Lizzie Cappel: Pioneer Woman

   History is the story of normal people, and every Mokenian has a story. We are all reflections of the era in which we live, and one villager is a prime example of the robust resolve shown by the earliest residents of our community. To tap into the first days of Mokena, one has to know Lizzie Cappel.

   In order to understand Lizzie’s life, one has to first look to her parents, who were in the truest sense of the word, real pioneers. Johann Georg Storck und Henriette Sophia Boos were of hardy Hessian stock, hailing from a village called Wixhausen in south central Germany. The Storcks and their six-year-old daughter Margaretha were part of the great Germanic migration to America in the middle of the 19^th century, leaving their homeland in the 1852 and undertaking a grueling 42-day journey by ship across the Atlantic to New York. From their first part of call in the States, the Storcks then walked to Chicago, traveling again on foot from there across prairie and forests to Mokena, arriving here on June 22 of that year. 

   The Mokena that greeted the Storcks upon their arrival was one vastly different from today’s, the not-yet incorporated hamlet had then only first been laid out that year around the newly built Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, and was host to a railroad depot, a cluster of houses and the tiniest handful of businesses. Upon getting settled, the Storcks moved into a crude log cabin situated on today’s LaPorte Road. After a few years of hard work, Johann Georg Storck moved his family into another cabin in 1857, this one being just a short distance away and later standing for decades at what is today roughly the intersection of Wolf Road and Boyer Court. Their new, rustic log home was already old when the Storcks acquired it, and they would later tell friends and family that it had been built by the Potawatomi. 

   Johann Georg and Henriette Sophia Storck’s youngest daughter, Elisabeth Henriette, was born January 29^th, 1861 in the family’s cabin, not quite four months before the outbreak of the Civil War. As she was growing up, a few Potawatomi still lived in the area, and Lizzie, as she came to be known, always enjoyed a good back and forth with them. Years later, she’d remember that they would come to the Storck place from time to time looking for fresh vegetables, and were especially known to be fond of roasted pumpkins. 

   The Storcks were rugged prairie folk, and in Lizzie, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, as she only saw a doctor once in her life, who treated her for a bad case of diphtheria. Lizzie came of age at her family homestead just south of town, where the old log cabin would eventually be replaced by a modern frame house. She was active in her church, the German United Evangelical St. John’s Congregation, of which her family were founding members. Lizzie was also possessed of a caring nature, having tended to neighbor Thomas Sutton in his final illness before his passing in 1890. Throughout her life, she was known to use tried and true home remedies such as goose greases, Sulphur, molasses, and even red clover tea when treating those she loved. 

   Lizzie Stork was united in marriage with Mokena livestock buyer John Cappel, who due to his slight stature, was affectionately called “Shorty” by his friends. In August 17^th, 1896, the couple went to Joliet by horse and buggy to complete the ceremony, and as part of their celebration went to a circus in that place, where they won a stove for being the youngest married couple in the audience. This very stove would go on to see over 30 years of service in the Cappel house. 

   After their marriage, Lizzie and John made their home at the Storck place off Wolf Road where Lizzie had always lived, with her mother, Henriette, continuing to live with them. Their union was graced by two children, Carrie and Walter, who were born in 1897 and 1899, respectively. The Cappel children would grow up in Mokena, and were well known in the area, with Walter going on to work for the Rock Island railroad. 

   Lizzie Cappel knew her share of tragedy and hardship in life. She lost her daughter Carrie unexpectedly in 1933, within a few years of which she and John moved into her house at Wolf Road and Second Street. To compound this calamity, John Cappel passed after a tragic car accident outside town in 1942. 

Lizzie Cappel is seen in this 1945 image with her German language family bible. 

   Immediately after the end of World War II in 1945, Norma Lee Browning, a staff person of the Chicago Tribune, came to Mokena to write a booklet on the idyllic community. In looking for representative citizens to interview, those unique personages that could only be found in our village, Browning was steered toward Lizzie. The Chicagoan was received by the 84-year-old in a blue polka dot dress and a red ribbon in her hair, and wrote that she was “typical of the sturdiness and independence of spirit that characterize Mokena and its people.” Also of note to Browning was the fact that Lizzie had never seen a movie in her life. 

   Lizzie Cappel passed at her home in the village on July 8^th, 1946. She found her final resting place in St. John’s Cemetery in her family plot, just south of where so many of the scenes of her life played out. The erstwhile Mokena newspaper, The News-Bulletin, rued her loss as “one of the last pioneers of this section.” There was no other Mokenian like her, and Lizzie Cappel earned her place in our community’s history.