Trivia Too

Roy C. Roberts

Trivia Too – “Hospice” and the end of an era

This is our dad’s last column that will be published. He wasn’t totally finished with this “Hospice” column, and so we are including it to let his readers know how comfortable he was with the decision to enter Hospice care a year ago. 

This column meant so much to our dad--whether he was writing about Beardstown, Sports, Family, Travel, Trivia, History, the War, Humor, and on and on and on. The four of us have each written about areas that he loved to write about and have included them in this column. Thank you for your support over the many years of our father and this column—Ann, Don, Sue, and Chris.

Trivia Too

Trivia Too – “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”

During the “Big War,” World War II, there were a lot of nostalgic songs about home, family, and sweethearts, songs that really impressed the millions of young men who were away from home.

One of the best of that era was the 1943 carol, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” written by poet James K. Gammon from Brooklyn, along with musician Walter Kent. Kent also wrote the popular “White Cliffs of Dover.”

Little Piglet

Trivia Too – Growing up with pigs

Since we had many hogs raised on our farm, it wasn’t unusual to hear Mother yell, “Get to work kids, the sows are out!” She knew they were loose because they would walk right up to our living room’s bay window and peer in.  

Trivia Too

Trivia Too- Ice harvesting on Mascouten Bay

Harvesting ice out of Mascouten Bay was quite an interesting business during the winter. It was a beautiful body of water at the edge of the Illinois River at the northeast corner of Beardstown and was where the Indians fished and hunted just 100 years earlier. The workers at the bay would use a team of horses to pull large knives that would score the ice in 100-pound blocks. They would float the blocks of ice to the edge of the shore where a steam engine ran

Trivia Too

Trivia Too – Living in the “Good Old Days.”

“I wish there was a way to know we were in the good old days before we actually left them.” That was a class motto of the 8th grade graduation class at Ladd, IL.

My grandfather was one who on Halloween would move the outhouse about three feet so that on a dark Halloween night, the boys were quite surprised when they moved his outhouse in what he called the “Good Old Days.” Instead of moving it, they fell in!

Trivia Too

Trivia Too – Treasures found at the river

When I was a kid, about nine years old, I was allowed to go visit friends. I was a student at Central School, which was where the grocery store is now on Fourth Street, and my friend lived right near there. On one nice summer day, we decided to go down and see the houses that were on stilts in an area that was called Schmoldtville. It was called Schmoldtville because Mr. Schmoldt had his lumber business where the softball diamond is. The houses on stilts along the end of Wall Street were over a deep, swampy area and had pieces of tin around the poles to keep the rats from climbing the poles and coming into the homes. This was the first time that I had ever seen this, and it was all very exciting to see. We continued our walk over to the edge of the river where there were no levees. Right there near the river, I really found a treasure. It was like a half shell with perfect holes in it. I sure wanted to take this home to show my parents.

Photograph of the entrance popularly known as the ‘Gate of Death’ in Auschwitz II-Birkenau (today turned into a symbol of the camp and the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi regime) after World War II.

Trivia Too – Holocaust survivors reunite

Seventy-seven years ago I was in Europe fighting the Germans. I cannot forget what I saw in regard to the Holocaust. We soldiers had no idea of the extent that Hitler had gone to exterminate so many people from so many countries. Before leaving for Europe, I saw pictures of people who were sent to camps—men in one boxcar, women in another, and children in a third—all screaming, never to see each other again. Over six million men, women, and children were killed during the Holocaust. I have two stories here that are about people who survived the Holocaust. WHY? BECAUSE WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO EVER LET YOU FORGET AND ALREADY THERE ARE SOME WHO SAY IT NEVER EXISTED. 

Trivia Too

Trivia Too – A little history on bison

I remember as I was looking at my book, The Life of Thomas Beard, about telling how the French explorers stopped at different places along the Illinois River including a stop at where Beardstown is now located.  

As the buffalo were sighted from their canoes, they wrote how the unusual animals would travel in the thousands and sometimes single file and sometimes as a herd.  When they traveled as a herd, they would leave a dark path of soil on which the others could then travel on.

Trivia Too

Trivia Too – The Classic Cowboy of the west

It was several summers ago when Christine and I were visiting her Aunt Dorothy in Arizona. We were invited to the home of her millionaire friend, Beverly, for dinner. I remember the huge living room was two steps higher than the rest of the house, but the thing that impressed me the most was that Beverly was a collector of John Wayne memorabilia. In addition to a large portrait mounted on the wall was one of his rifles, a vest, and other valuable items. Not only was Beverly a huge fan, but John Wayne was extremely popular and a favorite of many other people in the 1960s and 1970s.

Trivia Too

Trivia Too – Getting to know customers

Many years ago, our niece, Lynn Wilson, gave us the book, “Front Porch Tales.”  She told us that this book reminded her of the many wonderful memories she had while sitting on our front porch and telling stories of our lives.  One story in the book was the author telling about his first job, that as a paperboy.  Since I had been a paperboy, I could relate to some of the things he wrote.  Here is his story: