World War II memories of love and war

This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in December 2013, before the launch of this weblog.

World War II memories of love and war

By Jared Olar
Library Assistant

With the passing of another Veterans Day this week, today we will spotlight a book written by one of Pekin’s World War II veterans, the late Robert B. Monge (1925-2008).

Dedicated “to all of the men and women of Tazewell County who made the supreme sacrifice during World War II” and extending to 991 pages including index, photographs and illustrations, Monge’s 1994 book, “WW2 Memories of Love & War: June 1937-June 1946,” tells of Monge’s own wartime experiences, weaving his own story together with the larger historical narrative of the war, along with the stories of many other men from Tazewell County who fought in World War II or were killed in action.

Monge was a 1943 graduate of Pekin Community High School. That same year, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, as a member of which he fought against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater. He was discharged with the rank of Corporal on June 17, 1946. After the war, he and his brothers went into business together, founding Monge Bros. Construction. In 1955, he became president of Monge Realty and Investments Inc. in Pekin. While he was best known for his work developing new subdivisions in Pekin, Monge also came to feel a strong desire to record the wartime history of Tazewell County’s men who had been sent off to fight.

Bob Monge’s 1943 Pekin Community High School senior picture. Soon after graduation, Monge enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving during World War II in the Pacific Theater.

That’s why he compiled “WW2 Memories” and joined with Jack Shepler to write a companion volume, “The Book Eternal,” which is a roll of Tazewell County servicemen who died in World War II and other wars. Monge also served as co-chairman of the effort to place a veterans’ memorial on the Tazewell County Courthouse lawn. The memorial, listing all of Tazewell County’s sacred fallen, was dedicated on Veterans Day in 1995.

The many stories in Monge’s book often provide firsthand accounts of the harrowing ordeals that were endured by the young men sent into battle to put a stop to the racist and imperialist aggression of the Nazis and Fascists in Europe and North Africa and the Empire of Japan in the Pacific and Asia. In addition to his own memories, or those, for example, of his fellow Marine Chuck Dancey, or of the late John T. McNaughton and numerous other veterans who came back from the war, Monge frequently reprints or adapts newspaper reports of local boys killed or reported missing in action. The newspaper reports or obituaries, along with Monge’s larger historical narratives of the war, are informative but not graphic or sensationalized. However, due to the nature of modern warfare, and especially due to the monstrous ideologies that motivated the enemy, the personal narratives in Monge’s book at times make for some grim reading.

In his introductory remarks, Monge explained why he felt driven to devote several years of his life to write his book:

“What must man do to preserve the memory of men who made the ultimate sacrifice – at a time when it meant so much to the world? There comes a time when we must sacrifice our time and energies and make it our duty to do it. Out of W.W. II came a multitude of heroes – those who died on the battlefield and those who lived through its holocaust. . . .

“. . . I found that the families of Tazewell County gave more freely of their sons in all our wars than the country ever expected or required. The dark cobwebs in lost graveyards hide many young men and boys who gave their lives in a past war somewhere. I felt that, at all costs, we must prevent them from being lost in the oblivion of time.

“Probably it was said best by an early author of Tazewell County history: ‘To be forgotten has been the great dread of mankind from the remotest ages.’ All will be forgotten soon enough, in spite of their fame and glory and in spite of our efforts to preserve their memory.

“This is for the present generation to read and find out about their kind and what they stood for and what they died for. It is also for our generation too, to relive the past, in one of the most tumultuous periods in all history, and to remember our dead. Time and its greed cuts everyone down into oblivion. It eventually completes the destruction of the physical man and his cemetery stones, erected in his memory. Eventually they will crumble into dust and blow away – but the preservation of their accomplishments, deeds and their supreme sacrifice will be saved for future generations.”

The ranks of our surviving World War II veterans grows thinner every day – but when the last of them is gone, books such as Monge’s will enable future generations to remember their sacrifices.

