Author: The Randolph Society

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Eileen Gordon, who was dedicated to telling the stories of Chester residents and championing causes that improved their lives, will be inducted as the third and final honoree of our 2026 class.

Eileen Pariset Gordon was born in October 1925 in Red Bud. She was raised by her mother, Grace Hasemeyer Pariset, and her grandparents on Ann Street in Chester, attending St. John’s Lutheran School and Chester High School. There, she experienced her first taste of life as a journalist when she signed up to work as a typist on the school yearbook, the Summit.

Eileen graduated in the spring of 1944, just weeks before D-Day. After graduation, she pitched in to do her patriotic duty, volunteering with the county’s Selective Service Board and War Price and Rationing Board. The skills she honed while volunteering prepared her well for several early secretarial jobs, including work at the law office of John S. Gilster, Chester’s city attorney.

In the autumn of 1949, Eileen married Jack Gordon, and a year later they welcomed their son, John. They raised him in Chester, and Eileen became an involved and active parent, serving on the PTL at St. John’s Lutheran School and becoming a Cub Scout leader.

When John went to school, Eileen joined the staff of the Randolph County Herald-Tribune. The job turned into a career, and it would end up being one of the defining roles of her life. She worked as a reporter and correspondent, and eventually she became the paper’s editor. The Southern Illinoisan noted that Eileen “believed strongly in the importance of the small town newspaper, and through the years, she became the ‘face’ of the newspaper as she reported the local and regional news for the people of Randolph County.”

Reporting on local news made Eileen keenly aware of needs that existed within the community, and she became involved with numerous charitable causes. She was a devoted member of St. John’s Lutheran Church and was the first woman to serve on its church council. Her volunteer work with the American Red Cross in the 1960s and 1970s spanned the Vietnam War. As the wife of a veteran, she was also an active member of Chester’s American Legion and VFW Auxiliaries. For three decades, she served on the board of directors for Chester’s Memorial Hospital, including 14 years as board chair.

Eileen’s pride in her hometown was expressed through her work with organizations like the Chester Beautification Commission. She was a partner in numerous efforts to restore important historical properties, most notably the Cohen House. With Bertha Mae Blechle and Edna Cress, Eileen helped to shepherd the restoration project that turned the 1850s home into one of the jewels of Chester’s riverfront. The Cohen Memorial Home played a central role in another of Eileen’s gifts to local residents: the Christmas on the River celebration, which she helped to organize for the community each December.

Time and again, the people of Chester recognized Eileen for her community work. She was named Chester’s Citizen of the Year in 1980, and she received similar honors from organizations like the VFW, the Chester Women’s Club, and the Chester Jaycees. In 1999, she received one of the highest honors that any citizen of Chester can get when she was selected as a Popeye Parade Marshall.

Eileen passed away in July 2013 at the age of 87. She was remembered as a talented writer and journalist and an outstanding citizen of her community and the wider region. Her lifelong commitments to the people and the history of Chester and Randolph County have endured even after her death, and her heart for others is an example and a challenge to us all.

Click here to read a detailed biography of Eileen Gordon.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Glenn Horrell, a dedicated businessman who used his organizational skills to lift up the educational and medical needs of his community, will be inducted into the 2026 class of honorees.

Glenn A. Horrell was born in October 1916 in Modoc. The second son of Henry and Josephine Horrell, he descended from families with deep roots in the communities of Prairie du Rocher, Ruma, and Brewerville. Glenn was raised with his brothers and sister on a family farm, surrounded by grandparents, aunts, and cousins.

After finishing the eighth grade, Glenn headed out to work, first on local farms and then in the industrial center of East St. Louis. He was employed there by the Continental Can Company, and he also found time to take a night course in salesmanship at a St. Louis YMCA. His innate business acumen came in handy when war broke out. Glenn enlisted in the army in May 1941. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was promoted to Technical Sergeant and assigned as a supply officer to the 752^nd Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion.

Glenn spent the next several years in the Pacific, coordinating supplies, rations, and equipment for as many as 2800 men. Even though he was nominally present in a supporting role, Glenn and his fellow soldiers were assigned rifleman duties during the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. For his service, which included ground combat, he was decorated with numerous medals before his honorable discharge in November 1945.

