Midwest Loop Part Two

 

 The Coles County Courthouse is in Charleston IL at the east end of the county from Mattoon.  Above is a monument honoring Civil War soldiers.  Oddly, Southern sympathizers were involved in the Copperhead Riot in1864 which left bullet holes on this courthouse.

A peaceful lunch

Of course no visit back home is complete without looking up a few family grave sites.  These were my paternal grandparents Amelia Emily (Mamie) Johnston and Andrew Johnston.  I thought I had never met either of them but a recent discovery shows me at Grandma Amelia's knee when I was two or three, circa December 1946.  She died in 1947.

Nearby is buried everyone's favorite uncle, Uncle Archie, Herbert Archibald Johnston, USMC, veteran of the Bataan Death March and two years as a POW in Osaka, Japan.  His indomitable rascally sense of humor must have contributed greatly to his chances of survival.  

 

True life size.

 

Upon leaving Mattoon we swung over to Springfield IL and visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.  If you're ever in the neighborhood don't miss this place.  Open since 2005.  Amazing.

 

Warning: do not linger too long gazing on this life size tableau of a slave auction in progress.  The palpable anguish of the woman, the child and the man can evoke tears.  Most folk don't know that Abe traveled down the Mississippi at nineteen years of age to New Orleans, where he reportedly witnessed such scenes as this.  His life, and American history, were changed forever.

This was Abe's Springfield home

And a recreation of the facilities out back.

Sorry about that.  I think Uncle Archie might have exerted some rascally influence on me.  Or maybe irreverence is simply genetic.

On to St Louis--------

Here is Marcella Petzchen in front of the Georgian Condominiums where she lives.  These are the remnants of the once mighty St Louis City Hospital, where I started my bootstrap education as a freshman student nurse sixty years ago.  Marcella was a 1968 graduate who went on to become a Nurse Practitioner.  This interesting story includes one photo with my ex-wife Marla Lipscomb, among other classmates of Marcella's.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/dirty-dozen-last-nursing-grads-of-old-st-louis-public-hospital-reunite-after-50-years/article_86067037-8965-5a17-aa84-cf95d99a2e74.html

Great vignettes of City life in there.  I was four years ahead of Marcella's class and off in anesthesia training in the US Army when they graduated.  We had a good visit and admired her condo and also her god-daughter's, Sarah Lohmeyer.  In addition Shannon and I had a delightful afternoon visit with Pat Freeman Brush, a 1964 City Hospital classmate of mine, at her home on stylish Longfellow Boulevard in  the Compton Heights neighborhood.  Shannon and I stayed in a nearby B&B.

City in its heyday

 

Then it was off to see some sights, the Missouri Botanical Gardens, formerly Shaw's Gardens, Forest Park, the Art Museum, and this guy:

St Louis in person atop Art Hill

Botanical

Outside the Climatron

Inside

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The extensive Japanese gardens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The free admission St Louis Art Museum (along with the free zoo) were valuable entertainment for penniless students 60 years ago.

Jolly Flatboatmen (1857) by George Caleb Bingham

All in all, a glorious three week visit with family and old and new friends Back East.

Midwest Loop

 

Shannon and I drove back east last month after a quick stop with 'the kids' in Ft Collins/Windsor, to visit friends and family in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and we stopped in St Louis on the way back.  The original idea was to attend my high school reunion but we managed to fit in numerous historical and artsy attractions along the way, as well as some hiking.

Our Durango neighbors Bruce and Carol Stoddard hosted us at their Madison WI home and took us hiking around Devil's Lake State Park.

We ferried across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc WI to Ludington MI on the SS Badger, the only remaining coal-fired passenger ship in America. 

Yes, a lot of smoke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shannon has family in and around Grand Rapids MI.  While we were there the extensive  Art Prize competition was going on.

Here she is with her sister Nicole Kipp

On the way from Grand Rapids down to Mattoon IL, where I was born, we stopped to see the sculpture gardens of Allerton Park IL.

 

 

 

 

During our three days in Mattoon we enjoyed dinners with family and friends, spent time catching up with classmates from 60 years ago (there were an awful lot of old folks there) ...

I'm the old guy in a blue shirt at the upper right, a thorn between two roses

and we toured some sites around Coles County, including Fox Ridge State Park, a scenic spot that figured prominently in my childhood.

Ridge Lake

In the early 1950s my dear departed sister Marie and her husband Marvin Moore often took their children and me to Fox Ridge to picnic and hike.  Because I fell more or less between generations (Ria was fifteen when I was born) I grew up with my nieces and nephews as if they were my cousins instead.  I found the wooded hills and trails at Fox Ridge much different from most of Central Illinois, vastly more interesting.  It was there, playing in the water running off from Ridge Lake alongside my little nephew Tom that I had a life-changing epiphany.  

Suddenly Nature, the Woods, with the sights and sounds of birds in the trees, of running water sparkled by sun, the smells of maple greenery, moss and wildflowers -- all this Great Outdoors combined to slap me upside my young head with this sudden revelation: LIFE CAN BE FUN.  

Midwest Loop 2021 PART TWO