Farmers Weekly Review

By Sandy Vasko Shiloh is a Hebrew word; it means “place of peace.” And so it was, until April 1862, when it came to mean…

By Sandy Vasko The two sides were ready, the Illinois Militia was armed, the miners probably were armed. Gen. Ducat sent pickets ahead of the…

By Sandy Vasko When we last met, it was Monday, July 23, 1877. Sheriff Noble and his posse had just been “thrown out of town”…

By Sandy Vasko It is the spring of 1877. Once again, the coal companies propose to reduce the wages of the miners. But the miners…

By Sandy Vasko In the last few years, many have lost their jobs, many saw inflation take them into poverty, many saw hard times. These…

By Sandy Vasko We are back to the Civil War. It is early in the war, and most of the men had not really “seen…

By Sandy Vasko Set the way-back machine for June, 1877; place Mokena. From the Joliet Weekly Sun: “Mokena is a good-sized village. Seven hundred is…

By Sandy Vasko Once again, we are going to look at the small bits that made up a town’s everyday life, if not its history;…

There are times in my research that I come across a bit that probably will never work up into a story, but makes me smile…

By Sandy Vasko February 1862 saw the 20th on the move. On Feb. 2, they left Cairo aboard steamships bound for Fort Henry on the…