Mystery Book Club
2024-09-05 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago) | Peotone Public Library, 515 N First St, Peotone, IL, 60468, United States
Welcome back to the 2024 Mystery Club!
September selection: Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will–searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.
A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim’s wary family tells Frankie she’s on her own–and she soon learns she’s asking questions someone doesn’t want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.

Free event. Please register at: www.peotonelibrary.org

Membership meeting
2024-09-12 18:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Mark your calendar to join us for our monthly membership meeting. Immediately following will be a presentation by Jeff Stevenson, Director & Curator of the Sculpture Park & Visual Arts at Governors State University.
Membership has its advantages!

Bailly Family Homestead Field Trip
2024-09-17 08:30 - 14:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Come with us as we visit the homestead of Monee namesake Marie Bailly.
Meet up at MHS at 8:30 am, leaving at 8:45 am, join a carpool or provide your own transporation.
Plan to stop for lunch before returning to MHS approximately 1-2 pm. Call 708-534-8635 for more information.

Mystery Book Club
2024-10-03 16:00 - 17:00 | Peotone Public Library, 515 N First St, Peotone, IL, 60468, United States
October Selection: Hallowe’en Party (A Haunting in Venice) by Agatha Christie
At a Halloween party, Joyce—a hostile thirteen-year-old—boasts that she once witnessed a murder. When no one believes her, she storms off home. But within hours her body is found, still in the house, drowned in an apple-bobbing tub.
That night, Hercule Poirot is called in to find the `evil presence’. But first, he must establish whether he is looking for a murderer or a double-murderer…
Free event. Please register at: www.peotonelibrary.org Please note the new time!

History Book Club
2024-10-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
October selection: The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
by Eric Larson
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times).

Membership meeting
2024-10-10 18:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Mark your calendar to join us as we proudly host Dr. Megan VanGorder and her presentation of Mary Bickerdyke.
Membership has its advantages!

Stuffed Animal Workshop
2024-10-19 10:30 - 11:30 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Want a Moo-rie of your own? Come join the Peotone Public Library District and MHS for this Moo-velous Stuffed Animal Workshop.
Registration is required for this free event @ www.peotonelibrary.org
Please sign up only for the child/children who will be participating. Adults do not need to register for the event, but should accompanuy all children on the day of the event.

MHS Quilt Raffle
2024-11-09 11:30 - 12:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Quilt #2!

The first quilt is done & ready to be seen!
The quilt square is the railroad pattern, with a nod to the history of Monee. Quilting pattern is a stylized feather, in recognition of the first residents of our area.
The 150th patch is in celebration of the sesquicentennial of the Village of Monee, and lastly the many hands of the members of the Monee Historical Society who gave of their talents to help create the quilts.
The raffle will be held November 9th!

Membership Meeting
2024-11-14 18:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Come to the November Membership Meeting of MHS. All are invited!

MHS Annual Christmas Party
2024-12-09 18:00 - 22:00 | IL
Mark your calendar to join us on December 9 to celebrate the holiday season with all your MHS friends!
More details to follow.

MHS Membership meeting
2025-01-09 18:00 - 21:00, 2025-02-13 18:00 - 21:00, 2025-03-13 18:00 - 21:00, 2025-04-10 18:00 - 21:00, 2025-05-08 18:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Join us for our monthly membership meetings. Details and special speakers will follow.

Pizza for a Cause
2025-01-30 | Frankie’s “Touch of Italy” Pizzeria, 25921 S Governors Hwy, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Let Frankie’s do the cooking and help MHS at the same time!

American History Book Club
2025-02-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Evan Thomas’s startling account of how the underrated Dwight Eisenhower saved the world from nuclear holocaust.
Upon assuming the presidency in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower set about to make good on his campaign promise to end the Korean War. Yet while Eisenhower was quickly viewed by many as a doddering lightweight, behind the bland smile and simple speech was a master tactician. To end the hostilities, Eisenhower would take a colossal risk by bluffing that he might use nuclear weapons against the Communist Chinese, while at the same time

Classic Book Club
2025-02-15 10:30 - 11:30 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Lorraine Hansberry’s award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of Black America—and changed American theater forever. The play’s title comes from a line in Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem,” which warns that a dream deferred might “dry up/like a raisin in the sun.”
“The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun,” said The New York Times. “It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic.”

