About the Author
Connie began her love affair with reading and history as a child in rural Kansas. She would she wait in line for The We Were There books at the bookmobile in front of the post office. Connie credits her lifelong love of history for her fascination with the history of Chicago’s West Loop.
Connie is known to be an engaging storyteller and always wanted to chronicle the stories of her 25-year home in Chicago’s West Loop. (Connie has also written Scratch That TM Seasonal Menus and Perfect pairings cookbook and has written various travel and food articles.)
Connie’s professional experience includes launching the first nicotine patch in the US and she worked with many to remove smoking from airplanes.
Also, she helped develop some of the first direct to consumer advertisements for television in the areas of smoking cessation and incontinence. Connie helped start a medical device company in Boston and take it public.
As a lover of the arts and education for everyone, she was a volunteer tutor for more than 25 years, cleaned her local park with her cleaning buddies, and provided piano accompaniment for her local elementary school for many years.
Today, she is a volunteer interpreter for the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust and leads tours at The Rookery in downtown Chicago. She is a judge for the Chicago Metro History Day in conjunction with The Chicago History Museum at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2023, she was one of 65 garden winners chosen for the 2023 Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards. Once a month, she serves coffee and jokes at Hope’s Table, her church’s homeless outreach mission. (Connie strives to use all the letter of the Spelling Bee in the New York Times Sunday Magazine for the three-point bonus. She also hopes to practice her way back to her college level piano days.)
