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This is Lisa Mueller with Poplar Creek Public Library. Streamwood and Hanover Park Stories Oral History Project. Today is September 6th 2023. Uh, what is your name? My name is Naomi Walters Lenoci. Um When did you move to Streamwood? And how long did you live there? I

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moved to Streamwood as of July 1st, 1972 and I lived there until, um, January 2020. Um, why did you decide to move to Streamwood or why did your family decide to move here? Uh, we moved here because my ex-husband had a job in the area in

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Elk Grove and it was the one place that we found that we could afford a home. So that's why we moved to Streamwood. Would you describe Streamwood as mostly rural or suburban when, um, in the early days when you're living here here? And do you remember

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some of the changes the village went through? Well, when we moved here, there were not many homes in Streamwood at the time. Uh I, we call it suburban area. There were a lot of farms around but to us it was a suburban area. Um We, um

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we were very active in the community from the very beginning when we got here because we did not know anyone here. So we became active. I joined the Streamwood Women's Club. We moved here in July 1st and I joined them by September 1st. What did you

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do for fun in the area? Things like seeing live music going out with friends or anything else? Well, we didn't know anyone here. So, uh by joining the women's Club, I met a lot of other young families, young women with small Children like we had so

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that we could do things together. Uh The park district was very active at that time because it was all such new young families moving in the area. So that's where we went uh for our entertainment. There was not a lot of music going on in concerts

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at that time. Later, the Poplar Creek uh music theater happened. And yes, I was very active in that and my daughter used to work there. Um What celebrations or parades do you remember? In Streamwood? There used to be a Streamwood fourth of July parade then that

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was, um gone away and they did summer celebration. And so I was involved in for the first six years of summer celebration. I sat on that committee to help get it started and uh off running and it's been very successful ever since what was community life

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like here. Um, in the early days when you moved here and how did you socialize with other people in the community? Again, I was very involved with the Streamwood Women's Club and that's how I met everybody. Uh, we only had one car, so we had our

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bikes. I had, uh, two little girls. I had, um, a basket on mine for Susan to sit in. And Kelly rode her little bike and we rode all over town. We would ride down to the Jewel, uh, because I lived on Pleasant Place. We would ride

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our bikes to Jewel, get a few groceries, put them in the basket and on the bike and go home. And then on the weekends we do real shopping. But in the beginning we did everything by riding our bikes all around town. Did you ever feel the

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streets were too congested to ride your bikes or was it? Oh, no, never. Streamwood was very small at that time. Uh, there were still a lot of homes being built but never ever felt like there was not a safe place to ride your bikes. Matter of

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fact, uh, the Streamwood Women's Club, uh, started a bicycle registration with the police department because when we first moved out here, most people had bikes and bikes were being stolen. You could park them outside a store and come out. If you hadn't locked it down, the

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bike was missing. So the Streamwood women's club, uh, went to the, uh, police department and asked them to start a bicycle registration and we did and we were very successful at that. Um Speaking of the Streamwood Women's Club, um when did you join? Yes, I

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had, I joined in August, uh went to my first meeting in August and joined in September of 1972. And I'm proud to say I'm still a member of the Women's Club. 52 years later, I'm still there and I'm still active and I'm vice president of the

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club again this year. What kind of things did the Streamwood Women's Club do? Um uh When you first joined such as events or volunteering or fundraising. Well, in the beginning, we um we started a gourmet club and we met at several homes. Uh Once a month,

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it was always the third Saturday of every month. We'd get together and go to several homes. Uh We also, in the earlier days, we used to work with developers in the community and we would do arts and crafts fairs in the model homes. We would go

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and take pictures of everything and then move everything and we would have vendors come in, they would give us supplies and our women's club would handle an arts and crafts fair in the model homes. Um That's no longer done because we don't have that kind of

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building and have the model homes to work with. Uh They also did a flower show for many years that was very successful. Um Now we do some pie sales we do dining for dollars. We go to different restaurants and go out to eat, trying to think

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of what other major. Uh, we're doing a project with savers right now. We're collecting soft goods, uh, meaning clothing and we will do that fundraiser again this year. We've done it for the last five or six years. Now, things changed during COVID, it slowed everything down.

