Submitted By: Kim Torp
Ste Marie Tribune, Jasper Co, IL - November 28, 1913

Mount Vernon - Enos J. Goodale, 81, died here of blood poisoning. 
A week ago while cutting corn on his farm he scratched 
his hand, which became infected. 





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
1962 Mt Vernon Register News
Golden Anniversary

Mr. and Mrs. Burrell Phillips of 608 Main Street, well known Mt. Vernon residents, 
will observe their Golden Wedding anniversary next Sunday afternoon, February 18, 
with a reception in the Mt. Vernon Room and the L. and N. Cafe.

No individual invitations are being issued, instead, a general invitation is extended 
to all relatives and friends to attend the reception between the hours of two and 
five o’clock. Those attending are asked to omit gifts.

They were married February 23, 1912, and are the parents of two sons; 
Russell Phillips of Chicago and Lester Phillips of Mt. Vernon. 
They also have eight grandchildren and one great- grandchildren.





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
Henry Piercy of Boyd with 125 Descendents Has Birthday Today

It’s and add coincidence that Henry Piercy, whose immediate family numbers 125, 
should have a birthday during National Family Week. Piercy who resides a half 
mile south of Boyd, is 86 years old today. He and his wife still live in the 
log house where they went to housekeeping 61 years ago and where they reared 
13 children.

Though the floors are somewhat uneven, the house is still solid and comfortable. 
Mrs. Piercy allows it is probably stronger than some being built today. Living 
quarters like her might cause some brides now days to call for a divorce Mrs. 
Piercy thinks, but she says that if through the years anybody has been happier 
than she has she never heard of it.

The Piercy’s say they could have had a better house when they were married but 
thought this would do to start with. Mr. Piercy built it from material he salvaged 
from another house and they set it on a corner of her father’s land. They intended 
to have something better later but when their family started coming they never got 
around to doing anything about the house. Mrs. Piercy’s advice to young people is 
“get the kind of house you want to start with.”

Several years ago the Piercy’s were given newspaper publicity because it was thought 
they had the largest living family in the state. One of their 13 children, Bryan, 
has died since then but he lived to be married and start a family. The couple have 
59 grandchildren, 41 great grandchildren and one great great granchild. Only one 
member of the family shares the same birthday date with her grandfather and that 
is little Judy Morgan of Boyd, a great grandchild.

The “parlor” isn’t used much anymore except as a place to display pictures. Most of 
them are wedding pictures of fine looking young men and women who call Mr. and Mrs. 
Piercy “grandma” and “grandpa”. Four grand-daughters have married in the past 18 months.

All 13 of the Piercy children went to Boyd school and were reared to attend Sunday 
School at the Boyd Christian Church of Christ. They married young people in the 
community and all, but two settled down within two miles of the old home place. 
The two who “strayed” didn’t go far - just to the northern part of the state.

One of the joys of a large family the Piercy’s think is having some of them drop 
in every day. Another thing which gives them much joy and which has happened frequently 
during the years, is to have the family gather at their home for a reunion. Often the 
nieces and nephews came too. Two of Mrs. Piercy’s sisters married Mr. Piercy’s 
brother’s so their children have two sets of double cousins. the older sister and 
brother, John and Rosa (Fiser) Piercy, had five children and their younger brother 
and sister, Nathan and Leona (Fiser) Piercy, had 3 children.

Mr. Piercy’s birthday, May 8, and Mr. and Mrs. Piercy’s wedding anniversary, 
July 3, have usually been the occasions for a family reunion, but none was planned 
for today because of Mr. Piercy’s ill health. He has been under doctor’s care since 
last July. Despite his ill health he has the appearance of a much younger man. He has 
always followed farming as an occupation but retired from it 10 years ago.

Mrs. Piercy is 78 and she too is unusualy spry for one of her years. She said she 
never had any trouble with her children but declines to tell others how to raise 
theirs. Only twice did she have a doctor attend her at the birth of her children 
and both times she got twins.

