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Environmental Progress - Spring 1999

"Gee, She Looks Familiar...."

For one Illinois EPA staffer, the Agency's newsletter was also a family album

Steve Poole, Brenda Capranica, and Barb Race
Steve Poole, BoW, and his twin sisters Brenda Capranica, left, and Barb Race, followed up their research at the Sangamon Valley Collection with a visit to the Lincoln Library north branch. This photo was taken at the branch library, located near the Agency's headquarters.

Last fall, Environmental Progress focused on ties between some Illinois EPA employees who work in the new Agency headquarters, and members of their families who had worked at the same location when the Illinois Watch Co. and Sangamo Electric Co. occupied the site. It featured a number of photos from the extensive Sangamon Valley Collection at Springfield's Lincoln Library.

Steve Poole, in the Bureau of Water, opened his copy and found himself looking at a picture he'd never seen, but a face he was sure he recognized -- his mother, who was shown using a stethoscope to manually test household electric meters. (see inset photo) The 1945 picture had been taken two years before Steve, the oldest of her three children, was born.

Patricia "Pat" Sassenberger Poole worked for Sangamo Electric from the early to the mid-1940s, while her husband was serving in the U.S. Navy.

The photo motivated Steve and his twin sisters, Brenda (Capranica) and Barb (Race) to do some additional research at the Sangamon Valley Collection. The effort paid off when they found a Sangamo Electric Co. newsletter that had used as its cover another photo of her at work.

Mrs. Poole has been deceased since 1962.

Most of the photos of the old Sangamo Electric and Illinois Watch Co. photos in the Fall 1998 issue of Environmental Progress were copied from the Sangamon Valley Collection at Lincoln Library in Springfield. Their staff also provided valuable research assistance.