To celebrate Women’s History Month and kick off the 2023 season, the Leland Historical Society will present Women of the Villa Farm by Molly McGuinn Donahue on Sunday, March 12.

The program will be at 2 p.m. in the Resource Bank Community Room, 205 N. Main St., Leland. The program is free, but because of limited seating, registration is required. To register, email lelandillinoishistory@gmail.com or leave a message at 815-495-5547.

The Villa Farm just east of Leland, best known today for boarding and training horses, has been owned by five generations of Mackin-family woman who have persevered to maintain and develop the family land.

Catherine Roche Mackin purchased the land with savings from the general store she and her husband, James, operated across from the railroad station. It was the next generation, daughter Mary and her husband, Charles Plamondon Jr., who built a summer home there as a retreat from their Chicago residence. The Plamondons died in 1915 on the RMS Lusitania.

The Villa continued to be a summer home for the next generations of Mackin descendants, including Marie and Charles Plamondon Jr. and Charlotte Plamondon Ripley in the early 1900s, followed by Jane Ripley McGuinn and her children from the 1940s to present.

When the current owner, Molly McGuinn Donahue, retired from teaching in Chicago, she moved permanently to the Villa Farm. Molly and sons Adam and Jason began a horse boarding and training operation, which continues to this day. Some older local residents recall members of the family riding their horses down the main streets of Leland – their only mode of transportation after coming to Leland on the train for the summer.