The RHS Facebook page is a rich archive of history-related posts by Carol Flynn, RHS Facebook admin and writer until mid-2025. Carol prolifically wrote a wide variety of meticulously researched local history articles for RHS. She continues to write for the Beverly Review and other media sources with articles particularly focused on local Ridge history.
October 2022
The Ridge Historical Society will be open tomorrow, Sunday, Oct. 2, from 1 to 4 p.m. The address is 10621 S. Seeley Ave.
A special thank you to Janice Bruno Griffin of Party Pros, Inc. She's our go-to person for events at RHS, and has been for years. She likely knows that kitchen at the Graver-Driscoll House better than most of the RHS folks.
The current exhibit at RHS is Hetherington Design Dynasty, featuring the three generations of architects in the Hetherington family and the art work of Mildred Lyon Hetherington.
Mildred was known for her portraits, and she did many portraits of local children.
Janice helped at an RHS event last week, and saw the exhibit. It turns out that Janice and her siblings sat for portraits by Mildred, and Janice has agreed to lend those to us for the exhibit.
Here are the portraits of Janice and her brother. Aren't they wonderful?
The Graver Driscoll House will be in Open House Chicago
The next big event for the Ridge Historical Society will be Open House Chicago on Saturday and Sunday, October 15 and 16, 2022, when the Graver-Driscoll House will be open to the public free-of-charge from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day.
Open House Chicago is the “public festival” from the Chicago Architecture Center that offers opportunities to explore architecturally, historically, and culturally significant sites across the city. RHS has participated in this event for several years, and this year is special, as the Graver-Driscoll House celebrates its centennial, and RHS celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Visitors to RHS for Open House Chicago will get the chance to not only visit the historic mansion, but to also see the exhibit in place about the architect who designed it, John Todd Hetherington. The exhibit “Hetherington Design Dynasty” features three generations of that family of architects who called Beverly home and designed many fine buildings here, and the artwork of Mildred Lyon Hetherington, who created portraits and illustrations for children’s publications.
One of the themes of RHS is that “every house has a history,” and the Graver-Driscoll House sure does. This includes the stories of the owners of the house since it was built in 1922. RHS took over the house in 1972, but the first fifty years the house were the stage setting for six different families who owned it.
The next few posts will explore those six families. The stories include a wedding and a fire, and the people include a football legend, an ice cream cone expert, and a wealthy horse breeder.
Stay tuned.
Photo: The Graver-Driscoll House at 10621 S. Seeley Avenue, Chicago, in the 1940s, from the Fenn Family Collection.
Reminder – Open House Chicago is next weekend!
The Ridge Historical Society (RHS) will be open on Saturday and Sunday, October 15 and 16, 2022, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. free-of-charge for Open House Chicago. No reservations are needed.
Visitors will be able to visit the historic Graver-Driscoll House and view the “Hetherington Design Dynasty” exhibit on the Hetherington family of architects and artists.
There will also be a tour of the outside house and grounds which will include the history of the house, the Blue Island Ridge, and the Ridge Historical Society, and information on current restoration efforts. The tour includes a steep driveway and stairs onto terraces and is not fully handicapped accessible.
The tours will be offered every half hour from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (final tour) both days, weather permitting. The tours will begin in the grass courtyard of the 10621 S. Seeley Avenue entrance.
Photo of the Graver-Driscoll House by C. Flynn for the porch concert this summer.
Probably the number one request we get at the Ridge Historical Society (RHS) is for house histories, and one of the themes of RHS is that “every house has a history.” Researching the origins of a home – who designed it, who built it, when, how much did it cost, etc. – is especially interesting to those who own homes in a historic community like Beverly/Morgan Park.
The “Hetherington Design Dynasty” exhibit that is currently on display at RHS through the end of this year profiles the architectural work of three generations of the Hetherington family who lived on the Ridge and designed many fine homes here. Now, as part of the exhibit, an Architectural Lecture Series has been scheduled for Friday evenings in November.
The first program, scheduled for November 4th at 7:00 p.m., will be “Discover the History of Your Chicago House.” Tim Blackburn will be the presenter, and attendees will learn how to research the histories of their pre-1955 homes within the city, including the architecture, construction, inhabitants, and owners. The research methods and information covered will include building permits, local history, Chicago streets’ renumbering, Sanborn maps, and more.
