Your digital library is always open! You can start here.
¡El edificio estará cerrado pero su biblioteca digital siempre está abierta! Entre aquí on su tarjeta de la biblioteca de Highland Park.
Mary Frances Willard, a Highland Park resident, served as a welfare worker for U.S. troops in France during WWI. Jim Marquardt discusses Willard's experiences as documented in 52 letters sent home.
A 50-year-old public-school teacher and principal born in 1867 in Chicago, Mary Frances Willard was one of several thousand American women, most of whom who were half her age, who served as welfare workers for U.S. troops in France during World War I.
During her twelve months in France, Willard wrote 52 letters - one a week for twelve months - in which she shared with family and friends back home stories of her activities as a canteen worker and district manager; her daily interactions with American servicemen, troops from other countries, and the French people; and her travels - from Paris and the Pyrenees Mountains to the French Riviera and decimated towns and abandoned battlefields along the Front in France and Belgium.
A resident of Highland Park in her final years, Willard died in 1961. Earlier this year, Jim Marquardt, Professor of Politics and International Relations at Lake Forest College, published Willard's letters and wrote the introduction to Serving the Doughboy: Letters of a YMCA Worker in France, 1918-19.
Books will be for sale and the event will conclude with a book signing.
Opening doors to information and imagination.
