Wanted: Indiana Billy

 Who doesn’t enjoy a hair-raising story of true crime? From bank robberies to safe crackings and horse thievery to street brawls, Mokena has seen them all. These dot our collective village timeline, providing for some proverbial spice to otherwise uneventful periods in history. It might not be so easy to believe, but our idyllic community has been the stage for quite a few violations of the law over the years, and when we turn back the pages to the year 1903, one will find that none other than the elusive Indiana Billy, a feared criminal of yesteryear, was in our midst. 

 

   The Mokena of the earliest years of the 20^th century was pretty sleepy place, even by the standards of rural farm towns. The reasons for this were many, primarily that trade and commerce that would have normally came to our community had been diverted to the newer trading points of Alpine, Marley and Orland due to the construction of the Wabash Railroad about twenty years earlier. A dearth of good roads in the area also wasn’t exactly auspicious for Mokena. These factors plus a severe countrywide economic depression in the 1890s led the town to experience such a drain of citizens, that by 1900, a federal census taker logged a mere 281 souls living within the corporate limits. 

 

   Thus, the scene was set for treachery. Under the cover of inky darkness one night in July 1903, a daring criminal act was committed when Mrs. Harry Miller’s village home was burglarized. The historical record isn’t clear as to whether or not Mrs. Miller was there when the thief struck, but he managed to make off with some valuables, including silverware, and about $12 in cash, or roughly $345 in today’s money.  

 

   As the small town reeled from the burglary, another drama was unfolding. Officer Oscar J. Klose had been Mokena’s sole peace officer for two years, and was used to run of the mill escapades in town, usually of the kind fueled by alcohol. What would happen on July 14^th would prove to be a little different. As he patrolled the village that morning, it was the general consensus of the town folk that the perpetrator of the burglary at Mrs. Miller’s was likely to still be lurking the community, and the constable kept a sharp lookout. With this in mind, Officer Klose spotted a suspicious character making his way up the Rock Island railroad tracks across from the Hacker lumberyard on McGovney Street. As Klose made his way over to the figure to see who he was, the stranger took off on foot. 

The Hacker Lumberyard, across from which Indiana Billy was captured, seen in its later iteration as the Mall Lumber Company. These buildings stood on the site of today's 11125 and 11131 McGovney Street.

 

   He wasn’t fast enough for Oscar Klose, who caught up with him in no time. In a dramatic escalation, the man then drew a revolver and attempted to shoot Klose. After an exhaustive tussle, the Mokena lawman subdued the would-be shooter, and with the help of general store keeper John A. Hatch, was finally able to handcuff the man and take him prisoner. Before a hearing with the town magistrate, the miscreant was drawn into a village building to be searched, and was quickly determined to not be the Miller burglar, as he had no cash on his person. However, what was found raised more than a few eyebrows, namely some fake keys and a bottle of nitroglycerine, all tools of a professional safe cracker. 

   The frisk very nearly had a completely different ending. When questioned more closely about the bottle, the stranger fibbed and said it was full of liniment for his leg. It was then thrown with a dismissive toss onto a bed, nearly resulting in a calamitous explosion of the agitated nitroglycerine. In a statement to the Joliet Weekly News a few days later, the man readily admitted that he “was trembling in his boots for a moment.” He went on to say that “I couldn’t open my mouth quick enough to stop him and I thought we would both be blown into eternity.”

 

   Officer Klose didn’t know it just yet, but he had just snagged an elusive criminal, the loathsome William Warren, otherwise known as Indiana Billy. It would turn out that he was wanted for a daring robbery in Missouri, and one local newspaper proclaimed that he was “one of the most expert safe blowers in the country.” Indiana Billy was sent to Joliet, where he stood before the grand jury, who slapped him with a charge of having burglary tools in his possession, and also sent him to stay in the Will County jail for seventy days on one count of vagrancy. 

