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Community Corner

Tuesdays with Palos Park's Historical Heirs

For decades members of the Palos Historical Society have preserved local history through documents, paintings and photographs, none of which are stored on computers.

All told they represent more than 245 years of living Palos Park history, with a knowledge of local characters and events that reaches back perhaps twice as far.

Although membership of the spans towns and even several states, a core of officials and volunteers gather most Tuesday mornings in the back of the to answer any questions the public may have and test one another's historical finesse in the process.

President John Rogers has been living in Palos Park since Christmas day, 1960, after having spent weekends here as a boy. His wife Maria, historical society curator, came to the village in 1969.

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Rogers got his start with the society in the early 1960s, taking the reins from Donald Bond, a retired University of Chicago professor of history, and other founding members. He has remained president for many of those 50 years, resigning at one point during the construction of the society’s addition to the library—to avoid any conflict of interest—which he helped finance.

For 33 years, the society’s archives were held at the Rogers’ home, Maria Rogers said. “It was much younger at that time, and it was energetic and (there) was enthusiasm about the history of Palos.”

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Then and now, she added, “We get calls for information and we try to help people and do research whenever I can. If I can I’ll mail it out.”

The challenge in today’s hyper-attentive age is fostering historical inquiry without the aid of computers. The society doesn’t store documents electronically, and young people “don’t go around getting oral histories,” said Annette Friedman, a volunteer and self-proclaimed “interloper.” She and her family escaped Nazi Berlin in 1940.

As a girl, Friedman spent summers at , where she met Sally Twigg, a local arts enthusiast responsible for bringing several famous artists to Palos Park in its rural heyday. The Friedman family built their home here in 1949.

But no one in the village has seen more than Historical Society Vice President Bob DeNovo, who just and shows no signs of losing his humorous spirit. He said he lives in the same house where he was born in 1921.

Three things are most important in life, he advised: “One of them is memory—and I forget the other two.”

Twice that morning he would tell that joke. Both times he received warm laughter from amongst his fellow living historians.

Questions about the historical society can be directed at Maria and John Rogers by calling 708-448-1410 or visiting the Palos Park Public Library on Tuesday mornings.

Palos Patch recently completes a two part series on Palos Park's history as an artist's haven with help from the historical sociery. Read and . 

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