The Hamerstrom home had been planned as a stage coach stop and had an incomplete ballroom upstairs that served as a storage area for specimens and data collected from their field research over many years.
The Hamerstroms raised two children, Alan and Elva, in their home outside Plainfield. Hamerstrom life was far from ordinary, even during the childhood of Alan and Elva, Fran confided to a friend who visited the house years later that "we had all the luxuries" (such as a first-rate ornithological library) and none of the necessities".
"Frances "Fran" Hamerstrom (1908 - 1998) was an American author, naturalist and ornithologist known for her work with the greater prairie chicken in Wisconsin, and for her research on birds of prey. Was a prolific writer, publishing over 100 professional papers and 12 books on the prairie chicken, harriers, eagles, and other wildlife topics." (She was a woman doing a man's work/science, the first in her field).
This fabulous lady, Fran Hamerstrom, was introduced to me in 2010 in the form of one of her 10+ books, I quickly fell in love & devoured all of her books rapidly over the following couple years.
I will continue to share tidbits of info about her amazing life in following blog posts. She lived a life I admire, not one I exactly want to live, but have great respect and curiosity for.
Before we even discovered our Frannie girl, we had a name selected that we both adored.
A namesake of a surely fascinating, smart & "unladylike" person!
*reference Wikipedia
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Hamerstrom#section_1
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