Forever Open, Clear, and Free: The Struggle for Chicago's Lakefront

Lois Wille was a Chicago reporter, editorial writer and author who challenged the city with hard-hitting investigations and won two Pulitzer Prizes. She wrote for Chicago¿s three biggest daily newspapers over four decades and became a journalistic institution as she exposed scoundrels in the city. She also wrote two books that reflected her show more knowledge of how the city works. In Forever Open, Clear, and Free: The Struggle for Chicago¿s Lakefront (1972), she examined the forces that sought to control the valuable piece of city property along Lake Michigan; and in At Home in the Loop: How Clout and Community Built Chicago¿s Dearborn Park (1997), she documented the rise of a neighborhood in a blighted city tract in the face of political forces to thwart it. Lois Jean Kroeber was born in Chicago on Sept. 19, 1931. After high school she went to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, receiving her bachelor¿s degree in 1952 and her master¿s in 1953. The next year, she married Wayne Wille, who became an editor for World Book Publishing. Lois Wille broke into the male-dominated world of Chicago newspapers by becoming the assistant to the fashion editor at The Chicago Daily News. She started writing for the women¿s pages. She soon earned a spot on the news side as an investigative reporter covering subjects like poverty, and health care. She won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1962 with a series she wrote on providing birth control for low-income women. She then moved on to become the editor of the paper's editorial page. After the Daily News went out of business, she moved over to The Tribune where in 1989 she won her second Pulitzer. This one was for editorial writing. Louis Wille passed away on July 30, 2019 at the age of 87, from complications of a stroke. (Bowker Author Biography) show less