Childs-McBride-Green Family
The Childs-McBride-Greene story begins with summers in Lake Forest. The Newell family resided in Kenosha, Wisconsin, but by the 1890s they were spending the warmer months in Lake Forest. The family numbered among the first members of the Onwentsia Club when it was founded in 1895; here Edith Newell and her sister Madeline were captured in a photograph when Onwentsia’s clubhouse was still Leander McCormick’s old chicken coop. Edith Newell was an accomplished golfer – she placed 5th out of 45 in Onwentsia’s Governor’s Cup in 1898, which billed itself as the first women’s golf tournament to be held in the west. To earn her 5th place, Edith shot a 123 (the winner shot 110); the newspaper account noted that all participants had to “contend with a strong westerly breeze.”
Edith Newell met her future husband C. Frederick Childs on a boat trip around the world. The two were married in 1900, making their home in New York where C. F. Childs worked in bonds at 1 Wall Street. In 1904, his firm sent him to manage the western office in Chicago, and by 1906, the family moved to Lake Forest.
After remaining with Fisk & Robinson for seven years, C. Frederick Childs went into business for himself in 1911, founding C. F. Childs and Company, a firm that bought and sold government bonds. Historian Edward Arpee called the firm “the oldest and largest business in America specializing in government securities.” C. F. Childs was often quoted in the Chicago Tribune as an expert on monetary policy during the Depression.
The first family home in Lake Forest, called Shadow Lawn, was on Sheridan Road. The three Childs children, Madeleine, Claire, and Newell, grew up with their family around them: an aunt and uncle lived next door at “The Nook,” and their Newell grandmother lived across the street at “Littlecote.” Though new to the community, C. F. Childs quickly took a leadership role, serving as an alderman and then as mayor in 1910. As mayor, Childs tackled Lake Forest’s mess of dirt, brick, wood and stone pavements, introducing the first macadam roads to the town. He was also responsible for instituting the first professional fire department in Lake Forest, raising $2,500 by personal solicitation for a motorized fire truck.
According to one account, Shadow Lawn had its secrets. Legend has it that during the Childs’ residency in the Prohibition era, a closet with wood-covered steel doors and equipped with alarms was built in the basement to store bootleg liquor.
In 1927, the Childs family moved to a home on Deerpath designed by architect Frederick Perkins. During the Depression, this home was twice a target for theft. A 1936 newspaper account tells of “a bold burglar” who ransacked several dresser drawers and made off with $30,000 of Mrs. Childs’ jewelry. What made this burglar particularly “bold” was the fact that one of the maids – four were home at the time, as well as a butler – heard a noise upstairs, and naturally supposing it to be the chauffeur or one of the household, called up to see what he was doing. The man
upstairs shouted back: “I’m busy,” and the maid paid no further attention to him. He likely walked out right through the front door. A 1942 robbery was less brazen, being perpetrated by a ladder to the bedroom window.
upstairs shouted back: “I’m busy,” and the maid paid no further attention to him. He likely walked out right through the front door. A 1942 robbery was less brazen, being perpetrated by a ladder to the bedroom window.
The Childs’ younger daughter Claire married W. Paul McBride in 1930. They made their home in Lake Forest on Lake Road, in a home built in 1936 by Stanley Anderson. Their daughter Jean remembers the vines covering the exterior walls of the house, which were useful for climbing out the window.
Paul McBride, along with his brother-in-laws William Pullman and Newell Childs and cousin Albert Dick, served in the Navy in World War II. After the war, like his father-in-law, Paul McBride was elected mayor of Lake Forest in 1951. During his term as mayor many residential subdivisions began development, and automatic gates were installed at the town’s railroad crossing.
His children, Edith, Jean, and John, liked to play jokes on their father, mayor or no mayor. Paul McBride had been an amateur pilot in the 1920s, so when his son brought home a motorcycle, he couldn’t help it – he had to try it out. So Mayor McBride was cruising through Lake Forest on his son’s bike, and his mischievous children proceeded to call the police to warn them about a sketchy character speeding through town on a motorcycle. The police took this tip in all earnestness, and went on to detain the mayor – at least for awhile before everything was cleared up.
The family has long been connected to the Bell School – not only did three generations attend, but the first Childs home in Lake Forest, Shadow Lawn, was later purchased by the school and used as extra classroom space. Jean McBride Greene, who later served on the board of the Lake Forest Country Day School, remembers the strict but motivating Mr. Bell, whose word was law and could get a student into any boarding school in the country. She biked to and from school with her siblings and cousins, with lines of poetry running through their heads for recitations three times a week.
The family supported institutions both in Lake Forest, like the hospital and the Garden Club, and in Chicago, where Edith Childs was president of the Presbyterian Hospital and Paul McBride of Shedd Aquarium. The family attended First Presbyterian Church in Lake Forest, where the kids would play on the grounds after the children’s stories while their parents retreated off after the service for something they called the TAR club. The children didn’t have much interest in what their parents were up to, supposing it something serious, theological, and dull – when they were older they found out what TAR stood for: it was the “Thirst After Righteousness” club – the adults would get together for a post-service martini.
In the mid-1950s, young Jean McBride found her way, through the suggestion of a friend, to a job at the White House. She would help answer the piles of correspondence received by Mamie Eisenhower. When she told her family about her new job, they were a bit taken aback, and didn’t fully believe her until they made a trip out to Washington, D. C. to see for themselves.
Jean McBride married John K. Greene in 1957 – the pair recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They lived in San Francisco and in Europe before moving back to Lake Forest in 1963.
The Greenes have lived in their home in Lake Forest on Hawthorne Place, which was built in 1928, for nearly fifty years. During that time they have continued the family tradition of involvement in the community through various civic activities, such as the caucus, the Improvement Trust in Market Square, and Lake Forest Open Lands.
Jean McBride Greene feels that Lake Forest has been an amazing place to grow up, both for her and for her children, and that the community has provided a special sense of warmth, and a great deal of respect and fun in gatherings that include all generations.
Although Jean represents the last generation of their family to reside in Lake Forest, the family legacy will live on in their efforts to create such a warm community. Physical signs of the family’s love for Lake Forest can be seen all around, from the beach to the stained glass at First Presbyterian Church.