Longtime farmer had respect for natural prairies
In the coming weeks 330 acres of the Nachusa Grassland Preserve in western Illinois, known as the Edith and Anna Heinkel Unit, will be in full bloom with native prairie grasses and flowers.
Beyond the familiar coneflowers, the preserve features purple spider wart flowers, porcupine grass and bird's foot violets, a perennial flowering herb that is an important food source for the rare regal fritillary butterflies.
Volunteers with the Nature Conservancy monitor the prairie, recording its plants and animals, but they remain ever mindful of the former McHenry County farmer who made the donation in the first place: Clarence B. Heinkel.
Mr. Heinkel passed away Friday, after spending nearly all of his life in farming. He was 94.
Bill Kleiman, preserve manager at Nachusa Grassland Preserve in Franklin Grove, IL, between Oregon and Dixon, said Mr. Heinkel's donation came in 1992 - six years after the Conservancy purchased its first 250 acres - after he had sold his farm in Woodstock.
Mr. Heinkel asked that his donation be used to purchase more of the preserve, which at the time brought the total preserve up to 900 acres. It now stretches 3,000 acres.
"His contribution made up one third of the preserve, so at the time it was a very big deal," Kleiman says. "It was an important part of the preserve, with rolling burr oak woodlands, wetlands and cornfields."
Volunteers replanted the cornfields with native grasses and flowers in order to restore the acreage to its original state. Mr. Heinkel asked that the parcel be named after his wife, Edith, and his mother, Anna.
"(Mr. Heinkel) loved the rural landscape, and he remembered some of the prairies from his own childhood," Kleiman added.
Mr. Heinkel returned to the Nachusa Preserve every summer to view the continued restoration.
"We'd travel in an all-terrain vehicle, spending the day looking at the different flowers and birds," Kleiman recalls. "It was always a fun day, but in the last few years, he came less and less."
Mr. Heinkel grew up in Chicago as the son of a bricklayer, but as a young adult he and his sister Gertrude moved to Iowa to run a turkey farm. When a natural disaster destroyed the farm, Mr. Heinkel moved back to Illinois and farmed land in Woodstock.
In 1956, the 46-year old bachelor married Edith Linneman, a widow with two grown children, whom he met through the Illinois Farm Bureau.
For a time, they farmed a portion of her father Henry Linneman's L & H Farm, on the northwest corner of Algonquin Road and Route 83 in Mount Prospect, before moving to 120 acres in Sleepy Hollow at I-90 and Randall Road.
Much of that farm has been sold off, but two of their grandsons, Randy Gaitsch of West Dundee and Gerald Gaitsch of Huntley, continue to farm land on Huntley Road, as well as run a large vegetable and fruit stand on Randall Road.
Mr. Heinkel was preceded in death in 2004 by Edith. Besides his two grandsons, he is survived by his two stepchildren, Betty (Marvin) Gaitsch of Hampshire and Ed (Mary Lou) Linneman of Escondido, Calif., two other grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
A celebration of Mr. Heinkel's life will be held at 11:30 a.m. June 28 at Jimmy's Charhouse, 2290 Point Blvd. in Elgin.