Author Karin Wargel

Bicycling With Marlene

tammy — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:05:54 +0000

BICYCLING WITH MARLENE

In 2012, when Marlene Litton Almaroad and I were young and spry she decided she wanted to go bicycle riding. So she called one day, and I was all gung-ho. Yes, let’s go. The thing about doing anything with Marlene is, she always does the thinking and the planning. And it is always a good plan. She wanted to start out riding all around Johnston City, our old homes and haunts.

We started our first trip in June of 2012, at Jefferson School. Then we rode further north to Davis Street past where she lived when she was young. Next we came back south and rode out on Prosperity Road. All our lives it seems we walked or rode on Prosperity Road, either visiting friends or going to 4-H at the Stritzel’s. By this time we are getting hungry which meant lunch at Andresen’s. Back in the saddle, we headed to Johnston City Lake before going back to town by the home where she grew up and that of her grandmother.

Here is Marlene in front of the house where she grew up, stopping for lunch at Andresen’s, and Marlene at the lake.

We rode all over town then made it by my old house. West Broadway was JCHS Road. If you started where T-Mo’s is today, you would go by Connie and Johnny Murphy’s, Jansco’s, Rusty Wiseman’s, Tommy Heiser’s, Virginia Gamble’s, Mike Snow’s, Ronnie Shelton’s, Tommy Thomas’s, my house, Maxine Pyle’s, then the Kuhnke’s. One road to the north, I think 8^th St., in a five block stretch, you start with John Imhoff’s, then Randy Brymer, Marsha Brymer, Paula Hicks, the McDaniels, Zola Williams, to Rhonda Murman. Sometimes when I go through town I have fun telling Larry who lived in all the houses. You knew them all back then. And now we are all gone. I can’t figure out why we only had less than a hundred in each class. Some of these families were big.

When we got to my house, they were totally remodeling. So Marlene said, “Let’s go tell them you used to live here and see if they will let us see what they are doing.” I was skeptical, but they actually let us look around. Lots of changes for the better. And even now, I have noticed they are building on.

Marlene had all the gadgets. Her odometer said we did twenty miles that day.

Then she got courageous. I think she was researching places to ride. So she called and said, “Let’s do the Tunnel Hill Trail.” So on July 21, we drove to Karnak and parked the car in a little park. We always took Marlene’s car because she had a bike carrier on the back. Then we pedaled to Vienna to another little park right near the lights. When I was in Mr. Wales’s Biology class, this is the same spot my mom and I stopped to get some insects for the class collection requirement. We rested, must have eaten and had a little to drink. That was fifteen miles. Then we started back the way we came and included the Karnak Spur on to the Cache River. That was our first thirty mile trip. You can tell by the pictures that we took a lot of breaks on lots of bridges.

Marlene on a drink break and me in front of the tunnel.

That tunnel was not pleasant. It was so dark I lost my bearings and couldn’t tell how near I was to the side until my knuckles hit the wall. I was trying to keep my eye on the end light, but it didn’t help. Somebody else told me they had the same problem, maybe Roger. If it wasn’t you Rog, sorry.

In August, 2012, we rode the other half of the trail, from Vienna to New Burnsides and back again. Another thirty. Another trip full of beauty as you can see in the next picture. So far we were doing a trip a month. These pictures remind me that Marlene, as she would start to snap a shot, would always tell me, “Big smile.” Sometimes I would, sometimes I wouldn’t remember. She kept telling me this all the way through Greece, too!

To finish that Tunnel Hill Trail we drove two cars for the first time. First we parked Larry’s empty truck at Eldorado. Then we drove Marlene’s car with the bikes on the back to New Burnsides and began the thirty mile ride back to Eldorado. That’s why we had to have a car at both ends. We didn’t know if we could back track and do sixty miles in one day. Doubtful. After we arrived in Eldorado we loaded the bikes in the truck and drove back to New Burnsides to pick up Marlene’s car. Thirty miles. That ride has nice concrete paths. Next, my perfect trip planner came up with the Katy Trail in Missouri. We began at St. Charles on the Missouri River, rode a straight thirty miles so we could get in as much of the trail as possible, and then called a cab to come get us. She told them we needed a van because we had two bikes. They were very accommodating and everything went off smoothly.

This is Marlene on a bridge over another creek and me in front of the Missouri trying to smile bigly!

Remember our break times. And I think this is the Missouri trip where we found a green sign beside the river on the site of another town settled by Daniel Boone.

I want you to notice that Marlene is always as fresh as a daisy, always has a big beautiful smile, and always has on her earrings.

As a side note, remember, the Missouri River is where everyone started west beginning with Lewis and Clark in May of 1804 on their mission for President Jefferson to explore the west. They had come down the Ohio the previous year, stopping at Fort Massac in Metropolis in November of 1803. This fort was originally Fort Massiac and was given that name by the early French colonials in 1757, but later Americanized to Massac. If you have not been to Fort Massac, go now, but surely you have with the encampment every year. There is a semblance of the fort, original foundation footings, the river front with benches, and a statue of George Rogers Clark that the boys climb on. The museum is nice, too. If you have been to the encampment, go again. The food is great, nice little kiosks to buy things, people in period dress, lots of things for the kiddies, and the battle. There are camp sites but no full hookups.

