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Generations: Winners of the High School Writing Competition "How have I come to be here at the beginning of the 21st Century?" That was the question put to young people throughout central Illinois with Generations: A Writing Contest for High School Students. The challenge was to explore how their people—family, race, nationality—made their way to Illinois and made a life in Illinois, how they shaped and were shaped try this part of the country. For this second annual contest, cosponsored by the Illinois State Historical Society and the Central Illinois Regional Planning Committee of the Illinois Humanities Council, the competition was opened to all high school students in central Illinois. Writers were encouraged to be innovative with form, and the entries reflected a wealth of creativity: fictional narratives and journals, family histories, essays, and poetry. The reflections were thoughtful, the stories by turns amusing and touching, the writing engaging. All of the talented entrants—and their dedicated teachers—should be commended for their outstanding work. The difficult task of sorting out winners fell to a committee of scholars and writers who judged the entries for originality, historical accuracy, use of language, and clarity. Cash prizes of $300 for 1st place, $200 for second place, and, $100 for third place were donated by publisher and former ISHS president John Power of Jacksonville. Look for details of the third annual Generations contest in fall editions of Illinois Heritage.
—Robert Grindy
Lauren Leigh Burke
Out Home
Mr. Thames was killed early yesterday morning. His horse reared and he fell off backwards, and the horse fell back onto his chest and crushed his lungs. The men who were near-by all say the horse spooked at the sound of the sawmill starting up. It was not a young horse, so none of the men could figure out why it spooked at such a normal thing. Mr. Thames had a wife and 8 children; the youngest barely 5 months old. They are not a very well-to-do family and are new in town, so I am being sent with a wagon of food, and I shall also offer to help her with her children. Mr. Thames was a good fellow. He never got drunk, gambled or swore, or so my Father says. We lost a new calf today. It came up missing tonight. November 30th, 1879 I went to Mrs. Thames' farm yesterday. Her children were running quite wildly about the front lawn, as it was a nice day. I drove up the long trail to the doorway, and tied my horse and wagon to the hitching post. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer, so I quietly entered. The house was in shambles. Dirty dishes were piled everywhere. Heaps of linens, dirty or otherwise were tossed about as if on purpose. I searched through the battered little house, stepping over things, peeking in each room to gauge the mess. In a small bedroom off to the right, I located Mrs. Thames. She was laying haphazardly on her bed, in a very restless sleep. I decided to continue my assessment of the house, before I took charge of the children. I found the baby quite alone in another room in a tall wooden cradle. It was awake, and fussing, but not loudly. I picked it up and could tell it needed a change. I quickly scanned the room for a clean diaper, and found one under the other children's bed. I laid the baby on the bad and changed it, and it quieted down. I walked outside to where the older children were running around wildly. I asked in a rather loud voice, "And whose job is it to watch the little one?" They didn't even look at me. I walked up to a girl that appeared to be about 10. I asked her again, "Whose job is it to watch this child?" She was trying to ignore me. I grabbed her arm and turned her towards me a bit more roughly than needed. I asked, "Whose job is it to tend to the baby?" She did not want to meet my eyes, but this time she said "No one's." I said, "Fine. So you do it. Go inside, and DO NOT wake your mother." I rounded up 2 more children and sent them inside with the same instructions. I found another in a tree, and one in the barn loft. They, too, were sent to the house with orders to be quiet. Then I headed there, myself. I set the 10 ILLINOIS HERITAGE youngest children to picking up the dirty clothing and linens off the floors. The older children, I had hauling water from the well to 2 large vats that hung over a large fireplace outside in the back yard. They did not want to obey me, I could tell, but they really could not figure out what to do about it. I realized I needed to know all their names. I went to the one that seemed to be the oldest, a boy, and asked him his name. "Matthew," he said gruffly. I asked his age. He answered 14. I asked if he had any other brothers or sisters not at home right now. He said he had a brother away at work, and a married sister. I asked him to build a fire under the big vats that they were filling with water. He turned and was about to walk away to do as I asked, but then turned back to me with a look of anger on his face. "And why should I, then?" he said with such force that I was startled. I answered that his mother needed help. That seemed to make him remember her for the first time that day.... After Matthew got the fire started and the water was heating, I sent Molly to fetch the lye soap and wash boards. Then we got the dirty laundry and piled it into the boiling water, dumped in some soap, and stirred it around with a stick. Matthew came up to me and told me the animals had not been fed for 2 days, and the cows were bellowing. He went to milk them. I left Molly stirring the clothing and Margaret playing with the baby, Mark and Micah out on the lawn. I went into the house and looked in the breadbox and saw nothing but crumbs. There was little food in the cellar, either. I set to work making bread, and put it near the fire to bake. Then I began unloading all the food I had brought in the wagon from home. I started a large vegetable soup and went outside to check on all the kids. Matthew was hard at work milking the 20 cows, and I noticed he had fed all of the animals in the barn. Molly was still stirring the clothing and Margot was playing with the younger children on a blanket. I helped Molly swing the vat off to the side of the fire, so that it could cool, and we dumped cold well water into it, also. When it was sufficiently cooled, we pulled some of the clothes up and scrubbed them on the washboards. Then we rinsed them, and hung them on trees and bushes to dry. I went back in to check on my bread. I went to check on Mrs. Thames again, and she was still in that restless state of sleep. I went back to the kitchen and made up a fast batch of cornbread. Then, I headed back outside to see what was happening there. Molly was without a job, now, as the clothes were finished being washed. I asked her and Mark to collect the chicken eggs. I was reluctant to bring the children into the house to clean up; for fear that they might wake their mother. When all of the outside chores were done, though, we headed in and began to clean the house very quietly. Some of the children began to wash dishes and some of them began to sweep and dust. I cleared off the table, and washed it down. Then I set it and got the food ready. The sun was setting earlier than usual, because winter is coming, and I think it must have been around 5 o'clock. 1 made a large bowl of custard for dessert; something I imagined the children rarely got. I set the food out and told them to wash their hands.