 

   The saga was not yet over for the hardened criminal, who in early October of the same year got a new charge of assault with a deadly weapon, harkening back to his confrontation with Officer Klose in Mokena. Klose testified as a witness in the proceedings, as did the venerable John A. Hatch, the town storekeeper who helped the officer wrangle Indiana Billy the day of the incident; Mary and Ida Kiniry, mother-daughter residents of McGovney Street attested too.  For this charge, Indiana Billy was given a fine of $50 and court costs, but he couldn’t settle the fine, so he was carted back off to the county jail. His increasing familiarity with the jail in Joliet led the Lockport Phoenix-Advertiser to snort that he was now “Weary Willie.”

 

   The historical record is imprecise as to what criminal hijinks Indiana Billy found in his future after his run-in with the law in Mokena. What is clear, is that his short stay within our gates was one that undoubtedly stayed in his memory for a long time.

Just What the Doctor Ordered: Mad Stones of Mokena

   We live in an age of medical wonder, on the cutting edge of technology that allows for quick and easy cures for many maladies. A simple trip to Walgreens can even get you an elixir for the common cold. Even serious issues, such as afflictions of the heart, are fixable nowadays. Nevertheless, many of us still employ home remedies that have been passed down through the generations. Some of these have survived the test of years, and some have been totally lost in the ether of time, and would be completely foreign to anyone living in the 21^st century. One of these long-lost cure-alls is the mad stone. 

   The venerable Encyclopedia Americana stated that these “stones” were calcifications of a “vegetable substance”, while a local source expertly stated that mad stones could only be found in the stomach of a certain deer that lived high in the Swiss Alps, these being formed by the animals licking rocks that ultimately cause the stone to form. They ranged in size, but were generally known to be rather small; for example, the famed Sauter mad stone of Crete was described as being “an oblong, black, smooth pebble about an inch and half long by one inch wide.” Regardless of their size and exact origin, what made mad stones so treasured was the belief that they had special healing powers. According to tradition, a mad stone properly applied to the bite of a wild dog or any other animal, would adhere to the wound and draw out the toxins that cause rabies. 

   Due to these healing qualities, a mad stone would be jealously guarded by its owner. They were as rare as the proverbial hen’s teeth, and those afflicted with the bite of a wild animal were known to travel for miles to seek one. As we modern Mokenians look back over the annals of our community’s past, it stands upon the record of the years that the village has been home to at least two mad stones. 

   In the spring of 1896, the Joliet Republican took an interest in elderly Mokena resident Christian Schatley and what it termed “one of the largest mad stones in the country.” The paper recorded that Schatley had found it in the stomach of a deer that he had bagged a few years previous in New Lenox, although what possessed him to dissect the stomach in the first place was not noted. While the stone had up to that point never been applied to a dog bite, the paper was quick to note that “its powers have in a measure been tested on other wounds.” Alas, an abundance of details on this mad stone haven’t survived the ebb and flow of time. 

  In contrast, a little more is known about the Bechstein mad stone. W.H. Bechstein earned his place in Mokena’s history by being the proprietor of the village grain elevator for many years in the early 20^th century. He inherited a priceless mad stone from his maternal grandfather, William Jacob, a Hessian-born Front Street saloonkeeper. Perhaps seeing it as an investment opportunity, Jacob bought the stone for $50 from local auctioneer Charles Moriarty around 1876, after it had been shown off in his barroom. In his heyday, Jacob was known to state that he wouldn’t let go of the stone for a cent less than $500, or about $12,000 in today’s money. As of 1911, the mad stone hadn’t been used in Mokena, but before it came to our village, while in the possession of a German shoemaker in Tinley Park, it was used effectively on area resident Jacob Stellwagen, after he was attacked by a ferocious dog back in February 1876. 

   The ultimate fate of the Bechstein mad stone has been lost to time. This author would like to think it still exists, its significance totally forgotten, but still containing some curative juice. With its value in the days of yore in mind, it’s enough to make one wonder how much Mr. Bechstein’s descendants could get for it on eBay. 

When Trouble Brews...

   When we look back on our past, we tend to focus on the idyllic. Visions of small-town rural Mokena enchant us, a place where everyone knew each other, and nothing ever went wrong. In reality, not all was perfect, or even always peaceful. After all, our forefathers were just as human as we are, and were people who had passions and tempers, both of which flared when faced with unpleasant situations or neighbors that were viewed as less than desirable. One such instance thereof of the many that dot our history took place 142 years ago, and involved several members of the well-known Schiek family of Mokena. 

