Farmer City Journal from Farmer City, Illinois • 2

TWO THE FARMER CITY JOURNAL THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1956 THE DE WITT COUNTY'S BIGGEST WEEKLY Farmer City A weekly newspaper devoted to the City and surrounding territory in Published every Thursday, West interest of the people of Farmer DeWitt, Piatt and McLean counties. Green Street, Farmer City, Illinois. Edwin S. Wightman, Owner and Publisher Entered at Farmer City Post Office as second class matter under Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription Per Year (In Advance) In Illinois $3.00 Elsewhere in the U.S.

$3.50 Single Copies 10c ESTERDAY MEMORIES Jan. 22, 1931 Mr. and Mrs. Allen Little are the parents of a daughter born Friday, Jan. 16 at Brokaw hospital.

The Get Busy Society of the Christian church will celebrate the seventeenth anniversary on Thursday, Jan. 29, at the Church with a pot luck supper and a miscellaneous shower. Three charter members are still in the society, namely Mrs. M. C.

Lukins, Misses Alice Vance and La Ven Newton. Once more death has visited our city and this time has called from our midst one of the most loved ladies of the community, Mrs. Mary Winslow, at the age of 77 years. She died at her home in this city January 17. At high noon, on Sunday, Miss Imo Pittman, daughter of Mr.

and Mrs. J. B. Pittman of Urbana and Carroll Langston, son of Mr. and Mrs.

Frank Langston of Urbana were united in holy wedlock in the home of the bride's parents. Miss Pittman is a former resident of Farmer City. On Saturday, Jan. 17, the life of Mrs. Louise C.

Courtney, terminated at her home one mile east of Birkbeck. Mrs. Anna E. Jackson underwent a minor operation at the Brokaw hospital in Bloomington on Tuesday. John W.

Gring. 77, departed life Jan. 17 at the home of his sister, Mrs. Wm. Hire of Champaign, with whom he has made his home the past five years.

He was a former Farmer City resident. Irene Atkinson is suffering from a broken arm as the result of roller skating on the sidewalk last Friday. Those who are attending. the State Banker' Convention today at the Palmer House in Chicago are C. O.

Gillespie, G. W. Watson, F. L. Weedman and H.

C. Gring. Word was received here by Mrs. G. B.

Shere from Mrs. J. M. Bunyard stating that her daughter, Mrs. G.

H. Dean, is seriously ill in a hospital at San Antonio, Texas. Mrs. Dean is well known here, being a former resident of the city. 10 YEARS AGO Jan.

24, 1946 25 YEARS AGO The wedding of Maxine J. Geurts, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Geurts, to Richard W. Stimler, son of Mr.

and Mrs. George Stimler of this city, was solemnized at 4:30 p. m. Sunday, Jan. 20.

at. the Methodist church in Hammond, Ind. Mr. and Mrs. John Curtis are the parents of a boy born Tuesday morning in the Mennonite hospital.

He has been named Glen William. The wedding of Kenneth Helmick of this city to Miss Lena Mae Henry of LeRoy took place Tuesday- of. last week in the Wesley First Church, Bloomington. Mrs. Ruby Barger of Washington, D.

C. and Golden Barger of Decatur, announce the marriage of their daughter, Ruth, to Roy E. Taylor, son of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Taylor of Xenia, Ill.

The candlelight services were read at 7:30 p. Jan. 14 in Rockford, Md. Mr. and Mrs.

Arthur Quast and family were called to Shumway. last Wednesday due to the! illness and death of the former's father, Frank Quast. John Wilson McCullough, 46, father of Mrs. George Monen, Jr. of this city and his brother, Frank J.

McCullough, also of Rantoul, were killed instantly at 5:45 p. m. Saturday, when the auto driven by the latter crashed into a concrete guard rail on Rt. 45 near Thomasboro. Relatives and friends have learned of the death of Sam Wright which occurred Sunday at Stanford.

