Greater Treasure: The Story of the Semmler Family and the Mokena News-Bulletin, Part 2

 (be sure to read Part 1 of this story, posted last week!)

   When the Joliet Weekly News and the Joliet Herald became one in 1915, Mokena residents noticed immediately that the subscription for the new paper was a heftier price than that of the old News, and by and by, takers of the publication started to drop off the rolls. Local folk, who recognized Bill Semmler’s natural talent for scouting out newsy morsels, encouraged him to start his own sheet, and thus, in an extraordinary moment, sprouted in Bill’s mind the first seed of the idea to start his own newspaper that would serve the Mokena area. 

   In neighboring Tinley Park, businessmen who had enjoyed his coverage of their neck of the woods during his time with the News floated the idea of starting a stock company to help Semmler get a paper started. No small amount of money was raised in this endeavor, and Bill even looked over real estate there to house an office, but America’s entry into World War I threw a wrench into these plans, and they came to naught. At this point, he re-shifted his attention to Mokena, his hometown. 

 

   While the Mokena of this era was a small, rural place mustering up around 500 residents, it also boasted a rich journalistic history. The village’s first newsperson was a plucky 18-year-old named Julia Atkins, whose handwritten broadsheet, the Mokena Star, appeared in 1852, as the community was barely more than a handful of buildings along the newly built Rock Island line. The Mokena Advertiser was another early publication, helmed by Charles Jones, another young editor, from 1874 to 1877. At the same time, town correspondents using romantic monikers such as Bluebeard, Cupid, and Euripides sent in news to the Joliet papers, while in the 1880s, the Mokena Commercial Advertiser was printed in Lockport. 

 

   The Joliet Weekly News, and later its amalgamated form, the Joliet Herald-News could be counted on for Mokena reportage, especially under Ida Kiniry’s and later Bill Semmler’s tenure as contributors, but local columns were painfully short during the World War I years, often being edged out by news from the county seat. In this era, residents of eastern Will County found themselves without representation in the press. When the war ended in 1918, the question of a new, Semmler-led local paper started up anew in Mokena. A few town business people, such as auto dealer Elmer Cooper, harness maker Albert Hellmuth, insurance man Ona McGovney, as well as the Frankfort Grain Company and J.C. Funk of Tinley Park put their money where their mouths were, and promised their support in the form of advertisements. 

 

   The idea to forge ahead with a new publication was set into motion. As Bill and Margaret Semmler brainstormed what to call the paper, Mokena’s businesses were lined up on Front Street, with the Semmler print shop being a near neighbor to all. Among them were two blacksmiths, a feed shop, a livery stable, and three general stores. A grain elevator stood near the busy Rock Island depot, and Bowman Dairy maintained a milk bottling plant on Marti Street, the community’s main north-south thoroughfare. A two-story schoolhouse stood on the east side of town, while four churches provided for the spiritual and social life of the village.  

            So appeared Mokena on the eve of the debut of the Semmler's new publication. This view of Front Street looking east dating from the 1920s shows the pharmacy of Richard Hensel, which stood for years at today's 11112 Front Street. 

   Things started off modestly in the new concern; or as the Semmlers would later more candidly put it, on a “shoe string.” As their first issue was about to see the light of day in August 1919, its letters were set by hand at the Front Street office, after which the type forms were gently wrapped in paper, and then bundled into a suitcase. Bill and Clinton Kraus, a 15-year-old neighbor, hauled the luggage onto a Rock Island accommodation bound for Blue Island, some 13 miles distant. Once there, the two Mokenians took their cargo up a steep hill to an old press on Western Avenue, ownership of which Bill had recently come into. To their fortune, the press would eventually make its way to the printing office in Mokena, alleviating the drudgery of having to make repeated trips to Blue Island. Once all the newspapers had come off the rollers, they were brought back to Mokena via a return train, and addressed at the Semmler house. 

The Mokena office of the News-Bulletin, seen circa 1925. The historic building stood at the site of contemporary 10842 Front Street. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)

 

    On August 21^st, 1919, the first issue of the newspaper was born to the world, bearing the heady title of the News-Bulletin. In a reflection of the epoch in which it was born, the News-Bulletin triumphantly heralded the return of Mokena boy Alfred Hatch from Germany, where he had been stationed with the Army of Occupation. In other happenings of the post-World War I era, the new paper eagerly reported that the village’s Camp Fire Girls had raised enough money to support a French orphan. 

   A week later, when the second issue landed in the hands of its subscribers, its front page held the flavorful story of Fred Steinhagen Sr., an irate Mokena farmer who had been arrested for firing a revolver at local baseball players, whose fetching of errant balls on his property he interpreted as trespassing. News from the neighboring communities of Frankfort, Marley, Matteson, New Lenox and Tinley Park was also included, along with farming and household tips, as well as some jokes thrown in for good measure.

