When our family moved to Wheaton and DuPage County in
1972, you were not yet in school. At the time I was not aware that Wheaton and DuPage
County had been the home of so many persons who are nationally and internationally
recognized for their remarkable achievements.
What we know as the DuPage Heritage Gallery in Wheaton today had its beginning in the fall of 1974 when D. Ray Wilson, publisher of the Daily Journal of Wheaton and a great cultural leader, learned that Red Grange was to be honored by his university on the fiftieth anniversary of this greatest game. He had three times been All American football player at the University of Illinois; he was the most famous gridiron player of all times.
Publisher Wilson arranged for a Wheaton luncheon for its own Wheaton Ice Man (so named because he actually carried ice to the homes in Wheaton while he was in school) to be held in Champaign on the big day. More than three hundred Wheaton persons attended the luncheon at the Champaign Ramada Inn.
The entire 1974 Wheaton Central High School Team, in its colorful traveling regalia, and Coach Andy Hauptmann attended in a body. There were seventeen of Red Grange’s closest Wheaton friends present who had seen the historic game fifty years ago to the day. Grange had stunned the nation by scoring four touchdowns in less than the first twelve minutes against an undefeated national title-bound University of Michigan. The luncheon was a happy moment for Red Grange and all of us.
I recall there were three little girls at that luncheon from the Longfellow School, which Red Grange had attended when he was growing up in Wheaton. Principal Robert Morgan invited those three little girls to take some special gifts from the Longfellow students up to the podium and present them to Red Grange. I think Michelle Bennett was the leader, but I was pleased, Molly, that you were there. As I recall, the gifts included a picture of the Longfellow School as it appeared at the time Grange was a student. There was a shower head or something from the football team’s shower room, perhaps one that Red Grange himself had used.
Publisher Wilson asked Red Grange if he would make a special trip from his home in Florida and come to Wheaton so that our school children might visit with him. At first Mr. Grange said that it had been so long since he had been in Wheaton that no one would remember who he was, but Mr. Wilson said Red Grange would always be a hero in Wheaton. That seemed to surprise Mr. Grange, and he finally promised that "when you think the time is right" he would come back to Wheaton. Four years later in the fall of 1978, when we opened our original DuPage Heritage Gallery, he came back for a wonderful three-day visit which I am sure you both remember well.
Shortly after we had been in Champaign with Red Grange, several of us held a breakfast meeting at the Round-The-Clock restaurant in Wheaton. We decided that there must be a permanent exhibit in Red Grange’s hometown to tell the Red Grange story to the public. William Carlson astonished us all by speaking up and saying he would contribute five hundred dollars toward such an exhibit. That was the first of the contributions that by now add up to more than two hundred thousand dollars received over the past six years.
In 1975 we organized the DuPage Heritage Gallery. By then we knew there is no county the size of DuPage in the United States that has had so many prominent and well known citizens. DuPage County has been the home of five individuals whose careers helped shape our nation today. They are persons who have been nationally or internationally recognized over a period of a quarter of a century or more for great contributions to American life.
Everyone knows of the worldwide evangelistic career, still in progress, of Billy Graham, a graduate of Wheaton College; Judge Elbert H. Gary, who lived in Wheaton for more than fifty years, founded with J. Pierpont Morgan the United States Steel Corporation, our nation’s first billion dollar enterprise; Colonel Robert R. McCormick, whose home near Winfield is today known as Cantigny, owned, published and edited The Chicago Tribune for a quarter of a century; John W. Gates grew up on a farm at the edge of West Chicago, then known as Turner Junction. He and Judge Gary were both born on farms at Gary’s Mill. Gates’ complex career had a profound impact on American food production, the nation’s rail and steel industries and ushered in the era of oil for energy.
DuPage has had many other persons who made important contributions to our nation’s advancement but who were not so well known ... Grote Reber, an inventor of the radio telescope; Dr. Kenneth Taylor, author of the Living Bible and Margaret Landon, who wrote the classic, Anna and the King of Siam (The King and I) just to mention a few.
But the FIVE GREATS FROM DU PAGE stand alone because they were famous for a generation and withstood the relentless pressures of being public figures. For more than fifty years Red Grange has not been able to go to a public eating place without being recognized and having his meal interrupted by someone who has seen or heard of his exploits.
The goal of the DuPage Heritage Gallery is to make it easy for students like yourselves to get acquainted with these GREAT PEOPLE OF DU PAGE. That is why we publish this book and why we are developing the outstanding public exhibit, the Heritage Gallery, at the DuPage County Center, 421 North County Farm Road, Wheaton, Illinois.