Now that she has lots of time, Mrs. Piercy does what she likes to better than 
anything else-- she pieces quilts. She is completing her 25th quilt made this winter. 
When it is finished she doesn’t plan to start another ‘til fall. Before her marriage 
she was Miss Susie Fiser. To her nieces and nephews shis is know as “Aunt Sue.”

Mr. and Mrs. Piercy children are Willie of DeKalb, Nathan, Mrs. Ida Carpenter, Mrs. 
Lillie Marlow, Mrs. Lena Carpenter, Charles and Walter Piercy and Mrs. Ida Harvey, 
all of Boyd; Mrs. Nellie German and Mrs. Fay Champ of Woodlawn; Mrs. May Elliston 
of DeKalb, and Mrs. Margaret Wagner of Woodlawn. Charles and Walter are twins are 
so are Mrs. Champ and Mrs. Elliston.

The Piercy’s had seven grandsons serve in World War II and one of them. James 
Henry Piercy was killed. He was the son of their deceased son, Bryan.





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
Appear in St. Louis

The Christianairs Quartett of Woodlawn appeared on the Ed Wilson 
television show Saturday evening, July 11 at six o’clock. The group 
consist of : Rodney Marlow, son of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Marlow; 
Kenneth Newell, son of Mr. and Mrs. Bill Newell; Stanton Endicott, 
son of Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Endicott; and Marshall Newell, son of 
Mr. and Mrs. Bill Newell, all of Woodlawn. They were accompanied 
at the piano by Mrs. Lucy Burns.





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
Congregation Showers Retiring Pastor Coltrin

The Rev. and Mrs. Lawrence Coltrin were given a surprise silver dollar 
shower last week by members of the Shookville Penetcostal church which 
the Rev. Mr. Coltrin pastored for nine years. He resigned recently due 
to ill health.

The shower was held at the Coltrin home on the Walnut Hill Road. A tape 
recording of a previous church services was played during the evening 
and coffee and doughnuts were served.

Those in attendance included Mr. and Mrs. Bill Wadkins and Debby; Mr.
and Mrs. Eddie Bryan and Patsy; Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Bell, Carol Jean and 
Jerry Wayne; Mr. and Mrs. Renzo Phelps, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Hays, Mr. and 
Mrs. Paul Morgan, Mr. and Mrs. Pete Heern, Loyd Mooney, Jim Allli, Mrs. 
Wolma Shaver, Mrs. Rose Pugh, Mrs. Nettie Mooney, Miss Helen Mooney, Mr. 
and Mrs. John Owens, Mrs. Naomi Schneider and Cliff Pugh sent their prayers. 





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
Centralia Sentinel Wednesday, Dec. 13, 1967

Mr. and Mrs. John Harvey celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary 
with open house Sunday. They were married Dec. 6, 1917 and have five children.





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
Jefferson Co. Draftees Leave

These nine young Mt. Vernon and Jefferson County men left early today for 
St. Louis, Mo for immediate inductions into the armed forces. They are, 
Oakley Brookman, RFD 7, Mt. Vernon; William Burton 1316 S. 26th; 
Edward M Pijut, Scheller; Arthur W. Shewmake, RFD 1 Woodlawn, 
Eddie Self, Jr. 1811 Isabella; Joe Wayne Davis, Bonnie; Fred Young, Bluford, 
Johnnie Jones, 1017 S. 20th; John M. Cunningham, 1917 Casey Ave.





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
Lamp-lighter retires; still carries torch

Lawrence E. Coltrin, “the old lamp lighter”, has retired on pension 
after 38 years with the Illinois Central, the last seven years of which 
have been spent repairing, filling and keeping bright and shining the 
118 switch lamps between McCord Street, and the south end of “E” Yard, 
a mile south of the roundhouse.

But while he has retired as a lamp-lighter for the Illinois Central, 
as pastor of the Shookville Pentecostal Church four miles due east of 
Centralia, he is still lighting the candles and piloting his flock along 
the stairway to heaven.

