Glum faces bely what was likely a fun Naperville July 4 picnic

It’s hard not to look at this photo and ask, why so glum? But as has been noted before, smiling in photographs was not something people did much of back in the day. This photo was taken on July 4, 1892, and captures a group attending a holiday picnic at Burlington Park in Naperville. A handwritten note that accompanies it indicates that W.G. Knoch, third from left, married Adolphine Boecker, fourth from right, and their son, Winfred “Win” George Knoch, would go on to be appointed a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, a job he held until his death in 1983. Three years before he died, he and his wife donated 13 acres of farmland to the Naperville Park District , the start of what we now know as Knoch Knolls Park.