The Schlicks and Daleidens spent time in the City of Wheaton Illinois. I located two post cards several years ago at the Midwest Book Hunters Book Fair.

The photo an current map shown above is of the “Driving Park” race track at the Wheaton Fair in 1908. This was formerly located on the north side of Wheaton, Illlinois just south of Geneva Road and east of Main Street near the Wheaton Eye Clinic. There is a lot to take in looking at this photo. There are four people harness racing coming out of a turn. A judge’s stand to the right. Spectator stands to the left and on the inside of the track.

In 1844 Vermonter Daniel Kelley purchased 1,400 acres and settled at “Tall Trees” with his wife to raise Spanish Merino sheep. The Kelleys and their 11 children all became actively involved in Wheaton’s political and business life. Daniel Kelley donated land for the Chicago Great Western Railway, and the area around the railroad stop became known as Gretna after 1887. Gretna was settled by German farm families, largely Roman Catholics from Southern Germany.

In 1853, St. Stephen Catholic Church was built in Gretna and later closed in 1867. When St. Michael Church was opened in Wheaton in 1872, the St. Stephen parishioners were transferred to that parish. The church building was dismantled sometime in the late 19th century. St. Stephen Cemetery, last used for burial in 1910, was located adjacent to the church building. The St. Stephen Cemetery (located north of the Great Western Trail behind Meyer Material Company on St. Charles Road) was rededicated 100 years later on September 12, 2010. (Source: City of Carol Stream website: https://www.carolstream.org/about/history.).

Due to the fact that I like “going down rabbit holes”, I searched Clara Bosma’s name for the 1900 Census for Union Grove Wisconsin in Racine County. Clara in 1900 was born in 1891 and was six years old. In 1906 she was nine and one of three children of Mr and Mrs. John and Annie Bosma Clara’s sister were Emma (16) and Ida (13). Clara’s father and paternal grandparents were born in Holland. Perhaps the person writing the note was he mother or a friend visiting relatives or friends in Wheaton.