The Russell Detra family, including five small children, are residing at the lawrence Flynn home near Malvern, as the result of being burned out Tuesday morning.
Mrs. Detra was getting breakfast at the time, when fire brokeout on the second floor, evidenly through a defective chimney. She noticed the fire through a grating around a stove pipe, and although the neighbors were called in, the house could not be saved.
The furniture was saved downstairs, but the bedding, children's clothing and other furniture were lost upstairs. Fortunately, none of the children were injured, but they had to be rushed out into the cold in only their night clothes. As a result, the family is in need of clothing, bedding and other similar items.
The Detras resided on the Paul Galt farm two miles east of Malvern. No fire department was called as there was no waterhandy to use and the fire had too great a start. The house was insured, but the Detras carried no insurance on their property.
November 12, 1936, Contributed by Jean Portner
Two Rock Falls men are being held here (Elkhorn, Wisconsin) in connection to swindling farmers in Lee County and others in a five state area, of $10,000 to $20,000. Charles H. Dooley 31 and Charles W. Helsey, 23 are being questioned by Walworth sheriffs officers in connection with passing bad checks to farmers for produce. The Swindle is believed to have been worked on farmers near Dixon and Rock Island; Maquoketa and Muscatine IA; Ft. Atkinson WI; and in Indian and Michigan. A Walworth county farmer whom they alledgedly bilked for $410 spotted their trucks on Rt 51 near Beloit Saturday night and called authorities. The trucks were loaded with potatoes and cabbage which authorities charged had been purchased from farmers near Plainfield and Almond Wisc., with bad checks for $470 and $600. FBI agents have been called in to determine whether the two men have violated federal laws in the alledged check passing spree. The two also will face fradulent checks in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas according to sheriff's men.
Dixon Evening Telegraph 28 October 1952
Previous Repot on 27 October 1952.
Sheriff Charles Redebaugh said today he is attempting to implicate two men held in Elkhorn Wisconsin with recent fraudulent checks passed in Lee County.
The two held in custody for similar check charges are Charles Dooley and Charles Helsey both of Rock Falls.
Another Report 30 October 1952
Charles Helsey Rock Falls, being held in an Elkhorn Wisc. jail on fradulent check charges, signed a confession yesterday that he passed four bogus checks in Lee County. The checks totaled $278.06. Sheriff Charles Redebaugh and Chief Fred Tyne were in Elkhorn yesterday for the questioning.
Ellison Hook, 34, was killed instantly and Kenneth Gebhardt, 36, was injured at 6:30 P.M. last night when the car they were in failed to negotiate a curse about a mile north of Tampico and crashed into the Mile Nine Bridge. Hook was pronounced dead by a physician accompanying authorities investigating the accident and Gebhardt, driver of the car was taken to Sterling Public Hospital. Hospital attendants said the latter had suffered a fractured leg and head cuts and bruises. Surviving Hook, an employee of Northwestern Steel & Wire company, are his widow, five children and a brother Willaim Hook, Morrison. Officer W.H. Austin of Dixon, member of the state highway police investigated the accident.
Dixon Evening Telegraph 21 November 1944
Miss Barbara Jenkins 16, Rock Falls escaped death by inches in an automobile accident last evening about 8:30 on state route 78 about one mile west of Prophetstown. She suffered a broken foot and numerous body bruises and was removed to the Sterling Public Hospital. The young woman was a passenger in a car driven by George West, 17, of Polo which left the paving and crashed into the fence protecting a culvert. A timber of the fence was forced through the floor of the care missing the young woman by only a fraction of an inch. State Officer McIntyre of Dixon and Kiner of Prophetstown who were called to the accident scene reported. The car was badly damaged and hauled to a garage in Prophetstown. West, the investigating officers reported, escaped with only minor cuts and bruises.
Dixon Evening Telegraph 24 August 1945
Linda Pearl Johnson, 2, daughter of Mr. and RMs. A.J. Johnson, swallowed a bobby pin Monday and caused her parents considerable worry. Dr. S.E. Robinson located the pin by means of the X-ray and the parents took the child to a Peoria hospital that evening where the pin was again located and the attending physician said it was on its way out and would be eliminated normally. They returned home tuesday morning considerably relieved.
The Prophetstown Echo July 21, 1943
L. A. Seloover, Dixon was bound over to the Whiteside County grand jury yesterday by Justice R.W.E. Mitchell Sterling, on a charge of drunken driving, and released under $500 bond after being picked up by two state highway police officers Tuesday night at the edge of Sterling.