Tim Blackburn is a member of the RHS Historic Buildings Committee. He assists members of the community with research on their homes and local history questions. He has completed extensive research on his Hetherington designed home, and is a major contributor to RHS’s current exhibit, “Hetherington Design Dynasty.”
Tim works in technology as a Vice President for a global marketing and data company. He is a Chicago Marathon runner, which provides him the opportunity to study the architecture of the Ridge during his long training runs. On Sunday, he completed his eleventh Chicago Marathon. This shows he has the determination and follow-through to tackle the most complicated history requests at RHS!!
Two other programs are planned for the series and will be covered in detail in the next posts.
On Friday, November 11, Photographer Mati Maldre will present, “Photographing Architecture and a View Camera Demonstration.”
On Friday, November 18, Michael Lambert, Architect, Historian, and Preservationist, will present “John Todd Hetherington: From Lake Forest to Geneva.”
RHS is located at 10621 S. Seeley Avenue. The cost per program is $10/members, $15/non-members. A reception will follow each lecture. Information about reservations will be posted in the next few days, and reservations are recommended.
These images of the Graver-Driscoll House, RHS Headquarters, were taken by Mati Maldre. He will share his expertise on photographing architecture as part of the Friday Evening Hetherington Architectural Lecture Series in November.
The Ridge Historical Society is open right now! Tuesday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m., free of charge, at 10621 S. Seeley Ave.
Our next event is this week-end, October 15 and 16. We'll be part of Open House Chicago and open both days from 10 am to 5 pm. Visitors will be able to view the current exhibit, Hetherington Design Dynasty, and get an outside tour of the grounds and house.
This week's Beverly Review has an article on the Graver-Driscoll House, owned by RHS and used as our headquarters.
https://www.beverlyreview.net/news/community_news/article_f73c9bc0-497d-11ed-9663-4f8ff3e3a1b9.html
The Ridge Historical Society
Friday Evening Hetherington Architectural Lecture Series
The second program that will be part of the RHS Friday Evening Hetherington Architectural Lecture Series will be held on Friday, November 11, at 7:00 pm. Featured will be Mati Maldre presenting “Photographing Architecture and a View Camera Demonstration.”
Mati is the chair of the RHS Historic Buildings Committee. He is an Emeritus Professor of Art/Photography at Chicago State University. His photographs have been widely published, collected, and exhibited in significant organizations such as The Art Institute of Chicago and The International Venice Architecture Biennial. He is the co-author and photographer for Walter Burley Griffin in America and The Chicago Bungalow, and his photographs are featured in the publication The Griffins in Australia and India.
Mati owns a historic home in Beverly designed by another famous architect, Walter Burley Griffin. He currently has an online exhibit on Griffin’s architecture at https://www.griffinsociety.org/mati-maldre-exhibition/?fbclid=IwAR0Js0mCsipfSweu-_EKpto2iHsrzesjNovEgXh2qchqhV9YCxMgHEUNkSo
Mati’s statement for the RHS program reads: “In my architectural photographic documentation, I strive to blend fundamental documentation and the interpretive expression that reveals new appreciation and understanding of our man-made environment. I attempt to couple a firm respect for the subject’s integrity and the architect’s intent with a desire to produce an accurate photographic image with my Deardorff 4×5/5×7 view camera. My photos, like the buildings they represent, are both art and science, both personal and practical.”
The RHS Friday evening programs in November are part of the Hetherington Design Dynasty exhibit currently being shown at RHS. The exhibit features three generations of architects from the Hetherington family who called Beverly home and designed upwards of one hundred buildings in the community. The exhibit will run through the end of the year. Mati’s photographs of some of the buildings the Hetheringtons designed cover one wall of the exhibit.
The other two programs in the series are:
Friday, November 4, 7:00 p.m., Tim Blackburn, Researcher, “Discover the History of Your Chicago House”
Friday, November 18, 7:00 p.mm, Michael Lambert, Architect, Historian, & Preservationist, “John Todd Hetherington: From Lake Forest to Geneva”
Information on these programs is highlighted in other posts.
The programs will be at RHS in the historic Graver-Driscoll House, located at 10621 S. Seeley Avenue, Chicago. The cost is $10/members, and $15/non-members for each lecture. A reception will follow each lecture.
For now, save the date. The link to register for the program on Eventbrite will be posted in coming days. Reservations are recommended.