 

    Composed of eight pages, (with five columns to a page) it could all be had for $1.75 a year. Those first editions of The News-Bulletin had about 200 subscribers, however, by the end of 1919, the Semmlers had upped their numbers, counting a whopping 900 people in Mokena and the surrounding territory. The dramatic uptick was due to a subscription drive brainstormed up by Bill and Margaret, the grand prize in which was a $900 1920 Overland touring car, the same ultimately being won by Mamie Kolber of Mokena. In a model that was kept up for a goodly portion of the publication’s existence, news was gathered by calling local families and outright asking for it, it was also asked for in the pages of the paper itself, reminding readers early on to “Send in your news items. We went them all. Perhaps you entertained company, know of a party, of a visitor from a distance, an accident, a social affair. All these things make good news items. Just bring or send them in. By doing so, you will help to make this paper a real spicy sheet.”

 

    By August 1921, the price of a yearly News-Bulletin subscription has gone down slightly, and would cost a reader $1.25. Touting the new price, and knowing full well that issues were being passed around Mokena from person to person, the Semmlers wrote that “…a paper is like a woman. Every man should have his own and not run after his neighbor’s.” The early period of the News-Bulletin’s existence was a tough one for the them, full of trial and tribulation. In their own words, it was a time when “the waves were high and the sea rough.” Their enterprise faced open animosity from select Mokena business people, and for reasons known only to them and lost to time, a handful steadfastly refused to advertise in the publication’s pages, who with a surly mien made it known that Mokena did not need its own paper, and openly urged Bill to quit. 

     The Semmlers also had to take on no small amount of debt to get the News-Bulletin off its feet; this being something that they were still wrangling with five years after the first issue came off the press, when Bill wrote that “everyone he is indebted to will be paid in full with interest to boot.” At this point in the paper’s young life, it missed its only issue. Due to a strike involving the Western Newspaper Union in Chicago, a supply of newsprint failed to make it to Mokena on time. The arbitration dragged on for a few weeks, but after having had his fill after the first week, Bill went to the city himself and scrounged up a supply of paper, which he carried back to the village wedged under his seat on a Rock Island train. After this episode, and having learned their lesson, the News-Bulletin office began to regularly carry large supplies of it.

 

   Bill and Margaret Semmler were the brains behind the News-Bulletin, but they had plenty of help from technology. An invaluable machine called the Line-o-Graph made its debut in Mokena on the last day of 1919, and while it wasn’t actually up and running at the office until January 6^th, it revolutionized the Semmlers’ ability to print the news in town. Where the work of composing the paper’s type was once done by hand, the Line-o-Graph now did it mechanically. In showing off the contraption in the pages of the News-Bulletin, the Semmlers noted “We do not believe in boasting, but the fact is that this machine is a boost for the News-Bulletin, as it gives us fine equipment, such as is seldom found in a small town.” 

   For all the good it did, the early days of Line-o-Graph ownership were a source of a seemingly never-ending stream of vexation. One headache that cropped up were complications with the machine that resulted in the January 16^th, 1920 edition coming out late. In an apologetic blurb, Bill wrote that he “felt much aggrieved that the delay had taken place” but then proudly stated that “we have now tamed the wild animal.” The new publication got another boost up when a two magazine Mergenthaler Linotype machine was installed in June 1923, it being a more prominent relative to the Line-o-Graph.

A 1923 view of the Linotype, a vital piece of equipment in the Semmlers' shop.

This depiction of the family's press appeared in a 1925 edition of the News-Bulletin.

     A major technical annoyance for the Semmlers was their old Diamond cylinder press, a contraption they loved to hate. In 1925, Bill wrote that it was behaving “like a balky mule” and that it could only be operated “by a wizard and hypnotist”, before adding that he “had lost much patience and religion in wrestling with this demon of a press.” 

 

   Another advance occurred in March 1925, when a new cylinder press, a Century Two revolution model, was set up at the Front Street office. This marvel was able to produce about 2,700 impressions in an hour, which saved the Semmlers and their employees much time, cutting their final production time in half. Prior to the installation of this machine, it would take almost five hours to print a run of the News-Bulletin, but with the new press, it came down to an hour and a half. 