Let me explain why 1, and our Heritage Gallery members, think you and all young people of your age in DuPage County and elsewhere will benefit by knowing about these great people. I am not concerned about you ever becoming as famous as they are. There is limited opportunity to make the kind of national breakthrough that John Gates or Billy Graham have made, careers that give fresh opportunities to all Americans.
What is most important to me is that you know about the noble qualities that enabled these greats to do what they did.
For example, how can a Red Grange who has done what no other football player ever did or will ever do again have such a humility and a graciousness? He contends that he didn’t really do anything unusual the day he scored so sensationally to crush perhaps the most powerful college football team in the nation. He claims he did nothing that some of his teammates could not have done as well, or maybe even better, if they had just gotten the ball in their hands.
The story of John W. Gates, reared on a farm near Turner Junction, now West Chicago, is evidence that if we fail we must not give up. You must keep on trying. Gates was a poor student in school. His father set him up in a business that was needed in Turner Junction, and young Gates failed largely because he refused to pay attention to his hardware store.
Then suddenly he became interested in a new product, barbed wire, that had just been invented in DeKalb, Illinois. He emerged as the leading figure in using barbed wire to make the nation’s farming more profitable and food less expensive for all Americans.
John Gates went on to become a nation builder, creating railroads, entire new industries and the City of Port Arthur, Texas. He was conscious of a wealthy man’s obligation to tackle social problems for the less fortunate. Yet with all the demands upon him, he found time to come back to DuPage County to spend the last weeks with his terminally ill father. On his death at fifty-six, Gates willed to his beloved wife, Dellora Baker of St. Charles, perhaps the largest tangible fortune ever left by an American.
Most Americans know something about the career of Evangelist Billy Graham, a career that in many ways is the first of its kind. But little is known about the dedication possessed by this remarkable man who through the years has had so many close links with Wheaton College and the Wheaton community. Dr. Graham has repeatedly demonstrated that he believes Billy Graham is only important because he is privileged to bring to our nation and the world a message of salvation given by God. He believes this so deeply that he is reluctant to accept personal honors that recognize the unusual achievements of his ministry. We all need dedication in our lives. I think it is impossible to be successful in any worthwhile endeavor without this ability to set a goal and seek it constantly. I hope you will learn all you can about Billy Graham’s supreme dedication.
When we opened the new DuPage Heritage Gallery at DuPage Center in Wheaton in the fall of 1980, the Gallery and the people of DuPage County received a special gift of lasting value from Governor James R. Thompson who delivered the dedicatory address.
When we were thinking about persons who might dedicate our new DuPage Heritage Gallery on County Farm Road in Wheaton, it was state Senator James Philip of Elmhurst who suggested that we invite Governor Thompson. My first reaction was that he would be too busy to attend our dedication. I also thought it a little unfair to ask a man whose fife had been spent as a lawyer and a political leader to take time to prepare an address on the importance of heroes and heritage.
Both of my fears proved to have no foundation. Governor Thompson did accept, and he gave an address with thoughts that will be just as important a hundred years from now as today. I want to share with you three of Governor Thompson’s observations.
"We find that the past is shimmeringly changeable. Time Magazine recently recognized this in focusing on a new breed of historians. They are coming to the academic fore by digging out new meanings from our past, meanings that often run counter to the currently accepted history.
"What makes this evening and this dedication so remarkable is that the DuPage Heritage Gallery is one of the first in Illinois, and I think in the nation, to join in this new trend. Our nation’s communities have not gone in quest of new meanings in their own history as you are doing in examining yours. This takes a special kind of leadership and public support. That is why what you are doing is so important and so unusual.
"Not long ago Newsweek Magazine spotlighted the importance of heroes and heritage in our national life with the question, ‘Where Have All Our Heroes Gone?’ Columnist George Will in a very perceptive essay in that issue commented that one of the least attractive aspects of today’s America is the absence of affection and respect for the people who struggled with the problems of the recent past.
"Will reported that some people are saying that we should outgrow our desire or belief in heroes ... I suppose like Santa Claus. I know I haven’t outgrown my belief in Santa Claus, and, as a case in point, I am teaching our Samantha all about Santa Claus. Two is about the right age for Santa Claus. Will observed, and I agree, that only an unusually fortunate nation can be without heroes, and no democracy like ours, should want to do without those rare figures who capture and condense in their lives a moment, a movement or an idea.
"Heroes are pioneers who get us going into some field of endeavor like Gary or Gates whom you honor here. Heroes are giants of their professions, like McCormick. Heroes are spiritual leaders and teachers, like Graham. Heroes are exemplars of those rare men and women who transcend any category, like Grange.
"Children must be able to make a connection between the symbolism of heroes and the lives they lead and will live. I don’t know any better way to do this than the way you are doing in dedicating this unique tribute to those larger than life citizens whose lives you happen to share."