#book-eternal, #charles-dancey, #jack-shepler, #john-t-mcnaughton, #monge-bros-construction, #monge-realty, #preblog-columns, #robert-monge, #tazewell-county-veterans, #world-war-ii, #ww2-memories-of-love-and-war

The day “Slammin’ Sammy” golfed at Pekin Country Club

By Jared Olar
Library Assistant

About nine years ago, “From the History Room” recalled the original Pekin Country Club nine-hole golf course, which was located at the present site of Pekin Community High School (“East Campus”). The new Country Club officially opened on Independence Day in 1962, the same year that construction began on East Campus at the site of the old Country Club.

The 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume relates that “before the club moved, many notable social and golf events took place, including a golf match in which professional golfer Sam Snead played within two strokes of the course record — a 66 with a two-stroke penalty.” Sam Snead (1912-2002) had attained great fame over the course of four decades as one of pro golf’s top players.

Surprisingly, the Sesquicentennial volume fails to mention when the Pekin Country Club played host to Snead. Long-time Pekin County Club member George Beres, who joined the club in 1945 when he was 17, recalled that the foursome who played the match included Snead, Ray Hall, the club’s golf pro; Dale Sarver, the club’s champion; and Bob Monge. Harry McClarence introduced Snead while Snead was hitting practice balls. “It was quite a sight to see him hit each ball, let me tell you,” Beres said.

To the best of his memory, Beres said he thought Sam Snead’s visit to Pekin was in the summer of 1961, the year before the club’s new golf course opened. On the other hand, Ray Hall’s son Michael, who shared his own memories of the golf match on his website in 2017, wrote that the match took place “around 1958.”

Searching through the microfilms of the Pekin Daily Times did not turn up any articles about Sam Snead’s visit in either 1958 or 1961. In an email from March of this year, Michael Hall’s older brother Jack, who caddied for Snead during the golf match, told me, “I think it was July of 1959.” His recollection was very close to the correct date.

Shown are cherished mementos of Pekin’s “Sam Snead Day” in the possession of Jack Hall, who caddied for Snead on Pekin Country Club’s golf course on June 20, 1959. PHOTO COURTESY OF JACK HALL

It is thanks to Alan Harris, whose father Thomas was the club’s general chairman of “Sam Snead Day,” that I at last learned the date of Snead’s exhibition match in Pekin. In April of this year, Harris shared digital images of the pages of the match’s official score card in the Facebook group, “If you grew up in Pekin, you remember. . .” There on the front cover of the score card was the elusive date: June 20, 1959 — a Saturday. That, of course, made it very easy to find the Pekin Daily Times articles about “Sam Snead Day.”

The Daily Times sports page on “Sam Snead Day” featured an article by Times sports editor Lloyd Armstrong, headlined “It’s Sammy Snead Day: Sunny Skies Greet Slammer – It Rained For Sarazen, Babe.” Armstrong recalled that Snead’s visit was the first time in about 25 years that a professional golf star had come to Pekin. The previous occasion was a visit to the Country Club by Gene Sarazen and Mildred “Babe” Didrikson, but their exhibition match was rained out and everyone had to settle for some trick shots.

In Armstrong’s story, Olive Lohnes, one of the sponsors of the Sarazen-Didrikson event, said after waiting in vain for the rain to let up, “They finally went out to drive out some shots – I guess you’d call them trick shots – off the No. 1 tee. Everyone was disappointed but there was nothing we could do about the rain, and their schedule didn’t permit them to stay over until the next day.”

Shown is the cover of the official score card for the Pekin Country Club’s “Sam Snead Day.” IMAGE COURTESY ALAN HARRIS

Thankfully the weather did not interfere with “Sam Snead Day.” A crowd of about 600 came to see “Slammer” play — a disappointing number, as the club had expected at least 3,000 to attend. In his “Scoreboard” column in the Monday, June 22, 1959 edition of the Pekin Times, Armstrong lamented the low turnout: “It is a major crime when sports fans of a city fail to support an appearance of the nation’s No. 1 golfer.”

Besides that, Snead’s visit didn’t get off to the best start. According to Armstrong, Snead’s plane arrived with only minutes to spare, but as Harry McClarence rushed Snead to Pekin from the airport in Bartonville, they were pulled over by the Bartonville police. McClarence explained to the officer that he was speeding because he had Sam Snead with him.

“Snead? Who’s he?” the officer dismissively replied.

