McLEAN COUNTY HISTORY & GENEALOGY NEWS
By Euleen Rickard
Visitors with Helen Anderson, Virginia Davis and Euleen Rickard at the Smith house this week were members Margaret (Randle) Pyles and Eleanor (Randle) Halstead who live in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Margaret and Eleanor lived in Island during the 1930s and 40s and through the years have kept in contact with Island friends. They joined the museum in 2001. They also visited Marilyn Cessna at the Wooden Bridge Park and the Community Cemetery in Island where members of their family are buried.
Beech Grove native, Belinda (Collings) Thomson, of Owensboro, former Calhoun native Ann (Edwards) Ivins now living in Germantown, Tennessee and Glenville native Lee Ann Blum, now a Maryland resident, joined this month. Lee Ann and Belinda visited with Mildred Iglehart, Norma Blankenship, Judy Rightmyer, Helen Anderson and Euleen Rickard at Smith house on June 10th.
Belinda was Miss McLean County in 1967 and second runner-up in the Miss Owensboro pageant in 1969. She donated her trophies, tiara, scrapbooks and artifacts and genealogy of her family to the museum. She brightened our workday with her visit and gifts, all neatly packaged and labeled. One interesting artifact was a cup without a handle, the last remaining piece of the wedding dishes of Ellen Ash Robertson.
The appeal for entries in the Miss Junior Teen and Miss McLean County pageants in the news this week and Belinda’s gifts put us in search of the date that the pageant was added to the events of the fair. With a brief search the earliest record we found was 1937. That year the fair catalog listed “Extra Specials”….”Mule Race premium (prize) $3.00 and $1.00, Pony Race, premium $3.00 and $1.00, Style Show, premium ?, and Beauty Contest, premium $5.00. Last year’s Highlights or “Extra Specials” were “Little Miss and Mr. McLean County pageant, Miss Junior Teen Beauty Pageant and Miss McLean County, the Peddle Pull, Talent Show and Pet Show.
By 1937 the Fair had grown and the catalog contained eighty pages describing the events with pages of advertisements of businesses of McLean and surrounding counties. In the school department new categories were added and ribbons were given for Insect Collections, Wood Collections and Free Hand drawing and Free Hand drawing was continued for several years.
In 1952 my daughter Cheryl Rickard won her first art award in free hand drawing, representing Mrs. Nannie Austin’s first grade class of Sacramento School. Cheryl was chosen from her class for drawing the best dog. For days before the fair she practiced drawing dogs but for the event the students were given a blank sheet of paper and a newly sharpened pencil and told to draw a pig. When she came from the room she said, “I had to draw a pig. I really didn’t know how to draw a pig but I thought of Granddaddy Rickard’s pigs on the farm and how they looked.” She was very proud of her second place red ribbon.
The museum is collecting memorabilia of all fairs to display during the days of the fair this year. If you have anything that you can contribute or loan for exhibit we would be pleased to have it. The museum’s second exhibit “McLean County Fairs” will be open to the public during the days of the fair. On Friday July 18th porkburgers, potato chips, cold drinks and homemade cookies will be sold from 11AM to ?
The events of the Fair begin this year on Monday July 14th with events every day of the week. Go out to the fair and take away memories for the rest of your life.