
FRENCH: Yes, when I first came to this town, the bank was on the northwest corner of Busse and 83, on that little bit of a corner, red brick building. That’s where it was. The whole thing didn’t have room in it for more than about ten people at anyone time.
HENRY GRAVE: That was what year?
FRENCH: Fifty.
HENRY GRAVE: ______.
FRENCH: January 1950 we moved here, January of ’50. What a day that was, cold and snow up –fortunately, we moved out of a little town house on the Southeast side of Chicago, and we had a couch and a radio and in fact we didn’t even bring our dining room table with us because the house we were moving into had a combination living room-dining room, and you didn’t need it, so we sold it to a friend of ours. We had two beds, maybe one or two chests, so it didn’t take much to move it.
VI GRAVE: It probably didn’t. Well, Jim, we’ve taken up a lot of your time here and there were probably a lot of other things we could have covered here, but I wanted to mainly get the South Church history and the…
FRENCH: Combined Appeal.
VI GRAVE: …Combined Appeal, right. This other information’s been pretty good too, so we’ll say goodnight and goodbye to our listeners right now, and we certainly thank you. You know, we go back kind of far, right?
FRENCH: A long ways back.
VI GRAVE: A long ways back. So thank you much, Jim.
FRENCH: You’re welcome.
VI GRAVE: Monday, January 22, the following day. The Combined Appeal worker’s name that Jim was searching for was Sue Hanson, wife of Harrison Hanson, an early board president of School District 57. And, yes, Midge and Jim French were presidents of the Yomarcos five times, not four. Goodbye again. Vi Grave.

Does MPHS have photographs:  Yes

Address in MP: 8 E. Northwest Highway (demolished)

Birth Date:  July 11, 1913

Death Date: 1987

Marriage
Date: Unknown

Spouse: Charles Francek

Children:  Mike and Heather

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:

Gertrude Francek was the Granddaughter of John Conrad Moehling, the owner of the first General Store in Mount Prospect and one of Mount Prospect’s greatest promoters. Gertrude Francek followed in her Grandfather’s tradition and in 1931, at the age of 17, opened an Ice Cream Parlor, making her the first woman to run a retail business in Mount Prospect. Her grandfather had been Mount Prospect first postmaster, and in 1938 she also continued that tradition, becoming the Assistant Postmaster at the age of 25. She later became a real estate broker and developed many of the other interests and community ideas. She was a very athletic person, playing semi-pro basketball, touring with a bowling team, and golfing daily. She was one of the founding four members of the Mount Prospect Historical Society, president of the Salt Creek Questers Club and a founder of the Mount Prospect Business and Professional Women’s Club.

Does MPHS have photographs:  Yes

Date of Interview: September 18, 1991

Interviewer: Judy Klein

Text of Oral History:

