130 Years Ago
January 12, 1895
Conrad Munz has the contract for filling the ice houses for Patton Bros. and the Perlee cold storage.
A merry party of about twenty of the young friends of Will Baylor perpetrated a surprise on him last Saturday evening, the occasion being his 19th birthday.
Two cents will buy a roll of wall paper at H. J. Ramsey's.
At the annual business meeting of the Presbyterian Church, the following trustees were elected: Herbert Powell, Guy Farr, William Augspurger; ushers, A. B. Wharton, Henry Remington, Lew Henderson, Howard Beckwith, Ken Shankland.
F. M. Stoller has moved his barber shop and family to Chatsworth.
120 Years Ago
January 13, 1905
Mrs. Frank Brown was severely burned Sunday morning by an explosion of gasoline. Mr. and Mrs. Brown and Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Martin live in houses adjoining each other. Saturday night Mr. and Mrs. Martin went out and Mrs. Brown was to look after their fires so they would not go out. Sunday morning she went over to the Martins' and the fire being very low, she took a cup full of what she supposed was kerosene and threw it on the smoldering fire. The fluid was gasoline and there was an instantaneous explosion, the flames setting fire to Mrs. Brown's clothing and the carpet. Aid was quickly at hand and she was rolled in the snow and the flames extinguished, but not before she was burned severely about the face, chest and limbs.
Saturday George A. Milne closed a deal whereby he became the proprietor of the Payne Bros. Drug Store. The store is one of the best in the county and enjoys a large patronage. Mr. Milne, the new proprietor, is thoroughly acquainted with the business in detail, having been an employee of the store as pharmacist for over a year. He is a pleasant gentleman and a thoroughgoing businessman, and it is safe to say the store will continue to enjoy the same liberal patronage as in the past.
The number of births in the county from January 1 to October 1, as reported to the county clerk, were 436. Of this number 248 were males and 188 were females. The number for October, November and December has not as yet been received complete in that office, as the reports come in at random. For the same months in 1903 the total was 483 – 261 males and 222 females.
110 Years Ago
January 15, 1915
John Woods, who has been conducting The Woods Restaurant on West Main Street, will move his eating house to his building in the middle block.
Miss Mae Deputy, who has been bookkeeper in the office of the Central Utilities Company in this city for the past two years, left for Oelwein, Ia., Saturday, where she has accepted a like position with the Fayette Utilities Company.
Mr. and Mrs. J. K. Shook, and daughter Mabel, left Tuesday for Hot Springs, Ark., where they will remain until the middle of February.
G. H. Bennett, of Belle Prairie, has gone to Santa Barbara, Calif., to join Mrs. Bennett and daughter, Rachel, who have spent the fall and winter months there.
100 Years Ago
January 16, 1925
W. C. Mundt, of this city, state historian for the American Legion, has been appointed department organization officer for the state department and is now working to compute the cost and incidentals of the Illinois Legionnaire, the official state publication of the American Legion, which is to be started soon. He is working at state headquarters, in the McBarnes building, Bloomington, where he now has offices in conjunction with the rest of the state department officials. Mr. Mundt spends two days of each week at the jewelry store in this city.
The gospel services at the Methodist Church are growing in interest, numbers and power. Sunday was a great day. Under the preaching and power of the appeal one hundred and thirty-three persons took the forward step. Of these, thirty-four were first decisions for Christ.
The fellow, who a couple of weeks ago cashed some forged checks on local merchants, has been caught. He is Edward Purdum, who for several years lived around Chatsworth and Piper City. After his visit to Fairbury he selected some new territory, trying out Bloomington. When one of his checks came back to the Citizens Bank at Chatsworth from Bloomington, Frank Herr, president of the bank, wrote to the Chamber of Commerce at Bloomington, telling them to be on the look-out for him. The result was that when Purdum stopped at an oil station in Bloomington and tendered a check, he was picked up.
