LF_032218

10 | March 22, 2018 | The lake forest leader NEWS
LakeForestLeader.com
IN MEMORIAM
THE GLENVIEW LANTERN
Residents, community
leaders, politicians unite
against rail expansion
Don’t turn Glenview’s
neighborhoods into a parking
lot for freight trains.
That was the message
that came across loud and
clear during the public
forum held in Glenbrook
South’s Watson Auditorium
on March 12, which
drew more than 1,000
North Shore residents.
The forum called by the
Village of Glenview was
a response to Amtrak’s
proposal to the Federal
Railroad Administration
to add three daily round
trips to the Hiawatha service
between Chicago and
Milwaukee, increasing
the number of its passenger
trains passing through
Glenview from 14 to 20.
This would also entail
building a two-mile holding
track in West Glenview
to accommodate the Canadian
Pacific and Union
Pacific freight trains that
share the rail line with
Metra, as well as Amtrak’s
Hiawatha and Empire
Builder (cross-country)
passenger trains. The
Glenview tracks would
run north from West Lake
Avenue to Willow Road,
and opponents assert that
they would have a negative
impact on traffic, the
environment and the community
at large.
As a consequence, there
would be increased congestion
on West Lake Avenue,
producing delays and,
at times, blocking traffic
to the hospital and high
school. The holding tracks
alongside the existing
tracks also would necessitate
removing the landscape
buffer and replacing
the greenery with a 20-foot
retaining wall.
“It is clear that this is
one of the largest challenges
Glenview has faced in
the last decade,” said Village
President Jim Patterson.
“We need your voice
and you need to get others
involved.”
Reporting by Neil Milbert,
Freelance Reporter. Full
story at GlenviewLantern.
com.
THE WINNETKA CURRENT
NSCDS joins schools
nationwide for National
School Walkout protest
In a showing of solidarity
with millions of students
nationwide protesting
gun violence exactly
one month after the Marjory
Stoneman Douglas
High School shooting in
Parkland, Fla., dozens of
students and staff members
from North Shore Country
Day School paraded from
behind the classroom walls
to the front of the Winnetka
campus March 14 to
participate in the National
School Walkout event.
At 10 a.m., Middle and
Upper School students
marched in silence to the
east end of campus on
Green Bay Road, hoisting
signs above their heads
displaying messages including
“Stop killing
our generation,” “Never
again,” “Am I next” and
“Enough.”
Glencoe resident Jed
Graboys, a junior who
helped spearhead the walkout
with the Community
Service Club, said he and
several students had been
planning for the school to
participate in a walkout
immediately after the national
movement day was
announced a few weeks
ago. He said in the days
leading up to the walkout,
students held postermaking
activities and the
Community Service Club
led a presentation on why
the protest was necessary.
“Every day, policymakers
make decisions that
they think are the best for
our country, and we as
children, our generation,
is unheard,” Graboys said.
“But now, it’s our time to
speak. Now, it’s our time
to demand change, demand
reform and what we
want, and we have to take
that opportunity.”
Reporting by Jacqueline
Glosniak, Contributing Editor.
Full story at Winnetka-
Current.com.
THE NORTHBROOK TOWER
Northbrook native
co-authors book on Joe
Maddon
Most Chicago Cubs fans
quickly developed an affinity
for manager Joe
Maddon following his arrival
in late 2014.
Now, thanks to the work
of Northbrook native and
GBN graduate Jesse Rogers,
fans of the 64-yearold,
three-time manager of
the year, will get an inside
look at the crucial role
Maddon played in breaking
the Cubs’ 108-year
World Series drought.
Rogers, with the help of
MLB.com’s Bill Chastain,
recently released “Try Not
to Suck: The Exceptional,
Extraordinary Baseball
Life of Joe Maddon,” a
book chronicling Maddon’s
life in baseball.
“It’s a biographical look
at the career of Joe Maddon
and how he came to
who he is as a manger,”
Rogers said. “The things
he’s learned along the way,
the things that make him
unique the things that have
made him a manager that’s
on the track to the hall of
fame. It’s a look at what
makes Maddon tick.”
