About the Author
Connie began her love affair with reading and history as a child in rural Kansas where she used to browse books on the traveling bookmobile. Connie’s 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 all around her. Connie and her husband have lived in The West Loop since the mid 1990’s so she has plenty of stories to share.
Connie is an accomplished professional who is also known for her culinary flair and has published Scratch That™ Seasonal Menus and Perfect Pairings cookbook and has written various travel and food articles.
Connie‘s professional background includes launching the first nicotine patch in the U.S. and helped remove smoking from airplanes with a team. She also helped develop some of the first direct to consumer ads on TV for smoking cessation, incontinence and helped start a medical device company in Boston and take it public. In Chicago, Connie has collaborated as an actor on stage, and worked with television crews on cooking segments and commercials throughout the Midwest.
As a lover of the arts and education for everyone, Connie believes in giving back to her community. She was a volunteer tutor at Partners in Education at the 4th Presbyterian Church for more than 25 years, leads architectural tours for the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust at The Rookery, and she has loved being a piano accompanist for Skinner West Elementary School. Connie was one of the 65 garden winners chosen for the 2023 Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards. Also, she is Judge for The Chicago Metro History Day in conjunction with The Chicago History Museum and the University of Illinois at Chicago. During the summer, she volunteers for Green City Market/West Loop, and you’ll find her sprucing up her beloved Mary Bartelme Park with her cleaning buddies. (Connie strives to use all the letters of the Spelling Bee in The New York Times Sunday Magazine for the three-point bonus.)