American History Book Club
2025-03-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
The first book to lay bare the life of a Nazi camp guard who settled in a Chicago suburb and to explore how his community and others responded to discoveries of Nazis in their midst.
Reinhold Kulle seemed like the perfect school employee. But in 1982, as his retirement neared, his long-concealed secret came to light. The chief custodian at Oak Park and River Forest High School outside Chicago had been a Nazi, a member of the SS, and a guard at a brutal slave labor camp during World War II.
Similar revelations stunned communities across the country. Hundreds of Reinhold Kulles were gradually discovered: men who had patrolled concentration camps, selected Jews for execution, and participated in mass shootings—and who were now living ordinary suburban lives. As the Office of Special Investigations raced to uncover Hitler’s men in the United States, neighbors had to reconcile horrific accusations with the helpful, kind, and soft-spoken neighbors they thought they knew. Though Nazis loomed in the American consciousness as evil epitomized, in Oak Park—a Chicago suburb renowned for its liberalism—people rose to defend Reinhold Kulle, a war criminal.
Drawing on archival research and insider interviews, Oak Park and River Forest High School teacher Michael Soffer digs into his community’s tumultuous response to the Kulle affair. He explores the uncomfortable truths of how and why onetime Nazis found allies in American communities after their gruesome pasts were uncovered.

Classic Book Club
2025-03-08 10:30 - 11:30, 2025-04-12 10:30 - 11:30, 2025-05-10 10:30 - 11:30 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a book set in the Jazz Age in New York, first published in 1925 in the United States.
The novel follows a cast of characters living in the fictional towns of West Egg and East Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The plot revolves primarily around the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his bizarre passion and obsession with the lovely former debutante Daisy Buchanan. The Great Gatsby, considered Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, painting a portrait of the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale about the American Dream.

Heritage Day - The History of Russell Publications
2025-03-08 13:00 - 15:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Join us for a Meet-And-Greet with newspaperman and Russell Family historian Chris Russell to discuss the legacy that his family made in publications for Monee and the surrounding towns.

MHS Trivia Night
2025-03-29 18:00 - 21:00 | Monee Parks and Recreation Pavilion, 5218 W. Court St, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Monee Historical Society will host
Trivia Night on
Saturday, March 29, 2005 at 6:30 pm.
Do you think you have all the answers?
JOIN US FOR A MULTI-ROUND TRIVIA COMPETITION.
BRING A TEAM OR JOIN ONE HERE. TEAMS OF 4-6 PEOPLE.
6 PM – DOORS OPEN
6:30 PM TRIVIA BEGINS
$25 PER PERSONTICKETS INCLUDE SNACKS, SOFT DRINKS, COFFEE & TEA CASH BAR AVAILABLE
REGISTRATION REQUIRED – SIGN UP BELOW
MONEE PARKS & REC BUILDING 5218 W. COURT ST. MONEE, IL

American History Book Club
2025-04-03 19:00 - 21:00 | IL
John F. Kennedy had long been interested in the topic of political courage, beginning with his senior thesis at Harvard. The thesis, later published as Why England Slept, was a study of the failure of British political leaders in the 1930s to oppose popular resistance to rearming, leaving the country ill-prepared for World War II.
Kennedy’s election to the House in 1946 and the Senate in 1952 gave him personal experience in dealing with the conflicting pressures that legislators face.
When Kennedy took a leave of absence from the Senate in 1954 to recover from back surgery, it gave him the opportunity to study the topic of political courage. The project resulted in the publication of Profiles in Courage, which focuses on the careers of eight United States Senators whom Kennedy felt had shown great courage under enormous pressure from their parties and their constituents.
His own battles with physical pain and his experiences in World War II as a PT boat commander also gave him inspiration. Profiles in Courage, which Kennedy dedicated to his wife Jacqueline Kennedy, received thePulitzer Prize for biography in 1957.
Call for location of event 708-534-8635

Classic Book Club
2025-04-12 10:30 - 11:30 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Travel along on the journey with Lemuel Gulliver as he takes you to Lilliput and beyond in this must-read classic tale.

