Elmhurst and Villa Park seem quite different on the surface.
Villa Park is largely residential. Most of its 4.5 square miles is devoted to homes, apartments and condominiums, and a small percent is devoted to industry.
Elmhurst, a city of approximately 10.1 square miles, is more of a mix, with dwellings and numerous businesses and industries.
But underneath there are more similarities than differences. They share a common historical background, settled by people interested in prospering as farmers and businessmen-and in rearing good families, too. They share a desire to offer ”the good life” to their residents, whether it`s providing good schools, a plethora of programs at the park districts, well-equipped libraries or services for the elderly.
Lawrence La Deur, 62, has lived in Villa Park for 56 years and has been a local businessman for 30 years (he sells office equipment). His wife, Joyce, formerly of Elmhurst, came to Villa Park when they married in 1947.
”We raised six children here, and we really like the community,” he says. Villa Park is peaceful, like a small town.
For Mrs. La Deur, 61, the schools always have been a plus, from 1954 when their first child began kindergarten, to 1987, when the last one was graduated from high school.
”The curriculum was so diversified,” she says. ”My five sons were interested in math. Villa Park schools gave them their choice of many courses, which ranged from computers to geometry to calculus. My daughter was interested in music, and she ended up taking chorus for all four years of high school. I feel Villa Park schools prepared my children very well for college.”
Newcomers also are quick to praise the schools. Nancy Verpaele, 34, moved to Villa Park two years ago with her husband, Robert, 42. ”The fine school system is one of the main reasons we moved here,” she says, adding that she is pleased with what she has seen so far.
”Our district`s in tune with the individual needs of each child. If someone has a reading or other problem, for example, there are many special classes at different levels offered to help him raise his reading scores. The children really get a lot of personal attention too.”
The Verpaeles have two children in school-Erica, 8 and Tricia, 6. A third child Brian, 16 months, will start school in four years.
Villa Park is served by five elementary schools, three junior highs and one high school.
Across the border in Elmhurst, residents are equally proud of their schools. Elizabeth Read, a social worker, gives the schools part of the credit for the family moving to the suburb. Another reason was the location near the main freeways. ”My husband, Web, travels quite a bit,” she says. ”He`s a regional manager for a medical electronics company.
”We had four children in high school in `77 when we came here,” she continues. ”We knew that large numbers of Elmhurst students went to college, and this was something we wanted our children to do.
”But besides this, we found many of the teachers very caring. When Richard, our third oldest boy, was having trouble with biology in his junior year at York Community High, his teacher, Terry Grider, offered several times to stay after school to help him bring up his grade.”
Elmhurst is served by eight elementary schools, three junior highs and one high school. Private high schools include Immaculate Conception, Immanuel and Timothy Christian High Schools.
Recreation programming is another reason residents like the towns. New Elmhurst residents Greg and Diane Stallmann, both 26, say they are looking forward to using park district facilities.
”There are pools, and we swim,” says Stallmann, product manager for a Wheeling computer manufacturing company. ”There are racquetball courts, and I play. And we`re looking forward to bike riding on the Prairie Paths and picnicking in the parks.”
The district was cited by the National Recreation and Park Association in the last two years as one of the four best park districts in its population group in the country because of the types of programs offered.
The district offers more than 250 recreational programs such as craft classes for toddlers, teen travel clubs, ballroom dance classes for all ages and aerobic classes for the elderly.
Two eight-week summer camps focus on activities as diversified as wood and paper crafts and Indian beadwork, nature awareness and hiking and games. Three one-week specialty sports camps focus on baseball, volleyball and football respectively, and one eight-week camp includes these sports plus swimming, basketball, field trips and other activities.
Director Mick Pope says he has plans for more: In the fall up to 15 activities and events will be added, including a natural food festival, a self-defense course and a young scientists` workshop.
The district`s activities take place at 24 parks, 2 Olympic-size outdoor swimming pools, a community center and an indoor tennis and racquetball center, to which a health-and-fitness center is being added.
Next door in Villa Park, it is hoped that the 23,000-plus residents will participate in the 600 or more programs offered in any calendar year by the Villa Park Recreation Department. Those programs will be offered at more than 12 parks, 4 fishing ponds, 2 swimming pools, 2 tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course that is co-owned with the Elmhurst Park District, a community center and an administration building.
Wayne Lulay, director of parks and recreation, says he wants to make sure that the department gives residents the quality of life they expect in the suburbs, including open spaces and leisure activities.
”With all the stresses we have in our lives today, people need to get out of the house and participate in a recreation program,” he says.
Since 1976 the communities have shared the golf course, called Sugar Creek, which is in Villa Park. ”Over 50,000 rounds of golf are played on this course each season,” Pope says. The course generates enough revenues to maintain and improve it and to return a modest amount to each community.
