Schaumburg loses connection to original Volkening Farm

One of the last volunteers at Schaumburg’s Volkening Heritage Farm to have actually lived on the land has passed away.

Mary Lou Reynolds was 10 years old when her family moved to Schaumburg during the Great Depression. Though the Links were not farmers, they found work controlling thistles on the 160-acre farm, then owned by the Boeger family.

They were invited to live in one of the side houses on the farm, built in 1904 for Herman Boeger after he retired from farming. The house now serves as the visitor center at the Volkening Heritage Farm, which is an extension of the Spring Valley Nature Center, where thousands of families pass through to learn more about programs available at the site.

Reynolds never left Schaumburg. She and the rest of her family became immersed in the rural community and contributed to its development, officials say.

She died Aug. 22, at the age of 88.

“Mary Lou’s family was as rooted in the landscape of this community as anyone,” says Dave Brooks, manager of the Spring Valley Nature Center and Heritage Farm.

Reynolds’ father was Adolph Link, who worked as an artist in Maywood when the family moved. When the Depression hit, he lost his job and home, family members say, leading them to find work out in the country.

The farmhouse they moved to was built over a spring, and its main water source was a running spring in its basement.

It also was fairly isolated. Reynolds liked to tell of standing at the top of the stairs in the home when she was a teenager, looking north out the window. If she saw headlights, she knew it was her date, Brooks added, because no one else would be driving along Schaumburg Road on a Saturday night back then.#147;They were lucky to have a roof over their heads and their work in the fields, but it wasn#146;t enough to make a living,#148; said her son Dennis Reynolds of Glen Ellyn. #147;They were allowed to have a certain amount of land to farm of their own, and my mom always talked about how every spring, they would try and grow tomatoes to sell, only to have them killed by frost.#148;By 1955, when Schaumburg opened its first four-room public school, Adolph Link began teaching art to its students. He eventually added more schools, and in 1973 the Adolph Link Elementary School in Elk Grove Village was named for him.After living in the Boeger farmhouse for seven years, Reynolds#146; parents built their own home along Plum Grove Road, just south of Schaumburg Road. Reynolds and her brother, Bob Link, also built homes on either side of their parents, on property that now is part of Spring Valley Nature Center. Reynolds, her brother and their children all contributed to programming developed at the Heritage Farm.#147;My mother loved to dress up in the pioneer clothes and meet people at the farm,#148; her son added. #147;She always had personal stories to share.#148; Reynolds was preceded in death by her husband, William, and son Robert. Besides her son Dennis, she is survived by another son, Michael (Patricia), and daughters Kathleen and Susan.A memorial service will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Spring Valley Nature Center#146;s main building, at 1111 E. Schaumburg Road.