This quarter we would like to recognize Mary Ellen Segraves as our special volunteer. Mary Ellen has been volunteering at the Heritage Center over the summer and has helped out tremendously with our Summertime Fun Program, as well as inventorying the collection at the Dunham-Hunt House and setting up the new exhibits. She attended our volunteer training sessions that were held this past winter and also portrayed a character last month at the Grave Reminders Cemetery Walk. 

Mary Ellen first became acquainted with the Heritage Center when she came in to research her home and found out that it was one of the main houses for the Evans Game Farm, which operated until the 1940’s. Ernest Hemingway even mentions it in one of his novels. 
Prior to that, the property was owned by the Marshall family (from the 1850’s until 1915). The current house was built in 1894 on the foundation of the original house, which burned to the ground.

A drawing of the original structure is in the 1871 Atlas of Kane County and hangs in the Kane County Government offices in Geneva. The St. Charles Heritage Center was also able to supply Mary Ellen with a photograph of her home.

In the fall, Mary Ellen will be teaching some courses at Waubonsee Community College and National Louis University. Mary Ellen says that she was first introduced to the area when she was a child and her family would drive to St. Charles from Chicago to visit her aunt and uncle, Alice (Sevall) and George Bourdage. They lived on Ash Street for many years and she had great memories of running down the hill with her brothers and cousins and playing by the Fox River. She recalls that it was one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen. Later on, when she moved here, her curiosity about the history of her house peeked her interests in the history ofSt. Charles and Kane County.

Thank you Mary Ellen for all that you have done for the St. Charles Heritage Center!

Copyright © St. Charles Heritage Center