And to find out just what
exactly does make Maddon
tick, Rogers devoted
countless hours of preparation,
work and research
during the Cubs’ 2017
spring training season. The
final product resulted in a
near 300-page book, released
earlier this month.
Reporting by Martin Carlino,
Contributing Editor. Full
story at Northbrooktower.
com.
THE WILMETTE BEACON
Officials: Langdon
Beach may not open for
swimming
The conditions at Langdon
Beach are worsening
and the Wilmette Park
District will decide in
mid-April whether or not
to open it as a swimming
beach this summer.
At the Wilmette Park
Board’s Monday, March
12 meeting, Superintendent
of Recreation Kathy
Bingham explained that
the district is going to wait
until after some of the
March and April storms to
determine the next step.
“This year the conditions
are very different and
we’ve never seen it quite
like what we have right
now,” she said. “We’re going
to see if we have any
storms that majorly change
the landscape down there.
We’re definitely going to
know a month from now
or five weeks from now
what we think we can do
with that space.”
If the district were to
open Langdon as a swimming
beach this summer,
grading would need to be
done in late April to create
a path to walk down to the
lakefront.
“Traditionally towards
the end of April is when
we bring in the heavy machinery
to do our grading
at the beach. Last year, we
actually created a path and
an area so that we could
get people down there,”
Please see Neighbor, 14
Former Lake Forest teacher left
lasting impact on community
Alan P. Henry
Freelance Reporter
Catherine
Lenore Sommers
broke
through
gender barriers
at the
University
of Michigan,
taught
Lenore
chemistry and then math at
four Lake Forest schools,
and lived a life dedicated to
faith, family and education.
The longtime Lake Forest
resident died March 9 at
age 91.
Sommers was born to
Leslie and Catherine Olson
and grew up in Escanaba,
Mich., where she was the
high school valedictorian.
At the University of Michigan,
she became the first
woman to receive a bachelor’s
degree in chemical engineering,
and did so with
honors. She then went on to
receive a masters degree in
chemistry.
Sommers worked at Abbott
Laboratories, where
she met Armiger “Joe”
Sommers of Clarksdale,
Miss. They were married
on Sept. 10, 1949 at St. Patrick’s
Church in Escanaba,
Mich., and remained a loving
couple until his death in
2015.
After the last of her five
children started school in
1965, Sommers taught
chemistry at Barat College
and then at Ferry Hall. After
a brief time at Woodlands
Academy, she moved
to Lake Forest High School
in 1973, where she taught
math before retiring in the
early 1980s.
“I remember her being
an excellent teacher,” said
fellow LFHS math teacher
Thor Benson. “She cared
about her kids. She tried to
create something different
and exciting for them all
the time, plus she was just
a fun person to be with. I
can remember some of our
math parties in her back
yard.”
Sommers passion
for teaching helped her
grandaughter become a
teacher as well.
“She had a nurturing
way, and she loved education
and that is why I became
a math teacher,” said
Sommers’ granddaughter,
Tracy Pierret, who taught
math for a time at the
School of St. Mary. “She
definitely set the bar pretty
high with women and math
and education.”
In his words of remembrance
at the Church St.
Mary, son-in-law Mike
Pierret recalled Sommers
as a woman with great determination.
It was that
drive, he said, that helped
lead to the creation of a
computer lab at LFHS.
“The motivation was her
sincere concern and love
for her students,” he said.
As a mother and a grandmother,
Sommers was an
inspiration.
“She was very dedicated
to family and to God,” said
her daughter Betty Pierret.
“She raised the five of us
and got us all to go to the
colleges we wanted to go
to.”
“What really gave grandma
so much pleasure was
watching her children and
her grandchildren spread
their wings and accomplish
their goals,” said Mike
Pierret.
Their daughter Tracy recalled
how the grandchildren
would often walk to
her house after school at
St. Mary, where she would
help them with their home-
Please see Memoriam, 20