"...and we're back!" It's been a long "sabbatical" away from my writing, but I'm ready to saddle up and get back to telling our travel stories. Starting with our most recent adventure, our spring, 2019, visit in Illinois, seems like the easiest place to begin.
We arrived in Illinois on April 4, having spent the winter at Buckhorn Lake RV Resort in Kerrville, TX (more on that in another blog!).
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| As we crossed the Mississippi River on !-255 on the south side of St. Louis we were surprised at the barge traffic. The heavy spring rains had not yet closed the river to commercial traffic. |
We had 2 primary purposes for this year's visit to west central Illinois, where we grew up, went to high school, and still have many friends and family: first, to help Jim and Maxine (Jerry's 92 year old parents) move to the Illinois Veterans Home at Quincy Illinois, and second to attend the sixth annual Woodall family reunion.
We arrived just in time for Easter and the first of many family gatherings before the reunion in June. Jerry's aunt, Dorothy Peterson, who is 7 months younger than Jerry, hosted Easter dinner and gave us the opportunity to meet our new great nephew Liam Yurkovich.
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| Mom, Grandma Becky, and Great-Grandma Maxine are all keeping an eye on snoozing Liam! Great Grandpa Jim might be snoozing himself! |
Liam's parents are Tory Picton and Todd Yurkovich. It was quite a treat to see Todd, our truck driving nephew, acting absolutely goofy over this little guy!
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| What a cutie Liam is....he stole the show! |
We quickly learned that Illinois was having a very wet spring. Our farmer friends, who are usually well in to planting in mid-April had yet to get into their fields. All the water made for some interesting sights and projects for us, though.
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The early flowers around little Fairview were spectacular
and made this old pump look attractive. |
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We could almost see the asparagus grow inch by inch. Fresh asparagus, right out of the garden...what a treat!
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Work at the farm had fallen behind but we were able to help Don, Jerry's brother, with some projects between showers.
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| The most important one was finding morels of course. |
| We helped Don remove some fallen trees on the timber hillside... |
which was a tricky proposition. Between the slippery footing and the poison oak everywhere, we had to stay sharp! Yikes! Being the cheerleader, it was my job to encourage the work crew and enjoy watching these 2 brothers work together.
Jim and Maxine, although not as active as they once were, joined us at the farm to help with the clean-up from a windstorm. In fact, they had done quite a bit before we ever got there.
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| They're good to go on the old four-wheeler! |
The windstorms brought down a huge branch from the giant cottonwood tree in the barnyard taking out the power lines on the windmill. Jerry, ever intrepid and resourceful, scaled the tower and made the repairs.
Nothing gets thrown away at the farm and I find it fascinating to explore the old buildings.
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| What treasure do you suppose are hiding here? |
April and May weren't all hard work and drudgery, though! We walked through Lakeland Park in Canton, a town of about 15,000 10 miles from Fairview. This entire area had been thoroughly strip mined in the 1960's, leaving behind many long, skinny lakes. Lakeland Park took this destroyed farmland and turned it in to a beautiful recreational area for biking, hiking, walking, and Canada geese.
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| The goslings were carefully guarded by Mom and Dad |
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| Although Jerry was drafted as Vietnam was winding down, he was fortunate enough to be sent to Germany instead. I was able to join him there. |
The brick walkway at the park's highest point celebrated many of the veterans from the area. Jim, Jerry's Dad; Harold, Jerry's uncle; and Jerry are all remembered here. In Jim's case, this brick doesn't tell the whole story. He was in the Merchant Marine during World War II, prior to serving in occupied Japan. When he returned home in the spring of 1948, he learned he had a son (not a daughter as the telegram mistakenly informed him) and a sister on the way! Aunt Dorothy was born about a month later.
The first of May, we made an appointment for a tour at the Illinois Veterans Home in Quincy. We had lots of questions and wanted to visit the facility so we could better help Jerry's folks with this big move.
As you might imagine, the veterans' home is a "city within a city" and the grounds cover several acres, including a deer park, a fishing lake, and a bison enclosure.
This is facility was founded in 1880 to house declining veterans of the Civil War and the Mexican-American War. Today it is home to about 450 vets and their spouses in nursing home and independent living facilities
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| Anderson Barracks is where Jim and Maxine will reside. |
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| Each floor includes an attractive central gathering area to read, work puzzles, watch TV, and reminisce with fellow vets. |
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| The dining room is open and inviting. |
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| The food is plentiful and delicious with a heavy emphasis on potatoes and gravy. These folks know how to warm an old vet's heart |
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| We also did a little exploring of the town of Quincy and found this delightful restaurant, right on the Mississippi River in downtown. Pier Restaurant. |
We moved the folks and help them get settled the middle of June. Taking a few pieces of furniture and made these rooms their own.
Our stays in west-central Illinois would not be complete without visiting a cemetery or two. Our daily walks around town often took us through the Fairview Cemetery ("Hi, Jim" and Hi, Keith", among the many headstones...friends and classmates).
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The cemetery was particularly well decorated for Memorial Day.
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West central Illinois, particularly Knox County (where I grew up) has been established since 1825 when it included its neighbor to the south, Fulton County (where Jerry grew up. Many farms were established as veterans of the War of 1812 received land grants and a few of these farms still exist. Before railroads, cars, even the internet, little towns sprang up about 10 miles apart to provide the locals with things they couldn't produce on the farm. Many of these little towns are dying or have disappeared...a sad loss of history of the area.
We drove to the little Oneida cemetery where my parents and brother are buried and left some flowers. As we turned to leave, we ran into Dick and Gayla, old friends and farmers in the area! Only in rural Illinois could we bump in to to high school friends, catch up on their news, and appreciate the headstone they've chosen, all in the same half hour.
Ellisville, the little town where Jerry went to Junior High School had a cemetery we had yet to explore. Although we both grew up in this area we had ever visited this old cemetery on the west bank of Spoon River. It was another pretty spot and we learned that someone had carefully reproduced the headstones of the founding family, the Ellis's.
Elmwood, another little town, made the news over the Memorial Day weekend when the remains of a local farm boy were buried in the township cemetery. Machinist's Mate Second Class Archie Theodore Miles, 22, served on and went down with the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, when it was torpedoes in Pearl Harbor.
Speaking of Elmwood, we've discovered a delightful restaurant there called "Cerno's", located right on the square. We had dinner there twice with two sets of good friends. We've known Janet and Ted Mottaz for more than 50 years! Isn't it amazing that hair color and dress size might change, but our friends remain the same! What a lovely evening we had with them!
Cerno's was so good, we brought Aunt Dorothy and her friend Ron Yocum here for dinner a few weeks later. Once again, fabulous!
After dinner we walked across the street to the town square, complete with band shell, I might add! This striking statue by Lorado Taft, called "The Pioneers", has this inscription on its base:
TO THE PIONEERS
WHO BRIDGED THE STREAMS
SUBDUED THE SOIL AND
FOUNDED A STATE
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Our second church home is in Canton: Trinity Lutheran Church. This little congregation, founded by Swedish settlers over 100 years ago, always makes us feel welcome and engaged.
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| This photo of the Trinity Lutheran altar was taken on Pentecost Sunday. |
The next blog will soon be done and will catch you up on our family reunion.
Thanks for the blog as always and it was so good to see you!
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