WIU Oral Histories Program - Warren L. Van Dine Interviewee: Warren Lovel Van Dine Birth: 25 Nov 1902 Death: 25 Sep 1983 Date of Recording: 20 Jul 1979 Age at Recording: 76 years old Interviewer: Dr. John E. Hallwas Description: Warren Lovel Van Dine was born on November 25, 1902 in Fountain Green Township, Illinois. He was born on his grandfather's farm in the same bedroom that his mother, Flora Ellen Salisbury, was born. Warren Van Dine grew up in Burnside, Illinois in the house built by his father, Herbert R. Van Dine. After graduating from the State University of Iowa (the University of Iowa) in 1924 with a B.A. from the Liberal Arts College, Van Dine devoted himself to the Mormon Church and to the Sons of the American Revolution. He also worked as an editor for two poetry journals; Much Ado in the early 1930's and Upward in the late 1930's. Unchanging Gold, a book of poems by Van Dine, was published in 1938. Van Dine authored several short stories and newspaper articles. He also wrote extensively about unusual weather in Hancock County, Illinois and about Hancock County history. For a large part of his life Van Dine was a member of the Revolutionary Graves Registry Committee and compiled lists of grave markers in county cemeteries for use by historians and genealogists. Van Dine lived and wrote in Burnside, Illinois and Hamilton, Illinois until his death on September 25, 1983 at the age of 80 years old.1 Original Media: Audio cassette Length: 1:03:40 Note: Mr. Van Dine stammers occasionally, adds "and" to the end of most sentences, and in some places these and extra half-words have been removed from the otherwise verbatim transcription. Hallwas: This tape contains an interview with Warren L. Van Dine of Carthage, Illinois. It was made on July twentieth, nineteen seventy-nine [July 20, 1979]. Mister Van Dine has lived in Hancock County all of his life, mostly in Burnside. He is now seventy-six years old. On the tape, Mister Van Dine discusses Alice Kibbe, his own life in Hancock County, his association with James Decker, his studies of Joseph Smith, his local weather records project and cemetery project, Judge Scofield, Senator Sidney Little and Joseph Smith's legal counselors, author Rowena Califf from Carthage, and Joseph Smith's contacts with John C. Calhoun. [tape cuts, restarts mid-conversation; 00:44] 1 University of Iowa Special Collections. Van Dine: Nineteen fifty-nine [1959], twenty years ago, and I was walking around the square, or going to go to a store. I got out of my automobile, and a car stopped and parked right in front of me, where I was walking, and the driver got out fast. It was a lady, and [she] motioned for me to come over there, and it was Doctor Kibbe, and introduced herself. I never talked to her before. I'd just heard of her, of course. And she said, "We have in [coughs] in the museum," which at that time, it was- you know, she started a museum in nineteen twenty [1920]. Had [inaudible] Carthage College Campus, where she was teaching. And she said, "We have the weather record, of Doctor Mead2, in Augusta," He kept the United States Government in this area, for I believe fifty-two [52] years, from about eighteen twenty-eight to eighteen eighty- two, six [1828-1882, 6], something like that. Well they still have a weather man here in this county, and it [inaudible] little town south of Carthage. And she said, "We have the entire file of his work, and I understand you're carrying on a weather history project," and I told her I was. At the- at the present time, just a [inaudible] years later, there's about three thousand accounts in my weather project. She said to, to "come on out to the college, and I'll set up a table for you in the biology building," And says, " I use the old uh, former, uh, oh, field house, now that they built a new one, for- to play basketball in, for my biology department, and also for another thing, the museum. And you can just set up a table there in the museum part, and- and work day after day taking notes on Doctor Mead's uh, weather material." I went up there and took notes for several days. Well, she was a very fine person. Fine to cooperate. And we have here in the museum where I'm talking now, a picture of Doctor Mead, and a picture also of his home, and- and we have all the weather records that I looked at those days- that day. It was stored away