Charlotte Thiemecke

Bill Pekara (BP): Good afternoon and welcome to Northbrook Voices, an oral history project sponsored by the Northbrook Public Library and the Northbrook Historical Society. Today is April 13th, 2026. My name is Bill Pekara, and I’m pleased to welcome Charlotte Thiemecke Floyd, who has lived in Northbrook since 1971. Charlotte, what brought you to Northbrook?

Charlotte Thiemecke Floyd (CTF): Very interesting. I have had a rather varied background. I had my bachelor’s and master’s in music from Northwestern University, in the music school, and then later on after that, I got a doctorate at National Louis University in Educational Leadership. So I had a music background and an educational background. And because of the music background, after I left Northwestern, I was hired as a music consultant in the Evanston 65 schools. There were four of us. We traveled the schools. I had five of the schools to go to. And I would help the teachers teach music to the children because at that time, Illinois law had that classroom teachers were supposed to teach 20 minutes of music every day to children. So I’d go in and give demonstration lessons and give them the plans for the week. And so I did that and sang with the Lyric Opera at the same time and enjoyed it tremendously. I did that from 1959 to 1961, and then because of my singing with them and also with Chicago Opera Theater, I decided I wanted to look up more information in Germany about the Thiemecke family. And, but I also wanted to go over to Germany and audition for the opera, because that was a ripe time for American singers. So I went over, this is a long way to get to how I got to District 27. So I went over and auditioned in 27 opera houses. I got an agent, and I had possibilities. And this was in 1962, 61. Excuse me? 62? No, it’s 62. Yeah. 62 because I was with lyric 59, 60, 61, and then went over to Germany, sang and auditioned.

When I got back, I was here for seven months and went to work for, I needed a job. So I went to work for AC Nielsen Company, and there I met my first husband. And because of that, seven months later I got a contract offer from Würzburg Germany. The beautiful castles and the residence plots and gorgeous city as a mezzo-soprano. So I really was ambivalent about going, leaving him because we’d met and we’d really cared about each other. And he said, no, you’ve got to go. You’ve done this work for this. Go. So I did. And so we wrote every day I was over in Germany and Roseburg. I loved doing it. I sang, I had a wonderful time, and I did operetta and opera, and I came back in the summertime to be with him. And I really got to know the two boys. He had the boys. And then I went back again and had a rather interesting experience on the plane trying to come back because I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back, and I almost got off the airplane. And it ended up that I went and I did get off the airplane. They let me get off. They said my bags would go on to New York, which they did, but I decided, I called him at AC Nielsen Company at that time where he was working, and I said, I decided to not go back. And he said, oh, then we have something to talk about. So anyway, we decided then to be engaged. But he said, you go back. You’ve made your contract. You go back, very, very straightforward, and I did. I went back for another year, and I enjoyed it tremendously. And we wrote every day.

So that’s how it ended up. So, getting back to how we came to Northbrook, it’s a long way. When we came back to Northbrook, I was looking for a job to teach, and I sent out my resume for music, and I got a letter from Glenn Estelle, who was superintendent at that time in District 27. And he said, I don’t have a music job for you, but would you be interested in classroom teaching? And I had had one year of experience with classroom teaching. Anyway, one year at fifth and sixth grade at one time. And so I said, I think I’d love it. So I did. So he interviewed me, hired me on the spot. So I started teaching there at that time, Grove School, which was in 1965, and that’s now a leisure center on Walters Road. Right. And then my first husband and I, I commuted, and he commuted down to the city. And so I then ended up teaching here in 1965. And through 1972, I was in classroom teacher fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. And because I was fluent in German, I taught German at sixth grade too, which was kind of fun. And then Jim Rohrabaugh, Doctor James Rohrabaugh, was superintendent of schools. And he’s passed away. Wonderful man. And I got a phone call from him.