The insult had no apparent effect on Snead’s play. As Armstrong reported, the match went almost perfectly for Snead, with only one sour note: he bogied 548-yard hole No. 7 with a penalty due to an out-of-bounds shot.

This detail from page 6 of the official Sam Snead Day score card shows a map of Hole No. 7. Snead played almost a perfect game that day, but hit a sour note on No. 7, which he bogied due to an out-of-bounds shot that sent his ball onto the grounds of the high school stadium. IMAGE COURTESY ALAN HARRIS

“Snead had stepped up to the tee on No. 7 and simply asked ‘Where’s the green on this hole?’ Pro Ray Hall pointed south and said, ‘Straight down the middle.’ Then Snead showed why they called him ‘the slammer.’ He hit the ball with a ‘whoosh’ that sounded like a jet taking off. The ball sailed on a line some 300 yards down the fairway. His second shot, an iron, went into Memorial stadium.”

In his recollections of Sam Snead’s visit, Michael Hall said:

“Hole number 7 was a par five which bordered the PCHS football stadium. I had never seen anyone hit it in two. As Sam got ready to hit his second shot on the par five he seemed to be confused and was asking my brother [Jack] where the green was. My brother showed him and he lined up and hit a perfect shot straight out of bounds over the fence and onto the PCHS football stadium property to the right of #7 fairway.

“He seemed to think that was where he wanted to hit it as he started walking after the ball. I just stood there knowing he had to come back and hit another. Finally my brother called to him and told him he had hit it out of bounds. He seemed irritated to me. He said something like, ‘I asked you where the green was!’ He had misunderstood my brother and it cost him a two-stroke penalty.”

Snead birdied this same hole in four strokes the second time around, and he easily went on to win the match 33-33 (66), coming within two strokes of setting a new Pekin Country Club course record. Ray Hall’s final score was 35-37 (72), Bob Monge’s score was 42-35 (77), and Dale Sarver’s was 40-38 (78).

“All hit some fine woods but with the exception of Hall, none was as consistent down the line as Snead,” Armstrong reported.

As a final thought, Jack Hall said to me in an email, “Sam lived near the Homestead Resort in West Virginia. When Lanae and I went up there to celebrate our wedding anniversary, Sam had passed away the week before and so we went to the wake. We met his son who I had talked to on the phone about his father wanting to build a golf course for Virginia Tech as a part of the Sam Snead Trail. Sam was laying in the casket with his straw hat on his belly and his 4 wood by his side.”

***************

The first two pages of the official “Sam Snead Day” score card listed the members of the Sam Snead Day committee and the members of the Pekin Country Club board of governors, and displayed maps of the first two holes of the County Club’s old golf course located on the present site of Pekin Community High School. ALL SCORE CARD IMAGES COURTESY ALAN HARRIS

#alan-harris, #dale-sarver, #east-campus, #gene-sarazen, #george-beres, #harry-mcclarence, #jack-hall, #lloyd-armstrong, #michael-hall, #mildred-babe-didrikson, #olive-lohnes, #pekin-community-high-school, #pekin-country-club, #pekin-memorial-stadium, #ray-hall, #robert-monge, #sam-snead, #thomas-harris

Tazewell County’s ‘Greatest Generation’

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

Our nation this week marked the 77th anniversary of the Empire of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, that triggered the United States’ entry into World War II on the side of the Allies. From that point until the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945, the entirety of America’s military, industrial, and spiritual might was committed to the war effort.

By the war’s end, the U.S. had lost over 400,000 soldiers in a global shedding of human blood that included anywhere from 21 million to 25.5 million military deaths, 29 million to 30.5 million civilian deaths due to war or to crimes against humanity, and another 19 million to 28 million civilian deaths due to war-related famine and disease. The horrific human cost of the genocidal aims and expansionist ambitions of Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.S.S.R. was an estimated 75 million to 85 million souls.

Most fittingly, the generation in America who bore that terrible burden of suffering, and who afterwards exerted themselves to rebuild and repair their broken world, has come to be known as “The Greatest Generation” (a title bestowed on them by retired NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw). With the blessed conclusion of that conflict receding further and further into the past – it’s now been more than 73 years since the end of World War II – each day that passes there are fewer and fewer men and women left to tell us of their experiences.