Louis Jolliet: A Solid Path Through Water
2025-04-12 13:00 - 15:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
We are proud to present Jim Healy’s one-man performance that will surely transport you on the perilous journey with Louis Jolliet and Fr. Jacques Marquette. Free event, but registration is required for limited seating. Call 708-534-8635 or e-mail: info@moneehistoricalsociety.com to reserve your seat.

American History Book Club
2025-05-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
From the New York Times bestselling author of Manhunt (now an Apple TV+ series) and in the tradition of Empire of the Summer Moon comes “a vivid account” (The Wall Street Journal) of a forgotten chapter in American history: the deadly confrontation between natives and colonists in Massachusetts in 1704 and the tragic saga that unfolded.
Once it was one of the most infamous events in early American history. Today, it has been nearly forgotten.
In an obscure, two-hundred-year-old museum in a little town in western Massachusetts there stands what once was the most revered relic from the history of early New England: the massive, tomahawk-scarred door that came to symbolize the notorious Deerfield Massacre of 1704. This impregnable barricade—known to early Americans as “The Old Indian Door”—constructed from double-thick planks of Massachusetts oak and studded with hand-wrought iron nails to repel the tomahawk blades wielded by several attacking Native tribes, is the sole surviving artifact from one of the most dramatic moments in colonial American history: In the leap year of 1704, on the cold, snowy night of February 29, hundreds of Indians and their French allies swept down on an isolated frontier outpost to slaughter or capture its inhabitants.
The sacking of Deerfield led to one of the greatest sagas of survival, sacrifice, family, and faith ever told in North America. One hundred and twelve survivors, including their fearless minister, the Reverend John Williams, were captured and forced to march three hundred miles north into enemy territory in Canada. Any captive who faltered or became too weak to continue the journey—including Williams’s own wife—fell under the tomahawk or war club.
Survivors of the march willed themselves to live and endured captivity. Ransomed by the royal governor of Massachusetts, the captives later returned home to Deerfield, rebuilt their town and, for the rest of their lives, told the incredible tale. The memoir of Rev. Williams, The Redeemed Captive, published soon after his liberation, became one of the first bestselling books in American history and remains a literary classic. The Old Indian Door is a touchstone that conjures up one of the most dramatic and inspiring stories of colonial America. Now, in this “immersive and memorable book [and] with his gifts of great storytelling and penetrating insight, James Swanson has given us a compelling account of an unjustly forgotten episode in American history” (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of And There Was Light).

Kids Butterfly Event
2025-05-03 11:00 - 12:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Flutter on by and learn all about butterflies. Make your own Butterfly Wind Chime!
Registration is required at: www.peotonelibrary.org

American History Book Club
2025-06-05 19:00 - 21:00 | Monee Heritage Center at the Creamery, 5210 W Court Street, Monee, IL, 60449, United States
Part 1
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 is a 2003 biography of the 35th president of the United States, John F, Kennedy (JFK), who was assassinated in 1963. It was written by Bancroft Prize-winning historian Robert Dallek, a prominent History professor at Boston University. The author is a presidential historian who taught at Columbia University and UCLA prior to accepting his professorial role in Boston, and was the author of nearly two-dozen books. Dallek researched JFK for five years, using National Security Srchives, oral histories, White House tapes, and medical records in his preparations. Dallek contends that historians have underestimated JFK’s achievements, especially in regards to his impressive accomplishments in foreign policy, including his averting nuclear war during the Cuban Missle Crisis and his early steps towards detente with the Soviet Union, which began with his Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of August 5, 1963
