When Kate was researching her book "Ruth by Lake and Prairie" she tried to piece together Ruth's life story to make the book about the founding of Naperville come alive.
The title character, Ruth Eliza Murray was born in Ashtabula, Ohio and immigrated to Illinois with her family in 1831 as part of a group of settlers organized by her uncle Joseph Naper after whom the town was named. A few years later another family from Ohio arrived: Alfred Shattuck, his wife and his sons. While they rented a farm in Naper's Settlement, they wanted to buy their own land and scouted property further west, finally purchasing in Spring Township, Boone County.
While they were preparing the land and building a cabin, the Shattucks remained in Naper's Settlement and Alfred's twenty-year old son, Harlyn, must have socialized with Ruth, then 16. Whether there were any sparks between them at the time is unknown and the Shattucks moved out to their Boone County farm.
Years passed. Ruth remained at Naper's Settlement on her family's farm, Harlyn remained in Spring Township on his. Perhaps there were dances, weddings or other get-togethers. Northern Illinois was still thinly settled at the time and people did travel to Chicago or up from Will County to socialize with one another. We don't know how it happened, but Harlyn and Ruth were married on the last day of March in 1842.
Harlyn was twenty-eight and Ruth was twenty-four so they certainly weren't a couple of kids rushing into a romance. Ruth's own sisters married at younger ages than that. Kate speculates that Ruth may have been less attractive than her sisters or more useful to the household, two traits that might explain a late marriage and which Kate used to develop Ruth's character in the book.
The newly weds lived at first in a rented house in Naper's Settlement while Harlyn hired himself out as a laborer. Looking at the census records, the young Shattucks apparently took in a boarder as well. He was also a laborer and was perhaps a widower since two small children are listed in the records but no wife. From the beginning of their marriage Ruth proved her capabilities by managing a household with three adults and two children.
With no photographs, no diaries, no letters we can only speculate on Ruth's real personality using the tiny clues that research offers.
Some day, some descendant may want to know about the people in your family. They shouldn't have to guess like Kate had to about Ruth Murray! You should write your own family's history so it will be preserved for future generations.
There are lots of ways to go about it from simple records to free-form tale-telling. To get inspired, the Helen Plum Memorial Library in Lombard, Illinois is offering a free seminar called "Creating a Memoir: The Basics of Writing Your Life Story."
Memoirist Rosanne Gulisano will lead the seminar on Saturday, February 6, starting at 2:00 pm. While the event is free, the library would like you to register. See their web site at www.plum.lib.il.us for more information.
This seminar is one of several that is offered by the DuPage County Library System as part of their Writing and Publishing series. Kate attended all but one of last year's offerings and found them very interesting. She's already registered for all of this year's, so if you attend any, be sure to say "hello!"
Links to some upcoming events:
New Permanent Exhibit of West Chicago History
Daily Monday through
Friday
8:00 am - 4:30 pm
Panels with text, photographs and artifacts invite discovery of West Chicago's early history and subsequent development. On display in the City Hall during regular business hours.
Tea with Your American Girl
Saturday, February 13
11:00 am or1:00 pm
The LaGrange Area Historical Society
invites you to
a Tea with Your American Girl.
This event will feature
"Rebecca," the girls from the 1914-era stories.
Tea will be held in the Vial House,
Home of the LaGrange Area Historical Society
444 S. LaGrange Road
Seatings are at 11:00 am or 1:00 pm and registration is required as space is limited. Please have one adult per family in attendance. Dolls and other lovies are welcome!
President Ronald Reagan's Birthday Party
Saturday, February 6
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Come and join the annual Ronald Reagan Birthday Celebration! View his birthplace in Tampico, Illinois and then walk over to the Tampico Historical Museum three doors down the street which will also be open.
Refreshments will be served there by the Tampico Historical Society.
This would be Reagan's 99th birthday as he was born February 6, 1911!
Over Thanksgiving weekend, an Ohio man downsized his extensive Lincoln memorabilia collection.
Eighty-five year old Georg Hoffman of Delaware, Ohio has a collection that includes stacks of old photographs, paintings and other works of art, but the star of his collection is a funeral wreath that lay on the casket of President Abraham Lincoln while he lay in state at the Ohio statehouse in Columbia.
The story is that the town of Piqua, Ohio, held a funeral before the train even arrived. One of the speakers at the service was Dr. Godwin Volney Dorsey, a well-respected area physician and one who was known for his oratory skills.
When Lincoln's casket was placed in the Columbus Statehouse, it was covered by funeral wreaths, one of which was purchased by Dr. Dorsey. Once the funeral train continued its journey, Dorsey reclaimed his wreath and it was passed on within the family for generations until 1975 when George Hoffman's family acquired it.
Dr. Dorsey had the wreath encased in a wooden shadow box frame and the paper backing reads "This Wreath lay upon the Breast of Abraham Lincoln while his body was lying in State at Columbus, O. April 29, 1865." Auctioneers were hoping to get $5,000 to $10,000 for the wreath, but it's been difficult to find published word on what the final purchase price was.
There was a photo of the Statehouse in Columbus taken while Lincoln lay in state there. Whether that's Dr. Dorsey's wreath visible in the picture we don't know. But we happened to have a copy of this photo in our files because of the painting above the coffin.
It depicts Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry leading the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. Perry was assisted by a group of Ashtabula, Ohio, settlers known as the "old grey men," one of which supposedly was Benjamin Napier. Benjamin was the older brother of Joseph Naper who went on to found the town of Naperville in Illinois and of Amy Naper who was the mother of the main character in Kate's book Ruth by Lake and Prairie. One story has it that the meaty white-shirted oarsman in the picture is actually Benjamin Napier.
Experts at the Put-In-Bay historical museum say that nearly every family with a connection claims to have an ancestor in the painting, so the research is ongoing!
This sounds like the perfect project for long winter nights! The Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission offers Build Your Own Lincoln Sites that you can print out on card stock from your own computer, cut out and glue together.
Models include Lincoln's Tomb, his home in Springfield and the store he worked at in New Salem among many others.
One model is of the Old Main building at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, one of the sites of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the only site still standing. Kate knows the building well, having worked there in the college president's office as her campus job during her years attending Knox College.
If anyone actually builds one of these models, please send a photograph and we'll share your artistry with the rest of our readers!
When Kate was researching her book "Ruth by Lake and Prairie" she tried to piece together Ruth's life story to make the book about the founding of Naperville come alive.
