As the school year gets in gear and your evening queries to your kids about what they’re learning are met with unintelligible and less-than-enlightening answers, it’s up to you to create ways to get information. To connect to your kids, to help them connect to their schoolwork, and to build some family time, plan visits […]
Cinda Ackerman Klickna
Cinda Klickna is a former teacher from Springfield and past president of the Illinois Education Association.
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Subject to change
Literary clubs, in a sense, have been around since Socrates and Plato convened their many intellectual discussion sessions. The British coffeehouses of the 18th century, where men met to discuss all aspects of politics and religion, continued the tradition. In the 1830s, Margaret Fuller, a friend of Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, […]
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Legacy
Philip and Mary Kathyrn Trutter traveled all over the world — 10 trips to 100 countries — and collected amazing pieces of art, jewelry, and artifacts from the many places they visited. They filled every inch of their home — tabletops, walls, cabinets — with these pieces. And today their memory lives on in the […]
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Commander in speech
After carefully studying the speeches of the nation’s 43 presidents, Allan Metcalf has learned that it’s quite possible for a commander in chief to routinely mangle the language — and still succeed. In fact, voters seem to be quite forgiving of presidential candidates and incumbents who have trouble stringing a coherent sentence together. “The better […]
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Arts harvest
From dance performances to art shows, from theater productions to Halloween fun, the Springfield arts scene bursts with offerings this fall. In Chicago, the Art Institute is featuring an exhibit centered on the Georges Seurat masterpiece A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884. Springfield boasts its own Seurat-related exhibit: Visitors to the Que Sera, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A feeling for family, down on the farm
What happens when 10 siblings decide to join forces? Add 10 cousins to the mix, and imagine the fun and frivolity. Often, downright naughty things happen. Springfield native Helene Odell Moss O’Shea, the middle child of 10, writes of her family’s escapades in A Handful of Prisms, due out July 4. The book brims with […]
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The view from inside
As anyone who enjoys an occasional night out listening to music or watching a good performance can attest to, Springfield doesn’t suffer from a lack of cultural offerings. Indeed, the number of organizations promoting the arts here is surprisingly large, given the capital city’s size. We have independent theater groups, visual arts groups, musical groups, […]
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What’s in a name?
It’s easy to figure out how some schools got their names: Fairview had a view of the fair; Pleasant Hill stood on a pleasing hillside; Southern View, Laketown, and Southeast referred to specific areas of the city. A grove of hazelnut trees led to the naming of Hazel Dell School, and Harvard University lent its […]
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The Case of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon
For several weeks in September 1944, people in the town of Mattoon, Illinois, showed the symptoms of exposure to poison gas–nausea, vomiting, weakness leading to near paralysis, light headedness, even spitting up blood. All of the victims reported a “sweet cheap perfume odor” permeating their homes prior to the onset of sickness. Scott Maruna, a […]
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The Lost City
A lot happened in 1935: Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean; Bruno Hauptmann was sentenced to die for killing the Lindbergh baby; and, here in the Illinois state capital, people witnessed the dedication of Lake Springfield and the Vachel Lindsay Bridge, the planning of Lincoln Memorial Garden, and […]
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Springfield 1935
ORPHEUM THEATER Near the corner of Fifth and Washington once stood the Orpheum Theater, known for its lavish interior. It rivaled the big theaters of New York and then fell victim to “progress” in 1965, when it was demolished to make way for the Illinois National Bank. Historic preservationists still bemoan the loss of such […]
