USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Evans Township > Old Sandy remembers: Evans Township, Marshall County [history] > Part 2
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Wenona's beautiful high school building was constructed in 1926 and occupied for the first time in January 1927. It is now known as Wenona Community Unit I.
A number of country schools were common throughout Evans Town- ship which have passed out of existence to become a part of consolidated schools.
Down through the years, families of Evans Township have taken an active part in education in this community.
Dorothy McMeen
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WENONAH
Downward through the evening twilight, In the days that are forgotten, In the unremembered ages, From the full moon fell Nokomis, She a wife, but not a mother. She was sporting with her women,
Swinging in a swing of grape-vines, When her rival, the rejected, Full of jealousy and hatred, Cut the leafy swing asunder,
Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines,
And Nokomis fell affrighted Downward through the evening twilight,
On the Muskoday, the meadow On the prairie full of blossoms.
"See! a star fall!" said the people; "From the sky a star is falling!" There among the prairie lilies, On the Muskoday, the meadow, In the moonlight and the starlight, Fair Nokomis bore a daughter, And she called her name Wenonah, As the first-born of her daughters. And the daughter of Nokomis Crew up like the prairie lilies, Grew a tall and slender maidon, With the beauty of the moonlight, With the beauty of the starlight.
Thus does Henry Wadsworth Longfellow write of the beautiful Indian maiden, Wenonah, in his poem, "The Song of Hiawatha." Later verses tell of the wooing of Wenonah by West-Wind (Mudgekeewis) and of Wenonah's death after her son, Hiawatha, was born, leaving him to be nurtured by Nokomis.
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CHAPTER II
Wenona is a prairie town. Its roots are deep in the fertile soil from which it sprang. Unimagined wealth lay in its dark resources beneath the deep prairie grasses that had been undisturbed for centuries when it was Indian country. It was explored by the French, held by British soldiers and won by war for a new nation.
Wenona is a town of happy prosperous people. It sprung from the prairies, it was built by pioneers whose forward look has meant growth and a good life for succeeding generations.
In 1849 the land upon which Wenona now rests was entered by John O. Dent, a Sandy pioneer, as a possible location for the village. In 1852 when a fair-sized settlement of hustling farm folk already lived in Evans Town- ship, Wenona was nothing but a station house on the not yet completed Illinois Central Railroad. The station house agent built himself a fair sized res- idence, established a post office and he was appointed the first postmaster. At first the place was treeless and uninviting with the land low and wet at times. Hon. John O. Dent saw the need for trees, started a nursery, charged little for his trees to householders and gave them to church groups and public buildings and helped set them out. The railroad between LaSalle and Bloomington was completed in 1853, and the first train came through Wenona on May 16, 1853. Regular service began almost at once.
In 1854 William Brown purchased a corner lot opposite the freight house and erected a building which he used for a store and boarding house. Charles Brown built the first hotel, The Wenona House, which burned down in the big fire of 1870.
The first settler was Dr. Cornelius Perry, who bought up a consid- erable amount of property and sold lots to folks moving into Wenona. In 1856 the town had grown to twelve hundred people, three hundred houses, two churches, three schools, a hotel and a saw mill.
In 1857 the village organized a municipal government with F. H. Bond, Solomon Wise, George Brockway, John B. Newburn and Emanuel Welty as trustees and John B. Brown, a police magistrate. The town was regularly laid out, it's principal street being built up with well-filled stores run by energetic business men doing an extensive trade with the surrounding country.
In 1872 the population was 1,335. The first two houses built in Wenona are still in use. They were moved from their first location so that the C & A Railroad could be put through. One of these homes on the corner of 2nd North and Walnut is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Jaegle and the other is the old Swartz home on N. Olive Street where Mrs. Behrand Fredericks lives.
The Monsers, who came from England, at first lived on a farm five miles west of Wenona and later moved to Wenona and were active in several industries there. Isaac Vaughn came in 1858, worked as a carpenter, enlisted in the Civil War, but returned to Wenona in 1867 to establish a drug store which was in operation many years. Mr. Vaughn was Wenona's first mayor.
