Diane Roesing O'Brien

Diane O’Brien grew up in a leafy Chicago suburb on the shores of Lake Michigan. It was an idyllic 1950s childhood, yet her dreams were of the north woods. Two years at Colby College in Maine showed her the way to that dream. By 1970 she was married and settled into an old farmhouse near the coast, having babies, tending chickens and pigs, birthing calves and making butter – a long way from Kenilworth, Illinois. One of the side hustles that added to her husband’s teaching salary was the weekly column she wrote for the local newspaper. Forty years later she’s still recording the goings on in Lincolnville, now on an online news site, seeing the world through her little town, the macro in the micro. She’s written two books of local history, and most recently, a memoir of her marriage on the death of her husband of nearly 50 years.