Carolyn Goetz
Editor’s note: The following are the writings by LBOLA founder Carolyn Goetz, which her daughter Sandy Goetz Ragsdale read to the Village Board on Monday before the trustees voted to register a 35-acre Lake Bluff-owned property as a land and water reserve. Carolyn wrote this in 1989 and added to it in the summer of 1992. This past spring, Sandy found the writings in a handmade book that her daughter, Caitlin, made at age 9 for the “Time Travelers” enrichment program at Lake Bluff’s East Elementary School. Sandy came across the notebook when she was looking for something to give Caitlin from her grandmother on the occasion of Caitlin’s marriage. The sentences in parentheses are editorial notations made by Sandy for her presentation on Monday.
Notes of Carolyn Goetz, who formed Lake Bluff Open Lands Association in 1981:
“I have the firm conviction that nature is the greatest teacher of all. That if our children are in touch with natural things — frogs, fireflies, wildflowers, waves, prairies, woodlands — if they can walk on the edge of a wetland at sunset, run along the lake shore in the early morning light, watch the patterns of dappled light on the verdant banks of the ravine — they will have a solid bedrock, and sense the good of living throughout their lives. They will be visionary and caring — for no one can be mean — or desperate — if they know the honesty and balance of the natural world.
For this reason I have made three (crossed out) four marks on the Lake Bluff landscape:
–Rescued the wetland and made it and its pine woods, prairie and savannah accessible and restored to its original beauty. (This is now known as the Carolyn Goetz Wetland Preserve and was dedicated in 1995)
–Planted the beach bluff with native trees, shrubs and wildflowers and designed benches and steps as a resting place and a memorial to Non. (Non was Grace Lockwood Kuehnle, my mother’s mother. The Beach Preserve was dedicated in 1984)
–Replaced the footbridge across the ravine and planted the entrances to it. (The footbridge at Gurney Ave was dedicated to Elmer Vliet, Village Historian, in 1986)
–Preserved and cared for a prairie of tall grasses and wildflowers at Belle Foret Drive north of the golf course. (Dedicated in 1992)
I hope there will be time and energy to do more, and that these places will be the living teachers and nourishers of those who will find them a part of their life as they live in, and grow in this good place.”
–CKG April 1989 and summer ‘92
Sandy wrote the following and read it to the Village Board:
My mother did have the time and the energy to do more. Carolyn Goetz’s fifth and perhaps greatest undertaking in Lake Bluff was the saving of the area now known as the Skokie River Prairie Land and Water Reserve. She began this battle in 1994, and when my parents retired to Inverness, California, in 1996, she handed it and her “baby,” Lake Bluff Open Lands Association, over to Larry McCotter. She knew that Larry would follow in her footsteps and continue to realize her dreams and visions here in Lake Bluff.
In 2006, the summer before she died, LBOLA flew her back here for the 25th anniversary of the founding of the organization and honored her as the “Queen of the Prairie” in their 4th of July Parade float.
Larry has continued her legacy and more and I want to thank him and LBOLA and our visionary Village Board, in my mother’s name, for the incredible gift the action taken at Monday’s meeting has given the children —and adults- of our Village now and forever. As I walk these sacred spaces with my children and now my grandchildren, I can truly sense the good of living and now know that many generations of Lake Bluffers to come will do so as well.
