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Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Peter H. Schwartz: Why nostalgia for the 1950s of ‘Leave it to Beaver' persists in America's religious right
Anyone looking to drench themselves in the 1950s nostalgia currently favored by the religious right in America should consider watching 'Leave It to Beaver' stoned. Which is what I did with an old friend in the 1980s while attending graduate school at the University of California-Berkeley. Nostalgia for the '50s — that land beyond time where Catholic traditionalists such as Notre Dame political theorist and post-liberal prophet Patrick Deneen dwell — idealizes imaginary communities of yore such as Mayfield, the setting for 'Leave it to Beaver,' where the values of faith, family, friends and flag all flourished. According to this narrative, late-stage liberalism and the globalization of markets, with their characteristic rootlessness, dissolve this communal existence. When I was at Berkeley in the 1980s, a large number of my childhood friends from Princeton, New Jersey, somehow found their way to the Bay Area. One afternoon, one of my Princeton buddies was house-sitting for an uncle in a Bay Area suburb. The uncle, whom I'll call Uncle Jim, had been my Cub Scout pack leader in Princeton when I was in elementary school. One sun-drenched afternoon, my friend and I settled into a couch, he rolled some joints and we flipped the TV to 'Leave It to Beaver' reruns. The series, on the air from 1957 and 1963, is a resonant symbol of '50s nostalgia, one to which conservative Catholics have returned as a template for modeling natural law. To Catholics who moved to the suburbs in the '50s and '60s, 'Leave It to Beaver' was a 'medieval morality play,' as Jerry Mathers, the Catholic actor who played young protagonist Theodore 'Beaver' Cleaver, put it. The show was a guide for young souls more tethered to television than to the suburban church. Michael De Sapio, writing in the online journal The Imaginative Conservative in 2017, states that, according to Mather, Beaver Cleaver 'repeatedly succumbed to temptation, suffered the consequences, and was guided back on the path of virtue.' In other words, these archetypal storylines and characters represent a moral imagination that 'elevates us to first principles as it guides us upwards towards virtue and wisdom and redemption,' in the words of American philosopher Russell Kirk. De Sapio continues: 'The emphasis on decorum and good manners in the Cleaver family conveyed a vision of the good, true and beautiful.' Mathers shared that the casting directors for the show selected him to play Beaver when they asked where he would prefer to be after they noticed he was uneasy at the audition. His guileless reply: his Cub Scouts den meeting. Notably, the mission of the Scouts is to 'prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.' Which returns us to Uncle Jim, my former Cub Scouts leader. He was an electrical engineer who ended his first marriage and moved to California in the 1970s, where he married a woman several decades younger and shed the trappings of his formerly decorous identity. 'Leave It to Beaver' mirrored and shaped the aspirations of millions of Catholics moving to the suburbs after World War II, and it has lingered as an idealized — and exclusive — depiction of the American Dream. The only nonwhite characters to appear in the show's 234 episodes were a Black man exiting a dairy truck in the episode 'Eddie, the Businessman' (1962) and a Black actress who plays a maid in the 1963 episode 'The Parking Attendants.' Within months of its final episode in June 1963 — following the March on Washington, D.C., in August led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the November assassination of President John F. Kennedy — 'Leave It to Beaver' had become a charming artifact of midcentury optimism, more a product of nostalgia and romantic imagination than a realistic model for America's future.