JUDY KLEIN: My name is Judy Klein, and I’m conducting an interview with Mr. Robert Ferguson. The date is September 18, 1991, and the time is about 7:15 p.m. in the evening, and we’re sitting in the lovely living room of Mr. Ferguson. I want to thank you again for giving us your permission to have this interview and for signing the release form for us. I think this is going be sort of exciting.
ROBERT FERGUSON: Well, thank you, Judy, for this opportunity.
KLEIN: You’re welcome; you’re very welcome. Just think, you’re going down in history. Okay, let’s just start by giving me your full name, were you born here, and if not where were you born and how old were you when you came to Mount Prospect? FERGUSON: My name is Robert Bruce Ferguson. I was born in 1932 in Marshalltown, Iowa, which is just outside of a little community where some of my relatives settled called Ferguson, Iowa, which is just a few miles from Marshalltown, as they came through into the area and settled into Iowa. I went to school in a small community downstate called Dallas City, Illinois. Then after graduating from high school when most of the people in our area, since it was a farm community, most of them didn’t even graduate from high school, so I was one of the very few that went on to college. And then, actually, right after college I was drafted into the Army for the Korean War. I spent two years in Washington, D.C., working for Army intelligence. In my second year in the service I applied for and accepted a job in Mount Prospect, which was back in 1956. The reason for coming to Mount Prospect was that they were paying about the highest salaries in the area for teachers. So, I took the job in that year for $3,700, and started teaching at Central Junior High, seventh and eighth graders, science and social studies.
KLEIN: That was Central Junior High?
FERGUSON: That was Central Junior High.
KLEIN: And where was that located?
FERGUSON: That was at the corner of Central [Road] and Main Street in Mount Prospect, where the present library is located and where the original schoolhouse was built which is now down by St. John’s Episcopal Church. The original school that was built in Mount Prospect back in 1896 is now right west of St. John’s Episcopal Church there.
KLEIN: Is that where the museum is located now?
FERGUSON: No. That’s on Main Street there in Mount Prospect.
KLEIN: Oh, so the original school, then, is over by St. John’s.
FERGUSON: It’s used as some office spaces there for St. John’s Episcopal, yes.
KLEIN: Okay, so then you came in 1956 and you came as a teacher.
FERGUSON: As a teacher.
KLEIN: And then you settled in here.
FERGUSON: Settled here and I lived in Mount Prospect with Mrs. Hazel Vorhees at 17 N. Emerson for about five or six years, and then during my teaching I taught for two years at Central. Mount Prospect was growing so rapidly at the time, they needed another junior high school, so it was a case of where Gregory was starting to be built and they needed someone to open up the junior high school over at Lincoln. So, I went as one of three teachers over to Lincoln Junior High and opened up Lincoln, and that had to be about 1958. We had three junior high school teachers at that time. I spent one year at Lincoln and then came back to Central where I was at Central for thirteen years as a teacher and principal.
KLEIN: Did it remain a junior high all that time?
FERGUSON: When I originally went to Central, it was a K-8 building, and from its inception back in 1927 it was a K-8 building. So, it was mainly junior high school. As more schools were built in the area, the lower grades were moved out of Central, but we always had kindergarten there and some of the lower grades, and usually one class of each grade.
KLEIN: Oh, you did, even while you were the principal there?
FERGUSON: No. When I was the principal there, it was just junior high school. We had grown so large that we moved them out. But we still had kindergarten there.
KLEIN: Oh, you did.
FERGUSON: But it was mainly junior high school.
KLEIN: Then it was sixth, seventh and eighth.
FERGUSON: No, it was just seventh and eighth. At that time, junior high school was seventh and eighth.
KLEIN: And you were principal there for how long?
FERGUSON: One year. I closed the building.
KLEIN: And the building closed in …?
FERGUSON: 1970. The last class was 1969-1970.
KLEIN: What school absorbed those children then?
FERGUSON: All right, well, this is one of the most difficult closings I ever had. Actually what was done, an addition was put onto Lincoln, and Lincoln was to take all of the junior high school students for the district over at Lincoln. That’s when we actually about doubled the size of Lincoln, put on the new north gym. It’s called the Busse Gym at the moment. The science wing, the library-that was all added on-and then Central was closed and all the students went over there. That was a very difficult closing, when you close a junior high school. All of the children that were accustomed to going to Central had to go to the south side school then.
KLEIN: Any time, I think, when a school closes that it’s always a tough adjustment for the children. So you’ve lived at this address-you lived when you were a young man downtown, and then was this your first house?
FERGUSON: When I was over at Lincoln teaching that one year, I met my present wife. She was teaching fifth grade there, and we were married in 1960. Prior to being married, we bought this house. We live on Robert Drive here in Mount Prospect, and  literally right south of Willow here, which is 100 feet or so away, was a corn field.
KLEIN: In 1960 that was still a corn field.
FERGUSON: Right.
KLEIN: I’ll be doggone.
FERGUSON: This was a DiMucci home, and at that time I had Bobby DiMucci as a student in school, and so Mr. DiMucci was very nice in making sure that the house was ready when we got married at the end of July in 1960 because, literally, we’re at the end of the block and he was building south of here. He came down and put this house in specifically for us, and literally we had a corn field south of us, and there was corn growing north of us, too.
KLEIN: Sometimes it’s good to be at the right place at the right time.
FERGUSON: Right.
KLEIN: When you first came to town here, what was considered the downtown area, more or less, when you first came back in 1956?
FERGUSON: Well, basically it was the area right across from the railroad tracks. That was the downtown area. I can remember the first five or six years eating here, because I wasn’t married and I had a room with Mrs. Vorhees, that I ate for five years or so at Kruse’s, which is now Mrs. P and Me. I can remember the price of the food. You’d go in for an evening meal and you paid a dollar, and that was your meal. Since I went in almost every day, the cooks in there and the waitresses treated me pretty good. But then there was one other restaurant in the community, which was across from the railroad station, which I think was called the Mount Prospect Cafe which is where, I think, there is a Hallmark card store which is right next to-what is it-a candy store there on the corner of Emerson.
KLEIN: Fanny May, now.
FERGUSON: Right.
KLEIN: So, both sides of the street, then, were developed.
FERGUSON: Right. But that was basically it, because the district offices at that time were there on Emerson Street, just off of Central. It was a big, white house, and it is now moved over-I believe it’s [at] Central and Pine Streets. It’s that big, two-story house there that’s painted red now. That used to be our administrative center for the school district. Before they did much developing in that area over there, they literally put the house on blocks. In fact, it was sold to a principal at that time in the district, Fred R~mond. I think the board more or less just gave it to him, but technically they sold it to him and then he moved it over to its present site. Some of the homes that are down where the present village hall is-there were some old Victorian-type homes there, and two of those are now moved down right at the corner of Rand and Central. There’s a couple of old homes in that area, if you notice, on the north side of the road there. Those originally were down there right at Busse and Emerson Street where the present village hall is located.
