We've got some nice digs in an apartment owned by Kelly's second cousin, Kent. It is full of antiques, family and anonymous.
It's somehow comforting to know that you can step out onto your screened porch and find a wooden hen if you need one. (For those of you who don't know, that's a little heated cabinet that turns eggs into little yellow chickens.)
There's also a good collection of trade blankets:
...coffee cans and a gorgeous old enamelled wood and gas range:
Not to mention crocks from nearby Whitehall (a site of significant Kelly --well, Alexander-- Family history):
In Whitehall, we found the one-room school house attended by Kelly's grandmother and great aunt Mona (Kent's mother):
There were some juicy blackberries growing alongside:
And if the corn growing behind was not quite as high as an elephant's eye, it was taller than we are:
We also think we found the site of Grammie's and Aunt Mona's parents' farmhouse; heard tales of the two sisters crashing a Model T in the ditch (they were no more than 10 years old) and using the money they collected from egg sales to clandestinely get their hair bobbed; and gazed fondly upon the porch of their house in town, where Kent so enjoyed watching the Saturday Chicken Slaughters -- these being the days before cable.
Plus we were treated to the monthly test of the Whitehall tornado alarm, and had a plateful of wicked fried green tomatoes:
Back in Jacksonville, Sharon showed us around all the sites, including her and Dick's alma mater, Illinois College, the spot where they got engaged, their first apartment etc.
Still in Jacksonville, Kent showed us around some friends' house -- it also happens to have been the home of Civil War General Benjamin Grierson, whose raid into Confederate territory in 1863 created enough of a diversion that the Union was able to defeat the Confederates at Vicksburg, turning the tide in the war. And we also hung out a bit in Kent's partner Mary's house, which was a stop on the underground railroad. (We were too busy being sociable to take pictures.)
A few miles east in Springfield --"the town Lincoln loved"-- we toured the new and extremely engaging Lincoln Presidential museum where I got to hang with a couple of historical heroes:
How many other people do you know who've hung out on the White House porch with Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass?
As if all the history weren't enough, the pie in this neck of the woods is excellent. The results so far: while the crust was a little too short and a bit on the sweet side, the sour cherry pie from Grandma Rudi's Restaurant edges past the heavier, crumby casing on an otherwise outstandingly lip-puckering blackberry from the Kottage Kafe.
Next stop: the South.
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