“Too late now,” said Henry Darger, an 80-something retired janitor and former central Illinois resident, as he waited for death at a Chicago charitable institution i]]> The theories are plentiful: Abraham Lincoln was gay, or had Marfan’s syndrome, or syphilis or mercury poisoning; Mary Lincoln was insane, and on and on. But, are they true?It’s been 80 yea]]> Of the five senses, the olfactory sense is the most closely related to memory. All of us have experienced the phenomenon of being suddenly and almost magically transported back in time, in the ]]> Election Day, 1860, started with a boom for Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. According to Harold Holzer’s book, Lincoln: President-Elect, local Republicans (not including Linco]]> The 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first visit to America will be commemorated in February 2014. The Liverpool lads, shortly after their single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” reached t]]> Brother Anthony Joseph came to the St. James Trade School from Syracuse, N.Y., in 1967 to join the Franciscan Brothers in running the school. The Springfield school on the northeast side closed in 197]]> Although today we live in what might be called the post-railroad age, it is impossible to overstate the importance of railroads in the formation of our great nation. Before their appearance in ]]> The Illinois State Fair began in 1853 as a salute to agriculture.The founders of the newly-created Illinois State Agricultural Society wanted to give farmers an arena to discuss and advance their prof]]> Corporate arrogance and malfeasance seem like modern phenomena, but they’re not. Take the story of Springfield’s 1890 “streetcar wars,” for example. Shortly after the Civil War]]> The placing of a church cornerstone is an act of faith. For the founders of Springfield’s St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church it was an act of survival. Exiled from their tiny homelan]]> “Frankly, it’s not the end of the world for me,” asserts Tony Kerasotes when queried about the January 2010 sale of all but three of his family’s 96-theater empire — incl]]> ]]> Until the mid-1850s or so, much of Springfield was a mud bog. For decades our dirt streets were filled with trash and mud, and in summer, pools of rainwater stagnated on the streets and combined with ]]> When the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum opened, it was heralded as the first of its kind. However, there was an unofficial version housed in the Lincoln Home from 1884 to 1893. It wa]]> Tax Day is just days away. Nationally, April 15 is significant because that’s the traditional day when tax returns are due. This year we get a two-day extension, to April 17. Perhaps more locall]]> It’s like a long forgotten, 80-year-old scrapbook of our city. It shows a bustling downtown crowded with men wearing fedoras and women in fur coats, a family brewery preparing for the onslaught ]]> In the 1830s, when people traveled by foot, horse, stagecoach or boat, Illinois developed a railroad. It was ahead of its time.]]> Walking down the main business street in Cairo, Ill., it’s tempting to think that this spring’s floodwaters of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers were sent to put the languishing town out of ]]> When the family and friends of Olga McAnarney gathered during Christmas week last year to mourn her death, the traditional repast after the burial was an occasion that reunit]]> Love to last a lifetime Sarah Blanchard and Stuart PatersonWhen Sarah Lee Blanchard of Springfield entered the University of Michigan in the fall of 1961, she had no idea she would cross paths with th]]>