This O’Fallon lad has a penchant for mischief, but his heart belongs to his mother
As a postscript to Mother’s Day in 1923, the O’Fallon Progress ran this amusing yet touching tale in its editorial column on May 17 of that year.
“The Heart of a Boy. You all know him. His eyes sparkle with mischief, and he can’t sit still or stand still for more than forty seconds at a stretch.
“He’s an animated bundle of nerves, mischief and foolishness.
“Perhaps your gate was missing last Hallowe’en. If it was you suspected him of being the offender—and he probably was. When you see a dog rushing down the street with a can attached to his tail, we conclude that this chap was around when the dog started.
“When one of his school mates finds pepper in his handkerchief, he knows how it got there, but says nothing, for our subject is rather dexterous with his fists.
“But all this is not the story we started to tell. This lad’s mother is a widow, and her way is hard.
“Last Sunday morning, the mother heard him up and fooling around in the kitchen. She could not understand this because he is a heavy sleeper.
“When she arose and went down to enter the kitchen she found the door locked. Her demands for admittance and explanation went unheeded for several minutes. Then the door opened wide and the little rascal smilingly escorted her to a seat at the table.
“To her amazement he served her with coffee, crisp, brown toast, and grape fruit. At nine o’clock he kissed her, and went to Sunday school, and—wonders of wonders—when she arrived at the church, there he sat with a rose in his lapel.
“It was Mother’s Day.”
75 years ago, May 20, 1948
John Howlson, of Belleville, a lineman for the Illinois Power Company, had a harrowing experience when he accidentally came in contact with 11,000 volts of electricity and lived to tell the story.
The accident is said to have occurred while Howlson and a crew were working on the power company’s line north of this city. Howlson was atop a pole along the road in front of the Trippel-Barrow peony fruit farm (near present-day Scott Troy Road and Old Enterprise Farms) when he came in contact with the highly charged wire.
He was lowered from the pole by a fellow worker and brought to the office of a physician in this city to be treated for first and second-degree burns on his left shoulder and arm and third-degree burns on his left foot and then taken to his home in Belleville. He is said to be recovering nicely.
50 years ago, May 17, 1973
Representatives from O’Fallon Grade School District 90 and Shiloh District 85 have agreed to seek additional information on a possible consolidation of the two school districts.
The topic was discussed at a meeting last Tuesday night at Shiloh attended by four members of the O’Fallon board and six of the Shiloh board. Also attending the meeting were Harold Landwehrmeier, superintendent of the O’Fallon district; Karl Hollerbach, Shiloh superintendent; and Curt Schaller of Central Grade School District 104 Board of Education.
Schaller said that he will try to get an opinion from the other board members at 104 on merging with the other districts. Recently, members of the 104 board have stated that they are against merging with the 90 and 85 districts.
Merging of the three districts has been discussed for a number of years by the respective boards. Landwehrmier said at the meeting the state legislature within the next four years may force consolidation of the two districts (90 and 85).
The Shiloh district has 220 students, including 45 in the seventh and eighth grades, while O’Fallon has a total enrollment of 1,825, including 450 in the seventh and eighth grades. Under the present proposals, pupils in grades one through six would remain in their present schools while seventh and eighth graders would attend junior high school classes at O’Fallon.
Landwehrmier and Hollerbach agreed a better education program could be offered if the districts were combined. They cited the addition of courses in vocational training and home economics at the junior high level.
Also cited were combined buying power, reduction of paperwork, and possible reduction in administrative personnel. (The consolidation never happened.)