KLEIN: Who owned those homes, then? They weren’t farm homes.
FERGUSON: I really don’t remember who owned those farms.
KLEIN: Were they farm houses?
FERGUSON: They were old, like farm houses, right. But they’re still standing there, if you ever want to see them there. But then that was all moved out. That’s when the bank was at the corner of Busse and Main, over in-what is that ice cream parlor, there, that was Daneo’s there by that building with Sammy Scobel’s. That was the bank building there, and then they moved from there to where the village hall is now, and then finally the bank then moved from there to its present location.
KLEIN: Right on across the street. It basically sounds like it’s been changed somewhat, but. ..
FERGUSON: And then, of course, the big place was Wille’s Hardware Store. I mean, that’s where the antique complex is and Sara Lee is at the moment. Wille’s was the courtesy center for the whole community. I mean, they carried everything and had the nicest people. They kept us all busy with all the things that they had in that store for us.
KLEIN: That’s great. What do you remember most about shopping downtown, when it comes to the stores and the merchants? Do you remember the people or the stuff that they carried or anybody in particular that left an impression on your mind?
FERGUSON: Well, again, as a school principal and teacher at Central, which was right at downtown, I can remember, first of all, we had-what was his name? Nicholas, but he was the barber. This is back when we were fighting the battle of long hair. I can remember Nick Nicholas was his name, the barber there, and he was right at the corner of Main and Northwest Highway where the present chiropractor is located. I can remember we were good friends, and every once in a while I would march a student down to Nick and Nick would give him a free haircut. And then there was a clothing store on Main Street there-I believe it was called Alice’s-and they handled some very nice clothes in there. I can remember some of our students would go in and do their Christmas shoplifting a little early, and they would come down and talk to us and we would check some lockers out and return some of the clothes to them.
KLEIN: Kids are kids, huh?
FERGUSON: Oh, yes.
KLEIN: Where did your family mostly shop for groceries, especially when you lived down at this part of town? I imagine there wasn’t the Eagles and all of this, so where did you have to shop for groceries or for your clothes or for your shoes?
FERGUSON: Well, basically we went over here. There was a little Jewel store over here on Dempster and [Route] 83.
KLEIN: The one that’s still there?
FERGUSON: Yes, it’s still there. That’s an old, old one that’s been rebuilt. Actually, I bought a lot of my stuff, when we moved out here-right at the corner of Central’s school grounds was a little. ..it was almost like a present 7-11. I’m sorry I don’t remember the gentleman’s name that owned it. Golden’s? But anyway, it was a little grocery store with all kinds of good things in there, and then we bought a lot of meat from Meeske’s there on the corner of Busse and Main Street and did a lot of shopping in there.
KLEIN: Meeske is a name that’s been in Mount Prospect for a long time, isn’t it?
FERGUSON: Yes.
KLEIN: Because I can remember seeing the remnants of it when I came. Was he an old-timer that was here? Was his family pretty prominent?
FERGUSON: His family is pretty prominent. They owned property, and then they had that store there where the present bakery is located there. Their specialty was meats. Everyone in the community went in there to get their meats through the Meeske boys.
KLEIN: Oh, there was more than one of them.
FERGUSON: Right. They were brothers that owned it. In fact, one of the brothers had a couple of daughters, and one of the daughters married one of the boys that lived next door-Earl Meeske.
KLEIN: Now when you shopped for your hardware items and stuff-you mentioned Wille’s-so that where most of the gentlemen went?
FERGUSON: Always went to Busse-Biermann.
KLEIN: Where was that located?
FERGUSON: Busse-Biermann is still where Busse-Biermann is located, there, right next to the ice cream shop on
KLEIN: That old-time-with the old, wooden floors in it?
FERGUSON: That’s right. And that was a nice hardware store. We went in there to get all of our good stuff, and the school district still has an account there at Busse- Biermann’s. We went in there and bought all kinds of goods. If we needed something for the school, we’d go over and say we were from the school and we had permission to sign for hardware items and take them back.
KLEIN: Now, this is school district 57?
FERGUSON: This is school district 57.
KLEIN: Is that one of the original school districts here? Is that the first one that was. ..?
FERGUSON: Okay, that’s one of the original school districts. It was founded in 1896-from reading a little dedication to you a little bit from that. In 1896 it opened with seven students, and they didn’t have any equipment and the students were sitting on nail kegs. And then an addition was put on the little, white schoolhouse that’s now over near the Episcopal church. Then the original brick building was built in 1927, and then there was an addition put on ten years later. Now, the original building cost $25,000, then the addition was put on which was the gymnasium and,I think, four classrooms, and that was in 1937, and that was for $30,000. And then they put on the final addition to Central in 1947-and the prices have really jumped-and the addition there was, I think, $260,000.
KLEIN: Were the contractors, the ones that built the Central school and put the additions on, were they local men?
FERGUSON: I don’t know, but I can tell you this, that when we closed Central one of the things that I gave to the Historical Society, and they have it over in their archives someplace, is the nameplate from the original building there and, of course, the board members and the contractors are all on it.
KLEIN: Okay, good.
FERGUSON: So, I really don’t know. But that is in the Historical Society there someplace. I do know that when they tore that building down that the contractors were unhappy that we were tearing it down because some of the foundations there were three feet thick and they had a devil of a time getting some of that out, especially if you know how the library has the parking underneath; well, that was the foundation for the old school and they had to take all of that old foundation out in order to get the parking lot in.
KLEIN: Oh, lordy, lordy! We don’t have foundations three feet thick anymore when they build anything. When you talk about some of these stores that you went to, the dress shop and the hardware store, can you remember anybody that worked there or any of the names of people that worked in them?
FERGUSON: Not really.
KLEIN: When you mentioned the Busse hardware, what was that second name that you mentioned?
FERGUSON: Busse-Biermann.
KLEIN: Biermann. Were they friends?
FERGUSON: Okay. Mr. Biermann is one that I knew most of all. He was fire chief, I believe, and he worked in there for the volunteer fire department. When I first came to this community, the fire department was all volunteer.
KLEIN: Oh, it was at that time, even in 1956.
FERGUSON: And I can remember the first night that I came to this community-the first or second night-I’d just got out of the service and because of the position I had in the service I was on, really, twenty-four-hour recall. Along about two in the morning, the fire sirens went off in this community, and I thought that the Russians were coming, and I was fully prepared to go. But then I found out this is the way they call the volunteer firemen in for their fire runs.
KLEIN: You were up and armed, right?
FERGUSON: Right.
KLEIN: Well, let’s move on to some of the other businesses and manufacturing. One of the questions I have on this questionnaire here is, do you remember any or some of the earliest factories-if there were any factories-that were still around in 1956 or ’60 that came, and if you do, what did they manufacture or what type of service did they perform?