These were the fathers and mothers, the grandfathers and grandmothers, and great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers of the current generation. My own father, Joseph, is one of them – but he wasn’t old enough to be drafted until December of 1945, so he avoided all the fighting, instead spending what he says was the most boring year of his life in the U.S. Army’s peacekeeping forces near Manila in the Philippines. How stark is the contrast between his experience and that of those who had liberated the Philippines from Japanese occupation a year before – not to mention the experience of his older brothers who fought in Europe and the Pacific.

On Dec. 31, 1945, the Pekin Daily Times published a special “Victory Edition” that presented extensive lists of the men and women of Tazewell County who had served their country during World War II.

It is to help us to remember those times that the Pekin Public Library has provided opportunities this year to view oral histories such as “We Were There: World War II” (shown earlier this year on May 4) and “World War II POW Stories’ (originally scheduled for Friday, Dec. 7, at 11 a.m., but instead to be rescheduled to a time following the completion of the library’s repairs).

The library has a wide area of books and videos on World War II in its circulating collection. The above mentioned videos, however, are just two items among the resources related to the history of World War II that may be found in the library’s Local History Room Collection.

The three most notable World War II-related items in the Local History Room are three books that compile the stories of Tazewell County’s “Greatest Generation.”

Two of those volumes were the work of the late Robert B. Monge of Pekin, who in 1994 authored and edited “WW2 – Memories of Love & War: June 1937-June 1946,” a hefty 991-page book that collects personal stories, newspaper reports, and obituaries of Tazewell County World War II veterans and fallen heroes.

Three years later, in 1997, Monge collaborated with Jack Shepler and the Tazewell County Veterans Memorial Committee to produce the 261-page “Book Eternal: Tazewell County Veterans Memorial,” which tells of the planning and construction of the county’s Veterans Memorial located at the Tazewell County Courthouse lawn in downtown Pekin. “Book Eternal” also lists those whose names are inscribed on the memorial’s stones, which display the names of every Tazewell County soldier who died in the service of his country.

This photograph from the front page of the Pekin Daily Times’ “Victory Edition” on Dec. 31, 1945, reminded readers of the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers who had been killed in World War II.

A decade later, in 2007 the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society compiled its own book on the experiences of our local World War II veterans: “Tazewell County Veterans of World War II: Remembrances – Pearl Harbor to V-J Day,” which extends to 488 pages.

About 11 years ago, former Pekin Public Library Reference Librarian Laurie Hartshorn collected and compiled the wartime stories and recollections of 16 local women. Their personal memories are collected in “Women of the Greatest Generation Tell Their Stories.”

The Local History Room Collection also has archival boxes and files of newspaper clippings and World War II-era magazines, and even several donated complete issues of the Pekin Daily Times from those years.

One of those newspapers is the “Victory Edition” of the Pekin Daily Times, published Dec. 31, 1945. The Daily Times that year devoted its traditional “Year In Review” issue to a look back over the nation’s and Pekin’s experiences of the previous four years, preparing and publishing a list of 143 young men from Tazewell County who had been killed in the war, along with extensive Draft Board lists of names of men from Pekin and Morton who been called up to serve their country, including the county’s women who had volunteered as Army and Navy nurses.

Section Two of this special edition is headlined, “6102 Tazewell Men On World War II Honor Roll,” with other headlines including, “Nearly Half of Morton’s 3116 Out of Uniform” and “2986 Are On Pekin List; Estimate 1400 Discharged.” A separate story, “62 Tazewell County Women Serve Country,” is devoted to the honored group of women who had volunteered as WACs (Women’s Air Corps), WAVES (women in the Navy), SPARS (Coast Guard auxiliary), and the Marines women’s auxiliary force.

The special edition also struck a somber tone, however, reminding its readers of “Nine Tazewell Boys, Missing In Action, Still Unfound; Families Hold Hope.”

