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April 24, 2004: Awarded "Best Web Site of the Year" by the Illinois State Historical
Society
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Marquee Lights of the Lincoln Theater, est. 1923, Lincoln, Illinois |
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30. Neighborhoods with Distinction "Every
street was exceptional. You could not possibly mistake Fifth Street
for Eighth Street . . . or Broadway for Pulaski Street, and no two
houses were exactly alike, either. Some of them were so original that
they always seemed to have something they wanted to say as you walked past:
perhaps no more than this, that the people who lived in them did not wish
they lived in Paris or Rome or even Peoria. What would be the point of
living somewhere you did not know everybody?" "Ninth Street had the air of having been there since the beginning of time." William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980), p. 22. "In present-day Lincoln, it is fashionable to live clear out in the country, surrounded by cornfields." William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980), p. 25. _____________________ Today Lincoln, Illinois, offers the widest range of housing options in its history -- whether apartments close to the "downtown" historic district, traditional neighborhoods, or new developments in outlying areas. Lincoln is especially
distinguished by the vintage residences of its traditional neighborhoods.
The rare picture postcards and other images on this page show the glory of 19th- and early-20th-Century houses
in Lincoln. Many of them remain today. For information about
active historic preservation in Lincoln, Illinois, use the link for lincolndailynews.com in Sources Cited below. On that page, scroll to
several articles with photos. |
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A Sampling of the Vintage Houses That Distinguish Lincoln, Illinois
The images below show examples of various
architectural designs found in Lincoln's vintage houses. These images
do not include all of the architectural styles found in this city, and not
all of the structures shown below have survived.
Yet, many historic homes of various styles may be observed today -- Craftsman, Greek Revival,
Italianate, Second Empire, Spanish, Tudor, and Victorian (specifically, "stick" and
Queen Anne).
30.1: Colorized Picture
Postcard Showing Rider on White Horse, 1907, |
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30.2: Red Brick Home on Picture Postcard, 1910 Ordinarily I have no clue about the ownership of houses seen in vintage postcards of Lincoln. When I saw the picture postcard above, however, the corner house looked familiar. I looked at the photos of several older houses pictured in The Namesake Town: A Centennial History of Lincoln, Illinois. There on page 39 is a cluster of six photos of houses, and the one in the lower right corner is clearly the same as the red-brick house above. The caption of the photo in The Namesake Town says this house had been owned by James L. Goodnight and Wilbur Gullett. In response to the above paragraph, Stu Wyneken writes (7-03), "Thought I would let you know that Picture # 30.2: Red Brick Home of Wilbur Gullett on Picture Postcard, 1910, in the neighborhoods section, is not a picture of my grandfathers house, but rather a picture of the Hartnell home which was located directly across the street from my grandfather's. It was torn down in the late 1920's or early 1930's Three homes stand on the lot now." Note: Mr. Wyneken passed away in 2009. In March 2016 Ron J. Keller, associate professor of history and political science at Lincoln College and former, long-time director of its Lincoln Heritage Museum, kindly emailed me to say his family now lives in a house that was built at the corner of Tremont and Kankakee Streets, the site depicted above at 30.2 and described by Mr. Wyneken. At Professor Keller's suggestion, I am adding his photo below, with his description beneath the photo.
30.3: Home of the Ron J. Keller Family
Professor
Keller's description: "Last fall my family and I moved into a new house
closer to downtown. We desired something with some historic character and
charm and something larger than we had. We found the house on 525 Tremont
Street known by the older locals as the 'Homer Harris house.' Built in 1937
by Art Gimbel, it is in my opinion one of the most beautiful homes in town,
and represents one of the most unusual forms of architecture in the city.
The architectural style is distinctively Tudor Style, though it is extremely
rare for a Tudor Style of that era to exhibit symmetry (as symmetry is more
reflective of the colonial revival style). It also is
unique in that it incorporates other architectural style elements in the
interior including Art Deco and Prairie Style. I think this house would be a
nice inclusion on your website, for reasons not only of the uniqueness of
the house itself, but also because it is on the exact spot which the
postcard on your site (which I attached) now resides." Professor Keller
can be reached at
rkeller@lincolncollege.edu.
