tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78929045355234392932024-03-23T14:11:54.435-07:00Matt's Old MokenaMatt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-25018273336647349042024-03-23T14:10:00.000-07:002024-03-23T14:11:22.865-07:00Come All Ye Faithful: The Early Days of St. Mary's German Catholic Church<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Along in the distant, far-off days of the First World War, a Joliet reporter called Mokena “the village of churches.” It was a fitting moniker, as at that time our community featured four houses of worship to nourish the souls of around 400 residents. Immanuel Lutheran, St. John’s and St. Mary’s, they’re all still here with the exception of our venerable Methodist church, with recently consolidated with our neighbors in the New Lenox congregation. These churches are landmarks in town, with the English gothic eminence of St. John’s as the jewel of Second Street, and Immanuel Lutheran’s modern edifice being unmissable on LaPorte Road. The contemporary style of St. Mary’s is prominent on 115</span><sup>th</sup><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Avenue, but what sets this house of worship apart from its spiritual companions in Mokena is that its original sanctuary is still here, and not only that, but is still in use as a place of prayer, meditation, and devotion. So it has stood, nestled in a historic cemetery on a narrow tree-lined lane since the days of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Its past is worthy of our close attention.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the era leading up to the life-changing arrival of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad in 1852, our neck of the woods was strongly settled by German stock, most of whom were evangelical Lutheran, the robust group who would go on to the found the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church in 1862. Their neighbors, mostly Americans from the east, were more or less divided up into Methodist and Baptist assemblies, and would establish their own congregations before the decade was out. So it was that a Catholic minority remained in the newborn hamlet of Mokena, a mere eight years after its founding. A great step forward was made in the name of their faith on February 20<sup>th</sup>, 1860, when the father and mother of the parish, Prussian farmers Matthias and Margaret Enders, donated one acre of their property, a little ways north of Mokena, to the bishop of the Roman Catholic Church of Chicago. Almost exactly three years later, this original parcel would be supplemented by an additional acre donated to the bishop by the Enders’ neighbors, Johann and Anna Schmitt.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0PmNeji3417j-9hvk3DqZLZLfe6U4dX4DPIetKoR_u-8yuzYXRnF-SjH4LbR44dALxnNw0OmP_dB_GwSuOrfhI0RupH-orEynA4VCiw1xW1NRyMFebiIa1ah1Qaa26tQs9_omRjp7Yb5RD1Fkop9IfMDfJpByvStcwX54bx1Fw9-RddUv4Sb9mWmGuTL/s4032/st_marys_jan2021.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0PmNeji3417j-9hvk3DqZLZLfe6U4dX4DPIetKoR_u-8yuzYXRnF-SjH4LbR44dALxnNw0OmP_dB_GwSuOrfhI0RupH-orEynA4VCiw1xW1NRyMFebiIa1ah1Qaa26tQs9_omRjp7Yb5RD1Fkop9IfMDfJpByvStcwX54bx1Fw9-RddUv4Sb9mWmGuTL/w556-h419/st_marys_jan2021.jpg" width="556" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">St. Mary's German Catholic Church has stood in this idyllic setting for over a century and a half. </span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The small group of the faithful had the land to secure the future of their young parish, but still needed a foundation upon which to build, and for this they needed to bring in funds. The ways in which the money came into their coffers is somewhat hazy after the passage of more than a century and a half, but at least one ball was given to drum up cash, such as that held at Young’s Hall in Joilet in April, when Mokenians John Mahoney and Lawrence McMahan acted as managers. That night a ticket cost a dollar, (or about $25 in today’s money) and the music was supplied by Millspaugh’s Quadrille Band. By and by the congregation to-be had gathered enough money, and Bernhard Folman was engaged to build their house of worship. Folman, a Luxembourger and a Catholic, was a master carpenter whose hands built some of the earliest structures in Mokena. The lumber used in this modest structure was sourced from local timber, with the heavy window sills being made from the black walnut of our forests. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">St. Mary’s German Catholic Church was completed in 1864 at the cost of $1,400, boasting of three long, narrow windows on its eastern and western sides, along with a tall, thin steeple showcasing flame-shaped pinnacles at its base, a piece of flair not often seen in simple country churches in those days. Such pioneers were those of this parish, that at is birth, St. Mary’s of Mokena was the only Catholic church between the county seat and southern Cook County. The first worship services were held in the new sanctuary under the guidance of Father Peter Fassbender, who gathered his flock once a month due to the fact that he had to travel to town in order to celebrate mass. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The original Catholic parish of Mokena was composed of a mere nine families, to which number almost certainly counted the Bavarian families of Andreas and Margaret Schuberth along with Johann and Regina Fleisner, in addition to the Prussian Enderses and Schmitts, not to mention the young Irish clan of Thomas Lewellyn. When St. Mary’s first saw the light of day, it was a divisive and painful time in our history, one that we can’t even begin to imagine in our complacent 21<sup>st</sup> century existences. The national bloodbath of the Civil War was in full swing and untold carnage was by then a regular occurrence, with the Battle of Chickamauga being less than a year past, where the lives of four Mokenians were offered up for the Union. That the church was founded in this specific period is inseparable with its history, and poses the question if the parish was born in these dark years as a direct result of the gloom in which our ancestors lived. At least two members of the tiny congregation bore arms in the service of the North, namely Henry Folman and George Schmitt, who later anglicized his surname to Smith. Decades later both would find eternal rest in the churchyard.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As is the case with every newborn religious body, there was a roll call of firsts. The inaugural baptism was that of Emilia Margaret Iten on February 23<sup>rd</sup>, 1864, likely before the church was even completed, while the first nuptials were that of the John Wachters that April. The quaint churchyard cemetery was consecrated the following year, when the ground was broken to receive the earthly remains of Johann Schmidt in September 1865, a figure in our history about whom comparatively little is known, other than that he almost certainly belonged to the founding Schmitt family. In those days, Matthias Enders served as the burial ground’s first sexton, maintaining a small graveyard that as of this writing has grown to contain more than 800 graves. An early incident at the cemetery drew considerable attention. On August 28<sup>th</sup>, 1879, a cortege bore the earthly remains of Joseph Kaiser to the cemetery, where he was to be laid to rest beside his departed wife. Painting an all too vivid picture of the proceedings, Mokena’s correspondent to the <i>Joliet Weekly Sun</i> described that “the grave had already been dug, (and) the remains placed on the timbers over the yawning little narrow house” when the somber occasion promptly went downhill. So it was that Kaiser, a farmer who lived east of town, had refused to take the sacrament of the Lord’s supper from the congregation’s priest, and going even further back, had renounced Catholicism. At this point the unnamed priest materialized, interrupted the funeral, and in no uncertain terms, banned Kaiser’s body from the cemetery. A “fierce contest” broke out between the priest on one side and the mourners on the other, and at the end of the day, Joseph Kaiser was buried at St. Peter’s Cemetery in Green Garden, a little over seven miles away. The whole incident didn’t go over well in Mokena at large, with our correspondent not mincing any words when he penned that “had the writer been interested, someone would have got hurt before leaving there.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span>By 1878, around thirty families from Mokena and the outlying area worshipped at St. Mary’s altar under the leadership of Father Franz Sixt, who at the beginning of the decade had fought overseas in the Franco-Prussian War. Few are the details that we are left with on these early days of the parish, however one bizarre incident has survived the ravages of time, in which one James Gulpin burglarized the church in the summer of 1884. His eventual loot, reasons for the act, and even his eventual punishment are all long since forgotten. As the dawn of the twentieth century was on the horizon, the Mokena parish had prospered enough to have its first communion class, when Anna and Mary Aschenbrenner, Rosalie Kohl, Paul Rinke and Charles Schmidt took the sacrament together in the summer of 1897. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5h5WaOguWgMQrmzRPbLK8opvyYXDeHY0jXN7xy5Xct1oykNKtNxnipgOAgcffCk0psz4Eu4lp4uczg3X3XEAvnB7SBMhdJmO7-nzWEOldFJ6D_cB_tAUMapbLB2Cc6uKeqfDltdckjxE3VaH23ICt9GteMSTRT8E6xqj189zoRLgXEKADFPvWybD6OTFJ/s2852/st%20marys.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1982" data-original-width="2852" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5h5WaOguWgMQrmzRPbLK8opvyYXDeHY0jXN7xy5Xct1oykNKtNxnipgOAgcffCk0psz4Eu4lp4uczg3X3XEAvnB7SBMhdJmO7-nzWEOldFJ6D_cB_tAUMapbLB2Cc6uKeqfDltdckjxE3VaH23ICt9GteMSTRT8E6xqj189zoRLgXEKADFPvWybD6OTFJ/w565-h393/st%20marys.jpg" width="565" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">St. Mary's German Catholic Church as it appeared around 1910.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Fifty families from the village and surrounding environs were at home in the parish in 1907, at which time the Sunday school was re-organized by Father Theodore Gross. One had previously existed in the early days, but at the end of the 1870s it was described as “having a kind of recess.” In 1914, as the Great War erupted in Europe, the Franciscan order took over the parish; in the half century from its founding to that point it had been in the hands of the Diocesans, Redemptorists and Benedictines. By the following year, Cecelia Walsh was serving St. Mary’s as its organist and choir director, with her singers practicing in her nearby home on Third Street when winter cold kept them out of the church. Mrs. Walsh’s tenure in these positions is significant in the annals of Mokena, as she was at the helm for over three and half decades. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> After the First World War, the church entered a time of time of improvement. Subsequent remodels of the old sanctuary were carried out in 1924, 1927 and 1939; somewhere in that era a sacristy was built onto the church, and new pews came in 1942. Not all was peaceful, however. In the dark hours of Wednesday morning, September 21<sup>st</sup>, 1921, a particularly nasty wind storm struck Mokena, which our <i>News-Bulletin</i> described as a “veritable gale” of “cyclonic proportions.” Trees were blown down, small outbuildings splintered to kindling wood, crops were damaged, and St. Mary’s was shifted about six inches off its foundation, with all the westerly windows being blown in. Not even two years later, lightning struck the building. The charge traveled down a lightning rod, but it wasn’t grounded and thus the bolt tore out a window frame and also ripped out a piece of plaster from the interior. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Boosting came in 1921 when the Catholic Women’s Club was formed, to which the ladies paid twenty-five cents a month in dues. These monies along with various raffles helped pay for carpeting in the church, as well as coal and electricity bills. Down the line in the years of the Second World War, they rechristened themselves the Sacred Heart League. In the mid 1920s, the congregation attempted to buy the old St. John’s German Evangelical Church with the aim of converting it into a hall, but their offer was shot down. Under the leadership of Father Theodore Wemhoff, a new building fronting on Wolf Road was built for this purpose just west of the cemetery in 1926. A substantial one-story structure, it measured in at thirty by seventy feet. The first play staged there was a four-part drama called “Molly Bawn”, put on by the DeSoto Players of Joliet. The <i>News-Bulletin</i> noted that “there was plenty of laughter and also a few tears.” Another early community event at the hall was a minstrel show that was staged that January by “a bevy of 26 pretty girls from St. Viator’s Church in Chicago.” As usual, the <i>News-Bulletin</i> gave a step-by-step review, noting that “the songs were right up to the minute and full of pep” and that the “Frisco and Charleston dances were cleverly executed.” However, in contrast to the first, this entertainment rubbed a few the wrong way, as the <i>News-Bulletin</i> frowned “the girlies were a little hard on poor Mokena when they cracked jokes about its sleepiness.” Over the years, St. Mary’s Hall echoed with levity and joy at countless card parties, bunco games, and movies, all of which raised funds for the church. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the fall of 1928 confirmation was held for the first time, although the actual ceremonies took place in the county seat until 1954. In this era, the men of the cloth who tended to the parish didn’t actually live in Mokena, but traveled over the Rock Island from Joliet, or going even farther back, from Blue Island to celebrate mass in town. One of them, Father Roman, boarded with the Walsh family on Third Street when he came to town. A place had been made for him to stay overnight in the church, but he felt skittish about sleeping while surrounded by a cemetery.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> An inseparable figure with the history of St. Mary’s is Mokenian George Marti, who sat on the church council. A devout convert to Catholicism, he took his seat in 1913, and kept it well into the 1950s. He was the parish’s jack of all trades, among other duties that became his was serving as janitor of the church, who started the fires before services. (This led to a startling incident in 1932 when he found an owl nesting in the coal-burning stove) Marti was also the cemetery’s groundskeeper, as well as managing the important task of ringing the church’s bell, along with tolling it when a congregant died. The bell would peal once for every year the decedent lived, working as a kind of announcement system to the village at large. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A big change came to St. Mary’s in 1948, when under the guidance of Father Benedict Pfeiffer OFM the hall was made over into two classrooms for the first Catholic school in Mokena history. It was truly a grassroots undertaking, as four men of the parish did much of the hard work themselves, those being the ever-present George Marti, along with Harold Miller, Elmer Schneider and William Weber Sr. September 6<sup>th</sup>, 1949 was opening day, when 27 students showed up for class. The Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart were the first teachers, handling grades one through six in one swoop. Sister Charlotte Goetze not only taught fourth through sixth grades, but was also the school’s principal, while Sister Constance Faulstich managed the three younger grades. A year later in 1950, two more grades were added during the tenure of Father Juniper Freitag OFM.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The 1950s were probably the most significant era in the history of the church aside from the days of the Enders family during the Civil War. Not only was a house directly north of the hall-turned-school bought from the Bennett family to be made into a convent for the sisters, (prior to this a tiny two-room apartment in the school was used) but also Father Cecil Koop OFM was on the scene right after New Year’s 1954. A new era was ushered in. When Father Cecil took the helm, the nearly century old church was bursting at the seams. The parish had shown great growth since the end of the Second World War, as the existence of a flourishing Catholic church in our small town was a draw for those looking to move to our community. In those days, St. Mary’s was regarded as the mother church to St. Anthony’s in Frankfort and St. Jude’s in New Lenox. In order to alleviate growing pains, more classrooms were built in the school, this time in the basement that had been added under the structure, and mass was moved from the 19<sup>th</sup> century church to be celebrated here on the Sabbath.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A colossal fundraising drive began, and a parcel of land was purchased on the southeast corner of 195<sup>th</sup>Street and 115<sup>th</sup> Avenue, then a sparsely settled neighborhood on the fringes of Mokena. There ground was broken on January 6<sup>th</sup>, 1955, to build a new church and school, exactly a year after Father Cecil came to the parish. The first mass in the new church was celebrated at midnight on Christmas 1955, and ultimately the new church and school were dedicated on May 6<sup>th</sup>, 1956. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Small improvements came to the older, historic church over the years. In its centennial year of 1964 the cemetery was fenced in with chain link, and some of the old headstones were straightened up, while the church was given a new coat of paint. The windows and altar were also spruced up, but nothing of a substantially permanent nature was done. The old hall and school was torn down in the 1960s, and thus came the question – what of the old church? It didn’t see much use in the last half of the 1950s as well as throughout the 1960s and 1970s. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A touching postscript unfolded in the latter decade. As the historic church wasn’t getting any younger, the Joliet diocese planned to have the timeless structure knocked down. Many were those in Mokena who were incensed at these plans, and one villager, Ethel Cooper, narrowly saved the old house of worship an ignominious end at the wrecking ball. The widow of former mayor Everett Cooper, she met personally with the bishop to dissuade him, which proved to be an uphill battle. “They couldn’t understand why we would want to restore the church when we could build one for about the same price,” Mrs. Cooper remarked. Carrying on in an inspirational way, she said “We probably could’ve used the money for something else, but the point was to preserve the old and restore it if we could.” Bids for the planned work were taken, and the parish’s preservationists were reckoning with a $60,000 price tag. Nevertheless, inflation and other unforeseen happenings wound up pushing the final bill for the work up to $160,000. (Equal to over $870,000 today) Of this sum, a hefty amount was spent replacing the original foundation, along with siding and millwork, as well as rebuilding the church’s floor. Mokena piano man Ron Guendling also revived an ancient pump organ. A grant from the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration and various contributions from parishioners made the whole project possible. The newly restored St. Mary’s was dedicated in 1978, and through the ardor of Mrs. Cooper and that of other Mokenians, this priceless historic landmark is still with us. Still gracing its interior is the original Civil War era altar, along with the stations of the cross, which likely date from the same period. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ghn7_zIh4d7PuaHd5WrnpaUt2qCOuO65wLKblF9DyO4cgb97BnG4NY5JlUJn5pcYlE74blKEP_qlhX1KyLH60J_pA_hIRnxFTLWGS2YbYsRD_0MZbLbM-6gt6doYAg5IWdabqNmbEqtnVDOyscmNw3rbKEPV1ItQfQ8Y4BE6-zD0UK0_p5-KdFbkLDqZ/s1433/st_marys_restoration_ca1976.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1433" data-original-width="891" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ghn7_zIh4d7PuaHd5WrnpaUt2qCOuO65wLKblF9DyO4cgb97BnG4NY5JlUJn5pcYlE74blKEP_qlhX1KyLH60J_pA_hIRnxFTLWGS2YbYsRD_0MZbLbM-6gt6doYAg5IWdabqNmbEqtnVDOyscmNw3rbKEPV1ItQfQ8Y4BE6-zD0UK0_p5-KdFbkLDqZ/w323-h518/st_marys_restoration_ca1976.jpg" width="323" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">St. Mary's during its much-needed restoration, circa 1976.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> St. Mary’s current edifice on 115<sup>th</sup> Street was built in 1987, and is still in use to this day. However, the doors of the original, time-honored church still welcome the faithful, and when the atmosphere is just right, the days of yore are palpable, where 160 years of history hang in the air. In our prayers we remember the Enders family, along with the Fleisners, the Schuberths, the Schmitts, and all the other mothers and fathers of the parish, and give thanks to our forefathers who weathered the rocky seas of the last century and a half. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-60277664491064855182024-01-27T18:32:00.000-08:002024-01-27T18:32:32.489-08:00Our Founding Father: The Story of Allen Denny<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Every story has its beginning. Be it the first chapter of a well-loved book, the first episode of a long series, or even looking back to the founding fathers of our nation, everything has its root. On the illustrious record of our nation’s years, the names of Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson appear, just a few of the number of great minds who are all rightly entitled to their places in our country’s hall of fame. Looking back to those optimistic days before the Civil War, there are many in our own community who can be called our framers, although there is one who stands out in earnest, well above the rest. While time has passed him by, and Mokenians of the 21</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">century don’t often think of him, Allen Denny was made of the same stuff as a Franklin or a Jefferson, a man of truly sterling qualities. To study the life of this man, the founder of our village, is to see a reflection of the early history of our nation.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Allen Denny made his grand appearance in our world the day after Christmas 1790, a little over a year and a half into the first term of George Washington’s presidency. His first breaths were drawn in Albany County, New York. The son of Charles Denny and Lucinda Allen, the boy had an impressive pedigree; his father being a veteran of the American Revolution, and his mother, for whom he was named, was said to be a cousin of Ethan Allen, the famed revolutionary patriot and founder of Vermont. Allen Denny would stand at the head of a list of ten siblings, the first of which, Alvina, made her appearance when Allen was not quite two years old, while the youngest, Coridore Philander, was 28 years his junior, young enough to be his own child. Throughout his childhood, the Denny family called various locales in the Empire State home, until 1811, when as a 21-year-old young man, Allen made his home in a place that would later be called Sheridan in the freshly formed Chautauqua County, the westernmost county in New York on the southern banks of Lake Erie. Here he soon got to work opening a small country store that sold a little of everything. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In what would become the defining event of his generation, the War of 1812 erupted in the summer of that ill-fated year. A stirring yet unfortunately mostly forgotten chapter of American history, the conflict was rooted in grievances with Great Britain that were left unresolved after the Revolution and friction with native tribes on the frontier. The fray also has the grim designation as being the only time our capital city was occupied and sacked by an enemy force. Young Allen Denny put his life on the line when just shy of his 22nd birthday, he volunteered for duty in the Chautauqua County militia, serving at least two terms as a non-commissioned officer in the companies of Captain Jehiel Moore and Captain Morton Tubbs, where he ultimately bore arms against the British until 1814. At least one of the stints was as a substitute for his father Charles, who was home on a furlough sick. Our humble New Yorker would’ve served yet a third time in the course of the war, if his younger brother Lysander wouldn’t have went in his stead in 1814. Upon his entering the service, Allen Denny was described as being around five feet four or five inches tall, with light hair and blue eyes, cutting a picture of a typical American man in his time. Denny’s military service was no trifling matter, as he fought at the Battle of Black Rock on December 30<sup>th</sup>, 1813. Taking place near Buffalo on the Niagara River, this fight was a particularly brutal engagement, even as far as warfare goes, and a terrible defeat for the New Yorkers who were there. Allen Denny was part of the retreat, (which an early Will County historian would deem a “stampede”) and witnessed firsthand the subsequent burning of Buffalo by British forces, and would recall both for the rest of his days, never sparing a detail. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuVZzN82nUWiwvsyJr1jTN-wB4ZhC0oCfYNQdRhyLxEUzxJKmNP8KAT1-d7m7lDEmQBi-xx-VMMXk6y_NxsIHta3L0FkHTp7-8EU4nSlsJFnK_9heCjMliWrDSBFTQvSJIpQpK75DLPg2CpQM2ldccJctdAVC2mTS8gpekHds0HeY78nosPxVvm_g5wY9e/s5152/denny.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3864" data-original-width="5152" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuVZzN82nUWiwvsyJr1jTN-wB4ZhC0oCfYNQdRhyLxEUzxJKmNP8KAT1-d7m7lDEmQBi-xx-VMMXk6y_NxsIHta3L0FkHTp7-8EU4nSlsJFnK_9heCjMliWrDSBFTQvSJIpQpK75DLPg2CpQM2ldccJctdAVC2mTS8gpekHds0HeY78nosPxVvm_g5wY9e/w476-h357/denny.jpeg" width="476" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Erected by the Mokena Women’s Club in historic Pioneer Cemetery Cemetery in 1997, this monument details the life of Allen Denny. While commonly mistaken for a grave marker, Denny’s remains are buried in New York State. (Image courtesy of Mike Lyons)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the guns fell silent and the war ended in early 1815, life slowly returned to normal for the young Denny. Somewhere in this timeframe, as was a common source of entertainment and further education in his time, the merchant went to a public speech. The speaker was a gent from the New York State Temperance Society, a representative lecturing on the moral righteousness of the total avoidance of alcoholic beverages. Many were the adherents of the temperance movement in the America of yore, who blamed ardent spirits for every societal woe in the country, and those who believed in it placed its merits next to Godliness. Allen Denny heard the man’s talk and liked the cut of his gib, and thus was won over to the movement and became a lifelong devotee to teetotalism. So strong were his thoughts on the matter, that he immediately stopped carrying whiskey in his store, and with five others in tow, formed his own temperance society. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While Allen Denny took Connecticut lass Lucy Herrick as his wife at some long-forgotten date, history has not been kind, and has left us with no details as to her life, background, passions, or overall identity. Details on the children that graced their union have also become clouded with the passage of time. What can be pieced together, is that they had at least three; Herrick, a boy who died young, Alonzo, another son who was born around 1822 and survived well into the twentieth century, who in his middle age was a businessman in Mokena before eventually heading back to the east coast, and a daughter named Eunice, who may have been their oldest. She seems to have born around 1818 or thereabouts, and always stayed close to home, be it in New York or Illinois. Confusingly, Eunice was not enumerated with her father in the 1850 Census of Frankfort Township, where instead a 28-year-old daughter named Emma is listed. This begs the question, did the census taker simply mishear Eunice’s name and adjust her age? Or maybe she was just living elsewhere at the time, and Emma is a “lost” family member? In any case, this is the only instance in recorded history where an Emma Denny is shown as the daughter of Allen. After spending many years in Mokena, Eunice went back to Chautauqua County to live with her brother Alonzo, and disappeared into the mists of time in the 1880s.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> With the War of 1812 in the distant past, another great turning point in the life of Allen Denny came in 1834, at which point as a 44-year-old he moved home and hearth to what would become Mokena, in the heart of the untamed West. His reasons for moving have disappeared into the past like a mirage in the fog, but it is known that his trek was made in tandem with the Asher Holmes family, who would come to figure prominently in the history of New Lenox Township. At this time, the Black Hawk War, which had had so stirred our neighborhood, was freshly over, with hostilities having ceased two years previously. In the days in which the Dennys arrived in these environs, it is vital to understand that there was no Mokena, no Frankfort Township, not even a Will County, as we were still part of southern Cook County in that era. No railroads existed to quickly transport people and goods. Chicago and Joliet were mere hamlets in 1834. If any Mokenians of the 21<sup>st</sup> century would be transported back in time to those days, we’d be totally out of place in an unrecognizable, alien world. The thoroughfare we now know as Wolf Road existed, but was known as Theak-a-Kee Ty-Yan-Ac-Kee (or “The Trail of the Wolf through the Wonderful Land”) in the local Potawatomi tongue, who in their abundance had to traverse the path single file due to its narrowness. Allen Denny and his exceedingly few neighbors broke the prairie soil without the aid of a steel plow, which had only just been invented the year before by John Lane of the Yankee Settlement, in the neighborhood of today’s Homer Glen. All water came from the rushing streams of Hickory Creek, timber for the rough-hewn logs for the pioneer’s cabin homestead was supplied by the lush forests on its banks, and wild game was plentiful. With Denny’s 1834 arrival, something as simple as a trip to the post office required a journey to Billy Gougar’s, six miles to the east, until another post office was established at Chelsea, near today’s Frankfort in 1837. All of the lands encompassing the future site of Mokena were owned by the federal government, and upon choosing a claim, an early settler would later have the right to buy it when it would come up on the market. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> When Allen Denny first set foot on our terra firma, he could only count the tiniest number of near neighbors in his midst. The Atkinses of Vermont got here the same year, while Tilford Duncan and the family of Francis and Keziah Owen arrived from Kentucky around the same time. The John and Nancy McGovneys, probably the Dennys’ closest neighbors, got here first in the fall of 1831, and as they were residents of three years standing, were the longest ones for the neighborhood, however they had fled to the safety of Indiana during the Black Hawk War. Matthew Van Horne, who was affectionately called a “Mohawk Dutchman”, lived a trifle closer to where Frankfort is now, along with Foster Kane, who purportedly stayed in the Hickory Creek timber during the war, but within a generation, eyebrows would be raised at this claim. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Dennys were by no means alone in our neck of the woods, as some of their kin soon came to join them here. Lysander Denny, a brother to Allen eight years his junior, relocated here in the same decade. A millwright by trade, he built one on Hickory Creek, which at that time flowed with enough gusto to power the mill’s saw. Brother Alanson Denny was also an early citizen and came into possession of a tract of land near the future site of Mokena, however the details of his life have been scattered by the winds. Sister and brother-in-law Hepsibah and Samuel Haven made their way as well, Samuel having been a charter member of Allen’s temperance society back in New York. The Havens are a family whose name is writ large in the history of our neighbors in New Lenox, and were the owners of a house later known as the “Old Brick Tavern”, which graced the Lincoln Highway for a century and a half, until an unscrupulous developer destroyed it in the 1990s, in what amounted to a colossal waste of a priceless historic landmark. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The members of this hardy pioneer clan were also joined by their patriarch and matriarch Charles and Lucinda Denny in 1838, who in the sunset of their lives, wanted to be closer to their children. Both passed in the summer of the following year, when Allen broke ground to inter them on a peaceful rise on his corner of the prairie. As time went on, other relations came to follow them in what became our first cemetery. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A mere six years after his arrival in what came informally to be called the Hickory Creek Settlement, Allen Denny found himself intimately involved with one of the most electrifying occurrences in the early history of eastern Will County. Early on a summer morning in 1840, he happened across the corpse of a man in a millpond near where New Lenox now stands, it being clothed only in a brown cotton shirt and displaying signs of a “high state of putrification.” Freshly cut lengths of rope and clumps of hair were found, along with suspicious wheelbarrow tracks. Denny alerted his neighbors, and before long the whole affair blew up into what would be remembered for decades as the Van Horne murder case, in which an early resident attempted to frame a member of the aforementioned family for the deed. Allen Denny’s testimony was key at the forthcoming inquest, which contain some of the earliest written records painting a picture of his life in our region. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Denny’s decision to stay in Will County was cemented when he began formally purchasing the land upon which he was living and farming. On May 20<sup>th</sup>, 1841, he purchased two eighty-acre tracts of land, for which the paperwork was deposited in the general land office at Chicago. By and by the documents were forwarded to the then-called Washington City where they were signed by President John Tyler. The lands encompassed in his purchase were pure, unbroken prairie; one of the wide expanses began at what is today the northeast corner of Wolf and LaPorte Roads and stretched a ways to the north, while the other, situated a tad further to the north, centered on what we now know as the northwest corner of Wolf Road and 187<sup>th</sup> Street, continuing past the route of modern day Interstate 80. These acquisitions were a harbinger of the future, for it was upon this first tract that our village would later be borne by Allen Denny’s hands. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the days passed and the 1840s continued, tragedy struck the Denny household when Lucy Denny passed away in the frigid January of 1844. As it was exceedingly hard to live as a single man in the unforgiving pioneer’s life our forefathers knew, Allen Denny took local widow Polly Marshall as his second wife in August of that year. Herself a fellow New Yorker, Denny did well to marry her, as Polly’s former in-laws were prominent residents and also early settlers to our area, living on the border of the future Frankfort and New Lenox Townships. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> With Allen Denny comfortable as an established resident of the Hickory Creek Settlement, America was being rent apart by the issue of slavery. He became active in the newly formed Liberty Party, a short-lived political group dedicated to eradicating the institution, and was high-profile enough to be nominated on this ticket as their candidate for Will County Sheriff in 1844. (Alas, he didn’t win the election) Denny was also a long-time subscriber and ardent supporter of the <i>Western Citizen</i>, a paper published in Chicago that was the premier abolitionist publication in what we now call the American Midwest. He also spent time and great effort raising money for the cause, such as at the end of the year 1851 when he was collecting pledges in our area for the Illinois Anti-Slavery Society. Many are those who foster beliefs, will stand behind them and speak up for them till the cows come home, but Allen Denny put his money where his mouth was, and became a man of action. He would be remembered as a man who was “zealous” in his mindset. Pioneering Will County historian George H. Woodruff quoted the sentiments of Denny and those like him, in that “to help a man who was fleeing from bondage was a duty – that to aid in his capture was a crime against God and man.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In time, Denny would come to operate the only documented station in today’s Frankfort Township of the famed Underground Railroad, likely working in tandem with his brother-in-law, Samuel Haven, who ran a station on his own homestead two miles distant. Whether Denny shuffled three escaped slaves on their way to Canada or three hundred, he got caught. While Illinois was indeed a free state, the Fugitive Slave Act was on the books in the north, which forbade giving assistance to refugee slaves. Once again, the exact details of these legal proceedings, and what exactly his punishment was, have disappeared into the pages of posterity. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As an aside, many are the tall tales of Underground Railroad activity that have spread through Will County in the century and half since its existence. However, that of Denny and Haven’s is an authentic one, as verified by none other than historian Woodruff himself. Looking back from a safe distance thirteen years after the end of the Civil War, the Joliet pharmacist turned scribe wrote that he “knows of some who paid midnight visits to both stations. A midnight ride with one or two fugitives was an exciting thing in those days, not without danger of being prosecuted at least.” Going back even earlier than Woodruff’s account, is a piece that appeared in the <i>Fredonia Censor </i>in 1871, a paper from Allen Denny’s old stomping grounds in Chautauqua County, New York. Its writer interviewed Denny while he was visiting his son Alonzo, and stated that in his Illinois home he had “kept an acknowledged underground railroad station for the accommodation of sojourners in quest of inalienable rights.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> These hair-raising tales of the days before and during the Civil War beg the question, where in Mokena was Allen Denny’s station kept, this erstwhile beacon of freedom? A legal document from the later years of Denny’s life describes a 19-acre piece of land that was specifically named as his homestead, a place through the middle of which Scott Street would be built in the 1950s. As late as 1911, when queried, Mokenians of a certain age readily identified the spot as being very near where the Schacht family then lived; they being long-standing residents of the vicinity of today’s Grace Fellowship Church. In any case, after the passage of more than 160 years, it remains impossible to say with certainty. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the intricacies and perplexities of Mokena’s history have long since swallowed up so many of the details of life in Allen Denny’s day, we also do not have a crystal-clear vision of what his house looked like. It can be surmised that his first homestead in our midst was of the rustic, yet determined type of domicile that matched the personalities of our forefathers, it likely being built out of hand-fallen Hickory Creek timber and lacking many conveniences. As time went on and success smiled on the Denny family, they probably upgraded into a somewhat more comfortable residence, as was often the pattern among our forebears. Maybe he incorporated the old structure into the new, repurposed it into an outbuilding or even reused the original building material into a new project. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the 1850s, Allen Denny began the process of filing a claim for a pension from the federal government for his service in the War of 1812, as did so many of his former brothers in arms. A long process filled with hoops to be jumped through in proving one’s claim, it wasn’t without vexation for our old veteran. First, the muster rolls of the company in which he served went missing, then bureaucrats in Washington City had no written record of his discharge from the militia, and as Denny couldn’t remember the numeric designation of his regiments, he had to write back to an old war buddy in New York to help jog his memory. The man turned out to be of not much help, as his recollections was also foggy, but being a part of the same process, empathized with his former comrade by closing his letter with a cheer, noting “success to <u>us</u> and all who put shoulder to the wheel.” In trying to piece back together the events of four decades previous, Allen Denny looked back at the war and wrote that “it seems more like a dream than reality.” All in all, he got his pension, and by the time he was 81, was getting eight dollars a month from Uncle Sam, or around $200 in today’s money. Like many 1812 veterans, in addition to his monthly stipend, Denny also received at least one 80-acre parcel of undeveloped land in Iowa around the time Mokena bloomed for services rendered, but as the pioneer felt rooted to his home among us in eastern Will County, within a short time he sold the property to a third party. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> So it was in this era that the great iron horse was expanding across America and opening doors that had previously never been imaginable. New railroads were sprouting up across the land, ferrying goods and passengers to points far and wide, something that in our neighborhood had only been possible with ox-drawn conveyances on days-long treks through the roughest of conditions. One of these wondrous new roads was the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific. After much doing, the company was officially organized in 1851. As their right of way was being surveyed across the prairie from Chicago to Joliet, a long stretch was due to be built through the northern half of the newly formed Frankfort Township, and more specifically, straight through Allen Denny’s pasture. He and his wife Polly sold the Rock Island the strip of land needed for the right of way, with a clause in the legal paperwork stating that if the company were to go defunct within five years, the property would revert back to their ownership. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The company staked out a spot in a central point in his acreage where a depot would be built, with only one other in the works between Chicago and Joliet at Blue Island. Allen Denny could see which way the wind was blowing, saw that new people would be coming hither and thither, that tradesmen would want to be near a new railroad, and sensed money was to be made. Therefore, in a moment filled with meaning, he subdivided a plot of land around which the depot was to be built. Thus in the planting of this first seed, a great shift occurred in history and our village was born. Denny’s plat contained two principal streets running from west to east parallel to the railroad tracks, known today as Front and First Streets stretching from modern Wolf Road to Division Street, sandwiching therein 38 lots of various sizes. Jeddiah Woolley, chief surveyor of Will County, did the legwork and the plat was filed on May 26<sup>th</sup>, 1853. The new subdivision was named Mokena; but by whom, be it Allen Denny, the Rock Island, or someone else, remains a mystery. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh10IwX1-Hh4qnJLd1csPoaCiawG-fTKu8h1CqWcrhkxwqAC_FLIEt_pAj3qH60YdqYjDa0hX9aTtM2eisUd4njOxHFV3DDC_9MAZQ8YztW3VzOhwnrpvetDfQOCOU7b_EqpTCp6S5jN2Pt7ZkEWuzsXlqyjBNEXnki9OaLnkJAu45I0XGqpRYw7jUPKD-I/s1800/Sawyers_Field20240127.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1542" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh10IwX1-Hh4qnJLd1csPoaCiawG-fTKu8h1CqWcrhkxwqAC_FLIEt_pAj3qH60YdqYjDa0hX9aTtM2eisUd4njOxHFV3DDC_9MAZQ8YztW3VzOhwnrpvetDfQOCOU7b_EqpTCp6S5jN2Pt7ZkEWuzsXlqyjBNEXnki9OaLnkJAu45I0XGqpRYw7jUPKD-I/w388-h454/Sawyers_Field20240127.jpg" width="388" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: start;">Allen Denny’s original plat of Mokena, as done by Jeddiah Woolley. </span><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; text-align: start;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> After some skepticism from area residents that a train would ever run over the rails, pressure was applied to the company and the first passage through Mokena was made on Sunday, October 10<sup>th</sup>, 1852, as a grandiose woodburning locomotive named The Rocket puffed over the prairie. At this time, the depot was less than half built, and otherwise our hamlet was composed of merely two buildings, with a third slated to go up within a month. Mokenians were so excited by the trains that spunky 18-year-old Julia Atkins published the times of their arrivals in her handwritten <i>Mokena Star,</i> our first journalistic endeavor. So revolutionary was the new railroad connection, that two decades later, historian Woodruff wrote that “now we could go from Joliet in the morning, buy half the city (if we had the dimes) and return at night.