From the President
By: Betty Mayian
My first thought is the loss of our friend and EHS Treasurer, Marie Morrissette, in October. Our love and condolences go out to her daughter, Marie Hopkins, and to her whole family. We will all miss her cheer and good nature. I will especially miss her support and friendship. Marie’s memory will be cherished by us and we will remember her in our museum as well as our hearts. The business of running a museum must go on and until we get a replacement Treasurer, LeRoy Blommaert has agreed to perform these duties for us. If there is someone who would like to help us out, please let me know, so LeRoy can go back to writing his book on Edgewater’s History.
We congratulate Reggie Griffin on his election to the Edgewater Community Council’s presidency. He resigned his office of Recording Secretary, but will continue to be a Director on our Board. In our November board meeting, we welcomed Nancy Schroeder Ebert to our board; she will take over the Recording Secretary post beginning January 2008. She will also remain on the ECC board.
We had a very successful home tour in the West Andersonville neighborhood this year. Our luck continued for another year with these fall home tours. We again had excellent weather, happy participants, wonderful homes and great and generous owners. Now begins the process of choosing our 2008 tour area. Of course, that will be the third Sunday in September on our Calendar of Events. Some Calendar programs are still undetermined. The first scheduled program will be a return of the very popular class, Your House Has a History. This is a three day class on how to do research on your house. As before, it will be held over three Saturdays for a total cost of $55 per EHS member ($80 per couple). For non-members, or for those whose memberships are due for 2008, an additional membership charge will be required. The first class will be held on Saturday, February 23, 2008, from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. at the EHS Museum, 5358 N. Ashland. Classes two and three will take place on the following Saturdays, March 1st and 8th, with the location and time to be announced at the first class. Kathy Gemperle and LeRoy Blommaert will share the teaching duties. The museum exhibit will continue the theme of House History. Please contact me as soon as possible if you want to attend this class.
March is Women’s History Month, and we will be honoring that theme on March 15th at our 20th Annual Meeting and Board Election. Our program on that date will include a display of our new collection items, donated by the North End Women’s Club. This group has disbanded after over 100 years of community service. They are turning over their archives, a beautiful silver tea urn and a check to be used to preserve and display their collection. Mary Sand, former President of the group, will be on hand to give us the check and see the exhibit she helped put together. Hopefully, we will also have a dedication of a memorial proclamation for Marie Morrissette from the City of Chicago. Thanks to Alderman Smith for doing that for Marie.
Mark your calendars for our 20th Anniversary celebration on Friday, April 18th, at a location in Edgewater. Can you believe it’s twenty years since our founding meeting at the Edgewater Library? It will be a special evening event.
April 5th is the date for the first of three more Saturday afternoon programs of old time radio shows, performed by the “Those Were the Days Radio Players, Chicago North.” We are following the tradition of having them on Saturday from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. The second hour from the Radio Players group will be August 23rd. November 22nd will finish the year with another hour of fun. Join the growing number of fans of seeing how shows were put on in the Golden Age of Radio. As always, there will be coffee and cookies.
Our Spring exhibit will be a shared one with the North Lakeside Cultural Center. See the article on page 7 in this issue.
Lastly, I am so looking forward to a special exhibit by our very own architect, Thom Greene. He will put up his “Thom Greene’s Lost Edgewater” drawings that will show the designs he conceived for our neighborhood, but that never materialized. The exhibit and program will take place in May.