He is also a published authority on Abraham Lincoln, and his new book
about Lincoln's time in the Illinois legislature is forthcoming in 2017. He
is a member
of the Board of Directors of the Abraham Lincoln Association: http://www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org/.
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30.4: Colorized Picture
Postcard Showing Union Street in 1910 |
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30.5: Picture Postcard of the Former Fogerty House in 1908 This house was typical of the grand old houses of the early 20th Century. I am unsure whether this house has survived into the 21st Century, but many vintage residences have. Postmarked
September 14, 1908, this picture postcard was mailed from Lincoln to Miss
Josephine Kelly of Peoria with the following message: "A little
remembrance from some Lincoln friends. Don't forget, Jo,
the interurban comes here now, making a delightful trip. Come over
sometime. Love from all." Signed L.C. Fogerty. |
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30.6: The Former John A. Lutz Residence (Photo from Fish, Illustrated Lincoln, 1916, no pages used. Fish's book also has exterior and interior photos of the department store that Mr. Lutz owned and operated in downtown Lincoln for fifty years. The store had 14,500 square feet of floor space. This house has survived.) The Lutz house is featured in The Badger Collection Featuring Lincoln of Illinois, 1987, which presents this description: "Built in 1898 by John C. and Caroline C. Lutz. . . . the home was completed in time for the wedding of their daughter Marian to Frank B. Gordon. . . it was built at a cost of $5,000 on land once owned by Lincoln College. . . Lutz owned a dry goods, carpet & millinery store at 517-519 Broadway.
Originally of the Shingle style -- 1880 to 1910. . . . identifying
features. . . hipped roof with cross-gambrel roof. . . polygonal tower, wall
extension. . . rearward recessed porch. . . . classical columns support the
front, partial porch. . . . ." |
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30.7: The Former Residence of F.W. Becker, First National Bank Cashier
(Photo from Fish, Illustrated Lincoln, 1916. This residence has
survived.) |
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30.8: The Former William Anderson Home (Photo provided by the late Fred Blanford) "Progress" has demolished the Anderson house and replaced it with a Subway sandwich shop. David Alan Badger presents an artistic drawing of the Anderson house in his book titled The Badger Collection Featuring Lincoln of Illinois (no pages used). Badger offers the following history and description of the architecture: "Built circa 1890. . . owned by William & Caroline Anderson. . . he came from Glasgow, Scotland. . . . in 1849, he married Caroline C. Martin from Virginia. . . . they moved to Logan County in 1864. . . ." "National
Folk style--1850 to 1890. . . . identifying features. . . gable-front &
wing. . . rusticated quoins. . . paired, segmental arched window. . . ." |
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The Latham Home William Maxwell describes the Latham house at right: "facing the Christian Church in Lincoln, across that little park with a bandstand in the center of it, was the white clapboard mansion of the Honorable Robert B. Latham. I remember it was a very beautiful old house with slender posts supporting the upstairs porches, shutters at all the windows, wooden balustrades here and there, and a cupola. . . . The second generation of
his descendants went through their inheritance so fast that gossip could
hardly keep up with them, and in the early 1920s his house was sold to a
real estate developer, a golfing companion of my father's, who tore it down
and put up a row of semi-identical bungalows" (Ancestors, pp.
