By Jared L. Olar
Local History Program Coordinator
The customers of First Pekin Savings Bank, 532 Court St., can read the bank’s motto and date of founding on the north wall of building: “Small enough to know you . . . Large enough to serve you — Since 1893.”
During its history, however, First Pekin Savings Bank has borne three other names. In addition, while the bank’s history commences in 1893, it has only been located at 532 Court St. since the summer of 1962. Before moving to its present location, the lots at 532 Court St. were occupied by a grand house that dated to about 1870 – the Duisdieker Home.
Maps and city directories indicate that the Duisdieker Home got its start as the home of a real estate speculator named David F. Lowrey (1798-1887), an immigrant from Ulster, Ireland. The 1871 and 1876 Pekin city directories show Lowrey living at the southwest corner of Court and Sixth streets, a site that originally was numbered 622 or 632 Court St., then 524 Court St., then 530 Court St., and finally 532 Court St. After 1876, Lowrey and his family moved to Nebraska, where he and many of his kin are entombed in the Lowrey Vault in Wyuka Cemetery, Lincoln. (His son T. W. Lowrey also ran a liquor store and cigar shop in downtown Pekin during the 1870s.)
The next owner of the Lowrey home was a successful Pekin businessman and industrialist named Charles H. Duisdieker (1851-1925), owner of the Duisdieker & Smith Foundry at the northwest corner of Court and Fifth streets (present site of the historic Arlington Building). Duisdieker also served as Mayor of Pekin in 1895-1896, and in 1893 was one of the co-founders of Pekin Mutual Building & Loan Association. Duisdieker made several additions to the old Lowrey Home that greatly enlarged it to the south and east.
After Charles Duisdieker’s death on 12 Dec. 1925 at the age of 74, ownership of his home passed to his widow Martha R. (Voll) Duisdieker (1857-1946). She in turn lived at the Duisdieker Home until her death on 18 April 1846, age 88. Interestingly, before he bought the Lowrey Home, Charles Duisdieker was listed in the 1876 city directory as a barber who lived at 613 Catherine St. with Charles P. Voll (1853-1911). We later find Charles Voll as partner with Henry Weber in the firm of Weber & Voll, which ran a machine shop at the northwest corner of Court and Sixth, directly across the street from the Duisdieker Home. Charles Voll was an older brother of Martha Duisdieker.
Beginning with the 1934 Pekin city directory, we find Norma (Duisdieker) Meyer (1890-1966), daughter of Charles and Martha Duisdieker, living at the Duisdieker Home with her mother Martha. After her mother’s passing, Norma continued to live in the old family home until the late 1950s. A prominent and active member of the community, Norma was life member of the Pekin Garden Club and served as that club’s president. She was also active in the Esther Circle, and as a talented pianist and singer was a long-time member of the Amateur Music Club of Peoria. On 23 July 1957, she sold the house and its property to First Federal Savings & Loan Association of Pekin and retired to Knollcrest Nursing Home at the corner of Court Street and Allentown Road. Norma died there on 18 Jan. 1966. She and her parents are interred at Lakeside Cemetery. Her Pekin Daily Times obituary includes these remarks on the Duisdieker Home:
“The family lived in a large home at 528 Court street, next to the Larkin Bakery, on the site now occupied by the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Pekin. Many Pekinites have memories of the charming summer house and iron deer which graced the lawn at the residence.”
After First Federal Savings & Loan Association of Pekin had purchased the Duisdieker property, the old Duisdieker Home was demolished to make way for a new structure for the association. It was perhaps fitting that First Federal would locate on the Duisdieker property, since Charles Duisdieker had been one of the founders of Pekin Mutual Building & Loan, predecessor of First Federal. Pekin Mutual had changed its name in Nov. 1956 to Pekin Savings & Loan Association, and then obtained a federal charter in Nov. 1960 to become First Federal Savings & Loan Association of Pekin. First Federal opened in its brand new building at 532 Court St. in July 1962.
The 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume, pages 35-36, devote four paragraphs to the institution’s history to that year:
“The ‘newest’ of these organizations opened for business in the Farmers National Bank Building on March 18, 1893, as the Pekin Mutual Building and Loan Association, which had been incorporated January 31 of the same year by Charles Duisdieker, Charles Conklin, Henry Herget, J. C. Friedrich, and John Fitzgerald. The initial officers were Ketcham Conklin, president, J. C. Friedrich, vice-president and treasurer, and Judge William Don Maus, attorney. Subsequently, the association occupied several different sites before moving to 434 Court, where it remained for 34 years before moving to the present location at 532 Court in July of 1962.
“The organization became Pekin Savings and Loan Association in November of 1956, then converted to a Federal Charter to become the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Pekin in November, 1960.“First Federal was the city’s first savings and loan to offer a drive-up teller window, and it was the first financial institution in Central Illinois to install an electronic message center; the 17-foot wide moving message of 21-inch high, lighted letters is mounted on a 25-foot support and flashes information day and night.
“The association has enjoyed steady growth since the turn of the century at which time assets were $60,352. Present assets are over $32 million, and Fred R. Soldwedel is the current president.”
In the years since 1974, First Federal became a part of the Marion County Savings Bank family based in Salem, Illinois, and was changed from a savings & loan to a bank, as First Pekin Savings Bank. The bank’s board of directors includes Larry H. Clark, T. J. Burge, Jacqueline Malan, Trenton Ice, Christopher Daniels, Earl Riley, and Whitney Ruger, with the management team consisting of Burge, Stacy Flota, and Valerie Vincent, and lenders Earl Riley and Ron Harlan.
From the History Room 