Biographies

GEORGE OLDS

Submitted and used with permission by Jeffery Corbett

HAD LIVED HERE OVER 61 YEARS
Is Survived by Widow and Six Children—Funeral Held on Wednesday from the Hess School House Was Very Largely Attended

George Olds, one of the old settlers of Momence township, died at his home three miles east of this city, on Monday evening, December 4, at the age of 83 years and 20 days. For the past few years he had been gradually failing, and yet his death came as a surprise to his many friends.

George Olds was born at Bombay, New York, at what is known as the Colesprings settlement, on November 14, 1828. In 1832 he came to the far west with his parents who stopped at Michigan City, Ind. They remained there until the next year, going to Northern Illinois and locating on what was known as the Mongoconon prairie near Elgin. Later the family moved to Stillwell prairie where they built the second house in that section where they lived five years. The subject of this sketch later took up a claim, the land being where the city of Elgin now stands.

In 1850 Mr. Olds came to Momence and filed a claim on a tract of land up the river, on which is located the Olds’ Landing, known to all. Here he resided many years, bringing his land under cultivation through hard and incessant labor. On march 14, 1860, he was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Jane Olds, and together they lived on the old farm for almost forty years, then moving to the present home. Mr. and Mrs. Olds were the parents of seven children, as follows. Abe Old[s] of Valparaiso, Ind., Mrs. W. Lease and Mrs. Herman Swanson of this city, Mrs. James Read of Deedsville, Ind., Mrs. May Thayer of Chicago, Mrs. Bertha McCain of Stockland, Ill., and Em who died a few years ago. The wife and mother also survives, together with numerous near relatives.

Mr. Olds during his long years of residence in this township, was well known and liked by everyone. The many neighborly acts of his younger life were not forgotten in mature years, and for these he will long be remembered.

Funeral services were held at the Hess school house at 1:30 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, conducted by Rev. Connor of the M. E. church of this city; burial in the Shrontz cemetery. The music was furnished by a quartette composed of Mrs. Levi Sharkey, Mrs. Ruth Cone, C. L. Tabler, and C. A. Violet. There were many beautiful floral offerings from relatives and friends.

Note:
**The only correction made, in the above text, was the addition, in brackets, of the “s” at the end of Abe Olds name.

WALTER HOBERT WATTERSON, M. D., F. A.

Submitted and used with permission by Kim Torp
Source: ( ILLINOIS, The Heart of the Nation by Hon. Edward F. Dunne, Volume IV, 1933)

C. P., has had long and varied experience in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, and in this special field of practice has held executive positions of important order. He is now chief of the tuberculosis section at the great Hines Hospital for United States war veterans, a government institution that is maintained in the Chicago suburban district now known as Hines.

Doctor Watterson was born at Fairbury, Livingston County, Illinois, February 12, 1875, and is a son of William and Catherine (Crebbin) Watterson, both of whom were born on the Isle of Man, off the English coast. William Watterson represented Illinois as a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, and as a member of the One Hundred Twelfth Illinois Volunteer Infantry participated in many engagements, including the battle of Resaca, Georgia, where he was severely wounded-in the receiving of a skull fracture. He was a resident of Kankakee, Illinois, at the time of his death, in 1921.

The Illinois public schools afforded Dr. Walter Hobart Watterson his early education, and in 1901 he was graduated in the medical department of Northwestern University. After receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he was engaged in general practice in North Chicago three years, but during the greater part of his professional career he has specialized in tuberculosis. His impaired health led him to seek recuperation in Colorado, and in that state he served during the period of 1905-08 as assistant director of the Y. M. C. A. health farm near Denver. In 1908 he re turned to Illinois and became medical director of the Lake Breeze Sanatorium at Waukegan, a position in which he continued his service until 1913. In the early part of the following year he initiated his service as head physician of the Cook County Tuberculosis Hospital, at Oak Forest, and from that post he retired to become medical superintendent of the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanatorium of Chicago. He assumed this latter position in 1917 and his service therein continued until the following year, when he resigned and enlisted for professional World war service in the United States Army. He was immediately assigned to the army school in Tuberculosis at United States General Hospital No. 16, in Connecticut. A month later he was made active chief of the service in that hospital. October 16, 1918, he was promoted from the rank of captain to that of major in the Medical Corps of the United States Army and was assigned to the office of chief of service at United States General Hospital No. 18, Waynesville, North Carolina. In February, 1919, he was made chief of the service of combined hospitals that were formed at United States General Hospital No. 42, at Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina.

Doctor Watterson was honorably discharged July 8, 1919, and was given assignment as expert in tuberculosis for the Federal Board for Vocational Education, Washington, D.C. He was later transferred to the United States Public Health Service, in which he was as signed to duty in Chicago November 1, 1919. With the erection and equipment of the Ed ward Hines Hospital for disabled war veterans, he was transferred to that Government institution near Chicago, where in February, 1921, he became instructor in tuberculosis, and in 1923 was advanced to his present office of chief of the tuberculosis section. Doctor Watterson puts his heart, his exceptional technical ability and experience and his professional and patriotic loyalty into the service at the Hines Hospital, and he has done a splendid work in aiding the many veterans there under treatment for tuberculous disorders. He is a past president of the Chicago Tuberculosis Society, is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and has membership in the American Medical Association. He maintains his home in the Chicago suburb of La Grange, and there is affiliated with LaGrange Post, No. 41, American Legion.

Doctor Watterson married Miss Willa R. Meredith, of Chicago, and they have two children: Lucile Frances was graduated in the University of Wisconsin and is now a teacher of the French language in the public schools of Naperville, Illinois, and Robert Irving is, in 1932, a student in the University of Arizona.

REV. CHARLES CHINIQUY

Submitted and used with permission by Kim Torp
Source: ("Historical Encylopedia of Illinois" 1901)

Clergyman and reformer, was born in Canada, July 30, 1809, of mixed French and Spanish blood, and educated for the Romish priesthood at the Seminary of St. Nicholet, where he remained ten years, gaining a reputation among his fellow students for extraordinary zeal and piety. Having been ordained to the priesthood in 1833, he labored in various churches in Canada until 1851, when he accepted an invitation to Illinois with a view to building up the church in the Mississippi Valley. Locating at the junction of the Kankakee and Iroquois Rivers, in Kankakee County, he was the means of bringing to that vicinity a colony of some 5,000 French Canadians, followed by colonists from France, Belgium and other European countries. It has been estimated that over 50,000 of this class of emigrants were settled in Illinois within a few years. The colony embraced a territory of some 40 square miles, with the village of St. Ann's as the center. Here Father Chiniquy began his labors by erecting churches and schools for the colonists. He soon became dissatisfied with what he believed to be the exercise of arbitrary authority by the ruling Bishop, then began to have doubts on the question of papal infallibility, the final result being a determination to separate himself from the Mother Church. In this step he appears to have been followed by a large proportion of the colonists who had accompanied him from Canada, but the result was a feeling of intense bitterness between the opposing factions, leading to much litigation and many criminal prosecutions, of which Father Chiniquy was the subject, though never convicted. In one of these suits, in which the Father was accused of an infamous crime, Abraham Lincoln was counsel for the defense, the charge being proven to be the outgrowth of a conspiracy. Having finally determined to espouse the cause of Protestantism, Father Chiniquy allied himself with the Canadian Presbytery, and for many years of his active clerical life, divided his time between Canada and the United States, having supervision of churches in Montreal and Ottawa, as well as in this country. He also more than once visited Europe by special invitation to address important religious bodies in that country. He died at Montreal, Canada, Jan. 16, 1899, in the 90th year of his age.

Return to the Main Index Page for Kankakee County