How many of you remember Lowell M Volkel

I   didn’t know that Mr. Volkel was not with us any longer. I had never heard of his death until yesterday. He was my all time favorite teacher. Many of us will remember his years in the Danville School system from Edison Grade to North Ridge to DHS. This belated news of his death is like “Mr. Chip’s has passed on. He was only 56 when he died.

LOWELL M. VOLKEL

Born in 1936, Lowell Volkel was a Danville, Illinois High School teacher whose interest in genealogy began at an early age. He moved to Springfield in 1970 to become an archivist at the Illinois State Archives. Few know how much influence he had with his work there. From the time he joined the Archives staff in 1970 until his death, he worked with the Illinois State Genealogical Society, the Illinois State Archives, and various record keepers, to make Illinois records available for research. He set a precedent for other states to follow and influenced their attitudes towards record access.

In addition to his many publications, Lowell was also founder and first president of the Illinois State Genealogical Society, and was inducted into their Hall of Fame in 1993. He taught genealogy classes and was a frequent genealogy speaker and lectured in the 1970s at the National Archives Institute on Genealogy in Washington, DC. He died in 1992 at the young age of 56, but his efforts for over three decades had an impact that would shape the future of records access nationally.

Bob Hope

When I was a kid a Bob Hope movie playing on TV was always a special event for me. My two favorites were “Ghost Breakers” with the beautiful Paulette Goddard and “My Favorite Brunette” with his “Road” gal pal Dorothy Lamour.

I was lucky enough to see Bob Hope in person at NYC’s Waldorf Astoria’s Grand Ballroom in November of 1976. He would have been 73 years old at the time and still at the top of his game. His live shows contained a little more risqué material that we’d ever see on TV and his movies. Outside of seeing tricky Dicky Nixon give a campaign speech here in Danville in 1960 (my dad got that on 8mm) I’d say Bob Hope was the most famous person that I had ever got to see live.

You know…in a way it’s a shame that Hope lived to be 100. By the time he died he was like a relic of the past. My wife Brenda (20 years younger than I and being from a different generation.) asked me “Was he some sort of big star at one time?” (She also has no idea who Red Skelton, Jack Benny or John Wayne were) If Hope had died in his 80’s…his send off would have been majestic….like some sort of god had passed ….the TV networks would have had pre-emptied Johnny Carson and the other late night shows for special tributes to Bob Hopes life. As it was….living 20 years too long…Bob Hope got some mention on the evening news and some space on most newspapers front pages….but little more. I was very disappointed in the coverage of Hope’s passing. There’s a little known Dick Van Dyke movie titled “The Comic” and it starts off with Van Dyke’s character doing a voice-over for his own pitiful, sparsely attended funeral procession and laminated how it would have been if he had died at the peak of his fame instead of living well past his prime. That movie’s opening scene proved to be so true with Hope’s passing.
                                                                                                   

Fecker Brewing, Danville, illinois 1903 to 1939

                                                                            

The Fecker Brewing Company Plant which was purchased in 1903, although the owner Col.

Ernest Fecker embarked in brewing business under the name Fecker Brewing Company since

1890 at another location on Dudley and Bloomington Road.

According to the 1940 Danville City

Directory the Fecker Brewing Plant was located at 329 E. North and brewed old exported beer,

and Fecker’s Pilsener Beer. As per the HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY, VOL. II, by Williams, Col. Ernest Fecker Jr.was the owner and President of Fecker Brewery in Danville. He served as President of the company until his death on November 25, 1925, in Missouri.

Herbert S. Fecker succeeded as President of the Fecker Brewery, and sold the plant to the Lauhoff Grain Company in 1940.