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Uh We usually give out $1000 scholarship to a Streamwood resident. They don't have to go to school in Streamwood, but they have to be a Streamwood resident and we support a young student graduating, uh, each year. What was the gourmet club? Was that a cooking club

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or club? Uh Well, both cooking and eating. So usually it was at two different houses because we all had smaller homes. Um, the host and hostess would put the menus together, they would purchase the main entree and everybody else that was coming was assigned a part

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of the menu. Everybody kept their receipts. We all got together for dinner. If you were serving a beverage, the host and hostess were responsible for that. You could have beer or wine, um, or just soft drinks and water. Uh, but we usually had some kind of a

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beverage, uh, alcoholic beverage with our meals. And at the end of the meal, we would all pull out our receipts and say how much we paid for the meal. We split it between everybody. Some people got money back. Some had to pay a little bit more

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and it was an even cost in the Gourmet Club lasted for, well, over 10 years. It was very popular and I'm just curious why, um, did you have the events in the model homes or when we did the fundraisers? Because it was something new and there

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was a place that we could, um, show an arts and crafts show. Um, at that time, the high school had not been built yet. So there was not any other big venue. We had the uh TFT middle school, but uh some of the grammar schools, but

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they were not large enough. And we would run the whole project for like three weekends in November, early November for the holidays. Do you remember if the campaign to pass the Equal Rights Amendment was an important topic in Streamwood, such as being discussed in the local

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paper or being discussed in village meetings or do you think it was not a big part of community life? I was never involved with it and I was not involved with the village per se because I was- served on the Park Board for 22 years. And

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I don't remember that ever being a topic on the agenda for the Streamwood Park District. Um When did you begin your involvement with the Streamwood Park District? Uh When I joined the Women's Club, I asked if there was a preschool co op program in Streamwood for

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Children and there was not and Shady Oaks was just opening. So I asked several women at the Women's Club, how do we get one started? Because I had served on the board of directors of one in Park Forest where we had moved from. And they said

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we have to go to the Park District and ask them. So we did. And they said this is what we need to do. We need 60 names. We can have 30 students, but we want to have extra names of Children in case parents can't come. And

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the whole premise was that the parents would come once during the session and act as a teacher's aide. So it was a new concept here in Streamwood at the time. So there were two other ladies uh and myself and we went to the Park board and

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presented the uh whole idea to them and they let us start it and it became the uh Park District preschool co op program. It still goes on today. It has taken new um new way to run it because so many of the moms now all work.

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So the Children just come in, go to class and then go home. And in the old days, we used to have the parents be very involved. But it's still going after all of these years since 19-, since '70 late '72 early '73 we started that program.

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What was your role at the Streamwood? Park district. And how did it change over the years? Well, I ran for public office in 1975 for the first time. I had never run for public office anywhere before. It was quite exciting to do it. I really enjoyed

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it. I matter of fact, did not really realize what all I was getting myself into and turned around and started going to college at Harper School and went to a parks and recreation operation management classes. I had nothing to do with the director or the commissioner's

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roles, but the actual maintenance people that worked in the parks. So I really enjoyed it because I found out how they operate and how they schedule the programming and the maintenance of the park district. So it was quite informative for me. I did that for two

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years. Uh, one of the classes that I liked so much from my professor was, um, since I didn't have classes for commissioners, he had me visit seven local park districts and he gave me a topic that I had to go meet with their director and their

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board and all these seven neighboring communities and come back and write a report on the differences in each one of the park districts. It was an excellent learning tool for me, found it extremely helpful. And, uh, I ended up being on the board then for 22

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years and I served on the state board for 4.5 of those 22 years as well. How did you decide um what to preserve as parks or playgrounds? Uh When Streamwood was uh being farmed. When we moved here in '72 there was a lot of vacant land.

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The developers were leaving land that was quote unquote, unbuildable and then said, oh, you can put a playground there, but they really didn't give you any money to put in a playground. So it was open area, there's uh responsibility for mo- mowing it and maintaining

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the weed area was the park districts. Uh So what we did in 1975 when I got on the board, we started really actively looking at the properties and what we could do with them. And in 1977 we ran a very successful referendum enough so that we

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could build uh playgrounds in a large number of parks in Streamwood. That was such an exciting growth period of time. During that time, we also with the village developed the land case donation ordinance which then went to the developers. And as they came into town, they

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not either had to give us land or money or a combination of both to put playgrounds in each new community. It was a new section as it was being built. That was a really changing point for the park district because now they were getting money, not

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necessarily just uh asking the taxpayers to pay for it. What do you remember about the Hoosier Grove school being moved to Hoosier Grove Park. And, um, why did you and the board decide to preserve it if you had a role in that? Uh, the property, the

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schoolhouse was at Park Place, um, playground. Um, at that time, there were sled hills in the, in the, uh, school house was on that piece of property when we purchased Landmeier Farm, which later became Hoosier Grove Park District. We wanted to put, make like a