300-301). |
30.15: The Robert B. Latham Home North Kickapoo and Delavan Streets across from Latham Park (19th-Century, demolished, site of historical marker). (Photo in Gleason, Lincoln: A Pictorial History, p. 16) |
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The John Dean Gillett Hill Family John Dean Gillett Hill (1884--1962) was one of the best friends of William Maxwell's father. Mr. Hill is favorably described in Maxwell's short nonfiction narrative titled "My Father's Friends" (1984). Maxwell admits he had known Mr. Hill "since I was a young boy, and never had a conversation with him" until the day after Maxwell's father's funeral in 1958. Maxwell wrote, "Two of my father's friends were not well enough to come to the funeral. . . . Dean Hill was a man my father went fishing with. He was also a cousin of my stepmother. He had inherited a great many acres of Illinois farmland, and he had a beautiful wife. Apart from a trip to Biloxi in the dead of winter, they lived very much as other Lincoln people of moderate means did." Maxwell was surprised when his visit with Mr. Hill revealed he was an intelligent and appreciative reader of books. Mr. Hill remarked that what interested him was "what he [the writer] is carefully not saying, or saying and doesn't know that he is. What his real position is, as distinct from the stated one. It keeps me amused. All forms of deception are entertaining to contemplate, don't you find? Particularly self-deception, which is what life is largely made up of." Maxwell adds, "While living all his life in a very small Middle Western town and keeping his eye on his farms, he [Mr. Hill] had managed to be aware of the world outside in a way no one else there was. Or at least no one I knew" (All the Days and Nights: The Collected Stories, NY: Vintage, p. 272). Maxwell does not mention that the astute Mr. Hill had earned a law degree from Harvard University. In Ancestors: A Family History (1971), William Maxwell describes the fishing expeditions of his father, Mr. Hill, and another friend during their retirement years. My guess is that the setting was Lincoln Lakes. "Dean Hill had a bad heart and wasn't allowed to row the boat, my father was more than half blind, and the third man was deaf as a post. They took a humorous pleasure in compensating for one another's physical deficiencies. When my father had a bite but couldn't see that his cork was bobbing wildly, the other two would cry, 'Bill, you've got something on your line!' And when this crisis was passed, out would come the pint of whiskey. Sooner or later, the conversation always got around to a subject that both Dean Hill and my father loved to talk about--the Gillett family lawsuit" (Ancestors, p. 158). (For an account and photos of a Lincolnite gentleman in a business suit fishing at Lincoln Lakes at mid-twentieth century, see images #6 and #7 and related text at http://findinglincolnillinois.com/fikuarts.html.) This legendary lawsuit concerned the Gillett family's dispute over the inheritance of millions of dollars from the vast agricultural empire that had been built by John D. Gillett, one of the founding fathers of Lincoln, Illinois. Mr. Gillett was known as "the Cattle King." This dispute is an interesting story within the story of Maxwell's own family, and I suggest you would enjoy reading this material and other accounts in Ancestors. As an attorney and businessman, Mr. Hill "was associated with the Logan County Title Company, the Lincoln Savings & Loan, the Decatur Gravel Company. . . " (Badger, The Badger Collection Featuring Lincoln of Illinois, no page). (For information about the Logan County Title Company, see 19. Business Heritage.) Mr. Hill was instrumental in helping with the repurchase of the Postville Courthouse site that prepared the way for the construction of its replica in 1953. For an account this public service activity, see 2. The Story of the Postville Courthouse Replica, Tantivy, & Memoir of the Postville Park Neighborhood in the Route 66 Era. Mr. and Mrs.
John Dean Gillett Hill lived in a distinctive house on Lincoln Avenue--in
one of Lincoln's historic neighborhoods. (According to Badger, their house allegedly
was the first in Lincoln to have a basement dug by a "bulldozer.") The
Hills' house was one of two that his mother, Mrs. Katherine Gillett Hill
(1855--1935),
and he built. Her father, John D. Gillett, was one of Lincoln's founding fathers. Mr.
