Columns

15 Years Ago

1995 – The auditor for the city of Vandalia, Dale Timmermann, told the Vandalia City Council that it should consider hiking water rates, citing water and sewer deficits.
The signing of a new operating agreement between Fayette County Hospital and CH Allied Services was scheduled for Sept. 7, and a groundbreaking ceremony for a hospital addition was set for Sept. 8.
Charles and Yvette Hall of Mulberry Grove were planning to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.

Early this fall I attended a garage sale at Rob and Doris Wehrle’s on U.S. Route 51. While Rob took my husband to the back shed to show him some records he had for sale, I looked everything over pretty well, and settled on a box of back-issue Country Living and Colonial Home magazines.

Happy with my purchase, we trotted off home and I spent the next several days leafing through the mostly 1999 and 2002 issues.

A few weeks ago, my husband, Dale, and I were shopping in a neighboring town when we ran into Vandalians Jeanne and Ivan Witbracht.

As we paused to talk, Jeanne told me of a document written by her Civil War great-grandfather, Sgt. J.K. Francis, that she thought I might find interesting. She told me it was a description of all the battles he had taken part in, and it included a list of the officers in his infantry regiment.

She cautioned me that her great-grandfather was not a native of Fayette County, although there might be county men listed in the papers.

On the morning of Aug. 27, 1951, folks in Vandalia were shaken up when sounds of a small airplane in distress filled the morning sky.

Witnesses told The Vandalia Leader that the airplane was observed making three or more spirals through the clouds, and next they observed its rapid angular descent with throttle wide open, virtually skimming treetops.

The four-passenger Bonanza Beechcraft airplane made a nose-dive into Carl Boggs’ car, which was parked along Sixth Street near the Old Capitol Monument Works, where he was employed at the time.