Other community assets are the Elmhurst and Villa Park Public Libraries, which are in daily use.
The Villa Park library has 112,758 volumes along with 4,426 pieces of audio/visual material such as filmstrips, taped travel books and compact discs. Services for the handicapped include a Braille typewriter and large print books for people with poor vision and sign language classes for the hearing impaired. Book discussion sessions and free tutoring for adults with reading difficulties are just a few of the programs offered.
Elmhurst`s facility has about 170,000 volumes, including large-print and Braille books and magnifying systems for the visually handicapped and a collection for adults learning to read. It also includes 500 newspapers and magazines, educational games for children, and a large number of audio/visual material such as records, music and books on cassettes, videocassettes, compact discs and educational computer software.
The Elmhurst library has almost 40,000 cardholders. ”There are only
(about) 45,000 people who live in town, as of the 1980 Census, so that`s a high percentage,” says Marilyn Boria, administrative librarian. ”This is a reading town, with lots of people using the library.”
Both also are members of the Suburban Library System, a computer network that provides access to the resources of hundreds of suburban libraries.
”That opened up the whole world to Elmhurst residents,” says Raita Vilnins, that library`s assistant administrative librarian and one of the people who helped link the library to the system.
A substantial number of elderly residents call the communities home. In Elmhurst, 23 percent of the 44,276 residents age 55 and older, according to the 1980 Census. Of Villa Park`s 23,185 residents, nearly 19 percent are age 55 or older.
”People have a tendency to stay here,” Lawrence La Deur says.
In Villa Park, more than 300 older residents come to the Iowa Community Center to play cards and billiards, do crafts and go on outings such as trips to Chicago Cubs games, dinner theater and Iowa`s Amana Colonies.
Senior coordinator Bob Maggio`s job officially is a part-time position, but it fills most of his days. He serves as activity coordinator, counselor, pinochle pinch hitter, and friend to the people who frequent the center, 338 N. Iowa Ave.
”I like associating with people,” Maggio says. ”It`s my favorite part of the job.”
”If you want a dose of happiness, just stroll through those two rooms at the Iowa Center on a Friday afternoon,” says Bill Mueller, a retired research chemist and regular pinochle player at the center. ”There`s some unifying force at the center that I wish I could bottle and sell.”
Many classes are offered at Elmhurst`s Abbey Leisure Center, including drawing, driving and microwave cooking. The Abbey Swingers meet weekly to dance. As in Villa Park, day and overnight trips are popular.
Fun is the focus at the Abbey. ”My goal is to make the Abbey a real `hot spot` for seniors in Elmhurst,” says Melanie Kuhar, center manager.
”Healthy, vibrant, energetic people come here, and we provide the means for staying young.”
Elderly residents also participate in the 1,000-strong volunteer corps of the Retired Seniors Volunteer Program, known as RSVP. Residents 60 and older from Du Page and west Cook Counties are eligible to join. RSVP matches volunteers with about 40 area nonprofit organizations that need workers such as carpenters, dispatchers, toy repairers, musicians and hospital aides.
Irene Stender of Elmhurst, for example, has volunteered at the Y`s Buys Thrift Shop in Elmhurst since 1977. She spends about 6 hours a week there as a clerk. The thrift shop is operated by the Young Women`s Christian Association of Metropolitan Chicago.
RSVP offers its participants social expression, value and a sense of belonging and contributing, says Marion Robbins, the RSVP community representative.
Stender puts it this way: ”I like to get out of the house and meet people. My coworkers are very dedicated. I`ve met friends among the other ladies who work there. (RSVP has) a lot of things that are good for me.”
A less apparent similarity is the towns` concern for greenery: Both are devoted to flora of all kinds. Each has received a ”Tree City U.S.A.”
designation-Villa Park for the last four years and Elmhurst for the last nine years. Elmhurst is shaded by 8,000 elm trees, which gave the town its name. More than 20,000 once covered the land.
Over in Villa Park, the greenery is a little closer to the ground. The Men`s Garden Club of Villa Park offers an annual garden walk that allows the public to see 10 to 18 gardens. It also puts on a flower show, with about 2,000 participants who display flowers, vegetables and flower arrangements.
Competition among members is keen, says president Chuck Cornell. ”A lot of men in the club will swap plants, but they might not swap (gardening)
tips,” he says. ”You find someone with a spectacular garden, and maybe he`ll share something with you and maybe he won`t.”
There are other things that residents cite when asked why they like living in Elmhurst or Villa Park. In Villa Park, they include:
– A recycling center. The 12-year-old facility, staffed by volunteers, accepts glass, newspaper and aluminum.
