Author: W.M.

As of March 1st, the Williamson County Historical Society’s Museum/Library is now open on it’s extended hours of operation. Until Thanksgiving, we will now be open Wednesday thru Saturday from 9:30 AM till 3:00 PM.

Williamson County Historical Society President, Sam Lattuca, gave a 30 minute presentation about the society to the Rotary Club (Jackson/Williamson Counties Sunset Club) held at Bandanas’s Restaurant in Carbondale on Tuesday, February 7^th, 2023 at 6 PM.

Lattuca recounted the roots of the historical society that evolved out of the 1939 Williamson County Centennial event and the societies reconstitution in 1954. Lattuca described how the society came into possession of the old county jail and how it has evolved into the organization that we know today. He also informed them of the museum’s contents and what is contained in the genealogy and history research library.

Eighteen members of the Southern Illinois Corvette Club toured the Williamson County Historical Society’s museum on Saturday, August the 13th, 2022 and we’re treated to tours by the society’s president Sam Lattuca and Curator/Coordinator Sharon Vansaghi.

For decades, one of our own historical society members, Helen Sutt Lind, known to us as “cemetery granny” has painstakingly created literally dozens of books that are used on a daily basis. Her books have become the foundation of research by all of us here and countless researchers and authors. Helen spent years transcribing county records at the court house and local newspapers on microfilm in addition to tromping through current and forgotten cemeteries of the county auditing gravestones. Helen was often but not always accompanied by one of our other members, Charla Murphy, who worked jointly with Helen on a number of projects.

Helen has graciously passed her trove of book master copies to the historical society so that her years of research can continue to be republished into the future.  For that, we can’t thank Helen enough. A list of Helen’s books now in the possession of and sold by the historical society that were recently added are as follows and don’t include books that Helen had previously allowed us the permissions to. All are available for purchase through the museum book store. (more…)

WSIL TV reporter Brooke Schlyer featured our historical society on Wednesday morning, July 7th, 2021. WCHS President, Sam Lattuca and WCHS coordinator/curator Sharon Vansaghi were on hand at the museum at 4:30 A.M. in order to accommodate the news report related to our recent reopening after having been closed for over a year due to the pandemic. The main features were work that had been done on new and reworked displays accomplished during the shutdown. Brooke ran live broadcasts with Sam and Sharon at 5, 5:30, 6 and 6:30 and put together some recorded interviews for programming that aired in evening broadcasts. The link below will take you to the Channel 3 live airings.

Visitors welcomed back to renovations, new exhibits (wsiltv.com)

 

A list of Williamson County Death Records filed with the Illinois Dept. of Health from 1916-1950 has been added to our Records tab. The complete file for county death certificates filed between 1916 and 1950 was extracted from Illinois state records and reflect last and first name, sex/race (N/S means not stated), age if given, death certificate number, death date, location of death, and the date the death was filed with the county. The file is under the Records tab or can be accessed at this link, 1916-50 WC Deaths.     

Another index added is the 1868 Tax Assessor’s Book for Williamson County. This interesting book reflects real estate taxes, values of city lots located in towns and personal property assessment sheets reflecting the net worth of persons on the tax list. The personal property assessments reflect the quantity and value of livestock, wagons, watches/clocks, pianos, acreage, goods, manufactured items, money and credit, bonds and stocks and more. The index has been added to the Master Misc. County Records Index and can be found under the Records tab on our website. The newly added file can be viewed by its self at this link, 1868 Tax Assessor’s Book.

The museum and library will be closing its doors to the public until further notice due to the Corona Virus. All scheduled events through April are canceled and will be rescheduled at a later date. Sorry for the inconvenience it may cause but most of our patrons are senior.

Pack Leader, Brad Andrews, arranged a private tour of the Williamson County Museum on the evening of October 23^rd, 2018 from 6-8 P.M. Several Cub Scouts from Pack 21, sponsored by the Zion United Church of Christ in Marion along with their parents toured the museum guided by Williamson County Historical Society president, Sam Lattuca.

The scouts and their parents were informed of local history and shown historical artifacts throughout the museum that are indicative of daily life in earlier county history. The scouts found that many tasks that we perform today were considerably more labor intensive than they are today and many of the benefits of today’s living were non-existent in earlier times.

The indexes to the Herrin Storme Funeral Home records Volume 2, Books 1 & 2,  covering 1920 to 1959 containing 9,700 references have been added to the Master Funeral Home Index.

Eight new indexes have been added to the Newspaper index link on this site. The book indexes  added were:

• 1916 Events in Egypt, news from Marion, Herrin & Carterville
• 1927-29 Hatch, Match & Dispatch Vol. 1, Johnston City Progress
• 1930-32 Hatch, Match & Dispatch Vol. 2, Johnston City Progress
• 1933-34 Hatch, Match & Dispatch Vol. 3, Johnston City Progress
• 1935-36 Hatch, Match & Dispatch Vol. 4, Johnston City Progress
• 1936-38 Hatch, Match & Dispatch Vol. 5, Johnston City Progress
• 1938-39 Hatch, Match & Dispatch Vol. 6, Johnston City Progress
• 1939-40 Hatch, Match & Dispatch Vol. 7, Johnston City Progress

Newspaper index link