Forbes
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Remembering Jay North: A Look Back At ‘Dennis The Menace'
LOS ANGELES - MAY 2: Dennis The Menace, a CBS television situation comedy. Pictured from left is ... More Gloria Henry (as Alice Mitchell), Herbert Anderson (as Henry Mitchell), Jay North (as Dennis Mitchell). May 2, 1960. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) Sadly, we lost a legendary former child star, Jay North, who died at his home in Lake Butler, Florida on Sunday from colorectal cancer. He was 73. North, of course, is remembered as that All American boy who always seemed to get in trouble in the 1959 to 1963 comedy Dennis the Menace. In honor of Jay North, here are 10 fascinating facts of note about Dennis the Menace: 1) After prematurely canceling Leave it to Beaver at the end of its freshman season (which moved to ABC for five additional seasons), CBS was in search of a new family-themed comedy. Dennis the Menace, based on the Hank Ketchum comic strip of the same name, fit the bill. circa 1957: American actors (clockwise, from left) Tony Dow, Hugh Beaumont (1909 - 1982), Jerry ... More Mathers, and Barbara Billingsley pose together in a promotional portrait for the television series, 'Leave It to Beaver'. (Photo by CBS) 2) Dennis the Menace aired in the Sunday 7:30 p.m. ET half-hour out of Lassie and into The Ed Sullivan Show for its entire four-season run. The prior time period occupant the season before Dennis the Menace premiered were sitcoms The Jack Benny Program and Bachelor Father. Lassie co-star June Lockhart turns 100 on June 25. Lassie with Jon Provost, US child actor, June Lockhart, US actress, and Hugh Reilly (1915-1998), US ... More actor, pose for a group portrait issued as publicity for the US television series, 'Lassie', USA, circa 1955. The television drama starred Provost as 'Timmy Martin', Lockhart as 'Ruth Martin', and Reilly as 'Paul Martin'. (Photo by Silver) 3) At the time, four seasons of Dennis the Menace translated into 146 episodes. A full season order at present on a broadcast is traditionally 22 episodes. On streaming, an average season for any series normally ranges from just 6 to 10 episodes. LOS ANGELES - MAY 2: Dennis The Menace, a CBS television situation comedy. Pictured from left is ... More Sylvia Field (as Martha Wilson), Joseph Kearns (as George Wilson), Jay North (as Dennis Mitchell), Herbert Anderson (as Henry Mitchell), Gloria Henry (as Alice Mitchell. May 2, 1960. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) 4) Dennis's parents Henry (Herbert Anderson) and Alice Mitchell (Gloria Henry) were named after the creator of the franchise, Hank Ketcham, and his first wife Alice Ketcham. LOS ANGELES - JANUARY 1: DENNIS THE MENACE Gloria Henry as Alice Mitchell, Herbert Anderson as ... More Henry Mitchell and Jay North as Dennis Mitchell. 1960 (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) 5) Next-door neighbors George (Joseph Kearns) and Martha Wilson (Sylvia Field) were named after the first president George Washington and his wife Martha. LOS ANGELES - MAY 2: Dennis The Menace, a CBS television situation comedy. Pictured from left is ... More Joseph Kearns (as George Wilson), Sylvia Field (as Martha Wilson). May 2, 1960. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) 6) The exterior of the home of the Wilsons was also used for the fictional Anderson clan (Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin) on the family-themed comedy Father Knows Best. February 1965: Promotional portrait of the cast of the television series, 'Father Knows Best'. ... More Clockwise from lower left: Billy Gray, Elinor Donahue, Robert Young, Jane Wyatt and Lauren Chapin. (Photo by) 7) After the sudden death of Joseph Kearns in 1962, Gale Gordon joined the cast of Dennis the Menace as Mr. Wilson's brother John for the last six episodes of the third season. At the time, John Wilson was living with George's wife Martha (and it was explained that George had to leave town to settle an estate). By season four, Martha was gone and John Wilson suddenly had a wife named Eloise (Sara Seegar). LOS ANGELES - MARCH 12: Gale Gordon portrays Mr. John Wilson in the television series Dennis the ... More Menace. Image dated March 12, 1962. Los Angeles, CA. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) 8) Following Dennis the Menace, Gale Gordon joined the cast of Lucille Ball's The Lucy Show as Theodore J. Mooney, the local banker. In Lucy's next sitcom, Here's Lucy, Gordon portrayed Lucy's brother-in-law and employer, Harry Carter. LOS ANGELES - OCTOBER 1: The Lucy Show. A CBS television situation comedy. Premiere episode ... More broadcast October 1, 1962. Pictured is Gale Gordon (as Mr. Theodore J. Mooney), Lucille Ball (as Lucy Carmichael). (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) 9) In a rare crossover episode, Jay North as Dennis Mitchell showed up on The Donna Reed Show in the third season episode 'Donna Decorates.' Needless to say, complete chaos ensued! North also made guest appearances as Dennis on The Red Skelton Hour and in the theatrical musical comedy Pepe. THE DONNA REED SHOW - "Donna Decorates" - Airdate: September 29, 1960. (Photo by ABC Photo ... More Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images) DONNA REED;JAY NORTH 10) Prior to The Andy Griffith Show, Ron Howard, then age five, played Dennis' friend Stewart in six episodes of Dennis the Menace. Ron Howard, US actor and director, wearing a grey hat and checked jacket, with a blue shirt and a ... More red tie, in a studio portrait issued as publicity for the US television series, 'The Andy Griffith Show', USA, circa 1960. The sitcom starred Howard as 'Opie Taylor'. (Photo by Silver) All four seasons of Dennis the Menace are currently available to stream on Peacock. R.I.P. Jay North.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Landmarks: Potential church closure could put Park Forest history at risk
