Founder and first president Mrs.
Waneta Febus Milner Stephens, 91,
was on hand to explain how the
museum got started back in 1994
when, at first, serious attempts
were made to convert the abandoned
and neglected Illinois Central Depot
structure into a museum. When
Illinois Central finally agreed to
give the structure over to Mount
Pulaski's newly-formed historical
society, the city fathers deemed
that it was too costly to retrofit
the depot to what it was. Meanwhile,
the historical society began its
collection and displays in the old
1902 Buckles building on the west
side of the square, but it soon
proved too small with the outpouring
of area artifacts. "Undeterred,"
Stephens and her small group were
eventually able to convince the
Harris Brothers law firm to hand
over their two buildings on Cooke
Street, across from the circa 1848
courthouse, when it was pointed out
that both buildings were literally
caving in at the back from years of
neglect.
True to being a town museum
founder, Mrs. Stephens has compiled
and written two family history
books, "Bryson Family History" and "Febus
Family History," after traveling to
her family's origins in Australia,
New Zealand, Canada and the British
Isles. In addition, she has toured
all 50 states and all Canadian
provinces except for one. She and
her husband recently retired from
their shared duties as co-authors of
the MPTHS Quarterly, with which they
had been at the helm off and on for
over 20 years.
The visitors were split up into
two groups for their tour of all the
museum spaces: the Jabez Capps,
George Turley and Dr. Robinson
section; Gen. Casimir Pulaski
section; 1910 Illinois
Central-Wilbur Wright $10,000 race
section; Abraham Lincoln room; area
military veterans and KIA section;
old national bank vault and teller
section; and genealogical and
history section. Upstairs, they were
shown the rooms that have been
converted, decorated and furnished
as they would have looked in a
typical 1890s-1940s farmhouse. All
furnishings have been donated by
local families.
The music room features the story
of Vaughn De Leath, formerly Leonore
Vonderlieth of Mount Pulaski, who
rose to fame as a crooner on
inventor and radio pioneer Lee
DeForest's New York City radio
station in New York City's World
Tower back in the 1920s and 1930s.
In this room, a glass case displays
many of her LP recordings and some
of her Broadway music scripts. Her
recording "Are You Lonesome Tonight"
(1927) was redone many years later
as a hit recording by Elvis Presley
(1960). She became nationally famous
as the "First Lady of Radio,"
crooning out another one of her
famous songs, "Swanee River."
As Wikipedia reports: "She
recorded for a number of labels,
including Edison, Columbia, Okeh,
Gennett, Victor and Brunswick. She
occasionally recorded for major
label subsidiaries under various
pseudonyms. These included Gloria
Geer, Mamie Lee, Sadie Green, Betty
Brown, Nancy Foster, Marion Ross,
Glory Clark, Angelina Marco and
Gertrude Dwyer. De Leath had a
highly versatile range of styles,
and as material required could adapt
as a serious balladeer, playful
girl, vampish coquette, or
vaudeville comedienne."
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De Leath has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood,
Calif. Her ashes were interred, at
her request, in the Mount Pulaski
Cemetery in 1942.
This music room also displays
photos and information on current
nationally recognized composer and
singer John Schlitt, a Mount Pulaski
High School graduate known for his
career as the lead singer of
Christian rock band Petra from 1986
to its retirement in late 2005.
In addition, photos and
information are on display on many
Mount Pulaski High School and area
adult bands from the late 1890s to
the present.
Old ink-well student desks, many
old school books and a Cornland
Grade School nutrition-break milk
cart are on display. An original
slate chalkboard features the Palmer
cursive writing of longtime teacher
Mrs. Margaret Tierney Lanterman, who
used to climb the steps to this
schoolroom at age 94 to help
retrofit it to what it looked like
during her years as a Mount.Pulaski
Grade School teacher for third and
fourth grades.
Trophies, photos and information
in the sports room show the
successes of Mount Pulaski
basketball, baseball and volleyball
over the years.
A wooden weather vane off an
original structure of the Mount
Pulaski Windmill Co. adorns the west
wall downstairs, next to an original
and restored 1980s surrey sold in
Mount Pulaski to a local family and
restored in 1996 in a nearby Amish
community.
The "Vinegar Hill" section
displays photos and information on
the local bootlegging, with 13
saloons around the square during the
Prohibition years of the 1920s and
early 1930s, when trains full of
thirsty buyers would get off at the
depot in Mount Pulaski on the
conductor's announcement: "All out
for Vinegar Hill," a coded reference
to the ongoing shipments of liquor
and beer in vinegar-labeled barrels.
The visitors were informed that
robust local high school boys
gleefully made earnings by lifting
these heavy-laden barrels onto the
train cars.
Literally hundreds of former
business, school, church, family and
local history memorabilia and
treasures fill the shelves of the
museum, each cataloged and recorded
as to the bequest's name and date.
[By PHIL BERTONI]
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