St. Elmo News

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Thursday, June 4
• See information below on the Urbana Cunningham Children’s Home virtual Festival of Quilts this Thursday and Friday.
• St. Elmo Women’s Civic Club may or may not meet this Thursday.
Monday, June 8
• St. Elmo Lions Club may or may not meet on Monday.
Tuesday, June 10
• Friends of the St. Elmo Community Park, 7 p.m., Centennial Building.
• American Post #420 may or may not meet.
• The Fayette County Board will meet at 7 p.m. at the Vandalia Moose Lodge.
Red Cross Blood Drive
A St. Elmo Community American Red Cross Blood Drive is set for Monday, June 15, from 2-6 p.m., at St. Mary’s Catholic Church Parish Hall.
As a nation, this is a time where we must take care of one another, including those most vulnerable among us. If you are healthy and feeling well, make an appointment to donate and help ensure patients get the blood they need.
To schedule an appointment, call Jan Niemeyer at 829-5291 or search online for sponsor code: St. Elmo Community.
Other Fayette County June dates: Monday, June 8, at Brownstown Elementary School, 2-6 p.m.; and Wednesday, June 10, at Fayette County Health Department, 10 a.m-2 p.m.
Festival of Quilts
Because of the 16th annual Festival of Quilts to help raise funds for the Urbana Cunningham Children’s Home held in April had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 threat that remains uncertain when it will subside, the festival committee made plans to have the first ever virtual event. It started on Monday and will continue through this Friday.
The virtual show will be featured on Cunningham.org with additional updates and content on the Cunningham Children’s Home Facebook page. Quilts and gifts shop items will be available to purchase online only at various price points’
American Legion Memorial Day
Because of COVID-19, the annual Memorial Day service was canceled for the public, but six Post #420 American Legion members met at the Veterans’ Memorial at noon to raise the American flag full mast, had a firing squad 21 gun salute, laid a wreath and did “Taps.”
Legion members present were Chuck Bosomworth, Marvin Forbes, Bob Heckert, Wayne Lovett, Clement Lilly and Ernie Myers.
A few people were in cars and a few were standing along the highway.
To honor of the 75th Anniversary of WWII by reading the list of hundreds of names of area WWII veterans was not done. This list of names was in the May 19 issue of the St. Elmo Banner.
The American Legion Memorial Day service was originally held in Maplewood Cemetery, prior to the construction of the Veterans’ Memorial on U.S. Route 40.
Rhodes-Side Gleanings – 1969 Vacation Report Continued
Camping is a sure way to make friends. Everyone is so friendly and many evenings we visited with campers from various parts of the country. Illinois residents surely like to travel, for the majority of the license plates seemed to be from Illinois.
Early Saturday morning, July 26, the first stop was to go out the north entrance of the park to Gardner, Mont., to do some necessary laundering. We then toured the Mammoth Hot Springs area, then off to the geyser areas and arrived at Old Faithful just about 15 minutes before it went off.
We left Yellowstone by the south entrance and went through the Tetons. En-route to Jackson, Wyo., we ate supper at a chuck wagon which had the food prepared in and served from huge black kettles over an open fire. We camped at Jackson that night.
The morning of July 27, we headed south and went through a corner of Idaho enroute to Utah. Bear Lake, equally in Idaho and Utah, had the most beautiful blue color of any lake we have seen! We arrived Sunday afternoon at Salt Lake ,where we took a one and a half hour tour of the Mormon Temple Square. That evening, we went to the Great Salt Lake, where Phil and the children went swimming, then we all took a boat ride and fished for “sea monsters.” These were tiny shrimp, one of the few things that live in the lake.
The next morning, we visited the Utah State Capitol, then went to the Bingham Canyon
copper mine, the largest open pit copper mine in the world. We decided to go to Denver by way of I-80 through Wyoming. In going through the northeastern part of Utah to head back to Wyoming we came to the small town of Coalville where we found a doctor to remove the stitches from my leg. We camped at Rawlins, Wyo., that night.
Brief stops were made at Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyo., the next day. We entered the Rocky Mountain National Park by way of Estes Park that afternoon. It rained on us as we stopped at the pass and toured the visitor center there. This night was spent in the Mizpah Camp Grounds in the Arapahoe Forrest west of Denver.
Our first stop on July 30 was at the Denver Mint, where we saw pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and half dollars being made. We toured the Denver Museum of Natural History, too, that morning and the children enjoyed seeing the skeletons of pre-historic animals. We noted the many beautiful flower gardens in Denver.
That afternoon, our first stop was at the Air Force Academy where we toured the beautiful chapel and saw a show on Mars at the Planetarium. After arriving in Colorado Springs, we visited the Garden of the Gods, we then went to see Seven Falls lighted after dark. There we saw an Indian show with many Indian dances.