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historical little village. So we pulled over, had it moved and I'm sorry, I don't remember exactly what year it was, but we moved it down Park Place, down Irving Park Road. Uh We had- the park district had built a basement and so they turned the schoolhouse

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around and put it over the basement and made it usable because of course, there was not a basement in it originally and it still is there today, but we wanted to build a little area where that it was more historical and the farmhouse that is there

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was built back in the thirties that is still there. Um There's another long stretch building that has um playground or um maintenance equipment in it and bathrooms, public washrooms and there's a like a concession area that was the original horse barn where they kept the horses

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in. Uh part of it still has a ground floor. Uh It's not um paved or anything inside. And then the, the barn, Hoosier Grove barn, we moved off of its foundation, they dug it deeper so they could put mechanicals in the building and an elevator and

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pulled the um barn back on top of it and had it functioning. The silo is the original silo that was there. And so they were going to seal it. And I remember at a meeting, I said, why can't we put a staircase in the silo? Because

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we needed a staircase for access to the loft area inside the barn. And so we worked with the architect and they connected the barn with the silo and built the inside of the silo is a staircase leading to the loft. So we did not lose extra

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space on ground floor. And we kept part of the loft in the barn and that's a meeting room upstairs. So it was quite exciting time going through all of that and making it happen. Putting in the gazebo um just developing that whole piece of property was

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really exciting time for the park district. What are your proudest memories of being on the park district board? Well, I think some of my proudest memories are watching the development of the park district in the community and the involvement the parents were very involved in all

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the little league uh fields at Dolphin Park at originally that park had a um swimming pool. And as the years went on, the pool deteriorated, we had spent a lot of money to keep it going. Um, and laws had changed. We had to take out the

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diving boards because it was too shallow. Uh, things had to be changed. Eventually we tore down, uh, filled in the swimming pool, pulled down all the buildings and then they have, uh, now it's just the little league fields that are there, which is very nice. There

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used to be a nice parking lot in the winter time. We would work with the village and they would flood the parking lot and half of it would be skating rinks for the kids to play hockey. And the other part was for recreational, ice skating for

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smaller Children or adults that wanted to skate. So that park was used a lot and it was very, it was a good access also to U 46 for Woodland Heights school. And so we did a playground and so the school kids could also use that playground.

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And then later, the school district built a playground behind the school as well. So it was very much a very, very busy place for the community. And today, when the um village has the fireworks on the Fourth of July, they still do the fireworks at that

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piece of property. And it's very nice. Do you know how long the fireworks have been there? And on that piece of property on the Fourth of July, not off the top of my head, but it's been uh for at least 30 years. I would say, what

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was the reason you and others founded the Streamwood Historical Society. Well, the historical society had already been started before I got really involved in it. I was on the park board when it was formed, but I didn't become an active member because I was a single

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mom at that time and working and did not have time to be involved in it. Later, I became involved as my Children got older and I got involved with it. It was important for us to keep some of the history of our community alive and well,

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because things change and grow and it's important to remember where our heritage is and, and how the village has changed. What were some of the projects you're involved in at the Streamwood Historical Society such as conducting oral histories or preserving photographs? Well, there is not a

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historical society at the Park District at the present time, it had folded um because there was no interest, we could not get other young people to become involved. So the Park district um did away with the historical society, some of the projects that we had, we

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had um a young woman that we had hired, who ran the programs. She was excellent, excellent, excellent. And it was the same shame when she had moved to another community. Uh But she did um spelling bees at Christmas time. That was really big. And especially in

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the fall, we would have all the pumpkin sales out in front of the schoolhouse. And we would have old fashioned days and have a hoops and the kids would play with the hoops and just jump ropes and old fashioned school schoolhouse games. Uh So that was

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always fun. There were also meetings held in the schoolhouse by different organizations and scout groups could come and, um, the, um, the residents were asked to donate any histo historic things that they might have in their homes to be a part of the uh displays. We

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were very fortunate to get a lot of memorabilia and that's how we also acquired the papers that named the city of Milwaukee. Milwaukee signed by Abraham Lincoln. And that was given to us by a former village president Jack Fehlandt. And those papers were found at his

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aunt's home in Sturgis Michigan after she had passed away. Nobody knows how it got there or why Jack has since passed away. But he was very helpful in helping us get those documents. And then I worked with our director at that time and we were at

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Legislative Day in Downstate Illinois and we took the papers to the state archivist and it was authenticated that those were actually documents signed by Abraham Lincoln. So we're very lucky to have those documents still in the possession of the Streamwood Park District. There's also a youtube

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on that document that I did a number of years ago. Uh So you can also find that on youtube talking about the Abraham Lincoln documents. What are your memories of utilizing Poplar Creek Public Library? Well, the library when I got involved uh in the community was

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in a storefront off of Streamwood Boulevard. And so again, my daughters and I would ride our bicycles across town and go get books and then we would take them back like a week or two weeks later and turn them in and get some other uh books.

