This journey began in 1991, when my great aunt, Helen Cruise "Honey" Cole got down on her hands and knees to play with my one year old daughter in the living room of her apartment in Oak Park. At 90 years old, she laughed and sang "I love you, a bushel and a peck. A bushel and a peck and a hug around your neck." My daughter squeeled with glee. And I realized that history was escaping right before my eyes. Thus started a double edged blessing... I try to keep a journal of our children's lives and, I've taken it as my challenge to know my family history.

Twelve years later, I've collected photos, clippings, articles and anecdotes. I've bugged relatives to tell me stories, scanned photo albums, scoured census records and much, much more. Through this, I've made a choice to not only record, but to reconstruct history as best I can about the people who brought us here.

Why Pagahocy 1011? How do you bring together almost 1,000 people and 200+ years? After years of saying I was gonna create a website or gonna write a book, I took advantage of some free webpages at Rootsweb to begin pull it all together. As I registered, I settled on "Pagahocy 1011" as the project name. Some family will figure it out as the name of a boat and of a house... My mom has told me that her father, Ralph Leonard owned a sailboat that he named after his daughters, PAt, GAyle, HOlly and CYnthia. And my father grew up in a wonderful home built by his grandfather in Oak Park at 1011 Euclid.

Please enjoy! And remember to write or call if you can add a little history...

***NOTE *** This is a work in process. As of March 2002, I've entered a LOT of pictures and information about Pat Leonard and the hotel's he ran on Crystal Lake. I am adding as fast as I can...