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This cross section of business places might be interesting to record. In 1861 Chas. Parker sold agriculture implements. In 1859 E. S. Fowler sold grain. Sam Scott and R. F. Beecher were operating a grocery in 1868 and E. P. Barker ran a hardware store then. Mr. C. Rieat had a com- plete line of boots and shoes for sale, and Mr. Thomas B. Hinman, a wagon manufacturer in 1865 advertised that he could furnish on short notice carriages, buggies and wagons on order. In 1878 a bank was established by Howe, Hodge and Ralston with Peter Howe furnishing most of the capital. Wenona people then had three doctors; Dr. Potts who came in 1868 and Dr. J. M. Higgins who came in 1878. Dr. Kendall Rich came to Wenona shortly after the Civil War ended. There seems to be evidence that at one time a Dr. A. Bagley practiced medicine in Wenona after the Civil War. Wenona's dentist was Dr. Garrett Newkirk and it's attorney-at-law was J. H. Jackson who came in 1865.
It is interesting to note that the first reaping machine made in Illinois (so the story goes) was invented by Wm. E. Parret in 1847 and was made in a machine shop in Magnolia. The Parret family later moved to Wenona and was prominent in civic and social affairs.
With Osage Township now settled and markets opened in all direc- tions by the two railroads, C & A and I. C., Wenona became a center for shipping. A record of one year's shipping reads as follows: Wheat shipped -- 46,000 bu., corn -- 280,500 bu., oats -- 132,900 bu., barley -- 18,600 bu., cattle -- 930 head, hogs -- 5,911 head, and wool -- 32,000 lbs.
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CHAPTER III
COUNTRY LIFE IN THE MIDDLE DECADES
Life in Evans Township in the middle decades of the nineteenth century was busy but lacked the hardships and fears of the frontier. Neigh- bors exchanged work, ideas, equipment and fun. From a diary in the possession of Julia Aukland started by her Grandmother, Charlotte Waters in 1859, we learn about life on the farm.
With the average farmer good driving horses, a carriage of spring wagon and a light cart were necessary conveyances, as traveling between neighbors and to town was necessary. And to the young lad "goin" a courtin'", a high stepping horse, a spanking new buggy with a colorful buggy whip and shiny new harness, were desired luxuries. He might have to hire out to a neighbor after his father's crop was in to get the money, but having the new rig, as it was called, was a status symbol.
From Charlotte's diary it is easy to follow the life of a farm girl and to wonder where was the leisure we crave today. Up at four in the morning on Monday to get a breakfast of fried potatoes, meat, coffee, fried cakes (doughnuts) and pie for the men, she followed the work pattern brought by her parents from "back East" -- wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, churn and bake on Wednesday, Thursday mend and go calling, Friday dust and sweep, and on Saturday churn again and bake. Sunday was church and "get to-gethers" of the families.
To start the week right, the washing must be on the line as early as possible, all the white clothes having been boiled in a copper boiler on the kitchen range, and rinsed in the tubs of rain water on the wash bench. Next the floor would be mopped, and all the porches and board walks scrubbed with wash water. Wasting of the suds from the home made soap was not coun- tenanced. When the milk pails, strainers, crocks, and breakfast dishes were done, the cream was skimmed from yesterday's milk and poured into the cream pail hanging in the well or cistern for refrigeration. The kitchen range then needed a black polish and shine for the wash boiler had left suds spots. It was a poor housekeeper indeed who didn't keep a shiny black stove.
Maybe we can recall having seen Great Grandfather's picture decked out in his stiff white shirt front, or have seen Great Grandmother's ruffled and embroidered petticoat. Little girls wore pantalettes with ruffled flounces, and little boys white blouses with large sailor collars trimmed with embroi- dery. This collar was worn outside his tight wool jacket. These clothes had to be ironed with sad irons heated on the range. The ironing board was hand made, and, since it had no stand, one end rested on the kitchen table, the other on a sturdy straight backed chair. The wood box would be full to it's brim with split sticks of cured wood before ironing began. The story goes that by the turn of the century when young ladies wore three and four of the petticoats, several women folk did the ironing on Tuesday morning.
Charlotte often found time after ironing to ride horseback to the neighbors for a little "girl talk" as well as to borrow a pattern for a new dress or dressing sac. She tells her diary about the wheel coming off the buggy when she and George were coming home from a Fourth of July picnic.
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Charlotte wrote that she was concerned about her mother who coughed a lot and had a bad case of ague. They tried home remedies, as they didn't think much of the doctor in the area. To her, as to many others, these cough and ague cases brought tragedy for there seemed to be no cure. They generally proved to be consumption cases as they were then called. Charlotte's father took her mother back to Vermont to be near her own folks and to get good treatment, but had to return to the farm work. The mother died and was buried before the folks could get to her funeral. Telegraph communications had been delayed, and it took two days to get to Vermont by train. Charlotte, until her marriage, took charge of the house- work for her father.