But the mood throughout those yellowed pages was chiefly one of gratitude and joy – gratitude for those who had fought for freedom, and joy that the war was over and peace had returned. Looking back to celebrations and the utter relief at Japan’s surrender that ended the war – “V-J Day,” “Victory-over-Japan Day” – the special edition recalled that “V-J Day Was 1945’s Gayest Day In Pekin.”

In keeping with what Bob Monge wrote, may we never forget the men and women of that generation whose names are, or soon will be, written in God’s Book Eternal.

#jack-shepler, #laurie-hartshorn, #pearl-harbor-day, #pekin-daily-times-victory-edition, #pekin-history, #robert-monge, #tazewell-county-history, #tazewell-county-veterans, #women-of-the-greatest-generation, #world-war-ii

Pekin’s theater tradition is long and varied

Here’s a chance to read again one of our old Local History Room columns, first published in October 2011 before the launch of this blog . . .

Pekin’s theater tradition is long and varied

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

The Showplace 14 out on Edgewater Drive, built on the former site of the Starlite Drive-in, is now the place to catch a motion picture on the big screen in Pekin – but older residents of Pekin still fondly recall a time when downtown was the place for movies.

A visit to the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room will reveal that downtown Pekin was once the home of seven theaters, some of which hosted live acts, plays and music before the dawn of the motion picture. One of them, the Vaudette, was located in a room of the Pekin Daily Times building that later served as the office of Times publisher F.F. MacNaughton (now demolished and used as a Tazewell County parking lot). The other six were the Dreamland at 302 Court, the Empire at 325 Court, the Unique in the Arcade building, the Idylhour at 405 Court, the Court at 439 Court, and – the best remembered of Pekin’s downtown theaters and the one that outlived the others – the Pekin Theater at the corner of Capitol and Elizabeth (now the front lawn of the Tazewell County Justice Center).

The Pekin Theater was not the first theater to exist at that location. Going back to 1879, we had the Turner Opera House, later known as the Standard Theater, the Celestial Theater and finally the Capitol Theater. When the Pekin Theater was built in 1928, one of the walls of the Capitol Theater became the south wall of the new structure.

This vintage photograph, printed in late 1928 or early 1929 in the Peoria Star, shows the newly-opened Pekin Theater. The marquee displays the title of the comedy romance, “Moran of the Marines,” starring Richard Dix, Ruth Elder, and Roscoe Karns, a silent film that came out in 1928.

The Pekin Theater opened Nov. 27, 1928, with a dedication ceremony and a show featuring a jazz orchestra, vaudeville acts, and a feature film, “The Show Girl,” starring Alice White. Designed by Chicago architect Elmer F. Behrns, who specialized in palatial themed theaters, the Pekin Theater was built in a grand vaudeville style by Mrs. Anna B. Fluegel. However, it was toward the end of the vaudeville era and early in the golden age of cinema, so Mrs. Fluegel’s theater made most of its money showing movies. Making the most of Pekin’s fanciful association with Beijing (Peking), China, the theater was elaborately decorated inside and out like a Chinese pagoda and prominently displayed a Buddha statue.

With the passage of years, however, eventually the Pekin Theater fell victim to the poor economy of the 1970s, and the theater’s last manager, Harold Williams, closed its doors in the early summer of 1975. Owner Robert Monge, who had bought it from the Fluegels in 1971, attempted to reopen it in December 1975 as the Pekin Dinner Playhouse, but that plan fell through, as did Monge’s 1980 proposal to reuse it as a medical office building. Utilities were disconnected in 1981, and the building began to deteriorate.

There were several more attempts to save and repurpose the theater during the 1980s. It was added to the National Registry of Historical Places in August 1983, and Monge considered giving it to the Committee for the Historic Preservation of Pekin in 1983 and 1984. When those ideas went nowhere, in 1985 he offered it to the Pekin Civic Center Authority Board – but the state rejected the board’s plans to turn the old theater into a civic center.

By 1986, Monge regretfully announced it would cost too much to save the old theater. Furnishings were auctioned off in December 1986 and January 1987, and the last of Pekin’s downtown theaters fell to the wrecking ball in March 1987.

#moran-of-the-marines, #pekin-history, #pekin-theater, #pekin-theaters, #peking, #robert-monge, #the-show-girl