Death resulted from injuries received Friday of last week in an accident west of Bloomington. He was married to Gladys Arbogast of this city who survives. 5 YEARS AGO Jan. 25, 1951 Mr. and Mrs.

Wm. Satterfeal attended funeral services Monday afternoon for their son-in-law, Dale Libka, 28, husband of the former Della Satterfeal, who died of a heart condition in the Mercy hospital Saturday morning. Irene Sosamon Dawson has been named the D.A.R. award winner at Moore High School for 1951. Mrs.

Eve Phares of LeRoy died at 3:15 Monday, Jan. 15 in the Peoria State hospital. Mrs. Phares had a number of relatives in Farmer City. The marriage of Miss Pauline Hitchens, youngest daughter of Mr.

and Mrs. Phillip Hitchens of Dewey, to Eugene Harrold, son of Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Harrold of this city, was solemnized at 2:30 p. m.

Sunday, Jan. 21, in the Methodist church in Dewey. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Sypult are the parents of a boy born Sunday in the St.

Joseph's hospital, Bloomington. He weighed eight pounds, 10. ounces and has been named Stephen Rene'. Mr. and Mrs.

Roscoe Herring have received word of the birth of their first grandchild, a baby girl, on Friday, Jan. 14, to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Schotter at St. Vincent's hospital, Indianapolis, Ind.

She. weighed seven pounds nine ounces and has been named Dorothy Deat. Announcement was made this week by Mrs. Glen Downs of the sale of the Downs' Beauty Shop business and fixtures located on the second floor of the Phipps Department Store. building to Miss Gladys Heck of Bloomington.

Farmer City will be the scene of the Dewitt County Music Festival scheduled for Wednesday evening, Feb. 7. It will be held in the Moore High School Gym, beginning promptly at 8 p. m. KROGER AREA HAS NEW MANAGER Announcement is made this week that William F.

Lincer formerly manager of the Terre. Haute, Ind. branch of the kroger Co. has been named to the same position in the larger Peoria branch. In his new assignment Lincer will be in charge of 54 Kroger retail stores in this area, one of which is the Farmer City store, whose local manager is Earl Rich.

Teacher: "Tommy, what is onehalf of eight? Small Boy: "I don't know exactly, teacher, but it can't be very PARDON, MY ERROR! I HEARD JONES GOSH! WHAT WILL AND HIS WIFE THEY THINK TO QUARRELING TELEVISE OVER THEIR TELEVISION SET! "THAT LITTLE GAME" WOT'S IN A NAME? GLAD TO WERE Now TELL 'EM Wow: BEAT You KNOW KNOW YOUR HIM HEAP BEFORE ('M ALWAYS MR. MY MIDDLE GOOD WE START. THE FIRST GEE! YOU MIDDLE NAME IS PLAYER, WE'VE GoT TO OUGHTA BE NAME, KETCHUM, HIM KETCHUM A MR. IN. A BORN GEORGE GEORGE CHIPPS.

POKER PLAYER CHEATUM YouRE KETCHUM IN THIS ALWAYS THE WITH NAME. THAT CHIPPS. GAME, TOO. FIRST TO BE TOLD TO IN. Robert Dolan Recalls When The Rails Were The Real Highways By C.

Clive Burford I depot, charging a round sum. This Robert Dolan holds priceless memories of the old railroad years in Farmer City. He remembers when all travel, unless it were an overland trip between Farmer City or Deland or Weldon, was by train. Even then, the roads were often impassable, so that the rails were used, not the horse and buggy or wagon method across country. Ray Covey recalls when his father, Epammie Covey, did carpenter work in Weldon or Deland and rode the trains home Saturday through Clinton or through Lodge and Mansfield, to spend Sunday at home.

My father made a business trip years ago from Farmer City to Deland. He. rode the train from Farmer City to Champaign, then the Illinois Central branch line, Champaign to Deland. A team and wagon could not always negotiate the ten miles from Farmer City to Deland. So our statement seems to hold that, by and large, Bob Dolan recalls when almost all travel.

was by train. Bob and his brother, the late Ed Dolan, thought nothing of selling 100 tickets a day to Bloomington. Piffle it was all in the day's work! How many tickets are sold today? There are two waiting rooms in the old time Big Four Depot remember? -The ladies to the east of the office and the gentlemen's to the west. Bob often sold at one window, Ed at the other. It was a poor day when only 25 tickets were sold.