FERGUSON: I really don’t know. I was not really into the community that much. I was more into the schools. I saw the growth of the community but, if anything, the factories and the establishments were really dying out. But when I was over at Busse I had a custodian over there, Fred Pie~ekbrink who owned a lot of that land in the area of Busse School and the Bluett development down there. That was basically his farm that he had sold off and was subdivided over there right after the war.
KLEIN: So by the time ’56 came or ’60 came, if there were any factories or manufacturing, most of them had moved on or closed by that time and we just had our businesses left.
FERGUSON: Right.
KLEIN: What about other stores and businesses? Were there any hospitals? They mention in here a couple of times a power plant.
FERGUSON: I don’t know of any power plant.
KLEIN: It must have been something that was earlier that burnt down or something. Was there ever a hospital around or anything like that?
FERGUSON: No. When I came here there was really no hospital, basically. We had to travel quite a distance. One of the questions that I had with our PTA in the community at that time was to get Northwest Hospital built. I can remember the PTA having fund drives for Northwest Hospital, and we had work days for the students where they could go out and earn money to provide for a hospital out in this area. We were very active in trying to get enough money together to build a hospital out here.
KLEIN: So prior to ’56 or ’60 there wasn’t any hospital.
FERGUSON: No, not in this area. Northwest was the first one that was built out in this area.
KLEIN: Do you remember anything or any place called Wille Hall?
FERGUSON: No.
KLEIN: Okay. That must be before 1960, because one of the questions here is, “What kind of events do you remember at Wille Hall?” but that must have been previous. This is something that you probably would be familiar with, though, being that you worked with children all your life, is that back in the late ’50s, early ’60s, where did the children hang out, and was there any such thing like a lovers’ lane or anything in this area that you know of that maybe some of the kids might have gone to?
FERGUSON: I don’t know about a lovers’ lane, but one of the things, the parents have always been fairly active in this area, and I was associated-basically the highest grade I dealt with was the junior high school. The parents were always active in attempting to have as many parties as they could for the children. I chuckle that at the junior high school now they started having dance classes for the children. Well, back when I came, this was one of the big things that they had after school for the children where they brought in instructors to teach dance to the eighth grade boys and girls, and then they would have their little dances on Friday night and the parents would provide a party for them.
KLEIN: So the children had a lot of activities that were just right in the school.
FERGUSON: That’s right. We used the schools for a lot of activities.
KLEIN: They didn’t have a mall to hang out at, or anything.
FERGUSON: No.
KLEIN: Were the kids any different then, back when they had the boys and girls at dance class where the girls all sit on the. ..
FERGUSON: No, they haven’t changed.
KLEIN: I didn’t think so. It’s been about the same all of the time. How about on the Fourth of July or Memorial Day or Labor Day? Do you remember any type of parades or any type of special events that we ever had here in Mount Prospect? Picnics, fairs, parades or anything like that?
FERGUSON: Well, I always enjoyed the Fourth of July parades that we had in the area. The Kiwanis and the Jaycees were always active, doing different things as far as picnics and celebrations and get-togethers like that. But no one in particular stood out.
KLEIN: Were you, yourself, ever in any of the parades?
FERGUSON: No.
KLEIN: You never were in any of the parades.
FERGUSON: No, because usually at this time back then I was going to school to get my master’s degree in the summertime, so really we were in this area during the year, and then away as I was going back to school furthering my education, usually, during the summertime.
KLEIN: I wonder who they used for marching bands, like now they use Prospect High School or something like that. I wonder if they had any high school bands that used to march in those parades?
FERGUSON: Well, Arlington used to come over. ..
KLEIN: Oh, that’s right.
FERGUSON: …and march in the band because our students went over to Arlington. When I first came here, Arlington was the only high school in District 214, and all of our students went over there. Of course, we were dealing with a community of 4,000 or 5,000 people at that time.
KLEIN: You mean the children from Central Junior High, where you were principal went over to Arlington?
FERGUSON: From Central they went to Arlington for high school.
KLEIN: Oh! That was the only one in the area. When was Prospect built, then? That must have come in the ’60s, ’70s?
FERGUSON: Actually, Prospect was built in the late ’50s. I don’t remember what date it opened, but it opened just shortly after I came to the area.
KLEIN: They must have really bused those children in, then. But there wasn’t that many kids, probably, in [the district] then.
FERGUSON: Well, when Central was dedicated-the addition-in 1948, there were only 410 students in the school-I mean, in the whole school district.
KLEIN: Oh, in the whole district.
FERGUSON: That was kindergarten through eighth grade.
KLEIN: Oh, and they had it all in the one school then. Boy, has this place ever grown.
FERGUSON: Well, see, that’s been the amazing part of this community. When I came here, as you said, where were the businesses? They were right along the railroad track. They were north, Northwest Highway, and then just right south of the track, there. We had Van Dreil’s Drug drugstore. That’s where we went in and got all of our drugs, which was right there at the corner of Emerson and Northwest Highway, and then Louie Velasco and his barbershop right across the way over there that sold his roasted chestnuts at Christmas time. But was right along the railroad  tracks that was really developed, and then basically your homes were not more than a block or two, mainly, away from the railroad tracks, and then it just sort of spread out. When I came, the main housing development was the Bluett homes down there on the northeast side of town where some of those homes were built. I think some of them were going for $6,000 and $7,000 and at the time.
KLEIN: Prices have.
FERGUSON: But again, remember, I came to this district and made $3,700, so …
KLEIN: Everything equals out. Let’s talk a little bit about transportation and trains. One of the questions here is, “How did the people come downtown when you first came to Mount Prospect?” Well, I imagine they used cars. We’re not back to the horse and buggy here, but what about the trains? Did they stop as often then as they do now? Did there seem to be as many?
FERGUSON: I don’t think they stopped as often, but this has always been-in fact, I think back at that time more people actually commuted to Chicago than they do today because we have so much out here for people to work on. I actually think more people went into the city at that time.
KLEIN: You really do? You think there were more commuters then?
FERGUSON: But we’ve always had a heavy train traffic into the city.
KLEIN: I thought most of it came later on.
FERGUSON: Well, I feel that there are more people going into the city today, but I’m talking about percentage of people living in the community.
KLEIN: Right. Was there anything else that ever came into the depot besides people? Was it ever used for freight or anything like that, do you remember, back in the late ’50s, ’60s?
FERGUSON: Well, where Wille’s Hardware Store was, there used to be a side track, and they would bring their freight in and back it off to the side at the building there. But I don’t remember anything else.