90 Years Ago
January 11, 1935
At 7:30 o'clock this evening, Mayor G. H. Franzen will officially open the new bowling alleys in the Mapel building, formerly occupied by the Home Cafe, when he rolls the first ball down the hardwood alleyways. The first games will be played by four teams of ladies. The bowling alley will be in charge of James B. Packard, of Charleston, who is one of a group of gentlemen operating a chain of 22 alleys in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The alleys installed here are what are known as "duck pin" alleys. This game is played the same as the regulation ten-pin game with the exception that a three and a half pound ball is used instead of the larger ball.
State Highway Policeman Edwin Tetley, of this city, had a narrow escape from death early Tuesday evening on Route 66, three miles south of Pontiac, when he was struck by a car. As it was he was rolled and dragged a distance of some 30 or 35 feet by the car after being hit. Mr. Tetley had his left arm and shoulder bruised and wrenched and his face was badly skinned from coming in contact with the pavement.
The Rev. Joseph Partridge, pastor of the Methodist Church at Forrest, was decorated with the Order of the Purple Heart for distinguished World War service at a meeting of the North American Manz Association held at the Palmer House in Chicago last Saturday. The decoration is one awarded by the United States government to men and women who distinguished themselves in line of service overseas. Mr. Partridge was wounded in action overseas and was also gassed.
80 Years Ago
January 12, 1945
The repairing and redecorating of the rooms of John Joda post, American Legion, have just been completed and the members held their first business meeting in them for the first time since July 24 last. On that date fire and smoke badly damaged the rooms and contents. While the walls, floor and ceiling are as good as new, used furniture, rugs and desks have been secured to furnish the rooms for the present.
Ernest Skrobonak, C. Sutton, Clarence Immke and several other men, members of the Evangelical Church, were out fox hunting last Friday north of Fairbury and bagged a prairie wolf. It weighed 40 pounds and was about the size of a large police dog. The hunters also killed a fox. Both animals probably had taken their share of poultry and young livestock.
A transport truck taken by three robbers after they had held up the driver on Route 66, ten miles north of Lincoln Monday night, was recovered Tuesday afternoon at Forrest. The truck was later brought to the Klopfenstein Motor Company in this city. The driver of the truck, who gave his name as Morris Drogy of Milwaukee, Wis., was robbed of $800 and held captive for four hours before being released three miles south of Bloomington at eleven o'clock Monday night.
70 Years Ago
January 13, 1955
The night patrol of Livingston County, recommended by Sheriff Willis Harms and OK'd by the county board of supervisors at its last session, went into effect Thursday.
The first special event by an organization in the drive to collect $3,500 for the March of Dimes in the Fairbury-Cropsey Unit School District will be held on main street here Saturday by John Joda Post 54, American Legion, which is applying a strip of tape to the sidewalk on Locust street. Fairburians will then place dimes, edge to edge, on this block-long tape.
Miss Twyla Harris of Fairbury, Dale Legner of Pontiac, Mary Kelleher of Weston, and Don Fitzpatrick of Pontiac all were injured in an automobile accident in Chatsworth last Saturday night en route to Kempton to a wedding dance.
Markets — Hogs, Chicago market, $17.75; Wheat, new, 2.03; Corn, 15-day delivery, .43½; Soybeans, new, 2.60; Oats, new, .74½; Butterfat, No. 1, .49; Butterfat, No. 2, .46; Eggs, cash, .23; Hens, .14; Old roosters, .10.
60 Years Ago
January 14, 1965
Alert action by Rich Walter on Tuesday night interrupted a burglary at the Indian Trail Motel, and police today are searching for the man who fled the scene in a black "1963 or '64 Chevrolet, with a shattered windshield." It was 6:30 when Walter noticed a shadow in Unit 3 of the motel next door to his home, and a few minutes later saw a man come around the end of the motel and start to lift something from beneath the window of the room, and start for a car parked in Walter's drive. Walter, who had just left his own home, asked the man what was going on. The man pleaded with Walter to "give me a break," and jumped in his car, speeding from the drive and heading west on U. S. 24.