I think we are so very fortunate, due to the rivers surrounding Southern Illinois, to live in an area where the history is full of the beginning of the United States. Wabash on the east, Ohio on the bottom, and Mississippi on the west. Fantastic. You can also read my story about Shawneetown history, which is very old, on this website.

For some reason we skipped September, then in October we went to Camp Ondessonk, but we didn’t ride our bikes. This is the lake and me on a sort of swinging bridge. The colors were gorgeous.

In May, 2013, we rode through some old neighborhoods of St. Louis and ended up in Forest Park.

I don’t remember why we slowed down, but I remember I had already started to fall. We took our last trip on August 13, 2013. We rode over the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge from Illinois to Missouri. Then we followed a trail that led to Laclede’s Landing. This took us past the flood wall and the 3-D murals. St. Louis and Paducah have great works of art on their flood walls. I have pix of the Paducah flood wall art on my story of the 1937 flood. You can see these and other stories on this website.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the Landing overlooking the river, conned some boys into taking our picture together, and then rode our bikes across Ead’s Bridge back to Illinois. Once we got to Illinois, since it wasn’t the bridge we had left from, we weren’t at our car. We called another cab and requested another vehicle large enough to hold two bikes. But, alas, that’s not what arrived. So Marlene paid the man at the gas station $10, in East St. Louis, to watch her bike until we came back. We loaded mine into the cab and took it back to the Chain of Rocks Bridge where we were parked. Then we went back to get her bike. Yay. It was still there.

Marlene on the Mississippi and me at the flood wall.

I must have had my knees replaced in 2014, because in October, 2015, I was doing my turn on Cumberland Island as a docent when my grandson was born. I went home for his birth, stayed a week, then went back to finish my time for two more weeks. We had a bicycle on the island, so I tried to ride. But the roads are not paved, just sandy and wobbly. I fell once on a big root. Marlene told me she bought a 3-wheeler because her legs were getting too weak and her balance wasn’t good enough for a two-wheeler any longer. But it didn’t work out because her legs were just too weak. I got one a few years later and tried to ride with the same grandson down our big hill on the driveway and ended up in the corn field. So much for that. I think it is trepidation more than skill. Sold mine also, but Larry gave my last grandson a few rides in the basket first.

I miss it, but then we started traveling, so all is good, and Life is Good. Get a t-shirt!

I hope some of you ride these trails and have the wonderful times we did.

The post Bicycling With Marlene appeared first on Author Karin Wargel.

SHAWNEETOWN, BEGINNING AND FLOODS

tammy — Sat, 06 May 2023 03:28:18 +0000

SHAWNEETOWN, BEGINNING AND FLOODS

This is a picture of the business district in the original Shawneetown, now known as Old Shawneetown,

before they moved the whole town about three miles up the hill to the west. I found this picture in Amazing Shawneetown, A Tale of Two Cities, by Lucille Lawler, 1985.

You have lived in the same area all your life and thought you knew almost everything about it, but while I was writing about the 1937 flood, I discovered so many interesting facts about Shawneetown, Illinois, that I just kept searching for more. In case you have never been there, take Rt. 13 east as far as you can go. Right before you cross the bridge to Kentucky, you are in Old Shawneetown. I’ll explain the difference in a minute.

Shawneetown was initially established around 1748-1758 by the Pekowi band of the Shawnee while Peter Chartier was the chief. Peter was a fur trader of mixed heritage, French and Shawnee.

The original name was Shawano town. I was watching “Legends and Lies: The Real West,” the other night, and there was a show about Daniel Boone and the Shawnee. They were spread over a large area from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. I thought they just lived around here because of Shawneetown and the Shawnee National Forest. But, no. And, due to the Indian village there, there are ancient Native American burial grounds in the vicinity. In the Handbook of Old Gallatin County, edited by Jon Musgrave, you can find the locations, some being along the Saline River, on the Gallatin-Hardin County line, and one five miles north of Shawneetown. Actually, Musgrave’s handbook is a wealth of info. However, Christy Short doesn’t think these sites are open to the public.

By the 1780’s, after the Revolution, Shawneetown was already an important US government administrative district for the Northwest Territory and was considered the gateway to Illinois for settlers from the east. In 1803, Lewis and Clark stopped there on their way to Fort Massac, which is still there on the edge of Metropolis but somewhat diminished, before heading further west. The fort has a nice museum, also. In 1804, Shawneetown just had a few log cabins. It was finally surveyed and platted as a town in 1810, mainly due to its close proximity to salt springs west of Shawneetown in Equality in Saline County. In fact, in the same year, 6,000 bushels, or 300,000 pounds, of salt were shipped from this new town. It takes 75 gallons of water to make a bushel of salt through boiling and evaporation.