And prior to that, our very fine assistant superintendent, Lorraine Dean, had passed away. And I know she used to come and talk to me about my background. So I don’t know if something was leading up to this, but suddenly I got a phone call from Jim Rohrabaugh. He said, would you come in and talk to me about perhaps coming to the district office? Which surprised me. I wasn’t expecting that. And I said, okay. So anyway, he called me in, and at that time I did not have my doctorate yet, but they hired me as an administrative assistant to him, and I did that for a year while I finished my administrative endorsement. And then actually, I got the doctorate later. So I ended up 18 years in curriculum development with Jim Rohrabaugh in teacher personnel. I did the interviewing and hiring with the principals, and then the third area was staff development. And because I also was affiliated at that time with National Louis University getting a certificate and advanced degree, not yet the doctorate, but I knew a lot of the professors, very good ones. So I would bring them in to do in service training for the teachers. And so they then earned credits for college or master’s degrees. Yeah. So, I did that for 18 more years. 18 years, seven years teaching, 18 as assistant. And then I retired in 1990. Would you know it? And at that time, it was the time I went up to the Northwoods, to the chalet on the water and Fence lake, and I finished my dissertation, and then I started teaching off campus courses for young people, getting their master’s degrees in Rockford and around the area here.

And that kind of settled things for me for quite a while, and because I was a lover of animals, I just published my book on the furry loves of my life, my 28 rescues of dogs and two cats. And I’m finishing my second book called The Furry, no. That’s called The Furry Loves of My Life, and they’re all photographed. And my dear daughter in law, I since have remarried. My dear daughter in law has, I just had a book signing in February at Covenant Living, and we made $700. We had about 40 people. And so I asked each person, where would you like your money to go? I listed the local shelters like Save-A-Pet, Orphans of the Storm, Young at Heart, Heartland, and then Tree House for cat lovers. And so they would pick and choose where they wanted their money to go, and so that money was submitted to the local shelters. And since then, I have gotten such nice responses from the local shelters with thanks. Well, I but I have my next book coming out, right? Right. I’m working with Shannon Cherpak at Christian Faith Publishing in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and she’s just been wonderful. She helped me with this book, and then I have a second one ready to go, except for the photographs, and it’s called For the Love of Chichi. She’s my 28th rescue dog, and she’s a Jack Russell Chihuahua. Smart as a whip. And when I, I talk to her like I used to talk to my fourth, fifth and sixth graders because she’s right there, that’s all. She’s just right there and very smart. You know, Jack Russell Chihuahuas. Well, they’re all bright.

Oh, I will, I will. I think it’ll be ready for Christmas. That’s good. I just have the photographs to do.

(BP): So, what was Northbrook like when you first moved here?

(CTF): Wow, is that interesting. Well, Grove School was growing by leaps and bounds. 28 was pretty well established. And we were then living on Red Haw road,, which was in 28, and I knew Doctor Harvey very well. What a wonderful man. All of the superintendents that I worked with were great. District 27 was, they were building housing all over the place, and the grove was growing by leaps and bounds. My first fifth grade class that I had here, I had 41 children. And Myra Cooper, one of my good fifth grade teacher friends, had 40 kids too. So we had to do something about that. So they finally brought in a lovely lady, Anne Downey, who was a Northbrook resident, and she took ten of Myra’s kids and ten of my children. And so we were down to 30. I had 32 then, so it was a little more manageable, you know?

And so it was a really interesting time. And then when we kept growing and growing, they finally had to add these, like Quonset huts, like artificial bunkers with kids. And they were all beautiful. They were carpeted. They had girls and boys bathrooms. They had sinks. And we had one, two, three, four, I think about four of them outside of Grove. And I enjoyed teaching out there. The kids kind of adjusted. And so those were years of growth, just growth, growth, growth. Yeah, just booming. And I’m trying to think how from there I ended up teaching at Indian Ridge. They moved us over to Indian Ridge. And then Indian Ridge was still, I really made such good teacher friends there. I still get together with them, but that was when I got the message from Jim Rohrabaugh in 1972 to come over to the district office. And then it was very, very interesting working with the community and the parents because these are growth times and a very upheaval, I think, for every for everybody. But I loved the families. You know, I was so lucky to come to Northbrook because a supportive community and the parent teacher organizations, the parent conferences. It was always, what can we do for you? And they did. They did. And I don’t know, this still kind of brings back to me when my first husband died, some of those mothers came in with cakes and flies. I mean, that’s how they were.