KLEIN: I can remember, I think, reading about that, too, when I was reading some of the history of Mount Prospect, that Wille built a spur. Evidently there was a creamery that was in town at one time, and he built a spur so that the trains could bring some stuff into it. We’re getting towards the end of my questions, and then I want to talk more about your schooling, too.
[Side 2]
KLEIN: Let’s talk about some of your earliest, fondest memories of Mount Prospect.
FERGUSON: That it was always a friendly area. The people were just so nice; that they would spend time talking to you. Being in the field of education, they basically supported you, and they were out to get the best for their children. It was just a nice community to live in.
KLEIN: Did you ever know where our slogan, “Where friendliness is a way of life,” came from?
FERGUSON: I have no idea, but I think it can’t be that old because I believe that it used to have a different motto for the community. I don’t remember what it is, but I don’t believe that it’s the original one.
KLEIN: You know, talking about downtown Mount Prospect and things that go on, when Christmas came, or the holidays-especially Christmas-was there any type of special decorations that were done  downtown back in the late ’50s, early ’60s that were different?
FERGUSON: There were some. Actually, I can remember the decorations in the school more than the community because Christmas time was a big thing back into the ’50s and early ’60s. At Central we brought into the gym-oh, it had to be a fifteen-foot Christmas tree, and it was all decorated. We had a big Christmas program, and at that time it was Christmas. I mean, it wasn’t “winter holidays,” and we sang all kinds of songs there and we weren’t worried whether they were going to offend one group or another group. It was really a nice get-together, and usually we brought the community in and they would watch the children perform some little Christmas plays and what have you.
KLEIN: Don’t you wish sometimes we were able to do that nowadays, too.
FERGUSON:  Oh, I really do.
KLEIN: You know, Mount Prospect itself has changed over the years. I’ve seen it even in the short amount of time that I’ve been here. Let’s talk about it a little bit. Do you like the changes or do you think it was better the way it was?
FERGUSON: I don’t know. It had to grow. As you mentioned, the downtown-I used to look out Central; my classroom-across Mufich Buick, which was right where the old theater was. I could look across and see the theater, see what was playing, and the marquee came out like a V, which they had to take down because when they widened [Route] 83, they had to take the marquee down and make it against the building. That Buick company, Mufich, could not have survived. I mean, it just wasn’t big nough. You have the lighting company that’s there now, and at one time that was an automobile dealership. Well, you can see what they have now out on Rand Road. So, it just had to expand there. Mount Prospect still has its quaintness there in the community. It’s just a little too bad that there is not a little more parking there where more people could use the downtown facilities, I think. I think in this growing suburb that it just had to develop the way it did.
KLEIN: Do you think Randhurst had a big impact on downtown?
FERGUSON: Oh, when Randhurst opened up it had a big impact. I mean, it was bringing people in from allover. You talk about shopping-this is where we did our shopping, really, at Randhurst. Before that, we shopped in Arlington Heights or Des Plaines. We really didn’t shop that much in Mount Prospect.
KLEIN: Your money went someplace else.
FERGUSON: That’s right.
KLEIN: Was it just as hard to get across the lights there by Kensington and Rand as it is nowadays? FERGUSON: Oh, it is. I mean, I pat myself on the back if I make those lights.
KLEIN: What was out at that area out there at that time? See, we go past the school and past Gregory and we’re heading up towards.. .
FERGUSON: Where the furniture place is now at Rand and [Route] 83, that was a restaurant/bowling alley, and then west of 83 on Rand, that was actually a restaurant/tavern there.
KLEIN: Oh, really?
FERGUSON: Needless to say, both have been torn down now.
KLEIN: That’s something we haven’t talked about. Were there a lot of taverns, and such, in the area in the late ’50s, early ’60s? Being that Mount Prospect was settled by a lot of Germans, you would think that would have a lot of.
FERGUSON: Well, actually you had the two out there, and then Kruse’s was the big one there and then the one there-what was his name? Was it Wille that had the old one? Right there where the antique place is, on that little-the first little tavern was down there. I was never in it, but I know it was quite famous, and the gentleman-I think it was Mr. Wille that had the tavern there.
KLEIN: When did Sammy Scobel come to town? Was he in town when you came?
FERGUSON: No, I beat Sammy. I don’t remember when Sammy came, but I know he lived over in the Lions Park School area, and then I . became familiar with Sammy. I met Sammy when I was at Lions Park, because I was at Central as principal, and then I went to Lions Park, so I must have met Sammy about 1971 or ’72 …
KLEIN: Oh, that’s pretty recent.
FERGUSON: …because, again, with Sammy it was getting the food from his restaurant and he would give to the teachers and cater to the teachers over at Lions Park school.
KLEIN: Was his restaurant at that time where it still is, and still carries his name?
FERGUSON: Yes, right.
KLEIN: Oh, it’s still that little place. I’ll be doggoned.
FERGUSON: The name of the restaurant that was across, really, from Scobel’s, that was Golden’s.
KLEIN: Golden’s?
FERGUSON: It’s like an insurance building now.
KLEIN: Right.
FERGUSON: That was actually like a grocery store in there.
KLEIN: In that little area, there, where all those Victorian little. ..you know, where Daneo’s used to be, was that an original part of downtown? Is that a lot older than some of the buildings that are along Prospect Avenue, say?
FERGUSON: I think that’s the older part there because, again, Daneo’s was like the bank there.
KLEIN: And then Wille’s Hardware was in there and the barbershop and stuff like that. I wonder who built that part down there? Who put that up?
FERGUSON: I have no idea.
KLEIN: I don’t either. I imagine someone will remember along the way who put that up. Okay, let’s talk a little bit about if there is one thing that you would like the children to remember about the history of their hometown, what would it be?
FERGUSON: Well, I think in the schools that we did a pretty nice job of teaching the history of this community. One of the things that I can remember my wife did on-what was it-the fiftieth anniversay or the hundredth anniversay of the community. ..
KLEIN: Fiftieth. The seventy-fifth will be next year, so it was the fiftieth.
FERGUSON: Okay. My wife was teaching at that time, and she took her class over to the original schoolhouse there at St. John’s Episcopal Church, and they were dressed as children would be back when the original schools opened and they held class over there. They let them go in, and they held class in the old school. We have been very active in supporting the historical society. I know I’ve had many classes go over to the historical society and visit there. We have donated a lot of things from the schools and from our family to the historical society. Whether we taught it in school, this area has grown so much with the children in the area that they have seen it develop right before their eyes as far as the history of the community is concerned.
KLEIN: I want to talk a little bit about your years as a teacher now, because we’ve done most of the questions. You’ve talked about the businesses that we could remember. All those years you taught, and after you left Central you went on to another school, didn’t you?