I learned about these bushels of salt from The Comet and the Steamboat by S. M. Tolley. He also told the story of the infant, Alexander, whose father was Dr. John Reid. The story goes that his mother was alone with the babe, and she had him all cleaned and fancied up, when some natives entered her home. A young mother with her own infant on her back, proceeded to look at the shiny baby in its cradle and declared, “Me swap.” And she did swap. Alexander’s mother was beside herself when her husband arrived home, but he had a solution. He told his wife to clean up the dirty little baby left in their care and put some new clean clothes on him. They then went to the camp and showed the fresh baby to the other mother who agreed to swap back. I guess no harm done!

Tecumseh was the great leader of the Shawnee. There is a statue of him at the 105 acre Glen O. Jones Lake in Saline County south of Harrisburg, a good place for fishing and camping. During the War of 1812, Tecumseh was an officer in the British army and was considered a deathly foe in the Northwest Territory. General William Henry Harrison was a General in the US Army. At the Battle of the Thames (not in England), Tecumseh was killed on October 5, 1813. Harrison went on to become the ninth President in, 1841. It seems that at his inauguration, a cold and wet day, he addressed his fellow men without a hat then kept his wet clothes on for the following receptions. He caught a cold and then pneumonia and died with the shortest term, thirty-two miserably sick days.

Anyway. The US Congress began to see the profitability of this Shawneetown place in the form of rents, beginning in 1811. In 1814, Shawneetown became the first incorporated municipality in the Illinois Territory when chartered by the Territorial Legislature on Dec 9, 1814, before Illinois even became a state in 1818. Also in 1818, the federally owned salt wells were turned over to the state. It was often the first stop for immigrants headed west. And here we are, right beside it. We know that Saline County was named for its salt, but who knew about salty Shawneetown?

Salt was so important that Daniel Boone and his men would hike fifty miles to a salty creek and boil it down to make thousands of pounds of salt to carry back to the fort. And that is how he was kidnapped by the Shawnee!

Shawneetown was also a trading and financial center. John Marshall had arrived in this new country in 1801 from Ireland. He worked his way west while farming, and running a store, until in 1804 he heard about Shawneetown and took off. He worked in the “Salines,” as they were dubbed, and built a log cabin. He left the Salines, and built a two-story frame house, on the riverbank, where he opened the first bank in the Illinois Territory. You can see it in the picture next to the brick house they built later, which was the second brick house in town. The front of the houses face the river. As of yet there was no levee.

Here we see the John Marshall original frame bank with the new one beside it on the riverbank. No levee yet.

This first bank in Illinois Territory was chartered in 1816 and was known as the first territorial Bank of Illinois at Shawneetown. And again, here we are right beside it. The new brick house was built and competed in 1822, and the bank was in the basement. There was a hole in the parlor, or banking room, floor covered with a grate about one foot by one foot in size. Here people dropped their gold and silver to a barrel in the basement, as they had no minted coinage or paper money yet. A guard/cashier, John Reeves, would be there all night with his gun. This bank did, later, print paper money. In 1837 it became known as the State Bank of Illinois at Shawneetown.

In 1825, Chicago made its first request for a loan from the Shawneetown Bank. According to Lucille Lawler’s book Amazing Shawneetown, a Tale of Two Cities, June Rowan’s grandfather was a director of John Marshall’s bank. She told the story of four men riding horseback to Shawneetown from Chicago who requested a loan of $10,000 (or $30,000). Everyone’s tales differ a little, and many people over the years thought it just that, a tall tale. Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833, then when the population reached 4,000, in 1837, they became a city. So Chicago needed help in getting their new town on the way. However, the bankers in Shawneetown, almost the whole length of the state away, felt Chicago was too far away from Shawneetown to amount to anything, and it wasn’t even on a river. They denied the loan. However, Musgrave mentions that in the twentieth century a trove of old documents was found that was thought to have burned in the great fire. Among them was a letter dated July 5, 1838, from the Shawneetown Bank in which they deny the loans, a larger one and a smaller one. This explains the different amounts and corroborates the story. But, no dollar amounts were mentioned. Ms. Short disputes some of this as tales to add interest. She can’t find any proof of an amount. I don’t know how to explain the difference between 1825 and 1838.

In 1839, a much fancier bank was built thinking to give competition to the old one. Actually, they just moved the bank from John Marshall’s brick house to the new bank, so there wasn’t any competition. It was built with Greek revival architecture, big steps rising to big columns. It is still there and is on the National Registry of Historic Places as the Marshall Museum.

Then they demolished the original, historic brick house-bank on the bank of the river (two different banks there, a little confusing) due to serious deterioration and built a replica. They had saved and numbered the bricks, floor boards, and as many other parts as could be repurposed and used them in the new construction (in picture) which began in 1973. It is now a museum-the John Marshall Home Bank Museum. You should really take a drive to these two towns, check out the sites, and then go to the museum. Hours are 1PM to 4PM on the first and third Sundays of the month, May through October. If you go, notice the bricks and stones on the levee, which were original from the first brick bank/house. They didn’t want to take them up for fear of weakening the levee.

Here we see the reconstruction of the Shawneetown bank with the hole in the floor for deposits. You can see the levee behind it (or in front of it). The chimney was from the log cabin after it was moved in 1981.