 

   For a period early on, the Semmlers employed an assistant editor, having hired E.E. Turrentine in May of the paper’s first year. Things were still wobbly as the publication tried to find its footing in Mokena and the surrounding area, with more delays in publishing and a piece on the front page of the May 14^th, 1920 issue that lamented the News-Bulletin “has had a thorny path to travel on account of a shortage of help” and also vaguely noted “some dissatisfaction among the subscribers.” In an instant, it looked as if everything might literally go up in smoke, when on August 6^th, 1920, a freak gasoline explosion erupted in the paper’s Mokena office. For a few panic-filled moments, the situation looked utterly hopeless, but through the quick-thinking bravery of some neighbors and Bill’s mother Catherine, who lived in the rooms adjoining the office, the flames were tamped down. In a piece on the fire that appeared on the front page of the following week’s paper, Bill soberly described himself as having been “enveloped in flames” and having to beat the fire out of his clothes. Assistant editor Turrentine was unlucky enough to have his foot burned and back wrenched when the explosion, in a close call, wedged him between the Linotype and the cylinder press. All of that week’s news from Frankfort and New Lenox was lost in the blaze. In talking about the incident in the News-Bulletin, the Semmlers humbly thanked everyone who helped rescue them and their property.

 

   Being headquartered in a historic building had its share of problems, too. One was flooding, which occurred in the old cellar under the structure. On one occasion in March 1922, a clog in a drain caused fourteen inches of rain water to stand in the basement, requiring Chief Herman Schweser of the Mokena Fire Department to blast out the obstruction with the village fire hose.

 

   By the mid-1920s, the News-Bulletin bore the slogan “Cussed by Some – Discussed by Many – Read by All.” While the publication had a comfortable number of subscribers, all was not a rose pedal path for the Semmlers, as their straightforward sense of local journalism sometimes incurred the wrath of certain readers. A classic example would be the blistering fallout that reared up in the aftermath of a Prohibition era raid. In October 1930, a tip had reached the Will County state’s attorney that illicit booze could be had at a Mokena ice cream parlor, and when special investigators came to town, they discovered almost five jugs of moonshine and two barrels of beer on the premises. Edward Martie, a village trustee, future mayor and father of one of the shop’s owners, “grew violently angry” that his son’s name was published in connection with the police action, and “threatened dire vengeance” on Bill Semmler. In detailing efforts that had been made to cover up the news, Bill wondered on the News-Bulletin’s front page if Martie “favored the suppression of all news bearing on liquor raids, or does this suppression only apply to favored individuals?” while also stating that “Those who engage in illegal business must expect to stand the consequences.”  

     Another occurrence was particularly ugly. In the spring of 1931, when local tempers boiled over an issue regarding the installation of a central sewer, an unknown party attacked the News-Bulletin’s office under the cover of darkness and painted the windows yellow. In a front page piece on the incident, the Semmlers asserted that “dirty politics are being resorted to” and also that they knew who was behind the lark. Referring to the guilty party, it was written that “the opposition hates publicity, and because this paper dares to print the facts, they go around saying that only lies are being printed…” It was declared that the paint would stay on the windows until after the coming village election. 

 

   As the News-Bulletin’s readership grew, it could be solidly depended on for stories not just from its Mokena home, but also for the neighboring villages of Frankfort, Marley, New Lenox, Orland Park and Tinley Park, and sometimes even carried items from Green Garden, Homer, Matteson, and as far afield as Oak Lawn. Interestingly, by the end of the summer 1921, the paper counted at least one overseas reader in Germany. William Hoffman, a farmhand who had worked for Mokena brothers Charles and Julius Hirsch, had returned to the land of his birth and was receiving the publication there. In a happy letter back to friends in the village filled with no small amount of pride for his adopted community, Hoffman wrote that he “is very glad to get his home paper, greatly enjoys reading it and in showing it to his friends.”  

   This ability to drum up news from nearby communities was a keystone to the Semmlers’ success. In conjunction with the News-Bulletin, the family went on to found several other newspapers in Eastern Will County and Southern Cook County. One, the Tinley Park Times, was born in 1925, when business people and residents of Tinley Park began “clamoring for a paper of their own.” The community had long standing ties with Bill Semmler, having asked him to work there as early as the World War I era. The Times was so successful that the family opened a printing plant in the town in the spring of 1941. Another jewel in the crown of Semmler Press was the Orland Park Herald, which debuted in 1926. In terms of layout and content, these publications were very similar to the News-Bulletin, with the articles on the front page being swapped for eye-grabbing happenings of each respective community. 

 

   As the years carried on, the News-Bulletin became a Mokena mainstay, and as the country entered the Great Depression, the Semmler family and their publication were able to keep their heads above water. Reflecting the dark economic situation in the country, the columns of the paper charmingly noted in October 1931 that they were able “to help relieve the depression to a small degree” by remodeling and expanding the printing plant attached to their Front Street office to its new dimensions of twenty by forty feet. The News-Bulletin got a leg up on the afternoon of January 18^th, 1933 when it, along with the Orland Park Herald and the Tinley Park Times, were boosted over the airwaves of radio station WCFL of Chicago. Bill himself gave a “community talk” on each of the communities served by these publications, which was in turn accompanied by a musical presentation. 

