Welcome to Willinois!

October 15, 2010

Terrible title, I know, but the reason we are here is to do some Willey genealogy. Bob's gr-gr-gr grandparents came to Bond Co IL from Tennessee and Virginia about 1812. Shirt-tail relations still live there, but his grandparents left about 1915.

Above is the library where I got lost in time and Bob did a lot of reading!

We had a few questions we thought might be answered here, so we made an effort to carve out some time to look around. Two rigorous days of cemetery walking, a couple spent reading records, and talking to various local authorities answered a few of the questions, brought up some more, and left a few unanswered.

We stopped at the funeral home in Greenville to see if they had a map of one of the local cemeteries.  Not only did they have a map, but I got the grand tour of an outstanding Victorian home, and we were lead to the graves personally.  When we got there, the director looked at us and said, "I didn't know you meant Fred Boldt's family.  You know, Lindbergh landed in his father's field while he was delivering mail, spent the night with them and told them all about how he wanted to enter the contest to cross the Atlantic."  So, another new story for the family records.

Colors are beginning to change, but over the four days we were here, the temperature dropped a bit at night, we had thunder and rain one night, and the days continued to top out in the mid-80s.

This is the former office of Dr. Chittum, who served the village of Sorento for over 50 years, beginning in 1895. Inside are dozens of birth registry books, day books where he recorded his patients' visits and the amounts charged, and how they paid. It was interesting to note that many of Bob's family used his services, paying in cash, honey, loads of sand and rock, and meals. We found the record of Bob's dad's birth in here....these records are the doctor's copies (stubs, actually) of the official birth certificate filed in the county seat. We already had that, but it was great to find another entry in this little office. Getting into it is a story unto itself. Everything in the village was closed (it was over the noon hour) so we waited around for the municpal office to open, where we found Cheryl, the long-time clerk, who informed me she had all the cemetery records. She and I went through boxes of file cards, looking for Bob's gr grandfather, who died in the village in 1912, and is said to be buried there. Nothing. We tried every family member who might have owned a plot in the cemetery. Again, nothing. So, she suggested we go "over the way to the Doc's office". It turns out she set this up many years ago as a museum, but the local people haven't been too interested in recent years, so this year she didn't even open it on their Old Timer's Picnic Day.

I was glad for the opportunity to go in and look at the relevant books, but I do wish it was being kept better. I copied only the one page, but there was a lot that was interesting (how much he charged to pull a tooth and how so-and-so paid for it, for example).

Oh, a geocache!! This is near the historic Ripson Bridge, just outside of Sorento, and down the road a bit from where Bob saw his first two cardinals. Thankfully, no spiders.