When the men came to hand shear the sheep, Charlotte wrote about the meals. After mopping the kitchen, she put beef on the range to boil, chickens in the oven to bake, prepared the potatoes and greens. She then roasted the green coffee beans until they were brown, then ground in the coffee mill the amount she needed for dinner, storing the rest of the roasted beans in the big coffee can. Her pies and cake were baked the previous day.
After dinner and dishes were over, she drove the buggy to the neighbors to pick strawberries. She wanted to make some jam and to put some in bottles for pies. These bottles seem to have been the old Mason glass jars which were beginning to be used then.
Early in the summer a trip was made to town to pick pails of cherries. A woman had been hired to come help pit and help bottle the cherries for winter. In mid-summer seven pounds of red currants were made into jelly, gooseberries and blackberries were found wild in the woods and brought home to preserve for winter. Although the diary didn't say, the men generally went on this outing, for the woods near Magnolia were quite dense and, with the men along, the girls were not afraid. Picnic lunches were part of the day's excursion but the milk pails full of fruit were the reward for work. Scratches from the blackberry thorns left their marks for several days.
On Saturday the family went to Wenona, Henry, or Magnolia to do the week's trading. If the mail hadn't been picked up at the Post Office, they got the mail too. Crocks of butter and dozens of eggs were brought to the grocer who gave credit at the current price for the produce, and then the farmer traded out the amount in the store. Often the farm produce paid for all the sugar, flour, calico, spices, cocoanut and chocolate needed, as well as the kerosene for the lamps.
In August after threshing, the straw ticks used on the beds had to be ripped, the straw dumped in a barn stall or on the strawberry patch, the tick laundered, and then filled with new straw fresh from the straw stack. A few mattresses might be found in the community for the guest bedrooms, but straw ticks made good beds.
Another task for August was the taking up of the rag carpets. The straw padding was carried out, the floor scrubbed and dried, and then fresh straw spread evenly over the floor. A good housekeeper might have sewed enough carpet rags in the winter and have them woven and ready to put down in the room where the carpet was worn. Often Dad had to be called in to stretch the carpet tight, as it was tacked, for there must be no wrinkles when the job was finished.
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For the parlor with it's horsehair sofa, center table with the big blown-glass egg and the stereopticon views, also the large secretary, there would be an ingrain carpet stretched over the straw for this carpet had to have a padding too.
A chore disliked by the girls was the polishing and counting of the family cutlery. There was for many families the set of silver, often 1847 Roger Brother's plate, which had to be polished, counted and put in it's cotton flannel cases after company dinner. For everyday, everyone used the steel knives and forks with wooden or bone handles. Brick dust, cut from a soft brick as needed, was used to polish off any stain or rust. The work was tiring yet the steel pieces shone when polished and there was pride in the table set with the red check table cloth and these pieces. The silver spoons were in the spoon holder and used as needed.
Since dress shops and garment factories were not common until the new century, the mother bought the goods needed for the family sewing and often a maiden aunt or the community dressmaker or both came and stayed several days to make the winter dresses for the women folk. There was often another such sewing session in the spring.
Butchering was an important event on the farm and was left for late fall as cold weather was needed. Several pigs were butchered and possibly a young beef. The entire family helped, the older children stay- ing home from school. Some of the meat such as heart, liver, tenderloins, spare ribs, and side meat were eaten fresh. Stomach aches often resulted from over-eating that good fresh pork. The fat was trimmed off all the meat and rendered in the oven in big dripping pans and stored in five and ten gallon jars. Previously the lard was rendered in huge iron kettles over an open fire in the yard. The hams, shoulders and side meat were put down in a salt brine for from seven to ten days to be cured. Then they were hung in the smoke house where hickory or apple wood was burned, the smoke seasoning the meat to the right flavor. Grandpa was often in full charge of the curing and smoking of the meat. His receipe for the brine was "it must be thick enough to hold up an egg."
With the fall and winter the women had another daily chore. The kerosene lamps had to be filled, the wicks trimmed, the chimneys washed and shined, the reflectors on the reading lamps polished, so after the chores were done in the evening the Wenona Index, The Inter Ocean, and The Youth's Companion could be read as the family sat around the kitchen table. These were weekly papers picked up at the Post Office.
