Donna Vickroy – Page 4

Microbaker Christie Baron, known as the “Frankfort Bread Lady," sells homemade sourdough bread from a cart in her driveway. (Donna Vickroy/Naperville Sun)

Donna Vickroy: ‘Bread Lady’ finds her zen selling sourdough from a driveway cart

January 30, 2026 at 5:06 p.m.

Frankfort resident Christie Baron taught herself how to make sourdough bread and now sells it every weekend from her driveway cart.

A passerby lays flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the Tinley Park Lane Bryant store where five women were killed on Feb. 2, 2008. (Kuni Takahashi/baiduhai)

Column: Director to speak at local high schools as documentary on Lane Bryant shootings hits theaters

January 26, 2026 at 12:21 p.m.

Charlie Minn's documentary "The Tinley Park 5" opens Feb. 13 at AMC theaters in Crestwood, New Lenox and Chicago’s River East.

The days of dealing with live bank tellers are quickly coming to an end with the advent of online banking, eliminating one more person we used to interact with on a regular basis. (Shutterstock)

Donna Vickroy: Another bank branch closes, another human connection disappears

January 23, 2026 at 4:15 p.m.

Banking at home is convenient, but the loss of bank branches means the human connection — and human help for problems — disappears.

Chicago Bears fans cheer during overtime against the Green Bay Packers on Dec. 20, 2025, at Soldier Field. (Brian Cassella/baiduhai)

Donna Vickroy: Don’t let those ‘Cardiac’ Bears give you a heart attack

January 15, 2026 at 9:39 a.m.

Perfect heart attack storm: The Chicago "Cardiac" Bears' last-minute wins coupled with fans eating, drinking and screaming too much.

Following a group of singing nuns while they walk to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris -- how could that not be one of the highlights of your year, columnist Donna Vickroy asks. (Donna Vickroy/Naperville Sun)

Donna Vickroy: Yes, 2025 was full of chaotic dissonance, but also moments of zen

January 10, 2026 at 2:09 p.m.

It may be a year she never wants to repeat, but 2025 was also full of happy and moving moments she won't forget, Donna Vickroy says.

Audrey Katnik of Harwood Heights made this angel ornament displayed at the Christmas in July event in Harwood Heights.

Donna Vickroy: A holiday miracle: Saved by a stranger on Christmas Eve

December 19, 2025 at 12:31 p.m.

A man trapped in a freight elevator assume he was going to freeze to death on Christmas Eve until an unseen savior intervened.

Nine butterfly pupa are packed up for their trip from Evergreen Park to Austin, Texas, where they emerged as monarchs and made their migration to Mexico. (Bob Erlich)

Donna Vickroy: Late-blooming monarchs get express trip to Mexico

December 10, 2025 at 5:12 p.m.

Nine monarch caterpillars that emerged late in the season would have faced certain death had an Evergreen Park man not stepped in.

The scene at Marshall Field's downtown Chicago store with four days until Christmas in 1979. (baiduhai)

Donna Vickroy: Remembering how Marshall Field’s was a gift to beleaguered holiday shoppers

December 4, 2025 at 9:42 p.m.

In the days before cyber shopping, trips to malls were necessary to get gifts and Marshall Field's a luxurious break from the chaos.

Kevin Collinge speaks to filmmaker Charlie Minn about being the first paramedic on the scene at the Lane Bryant murders in 2008 as part of “The Tinley Park 5,” a documentary about the cold case that debuts Feb. 13, 2026. (Charlie Minn)

Donna Vickroy: Unsolved Lane Bryant murder case focus of new documentary

November 28, 2025 at 10:15 a.m.

Filmmaker Charlie Minn is making a documentary about the unsolved 2008 murder of five women at a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park.

Government has reopened but Chicago area’s hunger crisis is far from over

November 21, 2025 at 8:58 a.m.

Hunger hit Chicago and its suburbs especially hard these past few weeks. And it’s only going to get worse. During the first half of November, unpaid federal workers, SNAP recipients...

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