How Long Have You Lived in West Peoria?
BY SHARON KENNEDY
How long have you lived here? This is a common question for many West Peoria residents. Many of us have often wondered who has been here the longest. We may have found the answer.
Upon meeting Jim and Florence Eaton, I felt confident that they just might be our answer.
Jim is soon to be 88 years old and has resided in West Peoria his entire life. His grandparents and parents lived here, too. Actually his fraternal grandparents, Herb and Minnie Eaton, lived in what is now Madison Manor, but was originally a part of West Peoria in the early years. Both sides of his family had lived in West Peoria since the early 1900s. Amazingly, Jim’s wife Florence, an avid genealogist, has a photo of the original home. She relates that the location of the original home was where Terry Doyle, longtime West Bluff businessman, now resides. She also informed me that Martin Van Buren was the President of the United States at the time.
In 1907 the Herb Eaton family moved a house from the corner of Western and Rohmann to a lot on W. Ayres Avenue. The house is still standing and sits approximately two blocks off of Western. Florence has photos of that property, also. Jim recalls that it was common to move a house from one location to another in those days.
Jim’s maternal grandparents were Steve and Maria Santos. They came from Germany and lived on Kettelle Street. They wanted to move “to a spot with some land,” so in 1904 they moved to a house on Rohmann Avenue near Sterling. The Santoses purchased the house in 1913 from William West and learned from the abstract that the land had been part of a land grant given to a man named Silas Proctor. Over the years the land, originally a section, was divided into smaller units. The Santos family bought 7 ½ acres. The farm stretched from approximately where the Lutheran Social Services offices are now to the Guardian Angel Home at the end of Heading Avenue.
Jim’s grandparents were truck gardeners, growing all kinds of vegetables which they sold from horse-drawn wagons throughout the area. They also raised cattle and horses.
The land was later sold to the Kellerstrauss family, who continued in the truck gardening business. The Earl Becker family also lived in the vicinity and had many greenhouses in the area. The Santos’ home stood on Rohmann Avenue until the mid-1980s, but was no longer owned by their family.
Jim’s parents had seven children, but Jim is the only one who stayed in West Peoria after he and his wife married. All the Eaton children attended St. Mark Grade School, which was built in 1924. Jim recalls that the original school was located behind the church. The current school building sits across the street from the church. Jim’s father Herb served as the Township road commissioner in 1918-1919, when most of the streets were dirt and gravel.
When the Santos farm was subdivided into lots, it became known as the Santos Subdivision. Jim and Florence currently reside in the lovely, well-maintained and manicured two-story Cape Cod on Rohmann that is well-known for having candles in the windows as a sign of welcoming visitors. Their home was built in 1946 after Jim finished his tour of duty during World War II. Jim purchased the lot from his grandparents.
Jim and Florence were married in 1947. They have seven children: Jim, Jr., Herb, Mary Lou, Nancy, Annette, Colleen, and Mark. And, yes, they all attended St. Mark School, also. “The children are spread throughout the country, except for Annette and Mark, who still live in the Peoria area,” Jim says.
When asked why he and his family stayed in West Peoria, he responded, “I never really thought about going anywhere else. My family was here and West Peoria is so convenient to everything.” Jim worked as a toolmaker and supervisor at Caterpillar for 43 years and has been retired for the last 26 years. “I rode the bus to work much of that time because West Peoria has always had excellent bus service.”
Jim helped build the rock wall in St. Mary’s Cemetery. He says that St. Mary’s was built in the 1800s primarily for the Irish families, and many of the grave sites on the far right side of the cemetery were actually moved there from a cemetery that was located on South Jefferson Street in Peoria. He also told me that St. Joseph’s Cemetery was the primary burial site for the German families of the area.
I asked Jim to reminisce about some of the things familiar to most of us. He said, “I remember when Calvin Coolidge School was built in 1936. The property had been a part of a farm owned by the Wasson family. They lived there and raised lots of cattle.” He also remembers when the land on Ashland Avenue across from Calvin Coolidge on the west side was full of grape arbors, and the grapes were used for winemaking.
Jim recalls that West Peoria and the West Bluff areas were brimming with small businesses over the years. Along Western Avenue there were several different grocery stores, gas stations, drug stores, etc. He remembers Poppins Grocery on Sherman Avenue, a drug store on Clark Street, Schafer’s Grocery at Main and Western, Fritch’s Drug Store at Clark and Western, and much later Lizer’s Pharmacy on Western. He also recalls that the brick building on the West Peoria side that was the former home of Venzon Heating and A.C. was originally built to be a Kroger’s store, and there was already an A&P Grocery across the street where the Dollar General now stands.
Florence recalls that when she moved here, “If people had money to buy a home, they preferred to live in West Peoria.”
Jim says that West Peorians worked really hard to make sure their properties were well-groomed and maintained. He said one of the most beautiful properties he remembers was the archway of beautiful elm trees that graced the entrance to St. Mary’s Cemetery. I wonder if anyone has a photo of that.
Jim and Florence have been marvelous stewards of the land and I thank them for sharing memories and photos for this article.