Hill and his wife, Irene (Harris), named their home Irendean--a compound of his name and
hers (Badger, no
page numbers used). Katherine Gillett Hill's adjacent home, also of
Spanish design, was named Suma Ray, meaning "perfect peace" in Spanish. Later, Suma Ray was the home of
Mr. Hill's sister, the faded socialite, eccentric Lemira Hunt (1891--1972). 30.19: Artistic Drawing of Irendean by David Alan Badger Irendean survives. In his book of artistic drawings, David Alan Badger depicts and describes Irendean and Suma Ray. He identifies the architectural style of both as "Spanish eclectic," a popular style from 1915 to 1940 (The Badger Collection Featuring Lincoln of Illinois, no page numbers used). Originally, "both houses were pink stucco with blue tile roofs." An article titled "Twenty Homes Featured on Local Tour" in lincolndailnews.com (May 8, 200) dates the construction of Irendean and Suma Ray to about 1927. "The balustrades and entrance door pillars were carved on-site and designed to match the interior fireplaces." Badger summarizes Irendean's "identifying features [as]. . . low-pitched tiled roof. . . double-sash door which opens onto balconies. . . ornamental iron window grilles. . . broken, pedimented door surround. . . spiral columns. . . ."
The entrance and fireplace of Irendean were the
work of master stone carver Joseph Petarde of Peoria, Illinois.
Petarde was a vigorous craftsman whose work survives in Peoria (e.g., St.
Peter's Church, G.A.R. Building, and numerous monuments in Springdale
Cemetery) and such other central Illinois cities as Bloomington (Illinois
Wesleyan School of Music, harp and violin designs), Champaign (Huff
Gymnasium), Normal (old gym at Illinois State University), and Springfield (entrance building at
the Illinois State Fairgrounds). See complete list below on this page
following the images. "He might have disappeared from
memory except that his house attracted newspaper writers and photographers
when it was first completed in 1922. At that time the neighbors were
shocked and angry about the semi-nude figures at the porch corners, but
gradually they became accustomed to it." In Lincoln, one other
work by Petarde is a seated cat at a house once owned by Jack Harrison --
wherever that was/is. (Adelaide N. Cooley, "Joseph Petarde, Immigrant
Stonecarver," Outdoor Illinois, May, 1977, p. 39).
30.20: David Badger's Artistic Drawing of Suma Ray Badger summarizes Suma Ray's "identifying features. . . parapeted walls with coping. . . casement windows with round arches. . . walls clad with stucco. . . the doors and windows are emphasized by spiral columns. . . decorative window grilles of iron. . . broken, pedimented entry. . . this style is rarely found outside of Florida & Southwestern United States. . . ." The drawing shows the east side of the house, which faces Irendean. Irendean and Suma Ray are just two of many remaining historic houses that people enjoy seeing when they drive through Lincoln's traditional neighborhoods. Historic houses of various styles may be observed -- Craftsman, Greek Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Spanish, Tudor, and Victorian. In her 1912 book titled The Part Taken by Women in American History (The Perry-Nalle Publishing Co., Wilmington, Delaware), Mrs. John A. Logan included a biographical sketch of Mrs. Gillett Hill, noting that Katharine Gillett had been educated in a convent at Springfield, Illinois. Mrs. Logan wrote: "At the death of her father, Mrs. Gillett Hill took entire charge of her farming lands, not even requiring the assistance of an overseer. She has for twenty years managed as capably and as systematically as any business man her five thousand acres of farm land in and about Lincoln, Illinois, having about fifty tenants under her supervision. She is a woman of varied qualifications and interests, being artistic and musical, a splendid mother and likewise is greatly interested in the woman suffrage movement. Farming with her is not amateurish, and not the fad of a rich woman, but with Mrs. Gillett Hill it is at once an art and a science, and a very remunerative business, which has made her one of the best-known farmers in America. She is none the less womanly for her business capabilities. From her childhood she has been a fine horsewoman, and having been gifted with a beautiful voice, she has done much charitable work with her musical voice. With her fine intellect, she has become a writer of some note and is withal a splendid entertainer, possessing great natural wit and repartee. She