upstairs and it's in oh, one of the rooms upstairs there. In the uh, back, upstairs here in the Kibbe museum. But those records are still in existence. I've talked some with Mayor Hu- Lee Huston about turning them over to the government, and we decided they'd probably just throw them away and need the space for something else, so we keep them here at the museum. Then- [stammers] I can't- I can't recall talking with Doctor Kibbe very much more after that. Of course I live out in Burnside, or did at that time, and- and then, I was- went to school at the University of Iowa, so I was not back in Carthage for Alumni work or anything- Hallwas: Yeah- uh, Missus uh, Kibbe- Van Dine: Oh, Mi- Mi- Miss Kibbe. Hallwas: Miss Kibbe. Van Dine: Yeah. Hallwas: She uh, gave this home to the museum, why? Or, as a museum, why? 2 Dr. Samuel Barnum Mead (1799-1880) was the second regular physician to practice in Hancock County, after arriving in Illinois in 1833. He was also a noted botanist with a world-wide reputation. He was a meteorologist for the Smithsonian from 1849-1873, perhaps longer, under Joseph Henry's meteorological program. Van Dine: Well uh, I'll explain first how the Miss Kibbe museum3 is located, and is now advertised by the city as a fifteen room frame mansion. Only thirteen rooms when she owned it. And it was the city or, maybe she did just before she gave it to it, built on the east room, for placing big things like pianos. And her garage on the north side was turned into a room for her- animal room, animal display. The house was built in eight sixty-nine [1869], a hundred and uh, ten [110] years ago. Well it was- it was a mansion in those days, and it's still a first class house. And then a family named Harnest family H-A-R-N-E-S-T lived in it from eighteen sixty-nine til nineteen thirty-five [1869-1935].4 Well when the last member of the family lived here, a- a Missus Wright, who married uh- Palestine Wright,5 a promising school teacher of that period,6 and sold the house to Doctor Kibbe. And she left part of the old furniture there, or [inaudible, possibly: there are other public] in the house. This chair in which I'm sitting is one of the pieces of the furniture that went with the house [when he] sold it to Doctor Kibbe. And the, Doctor Kibbe then uh, used this as her residence until she gave it to the city in nineteen sixty-four [1964]. [05:00] And when the Carthage College moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin, the college decided that they needed all their floor space up there for other things, and the exhibits here came from Illinois holes, [the animals in the exhibits lived in Illinois] and so Doctor Kibbe got the museum. People today can't figure out why Carthage College ever set up a museum. Didn't seem to be a part of their course of studies. I used to do railroading. Remember that song about the fellow working on the railroad, just to pass the time away?7 I guess that's the way- the reason they were in the museum business, maybe. Hallwas: [laughs] Van Dine: To pass the time away. Hallwas: I- I notice that uh, Doctor Kibbe also, um, gave some lands along the Mississippi to Western Illinois University. 3 The Kibbe Museum is located at 306 Walnut St., Carthage, Illinois. 4 Likely widow Anna (Spitler) Harnest (1809-1896) and her remaining living children Daniel S., Samuel E., (1835- 1928), and Mary Jane Harnest (1840-1880) 5 Palestine Wright (1840-1880) 6 Mary Jane (Harnest) Wright (1840-1917) 7 "I've Been Working on the Railroad" is an American folk song. The first published version appeared as "Levee Song" in Carmina Princetonia, a book of Princeton University songs published in 1894. Van Dine: Well that's uh, I be- I believe they call that the Eagle Preserve now, along the river between Warsaw and Hamilton.8 Our- our county of course is the- fronts on the upper Mississippi river. It fronts on two states. The top part of our county faces Iowa across the river and the bottom part face- faces Missouri. The eagles are- government- American people are afraid they will become extinct. And they set aside this place where they could live, you know. Hallwas: I wonder why she didn't give the uh, preserve that's now used for watching eagles and biological studies at WIU, why she didn't give it to Carthage College? Van Dine: Well, Carthage College was simply not the school that WIU is.