Family Ties

Few cultural institutions can match the depth of community pride and stewardship that Lincoln Park Zoo inspires. Over 150 years generations of Chicagoans have made sure the North Side neighborhood zoo remains free and keeps improving with each passing decade.

The Ettelson family exemplifies this generational caretaking.

Susan Ettelson (above, center), a steadfast Conservators’ Council donor, first experienced the zoo in the 1930s as a young girl when her parents drove into the city from Glencoe to visit the animals she adored. (Polar bears and meerkats are favorites.) Years later, while raising her own family in Lincoln Park, she instilled an affinity for animals—and a certain zoo food menu item—in her son, John.

“As a small child, the only way John would eat any lunch was if we took him to the zoo for a hot dog,” says Susan. “So every day, we’d pick him up from Francis [W.] Parker School, traipse over to the zoo, visit whatever animal he felt like seeing that day, and he had his hot dog. That went on for almost his entire prekindergarten year.”

John (above, left), who today avows he hasn’t had a hot dog in the past 55 years, grew up to lead investment banking firm William Blair as its president and CEO and, from 2013 to 2017, Lincoln Park Zoo’s board of trustees as its chairman. In the latter role, he oversaw the transformative Pride of Chicago campaign, which has brought to the zoo Regenstein Macaque Forest, Walter Family Arctic Tundra, Robert and Mayari Pritzker Penguin Cove, Hurvis Family Learning Center and, this fall, Searle Visitor Center.

“The zoo gets better with each generation,” says John. “That extends to learning, animal health and welfare and exhibits. It continues to reinvigorate itself and transform its physical look and feel in a way that other institutions don’t.”

Continuing an Ettelson tradition, John—still a Lincoln Park resident and zoo neighbor—brought his own family to the zoo as a parent.

“The zoo served as a family-bonding experience for us,” says John. “It formed an important part of all our childhoods. There aren’t many places a family can inexpensively spend a day being entertained and educated in a beautiful place. That didn’t occur to me much as a kid. As a board member, seeing the positive benefits it provides strikes me as truly spectacular.”

John’s daughter, Margot (above, right), also grew up attending Francis W. Parker School, situated so close to the zoo she could sometimes hear lions roar from the school’s athletic field.

“It felt like the zoo was my backyard,” says Margot, now an attorney who recently joined the zoo’s Auxiliary Board. “We would wander in and out whenever we wanted. The zoo is certainly fantastic enough to be a destination, but we were super fortunate to treat it that way.”

In addition to their shared love of animals, the three Ettelsons also share a commitment to keeping the zoo free to all and supporting its expanding wildlife conservation and education mission.

“I think people in Chicago sometimes take the zoo’s free admission a bit for granted,” says Margot. “Having lived outside Chicago and gone to other zoos and aquariums that are very expensive, I want to give back so other kids have the same opportunity to enjoy the zoo like I did.”

The same opportunity today is enhanced by the zoo’s global reach, adds John: “For the local neighborhood zoo that covers a few acres in Lincoln Park to have the impact it does worldwide in conservation and education is remarkable.”

Susan seconds that notion. “The zoo has a great effect on education, particularly for young people who may never go to Africa or see an animal in the wild,” she says. “To be able to see these animals, and how the zoo cares for them, helps show how important they are to our planet.”

Thanks to the stewardship of such supporters as the Ettelson family, many more generations of young people will absorb that message now and for years to come while embracing Chicago’s free zoo.

Lincoln Park Zoo is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a special exhibition, an interactive history timeline, and related coverage. Learn more at lpzoo.org/150.