A woven Navajo blanket from 1880 is Jonathan Reyman’s most cherished piece at his Native American Gallery at 1044 N. Grand Avenue in Springfield. The man who sold it to him thought it was a rug, apparently because of its size – approximately 52 by 88 inches. Made of all wool and waterproof, it is […]
Linda Hughes
Springfield writer Linda Hughes is a regular contributor.
Posted inNews
Decatur genealogy museum traces African-American roots
Evelyn Hood of Decatur began researching her family history some years ago, realizing how hard it is for African-Americans because landowners usually did not include surnames of their slaves in their records. Surnames would tell people their tribes. That families were divided at auction provides another hindrance. “I was having a difficult time,” Hood says. […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Visit Postville, where Lincoln argued cases
Despite local opposition, in 1929 Henry Ford bought and dismantled the courthouse in Postville and had it set up again at his Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Mich. The courthouse became more valuable to the community when they learned they were going to lose it, says Shirley Bartelmay, coordinator of the Postville Courthouse State Historic Site […]
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Remembering Everett Dirksen
The colorful and raspy-voiced U. S. Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen died in 1969, but his memory lives on at the Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, near Peoria. This is a research center, but a museum, too. The first thing that catches one’s eye is Sen. Everett Dirksen’s desk from his Capitol office. Dirksen, called the […]
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Voices of the people
Untitled Document Ray Ackerman, who farmed in Tazewell County as a young man, talks on video about his early farming days: “No one wants to go back to the hard work they did in the past.” Ackerman talks about having to haul and spread manure on his fields but notes that now farmers use artificial […]
Posted inNews
Voices of the people
Untitled Document Ray Ackerman, who farmed in Tazewell County as a young man, talks on video about his early farming days: “No one wants to go back to the hard work they did in the past.” Ackerman talks about having to haul and spread manure on his fields but notes that now farmers use artificial […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Take a ride
Untitled Document Adlai Stevenson, vice president under Grover Cleveland, once visited the Old Salem Chautauqua just south of Petersburg. So did populist lawyer William Jennings Bryan, African-American educator Booker T. Washington, and firebrand preacher Billy Sunday. The Petersburg-area Chautauqua, part of a national movement of educational assemblies that exposed participants to the great ideas of […]
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Where there’s a Mill, there’s a way
Untitled Document Turning a dilapidated old restaurant into a historical museum takes a lot of time and work — especially when you start out with no money. “It’s definitely the most difficult task I’ve undertaken,” says Geoff Ladd, chairman of the Route 66 Heritage Foundation of Logan County, established originally to save the Mill and […]
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Timely message
Like the “Lost Speech” that Abraham Lincoln gave in May 1856 in Bloomington, a speech he gave in Shelbyville in August 1856 was never recorded verbatim. The Illinois State Register of Aug. 19, 1856, noted only that the three-hour speech was “prosy and dull.” Lincoln, the paper reported, “attempted to make small side issues of […]
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School of hard knocks
A mother at a Springfield mission is pleased with her four children’s experiences in the local schools. “Oh yeah, they like school. Oh yeah, the teachers are good,” she says. Her children are making friends, and although they could ride the bus, she walks with them most days. Living at the mission, she has “more […]
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Of Dragons and Indians
Officials with the Pawnee and Divernon school districts say that a soon-to-be-released study is expected to answer the question of whether the two rural districts should merge. The idea of combining the two Sangamon County districts was broached last year by Divernon Schools Superintendent Mark Spaid. Informal talks between the two district boards led to […]
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Tearing down the house
The Springfield Historic Sites Commission is calling on the Illinois Audubon Society to save the Adams House, a move that boosts efforts by local activists to preserve the antebellum structure. The 147-year-old Adams House, located on the grounds of the Adams Wildlife Sanctuary, would be razed to make way for a new 2,000-square-foot office building, […]