The museum is full of many antiques, only a few of which are original items, and are on display, one being the oldest safe in Illinois, made in 1825. It is about three feet tall by two feet on the sides. There are big studs from spikes driven in on all four sides. I try to think why that is important for the inside of a safe, but it’s not coming. Christie Short told me the story about this safe being borrowed by a Chicago bank in 1918 to display and help celebrate the Centennial of Illinois statehood. The heirs then consented to allow the safe, other artifacts, and family portraits to be loaned to the Chicago Historical Museum. The Marshall descendants had asked many times for the return of the valuable articles, but were told that the Chicago Museum had been given the antiques, and so they refused to return them. Over the years, Shawneetown organized the Gallatin County Historical Society. And finally, after the involvement of many officers of the society as well as Congressman Paul Simon, they were able to bring the items home where they are now in the museum in Shawneetown.

On May 7, 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette visited Shawneetown, and his visit was welcomed with and commemorated by a most noble speech full of gratitude for his assistance in the Revolution. The Honorable Judge Hall had the honors. This was certainly a well-traveled route, and General Lafayette’s visit again acknowledges its importance. By now it was considered the financial capital of the state.

Another important visitor came to town on September 5, 1840-Abraham Lincoln, who was rumored to have stayed in the John Marshall Bank/house. He may have slept in one of the upstairs bedrooms. But Mrs. Patrick said he wouldn’t sleep in the bed. He slept in a chair. Ms. Short can find no documentation of this and adds another tale. She says he might have stayed at the Crenshaw house (the “old slave house”) down on Route 1 near Equality. I was able to go there several years ago, but now it is not open to the public.

Interestingly, or naturally, all the earliest settlements in Illinois were along rivers. Golconda and Shawneetown were on the Ohio. Cairo on the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Kaskaskia, the first capital, is on the Mississippi. Some of the little French hamlets on the Mississippi dispute Shawneetown’s claim as first. But, were they incorporated? That seems to make a difference. So really, who would have thought Chicago stood a chance.

Shawneetown has suffered through many floods; 1813, 1832, 1847, 1853, 1858. Finally, they slowly began work on a levee with the help of the state. Slowly being the key word, so that in 1867, when the next flood came, the town was again submerged. More bonds were issued until finally the levee was completed. They thought they were safe until, in 1875, when the next flood broke the levee. It was repaired, but in 1882 and again in 1883 the town was flooded. Then came another flood in 1884 which was higher. The levee broke again, and the flood carried over 100 houses down the river. Steamboats could travel down the streets. Isn’t it time to move on? Not yet, but they did decide to raise the levee one foot higher than the flood of 1884, One foot? Really? But it was completed; four and one half miles long, twelve feet wide on top. But it was already doomed. It was too steep on the outside and too full of sand, and no rip-rap.

The citizens felt very secure in 1898 when another great flood came their way. So secure that they just went upstairs to ride it out. They had a good levee. Hmmm. On April 4, 1898, the St. Louis Post Dispatch told the story of this deceiving levee. John Branch, a railroad conductor whose wife’s relatives lived in Shawneetown, had been in charge of carrying 425,000 feet of loamy dirt from Sand Cut, back in the hills, for the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern Railway which held the contract. It wasn’t the best dirt for a levee-too much sand, but was the best they could find. I think Tom told me that’s why the levee still seeps today. I would assume this is the levee built after the 1884 flood.

The newspaper interviewed Mr. Branch. He said the levee he built surrounded the town on three sides, starting in the hills on one side about a mile and a half back from the river, then up to the river and ran along the bank for a mile, then back to the hills. But, alas, the levee broke again. Many people drowned. The only part standing was a section rip-rapped by the government. Mr. Branch immediately left for Shawneetown after the flood to search for his wife’s parents, brother, and aunt, but didn’t think there was much hope.

When the flood of 1937 came, they had their levee. But someone knew it was about to blow, probably because of all the leaks seeping water into the town. The citizens are in a panic, worrying about their homes again being destroyed or washed away or themselves drowning. This was not a far-fetched scenario. So, the powers that be chose a rural area along the south levee and put the dynamite to it. The ensuing floodwaters again destroyed the town.

Shawneetown didn’t change much over the years. It was just surrounded by water, over and over again. This is 1937.

The government thought they had sunk enough money into this flood-prone disaster area. They decided to move the town, finally. Washington, D.C. and New Shawneetown are the only towns in the United States platted by the US government. All you had to do was exchange your old lot in Old Shawneetown for a new one. Everyone did not accept this offer. Somewhere less than 200 residents stayed. Larry’s Uncle Tom Harmon’s grandfather received a lot for his home and his store on the hill of New Shawneetown. You can still see “Harmon’s” on the front of the store. The move began in 1938 but lasted several years. The federal government still owns a lot of property in Old Shawneetown, and the population is now about 150 people who cannot get flood insurance. Tom says Old Shawneetown can still get water knee high inside the levee when the river is up; it seeps in through holes. And the water can get to within one foot of the top of the new levee.

