Charles C. Patton Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

in school, and lived there till he became educated, then moved
back to Springfield, and lived in that house that's on the
northeast corner of second and Lawrence Avenue. Still stands
there. It was just a block west of the Frank Lloyd Wright House.
Now, her oldest son took over the. . . when my grandfather died,
the oldest son took over the mining business and ran it till he
died, and that was sold, and World War 1 came along, the business
was sold to the Peabody Coal Company. And incidentally, the
property, the property during World War I out at Clear Lake was
forested for walnut. The Government cut dawn all the walnut
trees to be used for making gun stocks, and they had huge piles
of walnut logs there at the end of the war there that never got
used, actually. But my uncle, who was the second brother, whose
name was Jack Jess was a mining engineer, went to Princeton, and
he was hired by some, at one time, by some mining men in New
York, who had invested in some gold mine in Alaska. He was hired
to go up to Alaska and to survey this gold mine up there and
report back what he thought of its value. Well, he was
shipwrecked on the way up, and was. . . I don't know much about
that story, except it came out in the newspaper here in
Springfield, and somebody read the story, and quickly went to my
grandmother's hause and picked up the newspaper so she wouldn't
read it.
Q. what ye8r was that?
A. Can't remember what year it was. Probably about in the '20's
sometime, maybe. Don't remember if it was before World War I or
after. I think it was after W W I. But he was saved and he did
go out and survey this gold mine and we have some of the records
that he kept which show how much he had to pay for a dog team,
how much for a horse, how much for food and lodging for the week,
which was interesting, and he, he had some pictures of that which
we still have also. But the youngest son was blind from birth,
learned how to play the piano fairly well, and he lived with the
next oldest son, whose name was Bob. Bob had been divorced from
his first wife and lived in a house on Lowell Avenue. But he
took care of the blind son too, but forbad him to play the piano
cause he couldn't stand the racket, so this guy, this blind boy,
just listened to the radio and wound the clock and somebody came
and took him for a walk everyday, but he survived all the rest,
and the estate was put in trust for him, and it took care of him,
and so, we didn't inherit anything from the estate until he died
which was, oh, quite a long time after my mother died. Then we
inherited all this Clear Lake property, the Sand and Gravel
Company and finally divided it up amongst the nieces and nephews.
Q. Have they sold it, or are they living on it.
A. It's all been sold. And they're all dead now. I
Q. So then, Springfield Lake came in. What can you t 11 me
4