Concept art for the 1995 expansion of the Anita Purves Nature Center by Isaksen/Glerum PC Architects, 1993.
As a longtime resident of Champaign County, I have visited the Anita Purves Nature Center (APNC) at the north end of Crystal Lake Park in Urbana many times. My kids love to explore the collections of native flora and fauna and learn about the center’s animal ambassadors—Quasi the one-eyed owl is our favorite. We explore the trails in Busey Woods and sometimes we just relax in the Wildlife Observation Room and try to identify the bird calls streaming in from the bird feeding station. I have always enjoyed the facility, but did not know the story behind the Anita Purves Nature Center, nor the story of its namesake. While processing the Champaign County Conservation and Design Foundation special collection last month, I learned of this beloved facility’s origins and became fascinated in the story behind the APNC.
Anita Parker was born May 19, 1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Dr. William S. and Anita Jones Parker. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in English from Wellesley College, she married Alan C. Purves in Philadelphia, 1960. The two, along with their two young sons, relocated to Urbana in 1968 when Alan Purves became a professor at the University of Illinois.
In her 1994 News-Gazette article, Beck Mabry says of Purves, “…she was a woman people admired. A gentle woman, her friends say, who was forever considerate of the people’s feelings. She was kind, soft-spoken and quiet. And yet forceful, too. She knew how to get things done.”
Purves was not, as some may assume, "an elderly dowager who died and left an estate to build the Urbana Park District’s Anita Purves Center" (Mabry). Anita Purves had been fascinated with nature since childhood. Alan Purves notes that even part of their honeymoon in England was spent birding—after all, his wife was a member of the National Audubon Society. Upon moving to Urbana, Purves helped to establish environmental education programs at local schools and she was known to carry large boxes of nature collections to Leal School, where her sons attended. In a 1994 interview, her son William recalls, “My mother taught me that people really should be able to explore their environment as much and as deeply as possible.” Purves also became one of fifteen charter members of the Urbana Park District Advisory Council in an effort to preserve and enhance the local environment. Purves was especially passionate about the preservation of Busey Woods—a 63 acre remnant of the once 10 square mile Big Grove—after it became a site for depositing debris from the Lincoln Square Mall development in the 1960s. Her dedication to the project paid off, and Purves was present when the lease to the woods was signed over the Urbana Park District in 1974.
Purves was passionate about the preservation of Busey Woods. She lived to see the land signed over to the Urbana Park District.
Purves beat breast cancer in 1971, but was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer two years later. She died March 11, 1975 at the age of 36, leaving behind her husband and two young sons. Upon her passing, a memorial fund was established for the construction of the nature center that would bear her name. The Anita Purves Nature Center opened in the summer of 1979. In the center's dedication program, Purves is described as “a spirited woman who inspired both children and adult members of the community to share her enthusiasm for the kinship of all living things.” Anita Purves was an Urbana resident for only 7 years, but her impact on the community has been a permanent one. The nature center seems a fitting memorial to such a vibrant lover of nature.
The Anita Purves Nature Center was dedicated on June 3, 1979.
The APNC underwent an expansion in 2005 and currently hosts over 50,000 visitors per year.
The Champaign County Historical Archives houses several materials that pertain to the APNC including: a photographs envelope; vertical file; newsletters; a cookbook, Anita’s Favorite Recipes; newspaper articles from the News-Gazette and the Courier; a folder in the Champaign County Design and Conservation Foundation collection that contains ephemera, correspondence, and fundraising documents; and several materials relating to the Urbana Park District and Busey Woods.
Stop by the second floor of The Urbana Free Library to peruse any of these materials, and be sure to visit the Anita Purves Nature Center soon!
--Donica, Archives Librarian
Sources:
Mabry, Becky (1994). “Recalling a gentle force of nature.” The News-Gazette, January 27, 1994: C-1.
“Mrs. Purves, 36, Dies, Rites Friday.” The-News-Gazette, March 12, 1975: 5.
Materials from the Anita Purves Nature Center (Urbana, Ill.) vertical file
Materials from the Champaign County Design and Conservation Foundation collection