Hello,
I’m Alice McChesney. I was born in Glen Ellyn in 1894, the youngest of four children born into the McChesney family that was known for the grocery store started by my grandfather in 1862. I also became the most controversial member of this family.
I was born at the end of the Victorian Era and was liberated by the First World War. After getting a basic education in the Glen Ellyn schools, I attended a vocational school in Oak Park where I was the only girl, which I rather enjoyed. There I learned shorthand, typing, foreign languages and piano. My skill with the piano led to a job playing for the silent movies at the Glen Arts Theatre, then located on Main Street. This, in turn, led to a one-year contract with the Essanay Movie Studio in Chicago. In 1915, when I was 21, the movie studio moved to a remote place called Hollywood, and I went along. But when my father heard stories about life in Hollywood, he made me come home.
When the United States joined the First World War in 1917, I headed to Washington and landed a post as secretary to General Jacques Cartier, the commanding officer of the French Legation and a son in the famous Cartier jewelry family. I soon was promoted to Chief of Protocol. Later I met and married Charles H. Wilson, a well-known industrialist, and traveled the world with him.
But I also left my mark on Glen Ellyn. I was the first woman in town to own an automobile and the first woman to play a round of golf at Glen Oak Country Club. I enjoyed drinking, smoking, hunting and fishing. I was arguably the first career woman from Glen Ellyn. Liberated but not necessarily well accepted in my hometown.
