When the village of Oak Park celebrates the 125th anniversary of its incorporation this December, an important document from December 1, 1901, will be a part of the celebration. The Oak Park River Forest Museum, 129 Lake St., has in its possession the original minutes from the meeting of incorporation.
Frank Lipo, executive director of the museum, notes the minutes were gifted by George M. Ambrose, the first village clerk, to then-Village President Willis McFeely in 1929. McFeely framed the minutes at Grables, a shop on Oak Park Avenue, and loaned them to the Oak Park Public Library. In 1973, the framed minutes were donated to the Historical Society, then just five years old.
While the minutes have been kept in a frame for much of their history, the paper was in poor shape. Enter Graphic Conservation Company (GCC.) Originally part of R.R. Donnelly & Sons, GCC was incorporated in 1982 and has been based in Oak Park since 2020, with workspace in the historic Fifth/Third Bank building at Oak Park Avenue and Harrison.
Christina Marusich, head conservator, hails from Oak Park and has been working with GCC since 1989. Sasha Perez, client service manager, is also an Oak Parker. Along with Mican Morgan, they have taken on this project of preserving the document on a pro bono basis.
The front of the document bears the signatures of the village board members who incorporated the village. The back of the framed piece is marked with the Historical Society stamp, dated 1973, the date the minutes were donated to the organization. The Grables logo and location, 122 N. Oak Park Ave., are also included on the back.
Marusich says, “All of these little details are part of the history. We’ll keep elements of the framing.”
Inside the frame, the paper is tearing and eroding and bears stains from the past 125 years.
As part of the conservation process, the conservators will study the materials to make sure they use the best methods to conserve the piece. Morgan says, “The matte is very acidic. It’s made of wood pulp, but we’ll be able to preserve the writing.”
Materials such as wood pulp are often part of the problem with older documents — the acidity can make the documents unstable. Older glass, like that used in the frame, can also allow in UV rays that can damage paper. GCC’s reframing process will include an upgrade to preservation-quality glass that will filter out UV light.
To start the preservation process, the team will remove the paper from the frame and do a thorough examination. This lengthy examination is roughly half of the preservation timeline.
Marusich says, “We need to figure out what we’re dealing with. We don’t want to cause any harm.”
This part of the process also determines what is the best preservation process that will not harm the ink of the signatures. After they determine the best materials to use, they will clean the paper, repair tears and fill in any lost pieces.
They are looking forward to seeing what they find on the rear of the paper. Morgan says, “We don’t know if there’s handwriting on the back. That could be a fun reveal.”
Marusich says if they find something on the back, they can make a high-resolution print and put that on the back of the frame of the preserved piece. “We have found some interesting things on the back. It can be a very big and good surprise when that happens.”
GCC specializes in paper preservation. Frequently, people bring in historic documents, family documents and photos, art, birth certificates, marriage certificates and family trees. People often have paper items that are highly meaningful to their families. They helped preserve a 1930s letter to Santa Claus.
Some documents have a lot more significance. GCC preserves documents for the Abraham Lincoln Library in Springfield and are the paper conservator for the Obama Presidential Center. They also preserved the Wasmuth Plates for the Frank Lloyd Wright collection at the Oak Park Public Library.
A project like the Oak Park incorporation minutes might normally take about six months, but GCC is prioritizing their work to get the preservation wrapped up in time for the 125th anniversary. Lipo says while Oak Park was a recognized name on a train station and map as early as 1871, it wasn’t until 1901 and the incorporation that Oak Park officially became a village. In the coming year, he is working on a number of plans to tie into the anniversary.
Meanwhile, the conservators at GCC are just beginning to delve into another, larger project from the History Museum: a scrapbook that was displayed at Oak Park’s Blue Parrot Café.
The proprietor, Grace Pebbles was a friend of Frank Lloyd Wright. Lipo says Pebbles hired Wright’s Fellowship at Taliesin to do the interior design of the café. William Beye Fyfe (the grandson of the Beye whose name is on the elementary school today,) did the lion’s share of the work and also created the book for the Café’s Celebrity Room. The extra-large tome is a scrapbook of sorts, highlighting Oak Park’s most famous residents.
Conservator Brian Kapernekas is beginning to look into what the pages hold. “We’re using UV light to render the invisible visible,” he says, noting that identifying the materials used will help them salvage the work.
As the museum raises funds to support this significant restoration project, GCC is beginning the painstaking process of determining what the preservation of the scrapbook will entail, digging into the pages of the book and all that has been holding them together since 1934. Three layers of tape, two kinds of glue, torn pages, stains, and pages and pages of history waiting to be revealed.