 

   The News-Bulletin office in Mokena was a veritable hive of activity. In addition to the newspapers that rolled off their machines under the umbrella of the Semmler Press, the family also continued to take on general printing work. In August 1940, after being in business for exactly 21 years, a column noted that “today the shop of the News-Bulletin is a busy place. Three weeklies, one bi-monthly, and two monthly papers are printed here” while also proudly stating that they could take on color work as well as the traditional black and white. At that time, the nearly 100-year-old building was home to a cylinder press, two jobbers, a casting box, stitcher, large paper cutter, electric saw, an addressing machine, and “loads of metal and wood type.” 

One of the most influential figures in the history of Mokena, Bill Semmler is pictured here at work in 1941. May his memory live eternal.

   While Bill Semmler’s name appeared in almost every issue as editor, the contributions of his family members to the News-Bulletin can’t be overlooked, for Mokena at large was lucky to have in its court three women who gave their all to the paper. Margaret Semmler was essentially the paper’s co-editor and her husband’s equal in the publication’s composition and management, for many years maintaining the social pages.  Referencing the famous editor of The Washington Post, another reporter would years later sublimely call her “the Katherine Graham of Mokena in her day.” 

   Starting in her teen years, Bill and Margaret’s daughter Adeline learned to operate the vital Linotype machine, while her sister, Ada Semmler, who felt timid around the printing plant’s loud, clanking presses, handled things in the office. On Thursday nights, getting the week’s paper ready for its Friday publishing date was a family activity. Reflecting on the late nights spent with tricky machinery, Ada would later say that “If all went well, we would go home around midnight! If not, it could take until 2:30 a.m. to finish.” Her mother Margaret also wryly wondered why they needed a house when the whole family spent so many nights toiling in the office.

Adeline Semmler in 1938.

A 1938 likeness of Ada Semmler.

(Stay tuned for Part 3 of this story!) 

Greater Treasure: The Story of the Semmler Family and the Mokena News-Bulletin, Part 1

    There is perhaps no greater virtue in our land than that of free speech. Guaranteed in the constitution, it is the cornerstone of democracy. No one item upholds and embodies this ideal more than the American newspaper. In the hands of its reader, it is the country’s truest speaker. From the metropolis to the humblest village, every community has an organ that not only represents its citizens, but also allows them a platform to speak and be heard. The newspaper is also an irreplaceable historic document, one that when properly cared for, loyally remains decades after its birth to give researchers hard facts where previously only false memories and muddled stories existed. 

     Every publication is a reflection of its creator, and no man has been better suited to helm a newspaper than William Semmler of Mokena, Illinois. Described during his lifetime as “an individualist with real American determination” and also as “one of Mokena’s most up-on-his-toes citizens”, his life’s masterpiece was the News-Bulletin, his hometown’s paper from 1919 to 1969. Semmler was a popular man about town, who “created oodles of friends” and was remembered by a contemporary as “hustling, smiling, agreeable Bill, with your handshaking which was always real.” From this authenticity sprung the greatness and immortality that he shared with his steadfast partner and wife Margaret, along with their two daughters Adeline and Ada. The Semmlers’ Mokena was one significantly different than today’s; where now we have a bustling suburb of Chicago, they knew a much smaller, rural community, one that boasted less than a thousand residents, a place where everyone knew each other and coal soot from passing Rock Island locomotives coated uptown buildings.  

 

     William Semmler’s roots reached back to the earliest days of the village where destiny found him. To really understand Bill, one has to look at those who gave him life, John and Catherine Semmler. His mother was born Catharina Heim, who first saw the light of day in Mokena on August 20^th, 1855. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad had been completed through the locale only 3 years before, and what began as a tiny hamlet clustered around a train depot was starting to show signs of growing into a lively village. Her parents were hardy folks of Hessian stock, having left their homeland and set down stakes in what would later become Frankfort Township at the end of the 1840s. After first trying his hand at rugged prairie farming, Catharina’s father, Martin Heim, soon became physically incapable of the grueling toil, and with the arrival of the Rock Island, set up a smart little store near the tracks that catered to the men who laid the rails and the other predominantly German-American citizens of the sparsely populated area. Counting some success in this endeavor, Heim converted his business into a beer saloon that became a mainstay in Mokena, a place where people of all walks of life rubbed elbows.  