has been much sought after in the social world. Mrs. Gillett Hill in the year 1910 purchased a charmingly artistic home in Washington, D.C., and this home, once a studio, has proved to be one of the most unique and picturesque residences in the city" (p. 895). I find no information explaining the exact circumstances of Mrs. Hill's move from Washington, D.C., to Lincoln, Illinois, where she managed her farms and built Suma Ray on Lincoln Avenue in the late 1920s. According to The Nebraska and Midwest Genealogical Record (Vol. 7, No. 1, January 1929), Lemira Gillett Hill (1891--1972) married US Army Lieutenant James Nichols Wynn McClure of Kentucky in December 1917 at Washington, D.C. in her distinctive home at 2133 R. Street. The wedding announcement in the Washington Herald (12-16-1917) describes the setting and bride: "a very large, artistic living room . . . adorned with Christmas trees across the far end of the studio. . . . The bride is a gifted musician: her voice is a fine one, and she is an excellent pianist. Long before the craze of the ukulele she learned to play that instrument in Hawaii, where she and her mother usually spend a portion of each year. They have large fruit interests there." Lemira and James McClure had a son named John Dean Gillett McClure. In 1941, after spending summers in Lincoln, he married during his senior year at Harvard University. I do not know about the fate of Lemira's marriage to James McClure, and I have not researched the life of her son or the story of Lemira's later marriage to a Mr. Hunt. Sometime after Lemira's mother, Katherine Gillett Hill, passed in 1935, Lemira made Suma Ray her home, after having lived in Washington, D.C. The photo below shows a contemporary view of Suma Ray, Lemira's home. This photo was taken by fellow Linconite John Smock. His family lived on Lincoln Avenue, and he kindly gave permission for use of the photo here. 30.21: Suma Ray on Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln, Illinois I am neither a professional historian--never taught history or earned a living by publishing historical research--nor a genealogical researcher, so my information about Lemira Hunt is limited. She was a "larger than life" Lincolnite. I became aware of her when I was a teenager hanging out at the Dial and Jones Texaco gas station at Fifth and Union Streets in Lincoln. There I saw her limousine, driven by a black chauffeur, on Union Street headed to and from the neighborhood of the Catholic churches, just a block south of that intersection. The rumor was that she rode in the back seat sometimes naked. From my view on the gas station driveway, I tried but could never see well enough into the vehicle to know. Another rumor I heard was that the physical intimacy between Mrs. Hunt and her chauffeur was more advanced than that of the main characters in Driving Miss Daisy. As a teenager, I always had the impression that Mrs. Hunt was going (then clothed, I would expect) to church as a good Catholic. More than a half century later, I read posts on Facebook that said she went to this part of town to harass students attending St. Pat's and St. Mary's Catholic grade schools. On Facebook Nancy Kleinman wrote that when she was a kid on the playground, Lemira would "yell stuff like 'to hell with the pope' or 'down with the Pope'." The reason for Lemira's religious outrage is unclear, perhaps related to her family's membership in the Episcopal Church. As an infant, Lemira Katharine Gillett was baptized at the Chapel of Saint John Baptist in Elkhart Cemetery, Elkhart, Illinois (Journals of the Special Synod and the Synod of the Holy Catholic Church in the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, 1892, page 36). Her baptismal site is now known as John the Baptist Chapel and is affiliated with the Episcopal Church: http://www.oldgillettfarm.org/chapel.shtml. Lemira Gillett Hill graduated from Miss Chamberlain's School in Boston. The image below, showing Miss Hill as a thoughtful reader, appears at Find a Grave: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=13034596&PIpi=145288170. That entry credits the Washington, D.C. Evening Star, 9-2-1916, as the source, which only says: "Mrs. Katharine Gillett Hill and Miss Lemura [sic] Gillett Hill, who are in Washington for a few days, stopping at the Lafayette, spent the past summer at Narragansett Pier and Newport. They are now en route to the Lindens, Mrs. Gillett Hill's farm in Lincoln, Ill., where they will spend the early autumn, returning here for the winter."