(BP): How did you choose a specific neighborhood in Northbrook when you moved here?

(CTF): That is kind of a cute idea. I was driving out on Dundee Road. We lived in Rogers Park on North Bell Avenue, and it was just a two lane. One lane this way, one lane that way. And I’ll never forget the snowstorm in 1967. And Myra Cooper and I, my little VW 65 was the only car that started with this little engine because the engine was in the back. And so Myra and I would drive out here on this little road. And one day I had to take a detour on Shermer off of Dundee, and I saw the sign of a house for sale on Red Haw Road. And it was a beautiful ranch, one story, and I thought, oh, and it had a big yard for pets. It was a 35 by something, something. And I thought, oh boy, would we love that, you know, and at that time we had two little dogs. So anyway, I talked to my husband about it, and the following weekend he and I came out and looked at the house and the people had moved out to Presque Isle, Wisconsin, and we were told that they were building a home similar to it in there, up there. So we decided we’ll call Quinlan and Tyson, which was a realtor at that time. And sure enough, the house was for sale. The stove, refrigerator, hot water heater, all of them were new. And the gentleman had worked for Sears, so they were all Sears products, so we could walk in. And of course, we had no furniture, but we gradually just took some of the stuff we had from our apartment and brought it out here with our two little dogs. And my first husband went by the name of Dan, but his real German name was Gert, G-E-R-T, like Gerhart Gert. And so he would drive one car with one dog, and I’d drive the other car with the other dog, and we’d come out here and set up our home here, and we loved it. And we had wonderful neighbors. Oh, it was a sweet street, and it’s still there. It’s very beautiful. It’s beautiful. Surrey is there. Lee, Surrey, and Red Haw. Yeah, and that’s what brought us out here. And we loved it. We decided to move out of apartment living. So that was till about 1988.

(BP): So you stayed there until 1988? Where’d you move after that? Did you stay in town?

(CTF): I stayed. I stayed in 1988, and then I finished my work, my doctorate. I was teaching and then teaching the off campus courses. And then when I came back, one time, well, I started going to the village church. I used to be an alto soloist out down in Oak Park. We had a quartet, and I did that for 18 years also. And, but then when Dan died, Dan or Gert died, I left. I decided to go to the church here, Presbyterian Church here, and I got very active in the choir, did a lot of the Messiah’s soloing and everything else. And then one of our board members passed away, and I had wonderful board members. They were great.

We had a very strong board of education, and I think they all did. Every one of these districts here in Northbrook did. And I went to the memorial service for the board member, at that time was, Hanekamp was over in the bank building by where the, oh, gosh, I think Sara Lee used to be, you know, it’s now a bank building. And anyway, one of the secretaries from the school was there, and she saw this gentleman walk in and that was Tom Floyd. And she said, Tom, you sit down here next to Charlotte. And he sat down to me, and we started talking, and then Nancy said, well, Charlotte, you know, is with District 27. And of course, Tom’s kids had gone through 27. Not all of them, not not all of the grades, but from junior high on through high school. And so we sat down and then we started talking and we found out we both went to the village church. But I was always up in the choir loft. I never met him. And then I was also serving on a couple of committees with the church, the Hymn Committee, the Bible Committee, and the Nominating Committee. And then he was treasurer, so we had a lot in common. And then we talked about music, and Nancy said that I was a singer, too, and he said, well, where did you sing? And I said, well, I was in Europe, but then I came back and I did my operas with Chicago Opera Theater with Alan Stone, who was a wonderful, wonderful director.