The Ridge Historical Society will be open this Saturday and Sunday, October 15 and 16, as part of Open House Chicago. The address is 10621 S. Seeley Avenue, and the hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.
An RHS theme is that "every house has a history." Today begins the series on the history of the Graver-Driscoll House, RHS headquarters.
The Ridge Historical Society
The History of the Graver-Driscoll House – Part 1: Purchase of the land and its location
By Carol Flynn, research contributors Linda Lamberty, RHS Historian, and Tim Blackburn
The story of the Graver-Driscoll House began on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1921, the day that Herbert Spencer Graver, 40 years old, and his wife, Anna Thorne Graver, 36, purchased the property at 10616 S. Longwood Drive from Ashleigh C. Halliwell.
The land, located in the William Baker Subdivision, was 100 by 269 feet in size and cost $8,500. Baker was an early owner/developer of the land, which was first put up for public domain sale by the U.S. government in 1834.
Halliwell and his wife, Alice, lived next door to the south at 10628 S. Longwood (originally called Washington) where their large white house, Woodmont, built in 1896, still stands. Halliwell was the president of the Halliwell and Baum Company which produced the Chicago Live Stock World daily newspaper.
Graver’s newly acquired property was located on the eastern side of the Blue Island Ridge. The Blue Island was a moraine, a tall pile of land, or ridge, that formed when a sheet of ice called a glacier pushed along debris (boulders, clay, dirt, sand, and gravel) as the glacier extended into the area from the north during the last ice age about 25,000 years ago.
Later, as the climate warmed, the glacier melted, creating a vast lake that covered much of the Chicago area. Geologists call this prehistoric body of water Lake Chicago. The small moraine, separated from other moraines, rose above the surface of Lake Chicago as an island.
Lake Chicago drained off in stages to create present-day Lake Michigan. At one time, the western shoreline of the lake stopped at Vincennes Avenue on the eastern side of the Blue Island moraine. For thousands of years, waves lapped against that side of the island, eroding the land into a steep bluff. Today, Longwood Drive runs along the base of that bluff.
Eventually, after the water drained off to the east, this isolated moraine rose above the prairie as the highest elevation of land in the Chicago area. The highest spot, historically at 92nd Street and Western Avenue, was almost 100 feet higher than ground level in “downtown” Chicago.
This land mass was visible to the soldiers and others at Fort Dearborn established in 1803 and rebuilt in 1816 by the U.S. government at the mouth of the Chicago River about twelve miles to the northeast. They are attributed with naming the land mass “Blue Island” in the 1820s.
A letter dated February 4, 1834, was printed in one of the newspapers of the day, the Chicago Democrat, explaining how the name originated.
The letter stated: “Nearly south from this town, and twelve miles distant is Blue Island, situated in the midst of an ocean of prairie. The name is peculiarly appropriate. It is a table of land about six miles in length, of an oval form, rising suddenly some 30-40 feet high out of an immense plain that surrounds it on every side. The sides and slopes of the table as well as the table itself is covered with a handsome growth of timber forming a belt surrounding about 4,000 to 5,000 acres of prairie, except a small opening in the south. It is uninhabited and when we visited it we pronounced it a vast vegetable solitude. Blue Island, when viewed from a distance appears an azure mist of vapor, hence… ‘Blue Island.’”
The Gravers turned to architect John Todd Hetherington to design a house for this dramatic location.
The next posts will cover Hetherington and the house, and the history of the Gravers.
Picture: The Graver-Driscoll House is built into the dramatic setting of the steep bluff of the Blue Island Ridge on Longwood Drive.
The Ridge Historical Society
Announcement for Upcoming Programs
As part of the Hetherington Design Dynasty Exhibit, a series of in-person programs will be offered at RHS, located at 10621 S. Seeley Avenue in Chicago.
Friday Evening Hetherington
Architectural Lecture Series
$10/members, $15/non-members for each lecture
Reservations are recommended
A reception will follow each lecture.
Friday, November 4, 7:00 pm
Tim Blackburn, Researcher, “Discover the History of Your Chicago House”
You will learn how to research the history of your Chicago home, including the architecture, construction, inhabitants, and owners. You’ll develop research methods that will help you gain a new understanding and appreciation for your home’s history. The research methods covered will be useful for anyone researching a building older than 1955 in Chicago. You’ll learn about building permits, local history, Chicago street renumbering, Sanborn maps, and more.
