Excerpt from the Register-Mail:
One of Galesburg’s favorite sons, Carl August Sandburg, was born Jan, 6, 1878, in a three-room cottage on East Third Street. You name it and Carl probably did it during his lifetime. He became world famous as a poet, biographer, journalist, novelist and folklorist. He described himself as a stranger, seeker, traveler, singer and eternal hobo.
One of Sandburg’s remarkable traits was his varied accomplishments with only a scattered and often interrupted formal education. One of the little known facts about Carl was that he actually spoke Swedish before he learned English. Charlie, as he became known, began his formal education in the first-grade classroom of Miss Flora Ward at the Seventh Ward School on Galesburg’s south side.
After successfully completing the fourth grade at the Seventh Ward School, Charlie Sandburg attended the fifth grade in downtown Galesburg at the Churchill Grammar School. Charlie completed the eighth grade at Churchill at the age of 14 and ending his schooling with a decision not to attend Galesburg High School. The main reason for dropping out of school was to go into the workplace and help finance the further education of his sister Mary.
At the age of 20, Charlie successfully fibbed about his age and was sworn into Company C, 6th Infantry Regiment, Illinois volunteers….
…. Following his discharge from the army he intended to set out and further explore the country with the hoboes. Although he had grown up in Galesburg roaming the lawns and buildings of Lombard and Knox colleges, he had no intentions, in his wildest dreams, of furthering his education. His life was to change forever when it was discovered that he was afforded free tuition at Lombard College as a war veteran. He was accepted as a student at Lombard, although he had not attended high school.
Aspen Times columnist Jon Maletz counts his blessings on Thanksgiving
Excerpt from the Aspen Times Weekly:
Yes, there is a veritable cornucopia of reasons to be thankful this year. I’m sure our lists aren’t all that different….
I’m thankful the college football season is nearing the finish line. If Syracuse and Notre Dame lose any more games, I might have to go into hiding. I need a new rooting interest - I’m considering bowling or amateur mutton busting.
I’m thankful for rivalries. Nothing epitomizes holiday spirit quite like dusting off the “Kick ‘em in the Crouch” T-shirt and boning up on a few time-honored jokes (the N on the Nebraska helmet stands for knowledge, in case you were curious) for the annual CU-Nebraska tussle. Nothing says Thanksgiving quite like Knox College and Monmouth’s battle for the Bronze Turkey Trophy. My favorite has to be Augsburg College versus Hamline University. Why? The winner of the annual fracas takes home a trophy named The Hammer.
Excerpt from the Register-Mail:
Owen Muelder’s office, in the old Knox County jail at Knox College, is something of a museum.
A table is spread with construction paper thank-you cards from ROWVA East’s fifth grade, offering crayon drawings of black stick figures darting behind trees and lamps lit in certain houses, but not others.
Four trowels, spotless but for autographs written in permanent marker, are displayed nearby: they were used to dig up soil from the yard in front of the house where Susan Neal van Allen Richardson lived in Galesburg after her escape and emancipation.
Two maps of different sizes of the Underground Railroad — one of western Illinois Underground Railroad sites and one of locations in and around Galesburg — hang both in Muelder’s Knox office and at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. He made them himself.
Former editor of the Daily Camera shares how Galesburg handles train after train through town.
Excerpt from the Boulder Daily Camera:
This fall I spent almost three months as a visiting professor of journalism at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. While away from home, I saw occasional stories and letters on DailyCamera.com about progress on the plan to run passenger trains to and through Boulder.
Galesburg is a railroad town, so I had a lot of exposure to trains on my visit. As much as I love trains — and I’ve made sort of a hobby of traveling on them — trains make noise and they block traffic. And I wonder if Boulder is ready for that inconvenience.
Galesburg has 35 grade crossings within the city and its City Council has approved spending $76,000 to start what they call a “very long process” of three to five years, trying to hush the train whistles, establishing “quiet zones” in the city. The city and the business community are also trying to obtain state funds to build overpasses for at least three grade crossings where traffic on state highways passing through town is routinely blocked. BNSF Railroad is also the city’s largest employer, which further complicates the issue.
The old Santa Fe tracks and Burlington Northern tracks meet and cross in Galesburg and form five to eight subdivision tracks, depending how you count.
There are so many trains that trainwatching hobbyists vacation or even retire here. One of my students found a local resident who bought a second house by the tracks just so he could go there to watch trains during the day (it helps that houses are much cheaper there than in Boulder).
Excerpt from a guest opinion written by Sue Deans, Knox Trustee and Visiting Professor of Journalism:
The job that brought me back this fall was teaching journalism at Knox. I graduated in 1970 with a degree in English and stayed in Galesburg another three years after that. I worked at Carl Sandburg College as public information officer during its campaign to fund a permanent campus, and I was head resident at Knox’s Williston Hall, where I lived with my infant son. Born at the old St. Mary’s Hospital, he is now 36, a Knox grad himself and a CPA who is an accounting software consultant.
While I’ve returned a number of times for homecoming and other events at Knox, this year’s stay was lengthy, from early September until mid-November. I lived in a small furnished apartment close to the campus, just a half-block from one on Cherry Street where I lived as a student. I walked everywhere and took advantage of the new fitness center at the college.
It was a challenge to take my 30 years of newspaper experience and translate them into the classroom. It’s heartening that Knox has a journalism program now.
Its heritage of journalism is strong, dating back to Knox’s first woman graduate, Ellen Browning Scripps, a key figure with her brother in founding the E.W. Scripps Co., coincidentally my employer for eight years before I retired in May.
Read the full story in the Register-Mail.
Michael Jordan helps students who strive for a better future at Hales Franciscan High School in Chicago. A recent story in the Chicago Sun Times mentions Jordan’s visit with Hales’ students — including a future Knox College student.
Excerpt:
Hearing about teenagers such as LeeAnder Alexander blossoming from a shy, quiet freshman to a confident, aspiring computer scientist gives Jordan “great pleasure that I’ve committed myself and my time and my money” to Hales, where nearly 100 percent of graduates go on to college.
Little did Jordan know, Alexander, 17, reverted to his nervous alter ego when he found himself passing the butter to the 6-foot-6-inch guard he used to watch on TV when Alexander was barely out of his diapers.
“I wanted to [ask Jordan for his autograph]. But I kept it professional,” said Alexander, who plans to attend Knox College next year.
“I always saw him as superhuman,” said senior Clayton Wilson, 17. “Sitting next to him, I realized that he’s human too.”
