A Slice of Mokena: The Story of 11000 Front Street

   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. 

   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^th 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. 

 

   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. 

 

   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^st 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. 

 

   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 Will County Advertiser wrote that “Nick always runs an orderly house, and all that he needs now is a charming Frau. 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.  

 

   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 Männerchor, or men’s choir, in February 1884. Life in 19^thcentury Mokena was far from easy, and so it was that 52-year-old Nicholas Schuberth departed this mortal coil on July 24^th, 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. 

 

   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. 

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. 

 

   In a wave of improvement in the first years of the 20^th 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 Lockport Phoenix-Advertisercontently 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. 

 

   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. 

 

   One of the village’s premier capitalists around the turn of the 20^th 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^st, 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. 

 

   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^th 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. 

   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

 

“had an overabundance of the stuff that cheers, and they wanted more, and when the saloonkeepers turned them down, they showed fight.”

 

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.  

 

   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, The News-Bulletin 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. 

Looking west down Front Street from Division Street, the Mokena Hardware Company stands prominently on the right around 1925.

 

   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^th, 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. 

A crisp autumn day on Front Street. This snapshot, taken October 23^rd, 1928, shows the Mokena Hardware Company with the post office at left. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)

 

   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. The News-Bulletin described it as 

 

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.

 

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^st 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. 

 

   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. 

 

   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^th, 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. 

 

   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. 

 

   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. 

The aftermath of the conflagration at Edwin Dunham's hardware store in the autumn of 1974.

Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic: Mokena Public School, 1872-1929

    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 Theak-A-Kee, Ty-Yan-Ac-Kee, or their word for Trail of the Wolf Through the Wonderful Land. 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^st 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. 

 

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.

 

   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. 

 

   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 News-Bulletin 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.” 

 

The pupils of Mokena Public School, circa 1880.

 

   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. 

 

   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.  

 

   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. 

 

Seen here around 1920, the village schoolhouse was a landmark for generations.

   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^th 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 Joliet Weekly News, carried the word in his Mokena column, to which the editor chipped in:

 

“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.”

 

   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 News-Bulletin 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 News-Bulletin proudly stated that “more improvements have been made this fall than have been made in the last 20 years.” 

 

   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 News-Bulletin 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.”    

 

   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 Weekly News, 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.”

 

   A similar incident occurred at the end of the 1917 school year, when some of the high schoolers, in their class publication The Blab, 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 The Blab’s comments were “entirely uncalled for and (the) paper should be discontinued for its sarcastic remarks.”

 

   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 The Story of Mokena, she recalled that 

 

“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.””

 

   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 Joliet Republican 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. 

 

   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^th, 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.

 

   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^th, 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. 

   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. 

 

   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 Joliet Republican, Mokena village leader Ozias McGovney grimly said that if the fire had gone unchecked, the whole building would’ve been lost. 

   Flames again reared their uninvited head on a school day in the winter of 1922, when on February 6^th 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. 

 

   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.”

 

   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 News-Bulletin 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^th. 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 News-Bulletin deeming that “it may come in handy for future use.”

 

   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^st, 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.

 

   The work was completed in the last week of July 1934, with our News-Bulletin 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^th, 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. 

 

The 1881 bell of the Mokena Public School in its current home. 

 

   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. 

Greater Treasure: The Story of the Semmler Family and the Mokena News-Bulletin, Part 4

   The News-Bulletin 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 The German-American, 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^th, 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 News-Bulletin, 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.”

     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 News-Bulletin 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.”

    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.”

 

   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 Joliet Herald-News. 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^th 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 News-Bulletin 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.

Bill Semmler triumphant in Wolf Road's Pioneer Memorial Cemetery, a name bestowed to the old Denny Cemetery by him in 1939. 

 

   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?” 

   The next year, using flags and flowers procured by the Semmlers, the News-Bulletin 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. 

 

   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. 

    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^th 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. 

 

   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.

 

   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^rdStreet south to the county line on a paving program. 

   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 News-Bulletin 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. 

   Bill Semmler and by extension the News-Bulletin 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. 

   Meanwhile, the first concrete was poured north of town on October 15^th, 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. 

 

   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 News-Bulletin. 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 News-Bulletin wondering about the details, so a column that appeared in the December 17^th 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 News-Bulletin, the Semmlers’ Orland Park Herald and Tinley Park Times were also being posted, and while there had been some reports of hiccups with delivery, generally the papers were finding their recipients. 