Friday, November 11, 7:00 pm
Mati Maldre, Photographer, “Photographing Architecture and a View Camera Demonstration”
In my architectural photographic documentation, I strive to blend fundamental documentation and the interpretive expression that reveals new appreciation and understanding of our man-made environment. I attempt to couple a firm respect for the subject’s integrity and the architect’s intent with a desire to produce an accurate photographic image with my Deardorff 4×5/5×7 view camera. My photos, like the buildings they represent, are both art and science, both personal and practical.
Friday, November 18, 7:00 pm
Michael Lambert, Architect, Historian, & Preservationist, “John Todd Hetherington: From Lake Forest to Geneva”
With a career long-overlooked, John Todd Hetherington was, at the close of the 19th century, the architect to some of Chicago’s most prominent residents. Hetherington, along with other leading residential and landscape architects of his era, designed some of the first, estate homes in Lake Forest, Illinois. At the dawn of the 20th century (and on the heels of Colonel George Fabyan), longtime friends E. F. Dorton and T. S. Fauntleroy moved from the North Shore to the banks of the Fox River and commissioned Hetherington to design three homes that initiated the transformation of Geneva’s Batavia Road neighborhood.
Register through Eventbrite at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hetherington-architectural-lecture-series-tickets-443264575277
For any questions, contact RHS at ridgehistory@hotmail.com or 773/881-1675.
Halloween on the Ridge – Part 1
A 19th Ward friend recently posted pictures of people in hand-made, grotesque Halloween costumes, the kind they wore in the early 1900s. This led to questions about how Halloween was celebrated back then, and I promised to share some history on the topic.
I rarely write in the first-person narrative style, but this story started with a personal discovery. Seven years ago, I was researching for a historical topic to write about for Halloween. As I looked through the Morgan Park Post newspapers from the early 1900s, I found the usual entries about school groups having parties and the like, but nothing was catching my fancy.
Then I found this announcement in the November 6, 1915, Post: “Mr. and Mrs. Thos. Cummings entertained at a Hallowe’en party last Saturday evening at their home on Homewood Ave.“
My “A-ha!” moment had arrived. Thomas and Johanna Cummings were my great grandparents. They lived on Homewood Avenue just north of the 111th Street train station, but their house was demolished in the 1960s for one of the “modern” apartments now there.
So great-grandpa and great-grandma had a Halloween party more than one hundred years ago. That got me to wondering – what would Halloween have been like back then? Who was invited? (Surely my grandparents were there, they had lived in a cottage on 108th Street and Longwood Drive, although my mother wouldn’t be born for a few more years.) What did they serve for refreshments? What was the entertainment?
I started looking into this, and wrote an article for the Beverly Area Planning Association’s Villager newspaper, so some of this appeared in print before.
Halloween was an Irish invention, going back thousands of years, to pagan harvest festivals in Ireland and other Celtic lands. Believing that supernatural beings and ghosts could more easily cross over into the physical world at this time of year, people dressed like demons to escape notice by real demons, and left gifts of food for the fairies in the hope the fairies would not play tricks on them. They placed gourds and turnips carved with grotesque faces, and lit from inside with candles, on windowsills to scare away harmful spirits.
These pagan practices became intertwined with the concepts of Christianity when the Feast of All Souls and the Feast of All Saints were established. The millions of Irish immigrating to the U.S. in the 1800s, including my ancestors, brought a mixture of the old and the new ideas with them.
The British Protestants who were the predominate population of the U.S., and the Ridge up to the 1950s or so, did not celebrate Halloween. In fact, in Victorian England, the time of year for ghost stories was Christmastime, hence the most famous fictional ghost story of all time, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, first published in 1843.
The U.S. citizenry adopted the customs brought over by their new Irish American neighbors, and as usual, adapted them in unique “American” ways.
Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones in the U.S. by the beginning of the 20th century. By 1915, parties were the most common way to celebrate, and usually included decorations, costumes, games, and refreshments.
Next post: U.S. Halloween customs by 1915.
The Ridge Historical society will be open today from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., free admission, address is 10621 S. Seeley Avenue.
The current exhibit is Hetherington Design Dynasty, featuring the work of architect John Todd Hetherington and his descendants. Also featured is the artwork of Mildred Lyon Hetherington, who married John Todd's son Murrary. Mildred was known for her portraits and illustrations of children's publications.