Peggy Richard, The Ultimate Nature Lady
WEARING A BLUE LINEN BLOUSE and perfect white slacks, Peggy Richard sat in a well-loved out-door chair o her porch enjoying the balmy breezes of a midsummer morning, while sharing important moments from the tapestry of her life.
Richard’s journey began south of London in Surrey, England, where she was born more years ago than she’d care to reveal. The daughter of an English mother (Elsie) and an American father (Bertram James “Jimmy”), Peggy was the younger of two children. When Richard was a child, her family moved to Chicago, then followed by Park Ridge.
“We lived outdoors,” Richard reminisced, as she remembered gathering flowers and making campfires. “I think there were original prairies growing all around us, but that didn’t last long. It was just at a time when the suburbs were starting to grow.”
Yearning for more open space, Jimmy Grigsby, a native of rural Cuba, Ill., purchased a Barrington hobby farm in the 1930s for the family to enjoy on weekends. Today, Grigsby Prairie is located on the north side of Oak Knoll Road at Buckley Road in Barrington Hills.
Elsie Grigsby was amenable to the idea because the scenery reminded her of rural England. “It was beautiful,” Richard said with a smile, “with gravel roads and no traffic.”
“We had horses, cows, and chickens,” Richard continued. Tenant farmers grew the feed. Richard and her brother urged their parents to move to the hobby farm full-time, and received their wish when Richard was in her late teens. She would remain there until she was married, moving into a guest house on the property with her husband before purchasing neighboring land to build a home. Her brother and his family resided nearby, too, but times were changing and suburbia was expanding.
“[When] I inherited the land [for Grigsby Prairie], I wanted some way of keeping it open forever,” said Richard. In 1980, Richard decided to donate a 14.4 acre parcel that once served as a hayfield to Citizens for Conservation for open space preservation. It was named in honor of her late father, Mr. Grigsby.
The making of an award-winning prairie
Over the course of the next 25 years, Richard would add 28 acres and watch what was once a hayfield become transformed from several parcels into a high-quality prairie of 42.4 acres. Following 23 years of restoration under the leadership of CFC and thousands of hours of restoration work by its members, where there were few native plants – there are now 175 native species, with some that are rare. Invasive species have been mostly eliminated and are under control.
Grigsby Prairie was recognized as an exemplary project of successful restoration work in December, 2009, by the Conservation and Native Landscaping Awards Program that is jointly organized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Chicago Wilderness.
CFC consultant Wendy Paulson describes Richard’s gift to the community as “a vibrant kaleidoscope of native prairie flowers, grasses, birds, and insects that serve as an immersion classroom for hundreds of young people and adults each year, not to mention as habitat for rare grassland species of birds, insects, reptiles, and amphibians.” She also noted that those acres could have become several multi-million dollar estates. “Peggy is a true conservation hero and model of civic-mindedness,” Paulson said.
Grigsby provides a priceless sanctuary for increasingly rare birds to rest and nest. It contains more than 175 species of native wet, mesic, and dry prairie plants, together with savanna and wetland species, Bobolinks, short-eared owls, and countless other grassland birds that utilize the unique ecosystems encompassed by Grigsby as they are migrating. Eastern meadowlarks, field sparrows, marsh wrens, sedge wrens, and redheaded woodpeckers nest here. Admiring adults and children flock to the prairie for scheduled field trips.
Richard’s gift to schoolchildren
School visits to Grigsby started 10 years ago with bus loads of third graders from School District 220 accompanied by local “nature ladies.” Coordinator of the Nature Lady program, Nancy Taub, smiles as she remembers helping children “[discover] different spiders and their webs, listen to the birds, and see all of the grasses flowing with the wind.” Each one-hour fall nature walk focused on prairie plant identification and historical uses, but also allowed for teachable moments along the way. Today, these educational walks continue thanks to the support of the Garden Club of Barrington and the Little Garden Club of Barrington.
A Prairie Preservation grant received by School District 220 in 2009 encouraged fourth grade citizen scientists to get off the trail and get more intimate with the site, measuring prairie plants, gathering seeds, and making hands-on discoveries amid 6-foot tall plants. Dr. Anne Grall Reichel, science consultant for School District 220 and author of this grant, described the experience as “absolutely magical.”
“Our work was really about building community in so many ways – from [helping the] prairie community, to celebrating the knowledge base of our volunteers, to creating environmentally responsible young citizens,” Reichel said. “Metaphorically, it’s restoring a sense of community – something that in our hurried world seems very fragile. I’ve never seen such a unique opportunity for education.”
Grigsby Prairie is long remembered by its youthful students who pass through it while in elementary school. Sam Oliver, CFC’s staff director, recalls a video interview by two Barrington High School students. “They were interviewing me for a video and they both said, ‘Oh, I remember Grigbsy Prairie!’ ”
Peggy Richard agrees. “I’m thrilled to see the children come out to gather seeds and learn about the prairie. I hope more people become aware that it’s necessary to preserve. It’s very gratifying and so gorgeous.”
Did you know?
- Grigsby Prairie was the first prairie restoration project undertaken by CFC and volunteers from the community
- Seeds were first sown at Grigsby Prairie in 1987 and harvested 10 years later to enrich other areas.
- 85 percent of the seeds originally planted in Grigsby Prairie came from along the Chicago and Northwestern railroad tracks – a seed source that no longer exists.
- In 2009, Grigsby Prairie provided approximately 40 pounds of native prairie seed to other sites in the area and 65 pounds of seeds to sites that CFC is actively restoring.
How can I help?
- Volunteer to assist with restoration projects (including seed collecting in the fall) at Grigsby Prairie every Thursday and Saturday 9 - 11 a.m., and the first Sunday after Labor Day, from 3:30 – 5 p.m. and every Sunday thereafter until right before Thanksgiving.
- Donate land or funds to CFC or other conservation-oriented organizations. Donations to CFC are tax- deductible and can be used to purchase, preserve, and restore open space in the Barrington area. For more information contact CFC at 847-382-7283.