Elgin's 'remarkable' women historically profiled at library

Alice Potter was the first woman to drive, unescorted by a man, from Chicago to New York and back more than a century ago. And she was from Elgin.

Hollywood star Mitzi Gaynor lived in Elgin in the early 1930s, and Lucille Ball visited in 1949 to do promotional pictures for a radio show.

These stories, and many more, will be part of a free presentation, "Remarkable Women of Elgin's Past," by local historian Jerry Turnquist at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Gail Borden Public Library, 270 N. Grove Ave. in Elgin.

"It's going to be little vignettes of different women and women's groups who've been part of Elgin's past," he said. "I'll also talk about women celebrities who've come to Elgin over the years. It's going to be an eclectic mix."

Clara Todson was a leader in the women's suffrage movement, leading programs and driving around town shouting "Votes for women!" from a megaphone, said Turnquist, a Daily Herald columnist.

A year after Illinois granted women the right to vote in 1913, Elgin voters approved closing all liquor establishments, thus becoming a "dry" town six years before the National Prohibition Act. Some say it was the local female vote that pushed the measure forward, Turnquist said.

Maude Parlasco and her husband Carl operated the popular Song of Hiawatha pageant in Elgin, which attracted visitors from out of state. A home economics teacher at Elgin High School, she was the only woman to perform in the pageant until the late 1940s, Turnquist said. The pageant ran until 1979.

"There are many people who remember the pageant," he said. "I was even there a couple of years as a Boy Scout selling popcorn."

It's not easy to dig into local women's history, said Linda Rock, who has portrayed and researched Elgin area women for local events, including the annual Bluff City Cemetery Walk.

"Unless a woman has done something really out of the ordinary, it is more difficult (than researching men)," she said. "If they are married to someone significant, you get a lot of history on the husband, but not much on them."

The idea for the presentation, sponsored by the Elgin Community Network, came a few years ago from members of the League of Women Voters of the Elgin Area, Turnquist said. He did a similar program in early 2015, but the lineup Tuesday will be completely different, he said.

"Sometimes when people think of women they think, 'Oh well, what did they accomplish?' " he said. "But they accomplished so much and advocated for so many programs."