   The Schieks were a hardy clan originally from the village of Neckarbischofsheim, in today’s southwestern Germany. As their homeland and Europe at large were torn by violent revolutions in 1848, they, like many of their countrymen, re-planted themselves in America. After completing a hike by foot from Chicago, the family patriarch and matriarch, Georg Heinrich and Juliana Rosina Schiek could proudly count themselves as some of the first German folk to settle what would become Frankfort Township, ultimately setting down their stakes here in August 1848. 

   The Schiek brood was a big one, counting seven children altogether, who ranged in ages from twenty-six to five upon their arrival in Illinois. One by one, the members of this family carved out a home in our midst. Philipp Schiek, the oldest, was an agriculturist who made a farm for himself on modern-day Wolf Road, while Johann Schiek, or John, as he came to be known, became one of Mokena’s first saloon keepers after the Rock Island railroad was built in 1852. Over the years, he would own at least two farms near town. 

   Julia Schiek was wed to Carl Gall, who operated Mokena’s first inn when the locomotives first puffed into town, and later married Moritz Weiss, a pioneering pharmacist in the village. Ferdinand Schiek was also a Front Street innkeeper for decades, (having owned the old landmark that last housed Paul E’s restaurant) and also kept a farm on what is today 187^th Street near where Marley would later sprout up. His sister Barbara Schiek married Henry Stoll, a jack of many trades.

   The youngest Schieks, Jakob and his brother Heinrich Jr, or Henry, both ran farms on 187^th Street, a little way west of Wolf Road. All of the members of this family found success in Mokena, and collectively left their mark on our community’s history.

   Alas, at this point, the narrative shifts in tone. In the fall of 1878, some of the family members found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Through the fog of ages, it’s not entirely clear what transpired to get them there, but enough has remained to indicate that at least one of them ran afoul of an archaic law relating to “selling liquor to persons in the habit of getting drunk”, the perpetrator likely having been saloon owner John Schiek.

   Regardless of how it came about, the aftermath of this affair has been left abundantly clear for Mokenians of today. The events were reported on by two Joliet newspapers, the Joliet Daily News and the Joliet Signal, and while almost definitely filled with bias and sensationalism, they give us a snapshot of what played out. Tempers had reached a boiling point in the affair, and when Henry Stoll, brother-in-law of the Schieks, was taken into custody in part of this episode, it pushed John Schiek, his brother Jacob, and his adult son Charles over the edge. 

   As was covered by the Daily News, amidst their legal troubles at the end of October 1878, the Schieks put Mokena justice of the peace Francis Morgan, a 34-year-old enforcer of the law, square into their crosshairs. Originally a native of Pennsylvania, Justice Morgan had lost his arm 14 years previously while serving the Union in the Civil War. With their dander sufficiently raised, the trio of Schieks stormed his house in town, which on the day in question so happened to also contain a gentleman named Bobzin, who worked as the justice’s constable. An audience with the lawmen was demanded, and in the vivid language of the Daily News, it was printed that “the Schieks opened upon Morgan and Bobzin with a fusillade, in mixed German and English, of cussing and obscene blackguardism.”

   Justice Morgan and Bobzin kept their composure and remained steely in the face of the verbal abuse that was being dealt to them. After “firing off their jaws for a few minutes”, the Schieks wore themselves out and beat a retreat. However, they weren’t totally out of steam yet. About 15 minutes later, they came back to Justice Morgan’s, and this time, with a vengeance. Upon their reappearance, the one-armed veteran was seated at a desk in his office, and one of the Schieks – it’s no longer clear who – burst into the house, and commenced beating him with a chair. 

   The situation looked hopeless for the justice. From our standpoint nearly 142 years later, we can’t but wonder if any fear arose in him during the attack, and if so, if it matched what he may have felt on the battlefield during the war. In a stroke of luck, his Norwegian-born wife Margaret and Constable Bobzin rushed to his aid and rescued him, fighting off his attacker. As all of this was happening, the other two Schieks continued their verbal barrage, “firing their jaws right lively” as the Daily News put it; one standing in the doorway, the other at a window. Before long, Margaret Morgan and Bobzin managed to fend off the Schieks for good. It is to their credit that no one was seriously hurt in the entire episode. 

