Northern IL. Zone 5 or 6. Almost all conifers native to eastern North America will grow there. Blue Spruce are from the west. If you want a name for your disease look under the Blue Spruce Needle Drop. The link at the bottom also describes what your problem is. Blue Spruce grown well are beautiful. Most of the time though, they can best be described as pitiable.
A rule of thumb with conifers is that they like well drained soils. There are exceptions, but most of them lose their needles in the winter (cypress and larch). Another rule of thumb is that evergreen conifers are not drought tolerant when you plant them, they need watching and watering if necessary the first couple of years, the first year especially.
Suggestions from me? Pinus koriensis, Korean Pine. Slow growing, yes, but Korean Pines keep their lower branches unlike White Pines. P. koriensis also are the go-to source for pine nuts, so there's that.
Plum Yew (Cephalotaxus harringtonia). Faster growing, deer resistant (very resistant) and they come in a zillion forms.
Easter White Cedar, Thuja orientalis. Native, tough, tends to splay out with snow. Can grow in wet soil. No disease problems like Junipers.
Don't overlook things like Hollies. they take a lot of different soils and not all of them have prickly leaves.
Finally, can you put up a tall fence and grow something like Aristolochia? A. durior/macrophylla is a well behaved native vine that will fill a fence up in a year or 2. It grows all summer, continuing to put out new leaves until frost. flowers are cute but insignificant. Does not come up feet away like Campsis or Wisteria. Attracts Pipe Vine Butterflies (Battus philenor).
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