Here at Lake Forest College, we have a handful of organizations and groups that provide our student body with entertainment, such as: the dance team, concert choir, pom squad, the orchestra and many more; however, what ever happened to the glee club?
One hundred years ago, in the year 1915, the Lois Hall Girls’ Glee Club was in its 22nd year as an organized activity on the campus. Their talents were shared through concerts from Lake Forest to Chicago, which the director scheduled every year.
One of the biggest performances on campus for the Glee Club was the Spring Musicale held at the Durand Art Institute. “It is doubtful whether many other yearly events at the college are as much enjoyed as this one is,” said issue number 21 of The Stentor published on April 22, 1915.
The Glee Club members regularly took field trips up and down the North Shore so everyone could hear their beautiful voices. They performed at locations that included Oak Forest, Cook County Hospital, the Naval Training Station, just to name a few. Unfortunately due to costs, the 1915 Lake Forest College Glee Club could not bring their voices to the West Coast, where they had performed in previous years during their spring trip to Santa Fe.
Have you ever visited Anne Thomason in our library’s archives section on the bottom floor of the library? Amongst the collection of publications on record that she has organized, you can find all the issues from the Stentor dating back as far as 1887. A 1915 issue of the Stentor shows that the paper was published twice a month and cost 10 cents. A yearly subscription cost only $1.50.
The Stentor was not always filled with reports of the latest news regarding activities and the sports teams on campus. After reading through some of the publications in the early 1900s, students actually submitted creative writing to be included in print. Short stories, poems, and personal essays are just a few of the types of articles that can be found in the early days of the Stentor.
If you take time to look back at the previous issues, you will find that Lake Forest College was once named Lake Forest University. In fact, if you look at the stained glass windows in the Chapel on campus, you can see “L.F.U.” on the stained glass near the stage.
It is clear that Lake Forest College has undergone some changes regarding student organizations. Hopefully one day, the Glee Club can make a comeback.
A version of this article appears in print on April 21, 2015 in the Stentor with the headline: Once upon a time Lake Forest College had a Glee club.
