Batavia historian remembered for love of teaching

Marilyn Robinson loved learning and teaching the history of Batavia.

Whether it was helping third-graders with their annual local history study, or looking up information on a long-lost relative for a person filling out a family tree, she gladly helped, taking pride in providing accurate information.

Robinson, the historian of the Batavia Historical Society, died Tuesday evening at her home. She was in her 70s.

She moved from El Paso, Ill., to Batavia in the 1960s to teach business skills at Batavia High School. It was there she met the future co-author of a Batavia history book, as she taught "Notehand" note-taking skills to junior Jeff Schielke.

The next year, she supervised the yearbook staff, and emphasized the importance of making sure everything in it was accurate, Schielke, now Batavia's mayor, said. She told the staff that 100 years from then some person may use the yearbook to learn information about an ancestor, and that the teens' work should be able "to withstand the test of history and time."

In 1997, she and Schielke updated "John Gustafson's Historic Batavia." They expanded on some events, such as Sen. John F. Kennedy's visit to Batavia in 1960, and downplayed claims from earlier history books that couldn't be proven, such as a story that Abraham Lincoln had visited Batavia.

Besides being a stickler for accuracy, she also thought it important that children appreciate history.

"She really had a definite view of history - make it interesting and attractive for young people to read," Schielke said.

So she wrote "Little Town In a Big Woods" at a third-grade reading level. The Depot Museum has a permanent exhibit based on that book.

She also wrote "The Sidewalks of Elburn," commissioned by the Elburn village board and published in 2005. James Willey, the mayor of Elburn at the time, grew up in Batavia.

"Her love was research," said Carla Hill, director of the Depot Museum. Robinson volunteered many hours in its research center. "And she really loved working with the third-grade kids. She was just great."

In a 2003 Daily Herald story, Robinson explained why genealogy had come to fascinate her. "I was the only one left (of her family) and I wanted to know where I came from. It seems like many people like me become interested in genealogy after the older generation is gone."

The Batavia Chamber of Commerce named her its 1995 Citizen of the Year.

Funeral arrangements are pending.