“Family, Museum of Science & Industry Mourn the Loss of Ed McDonald”

I regret to report that many current and former employees and volunteers of the Museum of Science and Industry are united in grief over the death of Ed McDonald on March 1, A.D. 2021 after an illness. Edward James McDonald (1952-2021) was longtime Director of Facilities and Operations at the M.S.I. and retired at the end of January after thirty-seven years in the post.

Born on April 24, A.D. 1952, Ed McDonald earned his B.S. at St. Xavier University, which has its main campus in the Mt. Greenwood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, in 1974. In addition, he studied educational administration at Northern Illinois University (N.I.U.) in DeKalb, Illinois; science education at the University of California, Berkley; and project management at The University of Chicago.

Before he joined the M.S.I. staff, he worked as a science teacher at Summit Hill Junior High School. He was also an assistant principal. Further, he was Paper Sessions Chairman at both the regional and state level of the Illinois Junior Academy of Science.

For years, he oversaw the Chicago Public Schools (C.P.S.) science fairs hosted by the M.S.I. With Barry A. Van Deman, he wrote the book Nuts & Bolts: A Matter of Fact Guide to Science Projects, published by The Science Man Press in 1980. At the time of its publication, Mr. McDonald was an Education Associate at the M.S.I. and Mr. Van Deman was Educational Services Coordinator. It was Van Deman who hired McDonald for this first job at the M.S.I. [Van Deman later held the titles Director of Education and Director of Science at the M.S.I. from 1983 to 1990 and subsequently served as Executive Director of the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. He is now President & Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O.) of the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina.] In October of 1983, Ed McDonald became Director of Facilities and Operations.

As Director of Facilities and Operations, Ed had a hand in several renovation and expansion projects at the M.S.I. These included a retooling of the Coal Mine; moving the United Airlines Boeing 727 into the Transportation Gallery; and moving the U-505 from behind the East Pavilion, around the Henry Crown Space Center and the East Pavilion, and under the front lawn into the subterranean McCormick Tribune Foundation Exhibition Hall. Ed was both liked and respected by people who worked for him and by colleagues who worked with him.

In 1995, he met his wife, Cheryl (nee Tyner) McDonald, at M.S.I., where she was Manager of Public Programs for over eight years. They were to celebrate their twenty-third wedding anniversary this year. Ed’s hobbies included photography, SCUBA-diving, motorcycle-riding with Cheryl, and cigar-smoking.

He is survived by Cheryl, five children, six grandchildren, six siblings, and several nieces and nephews. [In the next passage, the names of spouses are in parenthesis.] His children are Steven (Jill), Kevin, Jeanette (Ted), Cyndi (Ralph) Paredes, and Timothy (Heather). The grandchildren are Gavin, Brooklynn, Landon, Connor, Makenzie, and Declan. Ed’s siblings are Dolores (Roger) Pawlik, Patrick (Terri), Maryann, Maureen, Margaret (John) Karolczak, and Mark (Ellen).

His wake will be held from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Maher Funeral Home in Tinley Park on Thursday, March 4, A.D. 2021. The funeral Mass will be held at St. George Catholic Church at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, March 5, A.D. 2021.

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The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.