They had to move everything — the old photographs and books, collections of dolls and games, including one celebrating the television show 'Leave it to Beaver,' the furniture, and yes, even the kitchen sink. In fact, the last time the Park Forest 1950s House Museum moved, in 2015, the entire kitchen went along. 'They let us take the kitchen because they wanted it out,' said Jane Nicoll, the museum's director since it was established 26 years ago as part of the village's 50th anniversary. Situated in two of Park Forest's signature rental townhomes just north of the old Park Forest Plaza, the property would soon change hands and the owners 'didn't want to have to get someone to grandfather us in,' Nicoll said. The kitchen, looking much the same as when the rental units were erected in the late 1940s with the exception of a '70s-era countertop, was loaded onto a platform, affixed to a freestanding wall and delivered to an unused classroom at the former St. Mary Catholic School at the southern outskirts of the village. Amid the move, a paint chip flaked off a door. 'We have it on display in a bowl, just to show how they kept painting over,' Nicoll said. 'It's a lot of layers — mostly thick, white layers.' Along with the museum's five decades worth of artifacts came the Park Forest Historical Society's archives. The trove of photographs, documents, papers and oral histories relating to the development and growth of what boosters call America's 'first fully-planned, post-World War II suburb' are housed in a separate room at St. Mary. But that time might be coming to an end and the future of the archive, and especially the museum, is in doubt. The Catholic Church of St. Mary was established along Monee Road as the population of Park Forest surged in the decade following its founding, even though St. Liborius Church was less than five miles east in Steger. Not long after it was built, St. Mary's school expanded along a sprawling hallway. The future was bright. In the decades that followed, the fortunes of Park Forest ebbed and flowed. The celebrated Park Forest Plaza — one of the first suburban shopping malls in America, which had siphoned commerce from former shopping meccas such as downtown Chicago Heights — was one-upped in turn by Matteson's indoor Lincoln Mall. Stores moved away and Park Forest's signature clock tower was demolished. Officials moved forward with a plan to redevelop the plaza into a more traditional downtown business district. St. Mary closed its school in 2011, working instead with St. Liborius to support Mother Teresa Academy in Crete. The partnership between the two churches also includes a shared Mass schedule, among other combined services. Not long after the school closed, the Park Forest Historical Society moved in, renting a former classroom initially for the archive, and later the 1950s Park Forest House Museum after it was booted from its townhome. The new home was more forest than Park Forest, not far from Thorn Creek Nature Preserve and somewhat off the more well-traveled roads. But the classrooms offered room to spread out a bit, as well as an opportunity to recreate scenes not just of the village's early living spaces, but the educational ones as well. One of the museum's signature displays is its annual look back at an elementary school Valentine's Day, complete with vintage decorations and valentine cards straight from the 1950s. It's up now through March 8 at the museum, 227 Monee Road. 'We've had people go through who went to Forest Boulevard School and get a tremendous kick out of it,' Nicoll said. The kitchen, where visitors can rifle through drawers and cabinets filled with Tupperware, aluminum serving dishes and other modern doodads available to postwar home cooks, is a year-round attraction. 'People are fascinated by the kitchen,' she said. 'Older women go through and say, 'I still have that' — they're amazed that it would be in a museum!' It's not just the kitchen gadgets. 'I remember this from my mother's house. I remember this from my grandmother's house. That happens in every room,' Nicoll said. 'It just depends on what catches people's fancy.' The museum dates back 26 years to the villagewide celebration of Park Forest's 50th anniversary, but the historical society's archive goes back even further, to some random historical papers that were at the Park Forest Public Library. Nicoll was still relatively fresh out of library school and had moved to Park Forest in the late 1970s for her first job when she and another librarian decided to organize the library's historical collection into an accessible archive. As time went by, space at the library began to fill up and 'the archive went partly into storage,' she said. 