Laesch's Ever Ready Marie, a senior three-year-old Registered Guernsey cow, owned by Myron E. Erdman of rural Chenoa, has completed an official DHIR actual production record of 12,960 pounds of milk and 694 pounds of butterfat, in 305 days, two times a day milking, according to The American Guernsey Cattle Club.
Three door-to-door salesmen were expelled from town Monday night after Fairbury police received several complaints from householders about their method of operation. Chief Alton Russell and Officer Maurice Johnson located two of the men, who gave them evasive answers about "conducting a survey" for a Champaign firm. Russell told the duo to "get out of town" unless they "checked in with the mayor," but they then said that they'd "been dropped off here by a supervisor and that he wouldn't return until 10 p.m."
50 Years Ago
January 16, 1975
Workmen this week completed installation of an additional printing unit in the newspaper press line of Cornbelt Press Inc., in Fairbury. The new unit will enable The Fairbury Blade and her sister publications to print greater numbers of pages in each section, and also to have a greater availability of color in any section.
Fairbury firemen, responding to a 7:45 a.m. call to stand by and protect a Caterpillar tractor from possible damage while abandoned farm buildings were being intentionally burned on the Bill Mundell farm, six miles south of town Tuesday morning, discovered that the vehicle had been destroyed when they arrived. The tractor, owned by Duane Kilgus, had been parked behind a small shed, some distance from a barn and a crib which Mundell was burning. Reportedly, the blaze became too hot and threatened to reach the shed behind which the tractor was parked. By the time firemen arrived, it had taken the shed and vehicle as well, as in the meantime, the tractor had defied efforts to both start it or tow it away.
The cases of two Elgin men, suspects in the Dec. 10 robbery of Hummel's grocery in Fairbury, have been continued in the general division of Livingston County Circuit Court. Judge Darrell Reno ruled last Friday at a preliminary hearing that probable cause had been shown linking Milton Burns, 28, and Henry Payne, 25, to the robbery. The cases will be continued until the next convening of the grand jury, who will hear the evidence and decide whether to indict the pair.
40 Years Ago
January 10, 1985
National Future Farmers of America Secretary Michael Gayaldo of California will be the featured speaker next Monday morning at a Fairbury-Cropsey High School assembly. In addition to the FCHS student body, FFA members from Forrest-Strawn-Wing and Chatsworth High schools are expected to attend the assembly. Gayaldo, 20, will be accompanied by the Illinois FFA officers as he makes his visit. A native of Kelseyville, Calif., Gayaldo won the American Farmer degree as a result of his work on his family's pear farm as well as on his hay and swine projects. His supervised occupational program included overseeing the packaging and marketing of deciduous fruits. During his year as a national officer, Gayaldo will travel more than 200,000 miles, giving hundreds of speeches.
Livingston County Chief of Detectives John Wiles and Fairbury Police Lieutenant Sam Hedrick met with members of the Fairbury Jr. Woman's Club Tuesday evening to discuss the Block Parent program being considered by the FJWC. The program is designed for young children who are walking alone or with friends and need help of any kind. One household per block would display a bold colored happy face in a window, which would indicate that it was a safe house to seek help at.
"If I had a penny for every bag of Honeggers feed that I stacked and handled the past 41 years, I could retire on the beaches of Hawaii." Those were the words of Harry Slaughter at a recent retirement luncheon held in his honor. Honeggers and fellow workers honored Harry with a recliner chair as a gift to enjoy watching TV in (Harry's favorite pastime). He will officially retire on Feb. 17 after completing 41 years with Honeggers & Co., Inc.
30 Years Ago
January 11, 1995
Jeff Lauritzen, of Bluestem National Bank, presented Beth Maier, of Helen Lewis Smith Pavilion, with 1995 calendars for pavilion residents. Every year the bank gives Fairview Haven and HLS residents calendars and apples as gifts. Apple Days have been a banking tradition for 32 years.
