The families whose home became the Morton Grove Historical Museum have roots in the community that date to the 1840’s. In 1842, German immigrants Peter and Gertrude Haupt settled in what would eventually become Morton Grove, to raise their family and make a living as farmers. In 1889, their son Nicholas began building a house for his wife, Magdalena, and their eight children, when Magdalena passed away after an illness. The house, located at 6025 Lincoln Avenue, became home to Nicholas and his eight children, and when Nicholas died a few years later, the children, ranging between the ages of 4 and 17, remained in the home to raise themselves. Elisabeth, one of these eight children, married local gardener Matthias Yehl in the early 1900’s, and the couple then raised their own children in the Haupt homestead. In 1984, when the house was sold and then acquired by the Morton Grove Historical Society, their daughter Dorothy had still been living in the home. Dorothy made frequent visits to the Morton Grove Historical Museum until her death in 1998, to talk with visitors about what it had been like to grow up in the Haupt Yehl House.