A Trip Back to 1950s

The February 3rd Chicago Tribune reported about a new house that opened in Park Forest, Illinois, which takes Baby Boomers right back to their youth.

This past Saturday, the village had the grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Park Forest is located 40 miles south of Chicago and was in the first-wave of suburban towns built after WWII to meet the needs of returning veterans and theiur families. There is another house like this in Rolling Meadows (the first village my family lived in when we moved to Illinois in in 1962), which was designed in a similar fashion.

The house features Boontown Ware dishes, an old TV, rotary phone, among other era items.

All in all, these items are on a modest side compared to today's McMansions. According to village archivist and museum director Jane Nichol, "It's not that things were simpler in the '50s--it's that people expected less. What you have to understand is that these were people who were raised in the Depression and had been through years of war. They didn't have the attitude that they had to own everything."

Park Forest was incorporated in 1949 and was the first master-planned community in the country.

The museum will be open Sundays this month from 1 to 3 pm and is located at 141 Forest Blvd.

Hey, What Time is Howdy Doody On? --RoadDog