   In the end, the grand jury indicted Charles, Jacob and John Schiek, and they found themselves saddled with charges of inciting a riot. In reporting on the event, the Joliet Signal, placed itself in the Schieks corner and struck a much gentler, more sympathetic tone with them. It struck up a defense crediting the Schieks with being “among the oldest and most respectable citizens” of Mokena, and that “none of them were ever known to commit an unlawful act or do a mean thing.” The charges foisted upon them by the grand jury were preposterous, the paper said, and they were handed down “solely on evidence originating from malice and personal resentment.” 

   The family members stood trial, and the Signal reported that none of the charges stuck. In a final barb thrown in the direction of the grand jury, the Signal huffed that Will County taxpayers were the losers in the case, as they were ones shouldering the brunt of the costs. As nostalgia tends to forget sagas such as these, it is important to bring them back to light, if only to make us, Mokenians of the 21^st century, thankful for the relative peace we enjoy today. 

Tripping the Light Fantastic: Dancing at Cappel's Grove

In today’s age, when village residents are seeking a fun day spent with friends or a romantic night out, they usually leave Mokena. The long-ago advent of the automobile has secured this fact. However, for a generation of Mokenians, there was a time when countless locals came together, made merry and found love right at home, in a pastoral grove of trees just outside town that held a dance pavilion where dreams were made. 

   Mokena has long been a community driven by its organizations. A well-established group of yesteryear was the Mokena Men’s Club, founded in the summer of 1908. Laid out in their articles of incorporation, the organization’s goal was to “promote public and private good” as well as to “build, control, (and) acquire buildings, dance hall, skating rinks, bars and objects of amusements, etc.” Summed up, they wanted to provide for fun in town. As the Men’s Club was born, a dance pavilion already existed in McGovney’s Grove a touch outside town on today’s LaPorte Road, but it had its limitations, namely its shabby condition and its size, which measured in at forty by eighty feet. 

   The Men’s Club set to building a newer, better one, and an idyllic patch of trees known locally as Cappel’s Grove was chosen as the spot, being situated a little south of town and just northwest of St. John’s Cemetery. In early June 1908, five acres in the grove were leased from Elizabeth Cappel, the family’s matriarch, and before long a committee of five gentlemen from the Men’s Club were formed to oversee construction of the new pavilion. Builders under local contractor Herman Geiger got to work in early summer 1908, who used Birdseye maple for the dancefloor, which came out to measure sixty by one hundred feet. Everything in the grove was lit by gas lamps. A refreshment stand was built as part of the pavilion, where soft drinks and coffee could be had, but no alcohol, as the Men’s Club decided early on to keep it away from the grove. Construction was rushed to have the pavilion ready in time for July 4^th, its grand opening day. William Semmler, Mokena’s correspondent to the Joliet News, beamed with pride at the new project, writing that “this floor will be one of the finest in the county.”

   On opening day, July 4^th, 1908, the brand-new pavilion was handsomely decorated for the Fourth, where in the afternoon patriotic speechifying was done by attorneys George Barr of Joliet and Mokena native Arthur McGovney. For that evening, 300 dance tickets were sold, and 65 gallons of ice cream vanished before the partier’s eyes. Revelers came from all parts of eastern Will County to enjoy the festivities. Correspondent Semmler covered the bash, and noted that “peace and order were evidence everywhere on the grounds”, and referencing the Men’s Club no booze policy, he added “no drunkenness or disorderly conduct being observed.”

   The first summer of Cappel Grove’s new existence was a successful one, setting the tone for future seasons, with one small example being a dance held at the end of July that first year that netted over $200 in profit for the Men’s Club in 161 sold dance tickets. The pavilion and the grove itself were host not only just to dances, but also to “moonlight picnics” and church functions of every sort. The pavilion featured live bands and orchestras from Chicago, and early on, a dance ticket would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty cents for men, with free admission for ladies. By the 1920s, the price had risen to seventy-five cents to a dollar, depending on the event. (Or roughly thirteen dollars in today’s money) A huge improvement came to Cappel’s Grove at the end of 1913 when it was wired for electricity, replacing the old gas lights. 

