'Tis the Season: The Giving Spirt of Mokena

   It’s the time of year where magical lights cheerily brighten up Front Street, when there’s a hint of pine in the air, and cozy fires warm the hearths of the village. The Christmas season is upon us once again, and while it’s great to be greeted with gifts during the yuletide, the true meaning of the season is to give. This is something that wasn’t lost on those who went before us. Let us turn back the pages of time to reveal not only the kindness of the Mokenians of yore, but also their true Christmas spirit. 

    At the center of this story of long ago is an unassuming lady named Bertha Groth. Born in Germany in 1874, sources are foggy as to when she landed on America’s shore. Be that as it may, she came to call Will County home at the end of the 19^th century and took Charles Groth as her husband. While living in neighboring New Lenox, Bertha lost him to pneumonia brought on by harmful exposure in the spring of 1909. In the summer of the same year, as a young, widowed mother to at least eight children, she re-settled down the road in Mokena, where a relative of her husband’s kept a saloon on the northwest corner of Front and Division Streets. Living not far from the watering hole, Bertha Groth and her immediate family were not strangers in town, having lived here for a spell previously. 

Matt's Old Mokena wishes you a Merry Christmas!

 

     During the devastating fire at Front Street’s Martin Hall on July 24^th, 1912, Bertha distinguished herself by being the first to raise the alarm, effectively summoning Mokena’s bucket brigade to respond to one of the biggest disasters in village history. While she took in her neighbors’ laundry to help make ends meet, town residents knew that her financial burden was great, especially with having so many mouths to feed. Local folk gently described the Groths on one hand as being a “poor, deserving family” and on the other, simply as “destitute.” At Christmas time 1912, the congregation of what was then called German United Evangelical St. John’s Church turned their thoughts to the Groth family and put on an informal benefit of sorts for them. Hosted at a meeting space in Philippine Bechstein’s Front Street property on December 12^th, Mokena residents generously showered Bertha and her children with money, groceries, and various other gifts. 

 

     This wasn’t the first time that they felt the generosity of their neighbors, as Mokenians came together to look out for the Groths in a similar way three years earlier in 1909. That yule season, village teacher Ernest Tonn and his students surprised Bertha’s children with two boxes “filled with Christmas goodies so dear to the childish heart.” There were at least three other occasions when Bertha Groth was shown Mokena’s benevolence, including the time in the winter of 1910 when a traveling concern called the German Medicine Company put on a performance in their name, which included new-fangled moving pictures and “illustrated songs”.

 

     Bertha Groth continued to live in Mokena for decades, and townsfolk never forgot her. After the Christmas 1912 benefit, Joliet News correspondent and village resident Bill Semmler proudly wrote that “the Good Fellow spirit is manifesting itself in Mokena.”  We can learn from the deeds of our forefathers and should take their example this season.