Tour De Force
EHS’s Seventh Annual Home Tour, featuring the Rosehill neighborhood, was a grand success last fall thanks to many people. Foremost, of course, are Rosehill Cemetery and the folks who allowed us to show off their homes as well as the Fireside Restaurant for offering refreshments.
The 1995 event was co-chaired by Jim Anderson, Kathy Gemperle, Thom Greene and JoAnn Varga Holmes. (What a great team!) The ECC, Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society and the W.E.A.R. neighborhood organization lent helping hands with advertising and home owner contact. The Powers That Be graced us with a crisp, sunny autumn day.
In particular, we’d like to thank David Wendell, Rosehill’s official historian, for his pre-tour planning, preparation, research and his entertainingly educational tours of the cemetery and May Chapel on September 16 and 17. Special thanks go to Jim Anderson and John Taccio for their efforts in finding homes for the tour, advertising it and designing and producing the tour book. Other helpers on the tour book included Kathy Gemperle (writing, research and design), Carl Helbig (research) and Betty Mayian (editing). The wonderful house drawings were provided by Thom Greene and Rick Proppe.
Special thanks also to our advertisers and to the EHS members who secured the ad donations, which helped make the day a fundraising success: Jim Anderson, Mike and Gay DiGiovanni, Dick Gengler, Mark Harding, Carl Helbig, JoAnn Varga Holmes and Martha Kraeger.
Our tour docents were terrific as usual: Judy Bohus and her lovely daughter Suzanne, Mike and Gay DiGiovanni, Dave Gemperle, Thom Greene, the dynamic duo of Martha and John Kraeger, Lori Lynch, Bill Peterson, Sandee Remis (dressed to the “9s” in period attire), Bill Steinfeld and John Taccio.
Carl Helbig, the driver of our “elegant” van borrowed from St. Gregory’s, started everyone’s tour experience off with an entertaining trip to the May Chapel - by various routes - with David Wendell directing. Check-in and raffle sales were adeptly handled by Amie Hanson, Betty Mayian and Marie Morrissette. Mary Cramer and Marion Lettner teamed up to manage the silent auction (thank you to those who donated items!)
A great time was had by all and approximately $4,425 net, including the special raffle, was raised. Now, if we could just have a few more members and their friends attend our annual event! Mark your calendars for the 1996 tour on September 15 - the third Sunday in September. It will focus on North Edgewater and include the boyhood home of Clayton Moore, better known by baby-boomers as The Lone Ranger. Please support this important EHS event by turning out “en force!”