   A type of bus service was even set up within a year of the pavilion first opening, which consisted of a big, horse-drawn wagon piloted by one of the village businessmen that ferried patrons from a point in town to and from Cappel’s Grove. Later the rig was upgraded to an auto. 

   Being the host to a constant atmosphere of Saturnalia, there were, of course, some who stepped over the line with their merrymaking. In the summer of 1913, the new Bunny Hug and Turkey Trot dances were declared forbidden at the grove due to their salaciousness. The next year, the Tango made the list. In October of that year, the cashier’s office and refreshment stand were burgled, and at a dance in June 1917, Deputy Sheriff Fred Mau of Mokena, who was working the pavilion as a security officer, was given a black eye by two roughs from Joliet. The incident involving Deputy Mau was not the first that occurred that season at the grove. After this brawl, the Men’s Club was “incensed by recent outbreaks of rowdyism”, and then hired plain clothes security men, who were authorized to ban anyone caught misbehaving. 

  After decades of service to Mokena, Cappel’s Grove was sold in 1935, and the pavilion dismantled not long thereafter. By 1942, what had once been the grove had been subdivided and named Woodland Acres, and nowadays the aptly named Woodland Circle curves over the site where so many laughs and moments of joy were had in years past. Taking in the shady neighborhood today, it’s still easy to be transported back to those days. 

Mamie Bechstein, Educator of Yore

  When extolling the benefits of living in Mokena, one of the first points arrived at are the village’s schools. Known throughout Chicagoland for their sterling quality, Mokena is right to boast of our schools. For all of the laurels they’ve brought to our community, the schools never would’ve amounted to anything if wasn’t for those who taught in and oversaw them. One such individual whose name shines upon the record of our years is Mamie L. Bechstein, teacher and principal of the Mokena public school. 

  Maria Louise Bechstein’s life began outside Mokena on July 11^th, 1880, have likely first seen the light of day on her father’s farm, a wide, sprawling estate whose homestead stood at what is today’s intersection of LaPorte Road and Kirkstone Way. As she grew up, her friends and family all knew her as Mamie. Her roots in the community were well planted, as all four of her grandparents were German immigrants to the Mokena area in the days before the Civil War. Her mother was born Ida Schmuhl, and her father, Christian Bechstein, was a prominent citizen who would come to wear many hats in the Mokena of his day, including that of mayor of the village from 1896 to 1903, as well as being one of the founders of the Mokena State Bank in 1909.  

   As a young girl, Mamie Bechstein was educated at the Mokena public school, a brisk walk over country roads from her parents’ farm, the edifice having stood on the northwest corner of today’s Front Street and Schoolhouse Road, which would later take the name of the landmark. Built eight years before Mamie’s birth, the stately, two story wooden structure was considered one of the finest schools in all of Will County. During her time here as a pupil, Mamie’s teacher was Mary Jane Cunningham, who she’d later note with a touch of mischief and a hint of spice, that “we had words.”

   Around 1895, the Bechsteins moved to town, with her father still maintaining ownership over their farm’s buildings and acreage. At a time when few went to college, Mamie continued her studies at the Illinois State University at Normal, and graduated in June 1903. By the next year she was teaching in the small coal mining town of Minonk, in central Woodford County. At some point in this era, she returned home and began teaching at her alma mater, the Mokena school, and by 1907, was working in its primary department. 

Mamie Bechstein as a senior at Illinois State University, 1903. 

   In May 1910, Mamie Bechstein moved up the school’s ladder when the Board of Education hired her as principal to replace I.O. Sinclair, while receiving $90 a month for her duties. While she now had an important administrative position, she still stayed true to her roots and taught the combined fifth through eighth grades at the school, which was made up of 52 pupils in one room. In her words, she handled “the entire approach with no help.” There was no opportunity for high school education in Mokena in those days, so students would commute elsewhere for this level of schooling, at the time usually to Blue Island. 

