The Brookfield Historical Society will feature a program looking at one person’s connections between Brookfield and California. The Wednesday, Aug. 26 speaker will be Gail Allinson, who will present “Ties Between Illinois and Northern California (From the Donners to the Zephyrs and Beyond).”
It will take place at the Grossdale Station, 8820½ Brookfield Ave., at 7:30 p.m. The speaker is a long-time member who maintained a Brookfield Historical Society-related web site while living in California. Despite the distance, she felt a strong affinity for Brookfield and its history.
She will talk about her personal interests in the ties that exist between the two places she has lived; her experiences with visiting historic sites that evidence those ties; and her experiences in traveling between the two places.
Allinson grew up in LaGrange Park. She went to Lyons Township High School, College of DuPage, and has a B.A. from Western Illinois University. She moved to Brookfield in the early 1980s and lived there for 14 years.
She moved to northern California and lived there 17 years. She returned to Brookfield in 2012. She has an interest in history and the preservation of historic sites and artifacts.