The next morning, we stopped for a short tour of the Van Briggle Pottery Shop, then drove to the Royal Gorge near Canon City. We stopped at Buckskin Joe’s, a restored mining town, and saw a “street fight” there. After arriving at the Royal Gorge, we drove across and back on the suspension bridge; Phyllis and Steven walked most of the way. We then took the cable railway to the bottom of the gorge and back up and Phil and the children took the tram across the gorge. This night was spent at the Monument Valley Resort, north of Colorado Springs, where we had a nice visit with a family from near Chicago.
Friday morning, we left Colorado by way of I-70. In Kansas we were caught in a terrific rain and hailstorm just west of Colby. Friday night we spent at Salina, Kan.
On Saturday, we arrived at the Eisenhower Center at Abilene just as it opened at 9 a.m. We toured the library, museum, the old Eisenhower home and the chapel where he is buried, then went to Old Abilene Town.
We arrived back in St. Elmo Saturday at about 10:30 p.m,. and we hope to enjoy our vacation for years to come by viewing the many pictures that we took.
When we got our mail Monday, we had in it a card from the Paul Roxburys of Tucson, Ariz., a man and his wife we met at one of the campgrounds in Yellowstone. Camping is truly a friendly way to travel.
Rhodes-Side Gleanings – More on 1969 Vacation
The following info is in my diary for info on my life story.
When we looked at a camper earlier, we were planning to go on vacation with one. When I found out in May my mom had lung cancer, I told Dr. Phillips we would cancel our plans, but he said for us not to cancel.
The night of the July14, we went back to Altamont to look at a camper.
Donna Roberts was contacted to do the news when I was gone. On July 17, I got everything packed and ready to go, and that night we went after the camper and cleaned it when we got home. The camper was a pickup with a good-sized camper, a bed area was over the cab of the pickup, two more sleeping areas were made when the table was put down to a lower level, it had a small kitchen area, a tiny bath and many cabinets.
Phil went to work the next day, July 18, and we were planning to leave when he got home. While he was gone, I packed the camper. In the afternoon, I went to the summer kitchen to get frozen strawberries from the freezer to put in the small freezer in the camper refrigerator. There was a large board standing by the freezer and it fell onto my polio leg causing it to bleed. Mom was here and we called Phil. He came home from work to take me to Dr. Phillips; I had to have nine stitches.
We finally got to leave for our trip around 8 p.m. We took Mom to Effingham to work. Stopped by Zona’s at 10 p.m., then got as far as Peoria to park the camper. Because I had leg stitches, I had to stay in the camper to keep my leg elevated on the table when it was put down to a lower level.
July 20, my diary says, “Our astronauts walked on the moon today!” The moon scenery probably looked a lot like the Badlands.
The day we saw Mt. Rushmore, we got to see it from above. Phil and Steve took a helicopter ride and Phyllis and I took a helicopter ride. We sure depended on our seatbelts. We also took train rides. When we went trout fishing, we had to pay for the trout by the inch, and the kids caught several for us to eat that night. When Phil and the kids got to take a tour through the gold mine at Lead, I had to stay in the camper because I still couldn’t do much walking.
When we went on the Beartooth Highway in Wyoming and Montana, they were working on the highway; first time, we had seen a woman directing traffic. We didn’t go as far as we wanted to go into Montana; we had to waste a lot of time stopping because of the work on the highway, so we went back to Yellowstone for the night. I remember it was after 10 p.m. when the sun set.
When I packed the camper, all kinds of canned meals were put in the designated space under the table.
Most of our meals I fixed with canned and some fresh foods. We ate only five meals in restaurants the entire time we were gone.
On Sunday, we went through Idaho and arrived in Utah that afternoon. When we went to visit
Salt Lake we found it to be very low.
When we left Salt Lake on Monday, July 28, we stopped at Coalville, Utah, because this was the date I was to have my leg stitches taken out. The town had a hospital that had closed. We stopped at a doctor’s office that was closed, but the doctor arrived just before we backed out and let us into his office to take out the stitches. 
Because Phil didn’t want to take the time for us to leave Utah and take the Colorado roads through the western mountains is why we went to Wyoming to use the interstate highway.
When we went to Royal Gorge, we went across and back over the suspension bridge and took a cable car to the bottom. We were in a line to go in a cable car. Phil held my purse for me to get in the cable car, then no one else could get in the car so Phil was left holding my purse (back then men didn’t carry purses) until he could get on the next car and arrive at the bottom to give me my purse! All but me rode the tram.
We didn’t get to drive up the Pike’s Peak Mountain, because the top of the mountain was too foggy.
On Aug. 1, we started heading back home. Near Colby, Kan., we got in rain and a hail storm; pulled off the road for a short while and the hail was about pea size or larger. The next day, we arrived back home at 10:30 p.m. to conclude our 16-day trip, and the next day we had to unpack the camper to take it back.
While we were on vacation, Zona came after Mom to stay with her at Decatur for 10 more cobalt treatments. My diary on the 4th of August says her tumor has shrunk a lot. She went back to work on Aug. 4.
The afternoon of Aug. 9, Maurice Atwood came to our home to talk to us about the new St. Elmo golf course. They needed a certain number of families to belong to the club, so we did decide to become one of the members they needed to go ahead with the plans.