Fairbury's hoofing specialist works best with a mouthful of nails. Lonnie Welch spends much of his time at the Fairbury fairgrounds. That's where his expertise is needed – by horses and their owners. Welch is a hoof extraordinaire, which isn't surprising since he's been nailing on iron footwear since age nine. Today the Fairbury master craftsman of horse-shoeing is not just horsing around. Hoofer Welch knows the business, knows why shoes on a racehorse differ from those on a Tennessee Walker high-stepping show horse. His knowledge and farrier talents are in constant demand within a wide radius of Fairbury. Now, after 40 years of shoeing horses and mules, he can hardly keep up with the demand.
The 1992 Census of Agriculture shows that the United States had 1,925,300 farms, making it the first census since 1850 with fewer than 2 million farms. The census counted the highest number of farms, 6.8 million, in 1935. The value of U.S. agricultural products sold in 1992 reached $163 billion. Even though the number of farms declined, overall farm production increased, thus continuing the trend towards more efficient agricultural productivity.
20 Years Ago
January 12, 2004
Si Moser of Fairbury will celebrate his 100th birthday on Jan. 16. An open house for all of his friends and relatives will be held at Dave's Deli in Fairbury on Saturday, Jan. 15 from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. Moser, who attributes his longevity to lots of exercise, eating oatmeal for breakfast and maintaining a positive attitude, continues to be active as he approaches the century mark. He still enjoys playing pool six days a week, climbing the 30 steps to the upper level of the Mason's hall on Locust street, above Bellot's.
The Forrest Lion's Club will host an evening with WGN's Max Armstrong on Tuesday, Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. at Prairie Central Upper Elementary School in Forrest. Max Armstrong is a popular farm broadcaster at WGN Radio 720 in Chicago. He broadcasts market updates throughout the day and co-hosts the US Farm Report. His show is heard on a network of over 160 radio stations and 150 television stations coast to coast. Admission is free with a donation to the local food pantry requested.
This year's Voice of Democracy winners have been selected for the 7th District VFW and Auxiliary. Locally, Fairbury and Chenoa VFW posts and Auxiliary units, have chosen Amber Lehmann, Kiley Corban, Jeni Young, Aimee Rieger, Kristin Diller and Jennifer Faulkner. Sponsored by the Fairbury Post 9789, Rieger received first place, Corban received second and Amber Lehmann third. Sponsored by the Chenoa Post 8350, Faulkner received first place, Diller second place and Young third. This year's theme was "Celebrating our Veterans' Service."
10 Years Ago
January 14, 2015
The Fairbury City Council got right down to business for the first meeting of 2015 Wednesday night. In addition to approving a memorandum of understanding for the Greater Livingston County Economic Development Council, the group appointed Charlie Hoselton as chairman of the Police and Fire committee. The vacancy was created last month with the passing of Alderman Doug Hibsch. The council also learned that the fire department won a small equipment grant from the Office of the State Fire Marshal in the amount of $10,356. The money will be used to purchase four sets of turn-out gear, which consists of boots, helmets, pants, coats, gloves and hoods.
Rachel Metz of Cullom and Joshua Steidinger of Fairbury, are announcing their engagement and approaching marriage. The bride-to-be is the daughter of Alan and Bev Metz, Cullom. She is a graduate of Concepts College of Cosmetology, Urbana, and is employed at Total E. Clips, Pontiac. The future bridegroom is the son of James and Marlene Steidinger, Fairbury. He is employed at J&D Farms and is an electrician for Popejoy, Inc. The couple is planning an April 4, 2015 wedding in Fairbury.
Thursday's nasty weather didn't stop people from chowing down on pancakes at the annual McDowell Methodist Church pancake and sausage “stuffer.” The church's primary fundraiser is always held on the second Thursday of January and has seen all types of weather over the years – from rain and snow to beautiful sunshine. This year, people were able to escape the arctic chill by enjoying a stack of thin, warm pancakes and homemade sausage. People come from several miles away to enjoy the food, according to church member Freddie Immke. The McDowell stuffer always starts at 7 a.m. and runs through 7 p.m. This year, Immke said around 1,000 people were served.
"Looking Back" from Kari Kamrath is sponsored each week on Fairbury News by Duffy-Pils Memorial Home.
