Historical Society Celebrates Centennial for Ridge Farm (Grove School) and Local Families

The 2014 Annual Meeting will take place at Dickinson
Hall, home of the Senior Center.  The
location was chosen for the meeting because 2014 is the 100th anniversary of
the establishment of the Ridge Farm Preventorium for which Dickinson Hall was
originally built. The meeting will be Sunday May 4th, 2014 at 2:00
pm located at 100 East Old Mill Road, Lake Forest, IL.

The free program, which is open to anyone, will
include our 2014 Centennial Family Awards and a historical and architectural
walking tour of the site.  This year’s
Centennial Family honorees are the Beye-Rickhoff-Witberg-Stein family, nominated
by Juliet Stein-Davies; the Larsen-Sneddon family, nominated by Jan Larsen
Polep; and the Mark-Saville family, nominated by Katherine Saville.

As a part of the 100th year anniversary, Dickinson
Hall and the Music Institute of Chicago (MIC), Lake Forest Campus, have joined
forces to form a Community Chorale. This choir will be presenting 3 songs representing
the past 100 years and is led by faculty from the Music Institute of Chicago.

The Ridge Farm Preventorium was established to allow
children living in poor conditions a chance to come to the country with the
goal of reducing their chances of developing tuberculosis.  The institution grew with support from the
local philanthropic community. 
Architects Edwin Clark and Stanley Anderson were called upon to design
buildings over the years. As the threat of tuberculosis lessened, the
preventorium was no longer needed.  Grove
School, for children with special needs, purchased the property in the 1960s
and added several buildings.