Anna Ruhl was born in 1866 in a very small town in Pennsylvania, but her family moved to a farm in Paynes Point, IL when she was still an infant. She was educated in Rockford and graduated high school there in 1884. Her brother Antes would become a prominent local businessman, as president of Nelson Knitting Co where he worked for over fifty years. At the age of 23 she moved to Chicago to work as a stenographic correspondent. After less than a year, however, she moved back to Rockford, and started work as a bookkeeper for Lovell's Laundry. Her brother Antes at this time was rising in the ranks of the Nelson Knitting Co., remembered as innovators in the mass production of socks. "Rockfords", as they were known with their emblematic red and seamless heels, were fashioned into red-lipped sock monkeys, popular toys before and during the Depression. Shortly after her return to Rockford, Anna met another up-and-coming business man, Bailey Page.
They became engaged, with the Rockford Register declaring, "That will be the turning of a new Page in Miss Ruhl's life history". Indeed it was. Dr. BB Page was educated as a veterinary surgeon, but got into the quarry business, eventually becoming President of the Northern Illinois Supply Company. They married in January 1891 at her mother's house on Grant Avenue. Later that year, their house completed construction. For seven thousand dollars in 1891 he erected the first estate on the block, at Haskell Avenue and Whitman Street. Here they entertained guests, from local college students to members of the Young Foreign Missionary Society. She was active with the Rockford Women's Club. She was a founding board member of the Winnebago County Home for the Aged. They had no children, but she had varied interests including farm life, farm dogs, wildlife, in particular birds, conservation, church work, and education. In 1929 she donated land for the Bailey B. Page Memorial Park, now named the Talcott Page Memorial Park, and which underwent a renovation in 2014. Her husband, now also known for reducing the rate of tuberculosis in cattle, died in their home in 1933. In 1939, she donated land "to be used as a conservation park, providing shelter and refuge for birds and wildlife and for protection and growth of wild flowers, forest trees, and shrubbery." She continued to use her three-acre summer home on the property. Anna passed away in her home on Haskell Avenue in 1948, at the age of 82. She is buried at Greenwood Cemetery. Her will bequeathed 360 acres of farm and woodland to the state of Illinois, for development as a park "to protect wildflowers and wildlife and to develop spring brooks". It also established the "Anna Ruhl Page Scholarship", previously awarded to women students interested in natural or human conservation, and now available to second-year students majoring in the sciences at Rockford College. Special thanks to Jean Lythgoe in the Local History section of the Rockford Public Library.
Congrats to halemeister on the FTF!
BYOP and you will need a TOTT!