'The library got rid of things, and said 'do you want this? Otherwise we're throwing it out.'' Most often they did want it. Meanwhile, the aging founders and early residents of Park Forest continued to donate documents, artifacts, entire photo collections. There were boxes of VHS tapes and master reels of most of the historical society programs going back decades, and boxes of Park Forest Reporter newspapers chronicling the village's early growth. The collection was split between storage pods controlled by the library and the society, the museum and even Hope Lutheran Church, where Nicoll would have to 'make an appointment to go to the attic to get newspaper articles people wanted.' The space at St. Mary allowed the collection to be reconsolidated and made more available to researchers. That includes materials — oral histories and written documents — about the planned integration of Park Forest in 1959. 'The circumstances surrounding the first integration is one of the most remarkable things about Park Forest — the role that private individuals played in trying to break the color line,' Nicoll said. 'That's one of the most researched things currently. It was a remarkable story of that time, and you hear different facets of that.' Nicoll, who has spent decades cataloging, preserving and showcasing the history of Park Forest, had a chance to gain firsthand insight into that story not too long ago through her work at the museum. 'During COVID a woman called and wanted to bring her uncle in to see the museum because he'd lived in Park Forest in the early days. He was going to be 100,' she said. 'When she brought him in, he said 'Let me tell you how we did the first integration.' He was part of the committee, and I'd never heard his name before.' The chair of the Park Forest Commission on Human Relations in the 1950s, H. Thurber Stowell had worked to peacefully integrate the newish village at a time when racial redlining and ugly confrontations were rampant. And when pioneering Black residents Dr. Charles Z. Wilson and his family moved in on Dec. 24, 1959, Stowell was there to greet them. 'He helped them move in, and he helped them find a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve,' Nicoll said. 'I'm so glad we got to meet him and find out his story. We put him in the Hall of Fame.' The encounter illustrates one of the elements that makes her work, mostly done on a volunteer basis, worthwhile. 'Park Forest has a very special history, and it was recent enough that you can find it. You could be the one who was documenting it,' Nicoll said. 'I was working with the pioneers of the town.' In a video message posted in December updating the Catholic Diocese of Joliet's restructuring plan, Bishop Ron Hicks cited declining Mass attendance, smaller Sunday collections and a shortage of active parish priests in forcing tough decisions. He said the diocese plans to announce decisions in March about the future of 19 parishes in Will, DuPage and Grundy counties, St. Mary and St. Liborius among them. It's the last phase of a wider effort that in late 2023 reduced another set of parishes in the diocese in number from 16 to 7. Nicoll said she was hopeful at the outset of the process, because St. Mary is contained to one floor and is ADA compliant, but based on 'scuttlebutt' she believes 'the church is probably closing.' If that happens, it will be time for some more tough decisions, for Nicoll and her colleagues with the Park Forest Historical Society. 'The archive is the thing we will definitely have to find a place for,' she said. 'We're not as sure we can carry on with the museum if we have to move it.' Even before news of St. Mary's potential closing reached her, Nicoll was having trouble keeping the museum going with dwindling help from aging volunteers and a shoestring budget. 'So what's our future?' she said. 'Do we find a place or don't we? What are we going to do with it if we don't? 'If we have to choose, we have to save the archive. If we can't find a place for it, we have to find if another archive would take it, like a university, but I would rather have some more years of getting it organized before I hand it over.' Nicoll isn't giving up hope for a better outcome. Perhaps St. Mary won't close. Or maybe a move could be a good thing, if they are able to secure a low-cost home in one of the empty downtown storefronts of the former Park Forest Plaza. 'We might help attract more business by being there, even if we couldn't afford to pay the kind of rent that they have asked us in the past to pay when we did look downtown,' she said. 'Something as respected as the historical society being housed in the historic village's downtown is certainly better than an empty storefront.' It's important, Nicoll said, to keep Park Forest's origin stories available to the village's residents. 'Part of the mission is to give people pride in place, let them know how special this place is,' she said. 'They don't get to hear that enough. A lot of people have no idea how special this place is — architecturally and socially, there are books written on it.' And on a personal level, she's put a lot of heart and effort into the museum and archive over the last few decades. 'It breaks your heart,' Nicoll said. It's come in over the years, and it will be hard to let go of. 'It's been quite a journey trying to save the history of Park Forest.' Landmarks is a column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at peisenberg@