FERGUSON: Okay, when I left Central-I was a teacher for twelve years at Central; principal, one. During that time I spent one year at Lincoln. So, in thirteen years I was a total of twelve years over at Central, one at Lincoln, then I went over to Lions Park School for two years as principal, then from there I went to be principal at Busse School for about a dozen years. When they closed Busse I went over to Westbrook and was principal there for six years, and then I spent my last two years in District 57 at Lions Park School. So I just made a circle.
KLEIN: That’s what I was going to talk to you about. You saw a lot of children and you’ve seen a lot of children grow up. Can you remember any of the kids that you taught, and if any of them have gone on now and what they’re doing and if they’re leaving their footprints?
FERGUSON: I remember a lot, and remember a lot of the children that have gone through. They see me on the streets or shopping these days and they come up [and say], nOh, Mr. Ferguson, do you remember me?” Oh, what a question to ask! But yes, I’ve had several that have gone on. One of my students that I worked with in science over at Central is now the head field geologist for Gulf Oil.
KLEIN: Oh, really?
FERGUSON: I have several teachers. I have a couple college professors. One that I can remember that just drove me crazy in class because he kept drawing cartoons all the time is a political cartoonist with the Los Angeles Times.
KLEIN: Thank God you didn’t stifle him, right?
FERGUSON: That’s right. I just wish I would have kept some of his cartoons! Two of my former students are now teachers in Mount Prospect, school district 57 and, needless to say, a lot are parents in the area. There are some doctors; even some professional baseball players.
KLEIN: Oh, really?
FERGUSON: Ca~man went through our schools here.
KLEIN: I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.
FERGUSON: It’s just been great to see them grow and develop, and really to hear what they’re doing.
KLEIN: So Mount Prospect basically seems to be a town where people come to and they stay.
FERGUSON: But that always wasn’t true. Back in the earlier days when I came in, we had a very high turnaround of families. They moved from Chicago, and this was like a transient area. They were middle management. This was the middle- management community as they were moving up the ladder. They would be here a few years, and then they would move out into the Barrington area and the Inverness area. And then all of a sudden the economy really turned around and the price of homes really got out of hand in the area, and the people just really were locked into the area; that they were moving out here permanently. Now when they move out, they’re going to California or New Mexico, or what have you, as they are retiring. But the area used to be much more transient than it is now.
KLEIN: Oh, that’s surprising because I thought it would be just the opposite. I thought it was a lot less transient in the early years. So when you moved here and you built your home here, you had the corn field to the south. ..
FERGUSON: A half-block away, or less.
KLEIN: So then that was all developed then, how many years after?
FERGUSON: This area was developed in 1960, and the area around us to the south-well, to the west, this was all developed in 1960 and ’61. This area over here right south of us was developed in ’62, ’63. This whole area was a DiMucci development in here.
KLEIN: He did the whole south end of Mount Prospect down here, then.
FERGUSON: And then this area over to the east, that hasn’t been development more than about ten years-fifteen at the most-because there was a controversy on how the land was going to be developed.
KLEIN: Do you know who owned all these farms down here? It was mostly farm land down here?
FERGUSON: Again, Mr. DiMucci and I were pretty good friends, and he indicated to me at one time that he bought this land in this area during the second world war. I believe he told me that he paid $4,000 and acre for it, and he said everyone thought he was crazy at that time. He said he basically bought all the property he could from Route 83 west to State Road; Golf Road to Dempster-or is it Algonquin? Well, anyway, this was basically all of his area, and he said he kept trying to buy Klehm’s [Nursery] out, but the Klehms would never sell over here. They had the big area over here where the Rusty Scupper is, in that area. That was their farm/nursery area over here. But he basically owned all the land in this area, and then he built all of the shopping centers and homes out in this area.
KLEIN: Klehm’s is a name, too. The Klehms were here when you came in ’56, ’60?
FERGUSON: Oh, yes.
KLEIN: They had their nursery-that was over there?
FERGUSON: Their nursery is over here on State Road and Dempster, or Algonquin, over here. And it was a big, old barn, painted pink. Of course, down here on the corner where the shopping center is on [Route] 83, where it curves down here, that was a peony farm-a big onion/peony farm down there.
KLEIN: [Route] 83 and what?
FERGUSON: Well, as you go south and 83 curves going west before it goes south, that was a big farm there and they grew peonies and onions. This used to be a big onion-producing area. The farmers grew onions in this area. But again, the peonies were there, and then one of the big items that Klehm’s sold, they were a big peony producer, and they sold a lot of peonies out of there. You can still see over here along Dempster some remnants of their nursery-some of the trees that are growing in rows. That’s part of their old nursery that they had over there.
KLEIN: So they were some of the original people that were around here, too. I know I’ve read some history about Mount Prospect, and there must have been some people by the name of Linnemann, too, that must have had some property.
FERGUSON: Okay, well, this is Linnemann Road right over here by St. John’s School and church over here, and by the historical society. That’s an interesting, just a little community. It used to be that you would drive out there and it was like driving out into the country. It was just like a little country with the country church there. One of our maintenance men for the school district-his name was Mueller, and he still is associated with the church over there. We had taken a field trip over to the historical society, which is the old church there, and we went in there and Harold Mueller happened to be over to the St. John’s church, and he was doing something with a funeral there-the cemetery is right there-and we wanted to go back and study a little history of the community by going back into the cemetery; well, he gave us a little tour. And then he came over to the museum there and was telling about when he was a student at that school. He took everyone back to the cloakroom and he said, “I spent a lot of time in here.”
KLEIN: So the original cemetery, then, for Mount Prospect; is that over here by St. John’s or is that closer into town?
FERGUSON: Well, actually there are three old cemeteries here. There is an old cemetery over on State Road, right south of the tollroad on State Road.
KLEIN: Is that the same as Arlington Heights Road?
FERGUSON: Yes. Then over here at St. John’s-that’s a very old cemetery-and then the old one there. What was the name of that florist shop there, right by the post office? I can’t remember the name of it.
KLEIN: Busse’s?
FERGUSON: No, Busse’s was over on Northwest Highway, or on Busse Street, there, just off of Northwest Highway. Was it Kellen’s? I think it was Kellen’s.
KLEIN: It might have been Kellen’s because Kellen’s used to be on Golf Road. I know that.
FERGUSON: And there is a cemetery right close to there. But I think really the oldest cemetery in this area is the one out on Kensington in Arlington. There’s a lot of real old grave markers in that area, and I think they are really older than the one in Mount Prospect and the one out here. So I think really the two oldest ones would be the St. John’s over here and the one over in Arlington.
KLEIN: Okay. I think we’ve just about covered everything. I think we talked about the businesses, we talked about the depot, we talked about the peoples that lived here, we talked about the school years and the people who went to the schools. If there is anything else that you feel that you can add or want to talk about, I’m here.
