Mount Prospect Lions Club, founded during the Depression, flourishes today

One of Mount Prospect's oldest civic clubs is still one of its most active. The Mount Prospect Lions Club was founded in 1934 by 31 local men and 83 years later, it boasts a roster of 78 men and women, making it one of the largest Lions Clubs in the region.

George L. Busse, a local Realtor and one of the club's charter members, recalled in a 1989 Daily Herald article, "The Des Plaines Lions Club had a lot to do with our formation. The business people there had been encouraging us fellows here to form a Lions Club, too. So in 1934 we finally got together and did it."

The original officers and directors included Dr. A.L. Beck, a medical doctor; William Busse Jr., president of Mount Prospect State Bank; Fred Meeske, grocer; Edwin L. Busse, grocer; L.E. Hodges, postmaster; Otto Landeck, dry goods store owner; Frank Biermann, fire chief and hardware store owner; Rudy Kruse, owner of a newspaper delivery service; Herman Meyn, owner of the local farm implement business; Willard Beer, attorney; and Albert Wille, owner of a lumber and coal business.

When the club celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1959, the keynote speaker from Lions International quipped that there were so many Busses on the club's original rolls - seven - that there was some discussion as to whether the club should be called the "Busse Lions Club" or the "Mount Prospect Lions Club."

At the time of the club's founding, the country was suffering through the Depression.

"It was terrible in those days," Biermann recalled in the 1989 article. "A man would do an entire day's work in the fields for a dollar and even have to bring his own sandwich for lunch. And no one had any money to pay their bills. It was hard for me to keep my hardware business going."

So when things began to improve a bit, the group of friends and relatives in Mount Prospect decided to form a civic club. Lions International had been formed in Chicago in 1917, so it was a natural choice.

"Mount Prospect was just like a big family back then," Biermann was quoted as saying. "It was a very social town. Everyone was friendly and no one walked around with a chip on his shoulder. It was the sweetest hamlet on earth."

The Lions met in the basement of the post office which was then located on Main Street in the Busse building, which burned a few years ago. Biermann recalled frying hamburgers on little gas plates during meetings.

One of the first projects the fledgling club took on was to sponsor a one-day fall festival at which farmers brought in produce for judging, food was sold and there were carnival games. The festival continued for seven years before it got too big and was discontinued.

During World War II, the Lions Club purchased Defense Bonds to help finance the war effort. Members provided refreshments and cigarettes to local draftees and escorted them to the train. They sent 155 servicemen cash Christmas gifts and a mailed subscription to the local newspaper, Busse and Biermann recalled.

After the war ended, the Lions wanted to memorialize those lost in the war. They formed a committee and ended up purchasing land for Lions Memorial Park and donating it to the village. They paid $16,673 in 1947 for 16 acres of Fred Schaefer's farm and George L. Busse and Co. provided the financing with the club paying it off little by little from the proceeds from their festival, which they reinstituted in 1946.

Over the years that followed, they built a shelter at the park (for $11,500) and added landscaping and lighting (for $5,500). The park eventually became the nucleus for the new Mount Prospect Park District and was the site of the Lions Annual Village Fair until 1980 when the fair's growth forced a move to Melas Park.

The charitable work and monetary donations to Mount Prospect causes multiplied over the ensuing years. In 1956, the club blacktopped the railroad parking lot and installed parking meters. In 1964, it purchased a community events sign and placed it under the water tower. It later built baseball dugouts and paid for a weightlifting system at Prospect High School.

Thanks to money raised during the annual Fourth of July Fair, through the weekly farmers market (which the Lions took over in 1998), through the annual Corned Beef and Cabbage Dinner and other efforts, the Lions have more recently provided annual funding for the Mount Prospect Food Pantry; purchased bicycles for the Police Department; helped to restore the 1896 Central School; and contributed to efforts to help the blind and the sight-impaired, including providing exams, glasses and hearing aids to any Mount Prospect student or senior referred to them.

They also offer annual scholarships to graduating high school seniors from area schools.