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McHistory: Louise Calimese And The McLean County Home For Colored Children

A photo taken inside the McLean County Home for Colored Children in October 1935
McLean County Museum of History
A photo taken inside the McLean County Home for Colored Children in October 1935.
Credit McLean County Museum of History
Louise Calimese, 1935.

The care of orphaned, abandoned, and rejected African American children in Bloomington Normal has not always been kind or good, or even wanted in certain parts of town.

This episode of McHistory offers an unflinching perspective of Bloomington-Normal's past.

Louise Calimese and her husband Napoleon led the McLean County Home for Colored Children for nearly three decades.

WGLT's Mary Cullen produced this episode of McHistory, featuring Bill Kemp of the McLean County Museum of History and Jennifer Rusk with the Evergreen Memorial Cemetery Walk.

Rusk will play Louise Calimese at this year's Cemetery Walk, which takes place the first two weekends in October.

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