With animals, a classic windmill, and a 19th-century farmstead, Kline Creek Farm whisks you to the past and lets you see what life was like in DuPage County over 100 years ago.
An obvious difference is technology, like cooking on a wood-burning stove instead of gas or electric.
“Instead of adjusting burners for low or high heat, you have high, medium, and low, based on how close you are to the fire box,” said Sue Benjamin, a volunteer tour guide at Kline Creek Farm.
Even though it was built in 1889, the Kline Creek farmhouse has all the rooms you’d expect from an American home – the kitchen, dining room, living room, and multiple bedrooms.
It even has a great parlor with entertainment in the form of a wax cylinder phonograph.
Entertainment the Kline family who built the house would have enjoyed more of during the winter rather than the summer.
“During the winter time, there weren’t as many chores to do so you had a lot more time for social activities,” explained Benjamin. “You would invite friends and family over, so winter was actually more fun than when you were out working on the farm, having to bring in the harvest and do planting in the spring.”
And the farmhouse is actually younger than the farm itself, which was settled in the early 1800s by the Kline family and owned by their descendants until 1969, when the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County purchased it.
Since then, a team of volunteers and a handful of staff have been keeping history alive on the farm.
Naperville News 17’s Blane Erwin reports.
