Joanne and Joseph are her two children who brought her ashes back to Mt. Olive, IL to be buried next to her husband. It was a quick trip for them, arriving Sunday evening and leaving Monday afternoon for the 400+ miles back to Columbus, OH.
We had dinner with them on Sunday night and then talked until after midnight. Monday morning we went with them to the cemetery and met the funeral director who had everything set up for the burial of the ashes. It was an especially brutal hot and humid morning and I think everyone was in a hurry to get back into a/c comfort. After a prayer we all headed for downtown Mt. Olive so they could see what it looked like now.
When their parents were younger the children came back to the area every summer so they were familar with the towns. They were surprised to see how forlorn some of the buildings on main street looked with boards covering windows and the general disrepair of the towns.
We did manage to stop at a pastry shop and enjoy some of the best pastry you can imagine. Gerry and I shared a Danish pastry that was the size of a small pizza and it was great. Afterward we sat around the table and talked about what they wanted to see in the short time left.
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| Joseph, Joanne & Gerry |
We decided to do a little geocaching. There was some talk about a home made from a railroad car. Since there was a cache nearby, we decided to investigate. The cache was aptly named "All Aboard".
In 1933, a young couple wanted to marry and decided upon a unique and affordable alternative to purchasing or building a house – they purchased and remodeled a 1900 Pullman chair car from a salvage yard of the Chicago and Alton Railroad.
The car was in line to be sold or burned, so they made arrangements to have it moved from Bloomington to Dorchester on three flatbed rail cars. It was moved to a lot on skids, and the young couple spent their honeymoon remodeling the rail car, adding two partitions, maple hardwood floors, and all the amenities of the day.
A few years later a foundation and basement were dug across the street, next to the Lubrication Shop that is still standing, and the cozy home was moved to its permanent site.
The coach is now 115 years old, and is just as satisfactory a residence today as it was back then.
Dorchester is a small village in Macoupin, CO, IL. The Big 4 train tracks ran through it many years ago and they had a large grain elevator there. The tracks, grain elevator, etc are all gone now, but it is a pleasant little village.
The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, also known as the Big Four Railroad and commonly abbreviated CCC&StL, was a railroad company in the Midwestern United States. Its primary routes were located in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.
We also visited with a very old friend of mine who I've known since I was 4 years old. He was a friend of my brother's and then became my friend also. We went through 12 years of school together, joined the FBI at the same time and have kept in contact all these years. Weye & Nancy are a super couple and we always enjoy seeing them.
They live on a farm and there is an oddity about their names. Weye and Nancy have a son, Weye, who married a Nancy. The families live next door to each other. They have a neighbor lady down the road who also is named Nancy. Of course, they all share the same last name so it must give new postmen fits sorting the mail and keeping it straight.
My niece lives a little further down the road and we stopped by her house and enjoyed a very nice dinner and evening with her husband Deveron and their family. Their daughter Charlie is a bundle of energy and is like a perpetual motion machine. Plus, she is a blond cutey and charming as well.
It was a long day and we returned to the motorhome tired and worn out but had a very satisfying day. Now to get some much needed sleep and rest. Good night!
Hope you had a wonderful night's sleep. You did have a very busy day.
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