By the The History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff The History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff honored the Brebner family with the Centennial Family Award recently, a tribute which chronicled the family’s long history in our community. Family members Richard Brebner, Maureen Brebner, Laura Brebner Robbins, and Chris Thunder submitted the nomination, and dozens of descendants were on hand for the event.
Hailing from Aberdeenshire in Scotland, the family’s local story begins in the early 1900s. Days after their June 1907 wedding, Alexander William Brebner and Mary (“Polly”) Simpson Brebner departed their home in Old Deer for the United States, following in the footsteps of Polly’s brother Arthur, who had made the journey the year before. The couple joined a wave of migrating Scots from Aberdeenshire to the Lake Forest area, having heard tell of neighbors and cousins who made the most of opportunities employing their expertise in the farming, building and gardening trades. In fact, eventually six of Polly’s eight Simpson siblings would make their way across the pond from Scotland, with four settling close to the Brebners in Lake County. This went a long way to creating a sense of community in a new and different place.
The Brebner clan -- which included many Simpsons -- circa 1910.
A. W. Brebner drew upon his family’s generations of experience farming in the highlands of Scotland to secure a job overseeing estate farms in the U.S., first Rodney Farms in Libertyville, owned by Rodney B. Swift, and then Pembroke Lodge in Lake Forest, owned by David B. Jones. The Brebners lived and worked on the Jones estate in the 1910s and 1920s before purchasing a home at 1080 Griffith Road.
Alexander W. and Polly Brebner had three children, Alexander Simpson (“Sandy”), Elsie, and Hugh. Unfortunately, Elsie’s life was tragically cut short before her fourth birthday. She contracted influenza, right as the 1918 epidemic was sweeping its way through Lake Forest and disproportionately targeting, as it did across the world, the young and healthy. She was one of at least 26 Lake Foresters to die in the epidemic, at a time when the population of the town was only about 3,200.
The Brebner boys attended the Halsey and Gorton schools in Lake Forest, with Sandy graduating from Deerfield-Shields High School in 1926 and Hugh in the second class at Lake Forest High School, in 1937. An accomplished athlete, Sandy was often mentioned in the sports pages of the Lake Forester newspaper for his exploits in basketball or bowling or baseball. Where he really stood out, though, was on the golf course. He won the Deerpath Golf Club championship in 1930, and in 1942 he set the Deerpath course record for amateurs by carding a 65. In fact, he was around Deerpath so much that after graduating from high school he secured a job as a golf supplies salesman.
In 1935, Sandy Brebner married Adeline Baldwin, a member of another Lake Forest centennial family and an accomplished athlete in her own right (she won the Deerpath women’s championship in 1946 and 1949). Sandy and Adeline’s wedding wasn’t the simplest of propositions, though - for one, it was the height of the Depression - not a time for a big, fancy wedding. But more challenging still was the matter of religion - the Baldwins were Irish Catholics, and the Brebners Scottish Presbyterians. A church wedding seemed out of the question, so the pair resolved the issue by eloping in Crown Point, Ind. Believe it or not, at the time Crown Point served as sort of the Las Vegas, or Gretna Green, perhaps, given the Scottish origins here, of the Midwest. Indiana, unlike surrounding states, did not require a five-day waiting period between getting a marriage license and getting hitched, so border towns like Crown Point attracted those from other states who were in a hurry or just wanted a simpler process.
In 1933, Sandy Brebner was hired as a patrolman by the Lake Forest Police Department. He would remain dedicated to Lake Forest’s safety and security for 30 years, advancing in rank until he was appointed police chief in 1956. His four sons, Bill, Tom and twins Dick and Dennis, recall both benefits and drawbacks to being the children of the Chief of Police. On the one hand, all the town news was known quickly to the police force and their families. They could stop in and visit their dad in his office in the northeast corner of the police station (where Le Colonial is now), overlooking Market Square.
However, on the other hand, the job was 10-hour days, six days a week, like many of that era. And Sandy Brebner took his job seriously - he wore his uniform to and from the station; sometimes it seemed like he was on duty 24/7 with emergencies arising on nights and weekends. Even on days off, Chief Brebner thought nothing of stopping people while in casual clothes if he noticed an egregious traffic violation going down in front of him. It was a well-known Lake Forest story that in the 1950s he ticketed two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson for speeding. Stevenson lived in Libertyville but often took the train downtown from Lake Forest.
Years later, the Brebner family is now marking its fifth generation residing in Lake Forest/Lake Bluff. For a more in-depth look at their history in our community, check out the Centennial Family Awards on the History Center’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lflbhistory/videos. To find out how to nominate your family for the Centennial Family Awards, visit the History Center website.