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They had a story time for small Children. So I would take my daughters to listen to the story time. And that was really the only involvement I had at the library that time was the actual use of it. What is your favorite memory of living in

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Streamwood? I think the friendships that you make that are still valuable all these years later, uh people that you meet, they became influential in your life and helped you develop and grow as an as a young woman into now, an older lady friendships that will never

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go away. And just to see the pride I still consider myself living in Streamwood even though I have since moved into Bartlett uh into a um into the Victory Centre uh for the independent living. But I still consider myself mostly from Streamwood because I lived here

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for 47.5 years. The majority of my life I spent here in Streamwood. Are there any other Streamwood memories you'd like to discuss or any other topics you'd like to discuss other than being involved in the Streamwood Women's Club, I think, uh that was one of my

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biggest pleasures is, is meeting other young women. And we were all going through and changing as a community changed, we saw the needs, we changed how we operated the club. Uh We used to be a part of the General Federation of Women's clubs. We then dropped

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from the federation and just became our own Streamwood Women's Club. In the early days, we were also known as the Streamwood hostesses so that any time any development was going in and there was a ribbon cutting or anything important at the village, we would bake for

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it. We would come and be the hostesses for it. Uh The Streamwood Women's Club also started a recycling program in Streamwood. The village was kind enough to give us an area and had dumpsters brought in and we would open it up on a Saturday mornings and

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people would bring their glass and their newspapers and we started recycling in Streamwood. Um As I said before, we also helped start the bicycle registration. I don't know if that's being used anymore at all or not. Um I don't think it is but it was exciting

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to start things in our community and making everybody aware of how, how much better life could be here. We've always worked well with the park, with the park district and the village and the police Department. And we also do a lot of work with the VFW

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Hall. What have you done with the VFW Hall? Well, we do, uh, well, the, the VFW has now moved into Hanover Park. They used to have a facility in Streamwood. Uh, so what we do with them is we help, they have a drive every year for

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products for the military. We send out cards to the military all the time to anybody that is overseas. We put together those let letter writing and card writing events and then helping. Um, and at least at Christmas time, we do a big push for products to

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be sent to military staff and uh military personnel all over the world. Thank you so much for your time today. I, I really appreciate it and that was really interesting. So, thank you so much. Thank you. It was just a short snippet of uh a life

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in Streamwood. All right. Is this recording again? Uh The Streamwood Women's Club, some of the fundraisers you had asked me about, uh, we decided to do cookbooks and, uh, print them out. So way back in 1979 we printed our very first cookbook. It was all recipes

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from the club members and it is rare. You can't find it anymore. I have mine, the back page is gone. As you can see, nobody takes this, it's a very treasured document for me. We were very successful with that one. And then we did a second

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edition, uh that was in trying to see the year. I'm sorry, I don't see the date on this one that we did it. And then we did a third edition in 1985. And then we did another one in 1992 to celebrate the 25th anniversary. And these

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are four cookbooks that I hope the library has a copy of them somewhere. Uh They're just valuable because they are all from our club members and all the recipes had been tried and true to make sure they were delicious before we gave them out. Uh We

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sold, we sold out on every single copy that we did and we even reprinted a couple of them during the sales times because they were so popular. So that was really a great fundraiser for our group. Um And now not as many people cook at home.

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And it's a shame because um some of the recipes still are our favorites. And when I need something, I go to these cookbooks first because I know the ladies that were the cooks, the bakers candy makers. Um It had hints in for um substitutions to make

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things work. And um there's some of my favorite memories of working in the club and putting together the cookbooks. We also did a uh handbook every year and in the handbook, it listed all the members, uh pictures of them, what they liked where they lived and

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um those were very guarded because there was a lot of personal information it was only given to club members. And uh it listed a lot of the history of the Streamwood Women's Club and how it got started and the functions over the years. Uh So that's

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been very uh valuable. Also with the money that we earned from the Streamwood Women's Club, we have made donations to the DARE program uh through Hanover Township, food pantry, youth and Family Services. Uh the Community Crisis Center. In the years, we've given money to Gigi's

