Scope and Contents From the Series:

The titles, summary descriptions and commentary are supplied by the author / presenter of the papers, and by members of the Winnetka Fortnightly.

Paper description

The author's story of emptying a 13 room house in Winnetka that had belonged to her aunt, while the estate’s executor rushed her to get out immediately. The house was filled with treasures and stories of a cast of characters involved.

Paper description

A brief summary of Charles Darwin’s discoveries while exploring South America and The Galapagos, as well as descriptions of some of his creative and adventurous relatives and descendants. The writer is related through marriage into the Darwin family.

Paper description

This is a story based on fact - the discovered note, the house on Elder Lane, actual names, etc. Caroline is excited when her father hires a new member of the household: a house boy from Ireland. She and Johnathon become good friends until Caroline's father steps in.

Paper description

Memoir/Family Stories: A Slapstick Burial at Sea: regarding the burials of her uncle and father's ashes at sea and The Viet Nam War Memorial: Mending Wall: visiting the wall with her children and finding a special name.

Paper description On aging and saying goodbye - from farewell to Teresa, her nursemaid, to her and her husband's family home at 851 Bryant in Winnetka upon their move to Lake Forest Place. Everything in between: summers in Madison, CT, classmates/soldiers leaving for World War II, boyfriends along the way, graduations from school, the adult death of their mildly retarded first child, exciting dinners with musicians (Eugene Ormandy) through Ravinia, parents, a grandmother, sailboat racing (MA to Bermuda) and...

Paper description Essay: This paper examines the foundations of ancient matriarchal religions, attended by many gods and goddesses, with the emergence and eventual dominance of monotheistic patriarchal belief systems. Emerging religions have co-opted or suppressed the emotionally appealing aspects of the old matriarchal religions, even going so far as to reverse the meaning of the symbols in, for example, the Garden of Eden story. The author relies heavily on the patriarchal constructs of Joseph Campbell. She...

Paper description (Continued from 3/14/2003, Box 13). John S. Knight (1895 – 1981) was the owner of newspapers in Akron, Detroit, Chicago, and Miami. He wrote 2000 notebook columns in 39 years. He knew presidents, generals, men of industry. He won the Pulitzer Prize, among others, selected for his clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion. He accomplished all this in spite of many personal tragedies including the deaths of two sons, a grandson with a promising...

Paper description

Humorous Memoir/History: This is a tale about the author's Winnetka childhood which began at Evanston Hospital when she was born in 1931. Historical and hysterical information about her neighborhood and home, on winding street of Walden Road, "which looks pretty much the same now as it did during my youth". But there were hobos, not TVs and other differences.

Paper description There were the nine Greek muses, but in comparison, modern musing is not so satisfying. The author comments with humor from two books: The Lives of the Muses by Francine Prose and Story of the Janes. She details the relationship between the muse and the mused, in particular, writers Dorothy Wordsworth (the appreciated sister of William) and Jane Carlyle (the unappreciated wife of Thomas). Conclusion: 19th century women functioned below their abilities by training and conditioning – and...

Paper description Subject: the history of a Quaker family, the Slocums, who had moved from Rhode Island to the Wyoming Valley just east of the Susquehanna River, which was then considered part of Connecticut. Jonathan, Ruth, and their nine children lived in an isolated area half a mile north of Fort Wyoming. In 1778, a small band of Delaware Indians attacked the Slocums’s log cabin. They abducted five-year-old Frances. Although her family searched for Frances for more than fifty years, they did not find her...

Paper description A history of Maine, including the author’s family’s long history as 18th century settlers. In 1797 her 4 times great grandfather Benjamin Vaughan gained passage to America from France (where he was in exile from England) – helped by his friendship with the late Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine. He designed the state motto: DIRIGO (“I Lead”). Also describes her 50 year relationship with the year round residents as a summer visitor (Deer Isle) of over 50 years. Maine residents use their...

Paper description

Travel: this is the 1st discovery of Africa, told 2nd. (Previous 1997 paper was the 2nd trip to Africa, 1st told) It describes a safari taken with North Shore friends and acquaintances through Abercrombie and Kent: Tanzania, Oldivai Gorge, Serengeti, and more, in 1990 when Tanzania was "unspoiled" and newly reopened to tourists.

Paper description

The Gates of Central Park: Christo's magical work of orange gates and banners in Olmstead's Central Park is the setting of the author's 50th college reunion with a group of classmates coming from all over. Conversations turn from The Orange Gates to several political topics like the electoral college and global warming.

Paper description

A memoir concerning events, reflection, and adjustments surrounding the arrival and care of a first grandchild. Covers thoughts about the wisdom of experience.

Paper description

This is the story of the author's love affair with horses, beginning with "Mary", who was not a horse. The family called her a donkey, but who was really an ass. The setting is Long Island. The story ends with tales of horse shows, fox-hunting and other events.

Scope and Contents From the Series:

The titles, summary descriptions and commentary are supplied by the author / presenter of the papers, and by members of the Winnetka Fortnightly.

Paper description A humorous account of Ann's father-in-law's radical transformation in later life after outliving two wives. He had done well in business, lived on the North Shore of Chicago, and was particular in his habits and routines including all his clothes made to measure. Money had been no object, until he hooks up with a very frugal woman who changes his life, habits, and routines. They grow their own fruits and vegetables, wear hand-me-downs, and exhibit other uncharacteristic and unusual...

Paper description

Even in the second decade of the 21st Century female architects are a minority of the profession. At the turn of the20th century they were virtually unknown. However, Marion Mahony Griffin, raised in Hubbard Woods, Illinois, was an early smasher of architecture's glass ceiling. Her iconoclastic career began in Frank Lloyd Wright's studio in Oak Park and reached its climax in Australia as co-designer with her husband Walter Burley Griffin of Canberra, the capital of Australia.

Scope and Contents From the Series:

The titles, summary descriptions and commentary are supplied by the author / presenter of the papers, and by members of the Winnetka Fortnightly.

Paper description

Glass was first discovered in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Glass blowing invented in Syria. Glass windows, then colored glass held together. Progress to high gothic stained glass in cathedrals to promote Christianity, then romantic, arts and crafts to art deco, etc. Progression ran from usefulness and decor to art.

Scope and Contents From the Series:

The titles, summary descriptions and commentary are supplied by the author / presenter of the papers, and by members of the Winnetka Fortnightly.

Paper description The author describes her tour of Jordan with a group called Distant Horizons, formed by alumnae of the Seven Sisters Colleges. Its purpose was to learn more about the world by contact with the unfamiliar. These educated and accomplished American women met with women of the Middle East who were involved in international women's rights organizations. They met national leaders, lawyers, cabinet members, etc. This is a very good summary of Jordan in 2005, a predominantly Muslim and paternalistic...

Scope and Contents From the Series:

The titles, summary descriptions and commentary are supplied by the author / presenter of the papers, and by members of the Winnetka Fortnightly.

Paper description

The author, an Oriental Institute docent, discusses the origins of the cuneiform writing system in ancient Mesopotamia, outlines the developments and usages that followed from the invention of writing and includes some examples of ancient poetry.