Mount Prospect Historical Society

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Pritzker hopes school mask mandate ‘very temporary,’ but new COVID-19 cases top 3,000

Vaccine doses are readied at Waubonsee Community College. So far, 6.5 million Illinoisans have been fully vaccinated, 51.3% of the population. Courtesy of Waubonsee Community College

By Marni Pyke – 8/6/2021

As new cases of COVID-19 totaled 3,048 Thursday, the first time infections have surpassed 3,000 in a day since May 7, Gov. J.B. Pritzker stood by his day-old mandate for face masks in schools but hoped it will be short-lived.

“This is in a moment when the delta variant is rising fast and cases are rising fast,” Pritkzer said, referencing the highly contagious mutation of COVID-19.

“Most of us were able to go without masks inside in the early part of the summer. … Well, we didn’t know the delta variant would begin to overtake so many people. And so, this is hopefully a very temporary endeavor but one that we need to take.

“It is a mandate I think is required to keep our way of life moving forward. It’s a reasonable thing to ask people to do. These are not capacity limitations,” Pritzker said at an event at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

The new rule requires students, staff members and teachers at all public and private schools in Illinois to use face masks inside and extends to indoor sports and other activities. Children 11 and younger are not eligible for vaccines.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported Will County is experiencing a “high” level of transmissions of COVID-19 with 121.3 new infections per 100,000 people over seven days. A high level means 100 or more cases per 100,000.

Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties are still listed as experiencing “substantial” transmissions of COVID-19, which indicates 50 to 99 new cases per 100,000 people.

“Our recommendation has not changed — get vaccinated,” Will County Health Department spokesman Steve Brandy said. “Regardless of the problem with the delta variant, getting vaccinated provides protection. Even if you get sick, you will be less sick, with less chance of hospitalization.” Will County reached the “high” level earlier this week.

Fourteen more people died from COVID-19, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported Thursday.

On Wednesday, 25,247 more COVID-19 shots were administered. The seven-day average is 24,988.

The federal government has delivered 14,986,995 doses of vaccine to Illinois since distribution began in mid-December, and 13,362,088 shots have been administered.

So far, 6,535,148 Illinoisans have been fully vaccinated, 51.3% of the state’s 12.7 million population. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses several weeks apart.

Hospital patients with COVID-19 came to 1,205 as of Wednesday night.

The state’s positivity rate for COVID-19 cases is 4.6% based on a seven-day average.

Total cases statewide stand at 1,433,313, and 23,490 Illinoisans have died since the pandemic began.

Labs processed 63,057 virus tests in the last 24 hours.

Copyright 2022 Daily Herald (www.dailyherald.com)

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Constable: Pandemic brings us ‘Honey, I shrunk the Holiday Housewalk’

With the pandemic scuttling the Mount Prospect Historical Society’s annual Holiday Housewalk fundraiser, director Emily Dattilo came up with the idea of giving patrons a virtual tour of six historic dollhouses.

by Burt Constable, 12/13/2020

With the 2020 pandemic scuttling the Mount Prospect Historical Society‘s 33rd Annual Holiday Housewalk, the group is using a new idea and toys from the past to save its biggest fundraiser of the year.

“It was my first idea, right out of the gate,” says Emily Dattilo, 27, a Mount Prospect native hired in July as the society’s new director. Forced to scrap the idea of hordes of strangers paying $28 to take a December walking tour through historically significant homes in the village, she turned to the society’s collection of antique dollhouses.

“What if we did a tour of the dollhouses?” she thought.

“Virtual tours have become the norm for now,” says Ed Johnson, 42, a 14-year board member who happens to be a professional videographer. His DroNationproduction company does virtual tours of houses for real estate agents. But how do you do a “walk-through” of a dollhouse?

“I have this tiny little camera,” Johnson says of his OSMO Pocket video camera. “It’s literally the size of the dolls in the dollhouses. I can get different angles other than what a human can see. It’s as if you shrunk yourself and little you was taking a tour.”

Using a tiny camera, professional videographer Ed Johnson takes patrons on “walk-throughs” of six historic dollhouses in the Mount Prospect Historical Society’s 33rd Annual Holiday Housewalk fundraiser. – Courtesy of Ed Johnson, Mount Prospect Historical Society

Placing the camera in any room of a dollhouse, Johnson can use his cellphone to control the camera’s gimbal and change the view as if he were turning his head.

“It feels like you’re stepping into the dollhouse. You can see their Christmas trees. You can see the pictures on the wall,” Dattilo says. “It’s amazing.”

The view of the only private dollhouse among the six in this year’s tour is one original owner Judy Hasenjaeger never envisioned when she caught the dollhouse bug as a 10-year-old girl during a 1945 trip to Chicago with her parents, Joe and Alice Connelly. The elaborate Fairy Castle dollhouse, created by actress Colleen Moore and now a permanent attraction at the Museum of Science and Industry, was on display in the windows of Marshall Field’s, and led to a dollhouse under the family tree.

