Kent Chandler Jr.: Looking for Fox Holes at Iwo Jima

Kent Chandler Jr., Lake Forester and descendant of town founder John V. Farwell, served in World War II with the Fifth Marine Division, Second Battalion. He was stationed at Hawaii and Iwo Jima, where...

Colonel Elmer Ellsworth: Close Friend to President

Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth garnered nationwide fame during his short but event-filled life and with his dramatic death. He was a law clerk and United States Army soldier, best known as the first...

Greeley Wells: Always Carry a Flag

As a young Marine during World War II, George “Greeley” Wells drove his family from Lake Forest to California to begin training for the Pacific Campaign. Unfortunately, he checked in with his unit a d...

Captain Israel Parsons Rumsey: Leader and Adventurer

A mere two weeks after the attack on Fort Sumter began the Civil War, Israel Parsons Rumsey co-founded Taylor’s Battery in Chicago, on May 2, 1861. A consummate leader, he was elected Second Lieutenan...

Father of Naval Aviation: Admiral William Moffett

William Moffett (1869-1933) was commander of Great Lakes Naval Training Station during World War I and instituted flight training programs for the new technology of airplanes. His post-war command of...

Gordon L. Kelley: Pilot and Pearl Harbor Survivor

Gordon Kelley was born and raised in Lake Forest. His grandparents, aunts, uncles and many cousins all lived within just a few blocks on Washington Road, Wildwood Road and Washington Circle.

Sydney Barber: Groundbreaker at the Naval Academy

First African American Female Midshipman at the Naval Academy

As Midshipman 1st Class Sydney Barber was named the firstBlack female brigade commander for the United States Naval Academy in 2020. Barber,a 2017 graduate of Lake Forest High School, will graduate in...

A Call To Serve: Sergeant William Fletcher

William Fletcher was born in Lake Forest in 1880, to Charles and Eliza Fletcher. He was employed for years by C. G. Wenban & Co. He was a veteran of the Spanish American War, and had served on the...

George Alexander McKinlock Jr.

Believed to be the first Lake Forester killed in action during World War I, George Alexander McKinlock Jr. (1893-1918) is the namesake of Lake Forest’s American Legion Post. His parents, George A. McK...

Calvin Durand Sr.

Calvin Durand, born in Clintonville, New York, began his early education at Keysville Academy before moving to Chicago in 1860. He joined his brothers at Durand Brothers, a wholesale grocery business,...

G.W. Huntoon

George Washington Huntoon was born in Evanston in 1842. He was among the first to respond when the call for men to defend the Union came in 1861.” He enlisted in Company F, 8th Illinois Cavalry and se...

James Hardinge

James Hardinge was born on June 6th, 1836, in the parish of Knockcommon, County Meath, Ireland. At a young age, he emigrated to the United States, where he and his family settled in Libertyville, Illi...

Michael Fitzgerald: From Soldier to City Supervisor

Born in Boston in 1846, Michael Fitzgerald journeyed to the Midwest as a small boy when his family settled in Milwaukee. At age 16, he enlisted in the Union Army, Company B, First Wisconsin Heavy Arti...

Henry McIntosh

Henry McIntosh was born enslaved on a Kentucky plantation in 1843. After the Civil War broke out, he was forced into wrangling horses for the Confederate Army. McIntosh found a chance to escape, cross...

David Fales

David Fales, born in Boston, Massachusetts, enlisted in 1861 and served as a Colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War.  Fales attended Brown University and began to practice law in Newport...

Waldo Morgan Allen

Waldo Morgan Allen was a distinguished World War I officer and prominent community leader. Born in Orange, New Jersey, he hailed from a family with deep ties to Chicago—his grandmother, Elizabeth Down...

Dr. Theodore Proxmire

After the war, Dr. Proxmire resumed his practice in Lake Forest, working tirelessly with a schedule that included six days a week of office hours, house calls, surgeries, and baby deliveries. Known fo...

General Robert E. Wood

General Robert E. Wood was a prominent U.S. Army officer and influential business executive. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Wood attended West Point, graduating in 1900 as a second lieutenant. Early i...

Noble Brandon Judah

Colonel Noble B. Judah, a Chicago lawyer, served as the assistant Chief of Staff of the Rainbow Division throughout the United States’ participation in France. The Rainbow Division was the third compl...

Charles Clarke

NEW STORY DESCRIPTION

Charles F. Clarke Sr., a former lieutenant of engineers in World War I, made significant contributions both in his military and civilian life. He attended the first officer training camp at Fort Sheri...

Montague Rasmussen

Montague Reid Rasmussen was a key figure in Lake Forest, Illinois, particularly known for his contributions to veterans' affairs. He was the founding commander of the Lake Forest American Legion McKin...

Robert Isham

Robert T. Isham enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve in 1942, completing his college studies before active duty began in 1943. After basic training, he joined the Field Artillery, serving with the 18...

Marshall Strenger

Lieutenant Colonel Marshall C. "Marsh" Strenger was a decorated World War II veteran, civic leader, and longtime business and community figure in Lake Forest, Illinois. A member of the pioneering Prat...

Bob Barchenger

Robert Arnold Barchenger was born to Herman Louis and Myrtle May (Potter) Barchenger and was baptized on November 19, 1922, at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church in Center, Oliver, North Dakota, by...

A. Peter Dewey

NEW STORY DESCRIPTION

Lieutenant Colonel A. Peter Dewey was a U.S. Army officer who became the first American military casualty in the Vietnam War. He was born in 1923 and served in World War II before joining the newly es...

Robert A. Bates

First Lieutenant Robert A. Bates grew up on Wisconsin Avenue in Lake Forest, Illinois. He attended Lake Forest Country Day School and Lake Forest Academy before graduating from Transylvania College in...

Thomas Richard Temple

2nd Lieutenant Thomas Richard Temple was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and later moved with his family to Lake Forest, Illinois. A graduate of Brown University in the class of 1965, he was an accom...

William Allen Rawson

2nd Lieutenant William A. Rawson was a U.S. Marine Corps officer and athlete from Lake Forest, Illinois. He graduated from Lake Forest High School in 1960, where he was co-captain of the football team...

Richard F. Legate

Captain Richard Legate, husband of Elisabeth Cluxton of Lake Forest, entered into service in 1962, after his graduation from the Citadel, in Charleston, S.C., when he was commissioned a 2nd LT in the...

Carl Thorne-Thomsen

Carl Thorne-Thomsen, the fourth of five children, was a talented student and athlete at Lake Forest High School. He played the cello, excelled in academics, and led the student council, advocating for...

Greg McPartlin

Greg McPartlin was a Navy SEAL, Vietnam War veteran, and influential community figure in Coronado, CA. Raised in Lake Forest, Illinois, McPartlin began his own path of service at 16 as an ambulance dr...