Before the children were sent upstairs to bed, someone went to the cellar to bring up a big pan of Domino and Snow apples, someone else would crack a pan of hickory, walnut or hazel nuts to munch along with the apples. Grandmother would finish getting the last few nut meats picked out and put in a jar for the nut cake. Dad's stories of the Indians, the build- ing of the fort or the wolves that used to howl at night thrilled the kids but sent them to bed afraid of their shadows, and the flicker of the ker- osene lamp cast wierd and frightening shadows on the ceiling as they went to sleep.
The young men of Sandy loved to drive fine horses, take their girls to the Union Fair, the Chataqua, or on a moonlight excursion on the paddle- wheel steamer on the Illinois River during the summer. In the winter skating
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the full length of Sandy Creek and then collecting at a farm home for an oys- ter stew was one of the favorite pastimes. When a barn was finished, there had to be a square dance held on the new board floor with all the neighbors joining in with cakes, sandwiches, with cider and coffee to sustain the busy dancers. Neighborhood fiddlers played their favorite folk tunes such as Turkey in the Straw, Skip to My Lou and Captain Jinx to accompany the dances.
Smoking and card playing were pastimes frowned upon by some elders in Evans Township, but the story goes that some of the young men managed to have a club house in a shed not too far from Cumberland Church. They met there afternoons or evenings to play cards and smoke their pipes. Many stories were told of the tricks played on each other or on a too curious outsider. An elder resident of Wenona tells this story. He and another young lad fig- ured a way to get into the club house, and wanting to be big guys, decided to try the cob pipes they found on the window sill. The smoking tobacco and matches were right handy, too. They filled the pipes and lit up, but some- thing exploded and burned off their eyebrows and eyelashes. There was a little gun powder in the tobacco just as a nice surprise for intruders.
The good living on the country farms of Evans Township had to be earned by hard work and thrift. The depression of 1870, the cholera that almost wiped out the money crop of the farm -- hogs, the drought, the chintz bugs in the corn, the early frost sometimes brought despair. But year in and year out life in Evans Township was rewarding. Since the sons and daughters were needed on the farm, they generally stayed home until they married. Often, too, they married in the community, exchanged equipment and labor with their parents and established a healthy family area.
As time moved to the twentieth century big changes came to the countryside. The farms were largely cleared of timber, drained by the laying of tile, and worked with machinery invented to ease the heavy labor and get much more work done.
With the growth of cities many jobs there were enticing and the young people began leaving the farms. Every child began to go to high school and a few went to college, so farm population began to move to the town and city. It wasn't long before farm owners began renting their farms to immi- grant families and moving to the city for that leisure and social life that could be found in Wenona.
MEMORIES OF EDWIN WRIGHT
Before his death in 1952 at the age of 92, Edwin Wright reminisced about boyhood on a farm west of Wenona and south of Sandy Creek. He was born on New Year's Day 1860, the youngest of Byard and Jane Wright's ten children. During his life which spanned parts of two centuries, Ed- win witnessed the transition from horse-drawn and man-powered implements to motor-driven, automatic machinery; from the crudest of conveyances, tools and household utensils to modern timesaving gadgets.
In the 1860s schooling was scheduled so that children could help with the farming. After they were old enough to work, boys attended classes only in winter. Like his friends, Edwin walked behind horses over acres of rough fields, barefoot in summer and wearing heavy "atogey" boots in cold weather. Shoes were expensive and going barefoot whenever possible saved their soles.
Mother Jane Wright made all the clothes (cheaper by the dozen) for her family of twelve and, as was the custom, they were handed down from older to younger children until worn to shreds.
Father Byard Wright hunted for quail and prairie chickens to sell to the Chicago merket for money to help buy groceries. He shot game for his own table, too. Other common, everyday fare was corn bread and "hog and hominy." (See page on Hog and Hominy). Edwin helped his mother by fanning flies from the table before the advent of screens, and "working" big batches of dough for the many loaves of bread baked to feed the large family. This took much muscle and time.
Although there was little formal recreation, there was a lot of fun in those days. They visited relatives and friends, went to "socials, " or barn raisings. They hunted, fished, played ball and other games. Edwin's favorite swimming spot was "Miller's Hole" in Sandy Creek. On Sundays the whole family climbed into their horse-drawn wagon and went to Old Sandy M. E. Church.