And so we had so much in common. Then Tom said, oh, my wife Frances and I used to go to Chicago Opera Theater all the time. And his wife died in 91 of cancer. And so we became very good friends, and then one Christmas I said, well, I’m going to go back to Germany, and I’m going to look up more information for the Thiemecke boys and find out the name because my first husband was born in Berlin, and I wanted to go back, and I’d do some research on them and find out a little bit more for them. So at Christmas time, Tom said, I’m going with you, and here are some tickets for the Salzburg Festival. So we made arrangements to hear Samuel Ramey in Salzburg, and we went over there and had a wonderful time and really got to know each other. And when we came back, we realized, you know, maybe life would be better together, so we ended up getting married in, oh, gosh, we just had our 30th anniversary, in 1996, in May. On March 30th.

(BP): You’ve talked a lot about your career, so I feel like I kind of want to ask you, who were influential figures in your life and how did they impact you to lead to your career choices?

(CTF): Very good. I have to say my mother. She was an organist and pianist. She was one of 18 children raised on a farm in North Dakota, and every one of them was a good singer. She had about five brothers and all of the women, one of the women was supposed to have an opera career. One of the professors wanted to center on for an opera career. They were all very good musicians, and I had it to my mother because she could sing, she could play the organ, she played the piano. My dad was a minister in the Congregational church, and so they would even do radio programs together, and he would do the preaching. And sometimes they sang duets together up in North Dakota, and so she was really the one that got me going with music. And when I did my recitals at Northwestern, my parents would come from Aberdeen, South Dakota, and make sure that they could come to the recitals for bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Yes. Wonderful parents. They’re gone.

(BP): Could you share more details about your early life and that environment that you grew up in?

(CTF): Sure, well, I was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, the youngest of the four children. I have, I had an older sister, Virginia Jennie, and then my brother Hugh, who is still living, and he’s 96. He’s up in Grayslake. Yeah, not too far, and he’s got his children nearby him. I was born in Aberdeen. We lived there, and then when I was about 3 or 4 years old, my dad accepted a parish in Sterling, Colorado. So we lived there until, let’s see, oh gosh, about six years, I think. No, no, two years, I’m sorry, about two years. And then we moved to Loveland, Colorado, and that’s where I spent my grammar school, beautiful place. We used to ice skate on the Big Thompson River, and I love Colorado. And that was being a PK. They call them preacher’s kids. You know, we adjusted a lot to life, and we had to, and I enjoyed it. Then one year we moved up to North Dakota, just for a year. And that’s when I got my really first big dear pet, Patsy Ann. I had I always wanted a dog, and finally I got a dog.

And when we came back here, back from North Dakota, we went to Crete, Nebraska, where there was a college. My dad was always very concerned that we kids should get a college degree and be sure that he wanted us to be near a good school. And when we were in North Dakota, we were near Jamestown College, but he had a good offer from Crete, which had Doane College, which is now a university. It’s now Doane University. And so we came back and we lived in Crete from my sixth grade through my junior year of high school. And I did the operettas and the musicals and the drama in the high school and all of that, which I loved, you know. But then my dad came and sat me down and said, Charlotte, I have a good call from Billings, Montana, but I want to talk to you first. Would you be willing to make that change? Because at that time I was president of my class. I was having a ball, you know. Everything was beautiful. And it was almost like, is this happening? And so I said, Dad, it’s okay. It’ll be a new adventure, and we went. And I had a wonderful time in Billings again. I had a Maggie Cutler in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Got to do that. I did H.M.S. Pinafore, Josephine, and, you know, all the music stuff came there too. And the people in Colorado and Montana are the friendliest in the world. I mean it, really. They were to me, anyway. So that’s how it all happened. It’s a lot, a lot of stuff to get through.

(BP): Looking at your career, are there specific achievements or projects that stand out to you?

(CTF): Yeah, I think the things that I really love doing, I love doing oratorio, but I love doing opera, and things that really stood out to me at Germany was the fact that I could really, I did Maddalena in Rigoletto. I did a bunch of operettas. I enjoyed working with the directors, and I learned a lot about theater there. And then with Alan Stone, who was our founder of Chicago Opera Theater, it was originally called Cozy Chicago Opera Studio Incorporated, and we started out with just a little nucleus of us singers with Alan. He would coach us in the opera roles, and we started performing at Jones Commercial High School in Chicago, and our first successful run was Cosi fan tutte.