Chicago Tribune
09-02-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Landmarks: Potential church closure could put Park Forest history at risk
They had to move everything — the old photographs and books, collections of dolls and games, including one celebrating the television show 'Leave it to Beaver,' the furniture, and yes, even the kitchen sink. In fact, the last time the Park Forest 1950s House Museum moved, in 2015, the entire kitchen went along. 'They let us take the kitchen because they wanted it out,' said Jane Nicoll, the museum's director since it was established 26 years ago as part of the village's 50th anniversary. Situated in two of Park Forest's signature rental townhomes just north of the old Park Forest Plaza, the property would soon change hands and the owners 'didn't want to have to get someone to grandfather us in,' Nicoll said. The kitchen, looking much the same as when the rental units were erected in the late 1940s with the exception of a '70s-era countertop, was loaded onto a platform, affixed to a freestanding wall and delivered to an unused classroom at the former St. Mary Catholic School at the southern outskirts of the village. Amid the move, a paint chip flaked off a door. 'We have it on display in a bowl, just to show how they kept painting over,' Nicoll said. 'It's a lot of layers — mostly thick, white layers.' Along with the museum's five decades worth of artifacts came the Park Forest Historical Society's archives. The trove of photographs, documents, papers and oral histories relating to the development and growth of what boosters call America's 'first fully-planned, post-World War II suburb' are housed in a separate room at St. Mary. But that time might be coming to an end and the future of the archive, and especially the museum, is in doubt. The Catholic Church of St. Mary was established along Monee Road as the population of Park Forest surged in the decade following its founding, even though St. Liborius Church was less than five miles east in Steger. Not long after it was built, St. Mary's school expanded along a sprawling hallway. The future was bright. In the decades that followed, the fortunes of Park Forest ebbed and flowed. The celebrated Park Forest Plaza — one of the first suburban shopping malls in America, which had siphoned commerce from former shopping meccas such as downtown Chicago Heights — was one-upped in turn by Matteson's indoor Lincoln Mall. Stores moved away and Park Forest's signature clock tower was demolished. Officials moved forward with a plan to redevelop the plaza into a more traditional downtown business district. St. Mary closed its school in 2011, working instead with St. Liborius to support Mother Teresa Academy in Crete. The partnership between the two churches also includes a shared Mass schedule, among other combined services. Not long after the school closed, the Park Forest Historical Society moved in, renting a former classroom initially for the archive, and later the 1950s Park Forest House Museum after it was booted from its townhome. The new home was more forest than Park Forest, not far from Thorn Creek Nature Preserve and somewhat off the more well-traveled roads. But the classrooms offered room to spread out a bit, as well as an opportunity to recreate scenes not just of the village's early living spaces, but the educational ones as well. One of the museum's signature displays is its annual look back at an elementary school Valentine's Day, complete with vintage decorations and valentine cards straight from the 1950s. It's up now through March 8 at the museum, 227 Monee Road. 'We've had people go through who went to Forest Boulevard School and get a tremendous kick out of it,' Nicoll said. The kitchen, where visitors can rifle through drawers and cabinets filled with Tupperware, aluminum serving dishes and other modern doodads available to postwar home cooks, is a year-round attraction. 'People are fascinated by the kitchen,' she said. 'Older women go through and say, 'I still have that' — they're amazed that it would be in a museum!' It's not just the kitchen gadgets. 'I remember this from my mother's house. I remember this from my grandmother's house. That happens in every room,' Nicoll said. 'It just depends on what catches people's fancy.' The museum dates back 26 years to the villagewide celebration of Park Forest's 50th anniversary, but the historical society's archive goes back even further, to some random historical papers that were at the Park Forest Public Library. Nicoll was still relatively fresh out of library school and had moved to Park Forest in the late 1970s for her first job when she and another librarian decided to organize the library's historical collection into an accessible archive. As time went by, space at the library began to fill up and 'the archive went partly into storage,' she said. 