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Allen Denny came to gather a nest egg of no small means by selling off his lots to those who came to be near the new railroad and make their own fortune. Among these initial ventures was a store housed in a small, rustic stone building ran by Warren Knapp and a man remembered only as Smith, which sprouted up just before the subdivision was complete, as well as a nearby inn built by Carl Gall, who catered to the men who laid the iron rails. Blacksmith William McCoy followed by opening a workshop around the same time. Within a few years, the arrival of learned carpenter Bernard Folman of Luxembourg led to the construction of the first houses in Mokena. It’d be impossible to reconstruct exactly how much money Denny made by selling his lots, but what is sure, is that his name appears in graceful, swooping antebellum script on dozens if not hundreds of indentures filed in the Will County Recorder’s Office. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Soon after Allen Denny’s initial subdivision was laid out, neighbor John McGovney platted his own addition adjoining Denny’s to the east, with the new street running between the two being dubbed Division Street. As time went on, Denny tacked on more of his own additions, such as a large one in Christmastime 1853, which composed an area where a steam-powered mill would shortly thereafter be built east of the newly-named Mokena Street and south of the Rock Island tracks, as well as good sized parcels on the north side of First Street, as well as the areas along Second and Third Streets west of Division Street. Next came a second addition on the south side of the railroad, encompassing McGovney Street (known in Denny’s day as South Street) from today’s Wolf Road to Mokena Street, as well as a third addition in 1855 south of what came to called Denny Avenue. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> One can view Allen Denny’s further sticking on of new additions to his town as an effort to maximize his profit in lot sales, but money wasn’t his sole goal, as is shown by his designation of a public square in 1855. A piece of ground surrounded on three sides by modern day Second Street, Union Street, and Third Street, legal papers from its release say it was “originally intended by the proprietor of Mokena as a plat for the erection of churches and other public buildings, required for the convenience of the inhabitants thereof, and the improvement of said village.” The document was signed by 25 male Mokenians and one lady resident, Abigail Gremmer. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwzXul_86T13xCHDKYQnzLKP_xwunKY7KLBqhYAU1PF_oqRvcy1pQz_VK__Ey6-MNFj035Qwqy3AoCu-JqzRKeGRRlfJIZ31zbClUDZ5lRmLDazg2awyJmXqzqKXQ894iCRIoWFeqGFf5nRnxlZyhdTTMqStC6zU6ThgyhgeGYD2ul_xytQQW0TFCTRAAz/s2823/public_square.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1761" data-original-width="2823" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwzXul_86T13xCHDKYQnzLKP_xwunKY7KLBqhYAU1PF_oqRvcy1pQz_VK__Ey6-MNFj035Qwqy3AoCu-JqzRKeGRRlfJIZ31zbClUDZ5lRmLDazg2awyJmXqzqKXQ894iCRIoWFeqGFf5nRnxlZyhdTTMqStC6zU6ThgyhgeGYD2ul_xytQQW0TFCTRAAz/w527-h330/public_square.tif" width="527" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">In what is the oldest known photograph of Mokena, Allen Denny’s public square is seen around 1870. The first building to be erected on it was the village’s schoolhouse in 1855 at far left, followed by the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church in 1862 at far right, and the Methodist Church at center in 1867. St. Mary’s German Catholic Church, seen in the distance, was not part of the square. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Allen Denny was also one of the first businessmen in Mokena, running a dry goods and grocery business with one F.C. Herrick, possibly a relative of his first wife. All in all, fortune didn’t favor the partnership, and it fizzled out in the fall of 1854. Nevertheless, there are indications that Denny kept up the enterprise on his own at least into the Civil War days, but like most of the finer points of life in Mokena in his time, details of this concern are exceedingly hard to pin down. As Mokena was being born, our founder was still active in the temperance movement, a cause that had been near and dear to his heart for decades by this point. Serving as Vice President of the Mokena Temperance Society, Denny presided over a rollicking meeting held at the schoolhouse near John McGovney’s place on January 12<sup>th</sup>, 1854, where the new Maine Law was debated by two speakers. A pioneering piece of legislation that banned sales of alcohol in that state except for medicinal purposes, the society resolved that “the Maine Liquor Law is just, expedient and constitutional, and we pledge ourselves to use all honorable means to aid its enactment in Illinois.” Before the meeting wrapped up at 11 0’clock that night, 40 new members were added to the rolls of the society. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A man of no small stature in our young community, Allen Denny was often called on to wear many hats in Mokena, as was the case when his neighbor John Atkins passed away in 1864. As the LaPorte Road resident’s estate was being settled and the paperwork was being filed in the county seat, Denny was asked to help appraise certain pieces of the deceased’s property, first and foremost being a valuable set of bee hives. Within a year, the Civil War was over, and the dust settled in America. In 1871, Allen Denny went to New York and took up residence with his son Alonzo, where he stayed put. After more than a century and two score since his departure, his reason for reason for leaving Mokena is unclear. However, it does <i>not</i> appear that his wife Polly went with him; in fact, a legal document from the following summer stated that the two were “living separate and apart.” Were marital strains what drove him back to the Empire State? In any case, assigning any reasons to his move would only be speculation at this late date. So it came to pass that Allen Denny spent his final years back in Chautauqua County, where he passed away in his 85<sup>th</sup> year on October 29<sup>th</sup>, 1875. His demise was noted back in his Illinois home of Mokena, where our correspondent to the <i>Joliet Republican</i> sent in the news to the paper, hailing him as the “original founder of Mokena.” Denny’s bones rest in Chautauqua County, far from his adopted home in the Land of Lincoln and the community he built. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. All the comforts, blessings and good fortune of our hometown are the legacy of Allen Denny. Our comfortable existence in one of Will County’s foremost communities we owe to his vision, this man who made the wilderness to blossom as the rose. He is the Father of Mokena, and may his memory reign supreme in our consciences.<o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-8319319495103577852023-12-02T18:24:00.000-08:002023-12-02T18:24:16.176-08:00Tillers of the Soil, Hearts of the Community: The Story of Lence and Lydia Kohl<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">A wide, grey band, stretching through our midst, 191</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Street is one of the main avenues traversing through Mokena. In the days when local roads were casually named after those who lived on them or where they led, it was known as Tinley Park Road. On its western side, 191</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">st </sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Street is primarily residential, with homes either fronting on it or subdivisions being directly in the neighborhood. As one comes upon Fire Station 2 and draws closer to Route 45, the mood becomes more business-like, with enterprises of various types abounding, sterling examples being Schillings and the expansive warehouse for Darvin Furniture. Nowadays, 191</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Street bears the honorary name of Cpl. Robert Stanek, a Mokenian who lived on this road and made the ultimate sacrifice in 1968 as a Marine in the Vietnam War.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the days of yesteryear, long before Robert Stanek and most of the rest of us, this road was a country farm lane that cut through the landscape like a ribbon through a cradle of agriculture. A prominent, recognizable remanent is now known as the Brandau Farmstand, but a century ago was the Henry and Ida Yunker farm, while directly to the southeast, where Import Exchange now stands, was the Louis and Elizabeth Lauffer estate, now obliterated from the landscape. Large dairy barns and tall silos once dotted the landscape here. Many faces play into the rich history of this road, and it would be impossible to recall the flavorful narrative of this one-time rural idyll without that of a sturdy and storied Mokena family, that of Lawrence and Lydia Kohl. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Our matriarch first saw the light of day as Lydia Emma Geuther on April 19<sup>th</sup>, 1896, born to this world here in Mokena. She came from good Frankfort Township stock; the Geuthers could proudly count themselves as among the first families of German heritage to settle in the yet-unnamed township in 1848, while her mother’s clan, the Bauchs, were also early arrivals. Jacob Bauch, a great uncle of Lydia’s, was a 19<sup>th</sup> century store keeper in Mokena.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Lydia was born on the family farm along the Tinley Park Road, on the north side of today’s 191<sup>st</sup> Street just east of LaGrange Road, a corridor where her family had tilled the soil at least as far back as the Civil War, when her grandparents Johann Georg and Elisabeth Geuther planted and harvested crops there, all the while also running a small cheese factory. Lydia’s father, Charles Geuther, was also a farmer, and in his day came to be something of a prominent citizen in Mokena, where he held a seat on the local school board for many years. Lydia Geuther had an older sister, Mabel, who was three years her senior, and sister Olive came on her heels two years after her own birth. Two brothers came along later, Milton in 1902, while the baby, Harold, didn’t make his appearance until 1909. Among Lydia Geuther’s earliest memories was of seeing a newspaper on her kitchen table bearing the details of President William McKinley’s assassination in September 1901, while she also remembered many years later that Saturdays were bath nights on the farm, all done in a tub that was heated on the kitchen stove. Lydia was an exceptionally sharp girl, having learned her times tables up to twelve before she started school at the age of five, having learned from atop a stool as she watched her mother sew.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Geuthers were stalwart members of the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church, of which Pastor Carl Schaub would visit the farm a few times a year and be served wine from a pitcher. So it was, that when Lydia was not quite nine years old, her family decided to move to town, and when a sale was held at their farm, on a stormy day in February 1905, it was a huge success for the family, with some of the cows fetching as much as $55. When all was said and done, $1,500 had been netted. It helped that buyers and looky-loos had been drawn to the happenings by a big basket of donuts that was on hand for the taking. Charles Geuther had bought two five-acre tracts in the northeast part of Mokena by this time, and as the family moved from the farm outside town in this era, they had a commodious house and barn constructed in the village proper. The stone for the foundation was hauled to town by teams of horses from a Joliet quarry, ultimately being laid by J.G. Oswald, a local concrete man and stone mason, while town carpenter Adam Barenz raised the walls of the new house. A big cistern was built under the new kitchen for the Geuthers’ water use, while the family also had a cow, two horses and a barn stocked with hay. Charles Geuther secured wood for use at home from a local forest, had it chopped, which his family then sorted into an outbuilding on their property. Also on their acreage in town was a 40-foot-high windmill and a verdant garden, along with a plot upon which the Geuthers cultivated corn.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In an uncommon move for a young lady in her time and place, Lydia Geuther received a higher education, having attended one year of classes beginning in the 1912 school year at the teachers’ college in DeKalb, this institution now being known as Northern Illinois University. Upon the completion of her courses, the newly made educator came back to Mokena and took a teaching position at the now all but forgotten one-room Marti School on the northeast corner of today’s Wolf Road and 187<sup>th</sup> Street. A tiny, primitive building by our 21<sup>st</sup>century standards, Lydia’s 1916 class consisted of eleven students, all of whom lived on nearby farms. Lydia took a salary of $60 a month until she gave up the spot in 1919. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia2ai_7B3AtpcIXQw64YFVBk7kbc5iMVDoXWVE6Tj8iuGRxU_7R0AGfG6WBfUe02_IU-kTKVFKYDaE6gwPuOuTY-dcde2rg-ujAQB2-plbM04PH29erbWVMAOJFp9AQG-s6vOddmuICy1VQ2AFj6VqUVjwA65nxEpRsEQV1TkzFGImY-dkyIVS4N3dT8RM/s1980/geuther_family_ca1916.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1608" data-original-width="1980" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia2ai_7B3AtpcIXQw64YFVBk7kbc5iMVDoXWVE6Tj8iuGRxU_7R0AGfG6WBfUe02_IU-kTKVFKYDaE6gwPuOuTY-dcde2rg-ujAQB2-plbM04PH29erbWVMAOJFp9AQG-s6vOddmuICy1VQ2AFj6VqUVjwA65nxEpRsEQV1TkzFGImY-dkyIVS4N3dT8RM/w548-h446/geuther_family_ca1916.png" width="548" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The Geuthers of Mokena, seen here around 1916. Standing in rear row, left to right, are Mabel (Krapp), Milton, and Lydia (Kohl). Seated in first row, left to right, are Charles, Olive (Stellwagen), Harold and Sarah. (Image courtesy of Amy Donoho)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> It was a past time of Lydia’s in those years leading up to the First World War to watch baseball matches from a two-seat swing in a shady spot of the Geuther lawn, which provided a commanding view of Erickson Park across the road, on the sight of today’s First Court. These local games were no trifling, small-time affair; on the contrary, nothing that exists in today’s village can be compared to them. The Mokena team was composed of crack hometown athletes who drew crowds of hundreds, especially when they played their arch rivals, Frankfort. One of our players was a robust lad named Lawrence Frederick Kohl, who everyone called Lence. Eight years Lydia’s senior, he was born in the southern reaches of Orland Township on a farm in the vicinity of what is now called 104<sup>th</sup> Avenue. Like the Geuthers, the Kohls were agriculturists, and no fresh arrivals to our environs, having first set foot in Frankfort Township by way of Chicago and a village called Fliessen in the Austrian Empire during the antebellum years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Along the way, Lydia and Lence got to know each other better, and two paths merged as one when they were married in February 1920. Theirs was a small, intimate ceremony held in the Geuther house in Mokena, officiated by Rev. William Kreis of St. John’s German Evangelical Church. After the wedding, the new Mr. and Mrs. Kohl left on an evening Rock Island train bound for Chicago, amid, as the village <i>News-Bulletin</i> put it, “a copious shower of rice.” The couple moved to the Mokena farm of Lence’s parents after they tied the knot, a sprawling place on the north side of today’s 191<sup>st</sup> Street at the intersection with Schoolhouse Road. The whole estate was nothing to sneeze at, as it took up 160 acres. Lence’s Dad and Mom, Anton and Elizabeth Kohl, acquired the place from the widow Helena Schiek in 1895, which contained a spacious two-story farmhouse built not too long after it came into the Kohls’ hands. At one point during the early years of the Kohls’ ownership, the construction of a southern extension of what we now know as 108<sup>th</sup> Avenue threatened to bisect the farm, and in order to thwart the dissection of their property, the family built a large dairy barn in the path of the projected road in 1908, and as draconian eminent domain statutes didn’t exist in those days, the matter was dropped. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihhRL-plZgvS5z2RMccFYJuRvIiKJ-2YMPYnBbS1aMXuoZsU7d9GB8TwcTOrdQU8DynNTPQ9F0YIz_tIND4WDXbFO1lv6IWaunoaLh9CiVjHX1w4gnd7RsmVT80xKZT7K8w30ksj2_LydNiHeCd-ukcjPz7oYD9579tJ_rt8v9C11JBZiUGpuPBxn4ctos/s1248/kohl_wedding.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1248" data-original-width="842" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihhRL-plZgvS5z2RMccFYJuRvIiKJ-2YMPYnBbS1aMXuoZsU7d9GB8TwcTOrdQU8DynNTPQ9F0YIz_tIND4WDXbFO1lv6IWaunoaLh9CiVjHX1w4gnd7RsmVT80xKZT7K8w30ksj2_LydNiHeCd-ukcjPz7oYD9579tJ_rt8v9C11JBZiUGpuPBxn4ctos/w331-h492/kohl_wedding.png" width="331" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Newlyweds Lence and Lydia Kohl. (Image courtesy of Amy Donoho)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Three children would come to grace the home of Lence and Lydia Kohl, namely Roy Everett, who was born July 15<sup>th</sup>, 1921, next came Marvin Lawrence on May 23<sup>rd</sup>, 1925, who Mokenians always knew as Miff, and rounding out the family was Dorothy Mae, who came into the world on May 23<sup>rd</sup>, 1932. When she was a baby, Lence Kohl would rock his daughter in her cradle via a string tied from the cradle to his leg, so as not to take him away from card games in the next room with his friends. Musical talent ran strong in the Kohl family; Lydia played an upright Bauer piano that, upon her marriage, was shipped to Mokena over the Rock Island from Chicago. All in all, it cost $600, which she financed with her salary from the days teaching at Marti School. Lence played the violin, and Roy Kohl became a masterful and moving singer in his time. Dorothy Kohl was nothing short of a musical prodigy, taking up the piano in her earliest childhood before going on to take lessons from a teacher who traveled to Mokena from the county seat once a week. She eventually added the organ to her repertoire, and was playing local weddings by the time she was 16. So in demand was her talent, that she generally played nuptials every Saturday, and some days even two. Sharing her natural gift with not just Mokena, Dorothy also became a paid organist at New Lenox and Tinley Park churches, and continued her musical tradition even after she moved away in later years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At her 191<sup>st</sup> Street home, Lydia Kohl was a hardworking farm wife. She used a wood-burning stove, and in the words of her daughter Dorothy, she “baked homemade bread, pies, cakes and did the washing and ironing.” The Kohls didn’t have indoor plumbing or electricity until May 1932, the midst of the Depression years. In these rough days, Robert Hohenstein worked for the family, a young nephew of Lence’s who had lost his mother at a young age. All vegetables in the household came from the Kohl garden, along with all fruit from the orchard, which would be made into jams and jellies. It was a true farm to table lifestyle, with all meat being butchered on site. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> For the Kohls, Mokena wasn’t just a place to live, but a locale where they directed their hearts back into the community. Lence was one of the founders of the Will County Farm Bureau, and was especially active in local school matters, having served on the board of District 159 for many years. As the Second World War was ending and the recent closure of Mokena’s two-year high school was fresh on all minds, the idea began to be kicked around of forming a new high school district encompassing Mokena and Orland Park. Within a few years, this initial concept grew and transformed into a plan to combine Mokena, Frankfort, Lincoln Estates, New Lenox and Manhattan into a new district. Thus the seed was born for the creation of Lincoln-Way High School, of which Lence Kohl played an integral role, first taking a place on the survey committee, and then ultimately on the new school’s first board of education. As the groundwork was being laid, Dr. William Reavis of the University of Chicago’s School of Education came to our neck of the woods to give his advice, and after all was said and done, the doctor presented Lence with an august cane of hickory in honor of his work establishing the new high school district, which ensured the future of Mokena’s students. As he got on in years, Lence Kohl was honored by the Mokena Chamber of Commerce in 1963 for his service to the village, not only recognizing him for his work with our schools but also for his involvement with the Mokena Planning Commission, having a seat thereon since its inception in 1952.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Lydia Kohl was also devoted to Mokena, having served not only on the 1963 historical committee that produced the lively booklet <i>The Story of Mokena</i>, but also gave much of her time to 4H matters. To this day, she is still lovingly looked back upon by the Mokenians that she mentored in their youth, remembered as a leader who was kind and caring, hardworking, and available to all who needed her. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGxhffNffNLAvc-CNknALdRvUdq2K0_jd5psIBAuPorDpbF-_FCbJ6Y-5TTdxru23S6UR0kEKQ9ZJrb5XjKIBN6Tx-zxQQwdt6eqWgfRCfRzqc709gJIw5wcc-a879VcACEtMdOFecdHvrpAjI4BwDWVHlDOID1CkePAC_1o13ltvsi9mtb-k3lrxFYeS/s2262/kohl_Farm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1654" data-original-width="2262" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGxhffNffNLAvc-CNknALdRvUdq2K0_jd5psIBAuPorDpbF-_FCbJ6Y-5TTdxru23S6UR0kEKQ9ZJrb5XjKIBN6Tx-zxQQwdt6eqWgfRCfRzqc709gJIw5wcc-a879VcACEtMdOFecdHvrpAjI4BwDWVHlDOID1CkePAC_1o13ltvsi9mtb-k3lrxFYeS/w583-h425/kohl_Farm.png" width="583" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The farm of the Kohl family on 191st Street in the era following the Second World War. (Image courtesy of Amy Donoho)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Lence Kohl crossed the great beyond in May 1976, in his 88<sup>th</sup> year. Another pall was cast when the stately dairy barn and silo on the Kohl farm were consumed by fire at Thanksgiving time 1978, Lydia being greatly saddened by their loss, lamenting that her home no longer looked like a farm without them. The incident was whispered in town to have been arson by an outside party; an eerie reminder of a similar fire that happened on a frigid February night in 1969 when unknown hands placed an ignited street flare against the wall of a corn crib. Luckily, in this first occurrence, passing motorists saw the flames, managed to awake Lence Kohl and together they put out the blaze before serious damage could be done. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As her Mokena slowly lost its rural atmosphere in the sunset of her years, Lydia Kohl continued to live in her idyllic home on 191<sup>st</sup> Street where she kept busy crafting braided and hooked rugs. She departed this world in Joliet a few weeks after New Year’s 1990, in which year she would have turned 94. The Kohl farmhouse disappeared from the landscape not long thereafter; an earthen mound at the northern head of Schoolhouse Road is all that remains of the family homestead. Lence and Lydia Kohl along with their children are now gone from our midst, but they all are fondly remembered by countless village folk. The Kohl legacy lives on in the Mokena that was greatly touched by their having been a part of it. May their memory live eternal in our community. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-82037605770864581872023-10-08T18:24:00.000-07:002023-10-08T18:24:23.781-07:00A Slice of Mokena: The Story of 11000 Front Street<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">In the pre-dawn hours of an autumn morning in 1974, as darkness enveloped the village and her denizens slumbered, a disastrous fire pummeled Front Street. The alarm was sounded, and the Mokena Fire Department was quickly joined by the brigades of surrounding towns to battle the blaze, and after hours of sweating out the fight, the conflagration had been vanquished. As the sun rose, nothing but a burnt out, smoldering hulk remained of the edifice that the flames consumed. Mokenians were shocked, and in the space of a few hours, over a century of our community’s memories went up in smoke. Some of the faces tied to this storied property were fleeting, tying themselves to this place in the blink of an eye, while others left their mark over the course of decades. The old building had many sides, for half a lifetime it was a watering hole where occasionally rough characters mingled, and at other times it was a place of trade, with everything from general goods to hardware being had here. To revel in the collective patchwork of Mokena’s narrative, one would be remiss not to look closely at the northwest corner of Front and Division Streets.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Looking back to the exciting days of Mokena’s youth, a time when horse-drawn carriages owned the streets and colossal iron locomotives puffed coal soot into the air as they roared through the village, it can be seen that the earliest venture at this location may have been a saloon kept by George Treuer. Nevertheless, a dearth of precise sketches of life in our community in those first few jubilant years after the Civil War make it hard to pin down with certainty. What is sure, however, is that Treuer was among the bravest of the brave, having earned the right to call himself a veteran after serving the Union in the war with the 20<sup>th</sup> Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He faced the traitorous ranks of the enemy at Fort Donelson, Tennessee in the bitter early months of 1862, where he took a ghastly wound in his leg that would pain him for the rest of his days. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In a moment of economic necessity, George Treuer and his young wife Anna sold this corner lot and the one adjoining it on the north to 29-year-old Nicholas Schuberth, with the paperwork for the transaction being filed in the county seat on the last day of July, 1869. The whole action cost Schuberth a pretty penny, to the tune of $2,350 dollars. The high cost of the sale was due to the fact that a substantial building already stood on this corner property, one possibly built by its previous owner. It was a plain, wood frame structure, like countless others resembling it on any given nineteenth century American Main Street. It featured two stories, with commercial space on the street level and living quarters above, big front windows, and a whimsical half circle window in the attic overlooking Front Street, sticking out like a single eyebrow. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Like George Treuer, Nicholas Schuberth was of German birth, and came with his family to the New World as a seven-year-old in 1847, settling in what became Frankfort Township not long thereafter, and by 1862 the Schuberths had become established enough to own a large farm northeast of town on today’s 191<sup>st</sup> Street. Readers of these pages will be familiar with this old Mokena clan, as Nicholas’ older brother John was intimately attached to the history of a Front Street estate a few doors to the west of the place in question. Nicholas Schuberth inscribed his own name on our narrative at this spot on the corner when he opened his own saloon and inn here around 1870, christening it the Union Hotel and joining multiple others in town in quenching the thirst of his fellow Teutons, who made up most of Mokena’s population at the time. Running a watering hole in postbellum Will County required the adherence to a certain number of complex yet strict laws on the books in those days, one of which Schuberth ran afoul of shortly after New Year 1871, when he was indicted in the county court for “keeping open a tippling house on the Sabbath day.” He plead guilty and was hit with a fine of $50 and costs. Nevertheless, business kept up, and ironically, Nicholas Schuberth became a Frankfort Township constable around this time, becoming so proud of the title that he personalized his business letterheads with it. As will be seen at this location, the young man was himself a victim of the sometimes coarse nature of his livelihood. On Christmas night 1876, while making change for a customer, cruelly sarcastic farmhand Adolph Bimer “politely informed the landlord” that he had been holding onto an express envelope for long enough, and that he would be helping himself to it. The thief made off with 65 dollars, which the pages of history don’t indicate whether Schuberth ever got back. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Nicholas Schuberth was a married man, his wife being young Caroline Wagner. Together the two welcomed four children into the world. Tragically, Caroline Schuberth died of brain inflammation in 1882 at the age of 34. So respected was she in Mokena, that St. Mary’s German Catholic Church was thronged to capacity at her funeral, with many being unable to gain admittance. In this timeframe, shreds of evidence exist that Nicholas Schuberth may have conducted his business elsewhere in town. Nevertheless, a year after Caroline’s passing he was back at the old spot on the corner, when he “neatly papered and re-fitted his place in a manner which adds greatly to its appearance.” In reporting on the local saloonist, Mokena’s correspondent to the <i>Will County Advertiser</i> wrote that “Nick always runs an orderly house, and all that he needs now is a charming <i>Frau. </i>Get there, Nick.” Within a year, barkeep Schuberth fulfilled the prophecy and took Charlotte Metzger of Joliet as his wife, upon which three more children came into the family’s fold. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Schuberth saloon was a hub of social activity in our village, a typical example of the festivities found there was the grand masquerade given by the local <i>Männerchor</i>, or men’s choir, in February 1884. Life in 19<sup>th</sup>century Mokena was far from easy, and so it was that 52-year-old Nicholas Schuberth departed this mortal coil on July 24<sup>th</sup>, 1892. The specifics of his passing have been lost to the ages like grains of sand to the wind. His mortal remains were interred next to those of his first wife in the country churchyard of St. Mary’s German Catholic Church, the congregation his family had helped found 28 years before. In the aftermath of his death, Charlotte Schuberth was left to sort out the estate, which included numerous debts to, among others, a Blue Island cigar merchant, and a Chicago wine and liquor dealer. Not quite three years after the loss of her husband, Charlotte disposed of the Front Street property plus the lot adjoining it to the north to Jolietan Henry Piepenbrink in the spring of 1895 for $1,045, less than half of what her husband paid for it two and half decades previously. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Not quite a year after this transaction, the property wound up in the hands of Simon Hohenstein. 31 years old in 1896, Hohenstein was a member of a storied and long-established Frankfort Township family, a prominent Mokenian who held many posts in his day. By the time the sun had set on his life decades later, he had at different times called himself Frankfort Township Supervisor, Assessor, and School Trustee, Mokena Village Trustee and Postmaster. No wonder one of his village peers called him “quite an outstanding citizen in his day.” In April 1896, Simon Hohenstein threw upon the doors of the watering hole on the corner and opened his own saloon. Whether business wasn’t good or a better opportunity arose elsewhere, he turned around and sold the building as well as his supply of spirits to a Chicago Heights firm at Christmastime 1898, but through the twists and turns of fate, he found his way back to the business and the old corner within a year, as the taker of the 1900 federal census recorded him here as a saloon keeper then noting that his wife Louisa served as his bartender. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-vnWI0GvC8OUalePV8AVZrZgrUEkY_fBHVgynHRIS6L7DJGXAPt_eleQFmv63RUDcpjYF6ZGwx_72SczrA2nlxRGf_ZKuKOwYhEAIfjR2aw7mVUe_LUqcXnbx5SFV8ldLdDsplncw9dlQx7R_AltrOuT-bapgWZZa5JhkDrq5dHKUBHW9zzJeLuz66ji/s2117/Hohenstein%20Saloon%20c1892.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1958" data-original-width="2117" height="549" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-vnWI0GvC8OUalePV8AVZrZgrUEkY_fBHVgynHRIS6L7DJGXAPt_eleQFmv63RUDcpjYF6ZGwx_72SczrA2nlxRGf_ZKuKOwYhEAIfjR2aw7mVUe_LUqcXnbx5SFV8ldLdDsplncw9dlQx7R_AltrOuT-bapgWZZa5JhkDrq5dHKUBHW9zzJeLuz66ji/w593-h549/Hohenstein%20Saloon%20c1892.jpg" width="593" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Pictured in one of the oldest known views of Front Street, Simon Hohenstein’s saloon stands triumphant on the northwest corner of Front and Division Streets in the latter part of the 1890s. Seen left to right are Dan Hohenstein, Louisa Hohenstein, Amanda Hohenstein, saloonkeeper Simon Hohenstein, blacksmith Robert Turner, Dr. William Becker, Herman Gieger, John Aschenbrenner, Jack O’Neill, and brothers Edward and William Stellwagen. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In a wave of improvement in the first years of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, barkeep Hohenstein had the interior of his taproom freshly painted not long after New Year 1902, while later the same year he built an addition to the north side of the building and tore down an old shed that had stood in the way, re-using the old building materials to build a new coal and wood shack. A local scribe writing to the <i>Lockport Phoenix-Advertiser</i>contently noted that Simon Hohenstein was “one of our citizens who does things”, although coal was slow coming to the new outbuilding due to an ongoing strike. Getting his two cents in, Hohenstein told the correspondent that if the strikers had “any consideration for him, they will now settle and allow him to coal up.” Soon thereafter, the outside of the main building was given three coats of new paint, making it a regal dark green with white trim. In these early years, the Hohenstein corner was home to a special gas-powered street lamp that was installed on trial by the village board. It shone so brilliantly in the dark night that our same author noted that Mokenians thought “a Rock Island engine had jumped the track and run its headlight into the street.” So brilliant was it, that the top of the neighboring iron village water tower was even lit up. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In a move that was illustrative of the times in which he lived, in the yule season of 1901 Simon Hohenstein along with his neighbor a stone’s throw to the southwest, butcher Paul Rinke, had a small, old house moved to Rinke’s property where they converted it into an icehouse. An oft forgotten facet of the lives of our forefathers, icehouses were small outbuildings where gargantuan cakes of ice would be stored in straw throughout the year, often seen in the years before electric refrigeration would be stored. Hohenstein made good use of his, as a Mokena saloonist serving warm beer would be out of business in less time than it takes to hitch a horse. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> One of the village’s premier capitalists around the turn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, Simon Hohenstein also went into the buggy business, aside from already being a handler of farm implements. He was the Mokena agent for the famed McCormick Harvesting Company, and later also moved Singer sewing machines. Hohenstein hung up his beer spattered apron for the last time on March 1<sup>st</sup>, 1905, when he sold his saloon business and property to John L. Groth. The historic record indicates that Groth and his young family originally hailed from Manhattan, and like his predecessor, he was a leader in Mokena, having held a village trustee’s seat from 1915 to 1917. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Business carried on as usual at the old stand, and while it may strike a modern reader as quaint to think of a neighborhood tavern in an early 20<sup>th</sup> century farm town, it was sometimes anything but. Nothing indicates that John Groth himself was a hard man, but his beer hall was more than once the scene of alcohol-fueled mayhem. Around 4 o’clock in the afternoon on the last day of August 1914, a large crowd of boozed-up railroad hands gathered at the corner. World War I had just flared up in Europe, and national pride for the nations involved was at a boiling point. Somehow or other, the war came up in conversation, and in the words of Mokenian Bill Semmler, “the argument got pretty warm, and soon resolved itself into a genuine battle.” Five brawling men took to the middle of Front Street, and beer bottles and rocks were used as weapons, one of the former fracturing the skull of a Hungarian. Our one-man police force, Officer Conrad Schenkel, soon clapped the belligerents into the town calaboose a few doors to the east, and the injured man was taken to the office of Dr. F.W. Searles, who in turn sent him to a Blue Island hospital. The man’s fracture was so grave that the doctor thought there was a good chance he wouldn’t make it, and frankly recommended to Officer Schenkel that the man responsible should be held, that is, if he could be found – of all the arrestees, none of them would admit who dealt the blow. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Another incident a little over two months later at the Groth saloon involved Mokena fixture Dick McGovney and some bacchanalian Swedes. Once again, Bill Semmler painted a vivid picture, describing how the two young Scandinavians, who worked as local farm hands, “came to town to celebrate” and how after bouncing down Front Street from saloon to saloon, they<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“had an overabundance of the stuff that cheers, and they wanted more, and when the saloonkeepers turned them down, they showed fight.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">They went on a rampage through town looking for more, and upon getting to Groth’s corner, they confronted Dick McGovney as he tended to his horses, and threw stones at him and the equines. Without getting into detail, scribe Semmler said that “Mr. McGovney gave the belligerents a lively time” and gave them a taste of their own medicine. Again Officer Schenkel was on the scene and locked up the two overnight, a little worse for the wear, all the while begging to be let go, as they had to husk corn the next morning. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The advent of Prohibition in 1920 threw a once lucrative venture out of business. Andrew E. Wachter, a nephew of Nicholas Schuberth, was running the show here in those years, and got creative with his menu, serving such non-alcoholic drinks as Green River and Soda Fruitola, as well as some beverages called Mokena Dream and Mokena Sizzler. Those first few years of the 1920s turned a new leaf in the business life of this historic building, and for the first time in its existence it was not used as a beer hall. After briefly housing the general stores of John Grogan and then Walter Fisher in this era, Krapp Brothers came onto the scene in October 1922, whose influence would prove to be significant. Lifelong village residents, young Milton and Roy Krapp were the sons of Mokena’s premier livestock shipper, and not only opened the Mokena Hardware Company at this location, but also greatly remodeled and expanded the old building. The work got under way the following May, and called for a large addition to the west side of the structure, measuring 45 by 50 feet, as well as a small wing to the new construction to house the village post office, which had already made its home in the original building for nearly two years. New apartments were built for the second floor of the main structure, which were modern in every way, having electricity and village water piped in. Such a project was a big one for 1920s Front Street, and our town paper, <i>The News-Bulletin </i>hailed it as “the most important business improvement in Mokena this spring.” By the time the brothers were done with building work in October 1923, the place was totally unrecognizable from its old self. So it would stay, the façade a Front Street mainstay for decades to come. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3IUMec6qlmtEiFDxE77lu6CjPFx1gfGw4IHaRmuBeql1n_7VZGYJHFUAHA9d9EbY9RkBgQ5YQBT4HvvVWmLd1LgPuyvsVpauZsREDVMqDNM_U-M4UhwqX8g6uJy5btsTrOTJO9zO5cROb3jqNvBHT6vLtiijnj7pf8HEqxjFxTp2ksPbmLGYGCIeEMDI/s2444/mokena_hardware.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2444" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3IUMec6qlmtEiFDxE77lu6CjPFx1gfGw4IHaRmuBeql1n_7VZGYJHFUAHA9d9EbY9RkBgQ5YQBT4HvvVWmLd1LgPuyvsVpauZsREDVMqDNM_U-M4UhwqX8g6uJy5btsTrOTJO9zO5cROb3jqNvBHT6vLtiijnj7pf8HEqxjFxTp2ksPbmLGYGCIeEMDI/w609-h373/mokena_hardware.jpg" width="609" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Looking west down Front Street from Division Street, the Mokena Hardware Company stands prominently on the right around 1925.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Anything imaginable in the hardware line could be had from the Mokena Hardware Company, including appliances, such as the Universal full enameled gas stove, which a customer could have for $85, or around $1,500 in today’s money. Milton and Roy Krapp ran a very modern business, as is evidenced by the radio department that they opened, making them the first dealers of this article in Mokena. In charge of that corner of the store was local adolescent Everett Cooper, then a fresh-faced young man, who would later go on to be Mokena’s mayor from 1945 to 1949. Mokena Hardware Company was known to often stage demonstrations of its products, and one highlighting the brothers’ paint and washer demonstration on Saturday evening, April 4<sup>th</sup>, 1927, drew in a staggering 200 onlookers. Part of the event was a guessing game involving a rooster named Hungry Hank, who belonged to the local poultry farm of Marti Brothers. Spectators made their guesses as to how many corn kernels he would eat, and by the time all was said and done, Hank managed to nibble away 205 kernels. Mary Eddy of Alpine guessed that he would manage 210 kernels, and as her guess was the closest, she won a washing machine. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0F7AHzfGiRjSAM267O2xO-CkAdAZgQvpBsMbjp2fSvBDaKUDOw_p5TbiNguf5Dz-drcON2PFxev_G1YSKijmYh3ZS2htdsxxtS_cdilwb5rGmEgV2RupZ1cdISU90Ivo3EF9hafi9871jqAuF6BG_kudEBmo4nSfpQzOOdrUZoDcTtDDCExPhEhz6ieqK/s1942/mokena_hardware_oct23_1928.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1942" data-original-width="1358" height="541" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0F7AHzfGiRjSAM267O2xO-CkAdAZgQvpBsMbjp2fSvBDaKUDOw_p5TbiNguf5Dz-drcON2PFxev_G1YSKijmYh3ZS2htdsxxtS_cdilwb5rGmEgV2RupZ1cdISU90Ivo3EF9hafi9871jqAuF6BG_kudEBmo4nSfpQzOOdrUZoDcTtDDCExPhEhz6ieqK/w378-h541/mokena_hardware_oct23_1928.jpg" width="378" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">A crisp autumn day on Front Street. This snapshot, taken October 23<sup>rd</sup>, 1928, shows the Mokena Hardware Company with the post office at left. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Mokena Hardware Company was also known seasonally for the lavish Christmas display in its front windows, typical was their showcase of Yule season 1926. An entire farmyard idyll moved in, all sized down to scale. <i>The News-Bulletin </i>described it as <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">A large farm house, barn, garage, a team of horses pulling a wagonload of corn, the old familiar farm pump, are all shown true to life, all set in a mantle of imitation snow. At night the scene is made very beautiful by a cute lighting effect.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The show windows also proved attractive to burglars, as was shown in the darkness of the early morning of November 2, 1927. Unknown thieves smashed panes of glass in three of the windows around 3:00am and made off with two shotguns that were part of a hunting display. The guns themselves were worth around $40 altogether, or nearly $700 in 21<sup>st</sup> century funds, but the real damage was in the windows, as replacing them ended up costing exceedingly more. Mokena was titillated, as it was thought that the robbers, whoever they were, were connected with the murder of a lawman in northwest Indiana, as the suspects were seen heading our way. Be that as it may, no one was ever prosecuted for the burglary. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Milton Krapp bought his brother Roy’s share of the Mokena Hardware Company in the summer of 1926, and both brothers went their separate ways in business, before Milton sold the store in its entirety to Emil Tewes of Frankfort in the autumn of 1935. Nevertheless, Milton Krapp retained ownership of the building itself for many years thereafter, and in the shaky days of the Great Depression, Irv Howes kept his Royal Blue grocery store here. With Mokena and the rest of our country in the midst of joyous triumph at the end of the Second World War, the corner property switched hands and came into the fold of Edwin A. Dunham, who opened a new hardware store here. The 37-year-old was initially a newcomer to Mokena, but after he set down his roots in our village, Dunham would prove to be an old standby at this location. Edwin Dunham spent his first years in Iowa, after which grew up as a farm boy in Colorado, before ultimately graduating high school in Evanston and working as a telegrapher. Dunham and his wife Luella along with their three sons, Richard and twins Thomas and Theodore lived in the rooms above the store. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Just as this new enterprise was getting off the ground, it almost all went up in smoke. On the wintry morning of Monday, January 14<sup>th</sup>, 1946, a blaze broke out in the attic of a small addition to the larger building. In an eerie harbinger of future events, Edwin Dunham was at a distinct disadvantage, as not only was he lacking water, but he also had no phone hooked up in the building with which he could call for help. As the fire ate its way through the attic, Dunham made haste for a neighbor who was able to rouse up the Mokena Fire Department, who quickly were on the scene with their new state of the art engine, with which “a few well directed shots of water from the high-pressure hose” made short work of the conflagration. At the end of the day, more damage was done by smoke and water than the flames themselves. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Dunham Hardware Store was in business for decades, and lived on in the memories of countless Mokenians. Edwin Dunham himself is widely remembered as a very easy going and likeable man; his shop on the other hand, was not known for the organized way in which it was kept. As such, many was the time when a customer couldn’t find a certain item after traversing the creaky wooden floors of the store, only to be told by the proprietor in his locally famous words “I just sold the last one!” or “It’s coming tomorrow.” Luella Dunham was also a presence on this corner, having maintained a section of the store where she sold gifts. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> So it was that history ended on this distinguished Mokena corner on a shadowy Thursday morning in September 1974. A calamitous fire tore through Edwin Dunham’s hardware store, to which the Mokena Fire Department turned out in full force, in what turned out to be one of the worst blazes seen in town for a long time. Such was the magnitude of the disaster that the firefighters of neighboring towns also came to bolster our local brigade. Not only did those battling the blaze have to deal with the stifling flames and suffocating smoke, but also the peril of live ammunition cooking off, which was sold in the store. Despite the ardor with which the fire was fought, the old building was a complete loss, and not long thereafter, the remnants of its charred husk were mercifully removed. In time, a new building was erected on the site of the old saloon turned hardware store. While there may be no trace left of the original structure, the legacies of those tied to this historic site live on in our village. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWdD8Voal0sWYUq2bx92haI-Yhq4KeBiTqzoLMNy-JJShyFWV9Iiimvb_808fX1W-pV7gT01M1GMWJP5afvc24QLUSwMcBWO6G3CoQMlIlNyj0YAd1N0BN76Mdx_uMM9bjBPRTP5Zec-QIf6ZoEwTG1VN-VmPhwrYW9ky4hVT4fb7P2X7iKLqUTpCAYgir/s1213/dunham_fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="1213" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWdD8Voal0sWYUq2bx92haI-Yhq4KeBiTqzoLMNy-JJShyFWV9Iiimvb_808fX1W-pV7gT01M1GMWJP5afvc24QLUSwMcBWO6G3CoQMlIlNyj0YAd1N0BN76Mdx_uMM9bjBPRTP5Zec-QIf6ZoEwTG1VN-VmPhwrYW9ky4hVT4fb7P2X7iKLqUTpCAYgir/w525-h319/dunham_fire.jpg" width="525" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The aftermath of the conflagration at Edwin Dunham's hardware store in the autumn of 1974.</p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-11447486570485001002023-08-05T21:03:00.002-07:002023-08-05T21:03:45.617-07:00Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic: Mokena Public School, 1872-1929<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The names of our village’s roads are a peek into our history. Some bear the names of founding fathers, such as Denny Avenue and McGovney Street, while others recall mayors, such as Everett Lane and Swanberg Lane. After all, the name of Wolf Road, originally a Potawatomi path, hearkens back to none other than</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Theak-A-Kee, Ty-Yan-Ac-Kee</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">, or their word for</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Trail of the Wolf Through the Wonderful Land</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">. Schoolhouse Road also makes an appearance, not only being one of our main thoroughfares, but also taking its name from a local institution of many years’ standing. However, in our fast-paced 21</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">century world, how many modern Mokenians actually reflect on the place from which the road gains its namesake? For over half a century, the ornate, two-story Mokena Public School stood on the northwest corner of Front Street and today’s Schoolhouse Road, a place that loomed large in the lives of generations of villagers.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonBVgm9dJ1w9hcGUfS1L2mIukPWwnXwj-yQeqoYHwqvR68RJ0_4e76FvGyMLHfsAjzW6hs22U-pIcpvbpH9H4fiRafuKVnQs_G1UpwHC2VPqDmxgHrycl6leYhH4tSw7LfswOIMi8FnLb7AzLQ6YKLWVMllmLt83jLrFXbOi0az1W3p6YbtVI7KkVXuPs/s1966/school_color.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1966" data-original-width="1332" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonBVgm9dJ1w9hcGUfS1L2mIukPWwnXwj-yQeqoYHwqvR68RJ0_4e76FvGyMLHfsAjzW6hs22U-pIcpvbpH9H4fiRafuKVnQs_G1UpwHC2VPqDmxgHrycl6leYhH4tSw7LfswOIMi8FnLb7AzLQ6YKLWVMllmLt83jLrFXbOi0az1W3p6YbtVI7KkVXuPs/w346-h510/school_color.png" width="346" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The Mokena Public School on the northwest corner of Front Street and today's Schoolhouse Road, as it appeared circa 1910 in a tinted postcard.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While it was the grandest school in our history, it was far from the first, that honorable designation going to the schoolhouse that was the inaugural building constructed on our Public Square in 1855, three years after the arrival of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad. A small, low-slung Greek Revival building boasting of one classroom, lightning rod and modest bell, it also served as a meeting place for Mokena’s newly formed religious congregations and whoever else needed the space. By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, the ten-year-old building was already bursting at the seams with students. It was time to upgrade, and mirroring the up-and-at-them post-war mood in our neck of the woods at the time, no expense was spared. On the edge of town at the northwest corner of Front Street and today’s Schoolhouse Road, then an unnamed farm lane, a magnificent, two-story wooden eminence began to grow. Built under the leadership of local contractor and native Englishman James B. Eason and the assistance of carpenter George Schweser, the new school bore touches of Italianate architecture, then in vogue in this part of the state, with the elaborate brackets supporting the roof and window frames, complete with its bell tower standing triumphant, which before the completion of our first water tower in 1898, was the highest point in town. All in all, the new structure measured in at forty-five by seventy-eight feet. Inside, two sets of winding stairs led down from the second floor. The meat of the structure were its two large classrooms, one upstairs and one down, each measuring in at twenty by sixty feet. Two round wooden pillars supported the ceiling in each room, although in later years more walls would be built to subdivide each room. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By the time construction was complete, the final cost of the new school plus its furnishings came out at $10,000. In those early years it was widely considered to be one of the crown jewels of Will County’s school system; only five years after its opening, eminent Will County historian George Woodruff stated that “it is a flourishing school, ably-managed and well-attended”, while years later the Mokena <i>News-Bulletin</i> humbly wrote that it “was the talk of the town and surrounding country in its day.” So acute was the need for the new building that it was in use before it was even finished; with the ground floor being open for students in the fall of 1872 while the second was still under construction. When the doors first opened, none other than George Kimball was one of the first pupils, who would be remembered as “the real bad boy of the school.” He was an orphan who lived with the Brumund family south of town, and he was “said to have been a great tobacco chewer and could spit the farthest of any boy.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWKTFH8UALn6F9nIv9RI5Hiz7GT17CaLvNhX75mSZx4jh_YGIFn7XxRO2qYG34phMmVG4w0NFW3xPNlepktBVHXz63i2XkssWKpwr-jXiFoa2PvZph-3G2JSCBojgikOHUXQ0K6cmp523eYGT1_lVWpezkdyZs3XE6rKQRBRwUN2ICUW8VCcXXpjLObBZn/s1705/class1880.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1251" data-original-width="1705" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWKTFH8UALn6F9nIv9RI5Hiz7GT17CaLvNhX75mSZx4jh_YGIFn7XxRO2qYG34phMmVG4w0NFW3xPNlepktBVHXz63i2XkssWKpwr-jXiFoa2PvZph-3G2JSCBojgikOHUXQ0K6cmp523eYGT1_lVWpezkdyZs3XE6rKQRBRwUN2ICUW8VCcXXpjLObBZn/w599-h440/class1880.jpg" width="599" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The pupils of Mokena Public School, circa 1880.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Through the muddle of time, it is agreed that Prof. Harris Smith was the new school’s first principal, a man whose life in Mokena’s history remains nebulous at this late date. Who the other firsts were, leaves room for debate. Whenever the subject came up in the decades thereafter, memories were fuzzy; however, it can be certain that Miss Sarah Baldwin, Miss Sarah Mather, Miss Clara Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Buck, Mr. Harrower and Mr. Rulison, were all there in the early days, although the first names of the latter educators are long since lost to the ages. In the beginning, the stately school housed grades one through eight, while around 1908 the passing of a state law proved fortuitous to local pupils. The long and short of it provided a rural student’s home school district to pay tuition for a high school of choice, thus opening the door to a high school education in a time and place when young Mokenians would not normally have had it. Some village youth took advantage and commuted by train to Blue Island in this era, a stretch further down the Rock Island. At this time, most of these pupils were girls, as local boys were needed to do farm work. A little later, Mokena’s own two-year high school was rung in in 1913, under the leadership of Prof. S.J. Eakle, an accredited chemist. Holding class in the Front Street building, a third year was added to the high school in a period of prosperity, having existed in the blink of an eye from 1925 to 1927. In this inaugural year these upper classes counted nine students, to which another teacher was added, bringing the total number of educators in the bygone school to five. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> For many in the village, their day began with the 8:30 tolling of the school’s bell, which could be heard anywhere in Mokena. Peeling around eight to ten times, town folk grew accustomed to hearing it, and would even set their clocks to it. Mamie Bechstein, member of a well-known local family who served as principal at the school from 1910 to 1912, painted a vivid picture of the bell. Years later, she would describe feeling its weight when she pulled the inch-thick rope that came down from the school’s ceiling that took “quite a jerk” to set into action. As the day came to life, all pupils walked to school, some coming from as far as two miles away. On rainy days, those who marched over the muddy rural roads to get to school were allowed to take their boots off and wear house slippers inside. At nine o’clock the school day officially started, which was heralded with three or four more strokes of the bell. The fifth through eighth grades held court in the upstairs classroom, which had space for about sixty students, while the room on the main floor had space for fifty children of the lower grades. Each classroom had a platform upon which the teachers’ desk stood, with bench seats being available for the pupils, who came to the front of the room to recite their studies. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Unlike today, there was no organized lunch system at the school, with the children bringing what they could on their own. Mamie Bechstein remembered that “some brought it in buckets and some brought it in their pockets”, with some of the farm children often bringing a chicken leg and homemade bread. The spacious building on the corner was heated entirely with coal, the ashes of which would be dumped in the road. A janitor was employed whose job it was to build the fires, although throughout the day the teachers would add to it from lumps of coal in buckets. The coal was originally stored in the school’s basement, but later on a storage building was put up on the west side of the grounds, which decades later was moved and turned into a small residence just west of town on Francis Road. Running water inside the school was a luxury that could only be dreamt of. There was a shallow well on the property, water from which was blamed for any outbreak of the grippe which swept through the school in early 1911, and was also the root of rumors a year later that it was causing jaundice. So powerful was the innuendo that local hardware merchant and school board member William Niethammer had a sample of the stuff tested by two separate laboratories in Chicago, who pronounced it safe to drink. As it was, the well was also known to be finicky, not to mention the fact that older students had to help the younger ones operate the stiff pump, so many of the pupils brought their own tin cups that they filled at the John Erickson family handpump just east across today’s Schoolhouse Road. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuJI57HD-ehIJ4kyYY3sZBLD9_68IPh8i7BhAZOugUI2RKhRxPXJjnC_Nu4EmUIIYzTyfPGYKD2hLb1SqzfUqCemkd-fB40aiaey89x4KjCDt44YCwnK4VqT4kL6rsi8tTBXquigP34TLQqB5oMCZQV6IfU_K3VxZSqN2vWmvVJgubhIUHXVDT-bpyne67/s1604/school_ca1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="1604" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuJI57HD-ehIJ4kyYY3sZBLD9_68IPh8i7BhAZOugUI2RKhRxPXJjnC_Nu4EmUIIYzTyfPGYKD2hLb1SqzfUqCemkd-fB40aiaey89x4KjCDt44YCwnK4VqT4kL6rsi8tTBXquigP34TLQqB5oMCZQV6IfU_K3VxZSqN2vWmvVJgubhIUHXVDT-bpyne67/w571-h352/school_ca1920.jpg" width="571" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #00b050;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 176, 80);">Seen here around 1920, the village schoolhouse was a landmark for generations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #00b050;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #00b050;"> </span>On a normal day, an early recess would be had from 10:30 to 10:45, with more ringing from the regal bell. Girls had ample space to play crack the whip, while boys would play baseball, which led to the occasional problem of a ball flying across the Rock Island tracks, and being unretrievable due to traffic on the railroad. Around the turn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, boys would also play shinny, an informal kind of hockey. Nevertheless, casualties mounted, and the powers at the school came to find the game “too rough and dangerous,” which ultimately led the school board to ban it in November 1910. Bill Semmler, our correspondent to the <i>Joliet Weekly News,</i> carried the word in his Mokena column, to which the editor chipped in:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“Ah, what a wealth of memories the game of shinny brings forth! Who has not landed in the game in time to get the battered tin can in the face, or the hickory club in the shins… Better call it golf and let the lads have all they want of it, so long as the teacher keeps out of harm’s way.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #00b050; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #00b050;"> </span>And after a day’s learning, the pupils would gather their books and head home at 4:00, with two or three more strokes of the bell. Aside from the drudgery of their studies, the school could be a lighthearted place. Pupils were known to slide down the black walnut railing of the building’s staircase, and music was supplied by a Julius Bauer piano installed in the upstairs room in the spring of 1911, paid for by two plays staged by the students. Not to be outdone, eleven years later in the spring of 1922, two Victrola phonographs were purchased for the school, an improvement which the <i>News-Bulletin</i> hailed as “never dreamed of.” At the same time, new playground equipment was put up, consisting of teeter-totters, slides and the like, the cost of which was footed by dozens of Mokenians who helped raise the money. In describing these new niceties, the <i>News-Bulletin </i>proudly stated that “more improvements have been made this fall than have been made in the last 20 years.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #00b050;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #00b050;"> </span>Nevertheless, as nice as the new playground was, it could also be a risky place. In the spring of 1927, an unimaginable accident befell ten-year-old Iris Hamilton, when in using the slide, a long, jagged sliver of wood drove itself into her leg. The school’s principal, Prof. Clarence Uhl, was quickly on the scene, and hastily determining that two arteries had been cut, stanched the flow of blood by pressing his thumbs against them. Iris was transported to Front Street’s Cooper & Hoster Ford agency with the sliver still in her leg until professional medical help arrived 45 minutes later. The <i>News-Bulletin </i>monitored the happenings closely, and stated that “the quick action and thought of Prof. Uhl was the only factor that prevented the child from bleeding to death, and his many friends here say he is worthy of a Carnegie medal for saving a life.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The pupils at the Mokena school were generally happy, however, an incident from 1913 stands as a stark contrast on the record of the years. In February of that year, the halls of learning “came nigh being the scene of a strike” when some of the students threatened to walk out and not come back until their complaints were taken seriously. The scholars told their parents of “petty annoyances” and bristled at what they felt was discipline that was too strict. In many cases, the parents backed up their children. Luckily for all, “cooler heads prevailed (and) the trouble was smoothed out.” Mokenian Bill Semmler, our village’s correspondent to the Joliet <i>Weekly News,</i> was of the opinion that overindulgent parents were to blame, writing that “over fond parents are often a hindrance to the welfare of a child and such parents cannot see the faults of a child as well as a teacher can” and that “when tales of petty annoyances are told at home, parents should investigate ere giving the child their opinion.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A similar incident occurred at the end of the 1917 school year, when some of the high schoolers, in their class publication <i>The Blab</i>, raked the board of education’s members over the coals. Bones of contention were the aforementioned pump and the lack of running water in the school, the fact that the entire building had yet to be electrified (with the honor only belonging to the upper room at that point) and the absence of screens in the school’s windows. A defender of the board rallied to their aid, and in the latter point, retorted that “an epidemic hasn’t yet made apparent of screening the rooms to protect the children against the flies that swarm there during the fall months.” Going on, this individual said that <i>The Blab’s</i> comments were “entirely uncalled for and (the) paper should be discontinued for its sarcastic remarks.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #00b050;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> So it was that pupils occasionally had grievances against the school’s leadership. On the other side of the coin, for a good span of the building’s life, punishment was dealt out with a rod and switch. In Florence Pitman’s seminal 1963 work <i>The Story of Mokena</i>, she recalled that <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“in the nineties it was the universal policy of parents to start their children to school with the admonishment, “If you get a whipping at school, you will get another when you get home.””<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Nevertheless, there was a limit. As far back as the spring of 1874, when the school on the corner was a brand-new structure, Prof. Harris Smith, the school’s first principal, landed himself in trouble for dealing out chastisement that was a touch too heavy handed. He struck a small boy with a hickory whip stock for refusing to get a scuttle of coal, to which the <i>Joliet Republican</i> snidely remarked “that strictness cost him the little sum of twenty five dollars” or the equivalent of about $665 in today’s money. As it were, Smith was not a popular man in Mokena, the same paper’s town correspondent a few weeks letter penning that “Mokena has one of the finest school buildings in the county. It is wished that we had half as fine a principal to run it” while going on that “the man who tries to run it now says, “if you don’t like my style, keep your children at home.” Our local writer estimated that two-thirds of Mokena’s parents were doing just that. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In addition to being a house of learning, the school also served as a community showcase, with countless entertainments being given there over the decades. Typical was the exhibition given on Saturday evening, February 24<sup>th</sup>, 1883. The weather that night was less than ideal, but Mokenians braved the muddy roads and turned out in full force. Music was supplied by the Mokena Cornet Band, backed up Mrs. N. Enders and Miss Lizzie Brumund on the organ. An opening song was given by the school, followed by various recitations, readings and dramatic pieces, such as “Johnnie Schrimp’s Idea of Amusements”, “Watermelon Pickles” and a pantomime called “A Temperance Story”, all of which were put on by the students and teachers. When a final tableau titled “Comfort” was due to be framed, school directors John A. Hatch, George Schweser and Robert H. Turner were called to the stage, where they thought they were being asked to speechify. Much to their surprise, it turned out they would be taking part in the tableau. An elegant chair was placed for each of them on the stage, each one a gift from the teacher and students, “thanking them for their kindness and interest manifested in making things comfortable for them.” One who was there said that the three men “were so overcome they could not find words to express their gratitude.” When all was said and done, the proceeds netted from the night’s festivities were $25.75, or around $835 in modern funds.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Alas, the good old days weren’t always good, as is demonstrated by a peculiar incident that occurred in the fall of 1908. On Wednesday morning, October 14<sup>th</sup>, twelve-year-old Viola Hansen opened the schoolhouse doors and went upstairs by herself. Upon doing so, she happened upon a strange, unknown man lying on a bench in a side room next to the library. She thought he appeared to be asleep, but couldn’t be sure. Viola was thoroughly shaken up by her discovery, and sprinted back to her Front Street home, and when others came to investigate, the stranger was gone. It was gathered that he gained entrance to the building through a downstairs window. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The school was also subject to extreme temperatures during the more inhospitable months. For most of the building’s history, it had no central heat to speak of, with warmth being provided by two coal burning stoves in each room. Local sage Clinton Kraus would recall that he and his fellow students in pre-World War I days would gather around the stoves and study, with the best-case scenario being that the pupils near them would be in torrid heat, while those farther away would freeze. Such was life until 1911, when the school board had a state-of-the-art heating system installed, being the first school in Will County to be so equipped. On the other hand, air conditioning was still decades away, and is something the school would never boast of. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At the beginning of the school year in 1893, an unlucky combustion of coal stored in the basement ignited a fire that “caused quite a little excitement for a time.” Luckily, things were quickly brought back under control and the flames made no serious headway, but nevertheless, the starkness of the situation was lost on no one. Talking to the <i>Joliet Republican, </i>Mokena village leader Ozias McGovney grimly said that if the fire had gone unchecked, the whole building would’ve been lost. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Flames again reared their uninvited head on a school day in the winter of 1922, when on February 6<sup>th</sup> the ashes in an overheated stove set the floor of the upstairs room ablaze. Pupils were marched into the cold outdoors, (some of whom, purportedly, were unaware a fire was happening) and the flooring torn up, once again preventing a small fire from becoming a serious one. Indeed, concern over fires was a deep one for the school board. After the infamous inferno at Collingwood, Ohio in March 1908, it was resolved that a fire escape would be built on the exterior of the aging structure, and by the following August, a Joliet concern had finished the steel stairs. The school’s main doors facing Front Street were also fixed, now they opened outward instead of inward, which to that point had been the case. When the first official fire drill was carried out toward the end of 1910, the pupils expertly used the escape, even though a few of them felt some initial trepidation. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the decades came and went and life went on in Mokena, the school was beginning to show its age. By July 1922, the house of learning had sagged to such a degree that an architect from the county seat was called out, who was greatly alarmed at the way the stone foundation on the east side of the building had bulged outward. To remedy this, it was recommended that 21 concrete piers, each three feet square, be built underneath the school. Alas, it was only a temporary fix. As the decade progressed, talk in town heated up about constructing a new school, and after 57 years of serving Mokena’s youth, the grand old landmark was ready to be taken out to pasture. The last classes were held here in June 1929, the same year the new school on Carpenter Street opened, which now serves the community as our city hall. Pupils were happy to make the move, with one being exuberant about “getting to the new school house away from the noise of the railroad, where (we) will have more room to play.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> So it was that America plunged into the Great Depression, and the grand old school sat vacant for the next four years, during which time conjecture swirled about its future. At Christmastime 1933, Will County superintendent of schools and Mokena native August Maue advised our school board to let it stand, citing his experience that “in every district in which the old schoolhouse was sold or torn down has been that very soon thereafter the building was needed for regular school purposes.” In the spring of 1934, the question was posed to Mokenians during the annual school election as to whether the building should be sold or not. The village’s <i>News-Bulletin</i> was firmly in the former camp, writing that the place was “abandoned and facing ruin” and that the community would be better off with the school board profiting from the sale of the property. The election came, and Mokena’s voters gave the green light for the building to be sold at auction on Tuesday, May 15<sup>th</sup>. Before the sale, the school’s old iron bell, installed in 1881 and the work of Philadelphia’s McShane Foundry, was removed from its tower and stored at Front Street’s village hall. There it was held onto for safe keeping, with the <i>News-Bulletin</i> deeming that “it may come in handy for future use.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the sales calls were cried and bids cast into the air on that spring day, Lester Schiek came out as the winner, beating out everyone else by offering $325 for the old school. Schiek will be known to readers as Mokena’s genial dairyman, who was also a member of the school’s first high school graduating class in 1914. Incidentally, one of the school’s outhouses was sold to J.M Yunker for $5, and the other to Ed Marshall for $7.50. Teaming up with his brother-in-law Byron Nelson, Lester Schiek set about to disassemble the landmark at the end of May 1934. The two men were of an admirable generation that didn’t waste, and set forth to use the school’s robust lumber, of which it was reckoned there was at least three boxcars’ worth and just “as good today as the day it was first used” to build some new houses in town. This author is aware of at least six houses in Mokena, including his own on Midland Avenue, that claim to come from school lumber. Alas, with the unmerciful passage of time, it is impossible to verify which claims are authentic. The deconstruction of the school turned out to be a veritable trip down memory lane. When the blackboards were taken out in the spring of 1929, the back of one of them was found to be covered with writing bearing the date September 21<sup>st</sup>, 1902. On it were enumerated the names of the board of education, to wit Christian Bechstein, Simon Hohenstein, and Erwin McGovney, as well as teachers W.J. Cunningham and Leah Smith, not to mention carpenters J. Bigger and Charles Maue, indicating that the moment preserved in time must have taken place during a renovation project. As the walls came down bit by bit, a book on grape growing published in 1850 was discovered between them, as was also a hammer with a broken handle, lost by some ancient workman. Incidentally, the process of taking apart the old building was helped along by what was deemed a “baby twister”, which struck town in early July. “Shingles, laths, and pieces of lumber” were described as flying through the air, all of which sent Byron Nelson running south of the Rock Island tracks to the Conoco oil station for shelter.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The work was completed in the last week of July 1934, with our <i>News-Bulletin </i>heralding on its front page that the “old Mokena school (is) a thing of the past.” While those venerated halls of education have long since disappeared from our landscape, their legacy lives on in some very tangible, everyday ways, such as the road named after the school and the houses built from it, all of whom are just as sturdy now as the day the school first went up in 1872. Not to be forgotten however, is the fact that the school’s erstwhile bell, a very important part of life in the Mokena of our forefathers, still remains here in town and can be readily visited. As the years went on, the old bell made its way to the fire department, who trooped it out occasionally on parades. In 1979, the bell was rediscovered in our midst, and as the 1980s carried on, interest in the historic relic bloomed. School Superintendent Ray Garritano came up with a plan to build a new bell tower in town much in the style of the old school’s, and after a period of brainstorming, the bell and its new home were officially dedicated on September 12<sup>th</sup>, 1985 to the students past, present and future of Mokena Public School. Thus the bell, whose strain had echoed over the rooftops of the village for decades, was given a new place of honor on a sunny knoll between the library and schools. A neat ceremony was held, complete with the pledge of allegiance led by Craig Yunker, the recitation of the Eleanor Farejon poem “School-Bell” by Amy Danielewicz, and a releasing of balloons by third grade students. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_loDLi2Upqh6j0LaieYCiEa7Wtl0G-wXuY6kQQ1K-ytk8uoyX7ShLcnztcW3l7m4Y23aOaiSpfwEiQGmOnTB_hALnuNdfOJGNAedcfRbJPAuDBKIRULtetgno65AhaA3y_8OrGHBLQ9vE4CJ_iCEXJfQDF9celul9W_KUYCBvkVazc0UgEniI4ZSizJ5P/s4032/IMG_4685.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="475" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_loDLi2Upqh6j0LaieYCiEa7Wtl0G-wXuY6kQQ1K-ytk8uoyX7ShLcnztcW3l7m4Y23aOaiSpfwEiQGmOnTB_hALnuNdfOJGNAedcfRbJPAuDBKIRULtetgno65AhaA3y_8OrGHBLQ9vE4CJ_iCEXJfQDF9celul9W_KUYCBvkVazc0UgEniI4ZSizJ5P/w357-h475/IMG_4685.jpg" width="357" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The 1881 bell of the Mokena Public School in its current home. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The bell still reposes there to this day, a small piece of one of the grandest schools Will County ever knew. It is the legacy of hundreds of Mokena children who attended class in our town in the buoyant days after the end of the Civil War, spanning the years until just before the start of the Great Depression. Their ways of life are today but a distant memory, almost lost in the haze of time. May this august iron bell serve as a permanent reminder of their stories. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-56350968012069976772023-07-09T19:01:00.001-07:002023-07-09T19:02:18.481-07:00Greater Treasure: The Story of the Semmler Family and the Mokena News-Bulletin, Part 4<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">News-Bulletin</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">was also used as platform from which to defend the rights of others and stand up to bullies. With World War II in full swing in Europe, but still more than a year before the United States entered the fray, the summer of 1940 found no small amount of chatter swirling around Will County concerning spies and other nefarious elements. Joliet citizen Otto Ehtor, editor of a paper called</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The German-American,</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">got mixed up in the hearsay, and the Semmlers came to their fellow newsman’s rescue. In a long article called “Don’t Believe or Repeat Everything You Hear” that appeared on July 12</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">, 1940, it was detailed that a “poisoned tongue whispering campaign” had leveled charges of Ehtor’s being involved with anti-American activity, and that he had even been taken into custody by the FBI. The reports were soundly quashed by the</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">News-Bulletin</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">, the Semmlers stating outright that “All the stories about him are idle gossip.” The column went on to explain that Ehtor had “ample proof that he has never been engaged in any subversive propaganda and he is 100 percent for his adopted country. There has not been one word of truth in the yarns broadcasted about him.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> An even wilder tale was also making the rounds in the county seat, where one Paul Schoene found himself under attack based on his ethnicity. The German-born hotel proprietor was also supposed to be under the investigation of government agents who allegedly had found Nazi flags and uniforms in his possession. Speaking on Schoene’s behalf, the <i>News-Bulletin</i> printed that “This yarn was just one big lie from start to finish. Mr. Schoene has been a citizen of this country for many years and has always been a loyal American citizen, one whose integrity has never been questioned.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The column had the final word by gently reminding Mokenians “that a person’s good name and reputation, which has taken years to build up, can be blasted and ruined overnight. This is a sin none of us should be a party to. Jealousy, hate and loose tongues are the cause of ill-founded yarns…Let us be really and truly Americans in every sense of the word. Do not be a scandal or war monger.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Showing great foresight, Bill Semmler was a champion of the preservation of the old Denny Cemetery on the southern edge of Mokena. Bill had taken an interest in the historic site, then a forlorn, overgrown heap, as early as the World War I era, when he was still a young beat reporter for the <i>Joliet Herald-News</i>. Interred at the hallowed grounds were the remains of Revolutionary War soldier Charles Denny, whose original 1839 gravestone was weather-beaten and crumbling by the early 20<sup>th</sup> century. Applying valuable experience gained while securing a government-issue grave marker for local Civil War veteran John Van Horne, buried at Marshall Cemetery in 1909, Semmler helped to get a new headstone for Denny in 1916. The marker arrived in Mokena via the Rock Island railroad in the dead of winter, and was stored inside W.H. Bechstein’s grain elevator until the weather broke. Years later, Margaret would call the marking of Denny’s grave one of her husband’s proudest moments. The Mokena Garden Club set out to clean up the tangled mass of weeds and overgrowth in the old family cemetery in 1939, and the <i>News-Bulletin</i> was their biggest supporter. That Armistice Day, Bill was given the honor of bestowing a new name on the site, which thenceforth was known as Pioneer Memorial Cemetery.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMn76di3mYDyAHeF-30sflhRQwof8NUz_Ggda0iCJmozSQed77WnnbZbr3z_CDi6OxW8jiByOLG_sAXhbfVm7FjOgJTrhNJFp7rU0W1usO2Tk1OreqYIubD3dMNOcgDZ2mF-qiGFV50Ml8NzNhDSKdaEGq1CFUm4Uf7AXC_aUzyb1axpxVvsv5J7O95gGz/s2305/semmler_denny_grave_1939_.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2305" data-original-width="1496" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMn76di3mYDyAHeF-30sflhRQwof8NUz_Ggda0iCJmozSQed77WnnbZbr3z_CDi6OxW8jiByOLG_sAXhbfVm7FjOgJTrhNJFp7rU0W1usO2Tk1OreqYIubD3dMNOcgDZ2mF-qiGFV50Ml8NzNhDSKdaEGq1CFUm4Uf7AXC_aUzyb1axpxVvsv5J7O95gGz/w326-h500/semmler_denny_grave_1939_.jpeg" width="326" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Bill Semmler triumphant in Wolf Road's Pioneer Memorial Cemetery, a name bestowed to the old Denny Cemetery by him in 1939. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the same vein, the paper was instrumental in causing the observance of Memorial Day to become a yearly occurrence in Mokena, where heretofore it had been an intermittent rite. At the early date of 1921, the Semmlers propelled local residents to action by publishing an impassioned column called “What About Memorial Day?” in which it was alluded that the neighboring communities of Frankfort and New Lenox could be counted on to have a full program, where “in the Mokena cemeteries lie soldiers who fought not only in the Civil War, but also in the Revolutionary War, and must their graves be allowed to be overgrown with weeds instead of flowers and with brush instead of flags just because we are too indifferent, or might we say not patriotic enough, to honor their memory?” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The next year, using flags and flowers procured by the Semmlers, the <i>News-Bulletin </i>sponsored a smart ceremony, wherein the local soldiers’ graves were decorated and various speakers were invited to town. It went over well, and starting in 1928, a regular program was carried out annually, with the Semmlers spearheading it. Later, the Boy Scouts helped ease the burden of their work, and while down the line the Mokena Civic Association took over the day’s activities, Bill Semmler still served in a place of honor as chairman of arrangements. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Perhaps Bill Semmler’s most enduring contribution to Mokena was his tireless activism for the improvement of Wolf Road, arguably the village’s most important thoroughfare. Much like those leading away from the heart within the human body, a vital artery is the lifeblood of a community, the vibrancy of a village depends on it, as do the livelihoods of the merchants therein. An impassable road spells stagnation and despair for any neighborhood, and no one was more aware of this than Bill Semmler. Through his resolute, unflagging work, Wolf Road went from a muddy path to a modern passage. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> For much of Mokena’s early existence, what would later be known as Wolf Road was barely more than a rural farm lane, known as Marti Road after a family that farmed along it. Well into the 20<sup>th</sup> century, Bill and Margaret’s daughter Ada remembered how, in anything less than perfect weather, the road “was real muddy, rocky and tough.” Bill Semmler loathed these conditions with a passion, often risking getting morassed in Wolf Road while traveling north to Orland Park to collect news. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Thus began his personal quest to bring the road into modernity. Through his local networking skills, Bill was able to win over important allies in this drive. In his corner were Charles Hirsch, a cattle man and farmer along the road, and J.V. Hall, a neighbor to Hirsch who kept a small restaurant. Other influential friends of Semmler’s who pitched in to help were L.G. Bruder, a Chicago businessman and Mokena resident, and Emil Cappel, a local farmer who also served as Frankfort Township Highway Commissioner. Together these men, with Bill Semmler as their leader, formed the Mokena Development and Hard Road Association in the early 1920s.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By December 1926, not only did the Mokena territory not have any hard roads to speak of, but it also had the dubious distinction of also not being connected to any. The Association held regular evening meetings at the village schoolhouse, and through much perseverance, succeeded in convincing property owners north of town in Cook County that the concreting of Wolf Road would benefit them. Through lobbying on their part, the neighboring county’s Board of Commissioners was persuaded to include the section of the road from 143<sup>rd</sup>Street south to the county line on a paving program. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> All things considered however; this new hard road still tapered off well north of Mokena. Bill Semmler and his fighters triumphed when a Will County bond was passed for the paving of the rest of the length through town. With the task ready to be completed, what the <i>News-Bulletin</i> later called a “spirited fight” broke out over which route the new road should follow. One local bloc supported the construction of a brand-new artery following a convoluted route from east of New Lenox, through Mokena along Front Street, then continuing further eastward until it linked up with Kean Avenue, or today’s Route 45. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Bill Semmler and by extension the <i>News-Bulletin</i> found this route totally unreasonable, and tirelessly promoted staying with the plan of completing Wolf Road south to the Lincoln Highway. In the words of his daughter Ada, in this period the entire project became a “political football”, with strife abounding between Mokena factions and the Will County Board of Supervisors, which ultimately held up the paving of the gap for several years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Meanwhile, the first concrete was poured north of town on October 15<sup>th</sup>, 1930, and when the section was finished a month later, a special ribbon cutting ceremony was held at St. Mary’s Hall. Bill still worked to have the last segment from Hickory Creek south to Lincoln Highway finished, but the dust wouldn’t ultimately settle until the autumn of 1936 due to a property dispute of epic proportions with farmer Clarence M. Cleveland. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> During the trying days of World War II, the Semmler family opened their hearts to the community and made sure that every local serviceman and woman had a friend. Partnering up with the Auxiliary to the William Martin Post of the VFW, they saw to it that every Mokena soldier, sailor or marine regularly received a free copy of the <i>News-Bulletin. </i>By Christmas time 1943 this operation had become so big, that area residents were flummoxed as to how the Semmlers were pulling it off. Many curious requests were coming in to the <i>News-Bulletin</i> wondering about the details, so a column that appeared in the December 17<sup>th</sup> edition gingerly said that an explanation had heretofore been held back as “we do not care for credit, our only aim and satisfaction being to know that our boys in the service of our country are receiving the paper and are enjoying it.” However, to satisfy its readers, the piece did go on to lay out how it was all done. Aside from the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, the Semmlers’ <i>Orland Park Herald</i> and <i>Tinley Park Times</i> were also being posted, and while there had been some reports of hiccups with delivery, generally the papers were finding their recipients. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the very beginning of the effort, Adeline and Ada Semmler handled all of the addressing of the papers’ wrappers themselves, with some help pitched in by Margaret. As the project grew, this part of the work was taken over by local volunteers. On every Thursday evening, the papers would be packed into the addressed wrappers by more town volunteers, among whom were some patriotic Mokena children who gave their time to the effort. Ever thankful for their time, Margaret rewarded the kids with hot chocolate at the <i>News-Bulletin</i>office. The postage for all of the papers, no trifling amount, was taken care of by the village’s Auxiliary to the VFW. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At the conflict’s height, about 700 complimentary copies of Semmler Press’ papers were being sent to all corners of the globe, wherever fighting men and women from Mokena and the neighboring communities were located, be they well behind the lines or at the front. During the course of the war, touching thank you letters flooded Mokena for the Semmlers, many of which came enclosed with photos of the service people who wrote them. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> On June 12<sup>th</sup>, 1943, Pvt. Sherwin Liess penned a note that partially read “Dear Mr. Semmler, This is the first I have written to you, although I should have done so long ago. I am now in North Africa and have received two <i>News-Bulletins</i> since I have been here. Altho (sic) they meant a great deal to me in the States, they mean so much more now.” On December 28<sup>th</sup> of the same year, Navy man and village trustee John Marti wrote from Mare Island, California. A few lines read “Dear Bill, it sure is swell when Tuesday comes around, for that is the day the <i>Bulletin</i> arrives. I always look forward to reading all the news from home town folks. You are sure doing a grand job for us fellows in the service, as it sure means a lot to us to hear what’s going on in the old home town.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By the time the autumn of 1944 rolled around, the <i>News-Bulletin</i> was reporting on service men and women so much, that it was beginning to push out other local news. On September 21<sup>st</sup>, Bill personally authored a column assuring readers that other news was still wanted, deeming “if the news rates first page, it will be put there anyway”, but kindly asked the neighborhood sports teams to simply summarize their games, as the scores were taking up too much space. It was signed “Yours for Victory and until our boys eat hamburgers in Tokio, (sic) Wm Semmler, Editor.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b> </b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b> </b>As the years and decades marched on, the paper grew exponentially, and by 1943, it could proudly boast a circulation of around 3,000 in eastern Will County. Meanwhile, the <i>Tinley Park Times</i> was doing so well, that it was necessary to open a separate office there in 1941. The publications of the Semmler Press had become such a time-honored institution that at the end of 1944, they were bestowed with the Certificate of Merit from the Illinois Press Association. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b> </b>Bill Semmler lost a hard battle with cancer on June 8<sup>th</sup>, 1946, at the age of 59. Thence ended a chapter not only for the Semmler family, but also for Mokena. Upon the news of his passing being made public, tributes poured into town. Illinois Senator Richard Barr called Bill a “true American”, while Will County Clerk Joseph Hartley rued “I don’t know a man I thought more of than Bill Semmler.” Everett Cooper, mayor of Mokena, the scene of so many of Bill’s labors of love, said that “In Bill’s passing, the community has lost one of its most loyal citizens and a very true friend.” Obituaries for him appeared in papers as far off as Alton and Decatur, while on June 14<sup>th</sup>, the <i>News-Bulletin</i> itself dedicated most of its large front page to their editor in black-bordered reportage under the title <i>30</i>, which in journalistic parlance, signifies an end. At the time of his passing, Bill Semmler was a member of the Illinois Press Association, the Cook County Publishers’ Association, the Lions Club of Frankfort, and was also the chairman of the Mokena Civic Association’s publicity committee. That year, he was also included in <i>Who’s Who in Chicago and Illinois</i>. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicN3mq_Zw4ty9XZixD9eOoXj0aId8ppL-O6AYc6YMwbbf62YWdQDwx3M488B5T0z-a8MEj7LC9fGSOYudIPSkgwISyZhPcFK_rWsEDcZfZW26y5SrwilhJuN8Wz14jijQX_4v5dY73Q79jcSpQy1aW5SNFXCrWtnAVlvfa_FTqnqfsWrEwmwNIyqVEmshR/s347/semmler_william.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="227" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicN3mq_Zw4ty9XZixD9eOoXj0aId8ppL-O6AYc6YMwbbf62YWdQDwx3M488B5T0z-a8MEj7LC9fGSOYudIPSkgwISyZhPcFK_rWsEDcZfZW26y5SrwilhJuN8Wz14jijQX_4v5dY73Q79jcSpQy1aW5SNFXCrWtnAVlvfa_FTqnqfsWrEwmwNIyqVEmshR/w280-h428/semmler_william.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">William Semmler, circa 1945. He will be remembered by history of as one of Mokena's greatest residents.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b> </b>It was the final wish of Bill that Margaret take the helm as editor in chief of the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, which she faithfully did, maintaining “a good newspaper, worthy of fine American principles.” Running the publication was a herculean effort, so a managing editor, Oliver Gedeist, was hired by the Semmler family in early 1947. He was introduced to Mokena and the surrounding territory in a column of the paper, where Margaret reassured her neighbors of his journalistic bona fides, and kindly urged readers to co-operate with him. Showing the homey spirit of Mokena at the time, she invited subscribers to personally call her with questions and also wondered if there might be a house in town for Gedeist to rent.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Soon after, Oliver Gedeist announced himself in a section of the paper, and well aware of his status as a new comer in the small town, warned Mokenians that he was bad with names. Gedeist was also acutely cognizant that he was following in Bill’s footsteps, writing that “In coming into this new responsibility, it is my purpose to carry the responsibility in such a way that the memory of William Semmler will be integrated in and be a basis for every business transaction conducted. The Semmler standard shall never be lowered.” And that he did, for week after week, the paper was the same quality as it always was. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Meanwhile, the <i>News-Bulletin</i> marched forward into the future. In 1947, an addition was added to the east side of the historic office to house two new linotype machines and a Miehle press. Business continued to boom, and another extension to the old place, this time on its northern side, was finished in the spring of 1953 to house a Duplex press. The new press weighed in at a colossal 13 tons, and took a pair of workers a month to install. Their labor was worth it in the end, for the new equipment carried an output of 3,500 8-page papers an hour. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b> </b>As editor in chief, Margaret Semmler won well-deserved laurels for her work. After publishing a special souvenir edition of the <i>News-Bulletin </i>for the Mokena Homecoming in the summer of 1949, the Illinois Press Association bestowed upon her the Mate E. Palmer award for that year, while the next year she received the prestigious first prize from the National Convention of Press Women at Reno, Nevada. After decades of selfless service to Mokena, Margaret semi-retired in the spring of 1955, whereupon Glenn F. Logan of Joliet took over as managing editor. At this time, the <i>News-Bulletin </i>counted a circulation of about 3,500, and maintained a staff of ten.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWyYNYL2SR57Fvff9u_ChopWeHwcPdp3zzNWfWKpOYU0pTcHBcXkB3pB7QJREVt7nRU2f7Q5Rc-zchfF-sHGtepU3e-bEVU2Efqv9b90XAw0MtK1z7b8k_pB4bu1BAqe-8hojlcMvODZn-PaCtGdSagu-KssBrN5FssFYI0-lNb65EEQ6Wzfmlnz20vgJ_/s1282/semmler_margaret_1959.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1282" data-original-width="1174" height="407" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWyYNYL2SR57Fvff9u_ChopWeHwcPdp3zzNWfWKpOYU0pTcHBcXkB3pB7QJREVt7nRU2f7Q5Rc-zchfF-sHGtepU3e-bEVU2Efqv9b90XAw0MtK1z7b8k_pB4bu1BAqe-8hojlcMvODZn-PaCtGdSagu-KssBrN5FssFYI0-lNb65EEQ6Wzfmlnz20vgJ_/w373-h407/semmler_margaret_1959.jpeg" width="373" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Margaret Semmler receives an accolade in 1959. She dedicated her life's work to Mokena, and is remembered with reverence to this day. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Margaret Semmler ultimately sold the paper in 1958 to Kenneth Johnson, a Lemont-based publisher who put out that community’s <i>Lemonter</i> as well as the <i>Lockport Herald</i>. In addition to these publications, Johnson would also later found newspapers in Downers Grove and Naperville. In 1960, he set up the <i>Frankfort Leader</i>, and that year added <i>Mokena</i> to the <i>News-Bulletin’s</i> title. After continuing to print the <i>News-Bulletin</i> for most of the rest of the decade, Johnson sold his holdings to Field Enterprises, who in June 1969 merged the <i>News-Bulletin</i> and the other local papers into the <i>Southwest Graphic.</i> After having been in print for 50 years, no small feat for a publication with such humble beginnings, the last issue of the <i>News-Bulletin</i> came off the press on June 4<sup>th</sup>, 1969. Its front page contained stories touting the new <i>Graphic</i> and bemoaning high tax rates, and thus, when the reader finished the last page, it was the end of an era. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While staying in the hands of the Semmler family, the paper’s old office on Mokena’s Front Street would go on to house a cork company, and met an untimely end in the fall of 1977, when it was forever erased from the village’s landscape. Margaret Semmler spent her later years in a Joliet retirement community, always keeping her trusty typewriter at hand and surrounded by scrapbooks of her and her late husband’s achievements. She has gone down as one of the most influential ladies in Mokena’s history, and to this day, she hasn’t been equaled. She passed away on March 4<sup>th</sup>, 1988, having reached 98 years, the doyenne of the village. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Mokena of the modern age, in all of its progress and improvement, is the legacy of the Semmler family and the <i>News-Bulletin. </i>The village owes their memory the highest attention and devotion. As we honor our history, the work of the Semmlers has become a Rosetta stone to the village’s past, without whose long efforts over the decades, this chronicle would be dark and uncharted. Through the <i>News-Bulletin</i> and their passion for Mokena, the Semmler family’s achievements have brought them immortality. <o:p></o:p></p><div><br /></div>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-1855756067102510062023-07-02T16:55:00.001-07:002023-07-09T19:01:27.456-07:00Greater Treasure: The Story of the Semmler Family and the Mokena News-Bulletin, Part 3 <p> (be sure to read Part 2 of this story, posted last week!)</p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> The</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">News-Bulletin</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">was no small town gossip rag. Aside from covering all local happenings, it also carried four or five serialized novels a year, as well as national and international news illustrated with photographs. A representative example would be a piece that appeared in an August 1931 issue that showcased the construction of the Empire State Building.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b> </b>Zesty flavor came from numerous bits of humor that appeared in the <i>News-Bulletin’s</i> pages, such as an early series of columns called <i>People of Our Town, </i>which lampooned various personalities found in rural communities. Characters such as the irate reader, a “man who has found something in this paper that he doesn’t like” who is “going around to bawl out the editor” were highlighted. Also featured was the “classy loafer”, who was “waiting for a good job to turn up, when he is going to blow this hick town.” Another piece of whimsy was “Stille Nacht”, a re-printed column that appeared in the June 21<sup>st</sup>, 1929 issue that not only pastiched two men looking for a speakeasy, but was also partially written in German. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJzHt1hmy4qYKuBz5-snIOmcU5Z64ZteP0UGT9_KZ7_S4P7YhoMcVjhYjt7y7dwg_lV5tp9SF-Fx_rGNQzQ6hIxungo-e828MnCdDXHsQyRygPXfsl6w_BvgueXd7T-JJ56EYYj3IPbugCBuPNKmZMIPWojmqAh2KyntdZgj28wXS6iCW8nAXuDsmMCvK/s683/people_of_our_town3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="428" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJzHt1hmy4qYKuBz5-snIOmcU5Z64ZteP0UGT9_KZ7_S4P7YhoMcVjhYjt7y7dwg_lV5tp9SF-Fx_rGNQzQ6hIxungo-e828MnCdDXHsQyRygPXfsl6w_BvgueXd7T-JJ56EYYj3IPbugCBuPNKmZMIPWojmqAh2KyntdZgj28wXS6iCW8nAXuDsmMCvK/w242-h385/people_of_our_town3.jpeg" width="242" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">This dapper fellow appeared in the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><i>People of Our Town</i> column, a parody of various characters to be found in a typical small town of the 1920s. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b> </b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In December 1924, the Semmlers ushered in a column called <i>The Clearing House, </i>in which Mokena residents were encouraged to write in to the paper and share their opinions on issues of the day. The zeitgeist of the era springs forth from these columns, in which townspeople voiced their views on the prohibition-related crime wave that plagued the countryside around Chicago, decrying everything from hard roads which made “escape very easy for the bandits in their high powered cars” to mail-order guns which “often times arouses some cracked brain nuts to start on a hold up career.” Bootleg liquor also stood in the crosshairs, which in the words of one village resident, was being sold to “weak minded fools to drink and kill themselves with.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At the end of the 1930s, a series of fictionalized letters were printed in the <i>News-Bulletin </i>under the title <i>Uncle Hy Says</i>. These had a lighthearted humoristic bend, and were loaded with political jabs and inside jokes about Mokena business people. In the same era, a thinly veiled editorial column named <i>Bugle Calls</i> existed in the form of pieces written under the nom de plume of Zeb Potter. Another column called <i>Voice of Vox Pop </i>appeared with some regularity. In a March 17<sup>th</sup>, 1939 piece dripping with local satire, one “Back Alley Spike” wrote “Boy, oh boy, Mokena has a real crisis. Europe has been hogging every crisis, but now we have one right here… Why, it’s the biggest scandal since Hitler took Austria!” The piece went on to parody stodgy Mokenians whose feathers were ruffled by a political new comer running for local office, with the monikered author glibly adding “Why, the nervy young so-and-so, he hasn’t been living here 75 years yet.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The true flavor of the <i>News-Bulletin</i> came from the great American tradition – the snide letter to the editor. An early example of towny salt was the communication printed by the Semmlers in July 1921, in which a resident complained about the less than optimal condition of village streets, a subject that would later prove to be a big one for Bill. The writer asked “What are the streets of Mokena for? Are they a garbage pail?” and admitted that “my temper gets the best of me when I have to drive my clean machine over egg shells, muskmelons and lemon shells, corn husks and muddy slop holes…” Referring to Bill Semmler’s status as village clerk at the time, the anonymous writer threw a barb his way when he snarled “Say, Mr. Editor, maybe you will scrap this as you are a member of this board, but if you do, there are other papers.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The many letters received by the Semmlers weren’t all grumbly, many were laudatory. Typical were the words sent by John H. Cappel of faraway Mattoon. Cappel had spent his formative years in Mokena, and like Bill, could trace his heritage to the founders of the village. In March 1926 he dropped a line to the <i>News-Bulletin</i> office reading “I want to congratulate you for the good paper you are putting out. As I enjoy reading of the old hometown very much, I can hardly wait until the paper comes…The people of Mokena and vicinity ought to be proud of the paper you publish.” Closing on a touching note, Cappel wished “that you may prosper in your work, is my prayer.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Another representative bouquet came by way of an unidentified writer to the Joliet <i>Spectator </i>in 1939. In what surely must’ve left their editor a touch confused, the correspondent breezily complimented the publication only then to quickly heap praise upon the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, expressing “I like our Mokena paper. It is a well printed and newsy country weekly, far above the average country weekly in get-up and print. I want to congratulate the editor of the Mokena <i>News-Bulletin</i> for his fine paper. ”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Semmlers also received a bouquet from none other than the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>. During the euphoric period immediately after the end of the Second World War, Norma Lee Browning of the prestigious publication found herself in Mokena, vividly profiling local residents and life in the village. Upon examining the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, she declared that “its make-up has dignity; its reportorial style has a cosmopolitan touch.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Mokenians used the <i>News-Bulletin</i> as a forum to quash rumors, the bane of small town existence. A wave of malicious hearsay that had been spreading in the area regarding farmer George Hauser induced him to write to the paper in the spring of 1933. Facing foreclosure on his farm, he wrote “I would like to get a few lines in the <i>News-Bulletin</i> and let the public know the truth about the gossip that has been going on about me.” Addressing each piece of the story individually, he eventually came to the nastiest part of the episode. Hauser stated “There was also some gossip being circulated that I threatened a shooting and this is a lie. I did not come from fighting stock.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Those who were on the starting end of hearsay also got a chance to speak. During a period in October 1924 when some burglaries had recently taken place in town, hardware storekeeper Milton Krapp sold some keys to residents Peter Homerding and Aloys Perschera. Finding the purchases suspicious, Krapp tipped off village constable John Frisch. Later realizing his mistake, the shopkeeper wrote a note to the newspaper, which reprinted it on the front page under the heading “An Apology.” Explaining what had happened, the Mokenian made his realization clear that the event had “cast a serious reflection on the characters of both Mr. Homerding and Mr. Perschera, and as they are entirely innocent in this matter, I hereby publicly extend my apologies to them for the statement that I made to Officer Frisch concerning them.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Bill and Margaret Semmler weren’t simply journalists reporting the news, they were also arguably Mokena’s most passionate advocates, who used the <i>News-Bulletin </i>to lift the community in every way. A long column published in the February 11<sup>th</sup>, 1921 issue called “What Can Mokena Do?” addressed a shortage of housing in the village and a general sense of stagnation that had crept in. Bill penned the piece, which cheered “Mokena would have a future if everyone got together and pushed” and “Let us see how some small improvements can be made, which will lead to bigger ones.” While warning that “out of date customs do not work anymore”, he devotedly pushed for development, patronizing local businesses, and keeping up the town bandstand at Union and Third Streets.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Bill Semmler’s editorials leapt off the page and forced the reader to take notice. In reading them, one came to see that his heart beat for Mokena. In response to later accusations that his paper was favoring the advancement of other nearby communities, Bill authored a front page editorial called “Mokena Needs Co-Operative Boost.” Appearing in the April 15<sup>th</sup>, 1926 issue, Semmler defended his stance that “The <i>News-Bulletin</i> always stands ready to boost any worthy project or undertaking that is for the betterment and welfare of any community, and to knock everything that knocks the town.” Coming straight to his hometown, he said “This town has the finest opportunity in the world to become one of the best towns along the Rock Island, but whether it does or does not, all remains not with its citizens, but with its business men!” Calling on Mokena’s tradespeople to band together and promote commerce in town, he also declared again that “The old petty jealousies that have dominated Mokena for years must be eradicated before the village will progress. At present we have too much of that old spirit. It doesn’t pay to nurse this spirit. Cut it out and let us all work for one goal – the upbuilding and progress of Mokena.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Another editorial, which appeared in the September 7th, 1928 edition, addressed a particularly prickly issue. A piece was printed detailing how some town boys had been caught in the basement of an abandoned Front Street building, allegedly in the act of setting it aflame. The young men later turned up at the <i>News</i>-<i>Bulletin</i>office down the street, claiming that they merely had the misfortune of being found with a kerosene lamp in their possession, and that they’d been spinning their wheels in the community, with nothing to do and nowhere to focus their energy. Titled “Youths Present Social Problem”, the subsequent editorial on this matter said “The fact of the matter is these boys are RIGHT…The youth of today will be the citizens of to-morrow. The old idea that a boy or girl must sow their wild oats is all the bunk….Let us wake up and do something for the youth of our community.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">(Stay tuned for the final part of this story!)</p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-88421362419885446182023-06-25T18:51:00.003-07:002023-07-09T19:02:50.435-07:00Greater Treasure: The Story of the Semmler Family and the Mokena News-Bulletin, Part 2<p> <span face="Calibri, sans-serif">(be sure to read Part 1 of this story, posted last week!)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> When the <i>Joliet Weekly News </i>and the <i>Joliet Herald</i> became one in 1915, Mokena residents noticed immediately that the subscription for the new paper was a heftier price than that of the old <i>News</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In neighboring Tinley Park, businessmen who had enjoyed his coverage of their neck of the woods during his time with the <i>News</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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 <i>Mokena Star</i>, appeared in 1852, as the community was barely more than a handful of buildings along the newly built Rock Island line. The <i>Mokena Advertiser</i> 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 <i>Mokena Commercial Advertiser</i> was printed in Lockport. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The <i>Joliet Weekly News</i>, and later its amalgamated form, the <i>Joliet Herald-News </i>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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgr6tYhKOXr5jWZ5zrtnOcq7Hr9iD8JFwD-cz0Zuu02Gr7EcF54w7XBvDLij57lMvbEviu8AxYO0gTfQ5W8US2wp4lJ8vWJ6wfVY3ee3EQHU2eRegYLoa_ZEfeD0olpbVvGTFzeZfCy3N2yp67z8MdPrRgVCLSGmTz4s7YQ8DUrfGs5leuweW7E7XGCoZv/s3156/hensel.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1960" data-original-width="3156" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgr6tYhKOXr5jWZ5zrtnOcq7Hr9iD8JFwD-cz0Zuu02Gr7EcF54w7XBvDLij57lMvbEviu8AxYO0gTfQ5W8US2wp4lJ8vWJ6wfVY3ee3EQHU2eRegYLoa_ZEfeD0olpbVvGTFzeZfCy3N2yp67z8MdPrRgVCLSGmTz4s7YQ8DUrfGs5leuweW7E7XGCoZv/w580-h360/hensel.png" width="580" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-family: helvetica;">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. </span></div></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFkKmvuM1JnDnDY79jAX1fet7EyisqbQeMUGfHss6qleBsqTjlH74ivP9ImkOWwdNR6jHIStg_O9AHIy8bcnGHvEgmpJe0yVKTzn1Axpg2ehNFU4ApOlxQCWMhNHiot6mkafiFBZ7nEOQx_gM_RhR-o1hZ50h5WwVlUAPu-Gkgvk8UR33MECU5PbihYfbd/s1387/news_bulletin_office.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="917" data-original-width="1387" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFkKmvuM1JnDnDY79jAX1fet7EyisqbQeMUGfHss6qleBsqTjlH74ivP9ImkOWwdNR6jHIStg_O9AHIy8bcnGHvEgmpJe0yVKTzn1Axpg2ehNFU4ApOlxQCWMhNHiot6mkafiFBZ7nEOQx_gM_RhR-o1hZ50h5WwVlUAPu-Gkgvk8UR33MECU5PbihYfbd/w537-h357/news_bulletin_office.jpg" width="537" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The Mokena office of the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, seen circa 1925. The historic building stood at the site of contemporary 10842 Front Street. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> On August 21<sup>st</sup>, 1919, the first issue of the newspaper was born to the world, bearing the heady title of the <i>News-Bulletin.</i> In a reflection of the epoch in which it was born, the <i>News-Bulletin</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Composed of eight pages, (with five columns to a page) it could all be had for $1.75 a year. Those first editions of <i>The News-Bulletin</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By August 1921, the price of a yearly <i>News-Bulletin</i> 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 <i>News-Bulletin</i>’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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Semmlers also had to take on no small amount of debt to get the <i>News-Bulletin</i> 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 <i>News-Bulletin </i>office began to regularly carry large supplies of it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Bill and Margaret Semmler were the brains behind the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, 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<sup>th</sup>, 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 <i>News-Bulletin</i>, the Semmlers noted “We do not believe in boasting, but the fact is that this machine is a boost for the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, as it gives us fine equipment, such as is seldom found in a small town.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup>, 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.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqECaQYK6IaT8zPjle9QeJOn8XyUPzOhdWG-YwgzNXAgJEvy8JxOwLLDynDe__VqFWAgfFEuALaqil1ZJ_G3MDGXKxGhFoXRz0tf8MvctKXIpyy8v7gva8JJ3dFuhm5dat5kds6N-nxafOok1w10o5-dY5GIBSds7A1j7bgF12ctNhuk7-l7HkFriiz2mO/s798/linotype_8july1923.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="705" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqECaQYK6IaT8zPjle9QeJOn8XyUPzOhdWG-YwgzNXAgJEvy8JxOwLLDynDe__VqFWAgfFEuALaqil1ZJ_G3MDGXKxGhFoXRz0tf8MvctKXIpyy8v7gva8JJ3dFuhm5dat5kds6N-nxafOok1w10o5-dY5GIBSds7A1j7bgF12ctNhuk7-l7HkFriiz2mO/w345-h389/linotype_8july1923.jpeg" width="345" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">A 1923 view of the Linotype, a vital piece of equipment in the Semmlers' shop.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVbNW61wIZTXW0M_mwFL1Ze-tUz3wCU2QRtt5V2nflEnXBO83qjIfpACG-A3Ab0MPo7E0EeRapBL61RGrjxtxvFfPBILI8zYDWfRxgvxYhrw_Nk3wZxkt0NJfnm7gUgfJPlI5C5ydFH77ETNkaIWwBJDwKU7TsVUA0UvP5QqnAS7jsmZEM-4tdnbg05eyC/s500/press_21aug1925.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="500" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVbNW61wIZTXW0M_mwFL1Ze-tUz3wCU2QRtt5V2nflEnXBO83qjIfpACG-A3Ab0MPo7E0EeRapBL61RGrjxtxvFfPBILI8zYDWfRxgvxYhrw_Nk3wZxkt0NJfnm7gUgfJPlI5C5ydFH77ETNkaIWwBJDwKU7TsVUA0UvP5QqnAS7jsmZEM-4tdnbg05eyC/w422-h249/press_21aug1925.jpeg" width="422" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">This depiction of the family's press appeared in a 1925 edition of the <i>News-Bulletin.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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 <i>News-Bulletin</i>, but with the new press, it came down to an hour and a half. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup>, 1920 issue that lamented the <i>News-Bulletin</i> “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<sup>th</sup>, 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 <i>News-Bulletin</i>, the Semmlers humbly thanked everyone who helped rescue them and their property.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By the mid-1920s, the <i>News-Bulletin</i> 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 <i>News-Bulletin’s</i> 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.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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 <i>News-Bulletin’s</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the <i>News-Bulletin’s</i> 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.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> This ability to drum up news from nearby communities was a keystone to the Semmlers’ success. In conjunction with the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, the family went on to found several other newspapers in Eastern Will County and Southern Cook County. One, the <i>Tinley Park Times,</i> 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 <i>Times </i>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 <i>Orland Park Herald</i>, which debuted in 1926. In terms of layout and content, these publications were very similar to the <i>News-Bulletin</i>, with the articles on the front page being swapped for eye-grabbing happenings of each respective community. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the years carried on, the <i>News-Bulletin</i> 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 <i>News-Bulletin </i>got a leg up on the afternoon of January 18<sup>th</sup>, 1933 when it, along with the <i>Orland Park Herald </i>and the <i>Tinley Park Times</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The <i>News-Bulletin</i> 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 <i>News-Bulletin</i> 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.” </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbR88v8AJHyKQh1Jj85QFBJP6Vs2FQqwxsupfLrBq4dAwXdSG72dHGEy7gPzMyMemwWUMc6Dd19lUZUciqRpwxmlshLpT6F-TSZ5AQfWvVADSDQy-Lyt0k0z2gFf47x3VuCyTRtcnZsI5rn3FI2-F4Wt_ZmJcBPopMCPFkisawCJVSYny1GnnD6oZvgRLc/s2860/semmler_bill_22aug1941.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2860" data-original-width="2518" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbR88v8AJHyKQh1Jj85QFBJP6Vs2FQqwxsupfLrBq4dAwXdSG72dHGEy7gPzMyMemwWUMc6Dd19lUZUciqRpwxmlshLpT6F-TSZ5AQfWvVADSDQy-Lyt0k0z2gFf47x3VuCyTRtcnZsI5rn3FI2-F4Wt_ZmJcBPopMCPFkisawCJVSYny1GnnD6oZvgRLc/w396-h448/semmler_bill_22aug1941.jpg" width="396" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While Bill Semmler’s name appeared in almost every issue as editor, the contributions of his family members to the <i>News-Bulletin</i> 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 <i>The Washington Post</i>, another reporter would years later sublimely call her “the Katherine Graham of Mokena in her day.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUa3yNyZSSH6BNsWHyXx9RBqn5vnWfbm9N3xCVcCQheRcERuElJ0PWn39xqovoeY9BmufAxf4vQN45WxWA5Zz3d3cibDrBeRuHzOlxOMA2VgiI9SfrHeFtzN36rGdDtHp8JrZcOA--EBX8cNmLtbWiXEWTXqhYPTLGcWdVMMcpDOkoXMX_CVn1uTvD1CnQ/s566/semmler_adeline_1935_2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="428" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUa3yNyZSSH6BNsWHyXx9RBqn5vnWfbm9N3xCVcCQheRcERuElJ0PWn39xqovoeY9BmufAxf4vQN45WxWA5Zz3d3cibDrBeRuHzOlxOMA2VgiI9SfrHeFtzN36rGdDtHp8JrZcOA--EBX8cNmLtbWiXEWTXqhYPTLGcWdVMMcpDOkoXMX_CVn1uTvD1CnQ/s320/semmler_adeline_1935_2.png" width="242" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Adeline Semmler in 1938.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYHqPkaLS2kJoHiqtGy2wLVMhoUXoKHqZhTJ4Lx8Avy3OkonEBRqdlJzR5ZLviZLaP2XRKc21zlOh0sr2fYWrgGYqeX56ZuXEae9ib3f0QdwWswGQYrMPzGjGKo_OwM62kJRE4usiZGA6d2fmk0ZCJ52LdciTeU01h-G5vULgi51oRG-i1J9_Wpor1T04a/s1078/Semmler_Ada_1938_2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1078" data-original-width="874" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYHqPkaLS2kJoHiqtGy2wLVMhoUXoKHqZhTJ4Lx8Avy3OkonEBRqdlJzR5ZLviZLaP2XRKc21zlOh0sr2fYWrgGYqeX56ZuXEae9ib3f0QdwWswGQYrMPzGjGKo_OwM62kJRE4usiZGA6d2fmk0ZCJ52LdciTeU01h-G5vULgi51oRG-i1J9_Wpor1T04a/s320/Semmler_Ada_1938_2.png" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">A 1938 likeness of Ada Semmler.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><div><div id="edn1"><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p>(Stay tuned for Part 3 of this story!) </o:p></p></div></div>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-48552473128934057592023-06-18T17:08:00.006-07:002023-07-09T19:03:08.567-07:00Greater Treasure: The Story of the Semmler Family and the Mokena News-Bulletin, Part 1<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">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.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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 <i>News-Bulletin</i>, 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. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup>, 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. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6Q004oISU4yXvJw1M6d0dVwJ5XwKwpZsNw2lljEbpqYUVTQVmLm6ZNF-Hznt5mwxkD_Ya26w4Fh-TzJ-ElaqXF2-4srWBqu4H2nXUYDBUcM0DIP5Q95oM74aRFcnySC47OnFNJFqrokl6T_1aOzZI5112ljKC8g7b7i_6ms_BuY3wen8ew4-DeabNg/s2836/heim_saloon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2032" data-original-width="2836" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6Q004oISU4yXvJw1M6d0dVwJ5XwKwpZsNw2lljEbpqYUVTQVmLm6ZNF-Hznt5mwxkD_Ya26w4Fh-TzJ-ElaqXF2-4srWBqu4H2nXUYDBUcM0DIP5Q95oM74aRFcnySC47OnFNJFqrokl6T_1aOzZI5112ljKC8g7b7i_6ms_BuY3wen8ew4-DeabNg/w575-h412/heim_saloon.jpg" width="575" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">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)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup>, 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup>, 1887. He was baptized at St. John’s in Mokena on June 4<sup>th</sup> 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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 <i>Joliet Weekly News</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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 <i>Weekly News</i> 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 <i>News</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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 <i>News </i>on August 15<sup>th</sup>, 1907, which contained stanzas such as<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Glory after the gloom/Blessing after the blight,<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Joy after deep sorrow/After darkness the light<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Another piece, “The Threshold” which appeared the day after Christmas that year, partially read<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The joyous bells o’er moor and fell/in mellow echoes their story tell<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">And this is their joyous refrain:<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">A bright and happy New Year’s here again!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup>, 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 <i>News. </i>The young couple tied the knot on October 21<sup>st</sup>, 1914<a href="applewebdata://BE1968D9-5B54-47DF-BDF0-066F5043EFAC#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a> 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. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkmEBRjgDW7Cm_B_2ge4EPZZE7nmvRTgSZdSrJKfRHCJasuTtHU_wxKlk-9LvaO9sa8hAPIQgzsxmjdvIWb2fF2-9MdMsLr4yrqHW5j_lwr0icoQ1SRzbxCTBaWBTDsPgOSSAcE-ZySB_ju4dtTEr7cqCOOXhdx_7buUJUp9zUZg-Z3hP6CT5fD1UuQ/s4032/midland_house_june2019.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkmEBRjgDW7Cm_B_2ge4EPZZE7nmvRTgSZdSrJKfRHCJasuTtHU_wxKlk-9LvaO9sa8hAPIQgzsxmjdvIWb2fF2-9MdMsLr4yrqHW5j_lwr0icoQ1SRzbxCTBaWBTDsPgOSSAcE-ZySB_ju4dtTEr7cqCOOXhdx_7buUJUp9zUZg-Z3hP6CT5fD1UuQ/w508-h382/midland_house_june2019.jpg" width="508" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXPbOtK88ECX2e3dn72kvq6xASeaxNabxHv4i8oTzZko2OxhAHREedI9kfbtoxgGxRT1-5Mc0lTRPS7uBR5M1-xlgdw8kG3GROvKuEFRO67-XuY5RDaH6faLKpQJGEewUGlMladKG_mHmX3p_wBf_hp3dmJ3Zk7nk7iANDvUH2avO1_aw3rAdOAyO8A/s1126/camp_fire_girls.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="724" data-original-width="1126" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXPbOtK88ECX2e3dn72kvq6xASeaxNabxHv4i8oTzZko2OxhAHREedI9kfbtoxgGxRT1-5Mc0lTRPS7uBR5M1-xlgdw8kG3GROvKuEFRO67-XuY5RDaH6faLKpQJGEewUGlMladKG_mHmX3p_wBf_hp3dmJ3Zk7nk7iANDvUH2avO1_aw3rAdOAyO8A/w514-h331/camp_fire_girls.png" width="514" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The <i>Joliet Weekly News, </i>Bill’s employer, consolidated with the <i>Joliet Herald </i>in 1915, which put him on the staff of the new <i>Joliet Herald-News</i> 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 <i>Forward</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup>, 1917. She was followed by her sister Ada Semmler three years later on February 7<sup>th</sup>, 1920. <o:p></o:p></p><div><br clear="all" /><div id="edn1"><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in;">(Tune in next week for Part 2 of this story!)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-963694196926259572023-06-04T18:47:00.002-07:002023-06-04T18:48:57.991-07:00Birth of a Village: Mokena's Road to Incorporation<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">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.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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 <i>Volk</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup> 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 <i>Joliet Republican</i> 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<sup>th</sup>, 1875. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup> 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 <i>Daily Sun</i> snidely commenting that “Mokena will consequently remain in her present benighted condition.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>st</sup>, 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> One of the first orders of business was the election of officers, which took place June 14<sup>th</sup>, 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ixQTewH8GioSyLypwSw_jkIidWm81uMGT3QyXQqRAQGQnhEPW8HYhbb72nAhzVdcIJV68rsyVE2FjIfcVGtXYcuK3P8K2Dllpdb7FfKwBfVznNnvVW9QNFQ2Y5Xl92NTZkxBWT7GoZpS9U-NtYVE9nWnsQGBiUUCq3ifzoDoP8aDA_ewFUdTUVQzDw/s1146/ozias_mcgovney_ca1878.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1146" data-original-width="781" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ixQTewH8GioSyLypwSw_jkIidWm81uMGT3QyXQqRAQGQnhEPW8HYhbb72nAhzVdcIJV68rsyVE2FjIfcVGtXYcuK3P8K2Dllpdb7FfKwBfVznNnvVW9QNFQ2Y5Xl92NTZkxBWT7GoZpS9U-NtYVE9nWnsQGBiUUCq3ifzoDoP8aDA_ewFUdTUVQzDw/w324-h476/ozias_mcgovney_ca1878.jpg" width="324" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The first mayor of Mokena, Ozias McGovney, seen here circa 1878. <o:p></o:p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup> 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<sup>th</sup>, 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:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC-y5GAGHVTEHrWRYYGcAqXwHVt3y9rAYEOUifBYM8HPyzlRFqthyO_J2Fk_Hxbqp-ncXKkP93MJWNzsaa9TFBXf9FAd1SEDCbL-Yw-BO7XvUO65lVL-RqpWKLypSQ2AHc4MdIF6TG8SzbnVxH8PnEfxTmVL_r1GTPgbRA49zuOV3YpwesW8u7LAdNNA/s1222/scheer.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="914" data-original-width="1222" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC-y5GAGHVTEHrWRYYGcAqXwHVt3y9rAYEOUifBYM8HPyzlRFqthyO_J2Fk_Hxbqp-ncXKkP93MJWNzsaa9TFBXf9FAd1SEDCbL-Yw-BO7XvUO65lVL-RqpWKLypSQ2AHc4MdIF6TG8SzbnVxH8PnEfxTmVL_r1GTPgbRA49zuOV3YpwesW8u7LAdNNA/w477-h356/scheer.png" width="477" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">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.<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-49966695056230691952023-05-06T19:00:00.002-07:002023-05-07T17:56:40.039-07:00Sturm und Drang: The Story of Jakob Baumgartner and the Great 1879 Saloon Debacle<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">A family’s peace can have profound consequences for a community. Luckily for we Mokenians, as a whole we tend to be an amiable lot, keeping to our own affairs as we live and let live. However, many have been the times in our town’s history that disputes between husbands and wives or parents and children have spilled out into the public arena, shocking all within hearing range. Happening in yesteryear, these incidents were only amplified by the smallness of our then-rural village, a place where everyone knew everyone else. Looking back over the span of ages, one incident from the far-off year of 1879 stands out as the perfect example. What had started out as a family drama, eventually engulfed not only Mokena, but our sister town of Frankfort to such a stark degree that the media in the county seat paid close attention. It all swirled around one man, a farmer named Jakob Baumgartner.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Bearing the immense honor of being one of our earliest pioneers, Jakob Baumgartner’s life is worth a close look. He came to us by way of an idyllic Swiss village called Rapperswil, where he was born on September 2<sup>nd</sup>, 1828 to Jakob Baumgartner Sr. and Anna Maria Bart. Baumgartner spent his formulative years in this charming sliver of Europe, a community whose history can be traced to the age of the Roman Empire. All in all, this resolute clan came to America and carved out a place of their own in the freshly formed Frankfort Township in 1851, the family unit at that time being made up of Jakob, his parents, two of his brothers and four of his sisters. At least one account mentions that Jakob’s older brother Johannes was already stateside at this time, seeking his fortune in the gold fields of California. Regardless of who was in our environs when, looking back over the stretch of more than a century and a half, we can call every member of this family a founding mother and father of our community. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The elder Jakob Baumgartner began amassing land holdings between today’s Mokena and Frankfort, and before his death in 1855, had come to own several hundred acres, that would by and by pass to his sons Jakob and Johannes, after the latter had returned from the west. The lion’s share of Jakob Jr.’s acreage was centered around contemporary Route 45 and St. Francis Road, where his homestead stood on the northeast side of the country intersection. In the spring of 1853, young Jakob Baumgartner took Philippina Maue as his wife, at a time when Mokena was a hatchling of a town, barely being a year old. Philippina was six years her husband’s junior, and the daughter of a pioneering German family who lived a tad north of where our village was sprouting up. Together, the couple would raise ten children of their own, all of whom were born in Frankfort Township. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM9HKQ136JzLS_s-XMPpHaeYU7Zo6fQVe01ymgmJ0ykSCmk3Y9eZW8DHR6dWX75qIQbNa2eDUFOiuakqrzE0KkSVE0Omp4s2tRsFI6asbs3WKIStb1n33ApCTvqFr9ErI88y2aNyEGktPDdpjRaMdD_db7PublbC1tn6T8IjcZmh2KzgN4snrWEC4zYg/s1668/baumgartner.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="1668" height="407" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM9HKQ136JzLS_s-XMPpHaeYU7Zo6fQVe01ymgmJ0ykSCmk3Y9eZW8DHR6dWX75qIQbNa2eDUFOiuakqrzE0KkSVE0Omp4s2tRsFI6asbs3WKIStb1n33ApCTvqFr9ErI88y2aNyEGktPDdpjRaMdD_db7PublbC1tn6T8IjcZmh2KzgN4snrWEC4zYg/w523-h407/baumgartner.png" width="523" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The homestead of Jakob Baumgartner in Frankfort Township as it appeared in 1873.