The Lilac Festival in Lombard, Illinois, my home town, is the inspiration for the Lilac Festival in Drago, Illinois, that provides a convenient excuse to bring Anton “Zeke the Geek” Zeekowsky back to his Drago, Illinois hometown and the women who want him there.
Lombard has hosted its annual Lilac Festival and parade in May since 1930. Lilac Time in Lombard is a 16-day festival, complete with a Lilac Queen coronation, ending in mid-May. (In 2020, lilac festivals, like all large gatherings, were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.) In the grand small-town tradition, many lilac-themed events take place, including concerts, a Mothers’ Day Brunch, an arts and crafts fair, and tours of Lilacia Park, which now features more than 200 varieties of lilac.
Lilacia Park’s garden was established by Col. William Plum and his wife, Helen Maria Williams Plum, who visited the lilac gardens of famous breeder Victor Lemoine in France. They returned with two cuttings (Mme. Casimir Perier, a double white, and Michel Buchner, a double light purple), the forebears today’s collection. After Plum’s death in 1927 the grounds were willed to the city as a park.
The Lilac Festival in Lombard, Illinois
Corey Seeman, a library services director at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, took this photo of the blossoms in Lombard’s Lilacia Park in 2011. As he wrote then, “This was one week after Lombard’s Lilac festivals, but many were still in bloom. What you can’t capture here is the wonderful smells from the blooms.”
Several other North American cities hold annual lilac festivals, including:
— The Lilac Festival in Rochester, N.Y., held since 1898, is the longest-running and largest event of its kind in North America, drawing more than 500,000 people annually to the 10-day free event. It’s held in Highland Park, the gift of George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry, owners of the world-famous Mount Hope Nursery. They endowed the community with 20 acres of their nursery’s land and enlisted the help of noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to develop the park. Today, Highland Park has the most varieties of lilacs at any single place, many of which were developed in Rochester.
— The Arnold Arboretum in Boston, another Olmsted park, celebrates Lilac Sunday every May. The Arboretum shows off its collection of more than 400 lilac plants, of 194 different varieties. Lilac Sunday is the only day of the year when picnicking is allowed on the Arboretum’s grounds.
2013 Lilac Festival at Highland Park in Rochester, N.Y. LtPowers photo
— Mackinac Island, on Lake Huron in Michigan, presents a 10-day lilac festival and parade in early June. It’s the first and largest summer event on the Island, attracting thousands of visitors.
— Lilacs flourish in Taos, New Mexico, and peak the last two weeks of May The city’s Lilac Festival stages a Grand Festival Weekend that includes a pet parade and costume contest, live entertainment, food and crafts vendors and other family-friendly activities.
— Spokane, Washington, known as The Lilac City, in mid-May holds its lilac festival and parade, now known as the Armed Forces Torchlight Parade, one of the nation’s largest military appreciation parades.
— The annual 4th Street Lilac Festival in Calgary, British Columbia, in early June marks the start of the city’s vibrant festival season.