Born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr. in New York on April 16, 1947, this 12 lb. 11 oz. baby grew up to be a 7 ft. 2 in. professional basketball player. He began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments in high school when he led Jack Donahue’s Power Memorial Academy to three straight New York City Catholic […]
Forty years ago, a teacher at a Catholic elementary school invited the faculty members and their husbands and wives to a Christmas party in her home. It was an opportunity to socialize, to have fun together. The women wore their long dresses, and the men wore suits. Everyone was excited to attend. Since these faculty […]
Born October 14, 1890 in Denison, Texas, Dwight David Eisenhower was raised in Kansas. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and began his military career. During World War II, he was a five-star general in the United States Army and served as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe. According to Wikipedia, […]
Born January 6, 1912 in Deerfield, Michigan, Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz was the son of Maronite Catholic immigrants from Lebanon. One of ten children, he was raised in Toledo, Ohio, where he attended St. Francis de Sales Church (Roman Catholic), Woodward High School, and the University of Toledo. You know him as Danny Thomas, the […]
On May 16, 2017, Michael Case was working as a conductor on an Amtrak train pulling into the station in Naperville, Illinois. Aboard the train was Edward Klein, 79, who was returning home from a canceled trip to Las Vegas.. Case knew that Klein needed to get to Chicago to catch a train to Milwaukee […]
Fifty years ago, subdivisions were sprouting in the cornfields and bean fields in Illinois. The 1960’s and 1970’s were a time of rapid growth in the housing stock at the edges of major metropolitan areas such as Aurora, Rockford, and Bloomington-Normal. Ranch houses, tri-levels, and two-story homes were popular styles. Most had attached garages, and […]
Sixty years ago, downtown Chicago was a destination for shopping, for the arts, and for business. It was a bustling town. Marshall Field’s thirteen story building dominated the commercial area. Designed by Daniel Burnham and built in 1891-1892, it took up an entire city block bounded clockwise by State Street, Randolph Street, Wabash Avenue, and […]
If you are a health and fitness buff, this one is perfect for you. It’s a fundraiser for cerebral palsy research. All YOU have to do is take 10,000 steps a day in Steptember. You can skate, bike, climb, roll, walk, run, surf, swim, or cycle. You can use a fitness tracker, smartphone app, or […]
Have you ever walked ten miles in one day? How about sixty miles in three days? Was the three-day walk for breast cancer research? If so, you were probably participating in a Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure to raise money for breast cancer research and patient support programs. The organization, originally known as […]
More powerful than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He came to earth as a baby from the planet Krypton. On earth, he had super-human strength and X-ray vision. He could even fly! His only weakness was Kryptonite, a substance which made him powerless. He […]