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Being possessed of the immoveable faith that characterized our Teutonic residents, Jakob and Philippina Baumgartner were founding parishioners of the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church in Mokena, having been with the flock since they first worshipped together in our one-room schoolhouse in 1858. In proving his dedication to his beliefs and congregation, Jakob made a gift to them that year of eight dollars, or roughly 280 dollars in today’s funds. By 1860, nine years after his arrival, the American dream had come to favor Jakob Baumgartner; his farm at the time being composed of 80 acres of improved land, with seven horses and twelve milch cows. Over the previous year, he had produced 100 bushels of wheat, and 2,000 bushels of Indian corn. The estate only expanded to the east as time went on, engulfing acreage previously owned by Baumgartner’s younger brother Benedicht. In his day, Jakob Baumgartner was a well-respected man in both Mokena and Frankfort, and by the 1870s, he was prospering, even going to establish a cheese factory in 1875 with brother Johannes, father-in-law Franz Maue, neighbor George Geuther and another man. A proud local landmark, it stood on the northern banks of Hickory Creek until it was moved to a spot east of Frankfort in 1991.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Jakob Baumgartner was no stranger to intrigue. A particularly ugly incident in the summer of 1868 ended with his being shot in the face by one Rudolph Gefeller, in what appeared to be a dispute over money. The wound was a serious one, but the farmer was able to pull through. In the prime of his life, America was a place where many societal problems could be blamed on alcoholism, a plague on our land. The glut of saloons in Mokena and Frankfort didn’t help either. So it was, that Jakob Baumgartner had fallen under the vile curse of drink. Everything came to a head in what one contemporary called a “most fiendish and hell-deserving outrage” shortly after the passing of his father-in-law, Franz Maue. As the funeral cortege of nearly 100 horse-drawn carriages was making its way to St. John’s Cemetery on rainy March 5<sup>th</sup>, 1879, the mourners passed a large, homemade sign outside Mokena reading “Jacob Baumgartner, a habitual drunkard and son-in-law of the deceased.” The sight was unexpected and a shock to all who saw it that day, with one Frankforter even opining <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“Did anyone ever suppose humanity would become so debased as to offer such an open insult to a funeral procession? Alas, alas, what are we coming to?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Whether it was the imbroglio with the sign or some other long forgotten impasse, the proverbial straw had broken the camel’s back. 33-year-old Frank Baumgartner, son of Jakob, had reached a point of no return. He set the saloon keepers of Mokena and Frankfort, whom he faulted for his father’s condition, in his crosshairs. The younger Baumgartner swore out a complaint to the grand jury, and a total of eight saloonists from both towns were indicted on charges of “selling to a person in the habit of getting intoxicated.” Many accusations were made against the farmer, and from our standpoint in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, it must be remembered that Jakob Baumgartner was the victim of a terrible disease, one that had little prospects for cure in his day, and we shouldn’t view him with the harsh judgement that some of his contemporaries did. It bears remembering that none of us were there, and that we have to rely on period accounts to tell the story. The truth is somewhere between the clouds. As the Baumgartner case gained traction, it was noticed by the Joliet papers. The <i>Signal </i>was a steadfast defender of his, and refuted every point that been made about him, stating that he was “a man whose word is as good as gold” and that “he always manages his business successfully.” The <i>Weekly Sun</i>said that his “life has been a blameless one”, although both publications admitted there was at least a kernel of truth to the claims, with the former sheet writing “he would occasionally take a glass of beer and once in a while, perhaps, exhibit the exhilarating effects of so doing in a small degree” and the latter “at times he gets too much to drink, which (is) a great source of grief to his family.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The case came to trial in the county seat in early 1879, and ran for two days. The defendants were watering hole owners Ferdinand and John Schiek, and John Zahn of Mokena, along with Charles Baumann, F. Kramer and Martin Muff of Frankfort. Two Mokena barkeeps, Nicholas Schuberth and Phillip Stellwagen were also initially indicted, but managed to have their charges dropped. The accused combined their resources to put up a mutual defense, but even this act of solidarity was a rocky road – one saloonist who was not party to the charges was encouraged to contribute to the fund, but would have nothing to do with it. Outraged, the others tried to blackmail him on charges of serving minors unless he chipped in, but upon reminding them that they did nothing for him when he sat in jail for a couple months previously, he made his point. Fifty witnesses were subpoenaed, leading citizens of Mokena and Frankfort both. At the end of the proceedings, each defendant was fined $20 and costs. Feeling morally justified, on reporting the verdict the Joliet <i>Daily News </i>preached that it would teach the saloon keepers to “look out for these old suckers”, referencing Jakob Baumgartner and those like him. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8xT2ZsbkjHI1qmDGhHWOjDwMN7OwyVLqlo4ywh0mt-6A4IIQoJRcW4Q2wpByKwqbz6J0R6kcuQBbCrX8f1TV3pA2XfgGOroXIkWiZRSut-puo91S-H04BZ4VlP4NYvCUSTTpZo-kyk8IxUHvwkC66Tvx1ZHO9fun6cy4uTDAhN3GlDqjbeWjohwITg/s1304/baumgartner_jakob.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1304" data-original-width="880" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8xT2ZsbkjHI1qmDGhHWOjDwMN7OwyVLqlo4ywh0mt-6A4IIQoJRcW4Q2wpByKwqbz6J0R6kcuQBbCrX8f1TV3pA2XfgGOroXIkWiZRSut-puo91S-H04BZ4VlP4NYvCUSTTpZo-kyk8IxUHvwkC66Tvx1ZHO9fun6cy4uTDAhN3GlDqjbeWjohwITg/w346-h510/baumgartner_jakob.png" width="346" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The grave of Jakob Baumgartner in St. John's Cemetery. (Image courtesy of Michael Philip Lyons)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The actions of Frank Baumgartner in bringing charges against the saloon keepers led to an unexpected financial fallout for him. Maintaining the family cheese factory on Hickory Creek, he ran into problems in the aftermath of the debacle when Mokena and Frankfort’s German farmers refused to sell him their dairy products. In the words of the Joliet <i>Republican, </i>“the watch-word with them appears to be ‘no lager, no milk.’” With the passage of time, it is unknown how Jakob Baumgartner’s disease played out or if he ultimately recovered. In any case, he eventually retired and moved to Englewood, where he departed on March 16<sup>th</sup>, 1892 of cancer. The German United Evangelical St. John’s Church of Mokena buried him in their graveyard south of town, where a weathered obelisk stands over his dust, its gothic lettering still readable when the sun hits it just right. An acrimonious ruckus was raised in 1879, but all these years later we should remember that Jakob Baumgartner was a founding pioneer of our community and a pillar in St. John’s Church, which continues to do the same great work in our town that it did in his day. Although the path upon which he walked was sometimes rough, he deserves to be remembered and honored. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-26727534612282835142023-04-09T17:47:00.001-07:002023-04-09T17:47:09.029-07:00A Century of History: The Story of Front Street's Kolber Building<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">It was one of the stateliest buildings to ever grace Mokena. Its 19</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">century eminence exuded grace, money and commerce, and within its walls built by the sturdy hands of our pioneers, over a century of our village’s history played out. Having formerly stood on the northwest corner of Front and Mokena Streets, this vanished landmark, long since faded into the background of history, was host to a cross section of some of the most unique personages in our collective story. As succeeding generations grew older and new Mokenians came into the scene, the monikers for the place also changed – our forefathers in the aftermath of the Civil War knew the locale as Conrad Stoll’s general store, while early in the 20</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">century villagers would’ve known it as David Kolber’s hardware emporium, and later local youth called the place Gus Braun’s ice cream shop. Turning back the curtain of the ages at this corner reveals no small amount of local lore attached to this spot.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv4Y2qAUeUnaXhqn5uOj4hqQgLAltLbGKpig8j6beeJge5z4OkeFWXb7gmtN8icTA2R6soVtdQ6a0zcZYbJpaZxGt_bbO9OBt3-hxn5ZGNRdlV1ssnPAP5yMvRPtA1sLmMK5mFoOFlhQYS99mZgosA7mddJiUaILDhYcvJnVOQiyffLiqMEL1IjFHBOQ/s1628/bank_along_frontst.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1023" data-original-width="1628" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv4Y2qAUeUnaXhqn5uOj4hqQgLAltLbGKpig8j6beeJge5z4OkeFWXb7gmtN8icTA2R6soVtdQ6a0zcZYbJpaZxGt_bbO9OBt3-hxn5ZGNRdlV1ssnPAP5yMvRPtA1sLmMK5mFoOFlhQYS99mZgosA7mddJiUaILDhYcvJnVOQiyffLiqMEL1IjFHBOQ/w542-h341/bank_along_frontst.jpg" width="542" /></a></div><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">A vibrant scene of Front Street looking east towards Mokena Street, circa 1920. The edifice at the heart of this story stands at second from left, and was at this time the home of David Kolber’s hardware store. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The old structure occupied a prime location in town, in the middle of the hustle and bustle of our community’s business life. Based on its immense size and the way it was constructed, whoever it was that built this place, had to have first envisioned it as a hotel, as the Mokena of its day was a rapidly blooming, up-and-coming spot on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. Who this early entrepreneur was, or if any travelers ever took a room there, is long since lost to the unforgiving tides of time. Also erased from the ages of memory is the exact date this grand edifice was built. Its walls were raised in a vernacular version of the Greek Revival style, its long, broad front being a stark hallmark of this feature. Due to the fact that this style of architecture saw widespread use in the American Midwest during the years leading up to the Civil War, it can be deduced that this building made its appearance sometime in those halcyon days after the Rock Island was first built and Mokena was born in 1852.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Looking back, the first name that can confidently be tied to this property is that of Swiss-born carpenter Sebastian Lagger, who with his wife Magdalena sold this lot and the one directly north in March of 1861. While having previously lived in our midst, at the time of the sale the Laggers had moved to the county seat, and in an interesting footnote, their son Sebastian Jr., who was born in a log cabin in Mokena in 1856, would serve as mayor of the former place from 1897 to 1900. When the Laggers sold their Mokena property, the legal paperwork turned it over to Ludwig Stoll for $450, quite a substantial sum in those days. At the time of the sale, a building was already situated on the parcel, in which Stoll operated a flour and feed store. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The new owner was a man of sterling quality, being a native of the miniscule Teutonic duchy of Nassau in the southwest of today’s Germany. Having lived in the shadow of the Taunus mountain range, Ludwig Stoll was considered an “expert miller and mechanical engineer” in his homeland. Seeking greener pastures, he left Europe with his family in tow in 1846, being fortunate enough to just miss the revolutionary upheaval that swept the continent two years later. The Stolls sailed the blue Atlantic via Holland, and landed in New York City on August 12<sup>th</sup>, after a mercifully calm voyage of 56 days. The patriarch followed his profession in the Empire State until 1855, when the twists and turns of destiny took the family to us in Illinois. Ludwig ultimately didn’t hold onto his property in young Mokena for long, as he turned around and sold it to his 42-year-old son Conrad Leopold Stoll on May 1<sup>st</sup>, 1861, mere weeks after the beginning of the Civil War. Seven months later, on December 12<sup>th</sup>, the head of the family departed from some long-forgotten ailment. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> New owner Conrad Stoll would come to open a general merchandise store in the Front Street building. After first braving the transatlantic voyage reaching our shore with the rest of his family in the summer of 1846, he went to Pennsylvania to seek his fortune, only to turn up empty handed, before bouncing back to his kin in New York, and ultimately joining his father in our neck of the woods in 1859. At the time of his arrival in the village, he was on his second wife, young Franziska, and the father of seven children, of which four more would join them after their midwestern arrival. The Stolls would be inseparable with the early building up of Mokena. Aside from the new store, which would only grow in economic stature over time, Conrad along with his brothers Charles, Henry and William would build a steam-powered grist mill here in 1858. Located in the vicinity of today’s Walnut Lane, the whole concern prospered until it went up in smoke in a calamitous fire in 1860, and ultimately cost Henry Stoll $10,700. After the fire came the Civil War, the cataclysmic event of their generation, when Conrad Stoll’s 16-year-old son William fudged his age and threw his hat in with the Union Army, and was lucky enough to come back to Mokena when the guns fell silent. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the wave of economic prosperity that swept the North after the war’s end, Conrad Stoll’s emporium became the premier store in the village, with nearly anything a resident could want being available. A prominent spread printed in an 1873 Will County directory boasted of “staple and dry goods” on hand, as well as “choice family groceries, confectionery, notions, crockery and glassware” not to mention “paints, oils, cigars and tobacco.” Often times in studying businesses conducted in rural 19<sup>th</sup> century communities, it is the male proprietor whose name stands prominently upon the record of the years. This is not so in the case of Stoll & Company, as Franziska Stoll was just as much an entrepreneur as her husband. In her time, she was Mokena ladies’ go-to connection for hats, or millinery, to use the parlance of the day. An advertisement of hers that appeared in Joliet showcased her hats and bonnets, with flowers, feathers, ornaments, (trimmed and untrimmed) being available, as well as “veils, nets, crepes, silks, velvets and laces” for sale, along with “ribbons in all shades”, as well as the very peak of class, ostrich plumes. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Conrad Stoll of Mokena was known as a genial man, as is demonstrated by his New Year 1874 gift to the <i>Joliet Republican</i> of a half-gallon jug of wine. The folks at the paper were thrilled by the gift, writing in their pages that <o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“the wine is as good as “oldest inhabitant” ever saw or tasted, and while it is appreciated for its richness of flavor, it is thrice valuable coming from a friend to a friend. May the donor live to welcome many New Years and may he ever be as happy as when we last saw him.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Stoll was also a man who stood by his opinions, as is shown by the letters he wrote in his native tongue to the German-language <i>Illinois Staats-Zeitung</i> in the 1870s. An 1873 missive details his satisfaction with a recent election in Chicago, where a tough-on-crime element won a round of local polling, Stoll backing them up with the words “The rogues and loafers must get the highest punishment and Chicago must become a safe place to shop.” Another communique from four years later, in which the publication lauded him as one of the foremost German residents of the state, lamented a particularly bad season of potato bugs and advocated hefty applications of Paris Green, a highly toxic pesticide in use in those days. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Being a successful business and property owner in Mokena also came with its share of headaches, such as the time in the fall of 1894 when Conrad Stoll alerted the village board to the fact that surface water on Front Street was leaking into his cellar, which in his view was caused by insufficient drainage on the street. When exactly the well-respected doors of Stoll & Company closed for the last time has been lost from recorded history, but the concern’s founder passed in March 1897 of pneumonia at the age of 78, his mortal remains being borne to St. John’s Cemetery south of town. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As Conrad Stoll’s memory was being honored by his family and neighbors, his wife Franziska kept ownership of the Front Street property. Be that as it may, there is nevertheless a blank spot on the history of this place in these years. It is known, however, that Mokenian John A. Hatch kept his general store here for a period in the last decade of the 19<sup>th</sup> century until 1901, when he moved the business to the structure that formerly held his hall, which in that year had been moved south of the Rock Island tracks onto Mokena Street. In the first years of the new century, a succession of short-lived enterprises was housed in the old Stoll building. There were at least five saloons, one of which derisively referred to as a “grog dispensary”, while another concern, that of E.F. Niemeier of Chicago, boasted an impressive array: namely a hotel, restaurant, taproom, billiard room and bowling alley, not to mention the barber shops, a feed business, and an itinerant photographer that also took up residence there in this era. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhEkBjZTr-ZsOG84QtfUkx_NJXpCVQ2kuMo3cN1E_S4ghPyVJ1wQ_wiGe3VezCgdQ5_lA_U_hZamD46JBhLGZzA15WKs1WiWnsofESVZFYXc0UL2X_2xKBZC4O37peTL_rQs2XBGng7nq7fHaeeKLS9_A6_ZCaYqA_DzYk7TKL-NQbrFDTdKVr5cJ0pQ/s3214/exchange_hotel.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1950" data-original-width="3214" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhEkBjZTr-ZsOG84QtfUkx_NJXpCVQ2kuMo3cN1E_S4ghPyVJ1wQ_wiGe3VezCgdQ5_lA_U_hZamD46JBhLGZzA15WKs1WiWnsofESVZFYXc0UL2X_2xKBZC4O37peTL_rQs2XBGng7nq7fHaeeKLS9_A6_ZCaYqA_DzYk7TKL-NQbrFDTdKVr5cJ0pQ/w541-h328/exchange_hotel.png" width="541" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Seen here on the right around 1910, the Stoll building witnessed a century of Mokena’s history. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Around Thanksgiving 1909, the Stoll estate sold the property to Frank Liess, member of a prominent local family, and cashier of the newly founded Mokena State Bank. While the Joliet press was touting the place as an old village landmark, a ghost from the past reared its uninvited head. As the paperwork of this transaction was being shuffled in the county seat, several of the now adult Stoll children challenged a tangled legal situation, in which they contended that due to intricacies in the property’s title, their mother had no lawful right to sell it, but only to will it to them. A partition suit was filed in the circuit court of Will County, but whatever its outcome may have been, is long since lost to the winds of time. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As Frank Liess took ownership, a regimen of major remodeling was carried out, with one of the most drastic changes being the removal of an old wooden porch that ran the entire southern length of the building. Liess ultimately only owned the property for less than a year, before flipping it for $2,700 to fellow village resident David Kolber in September 1910. Like Conrad and Franziska Stoll before him, Kolber was not a native born American, having immigrated to this country in 1888 as a fresh-faced 18-year-old. An interesting and often overlooked figure in our village’s narrative, David Kolber was a native of the Austro-Hungarian empire and of Jewish faith, and he and his family may have been the first followers of this religion to live in Mokena. The Kolbers located here in the spring of 1903, when David opened a hardware store and tin shop in town, which he moved into his new property on the corner in March of 1911. Even though his move was only a few doors away, the normal stress that comes with relocation was probably compounded by the fact that the pipes in the vacant Stoll building had frozen and burst two months before, with over 200 barrels of water flooding the place and streaming out of the doors and windows. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> David Kolber was a man well respected by his fellow Mokenians. Years down the line, village resident Clinton Kraus would look back at the hardware man and his wife Anna, and remember their small town ways:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“These folks were sure good to all of us in many ways…He sure trusted us when money was scarce. He was one businessman who had credit, and if you promised to make payments on certain dates he believed you. If you fooled him for no reason at all, he said cash sales only in the future.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> David Kolber earned his place in Mokena’s history when he foiled a late-night break-in at the Mokena State Bank, even if he hadn’t meant to. At about 2:30am on the morning of May 12<sup>th</sup>, 1911, he rose from his slumbers and went to his kitchen to fetch a glass of water. At one point, he raised the blind on a window that faced the bank building, which was his neighbor immediately to the west. In doing so, he made a minor ruckus, which caused a man in a black coat and stiff hat who had been fiddling with a back window on the bank to flee past him and off toward the Rock Island tracks across the street. Rightfully so, Kolber found this very suspicious, and bleary eyed, made his way to the home of village marshal Conrad Schenkel to wake him and report what he had seen. The two turned Mokena upside down trying to find the man, but came up empty handed. Upon closer inspection, it was found that the window in question had been pried open a few inches. In the coming days, it was generally surmised that the would-be yegg had been casing the bank on behalf of a bigger gang of robbers. While a reward of $100 was posted for him, no one ever figured out who he was.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> David Kolber might not have come to America on the Mayflower, but he was just as patriotic a citizen as the best of them. On Lincoln’s Birthday 1922, editor William Semmler of Mokena’s <i>News-Bulletin</i> noted that Kolber was the only businessman in town to fly the Stars and Stripes for Honest Abe’s day, a fact for which “Mr. Kolber is to be highly complimented.” Following an appendicitis operation in the autumn of 1931, David Kolber passed at the relatively young age of 61 years. Such was his position in the social strata of Mokena, that every business in town closed at the hour of his funeral.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As far as the oldest minds in the village can remember, Willard Martie and his uncle Gus Braun moved into this old place in the early 1930s, during the hardest years of the Great Depression. The two had already been in the confectionary business together one door to the east, and after planting their stakes in the Stoll building, Braun took over the concern. An unmarried man who had spent much of his life to that point as an area farmer, Gus Braun would become a Front Street fixture, his shop a place where many a Mokena youth went to get a Coke and an ice cream. Those in the know still remember Braun’s unique way of scooping the cold treat; doing so in a way that left it not as a solid ball, but rather with a hollow middle. What had likely started as a Depression era and later wartime effort to make his product go farther, would become a habit. While Gus Braun’s demeanor occasionally had a sense of ruggedness that some would describe as grouchy, his local establishment provided a place for young people to while away their time in small farm town where there weren’t nearly as many distractions available as there are to today’s generation. Aside from his confectionary, Braun also kept a pool hall in the northeastern wing of the building that was parallel to Mokena Street. This was a very manly place, not one where many women or children ventured. At least one village youngster would always try sneak a peek inside the Mokena Street entrance whenever he passed, eternally curious about what happened in this part of the structure. Gus Braun was also an avid bowler, and on league nights, would leave his shop in the hands of Art Benson, his trusty young soda jerk. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1jNpnlOaxB14-M8CBZ-r6WEluJNoCJz1JMRwMr8O0aQ_hA0HSCCGzoz8VaskAXMzTauJhDRTubrsuAzex1oTYOUspCxwTK2tyLFHI7UKm2bqj1ZAxqKHT9xzMu6MrXgoG7FCg5P9PU4rw8y9PbraLfBcd5uP3uRIbBVAl650sLQtASn8RfICjLchX5w/s972/gus_brown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="972" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1jNpnlOaxB14-M8CBZ-r6WEluJNoCJz1JMRwMr8O0aQ_hA0HSCCGzoz8VaskAXMzTauJhDRTubrsuAzex1oTYOUspCxwTK2tyLFHI7UKm2bqj1ZAxqKHT9xzMu6MrXgoG7FCg5P9PU4rw8y9PbraLfBcd5uP3uRIbBVAl650sLQtASn8RfICjLchX5w/w507-h277/gus_brown.jpg" width="507" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Two wooden benches in front of Gus Braun’s ice cream shop were a popular gathering spot for Mokenians. Pictured here around 1940 from left to right are Arthur Hurley, brothers Ralph and Earl Schoeneck, Hans Mueller and Gus Braun standing in the doorway. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> After Gus Braun’s passing in 1951, there were a few confectionaries housed on the premises afterward, the first operated by Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hilgendorf of Frankfort, but none of them were on the scene for long. As the years of the 1950s moved on, local businessman Milton Geuther purchased the century old building, and converted the property into apartments, providing many Mokenians with a place to call home. In the fall of 1960, the board of directors of the neighboring Mokena State Bank sealed a deal with Geuther for the historic place, and not too long thereafter, it was razed to make way for the bank’s parking lot. The time-honored walls of this spot were steeped in local history, and witnessed generations of community flavor. They saw the village grow from a young railroad stop to a post-Second World War midwestern metropolis, and even though all physical vestiges of the Stoll building are gone, those whose stories are attached to this land live on in the pantheon of Mokena’s story. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-85787758300571057952023-03-10T14:09:00.000-08:002023-03-10T14:09:09.799-08:00800 Pounds of Treasure: The 1937 Heist of the Mokena Post Office<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Mokena’s story is a long and winding one, stretching back nearly two centuries, containing countless moments of mirth and buoyancy. When we look back, these are the times that first come to mind, and rightfully so, as they are what make our village feel like home. However, a close look upon the record of the years will also review nefarious bits as well. These are things we aren’t proud of, but that nevertheless, any locale as old as ours will have. From the bone-crushing riots of the 19</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">century detailed elsewhere in these pages, to the infamous robbery of Mokena State Bank that is still talked about to this day, nearly a 100 years later, we have some high-octane events on our collective timeline. One case ranks up with the rest of them, one that is remembered by increasingly few; the 1937 heist at the Mokena post office has all but slipped into the cracks of history.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> This institution is almost as old as the village itself, tracing its founding to February 10<sup>th</sup>, 1853, when our town was less than a year old. The same day, the honor of calling himself our first postmaster was bestowed upon Warren Knapp, Esq., who a little over a year before, founded the first business in what would become Mokena, at a time before the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad was fully completed. A 26-year-old man of New York birth, Knapp married into the McGovney family in 1850, when he took Nancy as his wife, the younger sister of future first mayor Ozias. Where exactly Warren Knapp’s post office stood in the newborn village cannot be reconstructed from the historic record, although it’s reasonable to think it could have been in his combined general store and residence, a small stone building that stood on the site of today’s 11124 Front Street. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> That Mokena was a railroad town since its birth, gave us excellent postal connections to the world. From the outset, it was the job of the Rock Island agent and his helper to bring sacks of mail from the post office to the depot, but a 1921 ruling passed by Uncle Sam changed this, from then on this would be the domain of a new hire. A blurb under the headline “Do You Want a Job?” that appeared in the November 2<sup>nd</sup>, 1921 edition of Mokena’s <i>News-Bulletin</i> looked for bidders for the position, it stating that applicants had to be at least 16, and that “whoever takes the job will be paid monthly”, not to mention that “six mails a day will have to be handled, in addition to hanging mail pouches on mail cranes twice daily”, the final part of the sentence referencing the wooden arms that allowed mail bags to be grabbed via hook from fast-moving trains.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Today we take it for granted that nearly anyone is a text message away, but in the days before this rapid, instantaneous communication, the arrival of a fresh load of mail over the rails was a much-anticipated event. Some sardonic pointers passed on by the postmaster of neighboring Tinley Park in 1924 give life to this fact:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">NOTICE.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Advice to Patrons.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Positively no letters will be delivered until received.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">If you do not get your letter the day you expect it, have the Postmaster look through all the boxes and in the cellar, also, it ought to be there somewhere and he likes to look for it just to please you.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">If your friends don’t write, curse the Postmaster, he is to blame.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">If he tells you there is no mail for you, put on a grieved expression and say there ought to be some, he is probably hiding your mail for the pleasure of having you call for it six or seven times a day, and after every freight or hand car.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ASK HIM TO LOOK AGAIN.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> From its first days until the lean years of the Great Depression, the Mokena post office counted 20 postmasters and postmistresses, and was housed in a head-spinning number of different locations in the village. On June 18<sup>th</sup>, 1934, Miss Margaret M. Maue received her commission as postmistress, at a time when the community counted around 350 residents. The 28-year-old local native oversaw an office counting three employees; namely herself, her clerk and one rural mail carrier, at which time her charge was located in a small wing of an old building that stood on the northwest corner of Front and Division Streets. Less than three years into her stewardship, an event transpired that would stay with Margaret Maue for the rest of her days. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh1HwoNWhK7QjVvdAC_VIvVw8O78oDyFFLnC4C199vR6Qpl-_d5gTjohkGhxvNBgLNpzj_Swem4XXRkMdCrpU9mSc4xpIociCHtkSBROV2jlEANAb92i6IHhshT73JJqPqFVTpjHsI_ZpQK3hesL2x5mUwM5UZvIUgPlZ5AffIXfAImkf7mjw1PTjJKA/s2444/mokena_hardware.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2444" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh1HwoNWhK7QjVvdAC_VIvVw8O78oDyFFLnC4C199vR6Qpl-_d5gTjohkGhxvNBgLNpzj_Swem4XXRkMdCrpU9mSc4xpIociCHtkSBROV2jlEANAb92i6IHhshT73JJqPqFVTpjHsI_ZpQK3hesL2x5mUwM5UZvIUgPlZ5AffIXfAImkf7mjw1PTjJKA/w589-h361/mokena_hardware.jpg" width="589" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">This idyllic circa 1925 view looking west from the corner of Front and Division Streets shows the Mokena Hardware Company at right, and within the red circle, the Mokena Post Office. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the pitch black of Tuesday morning, March 2<sup>nd</sup>, 1937, Front Street stood quiet and still, not a soul stirred. At about four o’clock, a truck piloted by unknown yeggs cut through the pre-dawn darkness and ambled into town. The conveyance was backed up to the post office, and the nameless miscreants went on to cut a hole in the front door’s glass, whereupon one snaked his arm in and opened the catch lock. A team of men went inside, maybe four or five of them, and beelined for the office’s safe, an 800-pound colossus. Using lots of elbow grease and oomph, they lugged it from the back of the post office and through the lobby, leaving gouges on the floor, then outside and into the truck. Before they disappeared, one of the crooks tore open a package addressed to Ben Tewes, but open rifling through its contents, was not impressed with them and threw the box aside. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The whole thing was just as easy as that. The thieves made their hasty escape, leaving tire tread marks on the ground in front of the post office. The entire time they were busy, they never had to worry about being interrupted in their deed, as neighbors would later report having heard a truck idling in those early hours, but thought nothing of it. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Flashing forward to 5:30 that morning, 70-year-old Front Street resident and local mail messenger Julius Grothendick turned up at the post office to get started on the day’s work. To his horror, he found the office’s door ajar and the safe missing. Starting a chain of frenzied communication, Grothendick, Mokena’s sole veteran of the Spanish-American war, alerted Postmistress Maue, who in turn notified federal postal officials in Chicago. In no time flat, two inspectors showed up in town, who sealed off the premises, allowing no one to come or go. The whole post office was dusted for finger prints, and photos were extensively taken both inside and out of the small wing of the building that held the office. In the meantime, Mokena lawman George Bennett posted himself in the doorway and handed out the mail to any villager who came for it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Miss Maue tallied up her losses. The biggest were the $1,300 in government saving bonds (worth around $27,000 in today’s money) and the $400 in stamps that disappeared. Along with them were cashed money orders representing $82, then $198 in cash, $60 in checks and two books of blank money orders. To add insult to injury, all of the post office’s record books were in the $50 safe, and none of it was insured. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTWMe7hlAOh34tr0sCmRBO2oQ83cDuCOLzASuozcgIKZRvvfdAkMHhbWgJ_Oc5_DGmyF30r7D_ZsLYxATp-oKQC1JFLT2jbW1oyM65RKahPj_CBapNXxcBaQ5sTo1AQAFO5vI6-FIHKDd7zmheOVgkRrNAzhYWFDr39EZ7WZjkgla1brUF3yIWodQA5A/s889/maue_margaret.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="889" data-original-width="649" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTWMe7hlAOh34tr0sCmRBO2oQ83cDuCOLzASuozcgIKZRvvfdAkMHhbWgJ_Oc5_DGmyF30r7D_ZsLYxATp-oKQC1JFLT2jbW1oyM65RKahPj_CBapNXxcBaQ5sTo1AQAFO5vI6-FIHKDd7zmheOVgkRrNAzhYWFDr39EZ7WZjkgla1brUF3yIWodQA5A/w306-h419/maue_margaret.jpg" width="306" /></a></div><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span> <span> <span> <span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Seen here around 1930, Margaret M. Maue was postmistress of the local post office at the time of the robbery.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The next chapter in the saga played out six days after the heist. On the morning of Wednesday, March 10<sup>th</sup>, a traveling attorney spotted what was described as a “pile of junk” along the old Monee road, four miles southwest of Chicago Heights. Whatever it was, it was “battered beyond repair”, and upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a safe, or at least what was left of one. Nearby, a set of railroad tools was found cast aside, consisting of a pick, two sledge hammers, and others. It was deduced that these had been used to smash it open. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Rightfully finding all of this fishy, the lawyer notified the police. Sure enough, with the help of postal authorities, the wrecked safe was traced back to Mokena. Interestingly, most of the contents of the safe from the post office were found along with it, only the $400 in stamps and $198 in cash were missing. Postmistress Maue was able to get the rest of the documents back to town, but the historic record is unclear as to what she did with the broken safe. Curiously, that same morning, yet another wrecked safe complete with railroad tools was found abandoned two miles east of Frankfort. Determined to belong to a grocery store in the county seat, it was surmised that this was the handiwork of the same gang that attacked the Mokena post office. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Life kept going in Mokena, the Second World War came and went, the baby boom started, and the village enjoyed a period of prosperity. In June 1952, there was yet another robbery of the post office, in which a large number of money orders were looted. In any case, the whole event wasn’t as high profile as the case 15 years earlier, and the whole thing has been forgotten by history, much as the 1937 heist has. Postmistress Margaret Maue, one of the most intrepid young women in our community’s history, took Francis O’Brien as her husband in 1941, and held her office in Mokena until 1968. Her 34 years running our post office is, as far as anyone can tell, a village record that still stands to this day. Perhaps the crowning moment in Margaret O’Brien’s career was the dedication of the new post office in 1960, a building which still stands at 11134 Front Street. The Mokena post office is a community institution that goes back almost to the day our village was born. As the great robbery of 1937 proves, its history isn’t all sorting letters and stamping cards. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><br />Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-40123150717381397012023-02-25T11:56:00.001-08:002023-02-25T11:56:45.851-08:00The Nectar that Jupiter Sips: The Story of Mokena Mineral Springs<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Whether it be a hard workout, an arduous hike, or a long day doing housework, a cold glass of water always hits the spot. While the sparkling goodness that flows from Mokena’s faucets now comes from Lake Michigan, generations of villagers were raised on our well water, which some (present company included) maintain tasted better. There was a time when Mokena water was so desired, that it was shipped to Chicago and Joliet markets where eager customers couldn’t get enough of it. Some even touted its supposed healing powers. In the first years of the 20</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">century, the Mokena Mineral Springs flourished as a local industry, being no small affair that put our fair village on the map for the first time.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At the turn of the century, Mokena was slowly emerging from a rough patch. The end of the 19<sup>th</sup> century was a time rife with economic turbulence and uncertainty, which led no small number of village residents to pack up and seek their fortunes elsewhere, with the town’s population plummeting to an all-time low in 1900, when a federal census taker counted a mere 281 souls living in town. The air was primed for a shift. The story begins with the poetically named Darlington T. Jones, a middle-aged native of Ohio and father of two who arrived in our environs in the last years of the 1890s. In a legal transaction completed in his wife Hattie’s name, the Joneses bought a small farm immediately south of town from the Mergenthaler family for $2,600 dollars in the spring of 1898, which they came to call “Breezy Hill.” To lay out the boundaries of the farm in today’s dimensions, the northern border was Denny Ave, the southern boundary stretching to contemporary LaPorte Road and the west and east boundaries laying on Center Street and at the edge of a farm in the hands of the McGovney family, today known as McGovney-Yunker farm. This little estate was quite an old one, tracing its history back to 1856 when Mokena’s founding father Allen Denny first sold it to Elisha P. Wilcox of LaSalle County, when our community was a mere hamlet along the new Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As Mokena historian Florence Pitman would recall decades later, Darlington Jones had a well drilled on his new property soon after taking possession, and something about the water he struck was different; somehow out of the ordinary. The twists and turns of time have left us few details as to the exact sequence of events, but eventually the water landed in the laboratory of a city chemist, who declared it to be an exceptionally healthy sort that even had medicinal qualities. The analyst found silica, ferrous bicarbonate, calcium sulphate, and traces of potassium chloride, not to mention various other features. Darlington Jones saw dollar signs, declared his Mokena water to be “superior to almost all water on the continent.” Before long, he had a windmill set up to pump the water from its source, and was supplying it to parties in Chicago. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs0g1GxJNXRPBFx1gowi7S89iMyI3Dpx4flwySjuIHErG4bqCW-v45KgFIvLFLhgn5nWKlREMHCeFlgza_Lbnn8o3D64cTWMdzrSEwj9kPWd_6VA-k9hBeA4See74GfIxjxDXZhhGj3QdqUcgrf9gL-5DIl13VNO8_jS4s6kUp3vnIJkuGBYJACMCI6A/s3608/cooper_home_edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="3608" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs0g1GxJNXRPBFx1gowi7S89iMyI3Dpx4flwySjuIHErG4bqCW-v45KgFIvLFLhgn5nWKlREMHCeFlgza_Lbnn8o3D64cTWMdzrSEwj9kPWd_6VA-k9hBeA4See74GfIxjxDXZhhGj3QdqUcgrf9gL-5DIl13VNO8_jS4s6kUp3vnIJkuGBYJACMCI6A/w535-h341/cooper_home_edit.jpg" width="535" /></a></div><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The backyard of the former Cooper residence on Mokena Street was the site of the original well on Breezy Hill. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By the summer of 1899, modest shipments of 200 to 400 gallons of the water were being made daily, with the brunt of it going to Chicago. By that fall, the total number was upped to 300 to 500 gallon lots going over the rails three or four times a week. That the Rock Island issued a special ticket for the shipment of the water, was in the words of the <i>Will County Advertiser </i>a “good indicator of business.” That first year, Jones was using over a thousand metal cans to transport the water, but once things really took off, specially built tank cars capable of holding a whopping 4,000 gallons were eventually used to bring the water over the railroad to market. In time, the water would be bottled in a plant near the Rock Island station in Englewood. Jones had grandiose visions of turning Breezy Hill into a health retreat, and even thought about having a hotel and sanitarium built on his property, but alas, for reasons unknown these plans never came to fruition. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At this early date, a correspondent known simply as Carl penned a piece titled “A Health Seeker Gives His Opinion of Mokena” that was carried by the <i>Advertiser. </i>He sang the praises of our village, writing that “the eye here commands a large scope of country and the view presented is wonderfully beautiful”, going on to say “the well-tilled farms with their growing crops, and the shocks of gathered grain, lend enchantment” before rating Mokena businesses as being “represented by industrious, progressive and energetic persons.” However, he heaped the best praise on the mineral springs. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“With all of these things there is a still greater thing to boast of, and which in a year or two, will make Mokena a world-renowned town. You have a cool, pure and health-producing water.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> He went on to reference the famous Sprudel water of Carlsbad, the renown spa town in today’s Czech Republic, and with no small amount of pride, boasted that “the chemical analysis of Jones’ spring shows it to be better, aye, 21 points its superior.” Carl saw the village’s new-found spring as a wave to ride, and ended his piece by proclaiming “there is a bright and prosperous future before Mokena.