   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 News-Bulletinoffice. The postage for all of the papers, no trifling amount, was taken care of by the village’s Auxiliary to the VFW. 

 

   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. 

   On June 12^th, 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 News-Bulletins 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^th 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 Bulletin 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.”

 

   By the time the autumn of 1944 rolled around, the News-Bulletin was reporting on service men and women so much, that it was beginning to push out other local news. On September 21^st, 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.”

 

   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 Tinley Park Times 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. 

 

   Bill Semmler lost a hard battle with cancer on June 8^th, 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^th, the News-Bulletin itself dedicated most of its large front page to their editor in black-bordered reportage under the title 30, 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 Who’s Who in Chicago and Illinois. 

William Semmler, circa 1945. He will be remembered by history of as one of Mokena's greatest residents.

 

   It was the final wish of Bill that Margaret take the helm as editor in chief of the News-Bulletin, 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.

   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. 

 

   Meanwhile, the News-Bulletin 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. 

 

   As editor in chief, Margaret Semmler won well-deserved laurels for her work. After publishing a special souvenir edition of the News-Bulletin 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 News-Bulletin counted a circulation of about 3,500, and maintained a staff of ten.

Margaret Semmler receives an accolade in 1959. She dedicated her life's work to Mokena, and is remembered with reverence to this day. 

 

   Margaret Semmler ultimately sold the paper in 1958 to Kenneth Johnson, a Lemont-based publisher who put out that community’s Lemonter as well as the Lockport Herald. In addition to these publications, Johnson would also later found newspapers in Downers Grove and Naperville. In 1960, he set up the Frankfort Leader, and that year added Mokena to the News-Bulletin’s title. After continuing to print the News-Bulletin for most of the rest of the decade, Johnson sold his holdings to Field Enterprises, who in June 1969 merged the News-Bulletin and the other local papers into the Southwest Graphic. After having been in print for 50 years, no small feat for a publication with such humble beginnings, the last issue of the News-Bulletin came off the press on June 4^th, 1969. Its front page contained stories touting the new Graphic and bemoaning high tax rates, and thus, when the reader finished the last page, it was the end of an era. 

 

   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^th, 1988, having reached 98 years, the doyenne of the village. 

 

   The Mokena of the modern age, in all of its progress and improvement, is the legacy of the Semmler family and the News-Bulletin. 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 News-Bulletin and their passion for Mokena, the Semmler family’s achievements have brought them immortality. 

Greater Treasure: The Story of the Semmler Family and the Mokena News-Bulletin, Part 3

   (be sure to read Part 2 of this story, posted last week!)

  The News-Bulletin 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.

   Zesty flavor came from numerous bits of humor that appeared in the News-Bulletin’s pages, such as an early series of columns called People of Our Town, 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^st, 1929 issue that not only pastiched two men looking for a speakeasy, but was also partially written in German. 

This dapper fellow appeared in the People of Our Town column, a parody of various characters to be found in a typical small town of the 1920s. 

 

   In December 1924, the Semmlers ushered in a column called The Clearing House, 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.”

 

   At the end of the 1930s, a series of fictionalized letters were printed in the News-Bulletin under the title Uncle Hy Says. 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 Bugle Calls existed in the form of pieces written under the nom de plume of Zeb Potter. Another column called Voice of Vox Pop appeared with some regularity. In a March 17^th, 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.”

 

   The true flavor of the News-Bulletin 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.”

 

   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 News-Bulletin 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.”

   Another representative bouquet came by way of an unidentified writer to the Joliet Spectator 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 News-Bulletin, 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 News-Bulletin for his fine paper. ”

   The Semmlers also received a bouquet from none other than the Chicago Tribune. 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 News-Bulletin, she declared that “its make-up has dignity; its reportorial style has a cosmopolitan touch.” 

 

     Mokenians used the News-Bulletin 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 News-Bulletin 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.”

   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.”

 

   Bill and Margaret Semmler weren’t simply journalists reporting the news, they were also arguably Mokena’s most passionate advocates, who used the News-Bulletin to lift the community in every way. A long column published in the February 11^th, 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.

 

   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^th, 1926 issue, Semmler defended his stance that “The News-Bulletin 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.”

 

   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 News-Bulletinoffice 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.”

(Stay tuned for the final part of this story!)