Award Winning Photographer: Mary Ernestine Rabson McMasters

Mary Ernestine Rabson McMasters was born in Chicago and met her husband, Ward McMasters, at the Trianon Ballroom in 1925. She became a nature photographer after being inspired by a trip to Turkey Run...

Virginia Fiester Frederick: Forging a Path for Women

Virginia Fiester Frederick was a fashion designer who outfitted hundreds of North Shore women and a politician who served both Lake Forest and the state of Illinois.Born Virginia Heise in 1916, she gr...

Just Imagine: Margaret Lindman and the Lindman Marionettes

A Chicago native, Margaret Rohner Lindman came to Lake Bluff about 1948, where during the summers she taught preschool at the Lake Bluff Children’s Home. In the 1950s she taught at Lake Bluff East Sch...

Conway Through The Years

Take a look at these maps and aerial photographs for a peek into the history of the land that became Conway Farms and Conway Park. The line through the middle is Rte. 60, the diagonal through the uppe...

Elmer Vliet: Lake Bluff Leader, Community Historian

Elmer Vliet was a longtime Lake Bluff resident and village historian. Born in Joliet, Illinois in 1897, he began work as a research chemist at Abbott Alkaloidal Company at age 22. When the company mov...

Mr. T and the Trees: Gets to the Root of the Things

Lake Forest’s reputation as “Tree City, USA” took a serious hit in 1987 not long after Lawrence “Mr. T” Tureaud moved to town.Born in 1952, Tureaud grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. His e...

Robert L. Chalmers: Gardener on the Thorne Estate

Robert Lamont Chalmers was born in Rattray, Scotland in 1884. Jean Brown Lindsey was born in Ayrshire, Scotland in 1895. The two met and married in the U.S.