Back in the States, Glenn returned to Randolph County, where he became the owner and operator of the Royal Tavern in Red Bud. There, he met and married Lucille Husemann Dinges, the daughter of a local beer distributor, who had been widowed during the war. Their family grew to include Lucille’s son, Rodney, and two more children, Kevin and Andrea. Eventually, Lucille’s father, Fred Husemann, asked Glenn to take over the family distributorship. He ran Horrell Distributors, selling Anheuser-Busch products, for the next forty-two years.

Glenn also embarked on several other entrepreneurial endeavors in Red Bud, running an appliance store that sold televisions, refrigerators, and freezers, and opening a pair of car dealerships. He also found time to make a difference in his community. He served as a Red Bud alderman and was president of the board of directors of the First State Bank of Red Bud. He was active in local veterans’ organizations and as a member of St. John’s Catholic Church.

But most of all, Glenn had a knack for connecting projects with people who could move them forward. Two of these efforts, the building of a new hospital and the construction of a local college campus, continue to benefit the people of the region today. Glenn was a key figure in raising funds to build a new facility for St. Clement Hospital (now Red Bud Regional Hospital) in the late 1960s, as well as a nursing home connected to the hospital a few years later.

Glenn was also deeply involved in education, serving on the board of education at Gibault High School in Waterloo. When Belleville Area College (now Southwestern Illinois College) decided to establish a campus in Red Bud in 1984, Glenn used his influence to support and help the local investment group to achieve its goals.

Though he disliked taking credit for his role in these projects, Glenn was recognized by his community with honors like the Red Bud Chamber of Commerce’s first Red Bud Achievement Award and a Special Recognition Award from the trustees of Belleville Area College.

Glenn passed away in May 1988 in Red Bud at the hospital he had helped maintain and grow. He left behind a legacy of community involvement that laid the groundwork for generations of people in the area to thrive, reminding us all that investment in our communities can improve our lives, and the lives of those who come after us.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of Glenn Horrell.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Don Welge, who took the helm of his family’s business as a young man and transformed it into a local cornerstone, will be inducted into the 2026 class of honorees.

Donald E. Welge was born in St. Louis on July 11, 1935. The eldest of three sons of William and Rudelle Welge, he was the descendent of entrepreneurs who had moved from Germany to Chester in the nineteenth century. His great-grandfather, Henry Gilster, arrived in Randolph County and set up a successful mercantile business on State Street.

Henry Gilster and his children expanded the family business, becoming owners and operators of the Buena Vista Mill in Chester and the Steeleville Milling Company. During Albert Gilster’s tenure as the owner of Steeleville’s mill, the company thrived, extending the market for its flour throughout southern Illinois and into several southern states. The elder of the Gilster sisters married Chester’s photographer, William Welge, and their elder son, Bill, followed his uncles into the family business. Eventually, Bill’s son, Don, followed the same path.

After graduating from high school, Don continued his studies in agriculture at Louisiana State University. During his time in Baton Rouge, he also worked for Gilster Milling Company as a salesman and a truck driver. He maintained strong ties with LSU long after receiving his degree in 1957, and today he is remembered with the university’s Welge Food Beyond the Farm Certificate Fund, which supports graduate studies in agribusiness.

Don returned to southern Illinois, where he married Mary Alice Childers and started a family of his own. Meanwhile, he joined the family company, helping to transition Gilster into a new mode of production. With flour sales flagging, Don supervised a pivot into the production of boxed cake mixes. These mixes, as well as products like macaroni and cheese, breakfast cereal, and popcorn, are now produced as private-label products for brands sold all over the country and around the world.

In 1965, Don was named president of the family company, which had merged with Martha White Foods several years earlier. Four years later, Don decided to embark on a new venture, leaving the company to form the Mary Lee Packaging Corporation. In 1971, the two companies reunited, becoming Gilster-Mary Lee. The family continued to shepherd the company into the future, with Don’s brother, Mike, and his sons, Rob and Tom, joining the family business.