Seen here around 1870 with the proprietor in the doorway, Martin Heim's saloon was a Mokena fixture for decades. One of the oldest buildings in the village, it stood at today's 10842 Front Street. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)

 

    Standing on what would come to be called Front Street, the tap room had modest living quarters adjoining it where the Heims raised four children. The third to be born, Catharina, or Catherine, as she came to be called, came of age in a Mokena that was bustling with activity and growing seemingly by the day. Her family were charter members of the German United Evangelical St. John’s congregation in the village, having been with the flock since its inception in 1862, and Catherine was confirmed there on Palm Sunday 1869. It was with this same congregation that on November 8^th, 1885, at the age of thirty, Catherine married Johann Semmler, a Prussian shoemaker ten years her senior. Nothing has survived the ravages of time that indicates how they came together. Originally a native of a Gnesen in Prussia, Semmler found himself on America’s shore in 1867, after having done a stint in the Prussian military. He was in Chicago by 1871, plying his shoemaking trade on DeKoven Street. That year, he survived the destruction of the Great Fire, having been saved only by a lucky change in the wind’s direction at the last second.

 

     After John and Catherine Semmler were married, they moved a few miles down the road west to New Lenox, where their only child was born on January 9^th, 1887. He was baptized at St. John’s in Mokena on June 4^th as Wilhelm Eduard Emil Semmler, but as a lad, he was known simply as Willie. The Semmlers moved to Frankfort in 1897, but were back in New Lenox by 1900. The elder Semmler set to work at his craft in the tiny community, where the family kept house along what would later be known as the Lincoln Highway. Living immediately south of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad tracks, young Willie became captivated by the puffing locomotives and coaches that passed back and forth behind his home.  Like many American boys throughout the ages, he came to live and breathe all things train. His interest transcended that of most, however, when as an ambitious lad of 14, he set out to build his own locomotive. No small task, Willie set to it with ardor and dedication, displaying a vim that would be a trademark for all of his days. Attached to the back of the Semmler house facing the railroad tracks, the engine’s base was made with spare logs that were around his father’s shoe shop, while its boiler was fashioned out of a metal container used for displaying coffee, while a flour and sugar barrel completed the set-up.

 

   A smoke stack was made out of an old stove pipe, a headlight out of a salmon can, sewing machine parts for the throttle, and a working bell and semaphore were attached to the engine as well. Every conceivable component of an authentic locomotive was fabricated by the young Semmler out of whatever material he could get his hands on. He also put together a waterproof cab with the help of some cast aside tobacco signs. Complete with a homemade engineer’s seat, it proved a popular place for neighborhood boys to seek refuge from the elements. 

After all of Willie Semmler’s work was done, his locomotive measured 12 feet long, four feet wide, and 8 feet high, and bore yellow cardboard letters “C.R.I. & P.” and the numbers 932, after a real engine that ran the line. The lad’s engine came to be something of an attraction for passers-by on the Rock Island line; trainmen would sometimes throw authentic railroad knickknacks for the youngster to incorporate into his engine. If a passing accommodation was making a stop long enough in New Lenox, it wasn’t rare for railroad men to come get a closer look at Semmler’s handiwork, who declared it to be a “dead ringer of the real thing.” Willie was even once graced by a visit from the road master himself, as well as travelers who stopped by to photograph the locomotive. 

 

  Willie Semmler, one of the biggest train enthusiasts in Will County, was set for a career in the world of railroads until disaster struck. On the fateful night before Thanksgiving 1901, a calamitous fire destroyed John Semmler’s shoe shop along with the home of his family. While they escaped the inferno by the skin of their teeth, young Willie’s locomotive, the scene of countless passionate hours of his labor, also succumbed to the flames. The following year, while Willie Semmler was 15, the Semmlers moved home and hearth back to Mokena, to the house on Front Street that once held the old saloon of Catherine’s father, Martin Heim. The building was awash with local flavor, holding its original doors and windows, as well as timbers that still showed the scars of the ax that felled them decades before. The old bar made of black walnut could even still be found in the place. It was here that John Semmler opened up his shoe repair shop, and began conducting business in Mokena. 

 

   Aside from being a railroad buff, young Willie was possessed of an intellectual drive that gave him a thirst for the printed word, which led him to visit the farm of Willard Owen just southwest of Mokena, often times making the trek by foot with his father. Mr. Owen was known to keep a large personal library, from which he freely allowed Willie to borrow. Young Semmler only went to school until he was about 10 years old, but displayed an aptitude for spelling, grammar, history and geography, along with an early knack for writing. All would serve him well in the future. 

 

   As social networks are the wheels that drive life, a friend of Willie’s opened a door for him that would determine his destiny. Bill, as he came to be called in his adolescence, was the friend of Ida Kiniry, a Mokena resident about thirteen years his senior. The daughter of the village’s railroad crossing flagman, Kiniry was the local correspondent to the Joliet Weekly News, and in 1907 found herself engaged to be married. Looking to resign her position with the newspaper, she invited Bill to take over the spot for her. Thus it was that Bill Semmler of Mokena, a tender lad in his twenties, became a reporter. 