   Mamie’s world as an educator in the grand old schoolhouse is one that would be totally unrecognizable to Mokenians of today. The school’s bell, perched high in its tower, played an integral role in the day. At 8:30am, a half hour before the start of the school day, Mamie would ring it around ten times with a thick rope that “took quite a jerk” to use. She’d also summon her pupils back to class with two or three rings after recesses at 10:30 and 3:30, and also to herald the end of the day at 4:00pm with three or four strokes.

   The entire building was heated by coal in her time, with the stoves’ fires in the school being started every morning by their janitor, which Mamie fed continually throughout the day from buckets. Each floor had one big classroom, in which the pupils sat in bench seats, coming to the front of the room when they were asked to recite an answer. Also at the front of each room was a platform upon which stood the teacher’s desk. 

This stately structure, which stood at the northwest corner of Front Street and Schoolhouse Road, served as the village’s school from 1872 to 1929. 

   In early December 1911, calamity befell Mamie when she contracted a debilitating illness, which one account describes as malaria, while another calls it typhoid-pneumonia. Being confined to her home in town, her class at school was cancelled until her younger sister Alice, herself a teacher, could fill in for her. Just before New Year’s, Mamie’s students showered her with Christmas post cards. Almost a year later, just before Christmas 1912, she resigned due to the untimely passing of her mother. 

   History hasn’t recorded if she continued to teach after she left the Mokena school, but it appears that she left the profession when she married Owen Miller of Iowa around 1919, it being common in those days for teachers to be single women. This union was graced by the arrival of a daughter, Edith Jane, around 1922. Over the years, Mamie and her family lived in various places around the country, such as San Diego, Cincinnati, and later Boulder, Colorado. She could rightfully claim many addresses over her long life, but she always considered Mokena her home, and so it was that her mortal remains were interred here at St. John’s Cemetery when she passed away at the venerable age of 101 in November 1981. 

   The Mokena schools of today serve as a living testament to the labors of Mamie Bechstein, and of those who came before and after her. While our Mokena is one that would be unrecognizable to her and her students, she was part of a long and time-honored tradition in our community.  

Lizzie Cappel: Pioneer Woman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carmen Smallwood: In Memoriam

   Last Tuesday, April 28^th, Mokena rued the loss of Carmen Smallwood, one of the village’s truest residents. While Carmen was originally a native of Wayne County in downstate's Little Egypt, she later made Mokena her home in the latter part of the 1960s after having attended Southern Illinois University, where she received a degree in elementary education. 

   Carmen taught countless Mokenians over the decades as a teacher in the village, and was also active in the venerable Mokena Women’s Club, having led the group as its president for many years, while also being a key member of the Mokena Historical Society. 

   My interest in our community’s history, the passion which drives my life, grew and flourished during my work with Carmen restoring the historic Denny Cemetery on Wolf Road, also known as Pioneer Memorial Cemetery. She spearheaded the efforts by the Mokena Women’s Club to bring glory back to those forlorn, hallowed grounds starting around 1997. As a history-enthused seventh grader who only knew history as it existed in such far off places as Gettysburg and Valley Forge, the happenings at the graveyard held my rapt attention. Before long a sign was put up that asked for volunteers to help the Women’s Club in their work, listing Carmen’s home phone number as the starting point. I called it one day in the summer of 1998, and spoke to her for the first time, when she invited me to come with her and a few others to the cemetery to probe the ground with long metal rods, looking for forgotten graves. 

   Within a few days, I was with her in the cemetery, and on my very first outing, we discovered the base of a decades-long forgotten gravestone, and from then on, I was hooked. Many were the days I spent with her repairing broken markers, planting flowers, and simply talking about the Mokena of yore. These were the days when my interest in our community’s past was being awoken, and Carmen was a huge part of that. 

  Carmen Smallwood’s good deeds to the village were many, and as she did them, she never searched for a spotlight, or drew attention to herself. Her many improvements to our community were done silently, without ulterior motives. She will not be forgotten.