The Logan Square home Gerrie Mulligan moved to in 1976 when she was 5 years old was in some ways straight out of a fantastical movie. She remembers the stairway that crossed from the back of the house to the kitchen, the sliding pocket doors and the assortment of rooms.
Outside, her father, Jim Mulligan, who was known as a meticulous gardener, planted a “tiny” blue spruce evergreen tree gifted from her maternal grandmother. As it grew, Mulligan, her brother and other neighborhood kids would congregate at the tree to play games. It was home base in freeze tag and the finish line in red light, green light, she said.
“The tree always marked something in whatever we were playing and whatever we were doing,” Mulligan recalled Friday.
The tree — which eventually towered over the home at about 53 feet tall — will now be the meeting ground for thousands this holiday season. The city selected it as the 111th annual “official” Christmas tree, which will illuminate Millennium Park near the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Washington Street from Nov. 22 to Jan. 8. The tree was removed from its home in the 2500 block of North Kimball Avenue on Friday morning.
Mulligan, a 53-year-old school bus driver and Romeoville resident, and her daughter drove out Friday morning to attend the removal. She called the experience “surreal” after talking to so many people who had fond memories of her dad, who died in 2022 at the age of 77. Her mom, Patricia, now lives in Las Vegas, she said. To make it over power lines, the crane operator had to lift the tree really high in the air, she said.
“I’m so excited, but at the same time it’s kind of sad to see the tree leave,” Mulligan said. “I’m just loving that it’s going to be sitting there for all of Chicago to admire, and it’s going to be in honor of my dad.”
Over the years, Mulligan said her parents got offers for the house from developers, but her dad was “particular” about selling it to someone who would appreciate its history. Sarah Holden and David Shaddick ended up buying it in 2021, and have lived with their two daughters, three cats and three lizards a few blocks away while they restore the house. They’re just now in the process of moving in.
Holden said her daughters, Hazel and Pearl, now 9 and 6 years old, thought the tree was the “coolest thing” when they bought the home, akin to a tree house. They collected pine needles and leaves to make “potions” while they played. But throughout the renovation process, Holden said they were shocked by the hefty price of maintaining the tree.
“We are preservationists, and we’re not interested in knocking down a ton of trees,” said Holden, 43, an educator in steel fabrication at the Chicago Industrial Arts & Design Center. “So we really didn’t want it to go unless there was a special significance to it.”
She found that significance in the city’s Christmas tree contest, which she thought was perfect timing since an honorary street sign dedicated to Jim Mulligan is set to go up later this year. As a “sentimentalist,” she wanted his surviving relatives to see the tree lit up in spectacular fashion. She wrote a letter explaining the tree’s background and her family’s commitment to Logan Square, but was still surprised when it was selected a couple of weeks ago.
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“I’m still not sure it’s quite hit me yet,” she said. “I was just really excited, more than anything else to tell the family. For them to think about Jim and come together and celebrate him again.”
She plans to sit in the front row at the tree-lighting ceremony on Nov. 22 with some of the Mulligans, whom she called her “surrogate family.” While she only knew Jim for about a year, Holden said they bonded over making and fabrication, eventually sharing their “own special language.” Jim, who arrived in the U.S. from Ireland, worked in the city’s Streets and Sanitation Department for 31 years before he retired, she said.
Holden said he also loved to share stories about the neighborhood and old friends, often at his frequent yard sales, which featured a wide collection of stuff, from dishes to bookshelves to cabinets.
The house is steeped in history, going much farther back than even the Mulligans, according to Ward Miller, the executive director of Preservation Chicago. It was built in the 1890s by the Kimbell family, who are known as some of Chicago’s earliest residents and pioneers, he said.
In the early 1900s, Miller said, a neighborhood physician, Francis Thornton, purchased the home from the Kimbell family. He said there’s a stepping stone at the house that has Thornton’s name on it so people could see it from the street and know there was a doctor inside. The Mulligans were the ones who eventually saved the house from demolition and allegedly becoming a parking lot, Miller said, adding that the family were good stewards of the house and rebuilt the porch several times.
Miller also said Jim, who was his friend, was “absolutely intrigued” by his garden. He was meticulous about keeping the lawn, trees and flowers in “immaculate shape,” he said. (His daughter jokingly called that an “understatement.”) Some of the relics in his yard, including some of the plantings, come from the former Olson Brothers Rug Factory in Avondale, Miller added.
“He stewarded and cared for that tree beyond words and imagination as he cared for his perfectly trimmed and cared for garden,” Miller said.
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