Joseph Naper's descendents see Naperville for first time

When two of Joseph Naper's descendants visited Naperville for the first time on Friday, they learned just how distantly they're related to the man who founded the city.

Paula Naper Almasy and her daughter, Heather Jackson, came into town thinking they were Naper's great-great granddaughter and great-great-great granddaughter, but it turns out they skipped a generation.

A Naper family tree created by the Fox Valley Genealogical Society pointed out the error as Almasy and Jackson toured the Naper Settlement historical museum to learn about their family's past.

"For 10 years I've been saying I'm going to work on my family tree ... but I'd rather quilt," said Almasy, who is actually Naper's great-great-great granddaughter. "I have a few pages of what seems to be not all the way true."

Almasy and Jackson also had information on their own siblings, children and grandchildren to add to the Naper family tree, but they stopped at the Settlement primarily to learn, not to teach.

A business trip of Jackson's gave a reason for the pair to travel to Chicago from their homes in Colorado. Despite the duo's connection to Naperville's founder, neither had seen the city.

"We've never been here before," said Jackson, who learned she is Naper's great-great-great-great granddaughter.

"We just knew there was a Naperville and we founded it somewhere along the line," Almasy said.

Bryan Ogg, curator of research at the Naper Settlement, pulled out the only known photo of the women's distant grandfather, a style of picture called a daguerreotype likely from 1857, when Naperville was incorporated as a village and the town founder became its president.

Ogg showed Almasy and Jackson shards of teacups, medicine bottles and fine china recovered from archaeological digs at the site of the Naper's first home. He even displayed an original map of the village.

The Naper descendants soaked it all in.

"If you don't talk about your forefathers, you don't know them, and I feel remiss because I didn't know a lot about them," Almasy said. "It's going to make me an advocate so my grandkids know where they came from."

Almasy and Jackson also took a walking tour of the museum's grounds, stopping inside the blacksmith shop amid one of 17 school groups that were touring the site and posing for a photo inside a replica of a covered wagon.

But the settlement and its history wasn't the first image the visitors got of the city. A picturesque Thursday night along the Riverwalk formed the women's first impression and both said they were amazed at the quality of life in the city their relative founded.

Eating pizza along the Riverwalk, Jackson said they saw people taking evening strolls. Nice shops. Everyone smiling. No trash.

"It actually seemed like Pleasantville to me," Jackson said.

"Maybe this is where we should plan our family reunion," Almasy said.

Naper's descendants also got to meet current and recent city leaders, having lunch with Mayor Steve Chirico and former Mayor George Pradel. They left with a greater understanding for their grandfather - three or four times removed - and his entrepreneurial, pioneering spirit.

"I think it's awesome because you get to see where you came from," Jackson said.