Robert Douglass can trace his family ancestry in Lake Bluff more than a century.
Douglass said he is the grandson of Mason Phelps. The Phelps family and the family of A. Watson Armour of Lake Forest were both honored as Centennial Families by the Lake Forest Lake Bluff Historical Society on April 27 at Elawa Farm.
The Historical Society has honored 31 other families as Centennial Families, or one that has been in Lake Forest or Lake Bluff for at least 100 years, said Janice Hack, executive director. Some of those families have roots in the area that go back to the 1840s, she said.
Laurie Stein, curator of the Historical Society, meets with the families, gathers stories and looks at old photos before doing her own research.
“We wanted to highlight the very diverse history of some of the families who have lived in the community for some time and have given so much back to Lake Forest and Lake Bluff,” Stein said. “It’s a chance for their stories to be shared on larger platform.”
Mason Phelps grew up on the South Side of Chicago, according to Douglass. Stein said he had a “preternatural talent” for golf, as the game was becoming popular, and played on the golf team at Yale University and for the 1904 gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic golf team.
He also won the Western Amateur tournaments in 1908 and 1910, Stein said.
Phelps started Pheoll Manufacturing, which created fasteners for the automotive industry. The business started above a saloon on Cicero Avenue and later expanded and relocated to the far west side of Chicago, Stein said.
Phelps had two children, one of whom, Marian Phelps Pawlick, now 90, was a founding member of the Deer Path Art League, Stein said. She has served on the boards of the Shedd Aquarium, Art Institute of Chicago, Vassar College and Ravinia Festival, Stein said
One of her children is Robert Douglass, who is now president of the Lake Bluff Park District.
“It’s actually been very interesting to track down (the family history),” Douglass said. “To say that we have Olympic gold in our family, that’s a cool thing to say. There’s great pride in knowing where you’ve been and come from.”
Asked what it means to be honored as a Centennial Family, Marian Phelps Pawlick said, “I like it.”
For Courtney McGovern, a great-great granddaughter of A. Watson Armour, it was particularly appropriate to be honored at Elawa Farm, which her family created in 1917.
“Listening to all the stories from my mother and her sisters, I think my ancestors would be pleased (by being honored),” McGovern said, adding that she likes the continuity of “spirit” of Elawa.
“Charles Armour, the brother of A. Watson Armour, used to do Halloween decorations,” McGovern said. “Even today, Elawa Farm hosts Spooktacular. To see that spirit 100 years later is really great.”
Multiple branches of the Armour family lived in Lake Forest, with perhaps the most well-known being A. Watson’s cousin, J. Ogden Armour, who became president of Armour & Company, a meatpacking business started by his father, Stein said.
Watson bought 128 acres of land in 1917 fronting Waukegan Road and named it Elawa, Stein said.
Architect David Adler designed structures on the property, and another, S. Alfred Hopkins, was hired to design the farm complex, Stein said. Elawa was gentleman’s farm, meaning it was not created to turn a profit, although the family took it seriously, Stein said.
The family sold the farm in 1953, and it eventually became two neighborhoods, the Middlefork Savanna, part of the Lake County Forest Preserve and Elawa Farm, according to Art Miller of the Lake Forest Preservation Foundation.
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