 

   The exact date of this turning point in his life, his formal introduction to the journalistic world, has become somewhat muddled over the years, with contradictory points abounding. It likely occurred around 1907, as this is the earliest known reference in the pages of the Weekly News to his being named a reporter. As the newspaper carried a vast array of items from across Will County, Bill Semmler served the publication as the local contributor for Mokena, Frankfort and the surrounding area. It was with the News that Bill cut his teeth with the press, recording neighborhood births, marriages and deaths for the paper, but also cheerful news of parties, occasional snippets of petty crime, and even details of property transactions. In a reflection of his heritage and the greater ethnic makeup of the area, Bill had an understanding of the German language, which also enabled him to pick up newsy morsels from Mokena’s more elderly residents, some of whom lacked English abilities. Aside from reporting community news, Bill also occasionally used his columns to showcase self-composed poetry.   

 

   This work was mostly seasonal, having to do with holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day, but he also wrote “Rewards”, which appeared in the News on August 15^th, 1907, which contained stanzas such as

 

Glory after the gloom/Blessing after the blight,

Joy after deep sorrow/After darkness the light

 

Another piece, “The Threshold” which appeared the day after Christmas that year, partially read

 

The joyous bells o’er moor and fell/in mellow echoes their story tell

And this is their joyous refrain:

A bright and happy New Year’s here again!

 

   Every man has the woman in his life who propels him forward, and Bill Semmler found his in Margaret Oestreich. While the historic record has left us with many rich details on Bill’s early life, we are left with comparatively few on Margaret’s. She was two years younger than him, having been born on May 18^th, 1889. In a geographic parallel, Margaret Oestreich was a native of Joliet, the seat of Will County, located 11 miles west of Mokena. While a school chum of hers later described the young lady as a “very sweet girl with a wonderful disposition”, Margaret had an exceptionally tough childhood, at one point spending a year in bed with a heart condition. She moved to New Lenox in 1906, where her sister Clida was manager of the local telephone office, taking a job there as her assistant. No details have survived the course of time as to how, but in some way Margaret Oestreich and Bill Semmler got to know each other as teens, and later she often accompanied him as he traveled the Mokena area in search of news in a horse-drawn buggy that had been provided him by the News. The young couple tied the knot on October 21^st, 1914[i] at Zion Evangelical Church in Joliet, from whence they set down their stakes in a cozy, newly built home on Niethammer Avenue in Mokena. Margaret Semmler was very civically-minded in her new hometown, leading the local Camp Fire Girls as early as 1915, a spirited group of young ladies akin to the Girl Scouts.  

Standing today 19525 Midland Avenue, Bill and Margaret Semmler built this house around the time of their 1914 wedding on what was then called Niethammer Avenue.

Seen here with her Camp Fire Girls in a Front Street parade around 1916, Margaret Semmler sits to the left of driver W.H. Bechstein.

 

 

   The Joliet Weekly News, Bill’s employer, consolidated with the Joliet Herald in 1915, which put him on the staff of the new Joliet Herald-News at its inception. Ever looking to expand, Bill Semmler set up a small print shop in his Mokena home in early 1916, after having gotten a jump start in $8.00 of capital that had been borrowed from W.H. Bechstein, the owner of the village’s grain elevator. After the passing of John Semmler in April of that year, Bill picked up his equipment, which consisted of a small, hand operated press and a few different fonts of type, and moved the shop into the old property on Front Street, where his maternal grandfather had served sudsy beer and his father worked on shoes. He took on a partner in the venture, namely a Mokena gent named Wachter, who when the population of the village in this era is surveyed, was likely one Andrew Wachter, an engraver who was a near neighbor to the Semmlers. Before long, this partnership dissolved, and the historic record hasn’t left us the reason why. Bill’s erstwhile printing business, which turned out business letterheads, auction posters, as well as Forward, the flavorful bulletin of Mokena’s German United Evangelical St. John’s Church, was eventful for him, as his simultaneous experience as a reporter and the new know-how as a printer gave him a solid foundation of valuable knowledge for the future. 

 

   Bill Semmler’s budding career was almost interrupted when America entered World War I in 1917, during which time he was summoned to the Will County Courthouse by the draft board to undergo a physical examination. What transpired isn’t known, although the fact that he listed his “invalid, widowed mother” as a dependent on his draft card and declared himself “not physically strong” may have played a role in his never having been called up. 

 

   Bill Semmler wore many hats in the Mokena of his day, for not only was he a printer and gatherer of local news, he also took a seat as village clerk in April 1912 under mayor Ona McGovney, having received a whopping 65 votes from his townsmen to his opponent’s one. In this capacity, which Bill filled until 1922, he took down the minutes of the village board and issued local hunting licenses, among other tasks. Bill’s drive to serve the community was tireless, as much later, he became a Mokena village trustee from 1937 to 1943, serving also as clerk of Frankfort Township for eight years. Another venture soon started for Bill and Margaret, that of parenthood, when their marriage was graced by the arrival of their first child, Adeline Semmler, on August 18^th, 1917. She was followed by her sister Ada Semmler three years later on February 7^th, 1920. 