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At Christmastime 1901, Darlington and Hattie Jones took their profits and ran, unloading the operation to Frank E. Chamberlain and Albert P. Stevens of Joliet on December 15<sup>th</sup>. The Joneses had built up a nice little nest egg, ultimately selling the farm and spring for a tidy $20,000, vastly more than what they paid for it. The Jolietans hired Martin Brinckerhoff to be their manager, who lived on site. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Things went swimmingly into the first years of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, which were marked as a busy time for the new concern. In the spring of 1902, when “unusually large” shipments were going via the Rock Island to Chicago and Joliet, the stuff was whimsically referred to by the county press as “the nectar that Jupiter sips.” At this time, the first specific claims regarding the medicinal power of the water began to surface, with a report from April of 1900 lauding its magic at healing rheumatic and kidney troubles. It was also known to be a laxative, which in a moment of levity, Mokena historian Florence Pitman would later remark that it was “certainly more palatable than castor oil”, which was in widespread use at the time. A year later, an itinerant tea seller ran against village authorities for violating an ordinance, and while in custody made a claim that a legless man “had the member restored by a liberal use of the water.” All outrageous claims considered, Mokena was looked upon to be the picture of health in these years, due in no small part to our water. A November 1903 report in the Lockport <i>Phoenix-Advertiser </i>credited the stuff with giving villagers longevity, noting that “in the immediate vicinity there are 30 people upward of 70 years of age, and at least six are over 80, with 2 or 3 getting well up to the four score and ten mark.” All this in a time when the average life expectancy for an American male was 49 years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Business sallied forth at Mineral Springs, and by April 1908, the company was shipping out about 2 railroad cars of water a week. Nevertheless, the concern garnered some bad press in the autumn of 1908 through owner Frank Chamberlain. The premier publication of the county seat, the Joliet <i>Weekly News,</i> shouted from the headlines of its September 17<sup>th</sup>, 1908 issue, “Waterman’s Wife Seeks Divorce”, and laid out a laundry list of smears against him. Chamberlain’s wife Virginia was seeking a separation on the grounds of “extreme cruelty”, going on to allege that the three servants in their home were ordered to pay no attention to her, and that “her husband spends much of his time sitting around the kitchen with the hired man, reading novels and cheap literature,” not to mention the fact that he was “affected by the excessive use of tobacco.” Maybe as a result of the divorce, Frank E. Chamberlain and Albert P. Stevens sold the Mokena water operation to Kate Knox, a well-to-do Chicago woman of some means. The two sellers took a hit, receiving only $10,000, less than half of what they paid for the spring and farm on top of it. However, when the transaction was completed in the first days of 1909, the red tape of the back-and-forth between the parties stipulated that Mrs. Knox was to hand over $5,000 worth of mineral water to Chamberlain. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the era of Kate Knox’s ownership dawned, the idea was born to pipe the water directly north from the spring to the Rock Island railroad in the village. It was a notion that came about in fits and starts, almost as soon as it started the thought was ditched, then it came about again in October 1909, but a new bump in the road surfaced in the form of Mokena liveryman Henry Stellwagen. In order to get to where a standpipe was being built east of W.H. Bechstein’s grain elevator, the pipeline had to traverse Stellwagen’s land along today’s Mokena Street (just south of McGovney Street) a road which did not exist at the time. Stellwagen was finessed, and a little before Thanksgiving, ultimately gave his permission for the pipeline to be built. To make the whole thing work, a three-horsepower engine was installed in the spring house at Breezy Hill. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyKIHgn_BvlBEEQLnshU7wMOSqBmjfFul8j_XR3Vdh4wRuMknZ59KMnUFc78o28lIFtOas_ZvWS0CrW5mNyHkquxsb4eP5SMwa7HAmP2s18NPa_WiY6snxmogL1QcoZG7bUAaVDOdHLdiKC7bXB8HvUgsZM5QeDux2QAFzMtCDEBBmwQ_3PY5hm6lFTA/s3679/swanberg_home_Edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2544" data-original-width="3679" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyKIHgn_BvlBEEQLnshU7wMOSqBmjfFul8j_XR3Vdh4wRuMknZ59KMnUFc78o28lIFtOas_ZvWS0CrW5mNyHkquxsb4eP5SMwa7HAmP2s18NPa_WiY6snxmogL1QcoZG7bUAaVDOdHLdiKC7bXB8HvUgsZM5QeDux2QAFzMtCDEBBmwQ_3PY5hm6lFTA/w504-h348/swanberg_home_Edit.jpg" width="504" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Still standing on today's Mokena Street, this home was built during Kate Knox's ownership of the mineral springs.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Alas, all good things must come to an end, and in time, the Mokena Mineral Springs became part of history, which begs the question of when exactly this occurred. The date the last drops of water were pumped is long since lost to the winds of time. As late as 1912, the village’ crack baseball team was still being called the “Mineral Water Boys”, and the last reference to a shipment of product from the spring comes in a March 1915 news piece. It is reasonable to surmise that the water business in Mokena ceased operations in the years before America’s entry into the first world war. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> During her tenure on the property, Kate Knox greatly improved the farm and turned it into a first-rate poultry operation, having built a big chicken house in the spring of 1911, raising untold number of birds. She moved back to the Windy City in the summer of 1921, and sold Breezy Hill to a Mr. Patterson of the same place for $18,000. When the sale was first reported by Mokena’s <i>News-Bulletin</i>, the place was still called Mineral Springs, despite the fact that it appears no water had been lifted from there in quite some time. A disastrous fire less than a year later in March 1922 decimated the historic, decades-old house on the estate. Nevertheless, the burned house wasn’t the only residence at Breezy Hill, its sister, the larger domicile built during the Knox years still stands on today’s Mokena Street, it being later the home of mayor Charles Swanberg. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the aftermath of the fire, Mr. Patterson of Chicago wasn’t long for the place, he having no interest in rebuilding the lost house. In turn, he sold the acreage to John and Jessie Gilmore, who had been working there the past ten years. Local historian Florence Pitman estimated that millions of gallons of water were sold during the existence of Mokena Mineral Springs, one of the most unique businesses our community has ever seen. The operation would come to lend its name to Mokena’s first modern subdivision, built immediately after the end of the Second World War on the grounds of the old farm. Next time your thirst needs quenching, and you are enjoying that refreshing goodness from far off, distant Lake Michigan, just don’t forget the “nectar of Jupiter” that is right beneath our own feet. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-36923015867678316942023-02-11T19:24:00.003-08:002023-02-11T19:24:51.185-08:00A Troubled Property: The Story of Front Street's Stellwagen Buildings<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">This is the tale of a pair of Front Street buildings, both long since lost to the ravages of time. The separate, neighboring structures were in the hands of one family for most of their existence, the Stellwagens; as such their narrative has melded into one story in the grander chronicle of Mokena. The piece of land where they once stood became for many years an idyllic and shady garden kept by Mrs. Evanis Dina, and is now a desolate, barren plot. While a passerby today would barely give a second thought to the property, decades of stories are attached to the land, some bearing joy, others heartache and woe.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> To have stood in front of them, the building on the left, or west, would’ve fit perfectly in a John Wayne western. It stood two stories, tall and narrow, with a false front typical of its 19<sup>th</sup> century construction. Slabs of limestone made up its foundation, and it boasted big front windows that let in streams of natural light in the days before electricity. The easterly of the two structures was the older of the two, having been built in the earliest days of Mokena’s existence. It was fashioned in the Greek Revival school, popular in these parts in the days leading up to the Civil War. It sported a row of five windows overlooking Front Street in its second story, with three flanking its two front doors, one of which led to the living space in the house, for which the building was likely primarily built, while the other lead to a small space that once held a shoe making workshop. In its prime, it was one of the premier houses in town, a place that had been built not only for comfort, but also as something to be proud of. In later years, a bulletin board hung on its façade that was adorned with old wanted posters. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Time was not kind to these places. After decades of mistreatment, they drastically deteriorated and came to be called “the Shacks”, and alternately by Mokena’s youth, “the Haunted Houses.” This is a different kind of history, one of consternation, headache and vexation. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSh19xIt9XxrHJ5WzxgkiL9KmgMUw5GAuRssN93iLyrUArsD3sN8P2C5yI6shT-v_-Du8FTMgDf1qzeHMu9zb1qBl4I03v6WgiI3tz4E1kzhI79u7m2L91OxwO6uVskm9aTwz_lTMqsJErk3P2HH-0keRm99JmwMrGLPZ7IYNygAqHQO4fHKwOekGsLw/s1220/stellwagen_bldg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1220" data-original-width="880" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSh19xIt9XxrHJ5WzxgkiL9KmgMUw5GAuRssN93iLyrUArsD3sN8P2C5yI6shT-v_-Du8FTMgDf1qzeHMu9zb1qBl4I03v6WgiI3tz4E1kzhI79u7m2L91OxwO6uVskm9aTwz_lTMqsJErk3P2HH-0keRm99JmwMrGLPZ7IYNygAqHQO4fHKwOekGsLw/w361-h500/stellwagen_bldg.png" width="361" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The westerly of the two Stellwagen buildings, as rendered by Mokena artist Jane Lorenz</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While the story of these properties didn’t start with Phillip Stellwagen, they would forever be associated with his family name. The first into his fold in January 1878, two years before Mokena was incorporated, when Stellwagen bought the westerly edifice for $750, and two years later, he expanded to the east and bought the house next door in the fall of 1880 for $680. The Stellwagen name is one intimately associated with the earliest days of Frankfort Township, having hailed from Pennsylvania by way of the grand duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt in today’s Germany, and set upon the western trail in 1844. According to a legend passed down in the family, the Stellwagens broke a wagon wheel traversing the wilderness of today’s Frankfort Township while on their way to Wisconsin, and were so taken with the neighborhood that they decided to stay, establishing a homestead complete with log cabin on contemporary St. Francis Road. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Phillip Stellwagen, the focus of this part of our story, was born in November 1842 while the clan still lived in the Keystone State. (Years later, some sources would place his birth year as late as 1843 or 1844) He took Mary Bauer as his wife in 1867, and together they raised a princely family of eleven children, of whom seven survived to adulthood. After the Phillip Stellwagens took possession of the Front Street buildings, they moved into the large house on the east side of the clump and the family patriarch opened a saloon in the commercial structure on the west. At least one account of those years refers to him being an inn keeper, indicating that he rented rooms to travelers as well. While the date when Phillip first opened the doors of his watering hole remains nebulous, as does the day he closed for the last time, the Stellwagen saloon was firmly a part of 1880s life in Mokena, joining six others that quenched the thirst of our primarily German-American townfolk in those days. That Phillip Stellwagen was a well-liked man, is bolstered by two reports written in 1880 and 1883, the first stating that “Phillip Stellwagen keeps a cool and shady retreat, where his genial good humor draws many customers”, while the other said that “Stellwagen, everybody knows Stellwagen. His pool table is a favorite resort and he has a good word for everyone.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit80Oo4qSM7ffsu1onq4zGC181WsjFhEi8k_sCyhmcFWHQY40YR03GtUTrG87hhgelzs4p2GPh41PDMWvCzf3DOmzij_RSTh97xmdGc1Sa6ZRmaGNRVQ8vp551mHWKrXFqzoc6mWYWk6dKC8YVPsoJYE-EXvf3CCjMAtDe_AstJ9IxWLcjUD8764eHPw/s927/stellwagen_home_ca1910.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="927" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit80Oo4qSM7ffsu1onq4zGC181WsjFhEi8k_sCyhmcFWHQY40YR03GtUTrG87hhgelzs4p2GPh41PDMWvCzf3DOmzij_RSTh97xmdGc1Sa6ZRmaGNRVQ8vp551mHWKrXFqzoc6mWYWk6dKC8YVPsoJYE-EXvf3CCjMAtDe_AstJ9IxWLcjUD8764eHPw/w512-h376/stellwagen_home_ca1910.JPG" width="512" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The easterly Stellwagen house, seen here around 1910.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Stellwagens still lived in our environs at the turn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, by which point Phillip had given up the saloon and worked for a spell at harness making. When the 1900 census taker found him, he was recorded as still living with his family at the Front Street property and working as a teamster. In those first few years of the new century, at least part of the large Stellwagen family relocated to a farm near Blue Island; what it was that caused them to move to that neck of the woods, so far from Mokena, has been erased from the pages of history. What is clear, however, is that they retained ownership over their pair of Front Street buildings, even coming to owe money in back taxes on them. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In early 1907, two of Phillip Stellwagen’s adult sons, Edward and William, aged 24 and 35 years respectively, were inhabiting the property, while their parents and siblings continued to live in Cook County. Both single men, William (just called Dicky by Mokenians) was known for his talent at charming snakes, a contemporary saying in spring 1903 that he hypnotized the first snake of the season and “wore it as a necktie”. In the words of the <i>Joliet News</i>, the brothers were “a peculiar lot”, the two “seldom, if ever, allowing anyone to cross their threshold.” They were known to keep a fair number of horses on the place, and in the first week of March, one of the equines collapsed, unable to stay on its feet any longer. Some were of the opinion that the Stellwagens had been starving the beast. In the words of the same paper, “the poor horse was too poor to get its own living any longer.” Something also was amiss in the cellar of one of the buildings, with rumors making the rounds that it was full of dogs who had never seen the light of day.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Complaints had reached Mayor Ozias E. McGovney and the village board, who after mulling over the matter, turned to Levi Doty of Frankfort, a man who spent most of his life championing the rights of animals, while at the same time using the fullest letter of the law to pinion those who would harm them unnecessarily. Gathering the facts of the case, Doty set the Stellwagen brothers in his crosshairs. On Friday, March 8<sup>th</sup>, he came to Mokena and after investigating the premises, was unable to gain access to the barn on the property where the afflicted horse lay. After coming back with village constable Oscar Klose, the two finally got into the barn, where Doty could do nothing more for the animal, ultimately “putting the animal out of his misery by shooting him.” Before he was on his way back to Frankfort, Levi Doty asked Officer Klose to keep his eye on the Stellwagens, and to pay especially close attention to what they did with the carcass.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The next day the deceased horse was still there, and Officer Klose served notice on the brothers to remove the carcass for sanitary reasons. Edward and William Stellwagen responded by severely beating the law man; during the tussle, Klose’s star was torn from his shirt and his clothes nearly ripped from his body. Always prone to understatement, the <i>Joliet News </i>wrote that the brothers were “real ungentlemanly in manner.” In the meantime, the rumor mill had it that the Stellwagens were saving the horse carcass to feed to the dogs in their basement, and that Monday, Officer Klose came back with reinforcements (or a “small posse” in the words of the <i>News) </i>and arrested Edward and William, trooping them before Justice of the Peace Owen, who leveled a fine of $56 on them “for their fun.” To top things off, the village’s board of health also inspected the premises, and cited the Stellwagen brothers for having a “manure heap, uncleanly pens, coops and yard.” On March 15<sup>th</sup>, they were officially notified to abate and remove these nuisances within 30 days. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Phillip Stellwagen, the family patriarch, crossed the great beyond in the fall of 1909, and was buried in an evangelical Lutheran cemetery in Alsip, nineteen miles from Mokena. As his passing was reported by William Semmler, our village correspondent to the <i>Joliet News</i>, it was noted that he “suffered for some time with a complication of diseases.” By this time, all of the now grown-up Stellwagen children and their mother Mary had moved from town and were living in Thornton Township, becoming absentee owners to the Front Street buildings. The structures were starting to present a sorry appearance, and were quickly going to seed. In the summer of 1910, the village board ordered the family to fix up the property, thus began a process that would go on for decades. Part of the old saloon’s porch had caved in, as did some of the limestone foundation on one of the buildings. The Stellwagen land was overgrown with a jungle of weeds, their barn was leaning precariously to the east, and there was a deep hole near their sidewalk. Within a week, word came back from the Stellwagens that they’d fix everything. Nevertheless, they were slow in getting to it; in the August 18<sup>th</sup>, 1910 edition of the <i>Joliet News</i>, correspondent Semmler called the Stellwagen places “dilapidated…dangerous firetraps” and referenced yards that were a “solid mass of dry grass,” with “weeds six feet high.” A little over a month later, Edward and William Stellwagen came to town to finally work on the buildings as a result of the threat from the village board. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Whatever it was that they did, it wasn’t good enough. Six months later, the whole thing flared up again. The village board went so far as to condemn the properties, and even hired a lawyer to help draw up the required ordinance. A major sticking point became the insurance rates on the surrounding Front Street real estate, which were skyrocketing due to the Stellwagen buildings’ reputations as dangerous tinderboxes. William Semmler again referred to them as a “detriment” to Mokena. Once more, Dicky Stellwagen had been seen in town making repairs here and there, and in April 1911, local powers received a note from the family stating their intent to clean up and get rid of any dangerous edifices on their lots. It became common for the Stellwagens to make band-aid fixes on the buildings, that were just enough to get the village dads off their backs, only for the issues to come back up further down the road. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In these years leading up to the First World War, it began to look as if a new leaf was overturned for the places, as they were home to several short-lived business. Around Halloween 1908, a railroad worker named E.N. Mickel set up a watch-repair shop in one of the buildings, and also began to carry some jewelry. In the end, he wasn’t long for Mokena, as he moved to western Illinois shortly thereafter. In April 1911, the old saloon had been spruced up enough for Edward and Dicky Stellwagen to announce that they were going to open a bakery in it, and would hire a baker to oversee it for them. A portable oven and all the tools of the trade were installed in the building, and after a year’s worth of work, the Mokena Home Bakery debuted to the village on March 5<sup>th</sup>, 1912, when J.P. Caulfield of Harvey and Edward Stellwagen threw open their doors for the first time. Caulfield was called a “master of his trade”, and planned on offering a delivery wagon to customers on the farms outside town. In later years, Stellwagen sister Alma bore the Caulfield surname, and so it would appear that the baker or someone from his family married her, but at this late date it remains unclear as to when exactly this happened. Alas, the bakery also didn’t last, and by 1916 an out of towner named Charles Mantilla had opened a shoe shop here.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Readers of these pages will be familiar with the seminal fire that destroyed Martin Hall just west of the old Stellwagen saloon in the summer of 1912; and while the fire didn’t start in the watering hole turned bakery, the place nevertheless was a casualty of the blaze. The flames toasted the building, which also took heavy water damage, and many citizens of Mokena took pity on Edward Stellwagen, not least of all, because he had courageously fought the fire and had prevented it from spreading. As Stellwagen had no insurance on the building, Mayor Ona McGovney started a fund to help him get back on his feet, one that was “subscribed to liberally” by many Mokenians. As we will see, the perils of fire would come to be an uncommonly frequent thread in the history of this dual property. The next time it reared its head was on a Friday night the following summer, when tenant Joe Sandrock nearly burned down the easterly house when he fell asleep cooking on a gasoline stove. Luckily both he and the building come through the incident unharmed. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A little before Christmas 1914, word reached town that Dicky Stellwagen had died at a hospital in Englewood at the age of 42. His passing was not a pleasant one; he had stepped on a nail which then caused him to develop lockjaw. With his demise, there was one less member of the family to tend to the Mokena property. As was becoming all too familiar, calamity struck the old saloon on March 5<sup>th</sup>, 1916. That afternoon, Charles Mantilla, the proprietor of the shoe shop housed in the building, left town on a Rock Island accommodation bound for the city, and upon his return that night, he found the interior of the store in ashes. The fire was discovered at about 10 o’clock that evening by Elmer Sippel, whose mother owned a general store two doors to the west, and incidentally, Oscar Klose Jr, the son of the town constable who was so savagely beaten by the Stellwagen brothers nine years previously. Luckily the blaze had only been confined to the one building, but nevertheless, it was a bad one - all of Mr. Mantilla’s possessions were ravaged, and he even lost two parrots to the flames. (A dog and a monkey escaped) A report from the aftermath of the fire described that “only the shell of the building was left standing.” No one ever figured out what caused the conflagration, but Mantilla was adamant that that he had closed the dampers on his coal stove before he left for Chicago that day. A month afterward, he packed up and left town. The story didn’t end there. After the fire, the burnt-out hulk of the old Stellwagen saloon was left to stand, decrepit and forlorn. Nearly two months later, the village sent Edward Stellwagen a letter requesting that he put the building “in a safe condition.” Nevertheless, nothing happened, and the board of trustees lodged a complaint with the state fire marshal. Only after he became involved in the matter, did the family repair the building to a satisfactory degree that summer. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: green; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span>The First World War came and went, and the issue of the Stellwagen buildings never really went away. When the village board convened on August 25<sup>th</sup>, 1920, the subject of “the old Stellwagen shacks” came up. This time the prickly matter was an old, unused well in the yard that was uncovered. Once again, a note was dashed off to the surviving family members in their Cook County home asking that the matter be remedied at once, “as there is danger of someone falling in the well and being drowned.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span>On an August evening in 1928, village fire marshal Herman Schweser was making his rounds down Front Street, and upon passing one of the buildings (it’s not clear which one), he observed “thin wreaths of smoke” coming from it. Upon closer inspection, he found it emanating from one of the cellars, which a group of local boys had been using as a dugout. Schweser found all sorts of flammable material there such as straw, papers, oil and gasoline, all of which the lads were using to start a small fire for themselves. Luckily the whole thing was nipped in the bud before a real problem flared up, and it was noted that the boys were “reprimanded and released.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span>In reflecting on the properties and the Stellwagens decades later, Mokena sage Clinton Kraus remembered that “(it) always seemed to us that they had so much junk laying around and they never seemed to do anything about it. In plain words, it was an eyesore to the town.” It is difficult to pin down who, if anyone, was living in these buildings during the interwar years. While the possibility remains open that the Stellwagens rented the properties, if they were inhabited, no one noted it down for posterity. By all appearances, the structures sat abandoned and crumbling in these years. Some Mokenians were even known to walk on the other side of Front Street so as to avoid passing directly in front of them. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the frigid grip of early 1939 gave way to the warmer months, things came to a head. By this point, the doors and windows of the old buildings had been boarded up, yet in the words of the village’s <i>News-Bulletin</i>, they still remained a “bone of contention.” In a piece that appeared in the paper on May 26<sup>th</sup> of that year, the publication referenced the efforts made by the town powers to have the places torn down on grounds of being fire hazards, but went on to detail recent unknown miscreants, who were using the cover of night to lay waste to the properties. It went on to say that “the windows, doors, plastering, wall paper, etc. was ripped out and removed from the premises. This kept on until the two houses looked as though as cyclone had hit them.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Once again, village government rung its hands and furrowed its brow. Putting their ducks in a row, the new Mokena Civic Association put together a committee to visit the Stellwagens at their farm near Harvey and bring them up to speed on what was happening. Now in his middle age, Edward Stellwagen wrote to his older sister Emma at her Chicago home, who worked in a trip to Mokena at the end of that month. She was incensed by what she saw. Getting inside the buildings, she discovered that various pieces of old furniture had been stolen. First things first, she made a vandalism report to the Will County Sheriff, then she went on record with the <i>News-Bulletin.</i> She’d be staying in the buildings, she wanted it known, and not mincing her words, said that she would be carrying a revolver and that anyone who “trespasses on this property at night or any other time will stand a chance of stopping a bullet.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The 1939 incident blew over without Emma Stellwagen having to fire a shot. In the first months after the Second World War the easterly house had been spruced up enough to be rented to Mrs. Florence Demkov, although a subsequent incident might have made her regret it. On Halloween evening 1945, some big pieces of wall board fell from where they were piled and pinned her to the ground. Her companion, Raymond Gunhouse, ran two doors to the west to the Cooper and Hostert Ford agency for help, and coming back with proprietor Barney Hostert as well as father and son Harold and Gordon Spiess, were able to free Mrs. Demkov and get an ambulance for her. Upon arrival at the hospital, it was ascertained that she had suffered a broken leg. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By the 1950s, sisters Mabel Stellwagen and Alma Caulfield had come to live in the easterly house, the same place that their father had bought for his family 70 years before. At this point in time, it looks like sister Emma Stellwagen was also living with them. They were quiet residents of Front Street, who never seemed to leave their house, and generally kept to themselves. Mokenians would occasionally see them peeking out of their front door or the house’s windows, but that was the extent to which most people saw the sisters. They were known not to welcome neighborhood kids on their property, and nearby parents warned their children to stay away. Somewhere along the way, the sisters lost running water inside their home, and their neighbors to the east, the family of barber Tony Dina, welcomed Alma to get water from their outside hose. Mabel Stellwagen died of a stroke in the summer of 1958 at the age of 67, and was joined not terribly long thereafter by Emma. So it was, that middle daughter Alma became the last family member to call the place home. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The early 1950s saw another fruitless attempt by the village board to have the old saloon building torn down, in one case citing a major fire hazard due to “reason of age, lack of repair, (and) lack of doors and windows.” Bids for the demolition were even taken in, but all were eventually shot down, the board saying they were too expensive. In August 1958, Alma Caulfield gave permission to have the old saloon building torn down, and thus a thorn was taken out of the village dads’ side that had been there for better part of half a century. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the history books closed on the Stellwagen properties, the end of the timeline was marred by two more fires. Both of them were bad, and one them, disastrously so. Around 1:30 in the afternoon of October 4<sup>th</sup>, 1952, an old outbuilding on the north end of the lots went up in flames, which in no time measured 20 feet high, fueled undoubtedly by the dried weeds and undergrowth surrounding it. The fire eating the shed was so intense that the composition roof on the back garage of the Cooper & Hostert Ford agency, immediately to the west, started melting and running down the side of the building. The Mokena volunteer fire department turned out in quick fashion and were able to extinguish the blaze, but the speed with which it destroyed the outbuilding and effected its neighbors was alarming – the <i>News-Bulletin</i> proclaiming from its front page that it “threatened to wipe out the entire block.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The next fire would leave an even more indelible mark. In the early afternoon of August 2<sup>nd</sup>, 1967, next door neighbor Dominick Dina discovered the old Stellwagen house ablaze, and ran to his workplace, the Cooper & Hostert agency, to give the alarm. Fire Chief Robert Rust, also in the employ of Cooper & Hostert, made haste to the fire station further down Front Street to the east and summoned his men, with Mokena’s volunteer department quickly turning out in full force. In the meantime, young Dina took it upon himself to rescue Alma Caulfield. Frantically knocking on her door, it was his first time setting foot on the house’s front porch, as his parents always were always serious about him and his siblings not disturbing the property. Mrs. Caulfield came to the door, and Dina explained the emergency, to which she replied something along the lines of “just let me get my purse”, to which the young man frantically explained there was no time and had to take her arms in hand and lead her away. Fire made short work of the building that had stood in Mokena for over a century. After the flames were finally put out, one of the attending fireman came out of the house with an old coffee can containing matchsticks and a dead mouse, and it was at first thought that the mouse’s chewing on the sticks could’ve begun the fire. Later on, Chief Rust would tell the press that he thought the fire started around an electrical ceiling fixture. Nevertheless, the remains of the old house were damaged beyond all help, and it was pulled down. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4y6b8m1Zfvsl4lpd0t3dbLu0eNVwWbXSIIXOup20dyqGgzgplwoD11DfQMqyRRqJlEIfPXznjOXBlE8QyiYNVqhfryWLyDIx_S3hKzk4uzsABVXdxovtaZkU19Q-quNPSZfqKkUPtROVN4FUZkrC7yk7DAA4YA4d8H3fKKLEPAaHNCw9G6lCwA3olw/s1688/caulfield_fire_1967.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1214" data-original-width="1688" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4y6b8m1Zfvsl4lpd0t3dbLu0eNVwWbXSIIXOup20dyqGgzgplwoD11DfQMqyRRqJlEIfPXznjOXBlE8QyiYNVqhfryWLyDIx_S3hKzk4uzsABVXdxovtaZkU19Q-quNPSZfqKkUPtROVN4FUZkrC7yk7DAA4YA4d8H3fKKLEPAaHNCw9G6lCwA3olw/w545-h392/caulfield_fire_1967.png" width="545" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The historic home of Alma Caulfield, in her family for over 80 years, burns in August 1967.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> After all those decades of memories, those of levity in the days when Phillip Stellwagen ran his saloon, those of agitation when the village was at loggerheads with his children, and those of caution when local parents urged their children to stay away, not a trace of the buildings are left in today’s community. Until recently, a sharp-eyed pedestrian could make out the remnants of one of the buildings’ stone cisterns, but all evidence that this branch of Stellwagen family ever existed in our town is gone, their old stomping grounds today a vacant, forlorn patch on our main street. Like it or not, their two buildings were part of the fabric of Front Street. Their history was not always glorious, but our story is not complete without them. <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-3696971015261871042023-01-21T16:39:00.006-08:002023-01-21T16:39:54.851-08:00The Unluckiest Day: April 25th, 1892 in Mokena<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Certain areas of the village’s history have been blessed by an abundance of journalistic coverage, written records, and even diaries and letters that have been preserved over the decades. In more than a few instances, it can be said with the clarity of a razor’s edge what was happening in town. The 1890s were decidedly not one of these times. It is exceptionally hard for the modern researcher to gain insight with much clarity into what was taking place in those days due to a dearth of the above-mentioned items. One event of that decade, however, stands out grimly. Pulling back the curtain of the ages, it can be seen that April 25</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">, 1892 was one of the unluckiest days in Mokena’s history.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> From the Massacre of Wounded Knee at the end of 1890, to the Panic of 1893 that resulted in a devastating economic depression, the 1890s were a period of malaise. The Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago showcased many innovations that are still familiar to us today, but at the same time, birthed H.H. Holmes, an infamous American con man and serial killer. In Mokena, economic problems and the dearth of good roads lead the population to drop to its lowest point, 281 residents, by the end of the decade. Monday, April 25<sup>th</sup>, 1892 may very well have been the beginning of the downward spiral. Gently put, it was a day that got off on the wrong foot. Between three and four o’clock that inky dark morning, something started a fire in the wood frame meat market of Wesley Kennedy. Some were later of the opinion that it had to have been caused by a spark from the funnel of a passing locomotive; whatever it was, no one ever got to the bottom of it. As it happened in the middle of the night, the flames were making short work of the small building by the time a neighbor across the street spotted them. Word of mouth of the impending disaster spread through town in no time flat, and before long, most of the village was on the scene, as were a bucket brigade and the village’s hand engine, the only real firefighting equipment Mokena could muster at the time. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8iAmo5EKoYVsVXbfyEXr8J4eGP5y471lbK1N0fQR9yGqVuQxuGPujbt66Mhay7d1wIi4sP_6MT0D2Lh7ujgy7k4b9bGW1ocGvazpIeZBIRgjRWM9mlpmc07lcLA6zu510bCMJDq7CYb6vou1bvxvv4g9_nnuG6QwX6vvJINJczfjU6K_Ubk-wQJWVcA/s5088/front_mokena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3112" data-original-width="5088" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8iAmo5EKoYVsVXbfyEXr8J4eGP5y471lbK1N0fQR9yGqVuQxuGPujbt66Mhay7d1wIi4sP_6MT0D2Lh7ujgy7k4b9bGW1ocGvazpIeZBIRgjRWM9mlpmc07lcLA6zu510bCMJDq7CYb6vou1bvxvv4g9_nnuG6QwX6vvJINJczfjU6K_Ubk-wQJWVcA/w564-h346/front_mokena.jpg" width="564" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Front Street looking east from Mokena Street, circa 1910. The two buildings decimated in the 1892 fire stood on the corner on the right side of this image, with the structure furthest to the right later replacing one of them. </span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Standing on the southeast corner of Front and Mokena Streets, the growing flames made the jump from the meat market to the two-story building next door like a knife through hot butter, a two-story structure used by James Ducker as a general store. So quick was the blaze in devouring both buildings that Ducker was barely able to save any of his merchandise. Much sweat was exerted in trying to save the surrounding properties, which were “scorched more or less”, with the glass windows in two of them shattering from the intense heat. Despite the valiant efforts of the townfolk, the two primary buildings were unable to be saved, and ultimately went up in smoke. It was estimated that the total loss of both properties came out to about $15,000, or around half a million dollars in today’s money. In its coverage of the conflagration, the <i>Joliet Weekly </i>News didn’t beat around the bush, stating succinctly that “the fire was really a bad thing for the village.” To add insult to injury, these weren’t just any buildings that had been destroyed, but two that were considered old, historic landmarks of Mokena. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By the time the sun rose that spring day, many exhausted Mokenians wiped their brows and caught their breath, thinking that the worst of it was over. Little did they know that they still hadn’t seen the end of it. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At the center of the next phase in the day’s catastrophe was John A. Hatch, a man who had paid his dues and earned the respect of his fellow Mokenians. Hatch was the son of some of the earliest settlers to Frankfort Township, and as a young man, he marched in Abraham Lincoln’s army during the Civil War, where he earned distinction at the siege of Vicksburg. He moved around a little after the war, but eventually came home to Mokena, where he planted his roots. After working in one of Mokena’s mercantile stores, he purchased the business and carried it on himself, before also branching out into handling grain, feed, and coal, also coming to build the village’s new grain elevator in 1884. Hatch was esteemed enough by the townfolk to be elected our community’s first village clerk upon the incorporation of Mokena in 1880. Those we knew John Hatch described him as a “peaceable citizen, (but) not very strong physically”, who was the father of eight children, who in 1892 ranged in age from 25 to 3. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> He wore many hats in town, one of which was that of police magistrate, a duty that required Hatch in the days before the existence of the Mokena Police Department to oversee cases in which law breakers were brought before him by the village constable. The historical record shows that he had run-ins with men such as brothers Christian and Conrad Sippel, a general merchant in town and nearby farmer respectively, as well as Paul Lorenz and Jacob Weber, the second of which being the Sippels’ brother-in-law. While said record is foggy as to what exactly brought them into Hatch’s court, all of them had had infractions in the past involving drunken mayhem. Discontent and rage had been smoldering beneath the surface, as the guilty parties were of the opinion that Hatch’s judgements upon them had been heavy-handed. The lust for revenge had been brewing in these men, and on the morning of the dreadful fire, were deep into their firewater, which in the words of a contemporary, “was just enough to make them ugly.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirv5gsJcp-7DlNV6Vg2YrLCoLIaYuOJDBrl8fanT-iZlhGhckYEGbJ-nAE2drwGuSEgy9fpCARG8M-HK20LT5IWyQhF3NBgDeARqgDaErbiHjPfSgpMLlPBKjUDpKYvJJGdW2wzfq0G8ByVmal2OOzzSALE0RVcVc3_XwruIzSa8nJGo-UtmbOMdcfcA/s984/hatch_john_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="970" data-original-width="984" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirv5gsJcp-7DlNV6Vg2YrLCoLIaYuOJDBrl8fanT-iZlhGhckYEGbJ-nAE2drwGuSEgy9fpCARG8M-HK20LT5IWyQhF3NBgDeARqgDaErbiHjPfSgpMLlPBKjUDpKYvJJGdW2wzfq0G8ByVmal2OOzzSALE0RVcVc3_XwruIzSa8nJGo-UtmbOMdcfcA/w393-h388/hatch_john_2.png" width="393" /></a></div><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">John A. Hatch of Mokena, circa 1880. Our village's history cannot be told without him.</span></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Around one o’clock on the afternoon of the fire, Paul Lorenz went into John Hatch’s store bent on devilment. He paraded in, and began “singing, dancing and cursing” the storekeeper. Lucky for Hatch, none other than village constable Nick Peisen happened to also be on the premises at the time. Peisen, a barber and linen weaver by trade, made for Lorenz with the aim to hustle him out of the business. Who at this point should materialize, other than the Sippels and Jacob Weber, who together ganged up on the constable, brusquely knocking him down. Hatch began calling for help, and to his aid rushed Charles Geddes and the patriotically named A. Lincoln Jones, the 31-year-old son of a local farmer who just went by Link. Before they could jump into the growing melee, the marauders had completely ransacked the store, with three display cases holding candy and cigars being “kicked into smithereens”. The destruction spilled into the street, with “volleys of stones” being thrown through the front windows, along with dozens of buckets that were still standing on the street from the morning’s blaze. Somewhere in the fracas, one of the attackers landed a punch on John Hatch that knocked him out, upon which some good Samaritans carried him to his house on Mokena Street. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the situation went to the dogs, somebody at the nearby Rock Island depot telegraphed to Chicago that the village was in the hands of a violent mob. Postmaster Ozias McGovney’s daughters fled to a neighbor’s where they went into hiding. At first the rioters made their point, laying waste to Hatch’s store and putting him out of commission, but the tide was turned by those who responded to his cries. Constable Peisen used his heavy iron handcuffs in self defense against Paul Lorenz who wouldn’t submit to arrest, while Jacob Webber, in the words of the <i>Joliet News </i>in a post battle report, made “the worst appearance of the lot” as Link Jones had thrown him into the street on his face and jumped on him, “mashing his nose badly on the stones.” Christian Sippel got nasty lashes on his head from Peisen’s handcuffs, and bad lacerations on his hands from broken glass. Nevertheless, the raiders made a final push, and chased Hatch’s helpers from the property and managed to pursue them, eventually losing them in the fog of battle. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A few hours later, the attackers, who in the meantime had their wounds bandaged up, came back to the battlefield to survey the damage, but caused no further trouble. One media report mentions unnamed “officials” taking control of the situation and demanding the bloody miscreants to surrender, but that they would rather “die first.” As things slowly cooled down, the call for help from Chicago was rescinded. Nevertheless, arrest warrants for the four rioters were taken out in the county seat, and the <i>Joliet Weekly News</i> wrote that “it is expected there will be plenty of trouble before the end is reached.