'The library got rid of things, and said 'do you want this? Otherwise we're throwing it out.'' Most often they did want it. Meanwhile, the aging founders and early residents of Park Forest continued to donate documents, artifacts, entire photo collections. There were boxes of VHS tapes and master reels of most of the historical society programs going back decades, and boxes of Park Forest Reporter newspapers chronicling the village's early growth. The collection was split between storage pods controlled by the library and the society, the museum and even Hope Lutheran Church, where Nicoll would have to 'make an appointment to go to the attic to get newspaper articles people wanted.' The space at St. Mary allowed the collection to be reconsolidated and made more available to researchers. That includes materials — oral histories and written documents — about the planned integration of Park Forest in 1959. 'The circumstances surrounding the first integration is one of the most remarkable things about Park Forest — the role that private individuals played in trying to break the color line,' Nicoll said. 'That's one of the most researched things currently. It was a remarkable story of that time, and you hear different facets of that.' Nicoll, who has spent decades cataloging, preserving and showcasing the history of Park Forest, had a chance to gain firsthand insight into that story not too long ago through her work at the museum. 'During COVID a woman called and wanted to bring her uncle in to see the museum because he'd lived in Park Forest in the early days. He was going to be 100,' she said. 'When she brought him in, he said 'Let me tell you how we did the first integration.' He was part of the committee, and I'd never heard his name before.' The chair of the Park Forest Commission on Human Relations in the 1950s, H. Thurber Stowell had worked to peacefully integrate the newish village at a time when racial redlining and ugly confrontations were rampant. And when pioneering Black residents Dr. Charles Z. Wilson and his family moved in on Dec. 24, 1959, Stowell was there to greet them. 'He helped them move in, and he helped them find a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve,' Nicoll said. 'I'm so glad we got to meet him and find out his story. We put him in the Hall of Fame.' The encounter illustrates one of the elements that makes her work, mostly done on a volunteer basis, worthwhile. 'Park Forest has a very special history, and it was recent enough that you can find it. You could be the one who was documenting it,' Nicoll said. 'I was working with the pioneers of the town.' In a video message posted in December updating the Catholic Diocese of Joliet's restructuring plan, Bishop Ron Hicks cited declining Mass attendance, smaller Sunday collections and a shortage of active parish priests in forcing tough decisions. He said the diocese plans to announce decisions in March about the future of 19 parishes in Will, DuPage and Grundy counties, St. Mary and St. Liborius among them. It's the last phase of a wider effort that in late 2023 reduced another set of parishes in the diocese in number from 16 to 7. Nicoll said she was hopeful at the outset of the process, because St. Mary is contained to one floor and is ADA compliant, but based on 'scuttlebutt' she believes 'the church is probably closing.' If that happens, it will be time for some more tough decisions, for Nicoll and her colleagues with the Park Forest Historical Society. 'The archive is the thing we will definitely have to find a place for,' she said. 'We're not as sure we can carry on with the museum if we have to move it.' Even before news of St. Mary's potential closing reached her, Nicoll was having trouble keeping the museum going with dwindling help from aging volunteers and a shoestring budget. 'So what's our future?' she said. 'Do we find a place or don't we? What are we going to do with it if we don't? 'If we have to choose, we have to save the archive. If we can't find a place for it, we have to find if another archive would take it, like a university, but I would rather have some more years of getting it organized before I hand it over.' Nicoll isn't giving up hope for a better outcome. Perhaps St. Mary won't close. Or maybe a move could be a good thing, if they are able to secure a low-cost home in one of the empty downtown storefronts of the former Park Forest Plaza. 'We might help attract more business by being there, even if we couldn't afford to pay the kind of rent that they have asked us in the past to pay when we did look downtown,' she said. 'Something as respected as the historical society being housed in the historic village's downtown is certainly better than an empty storefront.' It's important, Nicoll said, to keep Park Forest's origin stories available to the village's residents. 'Part of the mission is to give people pride in place, let them know how special this place is,' she said. 'They don't get to hear that enough. A lot of people have no idea how special this place is — architecturally and socially, there are books written on it.' And on a personal level, she's put a lot of heart and effort into the museum and archive over the last few decades. 'It breaks your heart,' Nicoll said. It's come in over the years, and it will be hard to let go of. 'It's been quite a journey trying to save the history of Park Forest.'
