Nancy Schumm-Burgess

Nancy Schumm-Burgess is a writer/photographer/lecturer on regional history. Her articles have been featured in local newspapers including the Chicago Tribune. Her photography has been hosted by a variety of Illinois galleries and has been on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Schumm-Burgess has been lecturing on barns, wildflowers, local history, and pioneers since 1997 and presented several studies at regional symposiums. Her passion for local history came alive, first when she stood on Hadrian's Wall in the UK, second when she lived in a house where Babe Didrickson used to practice her golf swing, and it was sealed when she walked into her first barn as an adult. "It was the fact that all the senses were reached in this barn, from the creak of the flooring to the light as it filtered through the weathered cracks in the board and batten siding, the smell of the old hay and finally, and most importantly, the rustling noises in that barn, as if the ghosts had come alive. In that first barn loft, I knew I had found my calling, as if the old barn had spoken to me itself."