The dollhouse Judy Hasenjaeger, 85, played with as a girl in 1945 was put in storage until her daughters, including Julie Michalik seen here, were old enough to play with it. The dollhouse now is being put to use by a fourth generation of kids. – Courtesy of Mount Prospect Historical Society

“I had five good years,” says Hasenjaeger, who was an only child. “Then it stayed packed up for a long time until my girls were 10 and played with it.”

She and her husband, Bob, let daughters Julie and Nancy play with the dollhouse, and sometimes repel assaults from their brother John’s G.I. Joe, until they outgrew it and packed it away. When Julie and Joel Michalik’s daughter Magen turned 10, the house came out of wraps again until Magen grew older and the house went into storage. Now, Magen Pignataro’s daughters Holly, 12, and Leah, 9, can occupy the dollhouse.

“Each time it comes out, it’s pretty cool,” says Hasenjaeger, now 85. “I really never thought I’d be seeing it again.”

As is the case for many full-size houses in Mount Prospect, every generation made changes, such as painting the walls a different color, adding carpeting or updating the furniture, Julie Michalik says. The 1924 English Tudor house where she and her husband live was part of the Holiday Housewalk in 2018 and retains its original look. The couple worked to restore the dollhouse to the way it looked 75 years ago.

A Christmas present to her mom 75 years ago, this dollhouse renovated by Julie and Joel Michalik of Mount Prospect now is on its fourth generation with the family. – Courtesy of Mount Prospect Historical Society

“I learned more than I thought I would about miniaturists,” Julie Michalik says.

She made tiny copies of photographs of her grandparents and parents to hang above the dollhouse’s fireplace. There is a plate of tiny cookies waiting for Santa, a 1940s-era desk with an old telephone and elaborate Christmas decorations, including a Christmas tree sporting a tiny paper chain that took Michalik eight hours to make.

Another dollhouse on the virtual tour is the Atwood Manor built by the late Margie Atwood as a replica of the Mount Prospect house where she had lived since 1942. It includes an elaborate staircase, wood molding, wallpaper, electric lighting, and a hand-sewn, pink silk bedspread.

A dollhouse built in 1932 features plenty of wood, including an unusual red living-room set in Art Deco style.

The 21st Century House, donated in 2000 by Shirley and Bud Budris, wasn’t meant as a toy but as a work of art.

By using a tiny camera, Mount Prospect Historical Society board member Ed Johnson is able to show the miniature fixings inside of dollhouses in great detail. – Courtesy of Ed Johnson, Mount Prospect Historical Society

The Chalet House, donated by the Walgreens on the southeast corner of Kensington and Wolf roads, is a stylish, brightly colored mid-20th-century toy that required parents to assemble the fiberboard house with included nuts and bolts.

The oldest house in the collection is the Edwardian Eclectic Dollhouse built out of mahogany in 1905 by Charles Semft as a Christmas present for his granddaughter Erns Keller, with intricate furnishings crafted by hand. But it also has a twist from the 1970s, with rainbow wallpaper and dolls and accessories from “The Sunshine Family” dollhouse by Mattel.

“The last kid to play with it left the Sunshine Family in there,” Dattilo says. “That’s what’s so cool about this. The dollhouses span the century. The dollhouses are very distinct.”

The tour is sponsored by local Realtors Bill Farrell of ReMax Suburban, Jim Regan of ReMax Suburban, Judith Muniz of Habloft, Laura Parisi and Kelly Janowiak of @Properties, Mary O’Malley of @Properties, and Tom and Mary Zander of Picket Fence Realty. Johnson shot all the footage and spent another 20 hours editing it into a show that includes old photographs and stories about the times when the houses were built, and their unique features.

When the pandemic canceled its annual Holiday Housewalk, the Mount Prospect Historical Society brought the event down to size by creating a video “walk-through” of six antique dollhouses. – Courtesy of Ed Johnson, Mount Prospect Historical Society

For $10, a household can view the dollhouses online from Dec. 15 to Feb. 15. For information and tickets, visit the mtphist.org website.

Copyright 2022 Daily Herald (www.dailyherald.com)

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Former Mount Prospect neighbors reunite at Wheeling senior living community

Submitted by Terri Tangney Fleming
Posted 10/5/2020

Barb Tangney, left, and Marie Pope are next-door neighbors again at Addolorata Villa Senior Living in Wheeling, continuing a circle of deep friendship that began 65 years ago on South Maple Street in Mount Prospect. Courtesy of Frank Tangney Jr.

Across the street was a field of tomatoes. On south Maple Street in 1955 Mount Prospect, there were two handsome brick farmhouses standing alone surrounded by farmland and promise.