FERGUSON: Well, in some of the development, as far as education, though-because you’re really into the community and I’m more into the schools-but you asked about some of the changes that I’ve seen here with children. One of the things, it’s become more necessary for mothers to go to work.
KLEIN: Yes, that’s true.
FERGUSON: So one of the things that I was active in was establishing the day-care centers here for the community, back when we were at Busse School there was a need. Of course, our need was that-see, this community grew so rapidly in the late ’50s and ’60s that our school enrollment went up to over 4,500 students. And then, as we mentioned, the community was growing rapidly and it was transient so there was turnover, but we were growing. And then all of a sudden the economy was such that people just didn’t move out that much, so as the people got older our enrollment went down. So, one of the things that we found at Busse School where I was principal; hey, we didn’t have enough school children to really keep the school open, so the PTA-and I encouraged them a little bit myself-we thought we could meet a need of parents by establishing a day-care center. What we were going to do was bring children in from the community and we were going to keep Busse School open. Well, we couldn’t sell the school board on that, and the superintendent didn’t think it was much of an idea. ..
KLEIN: It sounds like a pretty good one to me.
FERGUSON: …but then when I moved over to Westbrook and we were able to establish the day-care center over there, and now that program is in every school in our school district and it’s even been expanded to meet the needs of parents. It has a kindergarten day care and day-care program. I believe at Westbrook where we started it, Margaret Bohzo, who heads that one up, I think she has well over eighty children in that day-care program there this year. And then always to meet the needs of children, the school district participated in and started an early childhood program. We have a program for children as early as three years of age. We started that one at Busse School, and we were the third school district in the state of Illinois to establish an early childhood program. At one time we were testing all three-year-old children to see if they were eligible for the program, and we had a lot of people really coming in to see that program, which is one of the landmark programs for the state of Illinois.
KLEIN: Oh, that’s marvelous. So, you left a good mark.
FERGUSON: Oh, I caused a few waves in this community.
KLEIN: Yes, but that’s what counts.
FERGUSON: All of the schools in the area have learning resource centers now. Back when I went to Lions Park School, I didn’t know whether I would survive my first year because I pulled a teacher out of a classroom-one of the best teachers they had-and put her in what I called a learning center at that time. Well, the parents were up in arms that this thing would happen, that they would lose a classroom teacher, and for half a day children from her class would go in and make the other classes larger. Finally the board bought into that, and they now have LRCs in every’ classroom, and every school in the area has learning  resource teachers now. And then another one over at Lions Park School, that particular PTA, I would say we were THE school responsible, but we were sure one of the schools responsible for instituting and getting the state legislature to approve a teacher aide program. Before this, only certified teachers could be in classrooms working with children. We were able to, through the support of the PTA; and the PTA-Randhurst Council pushed the state PTA and the state legislature to establish a guideline for a teacher’s aide program. This is another program that has been well received for the state, especially in this area. Every school that I know of now has some kind of a teacher aide.
KLEIN: So you had a lot of innovative programs thatyou were a part of or you started in ’57 and it has gone one from there.
FERGUSON: Another one is the science program. We have an outstanding program in this area, and as a school principal one of the things I always supported was really high student achievement. This is one area that the schools just do a super job as far as the achievement is concerned. Another is that the parents have been active in the education of their children in this area. They’ve established some nice cultural arts programs, and those came out of Busse School. I’ve just been pleased working with the
KLEIN: It must give you a great sense of satisfaction, of fulfillment to be able to look back and know that you were a part of this or instigated it or helped it along.
FERGUSON: Well, one of the things, the Jaycees-I don’t think they still have it, but back in the ’60s they selected the outstanding educator for the area and I was, I think, the second one selected by the Jaycees.
KLEIN: Congratulations!
FERGUSON: And then in 1975-and again, this is ancient history-they still do it today; I’m sure you’ve heard of the Golden Apple award for teachers?
KLEIN: Yes.
FERGUSON: I was the first administrator in the state of Illinois to receive the outstanding administrator’s award.
KLEIN: Well, congratulations. Now I know why, when I told people at the library or my co-workers that I was going out to interview today and they said, “Who are you going to talk to?” and I said, “Mr. Robert Ferguson,” [they said], “Oh, I know him!” “My daughter. ..” or “I had him when I was in school,” or, “My children had him.” And me, being such a newcomer, was completely ignorant of all this. Your name is very well known and very well respected amongst a lot of people.
FERGUSON: And one of the things that we always did, we used to go down to Braidwood and hunt fossils.
KLEIN: Oh, I did that out at Harper when I went there.
FERGUSON: And it’s still amazing how these students-you know, they don’t remember that they learned how to read or write; they remember going to Braidwood and finding the fossils.
KLEIN: Well, I want to thank you very much for all the time, before our tape runs out on this side, that you spent with me reminiscing a little bit and making the history more alive for myself and, I think, more alive for a lot of people in the future when they have the tapes transcribed and they are able to sit and listen and read it in years to come-our children, your children.
FERGUSON: It’s been fun in this community. It’s just been a super, super nice community. We’ve had our problems, but the community has supported each other.
KLEIN: You seem to be.
FERGUSON: It’s just been a nice group of people. I’ve been here over thirty years, and there has really been nothing that has been a major catastrophe where I haven’t seen the people really get in and work together. And when the community has needed something, they’ve been there working their tails off with their own sweat or labor or money to get things developed; whether it be the police department, the fire department or the school district, it’s just been great to see them work together. I have never known of another community whereby the schools, the park districts, the police department or the fire department have worked so closely together. We’ve gone into the fire department and police department and asked them for some help, and they’ve come right over and they’ve given it to us, and we’ve helped them in some areas. The park district has been most active. I can remember over at Busse we didn’t have any money. The school district didn’t have any money, the park district didn’t have any money, but we got all three of us together and each of us had a little bit of money and we put up literally the first playground equipment for the community. It was a joint-sponsored program between the school district, Busse PTA and the park district, and the park district sent their men in to put it in. Now virtually every school has some playground equipment that’sdone the same  way. You look at Westbrook, you look at Lions Park, you look at Fairview; those are all park/school board/PTA projects that have been put together and funded by …[tape ends]

