Evergreen Park Library Collecting #EP Stories for Village's 125th Anniversary

EVERGREEN PARK, IL -- Retired librarian Chris Raap learned to read as soon someone taught her. When she was 16 she worked in the newborn nursery at Christ Hospital. After graduating from Northern Illinois University, she lived for 18 months in Australia, where the electricity would only come on at night. She got her masters in library science at Chicago State University, and in 1976 she started working at the Evergreen Park Public Library.

“I was the first professional they hired,“ said Raap, a 40-year employee of the library. “The library was tiny, less than half the size it is now. When I first got hired, they didn’t know what to do with me.”

Such are random details of Raap’s story, and one of the many local life stories the library hopes to collect for its #EP Stories project in anticipation of the village’s 125th anniversary in 2018. Working on the premise that everyone has a story to tell, the Evergreen Park library is collaborating with StoryCorps at the Chicago Cultural Center, that works to preserve the stories of communities in the Chicago area.

Throughout the months of April and October, the Evergreen Park library will be interviewing local residents about their memories, recollections and experiences growing up in and around the village. The stories will eventually be catalogued in the Library of Congress for perpetuity. The library, along with the Evergreen Park Historical Commission, will use they stories for an oral history of the village.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Oisin Twomey, a senior at Brother Rice High School and a member of school newspaper staff, interviewed Raap about her Evergreen Park memories. Raap recalled how most library tasks were done manually back in the day, as opposed to today’s technology which Raap says “makes it easier to serve the public better.”

“Placing a hold on a book could take two to three hours because you had to go through all of the checkout cards,” she told Twomey. “Computers make people more impatient today.”

Raap also said the village has become much more ethnically diverse than it was when she was growing up in the area.

“Evergreen Park has changed demographically. It was almost exclusively white 50 years ago, but now the library has books in Arabic,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what ethnicity you are, readers are readers.”

Little Company of Mary Hospital has also doubled in size. She recalled the Drury Lane Theatre, which was demolished to make way for a Walmart. Retired from the library, Raap travels the world.

She counts Amy Martin, the library’s first head librarian, her seventh grade English teacher, and her high school history teachers among her life’s greatest influences.

“I have the life I expected and wanted,” Raap said. “I loved being a reference librarian and when kids would come up to tell me they got an ‘A’ on project for school because I helped them.

The Evergreen Park Public Library is looking for more #EP Stories. Interviews will take place throughout the month of April and in October in a relaxed conversational format.

We invite children and parents, friends and neighbors, young and old to reminisce about growing up, living, and working in Evergreen Park. If possible, please bring photos or mementos to awaken our collective memory. We are also seeking volunteer interviewers to facilitate these community conversations. Be part of an important public project that tells the story of Evergreen Park in our own voices.

If interested in becoming part of history, please contact the library at epstories@evergreenpark library.org or give them a ring at 708-422-8522, ext. 133.

Photo: Oisin Twomey, a senior at Brother Rice High School, interviews retired Evergreen Park librarian Chris Raap for the #EP Stories project.