The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad station was just a few blocks’ walk to the north. There was a new Catholic church and school just up the road. That tomato field was destined for a big town park. What better place to raise growing families?

That summer, Barb and Frank Tangney moved their three kids (and one on the way) out of Chicago’s Northwest Side to 404 S. Maple St., right next door to John and Marie Pope at 400 S. Maple.

The Popes had moved there a year earlier from Washington state. There was plenty of room in the new house for their own growing brood. In 1955, the Popes had five at home, and their sixth would come the following year.

Barb and Marie had a lot in common. Both devout Catholics, both can-do, self-reliant optimists with strong senses of right and wrong who believed in the powers of hard work and fresh air. Before marriage, Barb earned a degree in dietetics. Marie worked for Air Canada and moved from her native London, Ontario, to Chicago in 1946 to help open a branch office.

Every morning, the Tangney kids (eventually seven in all) and Pope kids — over the years joined by the Halas, Fisher and Mann kids as Maple Street filled in — would walk the five blocks to St. Raymond’s School.

After the kids were off, Barb often would sit in Marie’s kitchen for a cup of coffee or two. The two bargain hounds loved to shop together; coming home empty-handed was beside the point.

The families did nearly everything together. Once Lions Park was built, they swam there in summer and sledded (on Folgers Mountain) in the winter. The kids joined the Mount Prospect Speed Skating Club. Both families’ properties had an extra lot, which provided plenty of room to play endless games of kick the can, red rover, four square, baseball and a homegrown game they called ditch.

They watched Main Street Fourth of July parades as a group. The Tangneys had pear and apple trees. The Popes a big and fruitful mulberry tree.

As next-door neighbors in Mount Prospect, Barb Tangney, left, and Marie Pope, second from right, were devoted tennis players and kept a schedule of games at Lions Park with friends such as Sue Douglas, second from left, and Betty Alseits, right. – Courtesy of Terri Tangney Fleming

Even if it meant bringing the baby buggy to the courts — which it often did — Barb and Marie were devoted tennis players and had a schedule of regular games at Lions Park with other like-minded moms.

Dressed in their tennis whites, their shouts from the court (nothing saltier than “Oh, Barbara!” or “Oh, Marie!”) could be heard around the neighborhood.

The two women started a women’s jogging club — even went so far as having sweatshirts made — but were less devoted to actually running.

As the rest of South Maple Street filled in, 400 and 404 became the sites of block-party traditions. A favorite was the annual corn roast in late summer, taking advantage of the bounty of local fresh corn. Corn would be soaked then roasted on an old bed spring laid over a bed of coals in the Popes’ yard. On the Tangney driveway was the keg of beer and every flavor of Arlington Beverage Co. soda pop on ice.

Years went by. The kids grew, left for college and started their own families. The best friends’ shared history grew deeper. The couples and their network of friends had time for excursions, such as weekends in Wisconsin to cross-country ski or snowmobile.

With fewer responsibilities at home, Barb Tangney turned to volunteering at Holy Family Hospital. Marie Pope worked in the office at the Mount Prospect Fire Department, learning to use a computer. Tennis together was a mainstay.

Grandkids came into the picture and provided much joy. As of September 2020, Barb has 15 grandkids and 11 great-grandkids, while Marie has 17 grandkids and seven great-grands.

Sadly, Frank, who retired in 1982 as treasurer of Putman Publishing Co., died at age 76 in 1996. John, who retired as a pharmaceutical rep from E.R. Squibb, died at 90 in 2008.

Soon after Frank’s passing, Barb downsized and moved into an apartment in Arlington Heights. Marie and John had moved to Prospect Heights in 2002.

The women stayed in close touch despite time and distance. If Barb was at her vacation home in Colorado or Marie visiting her kids, they stayed in touch the old-fashioned way: by letter.

When they were both home, they carpooled to St. Raymond’s 7:30 a.m. Sunday Mass then dined together at Le Peep Cafe.

Fast forward to 2020. Sharp-as-a-tack Marie — now 104 — resides in an independent living apartment in Wheeling’s Addolorata Villa senior living community. Barb, who until the pandemic hit was a YMCA water-aerobics regular, celebrated her 95th birthday in June.

She found herself ready to make a similar move. When asked where she’d like to go, Barb recalled that Marie and other friends were happy at “A.V.” Why not there?

Call it luck, call it divine providence or call it a reward for lives well-spent, but when Barb moved into her A.V. apartment on Sept. 19, there was Marie, right next door again, continuing a circle that started 65 years ago.

Their first day back together, they attended 3 p.m. Mass then walked down the hall for dinner in the cafeteria.