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The dust was settling in Mokena, and once the press got ahold of the story, just about every detail of the already harrowing case was blown wildly out of proportion. The events were quickly spun into those of ethnic discord, a tale of Germans versus Americans. The <i>Joliet Weekly News</i> gave the most level-headed, thorough reportage, calling the fight a “lively scrimmage.” The morning’s fire was played up by some, with an Indiana paper having “the town on fire and threatened with destruction,” while the <i>Chicago Tribune </i>had the scrape in John Hatch’s store “threatening to finish what few buildings were left and throw the inhabitants into the pyre.” Extensive and vivid coverage was given by the <i>Illinois Staats-Zeitung</i>, a Chicago publication that was the foremost German-language paper of today’s Midwest. In Teutonic words, they called the attackers a “drunken band of thugs,” and also went into detail on the damage inflicted on the building, describing a wall of an enclosure inside that housed the post office being torn down and “the shop…fully put under water and destroyed” while the contents of the post office “scattered here and there in every direction.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Memories were dusted off from 28 years before of the great Mokena riot of 1864, (a gruesome event also detailed in these pages), and inevitably the Joliet press made comparisons. While there were commonalities in that both involved wanton property destruction, the big difference between the two events was that in 1892, mercifully, no lives were lost. Most upright Mokenians were incensed at the treatment of John Hatch, and over a year later, in the fall of 1893, the Sippel brothers and Jacob Weber found their case, one of assault and battery, on the docket at the courthouse in Joliet. The <i>Weekly News</i> kept the matter in its periphery, and noted that it was “being dragged through several terms of court” until it was ultimately dismissed by the state’s attorney over Christmastime 1894, over two years after the crime happened. So it was, that the attackers felt no legal repercussions for their reprehensible actions. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> To a modern-day reader, the saga of the 1892 riot poses a few questions, perhaps most prominently, where exactly in Mokena did this happen? After the unmerciful passage of time, it’s very hard to say. John Hatch’s business was housed for many years in the time-honored building on Mokena Street that is now home to Zap Tacos, but he didn’t move the store into this building until 1901, nine years after the fact. Our erstwhile town newspaper, <i>The News-Bulletin</i>, was in possession of antique photograph of the historic Stoll building that stood on the northwest corner of Front and Mokena Streets for more than a century. The image was published in the September 15<sup>th</sup>, 1939 issue of the paper, and the eagle-eyed reader will notice that the charming sign over the building’s main entrance prominently displays the name of John A. Hatch. Alas, as the <i>News-Bulletin</i>only hesitated a guess as to when the image was made, placing it “about 40 years ago”, or roughly 1899, it can’t be relied upon. Perhaps most interesting is a blurb that appeared in the July 13<sup>th</sup>, 1893 edition of the <i>Mokena Phoenix Advertiser</i>, a little more than a year after the riot; it mentions a new livery stable opening in town, and references that “they will use the store next to Moriarty’s brick saloon, formerly occupied by J.A. Hatch.” Readers of these pages will remember the Moriarty saloon as having been housed in the classic building now the home of Little Al’s Bar and Grill, therefore Hatch’s store was recently housed in either one of the old buildings to its west or east, both of which stood at this point. Could this clue settle the question? In the absence of any other evidence, it’s impossible to say at this late date. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> John A. Hatch ultimately recovered from that callous beating dealt to him on that spring day in 1892 and lived comfortably, a pillar of Mokena, until the day he died in 1920 at the age of 78 years. As to the causers of the disturbance, Paul Lorenz faded into the background of history, and while it’s noted that Christian Sippel kept up his Mokena store, history also passed him by and didn’t preserve any details as to what ever happened to him. He left behind his wife Catharine, who in 1900 was called a widow, and two sons, Elmer and Christian Jr., who were both small when the riot happened. The family business survived for decades, with neither of the Sippel boys having inherited their father’s penchant for trouble. Conrad Sippel outlived all the principal players in this story by a longshot, having made it to 1940 when he passed in his 83<sup>rd</sup> year. In his heyday, he kept a watering hole in our sister town of Frankfort, as well as a farm implement business. He also held elected office, keeping a chair as highway commissioner and school trustee in neighboring Green Garden Township. Perhaps most bizarre is the fate of Jacob Weber. A lifelong Mokenian, he briefly ran a saloon on Front Street in the years after the fight. On a summer’s night in August 1904, he found himself walking back home from Frankfort, when for reasons unknown, he took shelter in Fred Baumgartner’s barn south of town. The next morning, he was found dead. At some point Weber fell out of the hay mow, plummeting 20 feet, fracturing his skull. In covering the accident, the <i>Lockport Phoenix-Advertiser</i> noted that “in his hand, clenched in death, was a bunch of hay, indicating that he had attempted to seize hold of something that would stay his fall.” He was buried in the family plot at St. John’s Cemetery. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> April 25<sup>th</sup>, 1892 is not a day that can be looked back upon through rose-tinted glasses. The disastrous fire on Front Street decimated two historic landmarks, permanently sweeping them from the landscape. The subsequent, brutal riot also stands out starkly in the foggy years of the 19<sup>th</sup> century’s last decade. Upon looking back on that day with an esteemed historian of neighboring Frankfort, she summed it up best by saying “humans are difficult creatures.”<o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-27442736059631734022023-01-07T17:09:00.004-08:002023-01-07T17:11:26.541-08:00Healing Hands: The Story of Two Mokena Doctors, Part II<p> <i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Be sure to read the first part of this piece, the story of Dr. Herman W. Alexander of Mokena, posted last week to this page.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While the story of Dr. Herman W. Alexander is firmly one of the days following the Civil War, a far-off epoch when Mokena was but a young railroad town, that of Dr. Ernest G. McMahan is one that belongs to the 20<sup>th</sup>century. While the two men had much in common, not only both being Mokenians, they were both war veterans and shared impeccable backgrounds in medicine; they never knew each other, nor did they even live at the same time. Nevertheless, Dr. McMahan proved himself to be a hero and healer to countless people in our community. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNq4UaV5HNVtypsc_G0l_sxxJvIcqhH7zDxh9S50gni6VXeKAEYiLREyacBB_EoBfAHtcWBOE8lp__NAWEknsydBk-pSe61Ubupf0qiAzW8b3gNrKUW54D9DxmJ0yPOE4dt93iaXiCH2lL8YJeiXIU-am0b01yRFXN3mQv6KMRWARhl1NatF_jT3LRg/s1966/doc.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1966" data-original-width="1358" height="509" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNq4UaV5HNVtypsc_G0l_sxxJvIcqhH7zDxh9S50gni6VXeKAEYiLREyacBB_EoBfAHtcWBOE8lp__NAWEknsydBk-pSe61Ubupf0qiAzW8b3gNrKUW54D9DxmJ0yPOE4dt93iaXiCH2lL8YJeiXIU-am0b01yRFXN3mQv6KMRWARhl1NatF_jT3LRg/w352-h509/doc.png" width="352" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Dr. Ernest G. McMahan of Mokena, circa 1928.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> His story begins far from Mokena. Ernest G. McMahan was born November 30<sup>th</sup>, 1892 at Newport, Tennessee, a modestly sized town nestled up against the border with North Carolina. Possessed of an impressive Tennessean lineage, he was the son of a county judge and deacon in the Baptist church, and was raised with seven siblings. Growing up in hill country, the young McMahan finished high school in 1910, after which he pursued a course of study at the Baptist Carson and Newman College in the eastern part of the Volunteer State, ultimately receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1914. After graduation, he spent two years working as a teacher both in Oklahoma and his hometown, before coming north to Chicago where he once again became a student, this time at prestigious Loyola University. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Ernest McMahan’s studies were interrupted by World War I, and in June 1918 he enlisted in the army’s Medical Corps. It’s hard to tell after all these years if he ever made it overseas, but doesn’t appear to have, instead spending his enlistment in the service in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He left the army in the first days of 1919, and would go on to marry Miss Mae Krusemark that year. With the dust settled after the war, Ernest McMahan went back to Loyola, and received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1920. He spent the next year as an intern at St. Mary’s Hospital in Chicago, and during the next two years worked at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island. In 1923, the twists and turns of fate brought Dr. McMahan to Mokena.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Their first June in town, the McMahans bought the historic Moriarty residence on the northwest corner of Mokena and Second Streets. Aside from moving home and hearth into the old house, Dr. McMahan also set up his office there. A mere three years after their arrival in our midst, he was visited by disaster. On the night of November 15<sup>th</sup>, 1926, the McMahans were jarred from their slumbers by the frantic barking of their dog, who alerted them to the fact that their home was in flames. The couple was able to get out of the burning house in time, but the domicile turned out to be a total loss, for despite the valiant efforts of the Mokena Volunteer Fire Department, it burned to the ground. In the aftermath of the conflagration, Dr. McMahan opened a temporary office in the Lizzie Moriarty residence on Front Street, where he also had rented some residential space.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcugBoZt-H-Z0IlMMIqhuczo_vL1Gt1xJJqdvxZty2557Cl5iRP7Dd_cilyWU0b0geUyNlewFky8GihkXGUmJvNj2VUSQlLDF8vTPMEn3piPEV-Pm0nrGnes0DpDhXA0JtQm7NDFn5UnxHr9562iQZMVKjvl2RdNbmmFfPdJp87Yiz8KY8KQsgo8kKLA/s3474/mokena_st.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2068" data-original-width="3474" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcugBoZt-H-Z0IlMMIqhuczo_vL1Gt1xJJqdvxZty2557Cl5iRP7Dd_cilyWU0b0geUyNlewFky8GihkXGUmJvNj2VUSQlLDF8vTPMEn3piPEV-Pm0nrGnes0DpDhXA0JtQm7NDFn5UnxHr9562iQZMVKjvl2RdNbmmFfPdJp87Yiz8KY8KQsgo8kKLA/w559-h332/mokena_st.png" width="559" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Mokena Street looking south from St. John's Church, as it appeared in Doc McMahan's day. The McMahan residence is at right. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The McMahans got to work rebuilding, and in the fall of 1927, their new home was ready on the site of the old one. As was the case previously, Doc, as he affectionately came to be known, kept his office here, in an area in the southern part of the house, or to the left open entering his front door. From this vantage point, one could peek into Doc’s living room and catch a glimpse of him sitting in his rocking chair, waiting for the next patient. In 1928, a contemporary called him “one of the foremost of the younger physicians and surgeons of Will County”, in which year he was also on the staff of Silver Cross and St. Joseph Hospitals in Joliet. Upon visiting Doc at his home office in Mokena, (which would run a patient $2.00) he or she could count on being given medicine in a little paper envelope, whereupon some curious residents would later ask what color pill he gave. He was even known to make some of the medicine himself. Times being what they were, Doc also made his share of house calls, (including delivering babies at home) no matter the time, day or night. In the era when bad weather turned our roads to quagmires, he’d be shuttled to the patient by Mokenians Harold Cooper or Barney Hostert. In the years after Mokena Public School opened on Carpenter Street in 1929, Doc McMahan and his loyal nurse, village resident Florence Niethammer, would set up on the stage to dispense vaccinations for diphtheria, smallpox, tetanus and even polio, which could be had for 25 cents. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Over the decades, Doc McMahan came to be firmly established in Mokena, and became one of the pillars of our community. A former patient, now senior in years, states that he was “way ahead of his time” and “right on pretty much everything.” After Mae McMahan passed in 1951, Doc took as his second wife Rose D. Moriarty, in a ceremony performed by Rev. William Riemann of St. John’s Evangelical and Reformed Church at her residence two doors south of Doc’s. Like her husband, the new Rose McMahan enjoyed a very prominent spot in the village, having been president of Mokena State Bank for two decades previous. The daughter of founding father and former mayor Christian Bechstein, Mrs. McMahan had been a teacher in her youth. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Pinning down the exact date of Doc’s retirement has proven to be easier said than done. When former patients of his were surveyed by the author, memories were foggy and conflicting; however, it can said with certainty that he was still active in Mokena as late as 1959. After Rose McMahan passed away in 1974, Doc moved to Texas in the sunset of his life, with his third wife, Olive Patterson, in tow. A mere two weeks after he settled there, he departed on December 8<sup>th</sup>, 1978 after having reached the admirable age of 86 years. Dr. Ernest G. McMahan was not only a fixture in town for decades, but also a true healer, one who is fondly remembered by many in our community despite the passage of time. Even today, one patient of years past, an honored Mokenian of some decades standing, recounted to this author that when she is at her wit’s end, frustrated by contemporary physicians, she woefully looks back and sighs “Where is Dr. McMahan?”<o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-48236320477415597412022-12-31T16:10:00.005-08:002023-01-07T16:58:14.536-08:00Healing Hands: The Story of Two Mokena Doctors, Part I<p> <span face="Calibri, sans-serif">One man knew our village as place where coal-fed locomotives puffed through town and people got from place to place in horse-drawn conveyances, while his counterpart knew a community where radios beamed in the latest news from across the globe, movies were projected on Front Street, and medical wonders such as penicillin were freely at hand. Although the Mokenas they lived in were worlds apart, these two men treated our townsfolk with healing hands. Dr. Herman W. Alexander spent the years after the calamitous Civil War in our midst, while Dr. Ernest G. McMahan called himself a Mokenian in the meaty years of the twentieth century. Both men were angels sent to us.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Herman W. Alexander made his first appearance in our world on December 1<sup>st</sup>, 1837 in St. Joseph County, Michigan, just a touch north of the border with the Hoosier State. As a 15-year-old lad, the Alexanders relocated to Cook County, Illinois, settling down in the Blue Island area, where they lived as farmers. However, higher education called to young Herman Alexander, and he went to engage in a course of studies at Hillsdale College in his old home state, before ultimately coming back to today’s Chicagoland to work as a school teacher. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In 1861, the year Alexander reached his 24<sup>th</sup> birthday, our nation was rent apart by the outbreak of the Civil War, the defining moment of the young man’s generation. A little more than a year after the start of hostilities, on August 27<sup>th</sup>, 1862, Herman Alexander mustered into the 88<sup>th</sup> regiment of Illinois volunteers as a corporal. The paperwork of his enlistment recorded him as standing almost five feet ten inches tall, and noted his dark hair and coffee-colored eyes. Corporal Alexander served on the front lines of President Lincoln’s army, and became a combat veteran after the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, in the fall of 1862, which resulted in a strategic Union victory. While he emerged from the scrap in one piece, tragedy befell Herman Alexander three days after the fight ended, when his younger brother, Hiram, a member of the same regiment, died of disease at Nashville, Tennessee. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Life and limb would be risked yet again, this time in a dramatic reversal of fortune. The Battle of Stones River, Tennessee raged from New Year’s Eve 1862 to January 2<sup>nd</sup>, 1863, and not only was this bloodbath a devasting loss for the North, but it proved to have a profound effect on the life of Corporal Alexander. On that last day of 1862, in the chaos of the Union retreat, a wagon or artillery caisson ran over the young man; the whole thing happened so quick, that he couldn’t be sure what it was that hit him. The tongue of the conveyance struck him square in the back, leaving him with a crippling injury. Alas, the rest of his military career was spent in hospitals, first as a patient, then later as a steward, when it was determined he was no longer able to shoulder a rifle. The war ended in 1865, and Herman Alexander returned to civilian life that winter. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFgjRXzIa2iaz-pPhMG2v8xhaPU4KVr0H9ljDX2Uq-on3QWVJqnUq-EAVtSAF8mN4whVH3XsaLToYRnldIkmP5Pb-jjn_RL-jjR_u0ZxQ9aTz56AleJV4fzYmu4rgKqQ8QM5zHigv4HataZuzROkKjWhAklEQWz2phqbqoDIkid8n3hF5xYvnvgrHizQ/s1322/stones_river.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="1322" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFgjRXzIa2iaz-pPhMG2v8xhaPU4KVr0H9ljDX2Uq-on3QWVJqnUq-EAVtSAF8mN4whVH3XsaLToYRnldIkmP5Pb-jjn_RL-jjR_u0ZxQ9aTz56AleJV4fzYmu4rgKqQ8QM5zHigv4HataZuzROkKjWhAklEQWz2phqbqoDIkid8n3hF5xYvnvgrHizQ/w544-h380/stones_river.png" width="544" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The Battle of Stones River, Tennessee marked a turning point in the life of Herman W. Alexander.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> His experiences in the war seem to have stirred an interest in medicine in the young man, and immediately after leaving the Union army he began medical school at Ohio Medical College, before furthering his education with two Chicago doctors, before ultimately graduating from Chicago Medical College. His new career brought him to Mokena in 1873, then a neat and thriving community on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad. A new, two-story schoolhouse had been built in town the year before, one which was considered a jewel in the Will County school system. The town boasted of several hundred residents, many of them German and Swiss immigrants with their first-generation American children. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Where Dr. Alexander took up residence in Mokena has proven to be hazy after so many years, but it is known that in his first days he boarded for a time with postmaster Dewitt Paddock. The doctor set up his office and a pharmacy in the Front Street property of James Ducker, where he could be found in the forenoon and evening of each day. A contemporary said that through the Mokenians, Dr. Alexander “earned a reputation of being a most careful, conscientious and successful physician.” Typical of the cases that came before him were the nasty wound that Thomas Sutton accidentally inflicted upon his arm while trimming trees in his orchard, or the mangling that J.C. Allen’s oldest son experienced when his fingers got caught in a feed cutter. (Dr. Alexander had to amputate them) The doctor also treated Rev. Carl Schaub of the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church for “brain congestion”, while later tending to Robert Bechstein, a Mokena farmer who came down with smallpox in 1881. Despite all of his, he ultimately lost his patient, and helped prepare him for burial. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Dr. Herman Alexander was married in Philadelphia shortly after New Year 1877 to Clotilde Sisson, daughter of a New York general. Despite the success of his career in Mokena and his new wife, the physician continued to be plagued by his war injury. The passage of time had only made it worse, with the trouble resting in his seventh and eighth dorsal vertebrae, which in time would be diagnosed as Pott’s Disease, a malady effecting the spine. The prognosis from Dr. Alexander’s own physicians was grim. One got straight to the point and with a gloomy tone, described him as “incurable”, and his disability as “total”, while another said that he was “gradually growing worse” and glumly writing that “he will last but a few years at best.” Dr. Alexander, while still a relatively young man, made his way around Mokena with a cane, sometimes even while leaning on a crutch. Trips to patients on the farms outside town were covered in a special carriage built to reduce jarring and jolting as much as possible. Despite the very visible evidence of his distress, Dr. Alexander kept it quiet, fearing that being ruled an invalid would hurt his livelihood. One who knew him said that he “uniformly kept his ailments and sufferings to himself.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the summer of 1877, a correspondent from the Joliet <i>Weekly News</i> made a grand tour of Mokena, and upon enumerating every business house in town, found Dr. Alexander, and concerning his pharmacy wrote that “he has a neat little store, well filled. Adjoining is a snug, cozy kind of an office where the doctor seems to take much pleasure with his books, and a half dozen diplomas upon the wall.” With the coming of the 1880s, the doctor moved to the county seat in the second year of the decade, whereupon his health degenerated significantly. Dr. Alexander’s wife Clotilde tragically passed in the spring of 1888, at a point in which he required full-time aid in his day-to-day life. In those days his household consisted of his immediate family; his adopted daughter Lizzie, sister Mrs. M.J. Baldwin, and sister-in-law Naomi Sisson. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VRbSuZ6h5-G9_0A77QrUCXKWjA83D-nOoaVosr186w5XW6SbR__EFCRJ8pl3bMDtzN8HhwdRLVXSoxVb8dsM_rbUs4hwbAAVxsEhdgX9zHbR4Y1TbN59ZIAi0wmKhuyeFwwnVLYhq1vcD5-xvT2MF3eZ4lNCe-Kk9OsoMLTlIEuMnuEEGUzXFJ-nVg/s500/alexander.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VRbSuZ6h5-G9_0A77QrUCXKWjA83D-nOoaVosr186w5XW6SbR__EFCRJ8pl3bMDtzN8HhwdRLVXSoxVb8dsM_rbUs4hwbAAVxsEhdgX9zHbR4Y1TbN59ZIAi0wmKhuyeFwwnVLYhq1vcD5-xvT2MF3eZ4lNCe-Kk9OsoMLTlIEuMnuEEGUzXFJ-nVg/w509-h381/alexander.jpg" width="509" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The grave of Dr. Alexander in Joliet's Oakwood Cemetery, which bears mute testimony to his Civil War service.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Dr. Herman W. Alexander crossed the great beyond at his Joliet home on May 27<sup>th</sup>, 1889 at the age of 51 years. The ultimate cause were the many complications of the ghastly injury suffered on that winter day in Tennessee, 26 years previous. He was interred at Oakwood Cemetery, where a grand monument proudly bearing his combat record marks his last resting place. So it was, that while Dr. Alexander did not die on the battlefield, he was one of the countless men of his generation broken by the Civil War, and the ghosts thereof followed him to the end. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i>Be sure to check back next Saturday for part two of this piece: the story of Dr. Ernest G. McMahan.<o:p></o:p></i></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-80232350471062745682022-12-17T15:46:00.000-08:002022-12-17T15:46:03.867-08:00'Tis the Season: The Giving Spirt of Mokena<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">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.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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<sup>th</sup> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGXGgy1FAh8SR6yHwxuG5hf4qQEP_rgz6bsvp2VSksTxveZNc45iqdYavnFP3TGCLGEShQUv-5ZYX40vw2Qo6GhAX_VIJouO1EQmF-oa1j0I_M2FMNNlXDAf7XExQIKtj7-8uFNFqo3AFzG_-g0SBSACPYSjYYgOSLala7m-BiXfYaEgEMM8xSwGqDIA/s1794/christmas.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1794" data-original-width="1352" height="475" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGXGgy1FAh8SR6yHwxuG5hf4qQEP_rgz6bsvp2VSksTxveZNc45iqdYavnFP3TGCLGEShQUv-5ZYX40vw2Qo6GhAX_VIJouO1EQmF-oa1j0I_M2FMNNlXDAf7XExQIKtj7-8uFNFqo3AFzG_-g0SBSACPYSjYYgOSLala7m-BiXfYaEgEMM8xSwGqDIA/w358-h475/christmas.png" width="358" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Matt's Old Mokena wishes you a Merry Christmas!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> During the devastating fire at Front Street’s Martin Hall on July 24<sup>th</sup>, 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<sup>th</sup>, Mokena residents generously showered Bertha and her children with money, groceries, and various other gifts. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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”.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-45359997997557938172022-12-03T18:03:00.005-08:002022-12-03T18:44:05.280-08:00A Fresh New Look: The Rescue of a Historic Landmark<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">When the subject comes up of historic landmarks in our fair village, most people immediately conjure up the stars of this category, places like Pioneer Cemetery, the Muehler Building, (nowadays home to Little Al’s Bar and Grill) and even McGovney-Yunker Farm, resplendent on LaPorte Road. However, there are many in Mokena that are just as steeped in historic charisma as the others, locales that are easily passed over. This is the story of one such site, and not only of its rich, character-filled past, but also of its rescue from an ignominious end, a twist of history that is nothing short of miraculous. Gracing Front Street with its Greek Revival eminence, roomy porch and distinctive concrete columns, today’s ReFresh ReNew Salon at 11008 Front Street can boast of a chronicle that goes back well over 160 years.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNx-5ZFhYhsE97FfBHJSKmd-S4dhlDaUQsJ0nwRuTepn2CuYy4WYLBGF_XAAVovHLTFXnzB2PHHDPzfPdn0iCYboFdPhFKkEhBKJFkcThgFpdPGXO9JF0GduwXgD-I-Ee2d3gMbO3HQ6ijBFYSpo4NQO_ltVHutxVPVEFTcaGkRsa7XMVfBVT0IKT59A/s4032/moriarty_house_nov2022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNx-5ZFhYhsE97FfBHJSKmd-S4dhlDaUQsJ0nwRuTepn2CuYy4WYLBGF_XAAVovHLTFXnzB2PHHDPzfPdn0iCYboFdPhFKkEhBKJFkcThgFpdPGXO9JF0GduwXgD-I-Ee2d3gMbO3HQ6ijBFYSpo4NQO_ltVHutxVPVEFTcaGkRsa7XMVfBVT0IKT59A/w550-h412/moriarty_house_nov2022.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Steeped in local lore, the old house at 11008 Front Street has seen over 160 years of history.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> To tell this story, one must first reach back to the earliest days of Mokena’s narrative. On April 22<sup>nd</sup>, 1862, just over a year into our nation’s Civil War, a legal transaction took place when Horace Carpenter sold this lot and one the immediately north of it to his brother Chancy for the princely sum of $500. When the indenture was filed in the county seat, it was noted that the transfer included not just the parcels but “all the buildings standing thereon”, indicating that the lot had already been developed, but whether or not this included the structure standing today, is impossible to tell through the thick fog of time. The story of our village’s infancy cannot be writ without the Carpenter family. Natives of Pennsylvania, they were in our midst before the first locomotive of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad puffed over the prairie, and as Mokena was born with the arrival of the iron horse, the brothers Horace and Chancy began to invest in property, buying up lots in the freshly laid out town. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> There were about nine years between the Carpenter brothers, with Horace being the elder. Chancy was a product of his time, being possessed of the rugged optimism that led him to seek fortune in the gold fields of the west. Unlike the countless others who made the trek in the same era that he did, Chancy Carpenter actually struck treasure. In 1851, the year before Mokena was founded, he set out for California; going over land the whole way with a team of horses, reaching the Golden State in a mere 90 days, considered a breeze of a trip in that era. Carpenter was there mining for three years, and over time, found gold valuing thousands of dollars in the money of the day. So proud was he of his finds that he later had one nugget that was estimated to be worth about $11 (close to $350 nowadays) mounted and worn as a scarf pin when he got back to civilization. He came home to Mokena with what one would remember as a “very comfortable fortune.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Fortune led Chancy Carpenter to try his hand at farming in Iowa in 1872, ultimately becoming the founder of a town there called Sumner. Before he left, his Front Street house was sold to Dr. Andreas Grether and his wife Elisabetha in September 1867 for the magnificent sum of $1,000. That the property was sold for such a higher amount than the last time it changed hands, indicates that it had been significantly improved in this time, which more than likely included the construction of the house extant today. Himself an interesting figure in our community’s history, Dr. Grether was born in early 1807 across the Atlantic, in far off Canton Bern, Switzerland. In 1852 he and his family came to the American shore and settled first in Cook County, and by a point in time six years later was residing in Mokena, when he contributed ten dollars to the parish of faithful worshippers that would later become the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Dr. Andreas Grether tended to Mokena’s sick with healing hands in the earliest days of our community, and his life was not free of hardship, being indicative of the rough, unforgiving way of life that our forefathers led. The doctor lost his first wife as a new arrival to our country in 1854, and during the calamitous Civil War sacrificed his only son, Peter, upon Columbia’s altar, to the dreaded malady of dysentery at Vicksburg, Mississippi, shortly after the fall of that city to Northern forces. Dr. Grether himself was not long for the Front Street house, for he himself passed away to some long-forgotten ailment in September 1869, two years after he and his wife acquired the property. Decades later, his funeral would still be talked about for a particularly bizarre incident. While mourners held vigil over his bier at the Mokena residence, a woman was noticed in the room, clad completely in black, paying her respects. Whispers circulated amongst those in attendance, and no one there could quite pin down who she was. She eventually passed into an adjoining chamber, and someone went after her. However, she was nowhere to be found, and had disappeared as suddenly as she appeared. To those who were there, the only explanation at hand was that she must have been a ghost. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> After the passing of Dr. Grether, the ownership of the property passed to one of his stepchildren, whose family, the Schiffmanns, become long-standing owners of the place. At this date, a century and half after their time, it’s not exactly clear what was happening in those years, if the Schiffmanns actually lived there, or if they rented it out for the next two decades. What is clear, is that Nicholas and Maria Marti, prominent members of Mokena’s Swiss diaspora, purchased the house from Nicholas Schiffmann and his siblings in the spring of 1891. Retired farmers and perennial Mokena residents, Mr. and Mrs. Marti were founding members of the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church, with Nicholas also holding the office of Commissioner of Highways in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> After the Martis sold the place in January 1901, there were a succession of owners in the early years of the 20<sup>th</sup> century who didn’t stay very long. Slowly getting on in years, the house was remodeled in the fall of 1913, at which point a large, new front porch was added, boasting of a concrete floor and distinctive concrete pillars, which still grace Front Street to this day. The following year, one rife with significance for the world at large, held great importance for this property as well. Not only did 1914 witness the start of the dreaded First World War in Europe, but it was also then that the Moriarty family came into the picture, figures which contain great significance in the annals of this fabled house. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The Moriartys were old hands in the area, whose estate straddled the border of Frankfort and New Lenox Townships, fronting on today’s Francis Road. George Moriarty, the second of four children in his family, would take as his wife Elizabeth Fulton, or Lizzie as she was known, on her 20<sup>th</sup> birthday, March 12<sup>th</sup>, 1883. Lizzie was an industrious farm girl who lived in New Lenox Township, and was known to smilingly say “Hard work never killed anyone.” The couple had two boys of their own, Herbert and Walter, born in 1884 and 1888 respectively, both of which would become important figures in their own right in Mokena’s story. In early 1911, patriarch George Moriarty retired from the fields and moved his family to our village. The Moriartys first called the old Stermer place home, and while barely settled into town, George passed away in March 1911 at the age of 61. His demise was deeply felt in Mokena, he on one hand being modestly referred to as a “good citizen”, while another of his contemporaries put it more touchingly, remembering that “the unfortunate always found in him a sympathetic friend, quick to offer aid when needed…to him a man was a man no matter whether he had one dollar or thousands.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The widowed Lizzie Moriarty found her way to the property in question in July of the fateful year of 1914, having sealed the deal with the property’s last owner, Mokenian Frank Liess, by trading him some lots of hers in Chicago for the Front Street house. Joining her was her sister Sarah Jane Moriarty, or more commonly known as Sadie, was not only was recently widowed, but also the wife of George Moriarty’s brother, Frank. Once again, visions of the heady days of the gold rush re-visited this old place, as Lizzie and Sadie’s father-in-law, Irish born Thomas Moriarty, a figure they never knew, sought his fortune in the untamed west, but unlike his contemporary Chancy Carpenter, he never returned, having disappeared from the mortal plane. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Sadie Moriarty would later take a second husband and start a separate home and hearth with him, while her sister Lizzie lived on Front Street in harmony and peace. As she got to be more senior in age, she came to be regarded as a local sage of sorts, garnering the affectionate nicknames of “Aunt Lizzie” and “Grandma Moriarty.”. It would also be said that “she maintained a marvelous Christian philosophy of happiness and good will.” She was a fixture on her Front Street porch during summer months, when many passersby, especially local youths, were known to visit and while away the hours with her. A steadfast member of Mokena’s Methodist church, Aunt Lizzie was “interested in everything in life, in national politics and affairs of her village.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXomjhuKy1YMqykTB3RNyYjfGdmnaizJsprsacXMa89sKSodBj6do7oM0lplzh0_ac_LwEVT2_3U6wTt6mNcZQHD_5mgisx2Q2VEDTL0xkxVhKvTkR6EmdJXDv-C2fknU6EfoPacaMYf4-2CLESiYJlGCyz_87v0f-IQRVxC2NzcBLtxsBYBlNC5MuPg/s1894/cooper_elmer_moriarty_lizzie_1951.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1894" data-original-width="1517" height="527" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXomjhuKy1YMqykTB3RNyYjfGdmnaizJsprsacXMa89sKSodBj6do7oM0lplzh0_ac_LwEVT2_3U6wTt6mNcZQHD_5mgisx2Q2VEDTL0xkxVhKvTkR6EmdJXDv-C2fknU6EfoPacaMYf4-2CLESiYJlGCyz_87v0f-IQRVxC2NzcBLtxsBYBlNC5MuPg/w421-h527/cooper_elmer_moriarty_lizzie_1951.jpeg" width="421" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Seen here in 1951, neighbor Elmer Cooper admires Aunt Lizzie Moriarty's knitting work on the distinctive front porch of the historic Front Street house.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> When her sister Sadie’s second husband passed, she came back to Mokena to live with Aunt Lizzie. After Sadie broke her hip after a 1939 fall in Chicago, her sister nursed her back to health at home, but despite Aunt Lizzie’s best efforts, Sadie would be bed ridden for the rest of her days, ultimately breathing her last in April 1944. In a strange twist of fate, Aunt Lizzie broke her own hip after falling in front of Front Street’s Royal Blue Store not long after her sister died. She was the owner of a hearty pioneer’s constitution, and was eventually able to be back on her feet. Aunt Lizzie Moriarty’s 90<sup>th</sup> birthday in March 1953 made the front page of Mokena’s <i>News-Bulletin</i>, our erstwhile town newspaper. It was reported that she was doing well for herself, living alone aside from a caregiver that helped her around the house, and was still doing all her own housekeeping, excepting anything that was too heavy. On this occasion, Aunt Lizzie reflected on her life, and mused on the invention of the telephone, the automobile, new farm machinery, and also television, the cutting-edge technology of the day. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Striking a bittersweet tone, Lizzie Moriarty crossed into the great beyond at her home a little over a year after this milestone birthday, on April 21<sup>st</sup>, 1954. She was interred in the family plot of her husband at Marshall Cemetery. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Any landmark that has weathered the years such as this one will have seen its share of change, and so it was that Dr. J.O. Hitz of Orland Park purchased the property around New Year 1956, at which time the Henneberry family was living there. After they got settled elsewhere, Dr. Hitz had the west side of this historic house remodeled into a dentist office and waiting room, taking his first patients in March of that year. The next change occurred on November 1<sup>st</sup>, 1960, when Elmer and Charlotte Tepper, formerly of Chicago, moved their shoe repair shop here from its old stand directly across Front Street. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While they hadn’t been here since day one, the Teppers became well-established Mokenians in no time and found success in our town. Aside from fixing shoes, they also sold Minnetonka moccasins, which were stacked wall-to-wall in white boxes, while the unmistakable aroma of leather permeated the air. In the early 1970s, their shop became one of the village’s most unique business when they kept their day-to-day trade of cobbling, but also branched out into pet sales, handling fish, turtles, and birds, while at one point, a monkey named Cindy held court in the shoe repair shop. Ever the entrepreneurs, Elmer and Charlotte Tepper also started a cleaning business, where they sent out local garments to a third party. In the same era as the pet shop, the old house’s spacious second floor was made into a boarding house of sorts. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCddU8hALYooEhZOJFEvkod6Q51sngEqK4wPSht7rKkWQa9fikHYWthLIfBoRSgzTkefvwyjZMNzmcdZAzlB-zoi5a_xIOztJxE8FsDQuiifwfb_REu4j0oouBCqBZrYJUzmw8yCpDWvU0SWYAoQazksd2HcaSff3z3XDLcnDpcHsgIp0_3CtRdFa4Tg/s720/als_shoe_repair_ca1980.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="720" height="379" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCddU8hALYooEhZOJFEvkod6Q51sngEqK4wPSht7rKkWQa9fikHYWthLIfBoRSgzTkefvwyjZMNzmcdZAzlB-zoi5a_xIOztJxE8FsDQuiifwfb_REu4j0oouBCqBZrYJUzmw8yCpDWvU0SWYAoQazksd2HcaSff3z3XDLcnDpcHsgIp0_3CtRdFa4Tg/w531-h379/als_shoe_repair_ca1980.jpg" width="531" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The domicile pictured around 1980, during the Tepper years. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Any account of the Tepper family of Mokena would be remiss not to reflect upon Carl Tepper, the only son of Elmer and Charlotte. Only seven years old when his family moved in, in later years Carl would be known by local youth for his huge music collection, providing hours of entertainment to his friends by playing name that tune, not to mention his pool table, pinball machines, and inground pool that the house’s backyard boasted in those years. He was also a star cross country runner in his day, and later would be a familiar figure jogging on the streets of Mokena, with his long hair flowing in the wind behind him. His parents, Elmer and Charlotte Tepper passed away in 1985 and 1996 respectively, and the family shoe repair shop closed its doors for the last time in the mid 1990s, as nearly as anyone in town can remember. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Enter at this point Laura Thiel of Frankfort, who acquired this historic property in 2001. Before opening her salon here the following year, (which still flourishes to this day) she embarked on a massive project to rejuvenate this old place after years of neglect. On the inside, the historic walls were plagued with legions of silverfish who were feasting on the glue behind layer after layer of old paneling. Underneath years’ worth of décor was plaster and lathe, with a thick stuffing of newspapers between the walls that had long since disintegrated into dust, leaving the domicile with no real insulation to speak of. On the other side of the coin, the place also had no central air-conditioning. Everything was gutted down to the studs, while a small arm of the house which was tacked onto its northern side was removed and rebuilt. In the main structure, the original floors became the subfloors, while everything was done anew: fresh electric work, new plumbing, and fireproof insulation. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Laura Thiel’s hard work, which took place in stages over the span of years, saved this priceless piece of the village’s history from the tragic end suffered by so many of Mokena’s landmarks. At the end of the day, over a century and a half of life and love have been preserved for the future of our community. When we rightfully marvel at its long history, the miraculous rescue of this storied house must also be remembered. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-827929546046323232022-11-12T18:29:00.004-08:002022-11-15T17:46:57.155-08:00Stick 'Em Up: The 1931 Koeller Shooting<p> <span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Time moves in such a way as to easily obscure the past. Modern conveniences and construction of more recent vintage abound in our everyday lives, but these also bury stories that illustrate past times with piquant flavor. At 19820 Wolf Road stands what appears to be a normal building, one like many others in town. However, where now a yoga studio and other business exist, was once an auto dealership that was the site of a hair-raising case of self-defense from a brazen criminal act.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> To set the stage for the scene at hand, we’d have to travel back to the Mokena of 1930, a community in the grip of the Great Depression. In the autumn of that year, construction started on a large automotive garage and dealership on the newly concreted Wolf Road. At the site just south of the vacant Bowman Dairy plant, Chevrolets and Whippets would be sold under the firm of Heusner & Mager from Frankfort. The grand cost of the building came out to $17,000, with village carpenters Arthur Benson and Byron Nelson having charge of the work. Touted as being fireproof, the new dealership opened its doors to Mokena on February 6<sup>th</sup>, 1931. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By the spring of 1932, George Koeller was running things here, and was experiencing some problems with petty crime, as the place had been broken into a handful of times over the course of the past year. As the small, rural village slept in the early morning of Saturday, April 2<sup>nd</sup>, Koeller’s 23-year-old son, also named George, was overnighting in a room next to the garage’s office. Around 3:30am he was jarred from his sleep by his trusty dog, who had been agitated by some weird activity in the office. After calming down the hound by wrapping him in a blanket, the young Koeller, sensing trouble, grabbed his revolver and went to investigate. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Upon quietly inching open the office door, he was confronted by a stranger, a tall, thin man who would later be described as having a “prominent nose.” Leveling the gun at the presumed bandit, Koeller ordered the man to put up his hands, but instead, the intruder dashed out of the building, slamming an exterior door behind him. The young man went after him, and hastily fired several rounds through the door before throwing it back open. To his shock, the would-be burglar was untouched by the gunfire, and standing by the doorway, aimed his own gun point blank at Koeller, and fired a shot that inflicted a flesh wound on him. The marauder then took off on foot southward down Wolf Road, and into the inky dark morning.