For 31 years, as pastor of various Pentecostal Churches in this community, 
he has been keeping the lights shining along the heavenly “Great White Way,” 
and if he lives to be a thousand years old, he will still be tending his 
lamps as conscientiously and as punctually as the one who hangs out the 
sun, moon and stars.

A Yen for the ministry seems to run in the family. His grandfather, 
Preston Coltrin, was a minister. At one time he was pastor of the 
Congregational Church at Sandoval. His uncle, George Coltrin, was a 
traveling evangelist in Texas who served for a time as chaplain of the 
senate in the Lone Star State.

Lawrence remembers his visit here once in a characteristic Texas outfit 
a ten-dollar, ten-gallon hat, a highly polished ornamental and expensive 
pair of boots and a dollar pair of trousers. The trousers and the rest of 
his outfit which were wrinkled and out of shape, received little attention 
but the hat and the boots had to be just so.

In 1944 Lawrence became pastor of the Pentecostal Church at Boyd, a charge 
he kept for several years. While there he felt the need of and promoted the 
idea for a new church, with the result that his pet project was completed a 
year or so ago.

Among the members of his congregation at Boyd was James Flowers of Walnut 
Hill, a car man for the Illinois Central here, who retired in 1947. The two 
families were good friends and every Sunday morning on their way to the 
church at Boyd the Coltrins would go by and pick up the Flowers family. 
When Lawrence transferred to the Shookville Pentecostal Church three or 
four years ago his good friend followed him they’re too. His is an elder 
in the church.

Lawrence was born and reared in Centralia. His father was a miner. At fifteen 
he was a clerk in Hallie Andrew’s grocery store which stood in South town about 
where the Laundromat is located now. He kept that job for three years, then 
changed to the Jones Concrete Co., where he made concrete blocks for eleven years.

He went to work for the Illinois Central as a section man here on May 23, 1918. 
He was promoted to section foreman in 1943 and worked at that job. He worked 
under several section foremen, among them Newt Cannon, Tom Dailey, Richard Johnson, 
Tobe Davis and John Kelley.

While for the most part he enjoyed his work he recalls many miserable nights 
he put in after an all day’s work, sweeping snow out of switches or making 
emergency repairs to track that had been torn up in a derailment, sometimes 
working in zero cold or a torrential down pour.

Lawrence has had a busy life. Maybe that is what has kept him young. He has 
been so busy he didn’t have time to grow old, and maybe his religion helped too. 
At any rate he doesn’t look his age. You could give him ten years and then never 
suspect that he had reached the railroad voluntary retirement age.

His recipe for staying young is work and lots of it, to be enthusiastic about 
everything you do, and to open up your heart to the vitalizing influences of 
religion. His experiences and appearance would seem to bear out his theory. 

Thirty-eight years ago he was working for $2.88a day on the section long days 
of hard, grueling work -- the hardest work on the railroad.

He bought five acres of land out on the Walnut Hill Road a quarter mile south 
of the Southern Railroad Crossing, not too far outside the city limits, which 
he refers to as a weed patch.

In his spare time he built a nice home on this land, doing practically all the 
work himself, with his own hands, and his own tools. The basement he excavated 
with a spade and wheel barrel. 

For thirty-one years he has been preaching three nights a week, making sick and 
other calls, and doing all the other work incidental to being pastor of a church. 
So you can see why he hasn’t had time to grow old.

June 12th, 1913 he married Miss Alma Moseley. They have two children, William 
employed at the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, whose wife was Lorene Wimpy, 
daughter of Engineer and Mrs. Robert T. Wimpy and a daughter of engineer 
T. O. Heern. They have five grandchildren and one great grand-child.





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
January Wedding

Mr. and Mrs. Donald Elliston

Announcement is being made by Mr. and Mrs. Roy L. Champ of Woodlawn, 
of the marriage of their daughter , Miss Fayelda Champ, and Donald 
L. Elliston which took place January 28. The Reverend James L. Feamon 
read the double ring ceremony in his home at 6:30 O’clock that evening.

