Live, breathe HerStory
So often women, especially women from earlier eras, are but a footnote in the annals of history.
On Sunday, nine influential women who helped shape Bartlett over the last 170 years will get a voice, complements of today's leaders.
The Bartlett History Museum will put on a series of dramatic readings, part of the exhibit "HerStory, Meet the Remarkable Women of Early Bartlett."
The program and exhibit are the result of more than a year of research by museum curator Pam Rohleder.
A frequent question among girls visiting the museum helped spur the idea: where are all the women?
There aren't too many in the prominent photographs, such as the one in which men and boys are posing with Bartlett's first piece of fire equipment, a hand pumper.
"I always wanted to do this because so much of history talks about men," Rohleder says. "Men ran the community; they were the business owners. But these women gave a lot to the community in ways that maybe aren't noted in history."
Nine actors will dress in period costume and channel a historical figure.
Village President Catherine Melchert will portray village founder and matriarch Sophia Bartlett, who moved to the area from Massachusetts in the 1840s.
In a 1908 article in Chicago-Inter Ocean magazine, Bartlett is quoted as saying that her husband thought it best to build their log cabin tucked away in the trees, "for there was a number of settlers to whom the Black Hawk War was a fresh recollection."
It's through those now-defunct publications, census records, ancestry Web sites and endless rolls of microfiche that Rohleder sorted for Bartlett's long history. She spent countless hours at the Gail Borden Public Library in Elgin and read newspapers dating back to the mid-19th century, including the Daily Herald.
"This took a long time and an enormous amount of research," Rohleder said, who was helped by community relations coordinator Gabrielle Infusino. "It's like CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) except you're finding out about people's lives."
The nine women lived in very different eras, but each contributed to Bartlett's progress.
One of the women featured is Irene Kelly Schultz, an Irish Catholic school teacher who in the 1920s married a German Protestant -- quite the scandal for the time.
Bartlett didn't have a Catholic parish, so in 1929 Schultz and seven others formed the women's group Beloved Lady of Victory Solidarity.
They worked to establish a parish during an era when an intensifying Ku Klux Klan targeted both blacks and Catholics in the area.
According to one newspaper article, more than 1,000 Klansmen gathered near Bartlett in 1923 and burned a large cross for their naturalization ceremony. The Klan also lit a cross in front of the rectory at St. Mary's in Elgin.
Still, the women focused on propagating the Catholic faith and met in members' homes, where a copy of some minutes showed dues were 10 cents a meeting.
"That had to have been a scary time," Rohleder said.
It took 20 years, but on Sept. 3, 1950, St. Peter Damian Catholic Church opened.
Schultz was also very active in the home-front efforts during World War II. She led the local Red Cross chapter, which made 1,800 sponges that were used as surgical dressings. In addition, she was a charter member of the Bartlett Woman's Club, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.
Says Rohleder: "Look at the difference one woman made. That's why I've always wanted to do this."
If you go
What: "HerStory, Meet the Remarkable Women of Early Bartlett"
Who: Bartlett History Museum
When: 3 p.m. Sunday. The exhibit runs through March 2008
Where: Bartlett History Museum, village hall, 228 S. Main St.
Tickets: Free, but registration is required due to limited seating
Call: (630) 837-0800