Young faces abound at Elgin cemetery walk

There were lots of young faces during Elgin's 21st annual walk through Bluff City Cemetery, an event organizers say has traditionally attracted the young at heart.

Targeting the youth this year was a concerted effort, said Bill Briska, treasurer of the Elgin Area Historical Society and Museum, which puts on the annual walk.

This year, the Elgin Heritage Commission, one of the event's sponsors, gave 100 tickets to area high schools in an effort to attract young people, Briska said.

Those efforts worked. That's because many students who didn't receive tickets attended the walk anyway as part of a school assignment.

Kevin Stearns and his friend Adele Kuforiji, sophomores at Elgin High School, went on the walk to get extra credit for their AP U.S. History class.

They were required to write biographies about each of the seven people represented on the walk. They learned about them from the local actors and historians who brought notable Elginites, some of whom are buried at Bluff City Cemetery, to life.

The actors talked about their subjects' lives in the first-person and portrayed them in the clothes they would have worn back then.

Kuforiji, who had never been on the walk before, said the live history lesson sure beats sitting in a classroom.

"The emotion that the characters use in playing their parts is pretty cool," she said.

Along the way, walkers encountered, among others:

• Philip Freiler, who ran a local saloon in the 1800s and fought to keep prohibition from spreading in Elgin. He was played by August Conte.

• Dr. William Todd, who completed medical school in 16 weeks, but never practiced medicine. He instead worked as an inventor, miner and farmer. He was portrayed by E.C. "Mike" Alft, a historian, author, and Elgin's former mayor.

• Joseph Fordrescher, a former employee at the Elgin National Watch Co., who started out as a clerk at Big Boston men's clothing store and eventually became its owner. He was brought to life by Mike Delehoy.

• Katherine Theile, a German immigrant who worked for Freiler and met her future husband on the job. Theile's granddaughter Linda Conro, portrayed her.

Despite overcast skies, the walk was as popular as ever, and drew more than 200 people in the first 45 minutes, organizers said.

"It takes history out of the museum and puts it out in the real world," Briska said.