– The Prairie Path Gazebo, being built by volunteers in honor of the village`s 75th anniversary on Aug. 6. Major anniversary festivities will begin Sept. 22 and run through Oct. 1. The gazebo will be dedicated as part of the celebration.
– The Newcomers and Neighbors Club, which welcomes new residents and performs service projects for the community such as delivering food for home- bound seniors.
– The Villa Park Prairie Path Improvement Association. It raised $64,000 last year for street lights in the town`s section of the Illinois Prairie Path, which traverses Du Page County.
In Elmhurst, they include:
– Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, which opened in 1926. It offers many services, including programs for older adults on topics such as fitness, nutrition, safety and wellness, and an outpatient counseling center in Lombard that offers family, job school, drug and alcohol counseling.
– Elmhurst College, which opened in 1871. The college shares its resources with the community in several ways. Residents age 60 and older get tuition discounts on a space-available basis; the library belongs to the Suburban Library System, and the college is home base for the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra and the Chorale Union, which are made up of students and community residents.
– The Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra.
”One main reason we moved here was Elmhurst College,” says new resident Greg Stallmann. ”They have so many programs, including jazz festivals and theater. But we also moved here because this community is very convenient to the expressways and because the Chicago & North Western line goes right through the city.”
Villa Park Mayor Joyce Daly is optimistic about the town`s future.
”We`re doing very well, in terms of retail sales and sales tax revenues,” Daly says. ”We don`t have as large an industrial or retail base as some communities, but we do have six car dealerships . . . on which we depend heavily. And we have a few small, industrial businesses. CONXALL Corp., which manufactures electrical interconnections, is our biggest employer.
”The economic development commission will be studying the small amounts of unincorporated area surrounding Villa Park to see if they have development potential and with an eye toward possible annexation.
”We also have a large parcel of land in the center of town that was formerly Ovaltine Products Inc.,” she says. The firm manufactured and distributed the Ovaltine drink and other products. Ovaltine left in 1983, and the site`s owner is planning congregate housing for seniors, with some space reserved for commercial use, Daly says.
”Because Villa Park is landlocked, we can`t plan large expansion,” she says. ”We just don`t have the space available.”
Daly wants Villa Park to grow as much as possible within its limits. ”As an older community, we need to focus on business retention and redevelopment or rehabilitation of existing properties, rather than look at new
development,” she says.
Elmhurst Mayor Charles Garrigues is pleased and hopeful about his town`s economy.
”As far as retail`s concerned, we`re doing reasonably well,” he says.
”We`re getting strong support from our auto dealerships, and our outlying retailers are doing well. Unfortunately, our downtown, which has vacancies and the need for more pedestrian traffic, is not growing as fast as we`d like, so we`re pushing it for redevelopment.”
Signs of redevelopment are showing in the central business district, at York and 1st Streets, says Carol Groeschel, executive vice president of the Elmhurst Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
One sign is the facade and awning program, now in its second year, in which the city will reimburse property owners up to $2,500 toward new awnings. Other signs of this redevelopment are new parking lots and planters. And a new police station is expected to be completed Jan. 1, 1990.
The city also has created a tax increment financing district, bounded by Haven Street on the east, North Avenue on the north, Larch Street on the west, and Palmer Drive on the south. When new businesses come to such a district, taxes generated by them are used to pay for public improvements on the land, rather than going into general fund coffers.
Part of the downtown improvement will be in the residential arena, Garrigues says. ”We recently gave formal approval to a 90-unit apartment
(building) in the downtown section.
Elmhurst`s industrial base is very healthy, Garrigues says. ”We have a number of strong industries such as the Keebler Company corporate
headquarters, which includes a product and process development center.”
”Our residential market is quite strong, too,” he says. ”There`s a heavy demand for housing of all kinds here, including upscale apartments and moderate priced condominiums and homes.
”We also hope to include some moderately priced senior housing in the downtown area. One of our biggest community needs is to provide more housing for seniors generally. A number of older people would like to stay here, but don`t want to continue living in their homes.”
Plans for senior housing include Lexington Square, an apartment complex of about 370 units in the southwest part of town. Construction is just beginning, with completion scheduled for June, 1990. It will have studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments with monthly rents from $720 to $1,150.
Groeschel agrees with the mayor`s assessment. ”We`ve had a number of new businesses-both service and industrial type-open in the last year. And each month, we continue to have some new ones,” she says. ”Besides this, several new industries have also moved into our industrial area, including a new brewery called Pavichevich Brewing Co., which brews beer European-style in kegs.”
Mayors of both towns are members of the Du Page Mayor and Managers Conference, which discusses issues such as transportation and zoning, Garrigues says.
Villa Park`s Mayor Daly could be speaking for both mayors when she says:
”We`re very close-knit and friendly here. Even though our population sounds large, I think, at heart, we`re a small-town community with those kind of values.”