Copyright 2020 Daily Herald (www.dailyherald.com)

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Mount Prospect’s St. Raymond School kicks off Teacher Appreciation Week with May Day parade

Submitted by Paul Valade — May 14, 2020

Members of the Casey family wave at St. Raymond School faculty and staff as the May Day Parade passes by their Mount Prospect home on Friday, May 1. Courtesy of St. Raymond School

“It was a day I will never forget,” St. Raymond School Assistant Principal Cathy Hart said about the school’s recent May Day Parade.

To kick off the month and Teacher Appreciation Week, more than 50 faculty and staff members of the Mount Prospect school participated in a 50-vehicle parade on Friday, May 1. The parade, which wound through nearby residential areas and included participation from Mount Prospect police officers, lasted around 45 minutes.

Nadine Scheller, Marketing & Enrollment director at the school, said the school received positive feedback from families, many who camped out waiting to see the teachers. Parents said the parade was heartwarming and a great way to come together.

Faculty and staff at St. Raymond School held a May Day Parade that wound through the neighborhoods surrounding the Mount Prospect school. School officials wanted to reach out to students and celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week. – Courtesy of St. Raymond School

Before starting, principals gave treat bags to the teachers and shared words of encouragement.

“I am so proud of the way our community came together for this event. Reconnecting with our students, the families and the teachers really renewed everyone’s spirits. It was a wonderful example of what makes our St. Raymond community so special,” Principal Mary Eileen Ward said.

St. Raymond School Early Childhood Director Colleen Cunningham decorated her car for the May Day Parade held in Mount Prospect on Friday, May 1. – Courtesy of St. Raymond School

The Family and School Association also provided gift cards and families gave plants and flowers to the educators.

Scheller said teachers and staff had been feeling disconnected from their school family, which includes more than 500 students from 328 families.

“It was a perfect day to bring the community together. The sun was shining, the weather had warmed up and, for a short time, it felt a little more ‘normal’ to see each other,” she said. “It was the community spirit and family feel that gave everyone an uplifting feeling to a new month.”

St. Raymond families provided flowers and plants for educators during Teacher Appreciation Week. – Courtesy of St. Raymond School

Copyright 2022 Daily Herald (www.dailyherald.com)

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Love is not cancelled for Mount Prospect newlyweds

Submitted by Jason Kaczorowski — April 2, 2020

Teri & Steve Gonczy celebrated their wedding on Tuesday, March 31st at the The South Church of Mount Prospect by pastor, Rick Kesler. Courtesy of Jason Kaczorowski

With the COVID-19 Coronavirus spreading across the entire planet, it is easy to look around these days and see we are sheltering in place at home in safety, socially distancing ourselves during mandatory grocery shopping missions and large events are being cancelled for the foreseeable future.

For couples awaiting their wedding date during this unprecedented global crisis, there is certainly confusion, uncertainty, doubt and depression. Weeks ago everything mattered — which wedding hashtag to pick, the perfect signature cocktail, where to spend your honeymoon unwinding after months of planning madness — and now all that matters is having each other.

In an official statement from its website, the CDC states, “Officials may ask you to modify, postpone, or cancel large events for the safety and well-being of your event staff, participants and the community. The details of your emergency operations plan should be based on the size and duration of your events, demographics of the participants, complexity of your event operations, and type of on-site services and activities your event may offer.”

Fortunately love was not cancelled for Mount Prospect newlyweds, Teri and Steve Gonczy.

In a post on a community Facebook group on Monday, March 30, Mount Prospect resident Angela Nicolosi sought volunteers who were interested in raising the spirits of a couple of local residents.

Angela’s husband Rick Kesler is a pastor at The South Church of Mount Prospect and was contacted by a deacon who was searching for a way to help a couple who was intending on getting married at another local Mount Prospect church, St Raymond Parish, but was unable to because the church was indefinitely closed and he unfortunately couldn’t marry them off-site.

As Angela wrote on Facebook: “Tuesday, March 31, at 2 p.m., Rick will marry them in the sanctuary of the South Church. That’s it — just the four of us with proper physical distancing. However, I was thinking that if we walked them down the aisle and out the front doors of the church that it would be way cool if they were greeted with a bunch of people cheering for them and maybe holding signs saying something like ‘Congratulations Steve & Ter.’ Balloons, kazoos, pinwheels would all be acceptable. Properly distanced of course, especially since they are in the “at risk” group because of their age. If those of you outside the church could snap some pics and send them to me and/or post them on our page then we could “shower” them with more pics and make their occasion a little more memorable in these strange times.”

The couple celebrated their vows at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31 at the The South Church of Mount Prospect. Though nobody was permitted to attended the couples ceremony due to COVID-19, the newlyweds were greeted by neighbors outside the church who held up signs from distance congratulating the couple.

Copyright 2022 Daily Herald (www.dailyherald.com)