Daughter of Rev. Roswell Randall Swan and Harriet Palmer
Married Nathan Fellows Dixon on June 28, 1843
Mother of 6 Children: Nathan Fellows Dixon (died), Nathan Fellows, Edward Hazard. Phebe Ann, Walter Palmer, and Harriet Swan Dixon
Son of William Dixon (1748-1809)
Married to Elizabeth (Palmer) Dixon
Father to Nathan Fellows Dixon (II) and Courtlandt Palmer Dixon
Gayle Kenney Dompke (June 15, 1937-November 19, 2012) graduated from Northwestern University in 1958, and in 1968 graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also earned her law degree from John Marshall Law School in 1984. She married Richard Dompke, Northhwestern Class of 1955, in 1956.
Mrs. Dompke was an early and active member of the 1972-founded Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society, after moving to Lake Forest in 1973, and serving on the Historic Sites Committee. She served as a board member and as the second president, 1978-80. During her two-year presidency, again folllowing Mr. Dompke's account, "the process of preparing a Historic Preservation Ordinance began, along with identifying historic properties and districts, which were considered eligible for historic designation."
Mrs. Dompke's Kirscht ancestors, original settlers of Niles Center just east of Evanston and Lake Michigan, led to her active work with the Skokie Historical Society, as well. She served as secretary of the Society, and she organized and prepared to be transferred to the State Archives Niles Township records.
This photo archive stems from her work documenting photographically significant Lake Forest structures, estates and their houses, Market Square and the business district, and the College's campus.
Elliott Donnelley was a third generation Chicago printer (R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company) who lived in Lake Forest from his boyhood until his death in 1975. He had a life-long enthusiasm for trains, and after studying at Dartmouth College he went into the railroad modeling business, for amateur model makers in the early 1930s. Donnelley in 1933 took over American Model Engineers, Inc. Under the corporate identity of Scale-Models, Inc. the firm created “Scale-Craft working models,” according to an ca. 1938 brochure, and his renamed Scale-Craft brand operated in Chicago, Libertyville and Round Lake until the 1950s, when the firm was sold and moved to Michigan. The model kits came with large-scaled plans with instructions for assembly and placing custom signage.
Elliott’s parents were Laura and Thomas Elliott (T.E.) Donnelley, who built their Clinola estate and country home on Green Bay Road in 1911. Second-generation, Yale-educated T.E. Donnelley grew the family business substantially from the 1890s well into the twentieth century. He also launched in 1903 the annual holiday-time gift books, the Lakeside Classics, for clients, employees and friends. In his early adult and married years Elliott Donnelley and his spouse, Ann Steinwedell Donnelley (Hardy), lived in various small houses in Lake Forest on Wildwood and Atteridge Roads. In 1934 The Donnelleys built a home, designed by architects Frazier & Raftery, on Ridge Lane in Lake Forest, originally with a train room in the basement. Donnelley’s model train set-up later moved to the nearby basement of Lake Forest’s City Hall.
Donnelley was a trustee of Lake Forest College beginning in 1942, leading to a new commitment to the College among local estate families over the next three decades. (See “Back on Track with Elliott Donnelley” in 30 Miles North…, the College’s history, 2000, p. [145]; see also the photo on p. 135.) He served as chairman of the College’s Board of Trustees from 1967 to 1971, and played key roles in the building of two major structures on campus, the Donnelley Library (1964-65, since 2004 the expanded and renovated Donnelley and Lee Library) and the Sports Center (1968). Donnelley also donated landmark rare books to the library and also funds for such purchases on an annual basis in t he 1970s. He played a crucial role in the difficult late 1960s period in student participation on campus, and personally led face-to-face, all-hours negotiations with students to resolve issues in that dynamic environment. During the interim between College presidents in 1969-70 Donnelley was active in working with troubled students, “sentenced” to Saturday mornings working with the chairman on the trains on his estate. At the end of such work sessions where nothing was said about the occasion of the visit, Donnelley is reported to have said in his characteristic stutter, “Now, you-r-‘re g-go-ing to try harder t-to g-get along t-this w-week, aren’t y-you?” His recidivism rate was remarkably low. In the 1970s he was awarded a special honorary degree by the College, and in the last Commencement Week before his death he and Mrs. Donnelley hosted all of the graduating seniors at his home for a barbecue supper and a chance to ride the trains with himself at the engine controls.
The Foundation for Architecture and Landscape Architecture (FALA) was a summer program for architecture training for graduates. Students lived at Lake Forest College during the program, which existed from 1926-1931. The students learned from master architects, examined local estates, and collaborated on drawings. These drawings were housed at Lake Forest College in storage in 1935 and found 50 years later.
James R. Getz was an ardent historian of all aspects of Lake County Illinois and founding mayor of the village of Mettawa. James, his spouse Betsy, and their family lived on sixty acres at Shagbark, the name of their estate on Riverwoods Road, beginning in 1939 until James's death in 1986. Betsy decided to move east to Conway Farms in 1998. Getz, an early lover of libraries and history, was both a long-time president of the Lake County Historical Society, a trustee of the Lake Forest Hospital, and also of valued member of Lake Forest College community.