Glen Ellyn revives antique fundraiser for historical society

Midwestern antique dealers from Glen Ellyn to Wales, Wis., converged on Stacy’s Corners Saturday for a one-day antique sale at Stacy’s Tavern Museum that revived a previous tradition of the Glen Ellyn Historical Society.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the village’s historical society hosted an annual antique sale as a fundraiser, but the sale eventually lost its volunteer corps.

With historical societies across the nation struggling for funds in a slowly recovering economy, Glen Ellyn volunteer and “village antiquist” Lee Marks said he thought the idea was worth another try.

“We said ‘Let’s bring it back and see how we do,’” Marks said about the Antiques on the Green sale revived Saturday.

For a $5 entry fee, antique aficionados could browse displays from 22 antique dealers, take a 30-minute tour of Stacy’s Tavern (the gathering place that gave the village of Glen Ellyn its original name, Stacy’s Corners), and snag coupons for discounts at 18 restaurants in town and the Stacy’s Corners Store.

The antique sale also featured a concession stand and a bake sale that usually doesn’t make its debut until July or August at the farmers market in Glen Ellyn, said bake sale volunteer Ethel Shelton.

The reinvigoration of Antiques on the Green this year offered Shelton and about 35 others the chance to begin baking treats such as rhubarb cakes, doughnuts, muffins and apple pies a bit early — and all with the goal of bringing in money for the historical society.

“It was just a perfect time to do this,” Shelton said about her group’s first bake sale of the season.

Held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, the antique sale offered shoppers items such as chessboards, bird baths, paintings, candy jars and tennis rackets from days past.

Marks said some of the items dated back to the 1830s and 1840s — the same period that Moses Stacy established a tavern halfway between Chicago and the Fox River in what’s now Glen Ellyn.

“There’s a lot of early stuff here,” Marks said. “There’s a real eclectic mix, which is nice.”