How we're telling Palatine's history in 150 days
In celebration of Palatine's sesquicentennial this year, the Daily Herald beginning today will publish 150 vignettes detailing the people, places and events that have made the community what it is today.
The way Alice Rosenberg - the 89-year-old village resident who's helped lead the effort to create the vignettes - tells it, the Palatine Historical Society has gathered so much information since it was founded in 1955 that she would have been able to write even more.
"We have family histories, school documents, old photographs, church records - most of them in German - birth and death records, genealogy, Palatine High School yearbooks," Rosenberg said. "I could have found another 50 articles."
Rosenberg said some of the useful historical artifacts that she has drawn upon were collected by some of the society's first members.
"We had very devoted people when (the historical society) formed in '55," Rosenberg said. "They went around collecting things from the old timers."
When you've been looking at the materials for as many years as she has, you have a good idea of what to write, Rosenberg said. Some of the things she knew she needed to cover included the formation of the village's schools, police and fire departments, as well as Palatine Township. Outside of that, Rosenberg said the vignettes will tell the stories behind important Palatine businesses and residents, along with the funny little things that have happened in the village.
The 150 stories will even go further back than the village's founding. One important part of the village's history is the involvement of Palatine residents in the Civil War, which started in 1861 and ended in 1865, the year before the village was incorporated. Rosenberg said the historical society's materials go as far back to the area's early settlers in 1836 or 1837.
Among those helping Rosenberg out with the herculean task of narrowing the village's history down to 150 vignettes have been Marg Plank (writer/researcher), Nancy Cairns (editor), Marilyn Pedersen (Clayson House Museum Coordinator), David Hammer and Connie Rawa.