30.22: Miss Hill as a Young Sophisticate Lemira Gillett Hill Hunt was proud of her grandfather as one of the three founders of the First Lincoln Namesake Town. She wrote an account of the town's founding in which she credits her Grandmother Lemira Louise Parke Gillett as the one who originated the idea of naming the town for Mr. Lincoln. Mrs. Hunt's credibility as a historian, however, is undercut by the inaccurate statement that implies the town was founded on land owned exclusively by her grandfather [one of three who had invested in that real estate], and her account of the town's layout is goofy, whether she was being serious or whimsical: "My Grandfather John Dean Gillett hired the then unknown Abe Lincoln (a 'new young man' from Kentucky) to plat (in 1853) and incorporate (in 1857) a town on land he owned so that the freight trains would stop to load his shorthorn cattle. Lincoln, who was a lawyer, and my grandfather rode horseback 20 miles north from Springfield to spend the night in grandfather's farm home. My grandmother was enchanted with the courteous and witty guest and said, "John, why not name the town for that nice young man?" The next morning they rode out about 10 miles. Grandfather and Mr. Lincoln stepped off the blocks for the proposed town--so many paces to a block. Lincoln was tall and grandfather was short--that's why there is a disparity in street block lengths here today. Farmers gathered around on the day of the christening. Lincoln chose a ripe watermelon from a wagon, smashed it over the wheel of a spring wagon, and christened the town. This was the first town ever named for Lincoln--by his consent, and long before he became famous." Source: Illinois. Illinois Towns, from the files of the Lincoln Financial Foundation. (For information about the Gillett family home near Elkhart, Tantivy, see 2.8 and related text--including the chainsaw massacre of its logs--at http://findinglincolnillinois.com/memoirofpostville.html.) Mrs. Hunt had inherited land in and near Lincoln, including some of the acreage obtained by the Logan County Board to build its airport and the thirty acres obtained by the District 303 Board of Education used to build its 1959 Lincoln Community High School at the east end of Wyatt Avenue. She received $45,500 for these thirty acres. She also owned a "cottage" on Cottonwood Lane at Lincoln Lakes. According to a report in the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph (2-24-1954), city and rural fire departments were called to Mrs. Hunt's cottage to extinguish a roof fire, which caused little damage. Mrs. Hunt apparently kept close track of her various properties. According to a report in the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph (10-18-1949) tilted "Woman Asks Court to Order Line Removed," she filed a "suit for ejectment and $10,000 damages . . . in circuit court Saturday . . . against the Central Illinois Illinois Electric and Gas Company. The plaintiff alleges the utility company has been using right of way for a power line on her farm at Amarilla, northeast of Lincoln, unlawfully since 1940 and asks that the line be withdrawn." The next section consists of anecdotes about Mrs. Hunt's peculiarities. Local eccentrics are sometimes the target of pranksters. The following is a news report from the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph (12-25-1954) titled "42 Windows in Lincoln Broken": "Police Chief Earl Minder today was investigating the smashing of 42 windows in the home of Mrs. Lemira Hunt, 119 Lincoln Ave., by two 7-year-old boys Wednesday night. The youngsters admitted the vandalism but would give no reason for stoning the house. They said they tossed rocks through the windows of one side of the house about 5 p.m. and returned about 7:00 p.m. to break windows on the other side. Neighbors heard the noise during the second attack and notified police. The boys said they had not entered the house and used rocks found in the yard. Mrs. Hunt was away from home, spending the summer at Mackinac Island, Michigan. Chief Minder estimated the damage at more than $400, and the parents have agreed to pay for it." Anecdotes About Lemira Hunt Posted by Lincolnites on Facebook Testify to Her Eccentricity John Smock, son of the popular LCHS band director Bill Smock (Lincoln's own "Leader of the Band"), posted the above color photo of Suma Ray (30.21) on Facebook early in October 2016, noting that "every town has an eccentric person or two living in it. We just happened to live on the same street as one of