"Past Times"

Past Times — Spring 2012, Vol. 30, No. 4

A dream is realized By Kristine and Brian Dillon As many of you may know, the Berwyn Historical Society purchased a building in April 2011, for our permanent home. For those of you new to the BHS or Berwyn, we rented space in a basement of a church in north Berwyn for many years and housed [...]
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Past Times — Winter 2011, Vol. 30, No. 3

The Craft of a Berwyn Tailor by Elinor Schoback Lynch — My father, Louis Schoback, was proprietor of a tailoring business at 2144 South Clarence Avenue in Berwyn from 1927 through 1948. I was just a year old when he leased a store and started the business in a recently built two-story building at 22nd [...]
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Past Times — Fall 2010, Vol. 29, No. 2

Former Berwyn Resident, Veteran Honored A veteran of World War II and former Berwyn resident, who was killed along with several others in a military plane crash in Nebraska in 1943, was among those honored when a Nebraska village dedicated a marker in their memory in August. Sgt. William G. Williams was one of seventeen victims when [...]
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Past Times — Spring 1996, Vol. 17, No. 1

This issue includes: “Letter from the President”, “The Pathway to Knowledge: Over 100 Years of the Berwyn Public Library System”, “Spring Antique and Collectible Sale Announcement”, “Membership list”, “Society News” Download the Newsletter as PDF
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Past Times — Winter 2004, Vol. 25, No. 4

The Condors Baseball Team by LaVergne Novak — Excerpt: In the mid-1930s, a group of boys and girls were playing baseball in a field on the west side of Grove Avenue, north of the Illinois Central Railroad tracks. Some “big guys” came along and chased them off the field because they wanted to use it. [...]
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Past Times — Summer 2004, Vol. 25, No. 2

Horse-Drawn Wagons, Trains, and Automobiles by John Humiston — Excerpt: South Berwyn streets were paved with macadam, mixed sizes of crushed stone firmly compacted and sometimes bound with asphalt or tar. Curbs were slabs of cut sandstone about four inches thick, two feet high, and five feet long embedded edgewise in the ground at the [...]
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Past Times — Spring 2004, Vol. 25, No. 1

The Paper Route … A Boyhood Memory by Don Dickney — Excerpt: It was the fall of 1946. I was 13 years old attending the eighth grade at St. Leonard’s School in Berwyn, Illinois. More than anything, I wanted a motorbike: cost – $200. To earn the money, I delivered the Chicago Tribune. I was [...]
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Past Times — Fall 2004, Vol. 25, No. 3

How Good to Live and Learn by Ralph Pugh — Excerpt: Though I arrange the collections of the Berwyn Historical Society on a part-time basis, my fulltime work is as the archivist of the Chicago Historical Society. Over the years there, I have spoken with many people who have assumed that they could not expect to [...]
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Past Times — Winter 2003, Vol. 24, No. 4

Charles and Mildred Prchal Co-equals in Building Berwyn History by Ralph Pugh — Excerpt: Though women were denied equal rights with men until the twentieth century, many made names for themselves in a variety of fields as well as shouldering most of the domestic responsibilities. This was even more the case in working-class and immigrant communities, [...]
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First “Past Times” Newsletter Vol. 1, No. 1

A publication of the Berwyn Historical Society. April-June 1979. Includes: Meetings update, Member updates, From the Station Platform, About the Society, Projects, e.g “Save the Station”, The Berwyn Station, not just another old building by J.R. Brabex, L.McManmon, & T. MC Manmon, And they called it Berwyn, The Burlington Northern’s Chicago-Aurora Line Marks 115th Anniversary by [...]
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