Susan DeGrane – Page 10

Former writer for Chicago mayors pens book for kids about the superheroes in their own families

January 26, 2021 at 2:33 p.m.

A couple of years ago, Francois Johnson of Chicago's Beverly neighborhood saw a television interview with a survivor of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II. "This journalist...

Paula Somers directs early morning traffic in December as parents drop off children for classes at St. Alexander School in Palos Heights.

At Palos Heights school, an everyday hero ensures student safety, fiscal responsibility

January 1, 2021 at 5:00 a.m.

At 7:45 a.m. on school days, Paula Somers can be found directing traffic in the parking lot of St. Alexander Parish in Palos Heights. Two streams of cars alternate in...

Sara Brown, left, and Kevin Brown, executive director of the Blue Island Historical Society, are keeping historic interest in Blue Island architecture alive by converting the annual House Walk to a virtual format. Their home at 12950 Greenwood Avenue will appear as the second stop on the walk.

Blue Island House Walk moves online, offers video tours of historic homes

December 27, 2020 at 11:46 a.m.

The 400-member Blue Island Historical Society promotes local history through archive maintenance, public displays and presentations, but it's had to put its events such as tea parties and vintage base...

A bald eagle approaches a nest of eaglets with a fish to feed them in Mooseheart on June 14, 2019.

Eyeing eagles: Winter is a perfect time to get outside, beat cabin fever and go birding

December 28, 2020 at 6:56 a.m.

Without a doubt, avoiding winter cabin fever during a pandemic is tough, but bird watching promises relief, according to Bob Bryerton, Forest Preserve District of Will County program coordinator at...

Morgan Martin, owner of Live and Believe Nutritional Center, appreciates support from the Beverly/Morgan Park/Mount Greenwood community that has taken the form of a raffle to help small businesses.

Beverly-area Super Raffle ‘offers hope and assurance the community wants these businesses to keep going’

December 16, 2020 at 11:53 a.m.

Small businesses in the Beverly, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood neighborhoods of Chicago will get a much-needed shot in the arm when they split a $200,000-plus pot collected from the...

Paula Everett, president of the Mt. Greenwood Cemetery Association, stands next to a cannon monument located in the plot of the Grand Army of the Republic.

‘There’s a lot of history here’: Three-generation effort at Mount Greenwood Cemetery marks veterans’ graves going back to Civil War

December 13, 2020 at 8:35 a.m.

Last October, workers at Mount Greenwood Cemetery installed four new markers for Civil War veterans whose graves went unmarked for more than 100 years. Scattered throughout the 79-acre expanse of...

Brothers who are legally deaf, blind and no strangers to helping out, send messages of love to sequestered seniors

December 3, 2020 at 2:19 p.m.

This fall, two brothers who are blind and deaf created colorful paintings carrying special messages for residents at Grace Point Place in Oak Lawn. "No visitors have been allowed here...

Once thought to be locally extinct, red squirrel has been spotted living among the cherry trees and raiding the bird feeders at a local nature center

November 17, 2020 at 5:37 p.m.

About a month ago, a hiker at Sand Ridge Nature Center in South Holland spotted a small creature with reddish brown fur scurrying up the trunk of a long-needled pine...

Ex-Oak Lawn mayor shares lighthearted stories of ‘E-Learning in Captivity’ and parenting during the pandemic in new book

November 11, 2020 at 10:11 a.m.

Dave Heilmann, a civil defense attorney, writer, communications specialist and former mayor of Oak Lawn, recently answered his work phone while sitting in a McDonald's drive thru. He was picking...

Sugar cookies, baked and decorated by volunteers to look like skulls for Celebration of Life, were sold Sunday during a Day of the Dead-style celebration at Edna White Memorial Garden.

On Day of the Dead, a public garden offered an opportunity to gather and remember people lost, because ‘community can be family too’

November 3, 2020 at 1:43 p.m.

Sharp shadows cut across the withering vegetable plants, wildflowers, and herbs gone to seed Sunday at Edna White Memorial Garden in Chicago's Morgan Park neighborhood. Amid Catrinas — skeleton figures...

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