them." John's post sparked a series of comments. I chose the nuggets below, with minimal editing, from those posts. Most likely, Mrs. Hunt's peculiarities are related to the difference between her youthful, privileged life as socialite and her later, less-glamorous life in a Midwestern, small, conservative community. "One Christmas, she gave us a record album of dogs barking Christmas carols." --Mark Hanger "We moved to Lincoln Avenue in 1963. When the mail arrived, we received a letter from Mrs. Hunt. Word for word, this was the conclusion to her letter: "I am 150 years old. Please keep your children in your yard and I will keep my dogs in mine." By the way, we never received any Christmas gifts from her. I loved reading her rambling, alcohol-influenced letters to the editor in the Courier. Charles Bukowski had nothing on her when it came to 'spirited.' The UPS truck would make regular deliveries of whiskey directly to her home every Thursday at 4:00 p.m. sharp." --John Smock [Ref: https://www.google.com/#q=charles+bukowski] "I delivered the Courier on Lincoln Ave. 1946-48 and Lemira was one of my customers. When I collected on Sat. morning, she would come to the door in her negligee. They were the 1920's style, with fur like collars. She would also walk her dog on Lincoln Ave, wearing only her negligee. The dog leash in one hand and a martini in the other. Sometimes the butler/chauffeur would answer the door, but Lemira always paid me, one week at a time." Walter Bud Miller "It was like living across the street from Cruella Deville [Cruella de Vil] --remember when we dared each other to right on the sidewalk right in front of her house so we could see in-I did see in once and it scared the crap out of me. And remember those bats everywhere--they were only fruit bats and I love them now but OMG!" -- Lou Awe [Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruella_de_Vil] "When Connie Dehner and I were young Girl Scouts and selling cookies door to door, we got up enough nerve to knock on her door. When she came to the door (all kinds of scary noises including her boxer dogs), we just turned and ran! I still remember that like it was yesterday." --Becky Tesh Werth "I grew up 1 block away on Lincoln Ave. We used to harass Mrs. Hunt from across the street. She had a huge spotlight she kept in the upstairs center window. She would hear us chanting her name outside and she would point that spotlight out at us across the street hiding behind trees etc." --Eric Taylor "Mrs. Hunt had a polar bear rug in the entry room ,that thing was huge." Troy Hanger "Lemira and Mrs. [John Dean Gillett] HILL [sisters-in-law who lived in adjacent houses] had a fight, and Mrs. Hill got so mad she took the walk way out between their 2 houses and planted bushes so Lemira could not walk straight through to Mrs. Hill's house anymore." --Jan Malerich "My dad was a mailman and once told me of a substitute mailman accidentally delivered some of Mrs. Hill’s mail to Lemira. The next day, the regular mailman got chewed out by Lemira for delivering that B_TCHES mail to her!" --Nancy Kleinman "Stories appearing here are correct; I lived one block down Lincoln Ave. When she walked her Corgies, she took Kleenex, wiped their little butts & dropped the Kleenex on the spot. ONE MORE BIGGIE!! She was a good customer of ours [Gossett Cleaners & Furriers, then located at 114 S. Chicago St.]; had several furs, in the day when they were not out of floor. We had an insured & climate controlled vault built to store furs, etc. Early May one year I called her to make sure we did not run out of room before getting her FURS. 'Lemira, I just wanted to make sure we had your furs, because the vault is getting full.' Lemira -'Oh don't worry . . . this year, I put them in my deep freeze chests.' AND SHE DID JUST THAT." --Bill Gossett [a nonagenarian "larger than life" "true Lincolnite at heart," who could write a book on the eccentric Lincolnites he has known.]
Robert "Bob" Olson wants to set the record
straight to offset the negative impression of Lemira Hunt reflected in the
above Facebook comments. On Facebook he posted:
"Mrs. Lemira Hunt was a nice person who had to be somewhat guarded because
of her wealth. Overall, she gave my Dad his first big business opportunity
(he was her farm manager 1964-1972). I have read enough correspondence
between Mr. J.D.G. Hill and his sister to assure you that Mrs. Hunt was
almost entirely guided and taught about being a landlord by her brother (who
was, of course, a leading attorney himself).
