The Riverside Historical Museum now has on display a tapestry displaying some of the village’s iconic towers which was created by a notable former resident.
The “Towers of Riverside” tapestry was created in 1967 by Dr. Martin Marty, a religious historian and retired University of Chicago professor who lived in Riverside for 43 years, and his first wife, Elsa L. Schumacher. Dr. Marty died at 97 in February after moving away from Riverside in 2007.
In warm shades of red, orange and yellow against a blue backdrop, the rug-like artwork depicts the Water Tower and its two smaller well houses — one of which is now home to the museum — as well as the Township Hall clock tower, the Hofmann Tower, the Presbyterian Church tower and the Central School bell tower with the school’s arched entryway.
“My dad designed some of it. My mom did the color stuff, and then, basically, rug-hooking,” said John Marty, one of the couple’s sons.
He said his parents were inspired by Riverside’s “somewhat unique architecture.”
“Our neck of the woods had several Frank Lloyd Wright houses on the street, and Riverside, because it was the first planned community in the U.S., it’s such a unique community. It’s not a, quote, ‘typical suburb.’ It’s a special place, and the towers are part of that,” he told the Landmark. “It was their abstract look at some of the towers of Riverside.”
Marty said he inherited the tapestry when his mother died in 1981 and that it had sat on the wall of his family’s home in Minnesota, where he holds public office, for the past 30 years or so. In 2023, he reached out to the museum for the first time about donating it.
“I’m 69, and we’re trying to slowly downsize. I’m a state senator in Minnesota, and we’re trying to figure out what happens in the next phases of life. Our kids visited grandma and grandpa in Riverside when they were little, but they’re not going to want it, and my brothers are all at the age of downsizing now. We figured it’s such a beautiful piece of art and that it would be something that somebody would treasure,” he said.
He said he and representatives from the museum played email tag over the span of about two years before they could organize the transfer of the tapestry.
“It took six months or something for them to get back to me, and then I got tied up with other things at work, and then, all of a sudden, I came across their old email and said, ‘Oh, I better respond.’ They looked it over, and they were excited about it,” he said. “It’s just a beautiful piece of art, beautiful towers and, for us, beautiful memories. I figured it ought to go to the town where it came from, the town that inspired it.”