Pioneers travelling through the country in covered wagons were of- ten given hospitality, food and overnight shelter at the Wrights'.
When Byard bought the farm adjoining the Wright homestead, Edwin went with him to Hennepin to complete the transaction. They crossed the Illinois River by boat at night, carrying the cash in a suitcase and fearful all the while of being robbed or losing the money in the river. Neither misfortune happened.
At the age of twenty-four in 1884, Edwin Wright married and began farming for himself. They had three children: Bernard E., Garnet and DeWitt. Later in life, he moved into town and prior to his death in May 1952, Edwin Wright was Wenona's oldest citizen with the longest record of continuous residence in the township.
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HOG AND HOMINY
Side meat or pork from other parts of a butchered hog were such common accompaniment to hominy that the monotonous fare was often called "hog 'n' hominy" by farmers in Evans Township in the 1860s.
Lye, leached in an ash hopper to use in making soap, was also needed to soften dry corn for making hominy. This may be a little startling at first thought, albeit true. After the hard kernels had been soaked in lye they were cracked in a hominy block then cooked in water or milk.
There were different sizes of hominy blocks. One kind was made of a block of wood or tree trunk about three feet long. A round- bottomed cavity was burnt or gouged in one end. The other end sat on the ground. Corn was placed into the hollowed top and pounded with a wooden pestle about ten feet long and six inches thick. The heavy pestle was suspended from a limber pole and a handle was put through it horizontally two feet from the bottom for two people to use in plying it up and down to crush the corn.
Not every family had a hominy block. Neighbors brought corn to crack in the nearest one or sent their children to do it. This was one of the many things that were shared.
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A SWEET SHORT STORY ABOUT A SORGHUM MILL
1860
Back in the days before corn syrup was invented, folks in these parts got their Sweet 'nin agent from Clarence Axline.
Clarence had a sorghum mill on his place about three miles west of Wenona, the same mill his dad Aaron operated before him. Almost every farmer around "raised cane" in those days. When the sorghum cane was ready, he and his help would go through the cane field, strip the leaves off the stalks with cane knives then he would go and gather up those cane stalks until his rack was full and he could bring it into Axline's.
Clarence looked over every rack of cane that came in there, and he would estimate about how much sorghum that rack of cane was worth, and give the farmer a barrel of that stuff.
When the mill was going full swing each year, usually in the time between oat threshing and corn husking, Clarence had 8 or 10 men working the mill for him, running the press that squeezed the juice from the sorghum cane then cooking the juice in huge pans and skimming off the top slime. The mill ran by horse power in its early days, and later a steam engine kept it going.
Some of the farmers didn't bother with raising cane, and Clarence sold those fellows the sorghum they needed outright.
Running the sorghum presses wasn't the safest job in the world, the old timers say. Rollin White lived the biggest part of his life, minus four fingers, he lost one day while working the press.
The sorghum mill workers had their own brand of fun. On the nights one of the fellows was going courting, they would secretly paint his horse and harness all over with the sticky green waste they skimmed off the sorghum pans. To further enhance the romantic aura, the "skim" had a distinctively unpleas- ant smell.
All this "raising cane" stopped when corn syrup manufacturing came in. Sorghum couldn't compete with it in price. Unscrupulous merchants had a trick to force real sorghum off the market, too. They hauled black-strap molasses from New Orleans, mixed it with glucose, and sold the substance for genuine sorghum.
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SOME BOYHOOD MEMORIES OF OLIVER EXTROM
In the days when I was a young boy, farming, and almost every- thing else, was geared to a slow pace, not in any way comparable to pre- sent day methods or speed. All farm equipment was horse drawn. Machines were simple and few.
Since all corn husking was done by hand many of the stalks still remained standing in the spring and were somewhat of a nuisance when oats were sown, and which had to be cultivated in with horse drawn, one row walking cultivators. These corn stalks would get caught on the frame work of the cultivator to which the shovels were attached and would have to be pulled off frequently. A few years later a simple machine, called a "stalk cutter" came into being, which was horse drawn, like everything else. This equipment would cut the stalks into about ten or twelve inch lengths, and took two rows at a time. This operation made 'cultivating- in' the oats much easier and better too. This stalk cutter did have a seat on it, but the riding was so rough and shaky that some preferred to walk behind it.
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