And if all travel, for the most part, was by train, then all travel between downtown Farmer City and the depots was by horse-drawn bus. The two buses, in backing to the platform at the Big Four, wore down the planks in the heavy board platform. The railroad company then installed a or "a bumping board" against which the buses could back and not damage. the platform. Remember? Harve Campbell, Charles Moreland and Ab Campbell were oldtime drivers for the Foster-Clarno-1 Ingle livery barn.

Charles Reed drove the spotted horses for the Henry Farmer bus. I have related. in the Journal, how much I wanted to grow up and be able to drive those spotted horses. I walked around the old station area a few days ago with and we reviewed old times. Bob recalls when there was real rivalry between the two bus lines.

Most of the traveling men, or drummers, seemed to have preferred the Fo.ter-Clarno bus to the Farmer bus. Bob remembers one occasion when each driver tried to secure patronage from a drummer. Each driver made a dive for the satchel "grip" which the drummer carried. One driver pulled one way, the other the opposite way. They pulled and they pulled and finally the grip split amidships! Dolan also recalls when the bus drivers played tricks upon passengers who were "changing cars" from the Big Four to the Illionis Central.

In those years, "changing cars," with a wait of one hour or three hourse was calmly accepted as part of a trip, just as the tedious wait along a Farmer City dirt highway, with a tire being changed and a patch being applied to a tube, with a big rain and storm imminent, was all a phase of early motoring. One bus driver, or the other, loaded passengers who. were "changing cars" into a. bus and then drove part-way downtown and roundabout and then to the I. C.

OUR FUTURE CITIZENS Leaders of Tomorrow DARBY and SHARI EUBANK Darby, 11, and Shari, 8, are the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Joe G. Eubank of R.R. 3, Farmer City.

Both girls were born in New Mexico, Darby in Santa Fe and Shari in Albuquerque. Darby is in the sixth grade in the "new" school and is a member of the cadet band. Her main hobby and interest is her horse, Red Velvet. Shari is in the third grade in Franklin school. Mrs.

Eubank is the former Barbara Pace. Grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. O. B.

Pace of this city and Mr. and Mrs. G. N. Eubank of Mountain Home, Ark.

T. L. Parrish of Milford is the maternal great grandfather. LAW ON THE FARM By N. G.

P. KRAUSZ One question a landowner might ask is what minerals he can sell and what the effect will be if he does sell them. He might also want to know what legal requirements must be met in such a sale. Generally speaking, in Illinois a landowner owns solid minerals like coal and limestone in the same way that he owns the surface. He may sell these minerals outright to a purchaser, and all of the formal requirements for a sale of real estate, such as a deed, acknowledgment and recording must be fulfilled.

It is as if his land were divided into horizontal slabs with the farm on the top layer and the sold minerals one of the lower layers. In Illinois, transitory minerals, like oil and gas, are incapable of an ownership distinct from the soil so long as they remain in the earth. In other words, they may not be owned in place. When a landowner "sells" these minerals, he really is granting a right to take them from their place. Oil and gas interests are usually conveyed by lease.

However, it is possible to transfer these interests by a mineral deed or a royalty conveyance. A lease grants to the lessee the right to explore for and take these minerals. Although there are several types of oil and gas leases in use, practically all provide for the landowner to receive a nominal cash payment at the outset and to receive a royalty of of the oil or liquid hydrocarbons that may be produced and saved. If the lessee company produces either oil or gas, the lease will be effective as long as production continues. However, if oil or gas is not discovered, the lessee's rights terminate at the time indicated in the lease.