There is still a small main street, the two old banks, the old Catholic Church, and some houses. As we drive through New Shawneetown, I like to guess which houses were moved. Some people advocate that the people living there should also be relocated. I guess that is on them.

New Shawneetown after move and today.

The current levee runs about one half mile along the river but is six to eight miles in total length. After it leaves the levee, it circles around and has wings.

Another interesting fact is that Gallatin County was named for Albert Gallatin, an immigrant from Switzerland, who became Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson.

I had a lot of help with this info including Larry’s Uncle Tom Harmon; Lucille Lawler in her book mentioned above; S.M. Tolley and his book also mentioned above; Jon Musgrave in his handbook mentioned above; Christy Short, curator and historian at the museum; Janet Householder, guide at the museum; and Diane Drone Patrick, the upstairs guide when we were there. Tom told me to contact Christy because she was the complete source on Shawneetown. She sure was. Thanks to all.

The post SHAWNEETOWN, BEGINNING AND FLOODS appeared first on Author Karin Wargel.

1937 FLOOD

tammy — Wed, 03 May 2023 01:54:46 +0000

1937 FLOOD

This is our yellow house on the Ohio River at Bay City, Illinois, a little village ten miles south of Golconda, during the ’37 flood and before renovation. You can see part of the old general store behind it that had two feet of river water in it. My father and his father both grew up in Bay City. My mother lived eight miles away.

This is the same house during the 2011 flood. Not quite as high, but you still had to boat in. And still needing lots of renovation. I was thankful. Our cabin down the road on the creek had to be gutted.

In January and February of 1937, the Ohio River flooded, big time. They called it the “Great Flood of 1937.” The Ohio River flows almost 1000 miles from its beginning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where it is formed as the Allegheny and the Monongahela meet. Monongahela sure sounds like a Native American name. Mr. Google states it probably was a word from the Delaware Indians meaning “landslides” or “bluffs. “ Sometimes you need to sit down and see how many Indian names are used in the United States. It is a huge number. I guess the white guys didn’t want them around, but they sure liked the pretty flow of their words so kept them. Is there a song about the Cherokee, Chickasaw and the Choctaw? Well, there should be. All that beautiful alliteration. And now we name our children Cheyenne and Dakota. My granddaughter is Montana. Anyway. The cause of the flood was rainfall in January over four times the norm in just twelve days. I heard all my life about the ’37 flood from my parents. Water was everywhere.

Of course, the entire length of the river was flooded all the way to Cairo, Illinois. It was the worse flood in 175 years or on record for some sites. Damage was estimated to be over $3.3 billion or $8.7 billion, depending on the source, in current dollars. Almost 400 people died. Most all the little and big towns on both sides of the Ohio in 1937 were covered in many feet of water. Since towns were often built on the banks of the river for commerce back in the day, the business districts were still there, right down on the edge of the river. You can go in any city along the Ohio today and find oodles of pix of their town in 1937, with boats plying their way down the main street. Pictures on the walls in banks, restaurants, courthouses. And it wasn’t just a couple of feet deep. They even made post cards of flooded areas. It is a serious memory.

People had nowhere to live. They sought temporary shelters with friends, in public buildings, and, my mom told me, that in Mermet, down by Metropolis, they lived in railroad cars on the tracks. The distance from Mermet to the river is at least fifteen miles. Many towns were nearly 100% covered with river water. The entire state of Kentucky was affected. Naturally, since all the runoff collected and flowed into the river from the north, the southern areas of the Ohio had more severe flooding.

If you go down I57 heading south and get to the Big Bay/New Columbia exit north of Metropolis, look to your left. All those big flat fields were covered with water. Then think how much farther you still have to go to get to the bridge at Metropolis. That’s how far that river was out of its banks. Molly, whose parents were wonderful friends of mine and lived off this exit, told me this story. Her grandfather told her. And two people, Molly and RC Davidson, both told me that old-timers told tales that the river used to cut across there to the Mississippi. Of course, that was hundreds of years ago. The thing is, so many people were affected by this flood and were so devastated by it, that they always told their children and grandchildren stories. My father told me about taking a boat to school from Bay City, which is right on the river south of Golconda, to Cave Springs School. But, luckily, their house nor the school were flooded. Most of the houses were on a bluff or rise, or both, which saved them, but not all.

RC had several stories. He was five years old in 1937 and lived high on the bluff behind the Bay City General Store belonging to CR and Miss Tressie Weeks. The store only had two feet of water in it as did their living quarters attached to the left because they were on that Bay City bluff. CR filled ten gallon cream cans with water and put boards on top so people could walk in to the store. Then he would wade around in his hip boots to get the groceries they needed off the higher shelves. CR also tied logs in front of all the windows to keep waves from passing boats from breaking them.

RC’s aunt gave him a pair of boots. He walked on the boards, too. But when he was walking across the deep ditch at the side, he slipped and fell in over his head. That had to be cold, and he doesn’t remember how he got out. But he does remember that he got a paddling. He said the Coast Guard kindly left a boat and motor there for the people to use.