Hobart Johnson, Sterling, who was with Seloover at the time was fined $50 and costs on a charge of being drunk on the highways.
The two men were picked up by officers William Hamilton and George Kiner at the east edge of Sterling where they waited for them after receiving a radio call from Dixon.
James Kane, 58, farmer and life long resident of Whiteside county, was killed instantly at 2:30 o'clock Wednesday afternoon on his farm six miles northwest of Sterling when he was crushed beneath a grain binder that fell from a jack as he was repairing it.
Kane was lying under the binder when the machine slipped from the jack. He suffered severe chest injuries and was dead when removed from beneath the binder according to authorities.
Dixon Evening Telegraph 13 July 1944
More than $1000 in fines were accessed Wednesday against operator and 13 patrons of a gambling house following a poker raid by county and local authorities. The raid was staged in the basement of the Miami Hotel Building. Fred Lang pleased guilty to being a keeper of a gambling house. Whiteside County Sheriff Boyd Kimmel, Deputies Henry Hamilton and Ed Loftus, and Sterling Chief of Police Edward Ohda staged the raid. The fines were accessed by Justice of the Peace Charles Speaker.
Dixon Evening Telegraph 10 November 1955
John J. McCue, 75, was killed Sunday evening while doing chores at his farm northeast of Como by a bull. The McCue's hae a tame American eagle and Mr. McCue's daughter, Mrs. Paul Thomas, took foord for the pet to the stable to Mr. McCue. As the aged man crossed the bull pen to reach the bird's cage the bull charged him. Mr. McCue grabbed the ring in the animal's nose and hung on until his son-in-law drove the bull off with an iron bar. Mr. McCue was so badly injured from the butting and trampling of the frenzied brute that he died about ten minutes after being rescued.
The Prophetstown Echo July 21, 1943
Miss Ethel Montgomery, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Montgomery of Rock Falls, is a prisoner of the Japanese government an dis interned at Santa Thomas university in Manila, Philippine Islands. News of her whereabouts came through the navy department to her parents Feb. 23. Nothing has been heard from the Montgomery's other daughter, Mrs. Fern Asuano, who was also in Manila at the time of the Japanese invasion. Mrs. Asuano received her education in the Rock Falls schools and was employed in secretarial work for several years before leaving for the Philippines in 1937. There she was employd as private secretary and confidential bookkeeper by the Frieder Cigar Co. in Manila. She visited her parents last fall for two months and then returned to Manila, leaving her daughter Fern, in the Montgomery home. Ethel graducated from Rock Falls Township high school in 1939 and sailed for the Philippines to join her sister. She was employed as secretary at the Cafite naval base.
Sterling Gazette February 27, 1943
William Rawlins, Sterling, locomotive fireman, confessed to Northwestern railway detectives here that he reported he had prevented an attempt to wreck Northwestern trains in an effort to obtain a reward so he could get married. He said the story was false.
Contributed by Kim Torp from the Ste. Marie Tribune, Jasper Co, IL, Friday, December 12, 1913
Clarence Reiley five and one half month old (born July 1941) son of Mr. and Mrs. James Reiley of Prophetstown swallowed an open safety pin Thursday morning. He was taken immediately to St. Francis Hospital in Kewanee. The pin had gone too far down his throat to be taken care of there and he was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, where the pin was removed with special instruments. The pin was about three inches down in his throat. He is getting along as well as can be expected. His mother is staying at the home of her aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth Warren of Peoria, to be near her son.
1941 Newspaper - Contributed by Stormy Reiley -
Maintaining an unbroken record of 68 years as a voter of the straight Republician ticket, Judge H.C. (Henry Clay) Ward, 94, Whiteside Counties oldest voter, has said he will vote for Thomas E. Dewey and Governor Dwight H. Green in November.
Dixon Evening Telegraph Oct. 17, 1944
Philip Ward, one of the leading attorneys for Whiteside County who has practiced for many years with his father Henry C. Ward, and is now practicing with his nephew in Sterling, will speak at the Lee County Historical Society dinner which is to be held at the Nachusa Hotel on Tuesday Feb. 19, at 6:30 p.m.
Mr. Ward has been exremely active in the State Bar and Illinois Title Associations, having served as a member of the board of govenors of the State Bar. He is the author of "Illinois Law of Title Examinations", 1942, and is active in the affairs of the grange and the board of education of Sterling. He is also an ameteur geologist
The public is invited and reservations should be made with Mrs. Theodore J. Poe telephone, 914. Tickets for the dinner are $1.00
Dixon Evening Telegraph Feb. 15, 1946
