The next meeting of the Tazewell County Genealogical and Historical Society will be Tuesday, June 11th at 7pm when John Ackerman, Tazewell County Clerk and Recorder, will be our guest speaker.  The public is invited.

The TCGHS Annual “Carolyn’s Closet” Rummage Sale will be June 7th and 8th this year.  Donations may be dropped off at 719 N. 11th Street during regular hours. (No clothing, TV’s or Electronics) Phone 309-477-3044 or email [email protected]  with any questions.

We are excited to be celebrating Pekin’s Bicentennial this year and we are participating on the bicentennial planning committee.  The next event is the Pekin Bicentennial Downtown Street Faire on June 15th.  See you there!

All history is local until it is woven together with other stories to become part of the National fabric and there is no aspect of National history that doesn’t touch Tazewell County, including war.

Tazewell County was home to about nine or ten Revolutionary War Veterans at the end of their lives and, of course, our residents have served in every war since then.

The war that took the biggest toll was the War of the Great Rebellion.  Over 500 men from Tazewell county died in the Civil War and many more were wounded.  About 300 Tazewell residents died in World War II.

One of the Pekin men that made it home from WWII was Dr. Wayne R. Walker who served with the U. S. Navy.  He entered in September 1942 as a lieutenant commander.  He was later with the 98th Construction Battalion.  Dr. Walker served in the 14th Naval District at Pearl Harbor and saw service on Tarawa in the Pacific Theater for which he received a citation for outstanding service in performance of duty.

He also served on the island of Betio as part of a MASH unit in a field hospital caring for the wounded.  When fellow Pekinite Walt Maurer came in on a stretcher, Walker was shocked to see him.  The Doctor’s mind flashed back to one of his first deliveries—Walt Mauer as a newborn infant—and thought, “And now, I’m here at precisely the moment that God took him back.”

Lt. Walter Mauer (1921–1943) was a member of the Wiley Post Aero Club at Pekin High School.  He was among the 18,600 men of General Smith’s 2nd Marine Division on Betio in the Tarawa chain of atolls in the Pacific.  The Marines there suffered almost 45% casualties.

Walter had gone through the battles on Guadalcanal unscathed but Tarawa was his undoing.  He was killed in action while leading an assault on November 27, 1943.  Maurer was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart on February 1, 1944.

As America’s war dead were remembered last weekend, the few Tazewell county survivors of WWII, aged 95 to 106, were honored on Memorial Day in Morton.

The stories of five of those survivors honored on May 27 were recorded in “Tazewell County Veterans of World War II Remembrances” that was published in 2007 by Tazewell County Genealogical and Historical Society.

That book was also the source for the story of Dr. Walker and Lt. Mauer.  Our volunteers spent countless hours interviewing the old soldiers still living at that time and the families of those that were not.  TCGHS still retains the tapes and transcripts of those efforts.

TCGHS has a large collection of items that have been indexed and many of those indexes can be viewed on the TCGHS website.  Two new indexes have just been added.  The first is Clark’s Business Journal.  Jonathan G Clark ran a store in Pekin in the 1830’s.  Clark (1803–1864) was born in Connecticut, married in Perry county, Illinois in 1830, lived in Tazewell county circa 1831–1836, then returned to Perry county where he died.  

Clarks Business Journal, Pekin
The second is Mundy’s Blacksmith & Harness Shop of Green Valley.  William Mundy (1819–1896) was born in New Jersey, married in Tazewell county in 1857 and opened a blacksmith shop in Green Valley in the 1850’s.  Wm and Eunice Coryell Mundy are buried in the Green Valley cemetery.

Mundy’s Blacksmith & Harness Shop Ledger, Green Valley
We have many photos that are unidentified so we feature them on our website in hopes of finding someone that can recognize the subjects.  One of those photos is included with this article.  Please let us know if you recognize even one person in the United Way image.  The poster is thought to be from about 1970.

Image from our Ellen Paullin collection
The Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society is an award-winning 501c3, all volunteer organization that has been in continuous service to our members and the public for over 45 years.  TCGHS operates an archive, library, and research facility at 719 N. 11th St., Pekin.  Visit our website at www.tcghs.org to learn more about us.

If you have any point of interest that you would like to know more about, stop in at TCGHS or drop us a line at [email protected].