A man was staying with RC’s family because his house was flooded further up the river. So RC took a ride with him once in his boat, and they pulled up to the second story window and got out of the boat and went in the window. Amazingly, many of the flooded houses were able to be lived in after the flood, if they weren’t washed away. RC is still living in one of those houses.

There were some levees, I guess, because the song says, “Waitin’ on the levee, waitin’ for the Robert E. Lee,” and that steamboat was gone by 1876 after a collision near Natchez. But that was on the Mississippi. Shawneetown had levees for years, also back in the 19^th century, but they were unreliable and often broke under the heavy rushing water. In 1937 they went down the levee a bit and blew a hole in it so it didn’t break right in town. All that water flooding on the way to Harrisburg covered the small towns in between- Junction, Equality.

The government didn’t wait too long to begin construction of new flood walls, levees, and flood gates in the disaster areas. The cost was too much to not try to prevent a rerun. In 1939, Paducah, Kentucky, began its flood control work and finished in 1949. Ten years may sound like a long time, but this system includes 9.25 miles of earthen levee, part of which is very obvious as soon as you cross the blue bridge at Brookport, and 3 miles of concrete. The concrete wall downtown at the foot of Broadway is fourteen feet high, three feet higher than the flood record. There is also a movable gate there which opens and closes to let people onto the concrete bank and to keep out the waters. It is covered with historical murals.

I hope you have been down near the river in Paducah, not just to see the murals. It is an old part of town with the old Market House and now many neat shops and eateries. It was the first time I had ever seen ice cream rolled out on a cold marble slab then scraped up. Larry thinks it was marble anyway. The sad thing is that many stores in the main downtown area, farther away from the levee and the old Market House area, are empty-big black windows. They have all moved out to the mall. When I was in eighth grade, I used to go with Regene and her parents to Paducah where we enjoyed riding the escalator in Penney’s.

Other towns around here with levees and gates are Brookport, Shawneetown, Golconda, Metropolis, and Harrisburg. In Golconda, one levee is on the east side of town to keep the river out with a gate near the levee. Then there is a gate on the west side to keep the backwaters from the creek out. And there are two on the north side of town as you head toward Eddyville. One is right on the road, but another one is right near it to keep the water out of the cemetery which sits beside the road. RC told me the Golconda system was begun in 1940 and was finished in a year and a half. That was pretty quick. Golconda is almost encircled by levees. Brookport has a levee and a gate on the east side of town. Some of these gates were closed in the flood of 2011.

I bet you didn’t know that Harrisburg used to be the twentieth largest city in Illinois before the flood, outside of the Chicago area and its suburbs. I never really thought of Harrisburg as a river town, but that land is flat all the way to Shawneetown and the river, about twenty miles. The gate is on the north side of town on the road to Eldorado, and levees go around to the east to the road to Shawneetown. There used to be a gate on that road also, but when they put the new road in they raised it over the height of the gate, so now the road runs over the top of the levee.

I asked Sarah, my daughter, why Metropolis didn’t want a levee. She said they didn’t want to mess with the view. Hmmm.

The Corps of Engineers was responsible for construction but afterwards they turned the upkeep over to the towns.

The only place that the 1937 flood does not still hold the record is in Cairo. In 2011, I worked for the Red Cross and went to Cairo for the flood. We were in a gym somewhere, but like everything else, I can’t remember if it was a church or school. I don’t think a church would have had all those bleachers. We set up cots for us volunteers and those needing shelter and tables were full of toiletries, and a myriad of other necessities for the displaced people. I can’t remember about the food, but food was always provided.

An interesting story: On that road to Shawneetown east out of Harrisburg, way down to the left below the new road where flood water would get so very deep, ergo the levee, there once sat a small building which was an adult store, seems like it was pink. It flooded big time in the 2011 flood. In 2012, I again worked with the Red Cross when the tornado went through there. This time that little building was wiped off the map. I guess somebody didn’t want it there.

I have another little story about Shawneetown in a different article, and it tells a bit more about the ‘37 flood.

And thank you to Larry, again, as usual, for downloading these pix off my phone then moving them to the story then putting the little text boxes in, resizing, etc., etc. What would I do?

PICTURES FROM THE PADUCAH FLOOD WALL

The murals on the wall are not just about the flood, but of historical events and times in Paducah’s past. I did not take near enough pix, thy go on forever, but this can be a good thing. Maybe it will make you want to take a trip downtown to the foot of Broadway to see them all for yourself. You can walk down to the riverfront and sit on a bench or drive through and put in a boat at the ramp. You can walk along the murals and read the plaques in front of them to see what was happening. And read the names of the artists. Then back up a block and eat at one of the fantastic restaurants.

Only three years after the flood, in 1940, the Ohio River actually froze over, from bank to bank, stopping all river traffic. People walked and bicycled on the river. I have the ice skates that my father used to skate on the river.

This is one of the murals.

This is the view through the wall to the river, but it is not the Broadway view where you drive through. And it is opposite the song. They are not “paving paradise to put up a parking lot.” They are tearing up the parking lot to put up a motel!