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuhBypM4jzKCWqdHNiZ8MSPqvzupISdzYGC5HuGDdKSmwkSTt0AOBvoZNOV7edsHeDjAm5AuWryLpVoztVoBNaKuCBMNyS5yzz6luUQy3tFC5fAY6snPdp1l5LHWhsTCm8HBHboMvNf3Mer-RHOM5ba_h4Y7Tvt1tjV6HCb9D_aViz6ZiSs6FgaqgkLA/s1742/shooting.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1362" data-original-width="1742" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuhBypM4jzKCWqdHNiZ8MSPqvzupISdzYGC5HuGDdKSmwkSTt0AOBvoZNOV7edsHeDjAm5AuWryLpVoztVoBNaKuCBMNyS5yzz6luUQy3tFC5fAY6snPdp1l5LHWhsTCm8HBHboMvNf3Mer-RHOM5ba_h4Y7Tvt1tjV6HCb9D_aViz6ZiSs6FgaqgkLA/w454-h355/shooting.png" width="454" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Not an illustration of the events on Wolf Road, but rather an image from a late 1920s automotive magazine. Nevertheless, it helps paint a picture of the 1931 shooting. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Fueled by adrenaline and momentarily hampered by the jamming of his revolver, Koeller was able to fire four more rounds into the dark after the intruder. In a flash, a car flew past the business northbound on Wolf Road, while seconds later another barreled down the road in the opposite direction with lightning speed. Smarting from the wound, George Koeller made his way into town to the home and office of Dr. Ernest McMahan, who tended to his wound, which after all was said and done proved not to be serious. Authorities from Joliet came to the scene, but no trace of the burglar or of any accomplices would ever be found. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The elder George Koeller sold his interest in the auto business at the end of 1936, while his son moved down the road to New Lenox. Over the course of the years, the old dealership and garage on Wolf Road changed hands and came to house a foundry, which operated here for many years. Things are quiet within those four walls today, playing silent witness to an intense morning decades ago, when a Mokenian faced down an armed burglar. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-85962635302142057832022-10-29T18:01:00.000-07:002022-10-29T18:01:01.872-07:00Man of the Cloth: The Story of Rev. James R. Woodcock and the Mokena Methodist Congregation<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">As time marches onward, we are swept up in a never-ending news cycle, and are bombarded with momentous events, so many that the average citizen is hard pressed to keep track of them all. We live in history-making days. Even the home front is not immune, as Mokena’s United Methodist Church is winking out, and merging its ranks with our neighbors in the New Lenox congregation. The Mokena Methodists have been part of our community for 155 years, no small feat of longevity, having provided a spiritual stronghold to the hearts of countless faithful villagers since 1867. Many men and women of the cloth have tended to our local assembly over the years, and for the flock’s centennial in 1967 a tally was made that counted 49 ministers up to that point. On this long list of spiritual leaders, Rev. James R. Woodcock’s name appears, who manned the pulpit in the years 1883 to 1887. Even when his tenure was up, his association with Mokena didn’t end.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Even before Rev. Woodcock came to Mokena, the Methodist Episcopal church, as it was fashioned in his time, was possessed of an interesting history. As early as 1855, a mere three years after Mokena was laid out and the iron horse of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad first puffed across the prairie, Methodist religious services were being held at the new schoolhouse. This group of the faithful weathered the trauma of the Civil War, and under the leadership of Rev. Lucius Hawkins on the blessed winter day of December 15<sup>th</sup>, 1867, finally dedicated a church of their own on Mokena’s public square. All in all, the new church, described as “very neat and commodious” cost the young congregation $1,500, which was paid for by the members of the flock. Years later, they would recall that the sale of a stray horse also helped chip in to the building fund. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVdM96e8xVDve5qCtd9PB5PyvQTus1CyHZN_KvMh5RmAtfNgmO2rmqZB8ofYGWXW1ik37PKE1CY0nZq0k71KiSWQhMyaG4Y8lsnkEAWBmHQR4HetBNw8n2q9Sv8m-itJju86S_n7yDatZKgzIGjEwM6hV9hw2qJls5026va12YFM0ENciHCeMXveSGhQ/s1632/methodist_ca1915.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1632" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVdM96e8xVDve5qCtd9PB5PyvQTus1CyHZN_KvMh5RmAtfNgmO2rmqZB8ofYGWXW1ik37PKE1CY0nZq0k71KiSWQhMyaG4Y8lsnkEAWBmHQR4HetBNw8n2q9Sv8m-itJju86S_n7yDatZKgzIGjEwM6hV9hw2qJls5026va12YFM0ENciHCeMXveSGhQ/w523-h333/methodist_ca1915.tif" width="523" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The Methodist Episcopal Church of Mokena, as seen circa 1915. This historic structure stood at today's 11099 Second Street.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> It is important to note that during the church’s halcyon days, their sanctuary was shared on alternate Sundays with the village’s Baptists; a Union Sunday School was even conducted under the wing of the Baptist deacon Rollin Marshall, who was a Mokena pioneer in his own right. Several decades later this accord would play out in a dramatic way, when a particularly bitter lawsuit erupted between the two congregations as to who the rightful owner of the church was. When the dust settled in 1899, the Methodists were ruled the legal owners of the property, which led to the extinction of the local Baptist assemblage for decades. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While an early historian wrote that the Methodist flock was “rather small”, they were prosperous enough in the fall of 1874 to dedicate a parsonage for the use of their pastor and his family, the house still standing today on the southeast corner of Mokena and Second Streets. The edifice cost a hefty $1,000, and the ribbon cutting was rung in with an oyster dinner. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Only two years after Mokena was incorporated, Rev. James R. Woodcock received the call to helm our Methodist Episcopal church in the fall of 1882, and for his work earned a salary of $500 a year, which was upped in his second year in the village to $550. His arrival made him tenth pastor to man the pulpit since the church’s founding sixteen years before. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Rev. Woodcock was a freshly minted 30-year-old pastor, and our community was to be his first charge. He acclimated well with the village, with our local correspondent to the <i>Will County Advertiser</i> noting in the October of his first year that he “is meeting remarkable success as a minister.” A year after his arrival, Rev. Woodcock’s Sunday school boasted of a robust 81 pupils, and while the Methodist sanctuary didn’t have a choir or an organ when he got to it, before his tenure was over, he had provided for both. The reverend and his wife Annie, along with their 2-year-old daughter Grace, lived in the parsonage on Mokena Street, which was the scene of a soiree given in honor of Mrs. Woodcock the following March. The same correspondent described the night as “one of those pleasant social episodes… that helps to dispel the drudging of the every-day routine of life”, the guests all arriving for tea in costumes. The hostess herself was clad as “Lady Washington”, teenage Mokenian Belle Jones was Queen Elizabeth, and 16-year-old neighbor Jennie Hatch as “Miss Fry, a Quaker.” “Games and other social amusements” were had, and at the end of the night, all who were there “declared it was the most pleasant affair of the season.” Mrs. Woodcock quickly found her place in Mokena, and also began giving painting lessons to neighborhood students. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> While the seat of Rev. Woodcock’s ministry was Mokena, he was also responsible for the Methodist congregations at Goodings Grove in Homer Township and what in his era was informally called the English Settlement, which corresponded to an area in today’s Orland Township. He traversed his circuit by horse and buggy, nothing to sneeze at in the days when road conditions in our neck of the woods were often less than ideal. He was adored by his flock, as was abundantly shown on October 26<sup>th</sup>, 1883, when the Woodcocks were surprised at the parsonage by about 25 Orlanders. A bountiful dinner was had, and our friend at the <i>Will County Advertiser</i> said that “best of all, English settlement folks never come empty handed”, for they showered Rev. Woodcock with butter, eggs, flour, cheese, corn, oats and “a little pile of Uncle Sam’s script and coins.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The reverend and his family were transferred to a new charge in Nebraska in September 1884, and thus their time in our quiet railroad town came to a conclusion. The years marched forward and life went on, and the Methodist Episcopal church stood like a rock in Mokena, weathering every change that came its way. Along the way, pastor Woodcock picked up the additional title of doctor, and after the passage of many years, in the fall of 1926, he made his triumphant return to Mokena. He found many changes in our fair burg, the village was now lit by electricity, autos plied the streets, and the rugged farm lane just west of town now carried a proper name, that of Wolf Road. One of the first things he did after arriving in Mokena was to visit his old church, and in doing so, re-discovered a veritable Rosetta Stone of the congregation’s history. He found a marble-topped communion table in the sanctuary, and after knowingly removing the marble top, he brought to light an inscription on its bottom from the church’s earliest days, it having read:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“This church was dedicated on the 15<sup>th</sup> day of December, 1867. The dedicatory sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Kidder of Evanston, Ill. The pastor of the church was Rev. Lucius Hawkins. P.E. (Presiding Elder) of the District – Rev. W.F. Stewart.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> It was said the words were just as legible then as the day they were inscribed. This tablet, a priceless piece of local history, has since been lost to the winds of time. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> A little over a year later, in December 1927, the Methodist congregation marked a big anniversary, namely 60 years since their sanctuary was dedicated. At this time, Mokenian Ella Cooper, a dedicated member of the church, reached out to Rev. Woodcock at his home in southern California to see what he might remember of his days in the village. Dr. Rev. Woodcock and Mrs. Cooper began exchanging letters and renewing their acquaintance.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The newfound correspondence between the two piqued the interest of William Semmler, the editor of our erstwhile newspaper, <i>The News-Bulletin</i>, who in a very prescient move, preserved their letters for posterity by printing them in his publication. In a note dated April 11<sup>th</sup>, 1927, Dr. Rev. Woodcock remembered how “a commodious barn belonged to the parsonage property”, and further reminisced on his first wedding in Mokena: <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“We had not tacked down our carpets, when some friends from Joliet, where we had been living drove up and insisted that I should marry them, and after some hesitation on my part, I did. We had no cake to pass out, but did have a merry-making time.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> He also reflected on his preaching beat, and the roughness of travel in that era: “How piercing cold those winters were. I froze myself on one trip around the circuit, and many times the snow was so deep that I drove over the top of stake-and-rider fences.” Aside from dealing with grueling weather, ministering was also physically demanding, as Dr. Rev. Woodcock recalled that in the beginning “I had to lead all the singing, do the preaching, and then follow up with strenuous exhorting.” Reflecting the mostly Germanic makeup of Mokena in his day, he went on to note “I was the only English-speaking minister for miles around, the Germans abounded; and so it was that I married a good many people, conducted numerous funerals, and baptized a lot of children and adults.” As Dr. Rev. Woodcock reflected upon his flock, he remembered one couple in particular: <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“How wonderfully the Lord saved them! He was the most profane man in the neighborhood; he swore so loud he could be heard a half mile, and some people wouldn’t have him work for them on their buildings, he was a carpenter, but when God saved him, He did a complete work, and he became one of the most humble and sweet-spirited men I ever knew, and his wife was just as devoted. It was he whom I secured to build the Goodings Grove church.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Dr. Rev. Woodcock kept up his holy work until he passed away in the spring of 1942 in Missouri. His story is but one of the many over the decades to be closely associated with this local group of the faithful. As the sun sets upon the Mokena United Methodist Church, may we remember those who built the congregation, and those who labored with all of their hearts over the past century and a half to keep it afloat. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-46436676687466014002022-10-08T17:43:00.001-07:002022-10-08T17:43:33.124-07:00School Days: The Story of Elizabeth Cappel<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">“School days, school days/Dear old Golden Rule days/’Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic/Taught to the tune of the hick’ry stick.” Mokena’s schools have a rich tradition that stretches back to 1855, a mere three years after the arrival of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad and the subsequent laying out of the village. The school has come a long way since that first, simple structure on the public square, and students and faculty have been many over these last 167 years, and compiling a complete history of this establishment would be a gargantuan undertaking. Nevertheless, it would be impossible to understand this all-encompassing subject without first knowing Mrs. Elizabeth Cappel, one of the most honored women in Mokena’s story. Not only did she serve as a teacher in the venerated public school on Carpenter Street, but she also became the institution’s principal and superintendent.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1zfRglzURTZlmjl-iKZ19QZhhN7v5AQm2eO7rjCbstWD2TG3jhCUkIEMCPquZ7Bapj82nJYRb7rsqO8yzRD7Rbbf4ftODu-SmNRLvHEyWb50WDX0bi1exjB_3EGnX2mkGDNvytsqzpu-SP6rmZPk5gxMtVXsC3WprOjtZxzkrQMm1DGsp8b6uXXevQ/s520/cappel_elizabeth.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="356" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1zfRglzURTZlmjl-iKZ19QZhhN7v5AQm2eO7rjCbstWD2TG3jhCUkIEMCPquZ7Bapj82nJYRb7rsqO8yzRD7Rbbf4ftODu-SmNRLvHEyWb50WDX0bi1exjB_3EGnX2mkGDNvytsqzpu-SP6rmZPk5gxMtVXsC3WprOjtZxzkrQMm1DGsp8b6uXXevQ/s320/cappel_elizabeth.png" width="219" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Mrs. Elizabeth Cappel of Mokena, circa 1955. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Born Elizabeth M. Krusemark on November 30<sup>th</sup>, 1898, her story begins far from Mokena, on the southern border of Minnesota, where she grew up in the young community of Truman. Even teachers have to go to school, and our heroine went to hers in her hometown. Elizabeth broke the mold, and climbed the ladder of education in a time when more than a few of her contemporaries wouldn’t finish elementary school, she attending not only high school, but also graduating from teachers’ college in Mankato, Minnesota in 1925, being the proud owner of a BE degree. A newly-minted educator, she began teaching in rural Minnesota schools, while also spending a year working on an Indian reservation. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In 1929, the year of the stock market crash, the twists of chance led Elizabeth Krusemark to Mokena. While sojourning with kin in our neck of the woods, she learned that a teaching spot in the village was open, and promptly applied for it. The Mokena of 1929 was a vastly different place from today’s community, counting a little over 500 residents in a rural railroad town. Miss Krusemark was interviewed by school board members Elmer Cooper and Ona McGovney, respectfully the owner of the successful Cooper & Hostert Ford agency on Front Street and a village insurance agent. She made a good impression and ultimately got the job, although years later Mr. Cooper would remember “The only thing against her was that (I) was afraid she would only stay one year.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Miss Krusemark went to work in the brand-new, $29,000 school on Carpenter Street, District 159 having just that year vacated the elegant yet aging older building on the corner of Front Street and Schoolhouse Road. Her workplace was state of the art, a fireproof building consisting of a gymnasium (the village’s first) and four classrooms that were used by the school’s 125 pupils, some of which belonged to Mokena’s two-year high school. Two of Miss Krusemark’s earliest students were young Hans Mueller and Eddie Yunker, both of whom continued their work with her when they later served on the district’s board of education. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvPj9DvJuGpnl2UeOcYoHopCM_6VnfyvquqqrUedKBtmH2nxnXtxxqusZ5Dwg26ibbvrCc8C907MTEBk01zgEybdTMK_qlJygYeGj6y0mXAYzOCR9bGAI2ou7bWJ8x3HctzBaTtLnY6MMW1MabE8ORcacNwS3aB1jf9TOxv5THPSU9s4GPXyaxK8_sOQ/s4032/city_hall_oct2022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvPj9DvJuGpnl2UeOcYoHopCM_6VnfyvquqqrUedKBtmH2nxnXtxxqusZ5Dwg26ibbvrCc8C907MTEBk01zgEybdTMK_qlJygYeGj6y0mXAYzOCR9bGAI2ou7bWJ8x3HctzBaTtLnY6MMW1MabE8ORcacNwS3aB1jf9TOxv5THPSU9s4GPXyaxK8_sOQ/w508-h382/city_hall_oct2022.jpg" width="508" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The former main entrance of the Mokena Public School, today the Village Hall. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As she made her new home in Mokena, in 1930 Elizabeth Krusemark boarded with the Frederick and Violette Whitlark family on Second Street, then shortly thereafter with the Harold and Myrtle Coopers on Third Street. Alas, it wasn’t long after being welcomed within the gates of our community that wedding bells rung; a few days after New Year’s 1936, Elizabeth eloped to Iowa with Albert Cappel. A familiar face around town, Albert Cappel ran a local feed and coal business of long standing on Mokena Street with his brother Fred. Eleven years previously, Albert had become a widower when his wife Clara passed, and upon his second marriage, Elizabeth Cappel became stepmother to Wesley, Harold, and Marvin. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Having a position of authority in the Mokena school, it was inevitable that many cases requiring discipline came before Mrs. Cappel. Decades after her time in our midst, stories of reverence would still be told about her wooden paddle fashioned from part of an orange crate. In the classroom, she had to maintain an assertive stance, and didn’t tolerate fooling around, but nevertheless kept a special place in her heart for her students, and upon graduation, would let them affectionately call her Kruzi. Elizabeth wore more than a few hats in the village, having led Mokena’s first girl scout troop, and would also coach boys’ and girls’ basketball, a perennial favorite sport in town. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the world was in the grip of the Second World War, 1944 proved to be a significant year for Mrs. Cappel’s career in more ways than one. Sunlight shone by making her principal then, but storm clouds gathered when, in the grind of war, various hardships such as lack of available teachers caused District 159’s two-year high school to go defunct. Things turned up in 1951 when, under her watch, a $52,000 addition to the school was built, consisting of two new classrooms, a kitchen and shower rooms. Three years later, in 1954, there were 225 grade schoolers in her care, at which time a contemporary said “Mrs. Cappel is both loved by her pupils and highly respected by their parents and community as a whole.” The feeling was mutual, as she would say that “the people have been so grand” in Mokena. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Mrs. Cappel retired in 1962, at that time having the superintendent’s chair. After the completion of Willowcrest five years previously, she continued to work in the old halls on Carpenter Street as well as in the new school. In her 33 years as an educator in Mokena, she taught many town youngsters whose parents had also been her students, and in early 1963 was honored by our Chamber of Commerce as one of the village’s most distinguished citizens. On August 16<sup>th</sup> of that year, Elizabeth Cappel passed into eternal memory, and the sun set upon the life and career of a Mokenian that hasn’t been equaled since. In 1975, the old school on Carpenter Street was christened the Elizabeth Cappel School, in honor of the woman who labored tirelessly there for so many years. Nowadays our city hall, it’s impossible to behold this edifice and not feel her resolute influence. <o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-78478787493198106792022-09-24T17:10:00.004-07:002022-09-24T17:12:20.767-07:00Decorated in Flames: The Martin Hall Fire of 1912<p> <span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">A community draws strength in the gathering of its citizens. They come together in settings where ideas are shared, grand plans hatched, and friendships are sealed. Groups of neighbors need a spot where they are comfortable, yet one that is in the heart of the place they call home. The untimely loss of such an important landmark can leave a neighborhood reeling, such as the one Mokena experienced 110 years ago in the great fire that destroyed Martin Hall on Front Street.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> In the spirit of American entrepreneurship, Mokenian Frank Liess opened a general store on Front Street in May 1901. His brother Charles later joined him in partnership, and while they weren’t the only shopkeepers in town, they served a Mokena where around 300 souls lived and joined a smattering of enterprises such as a blacksmith and a butcher, along with a drugstore and some saloons. Three years after the store opened, the building was spruced up with an addition, and the second floor of the structure was remade into a large multi-purpose space, which quickly came to be known throughout the region as Liess Hall. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;"> Sporting a roomy dance floor, the space also had a ticket office, cloakroom, and its own entrance from Front Street. It was a popular gathering spot for Mokena’s fraternal orders; everyone from the Modern Woodmen of America to the Royal Neighbors called Liess Hall home. Not only did the village board convene in the hall for a period, it was also a focal point of social activity in the community. Any given week in early 20<sup>th</sup>century Mokena might find a masquerade ball, play, church bazaar or even a magic lantern show taking place – the latter being the forerunner to today’s movies. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTowIaC0U6bjo-tjW7pD8bOQjg3q6LJdtPIfyN0Nb3A8WOumDaVNSj5QECAuhYjGGNT04ymqVkS0AxFaAyXrsVUwP04FT5qS5DXej4fOorktm2axCAotQH_7eyb5mziyNMhZG1XxdXMnqoTx5HGwDL_uVxW7h7EM4LLA6zTzDuz6OXqlBCZ44C81g7g/s3648/avalanche_jewlery_feb2016.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2736" data-original-width="3648" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTowIaC0U6bjo-tjW7pD8bOQjg3q6LJdtPIfyN0Nb3A8WOumDaVNSj5QECAuhYjGGNT04ymqVkS0AxFaAyXrsVUwP04FT5qS5DXej4fOorktm2axCAotQH_7eyb5mziyNMhZG1XxdXMnqoTx5HGwDL_uVxW7h7EM4LLA6zTzDuz6OXqlBCZ44C81g7g/w513-h386/avalanche_jewlery_feb2016.jpg" width="513" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Today's 11018 Front Street, formerly the site of Liess Hall.</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">The hall, along with the store on its street level, passed into the hands of the unfortunately named Lemuel Cramp in 1911, and the following year became the property of John A. Martin, a recent Mokena arrival by way of downstate Jefferson County. The countless hours of joy that took place within these walls were overshadowed by disaster, when a catastrophic fire struck the hall on July 24<sup>th</sup>, 1912. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> From a standpoint at her residence across the street and a few yards to the southeast, widowed mother Bertha Groth was jarred from her slumbers by the acrid smell of smoke, and when she looked out her bedroom window at about 2:30am, she spotted Martin Hall aflame, likely being the first Mokenian to see it, saying that she saw “flames breaking through the walls and roof of the Martin building.” She hurried across to the street to the saloon of her brother-in-law, John Groth, to notify him of the impending calamity. Word traveled over electric wire in the dark night to 20-year-old village switchboard operator Mary Rinke, who became a pioneer when she used her telephone to alert her fellow townspeople of the emergency unfolding on Front Street. Later that day, it was said that Mary managed to call everyone in town.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> Around the same time as Bertha Groth made her dreadful discovery, a tinsmith neighbor of hers named Henry Carsten caught sight of a flame through a first floor window of the building. He told a local newspaper that the light was “not larger than a lantern”, before it suddenly exploded before his eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> As townspeople and the volunteer fire department rushed to the scene, it became abundantly clear that it was too late to save Martin Hall. As the inferno wrapped itself around the building, the threat of half the town burning with it became very real. Flaming pieces of debris landed on the general store of Catharine Sippel next door to the west, on Charles Moriarty’s feed shed across Front Street, and on the home of Ernest Lehnert, a few doors down the road. Blistering flames also licked 30-year-old Ed Stellwagen, who armed with buckets of water, fought to protect his property on the east side of the blaze. His roof having caught on fire a few times, the day proved to be exceedingly unlucky for him. While he ultimately saved his buildings, they did take damage not only from the flames but also from water, and he carried no insurance. To add insult to injury, he complained that someone took $50 from his vest that was tossed aside while fighting the fire. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> Despite the efforts of Mokena’s citizens, Martin Hall couldn’t be saved, and was consigned to a heap of charred wood. John Martin estimated the total loss came out to about $15,000. The members of local organizations who met in the hall discovered that their charters were lost in the blaze, and while a safe was fished out of the wreckage that managed to keep some of their valuable papers intact, some time had to pass before it was cool enough to open. Within a few days, State Deputy Fire Marshal L.C. McMurtry made the trek to town to investigate the scene, where he turned up nothing useful. If anyone ever found a definite answer as to what caused the conflagration, it was never recorded for posterity. Conflicting stories on the fire’s origin made their rounds in Mokena, some of which were tinged with raised eyebrows and suspicion. Local sage Clinton Kraus later cryptically reflected that “none could be proven…best to forget!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;"> Within days of the fire, the <i>Joliet Herald</i> reported that a collection was being taken up in town to help repair Ed Stellwagen’s property. Meanwhile, Mr. Martin claimed that he would rebuild his hall once odds and ends with his insurance were settled, and that this time, the place would be fireproof. Alas, it never happened, and he left town. The old focal point of the village, where so many memories were made, stood at the site of today’s Avalanche Jewelry at 11018 Front Street. Perhaps not coincidentally, a new and improved hall was built on the site around a year after the blaze, a building which itself was taken by another disastrous fire in 1993. As it seems, irony plays no favorites. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7892904535523439293.post-76606960673781158412022-09-07T17:14:00.001-07:002022-09-07T18:35:03.966-07:00Ach So Giftig: The Story of the 1889 Dall Murders<p> <span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Mokena has the proud reputation of being a peaceable place, a name built on the relationships built by longstanding neighbors and friends who care for their community. Nevertheless, readers of this page have seen that the chronicle of our village’s history is dotted with islands of miscontent. Various things have happened over the years that are looked back upon with unsavoriness, be they theft of property, targeted arson, and various other distasteful deeds. Once in a lifetime, however, comes along an act so heinous that it sticks out prominently on the annals of time like a sore thumb. Parting the cobwebs and brushing away the dust, we find a case so salacious, so ghastly, that one has to read it to believe it. On that note, the author would like to introduce the 1889 Dall murders.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The story begins across a storm-tossed sea, in what is now western Germany. It was almost halfway through the first half of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, and Jonathan Dall and Amalia Hartkopf were a married couple, making their way in the world as best they could. Like so many of their generation, the Dall family had been compelled to seek a better life on America’s shores at a time when their German home was rife with instability and revolution. The Dalls were natives of the area around Solingen, long renown for the high-quality knives produced in the region. There the elder Dall worked as a cutler, before picking up stakes with his family in 1848 as unrest reared its head and sailing across the choppy Atlantic for seven weeks. Eight children would be born to Jonathan and Amalia’s union, among whom were young Bertha, Ida, Eduard, Emma, and Jonathan. The names of the others, who don’t appear to have reached adulthood, are lost to time. The new Americans made their way to the Prairie State by way of New Orleans, where Jonathan Dall Sr. came into possession of a sizeable tract of land in Kendall County, before trying his hand at blacksmithing for a spell. All roads led to farming, however, and after tilling the soil again in Kendall County, the Dall family made their way to Will County at the end of the 1850s, before ultimately settling outside Mokena, then a neat little hamlet on the new Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Having already established itself as a center for Germanic settlement, the Dalls’ presence in the newly-formed Frankfort Township was something of an anomaly with their status as Rhinelanders, as most of their Teutonic brethren in our midst were Bavarians, Hessians and Mecklenburgers. They found a place with the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church in Mokena, and had a great deal of success after establishing a 160-acre farm on the eastern side of today’s LaPorte Road and Route 45. In 1860, it was estimated to be worth $5,500, and was quite a bustling operation – with three horses, eight cows, and four swine. Things were humming along that year, as Jonathan Dall Sr. estimated that the farm has produced 500 bushels of Indian corn, 300 pounds of butter, and 40 tons of hay. While living on this farm, he also served as path master and road commissioner, two prominent positions in township government, while one contemporary simply stated that the Dalls “were people of the highest character.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Sometime around the end of the Civil War, the Dalls sold the farm and moved to a new one just a short carriage ride west of Mokena in New Lenox Township. It was down a country lane that bisected the estate of old settlers, the Marshall family, that also ran along the edge of that clan’s family cemetery, of which just to the northwest the Dalls lived. Bigger than their last farm, the new home property measured in at a stately 196 acres, and would later be cleaved by the new Wabash Railroad. It was here that Jonathan Dall Sr passed away on June 30<sup>th</sup>, 1885 after a battle with pneumonia. The 72-year-old’s earthly remains were borne to St. John’s Cemetery, where they were laid to rest. So it was that Eduard and Jonathan Jr then became the men of the farm. It bears repeating to the modern reader that nineteenth century life was far from easy, and fate once again struck the Dall family when Eduard too succumbed on October 15<sup>th</sup>, 1887 on the family farm at the young age of 34 years. He was a casualty of the dreaded malady of typhoid fever, and thus his younger brother, 31-year-old Jonathan Jr, described as “quiet, unostentatious, and hard-working” became the sole head of the farm. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioieY2b6v6oWL2pcyv71vf3ErKBy4ORcaxH2xIX7YaR8bGO-taPo2r1dVt69pmoWVGsN3KyO32YxzgXsNsdhGgxmeIyhrvi-jloIC7FGma9GJLezrlP0yIXEZQd1lzR_e80Ss6bTsvdDbs_MMGCBTYN-P8aTX2iOs2TaQj9PtUoQXHgLI7cRM832Kt9Q/s2568/dall_house.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1296" data-original-width="2568" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioieY2b6v6oWL2pcyv71vf3ErKBy4ORcaxH2xIX7YaR8bGO-taPo2r1dVt69pmoWVGsN3KyO32YxzgXsNsdhGgxmeIyhrvi-jloIC7FGma9GJLezrlP0yIXEZQd1lzR_e80Ss6bTsvdDbs_MMGCBTYN-P8aTX2iOs2TaQj9PtUoQXHgLI7cRM832Kt9Q/w560-h281/dall_house.png" width="560" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The old farmhouse on the Dall place, as it appears on modern-day Regan Road.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> By 1889, “peace, prosperity and plenty” abounded at the Dall homestead, and as that year was wrapping up, the household consisted of Jonathan, his 71-year-old mother Amalia, and a 17-year-old housekeeper named Sabina Schenkel who was there on and off, whose parents and siblings lived close to Mokena. Also present on the estate was a farmhand named John Scheffler, who remains a shadowy figure on the historical narrative, the only details having survived are that he was about 24 years old and a recent German immigrant. As such things happen when a man and a woman are in each other’s circles for an extended length of time, Jonathan and Fena, as Sabina Schenkel was called, became an item. Some would later say that they were actually engaged. As fate would have it, however, there was more to the situation than would meet the eye. There was a third person in the mix. Enter at this point the hired man John Scheffler, who also vied for Fena’s eye, and was consumed with a burning jealousy for Jonathan Dall. He maliciously plotted his boss’s undoing. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Christmas had come and passed, and Monday, December 30<sup>th</sup>, 1889 had bloomed uneventfully at the Dall domicile. That morning, Amalia got to work making breakfast for the house, part of which was made up of bounteous helpings of hot coffee and fresh beef. As the first cups were poured, the Dalls and hired man Scheffler noticed right away that something wasn’t quite right with it. This batch was hastily gotten rid of, and a second pot brewed. Something was still off with it though, it being described as “bitter and bad”, but all were resigned to the matter by this point, and mother and son Dall and Scheffler nevertheless drank it down. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> At this juncture in the story, there is an abrupt change in the day’s events, when, with alarming rapidity, all three became ill, John and Amalia Dall violently so. The two took to their beds, and grasping at straws, John Scheffler put forth the idea that the copper kettle that the meat was stored in must have caused it to go bad. Sinking rapidly, Amalia Dall suggested to him to have some sweet milk, at which point he felt better. Being able to be up and about, his employers sent him into Mokena to bring Dr. Edmund Lynch to the farm. Upon his arrival, the medicine man was flummoxed as to the cause of their sudden illness, and did the best he could for them, which after all was said and done, still provided precious little comfort to the suffering man and elderly woman. While tending to his quickly failing patients, the Dalls made a riveting revelation to the Civil War veteran: both of them separately told him that this was no case of tainted meat, that they believed Scheffler had poisoned them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> That afternoon, young Fena Schenkel came to the Dall house from Mokena and helped nurse her fiancé and future mother-in-law. Jonathan confided to her in the same way he had to Dr. Lynch, but this time went into a little more detail, adding that the first pot of coffee that had been drank from had a strange white powder in it. Someone in the house examined the used coffee grounds, and it would be remembered that they were “of an unusual appearance.” The coffee pot was given a good cleaning, and yet a third serving made, of which this time Fena took a cup. She immediately became ill. Luckily, Dr. Lynch was able to quickly give her an antidote, and she was soon back on her feet. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Neighboring farmer Chester Marshall was also helping in any way he could, while Dr. Frank Searles of New Lenox was also called in, but try as the two physicians may, Amalia Dall expired at eight o’clock that night. Jonathan Dall strongly kept fighting even though his body was wracked with intolerable pain, but lost his battle the next morning, the frosty last day of 1889. With their dying words, until the very end, Jonathan and Amalia Dall pointed the finger at John Scheffler. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> As the new year dawned over Will County, newspaper readers were greeted with ghastly headlines. <i>“A Horrible Crime”</i> shouted the <i>Joliet Republic and Sun</i>, while the <i>Chicago Daily Tribune’s </i>masthead read <i>“Love, Poison and Revenge.” </i>The dreadful events received widespread media coverage, having made not only the papers in those two nearby places, but were carried in publications from as far away as Kansas and Massachusetts. Headlines were also garnered in the <i>Abendpost</i> and the <i>Illinois Staats-Zeitung</i>, two of the state’s foremost German papers.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> On New Year’s morning, an inquest was held by Coroner Andrew J. Mills at the Dall house. The jury was made up of a veritable who’s who of Mokenians: cattleman Christian Bechstein, farmer John Huwiler, retired gentleman Nicholas Marti, attorney Arthur W. McGovney, and constable Charles Schiek, with former mayor Ozias McGovney serving as foreman. The testimonies of the doctors present, Chester Marshall, Fena Schenkel and even John Scheffler were taken, through an interpreter in the case of the latter. Scheffler, who the <i>Chicago Daily Tribune</i> described as “a dull, stupid-looking fellow (who) has nothing to say” stayed by his story, that the deaths were caused by tainted meat from the copper kettle. Dr. Searles had a chance previously to examine the kettle, and testified that there was nothing about it that could have caused such ferocious illnesses. Scheffler’s claims were not given much credence, and at the end of their deliberations, the coroner’s jury recorded that the Dalls “came to their death through the effect of some poisonous substance supposed to be administered by one John Scheffler and would recommend that he be held to the grand jury.” With that, Coroner Mills issued a warrant for his arrest, and the farmhand was whisked off to the county jail. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Many questions remained unanswered after the deaths, such as what exactly the poisonous substance was that caused the Dalls’ demise. In an effort to get to the bottom of this matter, a postmortem examination was held on them by Dr. Lynch and his colleague, Dr. William Becker, also of Mokena. Dr. Becker removed their stomachs and brought them to a laboratory at Rush Medical College in Chicago, in hopes that the chemist there could shed light on the issue. If any new leaves were overturned, the results have disappeared like sand into the winds of time. Mother and son were buried at St. John’s Cemetery, just south of Mokena, on January 2<sup>nd</sup>, 1890. In the entries for the Dalls in the church’s German language <i>Totenregister</i>, or Registry of the Dead, long-standing pastor Carl Schaub wrote “Math: 24,42” in the margin next to Jonathan’s name, likely a reference to Matthew 24:42, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzCTtPE5e2BfCbxdeY9U7gtDq-vPtEfK0pJuuKAtSlE4YGpTAxHwv-8XUFJpKJfIupfiXqGKPmCcV6Am-6mGb2GhGmPtPiVnkH20zwyF9nM9vjK5o3qBzPHPenMKbBppgi-CnHOztvWVi-LVcob2q2mEjbys4Td5aZ_hl8x9QuusU_eLxY4daVF3wrUQ/s4352/Dall%20family%20in%202017.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="4352" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzCTtPE5e2BfCbxdeY9U7gtDq-vPtEfK0pJuuKAtSlE4YGpTAxHwv-8XUFJpKJfIupfiXqGKPmCcV6Am-6mGb2GhGmPtPiVnkH20zwyF9nM9vjK5o3qBzPHPenMKbBppgi-CnHOztvWVi-LVcob2q2mEjbys4Td5aZ_hl8x9QuusU_eLxY4daVF3wrUQ/w530-h397/Dall%20family%20in%202017.JPG" width="530" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">The Dall family plot in St. John's Cemetery. Amalia and Jonathan Dall Jr. are buried under the monument at left. (Image courtesy of Michael Philip Lyons)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> In the aftermath of the Dalls’ untimely passing, there remained the not-so-small issue of settling their estate. There were a few open accounts from area merchants that hadn’t been cleared up, such as that of John Zahn & Son of Mokena, Front Street hardware merchants who had sold Jonathan Dall a soup ladle, skimmer and tin pan earlier in December. Especially prominent in the proceedings of the probate court was the aforementioned Dr. Becker of Mokena, who billed the estate $10 each for the transportation of the Dalls’ stomachs to the Garden City, 85 cents for his train fare, and a further $4.25 for his hack and hotel bills. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Before long, a fateful day came, and what should have been a moment of reckoning, instead turned out to be what may have been one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Will County history. The grand jury convened in Joliet and closed their work on Saturday morning, February 1<sup>st</sup>, 1890. Most of their time had been taken up with the Dall case, and the jurors had heard an abundance of testimony from many different witnesses, including the Chicago chemist who examined the victims’ stomachs. In a wild, unexpected turn, the grand jury ruled that all the evidence was circumstantial, and John Scheffler, who had been in custody since the inquest, was ordered released. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> Then, as is the historian’s lament, all impressions, jottings and reports of this dreadful case disappear from the pages of the historical record. As intensely as it had captivated journalists of the day, their interests were drawn elsewhere as quickly as their gazes had focused on the farm west of Mokena. In retelling any story of this age, certain details fall victim to the ages and are gone forever, and countless bits and pieces have fallen between the cracks, where they’ll stay forever. As such, it’s unknown how Fena Schenkel, the woman in the middle, moved on with the rest of her life. Five years after that awful end of 1889, she married an out-of-towner and went on to have at least four children. She moved to Chicago, where she spent the rest of her days before passing on in 1948. Incidentally, her older brother Conrad Schenkel would wear a star as Mokena’s constable for a long span in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century. Most frustrating, however, is determining the fate of John Scheffler. After February 1890, his name is wiped clean from recorded history. Did he stay in Will County, or decamp to a far-off place? Did the dreadful stigma of this case and the accusations leveled against him follow him for the rest of his days? There is no one living who can say. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> The monuments in the Dall family plot are easily findable in St. John’s Cemetery, being among the tallest on the grounds. The German words spelled in gothic lettering, chiseled by hand into the stone, have been nearly obliterated by the decades of extreme Midwestern weather, but can still read in just the right amount of sunlight with the help of patient fingertips. The old Dall house still stands on today’s Regan Road, bearing silent witness to the horrors of 130 years ago, its current inhabitants likely unaware of the cruelty that played out within its walls.<o:p></o:p></p>Matt Galikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03569196466330607149noreply@blogger.com0