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Jay Stream, a military veteran who had previously sold
insurance and ready-mix concrete, was in the mid-1950s heading Durable
Construction Company. He became frustrated with red tape while negotiating
a planned 350-400 home subdivision in nearby Naperville, Illinois. A
Naperville clerk reportedly advised Stream to "build your own town",
and in 1957, Stream began buying unincorporated farmland outside Wheaton.
As construction progressed, Stream's daughter Carol, then 14, was nearly
killed in an automobile accident in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, not far
from where the Stream's summer home was located in Twin Lakes.
On August 27, 1957, Carol and three friends were returning from Racine,
Wisconsin in a 1949 Studebaker. While attempting to cross US 41, the car
was struck in the right rear corner, killing the passenger seated there.
Carol was ejected through the windshield and into a utility pole. Neurosurgeons
at Kenosha Memorial Hospital said the comatose girl might never awaken
or, if she did, would likely be severely handicapped. On advice of the
doctors that her recovery might improve with good news, Jay decided to
name the new community in her honor. After four months in a coma, Carol
regained consciousness. Learning the new village bore her full name, Carol
said she thought it "odd and silly" at first (as she told a Chicago
Tribune reporter in 1991).
Carol Stream (and therefore the city) was nearly
named Jacqueline Stream, but her parents changed her name to Carol when
her due date fell near Christmas. She never lived in her namesake community
but moved from Wheaton, Illinois to Arizona in 1957 following the end of
her parents' marriage. She still participates in municipal celebrations
and rides in parades during anniversary celebrations of the municipality's
1959 incorporation, and is frequently asked for autographs when she is
in town. She works in a bank. Jay Stream is also commemorated in the town
- his name is on the middle school. He died on January 22, 2006. |
