Michael “Mike” Venard (1880 – 1942) was born in 1880 to James and Katherine Redmond Venard in Downers Grove, Illinois. Mike became one of Downers Grove’s most recognized law enforcement figures in the early 1900s. In 1920 he is listed as a policemen in the United States Census, but by 1930 he was serving as the village’s police chief. This was a time when the department consisted of just two officers: the chief and a night constable. Written about Mike Venard in the Bartle Herrick book, What You Didn’t Know About Downers Grove and Didn’t Know Who to Ask, published in 1982, p. 15:
It was cause for excitement when the light lit up on the police
station. This meant there was a call for police and that the officer
(there was only one on duty at a time) would scramble to the station
to learn the problem. Later the light was placed at the top of
the water tower where the officer could see it from a greater distance.
The village had just two officers. One was the chief and the
other the night constable. White and Venard are two chiefs
remembered.
And from p. 26 of the same book:
Naughty! Naughty! Police chief Mike Venard arrested nine young
men of the town for playing African golf (gambling with dice) in a
house on East Franklin Street. The owner of the house was fined twenty dollars and each of the participants five dollars each.
Sources:
Ancestry.com, U.S. Death Records., U.S. Find a Grave Index, 1700s–Current.
Downers Grove Historical Society (dghistory.org), “The Venard House.”
Dunham, Montrew and Wandschneider, Pauline, Downers Grove 1832 – 1982. 1982. pp. 29, 241
FamilySearch.org
Genealogy.com
Herrick, Bartles, What You Didn’t Know About Downers Grove and Didn’t Know Who to Ask., 1982, pp. 15, 26.
Sterba, Lois.; Street Names: “Venard Road.”; “The Venard–Oldfield Monuments.”
U.S. Federal Census Collections 1850; 1860; 1880; 1900; 1910; 1920; 1930; 1940; 1950.