Through numerous challenges, including fire and flood, Don continued to steer the company on a steady course. Today, Gilster-Mary Lee remains deeply embedded in the fabric of Randolph County, employing thousands of people in Chester and Steeleville, as well as across additional facilities in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Colorado.

Don took his responsibility as a leader in the community seriously, serving on numerous advisory boards and civic development committees. He supported educational initiatives at LSU and at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and he was a devoted leader of the Okaw Valley Boy Scout Council for more than 40 years. For decades, he could be found on Kaskaskia Island every Fourth of July, acting as emcee for the traditional patriotic celebrations there.

In the final years of his life, Don was also a strong advocate for the construction of a new Mississippi River bridge linking Chester and McBride. When the bridge is completed later this year, it will be officially named the Don Welge Memorial Bridge.

Don passed away in April 2020, one of the first local victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is remembered for his drive and his passion as well as his humility. “If I’ve accomplished anything,” he once reflected, it’s been getting people to work together toward a common goal.” For decades, he did just that.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of Don Welge.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Don and Margret Wiley, historical preservationists and educators, will be inducted into the 2025 class of honorees.

Margret Baue Wiley was born at her parents’ farmhouse in rural Sparta in 1927. Her family had deep roots in Randolph County, and that family history was fascinating to Margret from an early age. With her younger brothers, she attended the Goddard School, a one-room schoolhouse located about a mile away from the family farm. She developed a love for learning, as well as a passion for the traditional skills and crafts that she picked up while growing up on the farm. She and her brothers often played with children who lived on nearby farms, including the boys of the Wiley family.

One of those neighbor boys, Donald Wiley, was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1934. With his parents and brothers, including his twin, Ronald, Don moved often while his father worked as a traveling salesman. Eventually, though, the Wileys moved back to his father’s native Sparta, settling just a quarter mile from the Baue farm. Both the Baue children and the Wiley twins were active members of the local 4-H Club, and all of them attended Sparta Township High School as they grew into teenagers.

After graduation, Margret spent a term studying at SIU Carbondale before entering the working world. She worked at the Brown Shoe Company’s manufacturing facility in Evansville before taking an office job at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company in St. Louis. Meanwhile, Don also graduated from Sparta High and attended a few classes in Carbondale before starting work as a carpenter.

Eventually, Don and Margret’s friendship developed into romance. They were married at Trinity United Presbyterian Church in Sparta, where both families worshiped, on January 22, 1955. Soon after, Don was drafted into the army, and the young couple moved first to Texas and then to Washington, D.C. There, Don had an office job at the Pentagon, and as both he and Margret were history lovers, they relished the chance to take in the monuments and museums during their time in the nation’s capital.

In 1958, the couple settled down in a home south of Sparta, where they raised their children, Kerry and Lee Ann. Don started his own carpentry business, taking on handyman work and building and repairing furniture. Margret joined the local Home Extension organization and served as an election judge in Sparta. Both of them also lent their talents to numerous local clubs and societies, including the Randolph County Historical Society.

Margret loved reading and researching about history, and Don loved experiencing the past through reenactments. Together, they helped to establish an antique rifle shooting club, a pursuit that would become the cornerstone of the Rendezvous held annually at Fort de Chartres. They were very involved in the annual Corn Fest fundraiser at the nearby Charter Oak School House, providing historical demonstrations like broom making and candle dipping.

In 1976, Don organized a group to retrace the path traveled by George Rogers Clark when he captured forts in both Kaskaskia and Vincennes during the Revolutionary War. He and his fellow Long Knives members trekked on foot as they followed Clark’s path on the 185-mile journey, which was timed to coordinate with the national bicentennial celebrations. Margret and Kerry provided crucial support during the journey, which took more than a week.

The Clark reenactment trip was emblematic of Don and Margret’s love for history and their desire to share it with generations to come. Both Margret and Don continued to be active members of their community until their passings in 2004 and 2011. Their efforts continue to echo through the county’s historical landscape today.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of Don and Margret Wiley.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Father Gabriel Richard, a priest, educator, and public servant, will be inducted into the 2025 class of honorees.