My sister Candace discovered that we have an ancestor who really did take rafts or boats down the Ohio and the Mississippi to sell boat, goods, and all before returning home with a small profit. Many, many people, including my great-grandparents and RC’s built log cabins in the Bay City river area just as in this mural. Moving west state by state.

I’m sorry this is so blurry, but after RC pulled over so I could read the plaque, I forgot to take a pic, so got this on the internet. It is Fort Anderson, and we drove by the spot near the old Executive Inn where it used to be. This was a Union fort, smack on the river, but there were many Confederate sympathizers in Paducah. It was unsuccessfully attacked by troops of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in 1864.

This is a photo and was not on the Paducah wall, but it shows Metropolis during the flood.

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Dachau Concentration Camp

tammy — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 07:28:14 +0000

Dachau

Concentration Camp

While on our trip to Germany to find what we could about my ancestors, we made some side trips; one being to Dachau, Germany, to see the concentration camp. I know the older of us are aware of this history, but for the younger readers, this was a very notorious place during World War II (1941-1945 for US soldiers). The Nazi warriors from Germany under the leadership of Adolph Hitler and Heinrich Himmler first imprisoned here, beginning in 1933, Hitler’s ideological foes. In later years, however, as the Nazis refined their program of Germans being the master race, they sent the Jews, the mentally ill, priests, the homosexuals, the Roma (gypsies), criminals, artists, and the physically deformed. They cleaned out asylums, hospitals, and complete villages.

The goal of course was to purify the white race, to get free labor for their war, or just revenge on anybody they didn’t like. They also wanted to get rid of intellectuals, professors and such. Maybe they just didn’t want to keep anyone with a brain, smarter than them. The majority of inmates were Jews. I use the term “inmates” loosely, due to the fact that by 1944 and 1945, the captives arrived on a train, and many went straight to the gas chamber then the crematorium. This included men, women, children, babies, and the elderly. This was only the first off many such camps. The best movie I have ever seen about this is Schindler’s List with Liam Neeson.

After the Nazis had satisfactorily cleaned out Germany, they moved on to Poland, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and approximately twenty other countries. They wanted, mainly, to kill the Jews, from everywhere. By the time US and Russian forces arrived in Germany to end the war, the estimates of the total number of Jews murdered ranged from a low of six million up to eleven million. And there are still some people today who think this was not true, a hoax, like Covid 19. And there are still Nazis.

They gave this evil a name. The Holocaust. And I found both Hitler and Himmler are on a list, along with Vlad the Impaler, of the fifteen most evil people in the history of the world. Hitler is Numero Uno.

Dachau is in southern Germany, now being a suburb of Munich. When we arrived, our bus let us off in the area of East Dachau, and we walked a few blocks to the camp. It was eerily close to the houses. The people always said they didn’t know, but they had to smell it. The fear was just too great of speaking out and meeting the same fate.

After the war, the site was used to incarcerate former Nazi SS who were the head of the camps and rampaging murderers of US captured troops as well.

Also after the war, the people from local towns, maybe just Dachau, were walked out to the camp to haul the dead and reeking bodies that were left by the runaway guards. Ladies in their nice clothes and shoes had hankies over their mouths. Now they for sure knew what was going on I betcha. I’ve tried to look for these characteristics in the Germans I know. None in my family, very nice, gentle and genteel people. And the people I met on my trip, as I said in the book, they were exceptionally helpful. It just had to start with Hitler. Then he collected those like him. There are always evil people wherever you go; Idi Amin; Stalin, Ted Bundy, Putin. It depends on you to beware of smooth-talking psychopaths. Don’t be a victim. You are smarter and nicer than that.

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Martin Luther

tammy — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 07:25:16 +0000

MARTIN LUTHER

My daughter Sarah Wittig, granddaughter Montana Schafer, husband Larry Wargel, and myself went to Germany for family research but stopped at Wittenberg because the Wittigs are Lutheran, so, although I am now a member of St. Paul Catholic Church in Johnston City, I was also Lutheran for a time, and my grandpa Paul Schultetus identified as Lutheran.

This is a picture of the 13th century Stadt Kirche or Town Church, in Wittenberg, Germany, where Martin Luther preached to begin the Protestant Reformation and ignite all the turmoil that caused. Whether you agree with him or not, he had to be a brave man to go through all the hassles he had to endure because he was upset with the leaders of the Catholic Church and their new rules. I write more about this in my book, since it is the history of my family.

While Germany was calmer about these new thoughts, France was not. The Catholics even planned a Catholic/Protestant mixed wedding among royalty for the advantage of a sneak attack on the Protestants who attended. Thousands were murdered as the Catholics also spread out into the surrounding areas to do their deeds. One branch of my family, the De Le Camps, were French Huguenots who had left Luther to follow John Calvin, another Protestant. They had to abandon their homes in France and begin new lives in Germany where they were welcomed. That’s why I had the interest in this topic.

There wasn’t a lot of Christian love and compassion passing around at this time. Kind of reminds you of all the murdering of women in the Middle East and non-Muslims elsewhere in the name of religion; or the Ku Klux Klan in Herrin slaughtering the Italian Catholic immigrants; or shooting little black girls in a Baptist church; or shooting Jewish worshippers in a synagogue; or the Holocaust; or the Inquisition. What we do in the name of God.