I do not know if Mrs. Hunt had anything to do with the farm business before
her mother's death in 1935, but I have seen a series of letters dated 1940
between Mr. Hill and Mrs. Hunt, and you can clearly see that he is trying to
teach his sister the fine details of managing a large farm estate. Mr. Hill
did a lot of work for his mother, Katherine Gillett Hill, from 1910 until
her death and he was expert in such matters." Bob also reports: "Mr. J.D.G.
Hill must have had one of the finest educations of any person, in any era,
who hailed from Logan County, Illinois. His secondary education included The
Coulter School in Chicago, Williams College (BA 1907) at Williamstown,
Massachusetts, and the Law School at Harvard University (Bachelor of Laws,
1910). Harvard Law is impressive, but Williams College is perhaps America's
finest private college, then and now. Mr. Paul Gleason has called Mr. Hill
"one of the most important Logan County persons whom you've probably never
heard of." Indeed one of Mr. Hill's civic-minded projects was helping to
acquire the Postville Courthouse block so that the courthouse replica could
be built. As I reposted on another page in this website: "D.F.
Nickols continued his efforts in Lincoln to find the right people and the
necessary money. With the help of Attorney Dean Gillett Hill, a financial
plan was devised. "Franklin Nickols, son of D.F. Nickols, who was in
Detroit, the-then home of Mr. Ranney, opened the final negotiations,
assuring Mr. Ranney that the site would be dedicated to the memory of
Abraham Lincoln."
Ref:
http://findinglincolnillinois.com/memoirofpostville.html. Joseph Petarde's Art That Eventually Played in Peoria (but would it ever in Lincoln, Illinois?)
The work of stone carver Joseph Petarde on Irendean and Suma Ray helps
to make them two of the most architecturally distinct structures in Lincoln.
My curiosity about Petarde led me to search for the home he built for his
family in Peoria, Illinois. It took me a while to find the house in a
working class neighborhood, but I was happy when I did, and in 2003 I took these
photos with permission of the owner (a Petarde descendant). The owner told
me that various scholars of architecture, art, and photography have made
similar requests over the years. |
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30.23:
Atlas's Hands Hold Up His Loin Cloth While His Shoulders Support the Porch
Roof |
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30.24: Front Porch
30.25:
Front Porch Detail |
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30.26: Semi-Nude Female on the Side of the Front Porch
Note: Mr. Petarde was attempting to be discreet because
his semi-nude ladies are not conspicuous from the street. |
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30.27:
Semi-Nude Closeup
For information about Mr. Petarde's statue of Abraham Lincoln named The
President, which was beheaded and buried in an unmarked grave in Lincoln
Park in Springfield, Illinois, access
http://findinglincolnillinois.com/buriedlincolnstatue.html#josephpetarde.
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Sources Cited Badger, David Alan. The Badger Collection Featuring Lincoln of Illinois. Privately published, 1987. Mr. Badger's material is copyrighted with all rights reserved. Use of his material in this Web site is with his permission. Burkhardt, Barbara. William Maxwell: A Literary Life. Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois Press, 2005. For information about this well-researched biography, including how to order it, see http://www.press.uillinois.edu/s05/burkhardt.html. Cooley, Adelaide N. "Joseph Petarde, Immigrant Stonecarver," Outdoor Illinois, May, 1977. Gleason, Paul. Lincoln,
Illinois: A
Pictorial History. St. Louis, MO: G. Bradley Publishing, 1998. Material from Mr. Gleason's books is copyrighted with all rights
reserved. Mr.
Gleason's material used in this Web site is with permission from the G. Bradley Publishing Company, 461 Des
Peres Road, St. Louis, MO 63131. Call 1-800-966-5120 to inquire about purchasing Lincoln,
Illinois: A Pictorial History (1998) (200 pages of rare photos and text) or Logan County Pictorial History
(2000) (also 200 pages of rare photos and text). Visit
http://gbradleypublishing.com/. Maxwell, William. Ancestors: A Family History. NY: Vintage Books, 1971. __________ . "My Father's Friends." All the Days and Nights: the Collected Stories. NY: Vintage Books, 1995. William Maxwell's works are available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.
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"The Past Is But the Prelude" |
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