September 17

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Alicia Coughlin is a mother of 8 beautifully unique wonderful children. She is Gigi to two full of life grandchildren. She shares her chaotic life with her husband of 28 years! Alicia enjoys long walks in the woods, long naps on the beach and long talks over coffee or wine. She watches for magic and miracles everywhere she goes. 

Barbara Guschwan is widowed and is the mother of 3 , the stepmother of 6 , and the grandmother of 15. She spent her career listening to people’s stories by working in mental health as a psychiatric nurse and later as a psychotherapist. She created and facilitated several Community Groups; including ‘Empowering Women’ and ‘Nightwriters’ , a writing group for the mentally ill.

Although Jane Passaglia has been a communications professor, a copywriter, a spokesperson, and even a story writer for another storyteller, Jane Passaglia admits that telling her own history is “a whole ‘nother' thing!”. In the process of preparing her first personal story last year, she has discovered that there’s a “sweet spot” age-wise for a good storyteller. “You have to be old enough to accumulate a few stories and acquire some wisdom or lessons from them. But you can’t be so old that you can’t remember any of them!” So she has decided to share some of her memories before they “slip away”. A resident of Lockport, Passaglia is an author, speaker and avid community volunteer, but most importantly, the grandmother of 9.

Jim was born and raised in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago. He moved to

Lockport in 2003 with his wife Cheryl. They have two boys, Jake who is twenty and

Andrew, who is ten. Jim makes a living as a JavaScript programmer but has many

hobbies outside of work. He is currently training for the Chicago marathon in October.

This will be his sixth marathon. He ran the first one at the age of 52. He has also been a

scout leader for the past fifteen years and is currently the Cubmaster for his younger

son’s pack. He enjoys entertaining the kids in the pack with skits and songs. He also

started acting on stage for the first time in his life last year and has done shows with

Limestone Stage in Lockport and Curtain Call theater in Mokena. And he also enjoys

helping to put on puppet shows at Shepherd of the Hill church in Lockport. All these new

adventures led him to take on the new challenge of storytelling.