Day 87, Friday May 31, 2024: Peoria, Illinois to Lincoln’s New Salem Historical Park, Illinois

Carnegie libraries visited: El Paso, Lincoln, and Petersburg, Illinois

Days sober: 344

My alarm didn’t go off yesterday at 5.55 pm, as I thought I had set it to remind me to log in to a recovery Zoom meeting. It did ring at 5.55 this morning, so that was a surprise. The birds were already doing their best ‘I’m a rooster! I’m a rooster!’ impressions by then, so I didn’t see any point in trying to go back to sleep.

Peoria Carnegie Library

After a cup of coffee, I trundled off to a 7 a.m. meeting of the “Share Clean Air” recovery group. Surely that name has some inside meaning for those in recovery so I guess I’m not yet recovered enough. I followed the directions given by my meeting app, which took me to a strip mall. No further guidance was given (e.g., ‘go behind the Subway’) and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I sat in the parking lot, hoping to see some alcoholic walk by so I could follow them in. No luck. Of course I can’t really tell who's an alcoholic just by looking – I don’t have ‘AAdar’ –  so context matters. Disappointed, I drove off. In some ways it doesn’t really matter if I found the meeting or not. A big part of my recovery is simply showing effort. It’s a bonus if I had found a meeting, yet the important thing is that I was mindful enough to try to find one. That’s what matters. 

I tried again at 8.30 for a meeting of the “Pioneer” group. Oh no; same deal. A strip mall where every store has the same street address (2524 W Farrelly Ave.) plus an additional letter (A, B, C, etc.) that was not mentioned on the app. After a few minutes of looking around, I saw a large dude with a white pony-tail walking toward one of the doors. Maybe I do have AAdar, and he set it off. I approached him to ask the top-secret question: “Are you a friend of Bill?” Yes, he replied, and so I followed him through the unmarked door into the Pioneer room.

I’ve changed my mind: finding an actual meeting does matter. The Pioneer meeting seemed especially personal and confessional. One young guy with a bright smile, wavy dark hair, and tattooed arms told about how, after almost a year of sobriety, he had stopped being sober. And paying his bills. And doing his laundry or doing anything even remotely healthy. He told himself, over and over, that this time would be different, that this time he wouldn’t blow a thousand dollars on booze in a single weekend (which he claimed to do, although it would be difficult unless you’re drinking Veuve Clicquot, which I gather he was not), that this time he would stop. “I knew I was lying to myself. Like I always do.” He had come to meetings here before and had, of course, stopped when he “went back out.” Today was his first day on return, so he was given the 24 hour chip and a warm wounded-warrior welcome. Another guy said that he had given up alcohol a couple of years earlier and that just last week he had also given up pot, pills, and cigarettes. That’s really hard, he confided, especially the pills, because he had eleven back surgeries and was in chronic pain. I may have to go back to the opiates, he admitted, and the rest of the group listened attentively and in silence. The host broke down into tears as he shared that his daughter had stage three colorectal cancer. She’s been sober for thirteen years, since she was 39, and he whispered “I’m really worried about her.”

El Paso Carnegie Library

The El Paso Carnegie library is a buff, two-turreted Romanesque castle in Jefferson Park, bordered on the north and south by 1st and 2nd Streets, and on the west and east by Sycamore and Elm Streets. It opened in 1907, more than thirty years after the Ladies Library Association opened a one-room library in the Eagle Block Building in 1873. In 1901 advocates for a public library tried to make their case to Mayor James Kerr, who refused to hear them out. The Eagle burned down in 1904 and, as the Ladies had wisely purchased insurance, they were able to purchase new books for the temporary quarters in a room above the post office. Kerr’s replacement was more willing to listen to reason, 

The city took over the library’s ownership that year, and in 1906 they approved a tax to support it. The Ladies Library Association, their principal task completed, donated their collection to the city and the club went dark in 1905 (that is when their meetings’ minutes last recorded, at any rate). Here’s the list of the individuals who served as El Paso’s librarian:

Carrie Williamson Tucker, the town’s first paid librarian, served from 1905 to 1921. 

Hortense Ferrell, July 19, 1921 to August 1, 1929

Katharine Jenkins, August 1, 1929, to August 1, 1944

Mildred Burster, August 1, 1944 to December 1, 1969

Marian Mayne, December 1, 1969, to July 19, 1971

Reba Roth, July 15, 1971, to January 31, 1990

Mary Byerly, February 1, 1990, to April 29, 2006

Carla Skare, April 30, 2006 to the present (June 2025)

Local artist Emma Laura Arnold painted the portrait of Andrew Carnegie that graces the library’s interior.

It was a day of weird town names. I went through the El Paso not in Texas, the Petersburg not in Russia, and the Atlanta not in Georgia. Historic Route 66 – the Main Street of America, which connected Chicago to Los Angeles cuts through Atlanta, veering off Interstate 55 which skirts the town entirely. To attract tourists to Atlanta (Illinois), giants literally stalk the town. A two-story tall man cradling a hot dog. A bus driver whose hat is higher than a double-decker bus. A dude in dungarees and a cap holding, well, he’s not actually holding anything although by the position of his hand it looks like he probably once was. The American Giants Museum is in what was formerly a Texaco gas station. There were more, and I wish I had stayed longer to do the full tour. The historical library, across the street from the Route 66 Park, is a hexagonal gem. 

Atlanta Public Library

Should you be continuing west on Route 66 (uh, Interstate 55), you might want to take a break to see the regal Carnegie library in Lincoln. (The Lincoln Public Library is one of four Carnegies in a town with that name; California, Kansas, and Nebraska have the others.) The site for that library was donated by “I, Isabell Nash, being mindful of the uncertainties of life do make this my last will and testament…[and bequeath this property] so long as said city shall use said real estate exclusively for public library purposes…” With the promised land in hand, and appropriate taxes levied, Carnegie was glad to provide $25,000 for construction of a library, which was built in 1902.

Lincoln Carnegie Library

I had booked a camping site at Lincoln’s New Salem Historical Park and, when I got close, I decided it was just a sunk cost. I was worried that the campground would be overrun with cicadas which, it turned out, it was not. I opted for the luxury of a hotel (parking lot). It makes it so much easier to get a cup of coffee in the morning. It was a fine place to rest, even if a whole group of golfers were partying in the parking lot until late.