Miss Helen Allen of Mt. Vernon served as bride’s only attendant.

Mr. Elliston, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Elliston of Waltonville, 
had Darrell Corners, of Woodlawn, as his best man.

The young couple of will make their home in Woodlawn.





Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
Married At Home

Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Eugene Bateman who were married during an evening 
ceremony August 23 at the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alva 
Phelps, with the Reverend Merle Melton officiating.

For the ceremony, attended by members of the two families and a few 
close friends, the bride, the former Miss Mary Evelyn Phelps, selected 
a white linen daytime frock, studded around the neckline with pearls and 
rhinestones. A half hat of navy blue trimmed with a brief nose veil and 
a double row of pearls, and matching accessories completed her costume. 
Her flowers were red carnations worn in a shoulder corsage.

The bride attendants were Mrs. Arthur Eater, matron of honor and Miss 
Estalee Phelps, junior bridesmaid.

The bridegroom, son of Mrs. Luther Bateman of Dix and the late Mr. Bateman 
had Mr. Eater has his best man. Little Billie Gene Phelps, brother of the 
bride served as ring bearer.

The Wedding guest remained for a reception at the Phelps home after the ceremony.

A shower and charivari in the honor of the newly married couple will be 
held at the Phelps home Sept. 1.

Mr. Bateman a member of the United States Marine Corps is stationed at 
Santa Ann, Calif.






Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson

Pfc. John Hayes
Freed from Prison
 
Mr. and Mrs. Green Hayes of RFD 5 have been informed by an Army Chaplain that their son,
Pfc. John H. Hayes, a German Prisoner since November 9, 1944, has been liberated and is well.
 
The chaplain wrote " Your son was in my office today. He ask med me to write and tell you he is safe. 
He appears to be well and in good spirits.
 
He is anxious that you hear from him so you will not worry and will write at his first opportunity."
 
Pfc. Hayes has a brother, James H. Hayes, S 2/c who is with the Seabees somewhere in the Pacific.



Submitted By: Kiowana Hayes Ferguson
Ira Hayes Runs for Circuit Clerk
 
Ira Hayes today announced his candidacy for the office of Circuit Clerk for Jefferson County subject 
to the Republican primary to be held April 11.
 
Mr. Hayes, a life long resident of Jefferson County, is a son of the Late Hiram Hayes, a pioneer 
settler of the community of Mt. Vernon. He was educated in the local public schools and the Mt. Vernon 
Twp. High School.  He is 53 years of age and is married to the former Maud Scott, daughter of L. N. Scott 
who for many years was prominent in Republican county politics, and held with distinction many public 
offices. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes now reside on Fairfield Road east of Mt.Vernon.
 
The friends of Mr. Hayes point out that his business experience ideally qualifies him for the position 
he seeks; that his wide acquaintance throughout the county and his adeptness in meeting and making friends 
will make him a stronger contender for public office.
 
Mr. Hayes has always devoted himself to things for community betterment, and believes in good clean government. 
Is an energetic and ardent worker in any of his undertakings.
 
Mr. Hayes states that he intends to canvass the entire county and meet as many of the voters as possible 
during the campaign.


December 1, 1972 Mt. Vernon Register News
Submitted By:
Two Mt. Vernon men were killed in a automobile accident 1 mile west of keenes IL
Leslie Leroy Reynolds age 20, Larry Dean Flanigan age 24.
Larry was the son of Cecil and Opal Arlene Flanigan of Rochelle IL formally of Mt.Vernon. He
was survived by his wife Laura and a 17 month old son Larry II. His parents 1 sister Diana and 
Ronald White of Rochelle 4 brothers, Terry, Cecil [Butch], George, and Billy Flanigan all of Rochelle. 
He was proceeded in death of a brother Donald age 18 died in a logging accident in 1965 while helping 
his dad clear tree's for the Rend Lake project near the Gun Creek access area .

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