Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Part 3 of a multipart series: Beloved educator Mary Bencini was taken too soon.
Geneva lost a historian, an activist and an educator when Mary Bencini died following a crash on Easter weekend 2012. Reports later would indicate that a heart attack was the likley cause of the crash that took her life far too soon, at the age of 62. According to reports, Bencini was invited to some friends' house for dinner on that Saturday night, but Mary declined because she wasn't feeling well. The friends offered to pick her up or drive her to the hospital, but she declined. "That is just so like her," said Terry Emma and close friend and executive director of the Geneva History Center. "She didn't think of herself, she didn't want to bother anybody. She just said, 'I'll take myself.' " Bencini was a longtime second-grade teacher …
Monday, December 24, 2012
Part 2 of a multipart series: Dick Jaeger was part of Geneva's history.
On the same day Geneva lost legendary historian emeritus Merritt King, it lost another icon who was part of Geneva's history and played a key role in preserving it: Dick Jaeger. Like so many of the Jaeger family in Geneva, Dick was an active member of the community, a communicant of the old and new St. Peter Church in Geneva, a member of the Geneva School Board and Geneva History Center board. But he probably will be remembered most for constructing model replicas of Geneva's historic buildings for the Geneva History Center—award-winning pieces of folk art that are a reminder of his affection for his hometown. He started by creating Christmas ornaments depicting historic buildings of Geneva that he and his wife, Norma, used to help raise…
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Part 1 of a multipart series: Merritt King was a giant among Genevans.
On Jan. 24, 2012, Geneva lost a giant of man in Merritt King. In so many ways, Merritt was larger than life: a gifted athlete, a legitimate war hero, a seven-term alderman, a 12-year Geneva mayor pro-tem and Geneva's historian emeritus. He is credited, among so many other achievements, for coming up with the idea for Geneva's historic Third Street gas lamps, for rescuing the historic creche that graces the Geneva History Center and for saving countless lives in 1945, when he and other Seventh Army troops nabbed a convoy in southwestern Germany and uncovered maps that revealed the exact placements of hundreds of thousands of landmines planted in 19 countries all over Europe. Merritt is remembered in this beautifully-written article by …
Friday, December 21, 2012
In Memoriam: In a multi-part series, we pay tribute to the men and women of Geneva who contributed so much to our community and who passed away this year.
2012 was an extraordinarily sad year for Geneva, IL. In that 12-month time period, we lost literally dozens of our city's favorite sons and daughters, folks who who were pillars of our community and who have earned a place in Geneva's history books. We talk a lot about institutional memory in Geneva, but few years have seen the passing of so many people who were institutions in their own right and who carried so many Geneva memories in their heads and in their hearts. The list reads like a Geneva Who's Who: Merritt King, Dick Jaeger, John VanThournout, Mary Bencini, John Anderson, John Barton, Janet Safanda, Joe Radovich, Allen Mead, Roger Morris, Jack Ryan, Paul DesCoteaux. This is the introduction to a series of Geneva Patch articles …
Colin C.
11:24 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
A group of us have approached the City about placing a permanent memorial to Merritt on Third St, under his beloved lights, perhaps in front of the History Center. (He was Geneva Historian Emeritus, along with everything else.) We hope to have something definite this spring. more ›