Mickey was a hard worker, but he never worked hard. He paced himself carefully, to the extent possible, so that work was never really work.
Year: 2015
A Small Town Grocer
We are at an exciting time for Dad's blog. With just 50 new visitors he will surpass 2,000 unique readers! We have a new story coming very soon, but since this story about the small town grocer was posted in the blog's infancy, we are hoping more folks will take a minute to read it … Continue reading A Small Town Grocer
Miss Roma Shively: A Short Woman in a Tall World
Miss Shively loved Elmwood, the town where she was born, where she spent most of her life, and it and the surrounding area were the subjects of her research. Her master’s thesis was called Jubilee – a Pioneer College, the story of an early experiment in higher education on the prairie, supported by the Episcopalian Church.
Helen Hart Metz
When I began having trouble writing in a number of college courses, my parents asked Helen if she would be willing to work with me. She agreed immediately. Little did I know that I would learn a lot more from Helen than how to write a correct, clear sentence.
Elmwood’s Best Football Season
Scott Fitzgerald, the famous American novelist and short-story writer, once said, “No one is interested in last year’s football scores.”
When Flipping the Switch, Thank Mr. Brown
When he was running the mill, he was also thinking about electricity. While he used kerosene lamps in his home and businesses, he was a little jealous of his friends in Peoria and Pekin and decided to build a power plant just south of town on the banks of the Kickapoo Creek, believing electricity was the wave of the future.
The Wednesday Night Drawing at the Palace Theatre
He gives the drum a spin, and then another, as the cards with names, addresses, and telephone numbers tumble, end over end. Almost immediately the children raise their arms high and begin chanting in unison: “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.”
Celebrating the Fourth in Small Town America
At the turn of the 20th century, Americans took our country’s birthday a great deal more seriously than they do today, particularly in small towns in the Middle West. Take Elmwood, Illinois, for example, a small country town of 2,000 people, located near the middle of the state, roughly twenty miles down dirt roads to the nearest town of any size. Festivities on the 4th began early in the morning, when the sun was just coming up, and lasted until dark when space above the horizon was brightened by sky rockets just above the tree line
Mysteries Surrounding Lt. Colonel Grover W. Asmus III
By the time the Colonel was to leave for his next assignment, he had enough confidence in me that he voluntarily explained some but not all of the mysteries. http://wp.me/p69PnM-V
Why Central Illinois Needs to Learn about Nelson Dean Jay
I wrote Rockefeller, telling him about my research, asking whether he ever knew Jay, whether the research was worth the effort. Rockefeller did. He sent me a list of the occasions when they had lunch, or cocktails, or dinner. As to the value of the search, Rockefeller said, “Dean Jay is important, if for no other reason, because he was one of the ten Americans to be invited to the first Bilderberg Conference.”
Stories From Small Town Illinois 