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a playhouse and other civic organizations around and help families. If there's been a fire, we have stepped in and helped um provide clothing, shelter, uh food for families to have a place to live until their homes um got rebuilt or they found some place to live

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and we would give them as many things from our own own homes that we could to support uh the families in Streamwood. So that's some of my very fondest memories of Streamwood in the willingness of the community to stay together and to work together and we

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really cared for your neighbors. So thank you. Do you remember any specific time that you um and the group or you and your neighbors came to help another person in your neighborhood or in the community? Uh Well, one in particular I remember was a young boy

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who um became ill with cancer and our women really stepped in and helped watch this, uh the younger children so the parents could take the child for treatments and it was all for free. We did all the babysitting for free. We did not expect nor want

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to be paid for any of that because you do that for your neighbors. You make sure that they're taken care of and we would give them prepare meals for them. Um, if a member in our own club had um something that happened to a member of

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the family, we would not only do visitation and help them. Uh We would also make food and, and help out for any funeral arrangements or celebrations, wedding celebrations and children graduating. We all rejoice together and, and um really support each other. And that's so I so

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important to me yet to this day that that's what you do. And I have become very involved with the Hanover Township Senior Center and um I've been doing volunteer work there now for 15 years. Again, it's a lot of the same thing. I oversee the gift

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shop. I do dining for dollars. We call it cafe cruising. Uh We also have um I serve on the senior committee and uh do other fundraisers during the year. We have an Eli's Cheesecake Day, Apple Cider, donut sales, paczki sales. Uh Right now we're going to

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be raffling off a Weber grill during the fall food festival. Very involved for the seniors in our community, uh, home delivered meals, uh is done through our nutrition area. It's amazing to me. We have a little tiny kitchen and they can some days put out over

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300 meals in one day, especially when we have rib day. That's very popular. And so there are days like that we're going to have um for the health of it that will be coming up for people to get free shots, uh colon screenings, blood pressure testing,

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all that kind of stuff. Some of them there is a small fee but a lot of it is free and we have a big Fall food truck festival that will be coming up as well with music and all different food trucks. And it's just a really

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fun evening at the township. And we have events during the, um, during the year, all kinds of, uh, lunch bunches going to local restaurants and going to different plays and musicals, uh, seeing the dancing horses in, uh, uh, Delavan, Wisconsin. So, uh, and we do three

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days and two nights at, uh, Outings. We're going to be going to do county for three days and two nights and you sign up for it and you pay for it and you go and it's just really, again, a great way to stay in touch with

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other people and it's great for anybody, uh, that is a senior that wants to stay involved. And, and can I ask what your, your dishes were in the cookbooks trying to remember some offhand. I know one of them. I had um, my zucchini bread recipe and

00:31:37.260 - 00:31:54.880

it uses uh pineapple in it to make it more moist. And that's what still one of my favorites to this day. It's in the book. Um, a cherry puff cream ring, a cream puff cherry ring. That it was very, uh, very tasty. Learned how to make

00:31:54.890 - 00:32:10.119

it. Eclairs and cream puffs, had never made them before as a child growing up or as a young adult. And because of uh, the cookbooks, you learned all of these things. So, yeah, there's some uh long time recipes that will always be favorite in our family.

00:32:10.439 - 00:32:27.800

Um Was there anything else about those or about, um, anything else you'd like to share? No, I think that's about it. Oh, other than I had raised two children here, both of my daughters graduated from Streamwood High school and, uh, both of them went on to

00:32:27.810 - 00:32:50.250

ECC then Elgin Community College and, um, became very strong independent women. Uh, both were, uh married, one of them, uh, lived in Streamwood for many years until they moved to Wisconsin almost 10 years ago now. And, um, my other daughter, um, met a young man from

00:32:50.260 - 00:33:09.270

Zimbabwe, Africa. She was in the yachting business and, uh, then they eventually moved to Fort Lauderdale and unfortunately, 2.5 years ago, she dropped dead because of COVID. So it was a very difficult time for us. Um, and Susan had been very active at school. She was

00:33:09.280 - 00:33:26.260

both junior and senior class president and she had personality coming out of her fingertips and she was a joy to have around. And, um, so my daughters kept me very involved. Kelly, my oldest daughter was also on the tennis team. So I went to as many

00:33:26.270 - 00:33:41.380

of the matches as we could and supported them and their friends And I think that's so important to stay involved with your children and show them what can be done with volunteerism. And I'm happy to say that both of them have continued or, or at least

00:33:41.390 - 00:33:53.199

Susan did until she passed away also did uh volunteer work in their own communities. And that's a legacy to pass on which I think is invaluable. I've had a great life here.