Howard Herron Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Howard Herron 90
finally Tom said, "I: did it, Daddy." And so when they left I said, "Come
on, Tom, I want to talk to you." He came over and sat down by me. I
said, "~'m going to tell you something now, I'll stick with you if you'll
always tell me the truth. I'll stick with you, anything but murder. I
won't stick with you for that. And I don't think he ever told me a lie,
I don't believe he did. I told him when he was in high school, "Now
Tommy, you're in high school and you're going to be going with the girls.
Pick out the girl that you might want to make your wife," I said.
We got in the car and we drove over to Tobin's farm, they raised Black
Angus cattle. I said, "You see thase cattle over there." I said, "They're
all pure bred." I said, "When you get married, marry a pure bred. Check
in their family and see if there is any criminals in the family and no
tuberculosis." It was terrible in those days. If you got TB you was a
1 I
goner". They help that now with medicine. So when 1 laid in the hospital
in Milwaukee and he was working--he was a lineman then for the Bell
Telephone Company. He had about three or four years in, two years in by
that time. He was working in Beardstown and we lived in Springfield. He
met a girl there, a telephone operator over there. I told him to pick a
girl with character. "Look at her mother, chances are your wife will
look like her mother." You know I was in Milwaukee in this hospital in
the bed laying there, and I got a letter from him and he said, in his
closing statement, "Dad, I think I met the girl I want to make my wife."
And down at the bottom he said, 'IPS, she's a thoroughbred."
Q: Oh, he remembered that.
A: I was kind of glad. He's been a good boy. He's retired and he don't
have to want for anything.
Q: Do you remember when Dr. Malmberg came to town?
A: Yes, sir. He didn't have nothing but his suitcase and he lived in a
little four room house down here on Fifth Street here. He had an office
where there's a chiropractor here now, what's his name? His office was
there then.
Q: Dr. Kessler?
A: Yes, that's where Malmberg's office was then and he did real good
here. Dr. Malmberg was well liked.
Q: So he was not a rich man when he came here?
A: No, he made it himself.
Q: He later became Mayor of Auburn?
A: Yes. And I don't know, he built that building out there where they're
at now. This Parks Home over here was given to them by Mrs. Parks and it
was just a frame building, a big two story frame building. It had a lot
of room. And they owed $1800 and my father-in-law was over there and of
course he was 87 years old. We wanted him to come in off the farm and go
over there. He had his own room and it was $65 a month was all it cost
him. Room and board and everything else and he was allowed to bring his
own furniture in.