Franzosenbusch Heritage Project                     Home

What's New?

12/18/2006

Added newspaper article Elect G. N. Britten Westchester President, LaGrange Citizen, Apr 21 1927 to the Early Residents and Settlers -- A to D page under Britten.

Added Clarence A. Covelle to the Early Residents and Settlers -- A to D page.

Added for Louisa Haase to the Early Residents and Settlers -- E to H page.

Added Emma Wesemann (Emma Rathe) to Early Residents and Settlers -- O to S and Early Residents and Settlers -- T to Z pages.

Added obituary for Henry Zuttermeister, LaGrange Citizen, January 1921 to the Early Residents and Settlers -- T to Z page.

Added old newspaper articles:

to the Early History of La Grange Park, Development Efforts in Westchester and Western Springs pages.

12/16/2006

Added newspaper articles:

to the Development Efforts in Westchester page.

Added newspaper article Elect G. N. Britten Westchester President, LaGrange Citizen, Apr 21 1927 to the Early Village History page.

Added newspaper article Concede Broadview Clerk Fire Victim, LaGrange Citizen, Feb 27 1930 to the Village of Broadview page.

Added newspaper article Indifference Loses Maywood Aerial Mail to Checkerboard Field page.

12/04/2006

Added Weiss Family Tree page to the Early Residents and Settlers -- T to Z page.

Added Louis Seegers, Early Settlers of LaGrange Illinois and Vicinity and Schultz Family entries to the Early Residents and Settlers -- O to S page.

Added Martha Meine to the Early Residents and Settlers -- I to N page.

Added Christoph Batterman obituary to the Batterman Family page.

Added Dieke Family to Dieke, Heinrich and Wilhelmina page.

Added Brainard Family to Early Residents and Settlers -- A to D page.

12/02/2006

Added photos of the Degener home in Hanover, German.  It still exists today.  This was the home of Heinrich Wilhelm Degener and his wife, Degener before than moved to America.

Added Batterman Family to Early Residents and Settlers -- A to D page.

11/15/2006

Added photos and comments to the Recent Events At The House And Related News page.

11/13/2006

Added photographs to the Torode's Woods Page (York Woods Preserve).  These woods are part of the former Torode homsetead.  Mr. Torode was the Frenchmen from which the Franzosenbusch (French's Woods) area got its name.

11/12/2006

Added a link to the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia website to the Links page.

Corrected some broken links on the Recent Events At The House And Related News page.

10/30/2006

Numerous housekeeping activities have kept us busy over the last few weeks.  One historically significant event occurred in that time.  The old Boeger house was demolished.  Please check the Boeger entry for photographs of the main demolition process on October 25, 2006.

I also advance the calendar to November after adding the Wasik event on November 12.

08/23/2006

Add to the Links Page URL's for First Michigan Engineers and Taylor's Battery.  These website are for two of Civil War re-enactment groups.  They were recently at a Hillside event and were well worth seeing.

08/17 through 08/21/2006

Still adding photographs with exhibitor information to the Recent Events At The House And Related News page.

08/13/2006

Photos from The Arts of the Prairie event have been added to the Recent Events At The House And Related News page.

07/12-7/13/2006

Added newspapers articles to site:

Added material to the Wilfred Yackey entry.

Added the following newspaper articles to the Early Village History and Memories Early Village History by Charles N. Field pages:

06/10/2006

Added photos from the June 26, 1915 grand opening of Speedway Racetrack in Broadview.

06/01 thru 06/05/2006

Added a photo to the Altenheim Cemetery page.

Added Westchester Chapel entry to the Churches in Westchester page.

Added Chicago Sunday Tribune, Jan 23, 1949, Village Code Allows Only Happy Home to the Westchester History page.

Added New Plan On Maywood Westchester Elevated (June 1939) to the Westchester History and Maywood Introduction pages.

Added Western Springs Times_Dec 17 1915 (Mrs. Edgar Williams) to the Western Springs Introduction and the Early Residents and Settlers -- T to Z pages.

05/26 through 05/30/2006

The Community Calendar of Events page was updated for June.

A painting of the 1930s and a earlier photograph of the Heidorn Homestead was added and a link from the main Heidorn page.

Added the architect's name, Paul Olsen, as the designer of the Zelosky real estate office -- which became Westchester's Village Hall in 1939.  See Early Village History.

Added a link to pictures of Recent Events At The House And Related News to the Community Calendar of Events page..

05/01/2006

The Important Events pages updated and miscellaneous updates and correction.

03/19/2006

Broadview Begins $500,000 Program and Term For Huszar Cheers Motor Club, LaGrange Citizen, Apl 21 1927 articles added to the Village of Broadview page.

Begin Work For New Bridge_LaGrange Citizen_1921 and New Bridge Is Completed--Pavement on North Fifth Avenue, LaGrange Citizen, Sep 8 1922 articles added to the Early History of La Grange Park page.

The Broadview Once Called Oklahoma page was added to the Village of Broadview page.

Westchester News, Homeowners Association, March 1950 page added to pages for:

02/26/2006

Several entries are moved from the "Work-In-Progress" status and linked to related pages include:

02/05/2006

Added Wolf Road Prairie Preserve -- Prairie and Savanna Plants to the Wolf Road Prairie State Nature Preserve page.

Added Native Americans Roamed Maywood to the Maywood page.

02/01/2006

Added various items including Checkerboard field items to the Geo-graphical Interface.

01/16/2006

A site search engine has been added.  If you use a pop-up blocker, it may block the site search.

The Zachary Taylor entries have been expanded.

12/31/2005

The Community Calendar of Events was updated for 2006 activities by the Franzosenbusch Heritage Society and the Save the Prairie Society.

10/14/2005

Added our new Geo-graphical Interface for Proviso Township.  Please take some time to review this new feature.  It is still a work in progress.  New links to existing and new material will be added over time.

09/20/2005

Updated Schroeder Family Tree and Schultz Family entries..

08/01/2005

Updated Community Calendar of Events.

A glimpse of area travel after the Second World War.  This map was originally prepared in 1947 to show friends of a LaGrange family how to travel from downtown Chicago.  See Directions to LaGrange in 1947.

Until the 1950's Westchester did not have a full-time fire department of its own.  See Westchester Fire Department 1955.

04/08/2005

We continue with the posting of more articles from "Village of Westchester -- 1925-1975 -- Golden Jubilee":

03/26/2005

Thanks to contributions from Westchester residents we are assembling many articles from "Village of Westchester -- 1925-1975 -- Golden Jubilee".  The first pages of this book can be found at:

More pages will be added in April.

02/15/2005

Added link on "sidebar" to Early Residents and Settlers.

Selected newspaper articles pertaining to the Westchester fire department, circa mid-1970s:

02/07/2005

Corrected the link to Midwest SOARRING's new website on several pages.

01/17-20/2005

Updated Community Calendar of Events with events for February and March.

Click HERE for older updates.

Last Modified:  06/28/2007