FREE EVENT!

Everyone has a story to tell. What if you could share your story and watch it come to life before your eyes? Join us for "Stories Connect Us," a cross-community story-sharing event, currently touring with The Connecting Routes Project. Attend a performance of storytelling and improvisational theater featuring your true stories of building community, connection and solidarity interpreted onstage by the Chicago Playback Theatre Ensemble. The performance begins at 7:00pm and is approximately 90 minutes long.

Doors will open at 6:00pm for pre-show activities, a recording station, and free mini-tours of Glessner House. Following the performance, the storytelling continues through recording stations, written prompts, and interactive activities.

Join us in the beautiful home of The Fortnightly of Chicago for our annual gala, Celebrating Frances Glessner.

Frances Macbeth Glessner (1848-1932) was an extraordinarily gifted woman. Her talents ranged from embroidery to silversmithing, and jewelry making to beekeeping. An accomplished pianist, she and her husband John were among the most devoted supporters of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during the first four decades of its existence, regularly welcoming the leading musicians of the world into their home.

The event, styled as a summer garden party, will include small bites and beverages, and the opportunity to tour the former home of Bryan and Helen Lathrop, an 1892 Georgian Revival masterpiece by McKim, Mead & White, which has served as the home of The Fortnightly since 1923. Frances Glessner was an active member of The Fortnightly for more than 50 years and presented the organization with a beautiful silver sweetmeat dish she handcrafted in 1905, which will be on display.

A brief program will include a welcome from the current president of The Fortnightly, remarks on Frances Glessner and her impact on Chicago, and the presentation of the annual John and Frances Glessner Award to Linda Miller, immediate past president of Friends of Historic Second Church.

This very special tour provides attendees with the rare opportunity to visit the interiors of several landmarked homes in the Prairie Avenue Historic District. See beautifully carved wood moldings, leaded glass windows, fireplaces in elaborate tile, mosaic, and marble, and much more!

Sites tentatively included on the 2026 tour:
-Marshall Field Jr. house, 1919 S. Prairie Avenue (Solon S. Beman, architect; 1883;
remodeling by Daniel H. Burnham & Co., 1902)
-Charles Purdy house, 213 E. Cullerton Street, (Thomas & Rapp, architects; 1891)
-William Reid house, 2013 S. Prairie Avenue (Beers, Clay & Dutton, architects; 1894)
-Harriet Rees house, 2017 S. Prairie Avenue (Cobb & Frost, architects, 1888)
-Second Presbyterian Church, 1936 S. Michigan Avenue (James Renwick Jr., architect, 1874; remodeling by Howard Van Doren Shaw, 1901)
-The Chicago Firehouse Restaurant, originally Engine Company 104, 1401 S. Michigan Avenue (Charles F. Hermann, 1905)
-Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation, 2120 S. Michigan Avenue (historic studio of Chess Records)

An abbreviated tour of Glessner House including the main first floors rooms is also included.

Tour guides will also be stationed at various locations in the neighborhood to discuss and show photos of prominent lost houses including those of Marshall Field, George Pullman, Philip Armour, and others.