And my dear friend at that time, her name was Beverly Hoffman, and she changed it later to Leslie Hoffman. She was Beverly, yeah, Beverly Hoffman. She changed it to Leslie Rosen. It’s annoying the story. And she did Fiordiligi and I did Dora Bella. And then we did stuff with Robert Orth, who was a wonderful baritone. He sang. He did all the he did Nixon and China. You know, he passed away about 4 or 5 years ago. And we had a wonderful group. And Bob, Robert Frisby was our orchestra director, and Frank Galati, who is a graduate of North, was our stage director. They’re all gone, but I adored them and I still have, I’m a file keeper. I’ve kept files all my life, and I’ve got all this memorabilia from the opera time. But Frank was special. He went through the system here. I think he went through 28 and Glenbrook High School. And Alan, he was just an incredible opera coach, wonderful singer. But these were the people who really touched my life.

(BP): What are your interests and hobbies that bring you joy and relaxation?

(CTF): Right now? Right now, it’s writing. I have two pianos. And when Tom and I were married 30 years ago, we had two Shih Tzus, little dogs and a cat, but we decided we were going to go into more of a retirement community. So we looked into Covenant Village at that time. Now it’s Covenant Living. We looked into it and we met with the gentleman there. It was Neil Warnygora, was his name. We met with him to talk about maybe coming into Covenant Living. But we said, we have two dogs and we got a cat, and we would never come any place without pets. And he said, well, we are thinking about taking pets. He said, we’re going to talk to the board about it. So one thing that happened, you know, the years go by, and then finally they built the Evergreen Building, which is the farthest west one. We put our name in for it, but we had to take two units because we had two pets, one for each unit. And we didn’t mention the cat, we just kept the cat. Cats are so quiet, you know, and I had two pianos, so I had my six-and-a-half grand and my mother spinet.  So we moved those into what I call the music room, and the other unit is where we kind of hang out.

(BP): You’re still there?

(CTF): And we’re still there. We’ve been there since 2015. That’s 11 years, yeah. We’ve met so many wonderful people there, but we’ve also lost so many good friends. And my husband is in genealogy, and he’s related to 33 presidents. He goes way back to the Mayflower, and he’s really into it. Even Jackie O and all these famous people who Lucille Ball, you know, they’re all like one cousin removed this many times. And that’s what he does all day. So that’s how we’re spending our time now. And I’m writing, and I finished writing my little book about For the Love of Chichi, my little 28th rescue. The narration is all completed. It’s all on the dining room table. And now I have all of her photographs and the other little dogs that she knew in her story, and the book is told from her point of view. It’s called For the Love of Chichi, the Little Dumped Dog, Chichi’s Story. And it starts out because she was found through our pet sitter, when one of our little Shih Tzus had passed. We needed a little companion for Tobey. And so our dear friend Kristy McGinty found this little orphan dog with three pet puppies abandoned in an industrial complex right over the Illinois-Wisconsin border with three little puppies. And there were these women that Kristy knew that fostered, and they found this little girl, and they took the puppies, but one of them died. And so two puppies survived, and later they were adopted, and we adopted Chichi at a year. She was only a year old, so her dogs would now be ten years old themselves. So she’s wonderful, and the story is about her, and I hope to get it published as soon as I get the photos in for Christmas.

(BP): Is there anything else that you’d like to cover? We’re pretty much at the time. Did I miss anything, or any questions?

(CTF): Oh, boy. Not really. It was kind of you to ask me to do this, and, you know, Susan to do this. I love Northbrook, been here a long time now, and it was kind of a happenstance that it ever happened. But I feel somebody up there was guiding me a lot of ways in my life. I met wonderful people, wonderful supporters. Really have to be grateful.

(BP): Well, Charlotte, thank you so much for participating in Northbrook Voices. Your memories of your life in Northbrook are going to add a very unique and personal perspective about the history of our town. Thank you so much.

(CTF): You’re welcome. Absolutely.