What’s New

Dolores Jean Thetford, age 92, of Herrin, Illinois, passed away peacefully at home in Herrin surrounded by her loving family.

Dolores was born on April 9, 1933 in Marion, Illinois to Elby and Gladys (Norris) Barnett. She was united in marriage to Charles William Thetford on March 6, 1953 in Marion, Illinois and together they shared many years of love and devotion.

The first quarterly meeting for 2026 was held at the Willimson County Historical Society museum/library on Sunday, February 1^st, 2026. WCHS president Sam Lattuca started the meeting out by reviewing the current state of the museum and by recalling recent projects worked on, changes to the museum and items taken into the museum since the last meeting.

The guest speaker was Marion businessman, Jeff Mayer, who recounted his early interest in the downtown Marion area and how it has influenced his decisions to buy and restore numerous buildings in the downtown area. Mayer has completed remodeled the old Goodall building on the square into combination businesses and residential apartments that most Marion residents are aware of, in addition to owning properties on E. Jefferson and the old Duty and Hyde buildings in the 200 block of N. Market.

The WCHS museum/library is currently in its winter hours of operation which is open to the public on Saturdays only from 9:30 till 3:00 PM. It will resume its normal hours of operation on Wednesday thru Saturday from 9:30 till 3:00 PM on Wednesday March 4^th. The public is invited to come and tour the museum at no charge during normal working hours or pursue their family genealogy.

Due to a severe winter snowstorm being predicted for the weekend, we will not be opening on Saturday, January 24, 2026. Everyone take care.

The Williamson County Historical Society will be holding a membership meeting on Sunday, February 1, 2026 here at the museum/library at 2:00 P.M. During the meeting we will be going over projects undertaken at the museum & library since the last meeting, accessions taken in, upcoming projects and the state of the museum. The program will be by Marion businessman Jeff Mayer who will be discussing his historic Marion business property restorations and projects.

2026 membership dues are now due for the year so members should check the address mailing label on their latest quarterly to make sure their dues are paid. If you’re dues are current it will say 2026 or higher, if it says 2025 or earlier, your dues are due. We appreciate your support.

We hope to see you at the meeting and feel free to bring a friend or family member, the meetings are open to the public.

The Williamson County Historical Society received a donation on Saturday, December 6th, 2025. The check for $1,000 was presented to WCHS president Sam Lattuca by Larry Mayer. Larry and his wife, Becky, are residents of Marion and have been members of the WCHS for over 10 years.

As usual, when winter comes around, we drop our hours of operation back after Thanksgiving to Saturday’s only from 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM. This is primarily due to heating costs. In addition, it gives us some time to do maintenance and repairs that we normally wouldn’t be able to do.

As always, just because we will only be open to the public for one day a week until the first Wednesday in March when weather warms up, we are still available to do research and answer queries. We can be reached with the contact information posted on our Contact Us page.

Pie Day has become a tradition over the last few years at the historical society. It is a day in which we order out food (especially delicious pies) and have a lunch together with our volunteers and those who can attend. Those attending this time were Sam Lattuca, Ursula Richey, Michael Spinks, Helen Lind, Colleen Norman, Leann Johnson, Gloria Spinks, Charla Murphy, Candy Calcaterra, and Sharon Vansaghi

The Williamson County Historical Society helped the local Veteran’s Administration on Monday, November the 10^th, 2025 celebrate the Marine Corps 250^th Anniversary and Veteran’s Day on November 11^th. The society has been working with the local Veteran’s Administration Hospital to supply them with vintage uniforms at their events for the past year now and this year was no different. Museum curator, Sharon Vansaghi, works with the VA coordinators to work out which uniform are needed for events. This Veteran’s Day, uniforms on loan at the V.A. included a dress uniform from the Spanish American war, WWI uniforms, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf and Iraq wars.

Considering that October 26^th, 2025 was an overcast rainy day here, we had a very nice turnout for our October membership meeting. Our guest speaker was the always informative Darrel Dexter, local historian and teacher. Dexter’s program was “General Grant in Egypt” and recounted how Grant began his early Civil War experience as an officer serving at a training camp just north of Jonesboro, Illinois and was later transferred to command at Cairo, Illinois where the town was transformed into a military encampment and he became a general. Dexter recounted how the city of Cairo changed through the Civil War period.

President, Sam Lattuca, informed the membership as to the current state of the museum and showed pictures of the many recently accessioned photos and artifacts that had been donated to the museum since the last quarterly meeting as well as current work that has been performed on the building.

The membership voted on the upcoming 2026 Officers and Directors. Those elected to serve in 2026 are:

Sam Lattuca, President; Andrew McRoy, 1^st Vice President; Gloria Spinks, 2^nd Vice President; Michael Spinks, Treasurer: Candy Calcaterra, Secretary. One new Director was elected to the board, Leann Johnson, whose term will serve from 2026 until 2028. Other Directors that serve on the board are Charla Murphy until 2026 and Helen Lind who serves until 2027.