The next meeting of the Tazewell County Genealogical and Historical Society will be Tuesday, October 14th, at 7 PM. John Stromberger of Washington Historical Society will tell us about the History of Washington. It’s an excellent program and his book, Washington Rewind, will be available for purchase. Meetings are free and open to the public. 

All history is local until it is woven together with other stories to become part of the National fabric and there is no aspect of National history that doesn’t touch Tazewell County, including Halloween tales:

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT!?

As we approach Halloween, talk frequently turns to ghosts and haunted houses. Have you ever wondered if there are haunted houses in Pekin? Well, I’ll tell you about two Pekin homes and my research on the families that lived there, and let you decide for yourself.

First is a house on North Fifth Street. In this house, a female renter reported a threatening male presence. The woman always got the feeling that the man did not want her there. 

My first record of who lived there was 1898, when it was the home of Fred and Katherine Moenkemoeller. Fred was born in 1863 in Germany and immigrated to the US with his parents, John and Anna, about 1869. He married Katherine Allenbach on April 12, 1888, in Tazewell Co. Fred’s father, John, started the family business of cigar making, and Fred took it over, and his son, Fred Jr., followed. Fred Sr. was listed as a “manufacturer of cigars and a dealer in smoker’s goods.”

The first record of who died in the house I could find was for Fred, Sr. He died Jan. 23, 1930. (His wife had died previously in 1923, but I couldn’t find where.) I researched the later residents of the house until it became a business in 1968, but could find no one else who died there. Is the dark spirit Fred?  

A haunted house doesn’t necessarily have to have dark, threatening spirits. The second house is the old Jansen house located on North Fourth Street. Residents of this lovely, two-story home have reported cupboard doors that open, footsteps overhead, apparitions appearing in photographs, sounds of a rocking chair rocking, when there is no rocking chair in the house, and a grandmotherly figure that appears to young children. 

John D. Jansen was born in Germany in 1845. He immigrated in about 1866. He and Anna Steen were married about 1869 and were probably the first to live in the house. John was a contractor in the brick and masonry business. John passed away in the house in 1924, and Anna died there in 1930. 

John and Anna had four daughters and one son. Son Dietrich was the only one to marry. He also went on to run the family business, Jansen and Schaefer, after his father retired.

The daughters, Adelaide, Lena, Anna, and Theresa, all lived in the house until their passing. Adelaide was a piano teacher and at one point had her own space downtown on Court St. where she gave her lessons. She passed away in the house in 1948, supposedly in her sleep while rocking in her favorite rocking chair. Her sister Lena also passed at home in 1961, while sisters Anna and Theresa died at Pekin Hospital. 

Could the sound of the rocking chair be Adelaide?  Could the grandmotherly figure be Mother Anna keeping an eye on her home, or one of the sisters, checking in on the house that they spent their entire lives in?  

And just one more thing…if you attended Douglass School or played on the playground at the school, you were atop many of the graves of the old Tharp Burial Grounds, a sketch of which is included with this column. Did anyone ever see apparitions patrolling the hallways or swinging on the playground in the middle of the night?

Here’s to Halloween and things that go bump in the night!

We hope the children enjoying attending all the “Trunk or Treat” events and parties around Pekin this month. 

The Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society is an award-winning 501c3, all-volunteer organization that has been in continuous service to our members and the public for 47 years. TCGHS operates an archive, library, and research facility at 719 N. 11th St., Pekin. Visit our website at www.tcghs.org to learn more about us. If you have any point of interest that you would like to know more about, stop in at TCGHS or drop us a line.