Bartholomew / Konsbruck / White Farm: Site 58
Samuel Bartholomew was born in New York in 1817. He came to DuPage County in 1838 and over time he purchased 78.4 acres of farm property along Eola Road. He married Lucy Graves in 1840 and they had eleven children, one of whom was Amos, born in a log cabin on the farm in January 1863. Sons George and Charles served in the Civil War. Mr. Bartholomew was an elder in the Warrenville Baptist Church. He built the existing house in 1865 and remained there until he died in 1909.
In 1896 Amos Bartholomew moved his family to Eola. His daughter, Amy Bartholomew, visited Fermilab in 1979 and she recalled the home being a center of "gaiety and good times - box socials, picnics, and large family gatherings." Recently, Dr. Wayne Bartholomew from Chicago visited the home to learn about his ancestors.
This home, on its original site, remains essentially as it was 100 years ago, except for the conversion of a summer kitchen into a garage, and the addition of a kitchen, a sun porch and a fireplace, and more recently, a deck in back. The house has a fourteen-inch stone foundation, hand-hewn timbers in the basement and several layers of siding.
Edward Konsbruck bought the Bartholomew farm around 1909 and lived there with his family until 1941, when Mr. and Mrs. S B. White bought the house. Robert Wolsfeld, living at the Hadley house up the road and farming the neighboring fields, took care of Mrs. White's crops also. Mrs. White was well known for her beautiful gardens and apple orchard. When the state purchased the property in 1969 she moved to West Chicago.
This farm was the home of Fermilab’s second Director, Leon M. Lederman, from 1980 until 2012. Lederman and his wife, Ellen, maintained the home and gardens in much the same style as its previous occupants and entertained guests of Fermilab for over thirty years.