(Tune in next week for Part 2 of this story!)

 

Birth of a Village: Mokena's Road to Incorporation

   A student graduates from high school, a couple gets married, and a long-time worker goes into retirement. On the road of life, milestones are reached, and when we hit them, we make them official. It’s just the same with our fair village. Mokena was born in 1852 with the momentous arrival of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, and after the steel rails were laid across the prairie, by and by commerce came to our little hamlet. She came to flourish, and after twenty years of moving forward, she was ready for the next step – becoming incorporated and having the right to call herself a village. It would be a process that took the better part of half a decade, complete with stumbling blocks thrown in the way. By the time all was said and done, the resilience and can-do spirit of our forefathers had blazed a trail to prosperity. 

   Fortune was favoring Mokena, a little town made up of young people born in or near the community, their parents who were born anywhere from Ohio to Kentucky to New York, a smattering of Canadians and Englanders, and the rest, a significantly high percentage of Germans. Respected for their agricultural acumen and straight-forward hard work ethic, this was a Volk who were also known to be especially thirsty. By the mid-1870s, Mokena was home to five general stores, three hotels and two blacksmith shops, but also eight lager beer saloons; more per capita than any other rural town in Will County. Proprietors such as Martin Heim, William Jacob and brothers Ferdinand and John Schiek kept the juice of the barley flowing to the farmers and railroad workers who called Mokena home, while also netting themselves a comfortable living to boot. By this time in the narrative, Sundays in town were known to be a day where things generally got pretty out of hand – decades later one resident described them as being filled with “street parades, picnics, and a wild time generally (being) celebrated on the Sabbath.”

 

   The local situation was such that the attention of county bigwigs was drawn to the happenings in our burgh. As it was, they were the ones issuing dram shop licenses to the barkeeps in town, these being the bureaucratic red tape that allowed the saloonists to keep their doors open. At a meeting of the Will County Board of Supervisors in early 1875, it was decided that Mokena could make do with only three watering holes, and thus only so many licenses were dealt out. In these days, the Board was controlled by what one bystander called a “temperance element”, referring to the 19^th century social movement that faulted the consumption of ardent spirits for all of society’s woes. Five local business owners were about to be thrown out of what was referred to as a “lucrative business.” The Joliet Republican noted that Mokenians were “Excited…to an unwonted degree” and wanted the county off their backs, and the ability to rule themselves. So it was that a petition made the rounds in town to incorporate the community as a village, allowing it to make its own rules, which was filed at the office of the County Clerk on March 14^th, 1875. 

 

   Alas, not everyone in Mokena was on the same page. 70 male residents affixed their names to a rebuttal petition, to which a county judge threw up his hands – the law gave him no legal right to call the shot and come down on one side or another, and therefore the matter would have to be settled by a referendum, which was ultimately slated for April 15^th at the hall of John Sutter. The balloting went off, and after an “all-day’s sharp contest”, those in favor of incorporation lost, and that with an overwhelming majority, with 25 votes being counted for, and 64 against. The media of the county seat had the final word, with the Daily Sun snidely commenting that “Mokena will consequently remain in her present benighted condition.”

 

   Another go at trying to incorporate the town appears to have been made three years later in 1878, when a new petition made the rounds that ultimately garnered 34 favorable signatures, but how far this second endeavor went remains unclear after the ebb and flow of time. In any case, those with incorporation in their hearts weren’t done yet. The hubbub never really died down. Previously recalcitrant souls were won over, and once again pen was put to paper. Yet another referendum was carried out, this time on Friday, May 21^st, 1880 at the scale house of John Cappel and Martin Krapp, Mokena’s premier hog shippers. Male citizens turned out in droves to cast their votes, and this time the tables had turned, with 50 votes coming in favor, with 22 against. The results were certified by Judge Benjamin Olin three days later, he being the same Will County judge who was presented with the first petition half a decade earlier. So it was, that our little railroad town of 522 souls was officially incorporated. 

 

   One of the first orders of business was the election of officers, which took place June 14^th, 1880, just over three weeks after the first ballot-casting. Eleven names of representative citizens were ponied up, and the six with the largest amounts of votes by their townsmen were the aforementioned John Cappel, store keeper and sometime attorney Ozias McGovney, harness maker and feed salesman Valentine Scheer, railroad worker George Smith, shoemaker John Ulrich, and saloonist John Zahn. The most popular of them was John Cappel, who tallied 72 votes. The freshly elected trustees then did some voting themselves, and picked Ozias McGovney as the president of the new board, an honor which earned him the venerated place in Mokena’s history as our first mayor. 38-year-old John A. Hatch, the son-in-law of Mayor McGovney, was then appointed as our first village clerk. Nowadays eyebrows would be raised over such a close familial connection in government, but in this case, there was nothing disreputable about it, it being only a reflection of the smallness of our town. 

