Tea with Annie Glidden set at the Glidden Homestead

What have you always wanted to ask Annie Glidden?

On Sunday, Sept. 27, from 1 to 3 p.m., at the Glidden Homestead and Historical Center, meet and share tea with Annie Glidden, portrayed by Cheryl Johnson, who will mingle with visitors and bring to life Annie’s influential role in area history.

Annie Laurie Glidden was born 150 years ago on a farm just west of Annie Glidden Road, land she would one day farm herself.

The road was later named for Annie. The niece of DeKalb inventor Joseph Glidden, Annie acted as hostess for her uncle’s Glidden House Hotel from 1895 until Joseph’s death in 1906.

She attended Illinois State Normal School in Bloomington.

Later, she studied agriculture at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. When she returned to DeKalb, she became an agricultural innovator, producing extremely high, award-winning yields in such crops as corn, soybeans, alfalfa, raspberries and asparagus on her farm. She died in Pasadena, California, in 1962.

Also on Sunday, you can tour the home where Joseph Glidden and his family lived when he created his most famous invention, see a working onsite blacksmith shop, and walk where Glidden walked. Joseph Glidden developed barbed wire in DeKalb in 1873 and went on to patent numerous other inventions.

Admission is $4 per adult and free for children younger than 14. Admission is also free for Glidden Homestead members.

A full season of programs highlighting "Icons of Innovation" continues at the Glidden Homestead through December. A complete program listing can be found at www.gliddenhomestead.org/events.html.

The Glidden Homestead, located at 921 W Lincoln Highway, is open on the second and fourth Sunday of the month from noon to 4 p.m. or by special arrangement. For more information, visit www.gliddenhomestead.org or email info@gliddenhomestead.org or call 815-756-7904.