Our Trip to Illinois

Jim and Kirsten and I left on Friday, May 23 and drove to Illinois to attend a memorial service in honor of our Sister-in-Law Lynda's mother who passed away in December. On the way there we took a quick drive around the University of Illinois campus. Jim and I first met at the U of I in the cafeteria of the Illinois Street Residence Halls. We didn't get a picture of that building, but we did manage to snap pictures of our first dorms.

For the first three or four years that he was at the U of I, Jim lived on the second floor of Hopkins hall, shown above.For the first year or two that I was there, I lived on the third floor on this side of Van Doren Hall, which faced the football stadium. I remember several times when the night before a big game people came around to tell us to either have the light in our room on until midnight, or off all evening. The objective was to spell "GO ILLINI" in lights. I remember that it worked pretty well.

After taking a quick tour of the campus, we drove to Normal Illinois and checked into our hotel before driving to Eureka to visit Bob and Judy Hickok. We've known Bob since before Kirsten was born. His first wife, Lea, passed away a few years ago. He has since married Judy who was a long-time friend of the family. It was so fun meeting Judy and renewing our friendship with Bob. They showed us around Eureka, including a tour of Eureka College, alma mater of Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture.

The memorial service the following morning was held in the cemetery in Fairbury, Illinois. Jim and his brother Frank grew up in Fairbury, and so did Frank's wife, Lynda. Jim and Lynda were in the same class in high school. Frank was a year older. (Frank passed away in 1999 at age 58.)

Lynda's brother, Doug, gave the eulogy. Then we stood around and visited for awhile before going to the Fairbury Country Club for lunch. Lynda is in the above picture on the right. Her sister Peggy is in the middle, and brother Doug on the left. These two handsome fellows are Mike and Mark Ahlstrom, sons of Frank and Lynda. Below are Mike, Lynda and Mark. We then looked at some of the sights in Fairbury. Below is a picture of Aunt Mildred's house in town. She and Jim's mom were sisters. I used to love visiting in that house. Our last stop was the Old Homestead. It had changed quite a bit. The people who live there now have built a deck in the back of the house.And the front porch is gone. It apparently has been enclosed. The garage to the left in the picture below was added by Grandma Ahlstrom during the time she lived there alone after Jim's dad passed away.

And here's the barn. It appeared to be in great shape. The corn crib that Betsey once got stuck in is long gone.

And so we bid farewell to Fairbury. Who knows when we will pass this way again. It was a nice trip, but we were glad to get home later that night.