Gabriel Richard was born in France in October 1767. He was one of six children born into a family with ties to the nation’s powerful Catholic leaders. When he was just eleven, Gabriel enrolled as a student at a local college, where he distinguished himself as a talented scholar. As he matured, he decided to enter the Sulpician seminary in Angers. There, he developed a life-long love for education. He was ordained as a priest in October 1790 at age of 23.

After his ordination, Gabriel moved to the suburbs of Paris to teach at a seminary founded by Father DuBourg, who would later become the founder of Saint Louis University. Soon, though, political upheaval in France put Gabriel’s career and life in jeopardy. After the revolution, the new government seized church property and abolished laws that required citizens to tithe. They also compelled all priests to take an oath of fidelity to the state.

Gabriel and many of his Sulpician superiors decided not to take the oath. To escape the violence that followed, Gabriel emigrated to America. He sailed for Baltimore, where he arrived in June 1792. After a brief career teaching in a seminary there, Bishop John Carroll assigned him to serve as a missionary to the French settlements in southern Illinois, including Kaskaskia and Prairie du Rocher.

When Gabriel arrived in Kaskaskia, he found a parish in disarray. One of his biographers notes that there were “about eight hundred Catholics” in the village, “for the most part French Canadians, who had been nearly a generation without any priest to administer to their spiritual needs.” For the next five years, Gabriel provided guidance to parishioners in Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, Cahokia, Ste. Genevieve, and New Madrid. He performed baptisms, marriages, and funeral services for hundreds of local residents during his time in Illinois.

While serving as a priest in Kaskaskia, Gabriel longed to return to the classroom. He dreamed and planned for the educational future of the area, collecting funds toward the creation of a school. He even took steps himself to secure a large tract of land near Kaskaskia to serve as a site for a future building. But, despite his best efforts, the project did not materialize.

In 1798, Gabriel’s service at Kaskaskia ended. He was sent by the diocese to Detroit to serve in a parish that extended across present-day Michigan into parts of Wisconsin and Indiana. There, he was able to realize some of the educational dreams he had planned in Illinois. He opened a pair of primary schools for girls and boys, as well as a seminary for young men, an academy for young women, and a school for native children. In 1817, he was one of the founders of the Catholepistemiad of Michigania, an institution that would be known later as the University of Michigan. He served as a professor, a vice president, and a trustee of the new university.

Gabriel’s service to his community extended even further when he was elected as a nonvoting delegate representing the Michigan Territory in the United States House of Representatives, becoming the first Catholic priest to serve in Congress. He continued to serve the people of Detroit after his term ended. He passed away in 1832 after contracting cholera while ministering to patients during an outbreak of the disease.

Father Gabriel Richard was a pioneer who understood that a society benefits when each of its members has the chance to secure an education. His dream for schools on the frontier, imagined in Kaskaskia and realized in Detroit, lives on today in the hearts of educators in Randolph County and beyond.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of Gabriel Richard.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that the members of Randolph County’s Burlington Way Committee, pioneers in the field of automobile travel, will be inducted into the 2025 class of honorees.

At the turn of the 20^th century, Randolph County’s citizens relied solely on horses, wagons, and trains for transportation along the county’s dirt and rock roads. But by 1901, automobiles began appearing on the streets of local towns. The first automobile dealership in the county was opened by the Herschbach Bros. of Chester in 1908, and buyers flocked to purchase the exciting new machines. Farmers, doctors, and mail carriers in particular found early reasons to buy automobiles, and town and county officials soon saw the need to adapt both laws and infrastructure to accommodate the new mode of travel.

The lack of paved roads caused particular difficulty, with weather problems frequently making heavily-traveled roads virtually impassable. By 1916, after the Good Roads Act provided new sources of federal funding for highways, the Illinois State Highway Agency also began the construction of nearly 5,000 miles of hard road highways across the state.

