The Whitney Family

(source and date unknown)

The story of the Whitney clan is a fascinating one – particularly since so many of their descendants still live in Lake Zurich. The Heybecks, the Loomises, and Snetsingers, the Grasses – these are but a few.

The story begins with Levy and Permelia Chase Whitney, two of Lake Zurich’s earliest settlers.The Whitneys moved to Illinois from Mexico, New York, in the spring of 1839. They journeyed by boat to Chicago, but they found the land too marshy. They then took a covered wagon to Waukegan, the center of all trade in the area. Levi heard about Lake Zurich from some friends and bought several tracts of land from the government. The deed was signed by President John Tyler.

Levi built a log cabin on Lake Zurich’s southwest shores for his wife and twelve children. Soon it was replaced by one of Lake County’s first frame homes.

In 1853 when his youngest child, Joseph C., was 21, Levi died. His widow lived with Joseph on the homestead until her death at the age of eighty-six.

Joseph C. Whitney met Mary Delano through friends in Waukegan and married her in 1860. In that year a receipt from the collector’s office showed that their real estate tax bill for 120 of their 160 acres was only $11.43. The personal property tax was $2.28.

The Whitneys had six children: May, Lillian, Clarissa, Lydia, Cora, and Edith. After their first child, Clarissa, was born Joseph volunteered and served for three years and three months in the Civil War. He was a member of the 96th Illinois Infantry and served under General Rosecrans.

A cache of letters between J. C. and his wife during his long war years away from Lake Zurich are being preserved in an ancient trunk by the Snetsinger brothers. They are being reproduced this Centennial year in the Frontier Enterprise.

J.C. was a deacon of the First Baptist Church in Barrington for many years and director and treasurer of the historic Ela Mutual Insurance Co. He was a member of Lounsbury Lodge 751, A.F. and A.M., and Barrington Post Grand Army of the Republic, “an order which he dearly loved,” ancestors recall, “for no one was more proud than he when they marched down the street following the old flag to the tune of the fife and drum. He was a fine figure of manhood with spirited eyes.” The pews of the Baptist church were given by him.

J.C. Whitney died in 1914 at the age of 81. He was survived by his wife, Mary J. Whitney; Mrs. J. G. Catlow of Barrington; Mrs. 0. I. Rockenbach of Deerfield; and Mrs. James Snetsinger of Lake Zurich,

According to her Great Grandson Henry J. Lageschulte, who wrote a voluminous family history when he was a high school freshman, Mary Whitney “was a loving mother and a religious person. She wasn’t as strong a character as Grandfather Whitney.”

“My grandmother told my mother about pretty bonnets that great grandmother Whitney wore – creations of purple violets with a satin or silk ribbon bow tied under her chin.”

“Shortly after her husband died, Mary died. She was of ‘poor spirit’ and could not survive without her husband’s boundless cheer and good spirit. Her body rests in Evergreen Cemetery, Barrington, Ill.”

May Whitney, for whom one of Lake Zurich’s grade schools was named, was born Nov. 7, 1870, at the Whitney farm. She attended Lake Zurich school at Ela Town Hall and was in the first graduating class of Barrington’s two-year high school in 1888. After finishing two summers at Chicago Teacher’s College, May taught in a log school in the Honey Lake district, at Wilmot school in Deerfield and later, the two-room school in Lake Zurich.

On June 17, 1897, she married Orman Rockenbach and bore him six children: Almira, Whitney, Lillian, Alice, Helen, and Lydia. At one time Orman, a retired farmer, operated Reynold Park in Lake Zurich.

Relatives recall that May was gifted with a fine sense of humor and had an unshakable faith in love and it’s power. In times of trouble she was as “staunch as the Rock of Gibraltar.”

May Rockenbach died on July 5, 1949 five days after the death of her daughter, Almira Rockenbach Heybeck. Her great grandson, Ryan Heybeck, was born the morning of her death.

The children of May and Orman Rockenbach have married and are still living except for Almira who had married Albert Heybeck of Lake Zurich. Whitney married Aune Lemppainen and lives in Cuba, Mo.; Lillian married Jack Warner, Delavan, Wis.; Lydia married Charles Bobinette, Arlington Heights; Alice married Vernon Lageschulte of Barrington; Helen married William Brandenburg, Western Springs.”