Helen Plum
As Women’s History Month comes to an end, I’d like to take a moment to remember our own Helen Plum, who contributed so much to our communities.
Helen Plum and her husband, William, moved to Lombard (then known as Babcock’s Grove) in 1868, and the newlywed couple jumped right into the life of the community. William was elected to the town council at the age of 23, while Helen became a church leader and a charter member of the Lombard Woman’s Club.
In 1891, when a Lombard attorney named Ellen Martin found a loophole in the town ordinances that would allow women to vote, she turned to her neighbor, Helen Plum, to support her cause. Helen organized a dozen women from her church – including her 73-year-old mother – to stand beside Ellen Martin at the Lombard polling place. Together, they demanded their ballots and became the first Illinois women ever to vote in an election.
Two decades later, Helen made local botanical history when she came home from a trip to Europe with two French lilac bushes, one white and one purple. She and William kept on collecting and hybridizing lilacs, and eventually their gardens included more than 1,200 lilacs. They even named their estate Lilacia, to honor the beautiful, fragrant plants.
Helen Plum died in 1924. In her will, she left an endowment for the establishment of a public library in her name. When William died three years later, he bequeathed his estate – including the lilacs – to the people of Lombard, for use as a public park.
Now, every May, we can see Helen Plum’s legacy in the incredible beauty of Lilacia Park in bloom, and her lifelong commitment to civic engagement lives on in the new library building that bears her name.