Various committees worked to decide routes that these new roads would take, and local communities lobbied to have the roads pass through their towns. Having a state highway nearby would be a boost to local motorists as well as the economy. But rural areas like Randolph County were often afterthoughts on the new maps. When the Chicago Tribune published a map of the state’s marked highways in 1916, Randolph County was one of the only ones not serviced by one of the new hard roads.

A group of local businessmen stepped in to try to remedy that oversight. One highway project in particular, the Burlington Way, was looking to extend from St. Paul, Minnesota, south to the Gulf of Mexico. An established section of the road stopped in Marissa, and the Randolph County committee lobbied to have the next part of the highway travel through Sparta, Steeleville, and Percy on its way south to Murphysboro.

The county’s Burlington Way Committee was comprised of Charles Baue, a Steeleville farmer and mechanical engineer; Alfred A. Brown, a Sparta banker and merchant; William J. Hood, owner of a Sparta dry goods store; Louis Hood, owner of a Sparta clothing store; John B. Hoef, the founder of Steeleville’s Randolph County Monument Works; Henry Walter, a grocery store manager and food administrator from Steeleville; George Lickiss, the proprietor of a Percy grocery store; Albert Gilster, owner of the Steeleville flour mill; Rutherford Hahn, the vice president of Gilster’s mill; Norris Lessley, the president of Sparta State Bank; J. Hammond Webster, publisher of the Steeleville Ledger and owner of an auto garage; Robert Moffat, an owner of Sparta’s Moffat Coal Company; and Thomas Jeremiah, the general superintendent of the Willis Coal Company.

The committee successfully lobbied to have the Burlington Highway routed through Randolph County, though two decades later the route of the road, now Illinois 13, was changed. Their efforts are commemorated by a granite marker located on present-day Illinois 4 between Sparta and Steeleville. As the first committee dedicated to bringing a major highway through the county, they also inspired further movements to establish good roads in the region, pioneering projects that are still in use today.

Today, the issue of “good roads” continues to be at the top of the list for many in the area who want to steer attention toward the maintenance of existing roads and the expansion of highway connections between Randolph County and its neighbors. A century ago, when roads made for automobiles were in their infancy, we can thank the men of the Burlington Way Committee for championing the cause. Their public service is a reminder of the importance of community advocacy, both then and now.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of the members of the Burlington Way Committee.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Dr. George Fisher, a pioneering physician, public servant, and entrepreneur, will be inducted into the 2025 class of honorees.

George Fisher, the son of a blacksmith, was born in Virginia in the years just before the Revolutionary War. After reaching his majority, George received his inheritance. That money may have helped to fund his medical studies, which, according to family tradition, may have taken him to Germany for a period of time. Back in America, he settled down to begin his career as a physician and start a family of his own. He welcomed several children with his first wife in Virginia, and later, he married again in Illinois and expanded his family once more.

By the middle of the 1790s, with expansion pushing westward, George decided to move to the frontier. He arrived with his family in Kaskaskia in 1798 and quickly became a prominent member of the community. Professional medical care was a valuable commodity, and George began to serve as one of the first providers in the region.

George’s expertise and popularity led him toward other enterprises in Kaskaskia, too. When the Indiana Territory was officially organized in 1800, Governor William Henry Harrison appointed George to serve as sheriff of Randolph County. The influence that George gained, both through his political appointment and his medical knowledge, led him to develop additional business interests in the area. He was granted business licenses to operate a ferry across the Mississippi and a tavern and inn in Kaskaskia not long after settling in the area.

As George’s connections in Kaskaskia grew stronger, he was tasked with more and more responsibility within the territorial government. In 1803, he was named as a Randolph County commissioner, a role he held until 1809. When elections were held for the First General Assembly of the Indiana Territory in 1805, George was chosen as the sole representative for Randolph County in the House of Representatives. He served in the position until 1808, when he was appointed to the Legislative Council. When the territory was divided, he was again elected to serve in the territorial legislature representing Randolph County.

In 1808, George decided to move his family to a farm near present-day Modoc. The area, which grew as others also established homes and farms in the vicinity, became known as “Dr. Fisher’s Settlement.” Though he had largely retired as a practicing physician, George had to turn back to his medical roots when an outbreak of smallpox began surging through the surrounding population. George set up a makeshift hospital on his farm. While other nearby settlements put up guards and barriers to keep out infected strangers, George decided not to turn away any person who needed help.