American Dreams At the customs booth, a tired couple is standing in the longest line of humanity either has seen in their lives. People are leaning, most too exhausted to clamp their tired shoulders into a posture of pride. The man behind the couple tentatively taps the young man on the shoulder. "You're next," he says. The young man flexes his back and nudges his dozing wife, who is still clinging to him fiercely. As they step forward the harried looking agent appraises them with a jaded eye. "Greek?" he bites out in the voice of one who has had more experience at guessing the race of immigrants than he cares to have at this hour. The young Mediterranean man straightens and hands the agent their paperwork. "Yes sir, last name Kantopoulos, first name Daniel. This is my wife Ereen. We wish to become Americans." "So does everyone," says the agent. "I'm changing your last name to 'Kanton'; easier to pronounce, and it sounds more American. Just step down to the final desk on your right." The two young people's eyes meet briefly in a gesture of first mutual understanding and then absolute pride. Welcome to America; the streets are paved with gold. The walls seem to be closing in on the same young woman now. Her skin is paler and her dark hair tied up in a simple cloth. Her three young children, Peter, Jean, and Andrew are, thankfully, asleep in the adjoining room, but Daniel is gone. Pneumonia, the doctor said. After having struggled alone to support her family for a year, Ereen at last gives up. Pulling her dignity together, she packs up her household and moves in with her brother, only a few streets away on the north side of Chicago. It's much later now, the year 1932. The door opens and Uncle Tony slips in, shaking off rain like a dog and leaving his dripping coat in the modest foyer. He quietly comes into the kitchen and sets a huge pot of soup on the stove, at the same time kissing his wife. "Today's leftovers from the restaurant," he intones. But his wife stops him before he can prepare the customary first bowl and push aside the curtain to enter the dark little room. ILLINOIS HERITAGE 11 "She won't be needing it today," a whisper made that much closer to imperceptible when she notices Andy, her seven-year-old nephew, curled silently just behind the curtain. "The priest and the doctor just left; the funeral will be Saturday." She turns to call the children to the table for their meager meal. Tony remains behind for a second and regards the boy sitting in the doorway with respectful pity.
Benjamin Boyd and his Connection to the Plot to Steal Abraham Lincoln's Body The story has come down in my father's family that one of our ancestor's, Benjamin Boyd, was a notorious counterfeiter with a connection to the strange plot to steal Lincoln's body in 1876. I have reviewed the evidence, however, and discovered that I am not his direct descendant. I have Boyd ancestors, but he is not one of them. This, then, is the story of my near ancestor, a master engraver turned bad, and of that plot. My father first came to believe that Ben Boyd was our infamous ancestor from the stories of his mother, Louise Schick, sometime in the late 1960s. Her mother, Loretta Boyd, had traced her Boyd ancestry back to Scotland. The story went that the Boyds had a castle near York, England, but that it was nearly burned to the ground during the War of the Roses. The Boyd clan was among the many Scots who were on the wrong side during that war, and who had to flee to Ireland and then America. Loretta's genealogical research had revealed that the Boyds arrived in America prior to the Revolutionary War and fought in it. During her research, the story went, she also had come across Benjamin Boyd and his connection to the outrageous plot to steal Lincoln's body in 1876. My fathers recollection is that his mother had said that Ben was our direct ancestor. My father also inherited a book from my grandmother, entitled Boyd Family and Descendants. The author, William P. Boyd, recounts his proud Boyd, Scottish heritage in detail. This appears to be the source of my great grandmother's information about the Boyds in Scotland. That part of the Boyd story turns out to have been true. However, William fails to mention Ben Boyd. He is not among the Boyds in the index. This book, written in 1912, does not appear to be all inclusive of Boyds in America, but one cannot help but think that his omission was intentional. Ben Boyd, however, does not appear to be my direct ancestor. He had no children. Also, a family tree prepared by my great grandmother in the 1960s does not show Ben Boyd as my ancestor. When my father was presented with this evidence (he had not looked at the family tree in many years), he still insisted that his recollection was correct. This is not one of those family stories that is easily forgotten. Apparently, it just made a good story. How did this cunning and handsome man, who was supposed to be my ancestor, become "the most skilled of all counterfeit plate engravers?" The answer is that he was nearly born to be a master engraver. He was born in 1834 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and his father was an engraver. A very young Ben learned this craft from him. He also apprenticed with engravers named James Edward and Nat Kinsey. His father and Smith were honest and successful, but Kinsey is known to have been a highly skilled currency counterfeiter in Cincinnati before the Civil War. Apparently the closeness of this ''Greenback" cutter and the attraction of easy money turned Benjamin Boyd to the dark side at an early age. 14 ILLINOIS HERITAGE |
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