As the Carol Stream Park District’s executive director from 1980 to 1995, Barbara O’Rahilly worked to increase recreational offerings to keep up with the west suburb’s rapid growth.
A Carol Stream resident since just after the village’s inception in 1959, O’Rahilly also helped found the Carol Stream Historical Society, and colleagues noted that her volunteer efforts were central to the history group’s preservation of a farmhouse on Lies Road.
“She was very special in that she was able to collaborate and build community to work together,” said DuPage County Forest Preserve District Commissioner Rick Gieser, a former Carol Stream village trustee and lifelong Carol Stream resident. “In the early days of the Park District, there weren’t a lot of funds for the parks, so you had to get a lot of people to get together to help, to do things in a volunteer role.”
O’Rahilly, 91, died of natural causes Dec. 1, said her son, Patrick.
Born Barbara Ann Silvers in Dubuque, Iowa, O’Rahilly began work after high school as a secretary with Prudential Insurance in Dubuque. After getting married, she and her husband, Peter, moved to the Chicago area for his work.
Jay Stream began building homes in what became Carol Stream in 1958. He incorporated the village in January 1959, naming it after his daughter, Carol. Several months later, the O’Rahillys moved from Oak Park to Carol Stream.
In 1964, Carol Stream residents voted 266-30 in favor of creating a Park District. In 1971, O’Rahilly joined the staff of the Park District as a secretary, just one year after the district opened its first community center, the now-demolished Aldrin Community Center.
As the village’s construction boom continued, the Park District grew from only a few parks to more than 30. Also growing were O’Rahilly’s responsibilities. In 1980, O’Rahilly was promoted to be the district’s executive director, a role she held until retiring in 1995.
O’Rahilly was just as integral to the formation of the village’s historical society. She was a charter member of the Carol Stream Historical Society, which formed in 1976, and later chaired its board.
“Barb was one of those people who would see an idea and follow it through and involve the resources around her and the people around her, and gather them all in such a way that there was such a lovely outcome — a productive outcome that really resonated with the community,” said Carole Ellermeier, a Carol Stream Historical Society board member and longtime neighbor of O’Rahilly’s.
By far O’Rahilly’s most lasting impact on the group was when Pasquinelli Homes began developing the old Hartsing farm in 1993 and donated to the village the site’s 19th century farmhouse on Lies Road. Historically, the site had been known as the Stark farm. The history group worked with Carol Stream’s then-village manager, Greg Bielawski, to have the group maintain the house and offer programming and provide space for archives. O’Rahilly headed up that effort.
“She really took that task to heart and gathered people to work on it and had a vision for making it a place to preserve the history of Carol Stream,” Ellermeier said.
Laura Stanifer, a Carol Stream Historical Society board member and the group’s archivist, called O’Rahilly “always a gracious, organized and encouraging presence in the group.”
“She was a willing volunteer at all our events and incredibly kind,” Stanifer said. “I appreciated her upbeat spirit and her deep care for the village of Carol Stream and its history.”
“She had such a warmth about her,” Carol Stream Historical Society board President Sue Benjamin said. “And when we would hold meetings, everyone would be giving their two cents’ worth, and Barb would weigh in and when Barb spoke, we all sat up a little bit. We always looked to her for her opinion.”
O’Rahilly also was behind the society’s book, “Build Your Own Town…The Carol Stream Story,” which was authored by the late Jean Moore and published in 1984, at the 25th anniversary of the village’s founding. The book was updated in 2000.
O’Rahilly also was the first president of the Carol Stream Woman’s Club, which she co-founded in 1959.
The Carol Stream Park District in 2000 renamed the Volunteer Park on Kuhn Road after O’Rahilly.
O’Rahilly’s husband died in 2011. In addition to her son, she is survived by three daughters, Kathy Peters, Maureen Driessen and Sharon Driessen; 12 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
Services were held.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