 

The first mayor of Mokena, Ozias McGovney, seen here circa 1878. 

 

  Our first town government was an interesting cross-section of Mokena. Of the five new trustees, all but one of them were born in Germany, and of the entire board, all of them were fathers. Clerk Hatch and Trustee Smith were veterans, having marched with the Union army in the Civil War, with the latter having received four serious wounds in combat. The most senior of them was the mayor, who was 55 years old at the time he took his oath of office. While the others were by no means newcomers to Mokena, Ozias McGovney had them all beat, having arrived as a lad on the wild, untamed prairie where Mokena would later stand with his family in the fall of 1831. A member of the first European-American family to take up residence in today’s Frankfort Township, McGovney was no stranger to holding office. First came a post as justice of the peace upon the formation of the township in 1850, then the position of township supervisor, before ultimately giving up both in 1870, and a subsequent nomination as postmaster of Mokena in 1875.

 

   As the newly incorporated village had no town hall to speak of, the board held their first meetings at Trustee Scheer’s harness and feed shop on Front Street, and got to work drafting the first village ordinances. Looking back upon these handwritten documents, they are a unique window to the 19^th century, as they represent pressing problems in town that the founding fathers wanted to fix. They were put to vote by the board and officially adopted on August 4^th, 1880. One of the freshly adopted ordinances decreed that fowl were not to run loose, it stating “it shall be unlawful for any geese, turkeys, ducks and chickens or any domestic fowl to run at large within the limits of the village of Mokena”, specifically between the first of April until the first of October. Any violators could count on a fine of not less than three dollars, and no more than twenty five. In what was likely a reference to the aforementioned wild Sundays of the time, another ordinance said:

 

“that it shall not be lawful for any person or persons, within the Village of Mokena, to disturb the peace of any street, lane, avenue, alley, neighborhood, family or persons by loud or unusual noises or by blowing trumpets, horns, or other instruments or by beating of drums, tambourines, kettles, pans or other serenading vessels or implements or by loud or boisterous language.”

 

Bearing silent witness to the ever-present threat of fires, one ordinance mandated that “no lighted candle or lamp shall be used in any stable, barn or building where hay, straw or other combustible material shall be kept unless the same shall be well secured in a lantern.” As so-called hoboes often breezed into town over the railroad and tended to cause trouble, another ordinance split hairs defining what exactly constituted a vagrant, it being written that it was a person with no visible means of support, someone who “lives idle” or “shall be found loitering or strolling about, frequenting places where liquor of any kind is sold, drank or kept” and could be found in “houses of ill fame or bad repute, ten pin alleys, billiard rooms, sheds, stables, barns, hay or straw racks.”

 

Though changed in appearance, the feed and harness store of Trustee Valentine Scheer, site of the first village board meetings, still stands at today’s 11028 Front Street.

 

   Our founding fathers managed Mokena, and by and by wore in the seats of their chairs, but the story didn’t end in 1880. Flash forward twelve years, to April 1892. It was then that a letter came to town from Secretary of State I.W. Pearson, which was taken in hand by then village clerk John Liess. In part, it read “a certificate of the organization of the Village of Mokena was filed in this office, May 22, 1890, which was paid for at that time, this cert. you retain in the files of your office.” As clear as day, this note states that Springfield didn’t file our incorporation until ten years after our townfolk voted on the issue and picked a governing board. Decades later, mayor and village luminary Richard Quinn remarked “apparently, however, someone had neglected to inform the Secretary of State of the incorporation of the village until 1890.” Thus begins one of the great mysteries of our town’s narrative – what happened in those ten years? Did the initial paperwork get lost in the mail? Did a local courier get distracted on the way to the state capitol? This issue has hung fire for a good many years, with Quinn, the chairman of the committee that hosted Mokena’s official centennial observations in 1980, even suggesting to hold another celebration in 1990, which ultimately never panned out. All has been put to rest, however, by a recent communication between this author and the state’s Index Department. Upon consultation of Springfield’s records, officials on their confirmed that their documents confirm our 1880 incorporation date. Thus, another mystery has been solved and consigned to the history books. 

 

   The hard work of our founding fathers paid off, and after 143 years, Mokena is still here. Ozias McGovney and his colleagues never could’ve envisioned the long way we’ve come, and this author for one, likes to think that they would be proud of our progress. With all of our modern conveniences, comforts and prosperity that we enjoy in our village, let us not forget the way that was paved for us.