Since oil and gas teases, mineral deeds and royalty conveyances create a presently vested interest in land, the formal requirements of writing, signing, acknowledgment and recording must be met. Landowners should carefully read any document they sign, but they should examine proposed mineral deeds and oil and gas leases because of their unique character. The lease should contain a provision that the lessee shall pay for damages caused by his operation to crops growing on the land, and that the lessee shall not drill or mine within a certain distance of buildings on the land. If a standard oil and gas lease is involved, the lessee will have, by the lease, the free use of water from the land execpt from the landowner's wells and tanks. In areas where water shortages exist.

some modification of this provision may be desirable. A landowner may want to require the lessee to bury his pipelines below plow depth if the standard lease form does not so provide. Because of the possibility Allow $56,000 For Conservation Plan er City usually 15 minutes, for transferring express. An immense amount of celery, in boxes, was moved from Kalamazoo, to Bloomington and Peoria, and was handled at night at Farmer City. The fact that both roads here carried American Express, in the old years, when there were many express companies such as United States, Adams, Pacific, Wells- American, many others, mean't that much express was consigned through Farmer City to keep it on American Express lines.

Beside celery, there were immense amounts of beer in kegs, bread-baskets, laundry, ice-cream tubs, etcetera, ad infinitum, to the end of the world, forsooth. Bob recalls when John Moreland was express agent for many years, with Charles Funk and Wallie Weedman helping him, especially at night. Wallie, later, became express agent in his own right. Bob recalls several I. C.

agents, among them, Fred Rhea, C. E. Rich, W. H. Morrison, among others.

Dolan also recalls the old lunch counter at the rear of the Big Four station, operated by John Holliday and later by Fred, or Fritz Linderman. Sandwiches were sold at five cents each, priceless gems which would cost 35 to 60 cents today. There was really ham in those sandwiches, the ham what am. in real terminology. The old lunch room perished years ago, but in its hey-dey it handled real business.

Fritz told me, one time, he always closed up after the 10:31 went east at night, not much business after that hour. The Big Four Depot The present P. station, the one used for so many years by the old I. B. and the old Big Four when was it built? Who knows? Probably no one does.

Bob Dolan does not know. It was there when he was a toddler. I doubt if anyone can tell, any more than anyone can tell who selected the name of Farmer City away back in 1869 and urged its adoption. Nor can anyone tell us today, why the name of Santa Anna was brought to Mount Pleasant in 18- 39 and remains here as the name of the civil township. I have tried my entire life to learn these facts no luck yet! The first depot for the present was on the approximate site of the Clifford-Herrick homes.

My father recalled when it was moved to the east side of Plum street, then to the west side, as now is. These moves antedate anyone's memory today. I wrote one time how both roads used the present depot. No one recalls that today, I venture. Johnnie Clifford, that fine old railroader, who knew Farmer City rails as no one else did or does, unless it is Bob Dolan, told me I was absolutely right in my story of both roads using the present depot.

The older I. C. station was erected about 1886 or 1887 again Johnnie said I was correct, with the new depot much later, of course. We lost so much when we lost a Farmer City historian like Johnnie Clifford, whose memory rang as keenly as the fire whistle in the dead of night. And now in 1956 the transportation situation has changed so much that we are not even speaking the same language.

It is as if we jumped from Chinese to Arabic, expecting everyone to understand us. But there has been a wonderful railroad past in Farmer City! "Heavenly recalls Bob Dolan, "We will never see those old railroad years again." "Are you a college man?" "No, I lost my hat, and I forgot to have my suit pressed." Illinois counties have been allocated $8,423,000 in federal funds for carrying out the 1956 Agricultural Conservation Program. That amount represents a cut of slightly less than three per cent from last year's allocation of 683,000, according to the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation office in Springfield. Under the program, known commonly by its initials, ACP, farmers get federal cost-sharing payments for carrying out soil conservation work on their farms. The program is administered by state and county ASC farmermitteemen employed by the U.

S. Department of Agriculture. Dewitt County's allocation for 1956 is $56,000 against $59,300 in 1955. Farmers may apply for assistance under the program through their county ASC committee. February 17 has been set as the deadline for the initial signup period.