George’s medical skills were required by his community once more in 1812. He served as a surgeon in the Illinois militia, under the command of Colonel Hamnet Ferguson and Major Benjamin Stephenson (then sheriff of Randolph County), during the War of 1812. Near the end of his life, George continued to be an influential figure in the shaping of the new state of Illinois. He was elected to serve as a member of the constitutional convention that framed the first constitution for the new state in 1818. He also ran for a seat in the new state senate, but was defeated—the first time he had suffered an election loss since moving to Kaskaskia two decades earlier.

George settled down firmly into the life of a farmer on his settlement in Modoc, and there, in 1820, he passed away. His farm is now marked by a historical plaque celebrating his achievements. Despite the uncertainties of life on the frontier, George fearlessly ventured out to care for patients in need. His example of public service, both on the county and state levels, stands as a challenge to all of us today, encouraging us to play a greater role in our own communities.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of George Fisher.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Jessie Lee Huffstutler, an influential musician, educator, and historian, will be inducted into the 2025 class of honorees.

Born in Chester in 1888, Jessie Lee Gant was the fourth child of Darius and Rachel Gant. She was only five years old when her father unexpectedly passed away, leaving behind a widow with four young children.

Jessie discovered early on that she had a talent for music. She began playing and singing in the choir at Chester’s First Methodist Church when she was just twelve. She was so skilled that she was hired to play piano accompaniment for silent films at the Chester Opera House. She improvised musical scores for the movies alongside her friend Elzie Segar, who played the drums. He would later use memories from their teenage days in his famous Popeye cartoons.

Jessie’s musical talents developed throughout her school years, and by the time she graduated from Chester High School in 1905, she could play multiple instruments. Her prowess caught the attention of the staff at Southern Illinois Penitentiary, who hired soon after graduation to serve as the prison’s organist. She recalled having “mixed emotions” when playing at the prison early on, but her efforts earned her the respect of the men behind bars. “From the applause I received, I knew they were now my friends and from that time, I was ‘Miss Jessie’ to them,” she later recalled.

While working as the prison’s musical director, Jessie decided to start a family of her own. She married Fred “Dick” Huffstutler in 1911, and their only child, Fred Jr., was born later that year. The family settled in Chester, where Dick worked as a signal master with the railroad, and Jessie continued to earn an income through her musical work at the prison.

Sadly, Jessie’s early married life was touched by tragedy. In the span of a decade, she lost her mother and two of her brothers. In 1924, she also had to say farewell to her husband, who died after suffering from appendicitis and typhoid fever. As a widow in her 30s, Jessie was left behind to raise her son alone. She continued to work at Menard and also began giving private voice and piano lessons to earn extra money.

When Fred graduated from high school in 1929 and enrolled at McKendree College, Jessie decided to pursue a course of higher education as well. She was hired as a house mother for one of the men’s dormitories at the college. Both mother and son finished their studies in 1933, with Fred earning a bachelor’s degree and Jessie receiving a certificate in music education.

For her next chapter, Jessie taught in public schools in Florida before returning to Illinois and teaching for many years in Du Quoin. After her retirement, she moved back to Chester, where she took on an active role in numerous local organizations, including professional women’s clubs and the retired teachers’ association. In 1960, she was recognized by the First Methodist Church in Chester for 60 years of service to the congregation.

Over the decade that followed, Jessie took time to write down her extensive memories of her long life in Chester, which were published as columns in the local newspaper. In 1976, the columns were gathered together and published as a book. I Remember—Early Memories of Chester, Illinois is a unique, valuable historical resource. The book was also a success, selling more than 1,000 copies. Jessie passed away in Chester in 1980 at the age of 92. She was survived not only by her family—a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and a great-grandchild—but also by the students she mentored and encouraged in the classroom and the music room over the decades. Her desire to share her talents and knowledge with others continue stands as an example of dedication and service today.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of Jessie Lee Huffstutler.