Does MPHS have photographs: Yes

Address in MP: 

Birth Date:  January 31, 1932

Death Date: Unknown

Marriage
Date: Unknown

Spouse: Arlyle

Children: Rachele and Robert A.

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:

Robert Ferguson was an educator in Mount Prospect for almost thirty years. He started in Mount Prospect in 1956 teaching 7th and 8th graders Science and Social Science at Central Standard School. He briefly taught at Lincoln Junior High but returned to Central, where he stayed for the next twelve years. He became Principal of the Central Standard School in the last year that it was open (1969-1970 was the last class, the building was demolished in 1975). Following the closing of Central School, he became Principal of Lions Park School for two years and then transferred to the Busse School, where he was Principal for 12 years, or until it closed. He was then Principal of West Brook for six years, which also closed. Finally he was back at Lions for the last two years of his tenure in Mount Prospect. Robert Ferguson was a school administrator in Mount Prospect in a time when many of the schools were facing a crisis. There was a dramatic reduction in class size, the Baby Boom had brought a massive influx of children to Mount Prospect in a very limited time, but as these children grew up there was a major exodus from the community. Mount Prospect’s schools were faced with rapidly falling enrollment, and many schools were closed, sold or demolished. Ferguson survived many transitions and was recognized for his ability to keep the schools together in a time of great transition. He was the first school administrator in Illinois to receive the Outstanding Administrator’s Award (similar to the Golden Apple but for Administrators). Below is a selection from an oral history that was done with Robert Ferguson.

Does MPHS have photographs: Miscellaneous images

Address in MP: Unknown

Birth Date: Unknown

Death Date: Unknown

Marriage
Date:  Unknown

Spouse: Billie Esmond

Children: Unknown

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:

Newell Esmond was a long time member of the Mount Prospect Police Department. He worked for MPPD for 22 years, as a patrol man, lieutenant, and finally for six years as the Chief of Police. He worked extensively to upgrade the department, increasing patrolmen’s Salaries, improving the forces equipment, and beginning out reach programs such as stationing a full time police counselor at Prospect High.

Does MPHS have photographs: Miscellaneous images

Address in MP: 

Birth Date:  

Death Date: 

Marriage: No information

Children: Had three sons and a daughter

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:

Robert Eppley was the first professional Village Manager in Mount Prospect. A World War II veteran, he was educated in Political Science at Ohio State University, where he was very active in the school newspaper, the glee club, and the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. Prior to coming to Mount Prospect he was the City Manager of Wheaton, Illinois. He was selected by a unanimous vote of the Village Board in 1971 and when he came to Mount Prospect his salary of $28,000 made him the highest paid municipal administrator in the Northwest Suburbs. He later became the President of the Illinois City Managers Association.

Does MPHS have photographs: Yes

Address in MP: 801 E. Central

Birth Date: May 12, 1883

Death Date: June, 1968

Interesting information on life, career, accomplishments:

Bertha Ehard was a dynamo in Mount Prospect. In 1926 she started the Mount Prospect Campfire Girls, a girls club similar to the Girls Scouts. She worked in Chicago and would come home at night and rush over the one room Central School house and hurry to build a fire in the pot bellied stove to try to warm up the building before the girls got there. The group chose the name “Potawatomi” and received a charter from the national Camp Fire Girls in 1927. The organization fostered understanding and appreciation of nature, an interest in Native American History and responsibility to the community. The group was lobbied for and picked some of the unusual names of the streets in the southern half of Mount Prospect, such as Hi Lusi or Wapella. These were meant to be Native American words, although some of them have since turned out to be made up. Bertha Ehard was also a Charter member of the Mount Prospect Woman’s Club and a founder of the Mount Prospect Public Library. In 1945 she was elected a Library Director and Finance Chairman. She continued to serve as treasurer until 1963. She was a life member of the Chicago Art Institute and helped to organize the United Youth Fund Drive. Later in life a club for young women was named for her and the E-Hart Girls were born.