The first week of July, 1923 was hot and dry.  Crops were showing the effect of the weather and farmers worried about their fields and stock.  July 4^th celebrations had been observed, and people were doing their best to put up with the lack of badly needed rain.  For a short time their attention on the weather was replaced with the news of a serious train derailment near Fairdale on July 5. 

The wreck resulted in 27 cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad to leave the track spilling cattle, hogs, corn and fresh produce.  The Genoa Republican reported, “the train, according to witnesses, was going about 27 miles per hour when it is thought one of the trucks on a heavy laden car broke and headed for the ditch. (A "truck" in railroading is a locomotive or railroad car wheel assembly usually having two or more axels.) So great was the momentum it could not stop until some twenty-seven cars left the tract and the complete demolition of sixteen had taken place”.  Within minutes doctors from Monroe Center and local volunteers arrived to give assistance and first aid.  A special train was sent from Rockford to transport the seriously injured to local hospitals.

The Chicago bound train had made stops at Savannah, Lanark, and Davis Junction.  It was reported that at these stops several men boarded the train to hitch a ride in two gondola cars near the center of the train.  Killed outright were George Henton of Chicago; Clarence Livingston of Council Bluffs, Iowa; Walter Reeves of Omaha, Nebraska and a Mr. Stevens.  The three who died later in a Rockford hospital were F.R (or E. R.) Hood of Magna, Utah; John Houck of Iowa and a man listed by his initials S. L. The seven men who recovered from their injuries were Jesse Clark, Atkinson, KS; Fred Flan, Chicago; Walter Gorgola, Chicago; Albert Jentry, Kansas City, MO; Herman Schroeder, Chicago; Jack Smith, Havanna, Cuba; and Eugene Wisdom of Minneapolis, MN.

While newspaper reports at the time called these men bums and tramps, at least one of the men, John Orin Houck appears to be simply a man trying to support his family.  His obituary in the Adams County Union-Republican (Corning, IA., 11 July 1923) told that Mr. Houck, of Corning, came from a family of railroad men.  His father, Henry, and uncle, George, were also killed in a similar accident five years earlier at Charlton, Iowa.  Only 23 years old when he died he left a wife, a 16 month-old daughter, and extended family members.  His body was returned to Corning for burial.

Some of the others killed in the crash were identified but buried in paupers graves in the Cronktown cemetery.  A recent query to the Joiner History Room regarding these graves prompted volunteer Ann Marie Babich and Cooky and Gary Ikeler to visit the cemetery with divining rods to see if they could locate the graves.  They found five square, stone markers and the divining rods indicated more burials.  We must assume that some of the graves were for the crash victims.

Thanks to Jim Kline, Genoa, for helping to pinpoint the date of the derailment and to Craig Pierce, Genoa Library, for a copy of the Genoa Republican article.  

Great News!

The DeKalb County Clerk's office has put online birth, marriage, death and naturalization records that meet genealogical guidelines.  Most exciting is that you can print the document image at no cost.  Their website is www.dekalbgenealogy.com.

The Joiner History Room participated in supplying background information and was used as a filming site for production of 48 Hours.  The program is about what may be the country's longest unsolved murder case.  Seven-year-old, Maria Ridulph, was kidnapped in 1957 and her body was later found.  The case went unsolved for 55 years until Jack McCullough, formerly John Tessier, was arrested and convicted for the murder.

The program is available online.

“A Scrapbook of Obituary Collections, People with a Connection to the Community of Malta, IL”  Compiled by Dorothy W. Stoddard, December 2012.  3,274 obits.  These obits are not part of our online database.  If you are looking for an obit on someone from the Malta area contact the Joiner History Room. 

This collection is also for sale in printed ($80) and CD ($20) formats.  All proceeds go to the Malta Historical Society.

James Madison Hood, Lincoln's Consul to the Court of Siam
by George C. Kingston

The Misadventure of an Old Saddle Tramp
by Robert Schweiger

Joseph A. Faivre & Mary Ann Montavon
A Family History of Faith and Fortitude
by Roger Steimel

American Yeoman: A Wood Family History
By Julia W. Kramer

Present Sycamore mayor Ken Mundy is a history buff.  He has compiled a brief description of each meeting held by the city council during the years 1858-1949.     By reading his work, you get a historical sense of the important issues for this growing city.  It is an ongoing project.  The manuscripts are available for review at the Joiner History Room. 

This database still under construction but is available now by clicking on the icon above.

We are working on putting approximately 40,000 obits into an online, searchable data base.   When completed, you will be able to search by name, year of death and cemetery name.  Also available will be the ability to view all the obits in order of name, and in order of death date.  Each obituary is being scanned and you will be able to print a copy of the obit.

This is a major project for our small staff of volunteers and interns.  This is an ongoing project and no completion date has been established.   If you don't find the obit you are looking for, contact the Joiner History Room.

We thank the Douglas C. Roberts Family for making this possible.

The Joiner History Room, the DeKalb County archive, announces the completion of a year long project to digitize the Sycamore True Republican.  The Joiner History Room along with the University of Illinois and Shaw Media, parent company of the DeKalb Chronicle, has worked to digitize the Sycamore True Republican from 1868 through 1968. Funded by a grant from the Douglas C. Roberts Family, the newspaper is fully searchable for those years and available online, free for everyone.  The Sycamore True Republican was one of DeKalb County’s longest published newspapers, recording our early history.   It is the hope of all involved that this digitization will help preserve the rich history that was reported in the newspaper and make it accessible for everyone who wishes to use it for genealogy or historical research purposes.  The newspapers can be accessed from the website at the University of Illinois through their Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection (IDNC)  at www.library.illinois.edu/dnc/idnc.

The Midweek, a current DeKalb County area publication, has a column called "Looking Back" that has small snipits of local news dating back to the late 1800's.  Most items are one or two lines long, just enough to give you a flavor of what was happening at the time.  This index covers publication dates from the start of the column, mid-2010, through December 2012.  If you find an item of interest, e-mail the Joiner History Room with date of publication and page number.  Access index.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 The February 2013 Issue of the
 Joiner Room Journal is Online
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~