Harking back to a time when costumed kids could spend Halloween roaming neighborhoods in search of cavity-inducing treats and mischievous tricks consisted of “soaping” windows, the 1950s Park Forest House Museum continues to capture life during the south suburban village’s earliest days.
Established in 1998 in a town house rental unit 21 blocks away, the museum has operated in the now-closed St. Mary Catholic School at 227 Monee Road since May 2015.
The 1950s Park Forest House Museum devotes half of its public area to depicting a town house’s main floor, complete with living room, dining area and kitchen furniture, appliances, mementos and souvenirs from 1948-53.
“We show how the rental unit would have been laid out and what it looked like in the first five years,” Museum Director Jane Nicoll said. “It’s pretty much laid out to scale.”
Some items are on loan, but most are given outright. Larger, heavier items, such as a television from 1953 and a Westinghouse refrigerator from that same era, were donated on the basis of “If you come and get it, you can have it,” she said.
Nicoll, who came to Park Forest in 1979 as a young librarian, said the museum operates with an interactive approach similar to that of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. “Everything can be opened unless it’s marked that it can’t,” she said.
A visitor examining a drawer’s contents finds S&H Green Stamps and — wonder of wonders — stamps from the Goldblatt’s department store, which decades ago anchored the Park Forest Plaza shopping center along with Sears and Marshall Fields.
Scattered around the “town house” are dolls and a few other post-war toys. Seasonal decorations include Halloween die-cuts and candle figures, soon to be overshadowed by Thanksgiving-themed items.
The museum’s other side features its special “Boomer Toys and Dolls Exhibit,” which includes dozens of box games that include one featuring Jerry Mathers (television’s Theodore Cleaver) on the cover.
While the museum showcases a time seemingly straight out of “Leave it to Beaver,” it cuts off before the time of other cultural icons associated with Baby Boomers.
“This is pre-Elvis,” Nicoll said. “No Elvis. Elvis has not been in the room.”
Nestled a few feet from the games is an eclectic mix of items and themes that include a bedroom suite, a dozen student desks and a metal box resembling a large ice chest that contains a vacuum cleaner.
Nicoll said an out-of-state truck driver donated the vacuum cleaner after seeing a museum flyer at the Lincoln Oasis.
Nostalgia is undoubtedly a big part of the draw for the baby boomers who visit, Nicoll said, while young adults also find it interesting, “if they like the 50s.”
“Right now there’s a resurgence among millennials,” she said. “They’re doing mid-century furniture and homes, but it’s high-end.”
The museum is open from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Admission is $5; free for those 12 and younger when accompanied by an adult. Tours can be scheduled by calling (708) 481-4252.
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Dennis Sullivan is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.