You know, in 1934, a man named Michael King, Sr. traveled to Italy, Egypt, Jerusalem, Berlin, and also to Germany. Historians say he was deeply moved by what was happening with the emergence of Nazism in Germany and also by what he learned of Martin Luther. In that same year, after returning home, he changed his name to Martin Luther King, Sr. Michael, Jr. became Martin Luther King, Jr., although he wasn’t quick to adapt. He didn’t change his birth certificate until 1957. Others have said he had an uncle named Luther. Different stories.

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Paul Henry

tammy — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 07:22:53 +0000

This is a picture of my grandfather, Paul Henry Alexander Schultetus, who was born in 1982. He grew up in St. Louis near the brewery where he would walk to get his grandmother a bucket of beer. His family and the Busch family had been neighbors back in Germany. After he moved to Illinois, Mrs. Busch would often pull up in her long black limousine to bring him messages from Germany.

My grandfather was six feet tall or over and quite handsome. He never wanted surgery because he refused anesthesia. Had all his teeth pulled without it. He never went to college but was a ravenous reader of everything; books, encyclopedia, magazines, and newspapers. He was a stickler for proper grammar.

Not many today have heard of vaudeville, but this man was in vaudeville. Actors, dancers, singers, and all sorts of entertainers traveled across the states and Canada in the early 20th century to many theaters to do their thing. My grandfather was an actor who often used the stage name Barney Smith. Bert Lahr, Rose Marie, Dorothy Lamour, and Walter Brennan were all in vaudeville, along with many other names you would recognize. Many entertainers left as vaudeville waned to start acting in silent movies. Paul then did a bit of acting on Broadway with his sister, Elsa, but he didn’t like the gig of being a statue and left!

He worked as an artist with his other sister, Emmy, in New York, also, got tired of that, then went back to Illinois, to a farm he had already purchased, and got married. Well. He was sick, and his doctor told him to take it easy. Hah!

After their first house burned near Coulterville during the Great Depression, he bought a much larger farm in Pope County and they moved away. And with some of the insurance money, he and Velma went to town and bought a Victrola and records. What a surprise for the kids.

He had his irons in many fires while marrying and raising twelve children. He was a published author who wrote a variety of short fictional stories for magazines until his seventies; he raised registered collies; sold chickens by mail as well as the collies; continued to paint and enter art shows after they moved to Florida in 1950 because he was too old for the cold; and he was a very interesting farmer using all the techniques he could learn by reading.

He took his children out at night to lay on blankets as he taught them the constellations; took them and Velma, my grandmother, to the movies; and took them all to town and made ho-made ice cream in a sorghum bucket on the way home in the wagon while the children took turns turning the bucket in ice in a tub.

He held them up with his arms and walked them on the ceiling, and then his petite wife had a turn. He made kites out of newspapers and cars out of cinnamon cans. They dyed dozens of eggs from their hens for Easter for their own kids and the neighbors and had fireworks on the 4th. During the war when they couldn’t get fireworks, he made his own. They also hosted the neighbors who would come over to listen to the radio. He delivered all twelve of the children that Velma conceived. What a man.

He lived until eighty-five and would have lived longer, but he fell in the living room and broke his hip.

He was tall and handsome. I think he looks like a fine gentleman with his parted hair, bow-tie, and hat. It might have been a staged photograph, probably around 1905 during is vaudeville years.

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A SAD ROOM

tammy — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 07:19:57 +0000

A Sad Room

This is the room where Laura Schultetus Faulkner and her baby boy died in childbirth in 1939. She eloped at seventeen and died at eighteen. They had rented this one room from her husband Floyd’s brother, Othel, and his wife, Pina, who were renting the Foreman house themselves. That’s the way it was. You drove down a long, impassable lane off the main road to get there. Vehicles, like hearses; forget it. The “doctor” was sitting on the floor while she was bleeding and screaming, until they lived no longer.

She was not the first sister of seven to lose a baby this way, and wouldn’t be the last, but she was the only sister to die with her child. However, that doesn’t mean the others didn’t have serious issues.

Laura’s younger sister Bonnie, my mother, had come to keep her company before time for the birth and help afterward, but what does a fourteen year old girl know about horrendous death? Everyone was in shock. After Laura’s parents were notified of the birth, they walked the three miles down another dirt road and through the field where they were met by a running, distraught Bonnie. “Laura died!” She was traumatized, needing comfort. She was not capable of being gentle or thoughtful or delicate. Her mother passed out in the path. Her father, though in disbelief himself, still thought to lift his wife’s legs.

My mother never forgot even the minutest detail of that night. Not the doctor’s stringy hair, not the song Laura was singing, not her asking her husband not to go squirrel hunting, and, of course, not the blood everywhere. How could she? And she told it to me many, many times. And it would happen to herself in different variations. There were twelve children in the family, but due to Laura’s early death there were only twelve for one month.

I do not know how long after her death this picture was taken.

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