O, Pioneers

Appeared in Pioneer Press newspapers,
December 23, 2011

“Every church has at least one Grand Lady,” wrote Pastor McPeek of the Millburn Congregational Church, “a person whose wisdom, wit, generosity and dedication is an inspiration to everyone.  At Millburn we are fortunate to have several women who qualify for that title.  Certainly Beatrice Anderson, leader, worker, historian, and inspiration, qualifies for our title of first grand lady and gracious friend.”

Mrs. Anderson was the longest resident of our new old home, occupying it for some 60 years. And she seems to have been the very spirit of the town, having seen, and embodied, so much of its history.  She also wrote that history, as one of the area’s foremost chroniclers (of, apparently, two).

She was born Beatrice Low in 1897 in Waukegan, where Low Avenue commemorates her family’s early connection to Lake County.  Her mother was a member of the Bonner family, among the county’s original settlers (also recognized in our geography, with Bonner Road in Wauconda, among other commemorations). 

She purchased the house from its builders, the Strang family, the original thanes of Millburn, which was first known as Strang’s Settlement or Strang’s Corners.  The name Millburn – Scots for mill creek, the current name of the waterway that trickles through our land – was suggested by George Trotter, whose daughter, Helen, married Jake Strang, builder of our house.  Beatrice sold the house to Bonner relatives, from whom we bought it.

According to Beatrice’s history (which can be found on the Web site of the Historic Millburn Community Association: http://www.hmca-il.org/default.htm), many of the early Scots and German settlers of the area, headed west long before Horace Greeley’s exhortation, fleeing New England’s economic Panic of 1837.  They arrived in Lake County, then populated primarily by the Potawatomi tribe, found in it rich soil, game and fish, and began building. By 1856 the Strangs, who came south from Canada, were prosperous enough to construct the fine brick store at the corner of what are now Grass Lake Road and Route 45 – the epicenter of the famed Millburn Strangler -- as well as our house which, as Esther Foster, the area’s other historian, describes it, “stands beside the stream [Mill Creek] in nineteenth century magnificence today.”

I thank Mrs. Foster for the kind words, but “magnificence” may be a stretch.  It is, as the song says, a very, very, very fine house – strong and honest, lovely in a way that bespeaks good character.  Its building signaled, perhaps, the end of the town’s frontier days and a new degree of establishment and prosperity.  But it’s very much a provincial beauty; one that speaks to its time and circumstances, the people who made it, the way they thought and the things they valued, foremost among which were commitment and perseverance.  They built a house that, 150 years later, is standing strong and still telling their story.

So, we’ve set down new roots among the deep ones of these families that pioneered this area.  A different kind of pioneer, meanwhile, is pulling its roots up, as the Pioneer Press newspaper chain, unfortunately, is discontinuing its North Group of papers, serving the communities around Old Mill Creek – Gurnee, Grayslake, Lake Villa and Antioch. 

And that, too, is in the pioneer tradition.  The Strangs and their neighbors came here out of economic necessity; in another difficult time, Pioneer Press is leaving for the same reason.  It’s a pity these towns will be left without the papers that helped form their identities and gave them a sense of community.  But I suspect that gap will be filled before long

Personally, I’ll emulate the original settlers who came here and stuck it out – the Strangs and Bonners, and, especially, Beatrice Anderson, the teller of the tale.  While this will be the last installment of this column to appear before this paper is shuttered, I’ll continue it online.  If you’re interested in coming along, please join me online at http://talesoftumbledownfarm.blogspot.com/.  Hope to see you there.