Farmers may still register for the program after that date, but those registering during the initial signup period will have priority on approvals for assistance. Funds remaining then will be used for payments to farmers registering after February 17. was part of the tricks of the trade just like a taxi driver holds us up in the city today. One irate passenger, arriving at the I. C.

Depot, and glancing across to the Big Four was furious he gave the bus driver a real "slug" to the jo "Changing cars," aside fro transfers in Chicago, St. Louis, other terminals, has disappeared. How many passengers today "change cars" in Farmer City? There were excursions a-plenty. Sundays, Old Home Week, Land and Home seekers, State Fair, World's Fair. Round-trip, Sunday, to Peoria was often $1 $1.50 or $2 to Indianapolis almost as cheap as remaining at home.

Bob learned telegraphy almost as soon as he learned to walk. almost a part of his nature. This is one art which a man does not forget. Bob can step to the instrument today and "talk" with anyone, anywhere. He carried "messages in his juvenile days.

Then, Bob, approaching a front door, with a yellow envelope in his hand meant bad news. "Uncle Henry worse, come at once, love. Mary" Freight Handling Do not think that all Ed and Bob had to do was sell tickets and handle the ponderous trunks and sample cases fthe drummers, Hear Bob relate the old days of the mass freight shuffled by hand in those good old years. All merchandise moved by local freight. "The local" as it was called, might stand at Farmer City for an hour.

Sometimes merchandise freight came out of several cars, requiring the local to back up or move ahead to "spot" other cars at the freight platform which stood across the I. C. Track from the Big Four station, again remember? Later, a freight was erected. All freight not immediately hauled down-town by horse drays had to be hustled into "the house" as railroaders have always called their freight rooms. The I.

C. also unloaded L.C.L: freight at the east end of the Big Four platform, when it was being transferred from one road to the other. Bob recalls when farm implements, buggies, carriages, wagons, were "knocked down" and crated and moved by local freight. To handle 15 or 20 crates of buggies was some task! Then there was the weather. It rained and sleeted and snowed more, it seemed, than in these last last few dry years.

It really rained when the Dolan lads hustled merchandise freight in and out of cars. I remember when the I. C. moved a 'merchandise car" from Chicago to Farmer City and "set it out" on a siding for the local drays to receive it. This was a tremendous advantage, as the freight did not have to be handled across the station platform.

Bob has a million memories of the old years when he and helpers really handled quantities of merchandise freight, candy buckets, as one example. Express Today, we have a slight appreciation of the volume of express which was transferred from one railroad to the other, especially at night. The two Diamonds, on the I. C. the 10:31 east-bound at night, and the west bound express about 4 a.

m. handled express in such volume that it would hardly be believed in 1956. These trains had so much express to handle that they had "an arriving and "a departing time," that is, they "laid" at Farm- WHO Knows 1. What famous American race horse won 20 of the 21 races in which he started? 2. Name the two longest suspension bridges in the world.

3. In what country of South America is the Atmacama Desert located? 4. In what country is the highest lake in the world located? 5. What woman was the first to fly over the North Pole. 6.

Name the sea in the North Atlantic that is known for its floating seaweed. 7. What is the official name of Ireland? 8. Who wrote, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star?" 9. What composer was tortured by a musical not sounding continuously in his ears? 10.

Who was the Roman God of war? (See "The Answers" on Page 8 of causing soil sterility, salt water may be the subject of a lease provision. It is important for the landowner to remember that, when he sells his minerals or leases for oil and gas, he is dealing not only with the future, because either instrument may be of perpetual duration. It will be wise to avoid entering such agreements hastily. Because both care and foresight are needed, it will be highly desirable to consult an attorney. Printing Mcman That Speeds Business Operations We'll design forms to streamline and speed-up the routine of your office or shop.

Get our suggestions, without obligation, on anything from a shipping tag to a coordinated system of forms. The Farmer City Journal.