Reeves, John Franklin "Frank"

Summary

Father: John Reeves
Mother: Emma Jane Ewing

Birth: 26 June 1882, Plymouth, Hancock County, Il
Birth Source: obituary, headstone, census

Death: 22 February 1974, Colchester, McDonough County, Il
Death Source: obituary, headstone

Spouse1: Maude Ella Johnson, m. 16 December 1906, Littleton, Schuyler County, Il

Narrative

Children of John Franklin Reeves and Maude Ella Johnson:

1. Hallie Richard Reeves, b. 25 Mar 1907, d. 27 May 1994
2. John Herschel "Sug" Reeves, b. 16 Dec, 1908, d. 9 Jan 2009
3. Mary "Neva" Reeves, b. 27 Nov 1910, d. 26 Jul 2008
4. Reatha Jane Reeves, b. 31 May 1915, d. 29 Nov 2018

"The Macomb Journal", Macomb, IL, 22 Feb 1974 obit Reeves at the Colchester Nursing Center, Colchester, McDonough County, IL. My grandfather John Franklin Reeves went by Frank so as to not get names mixed up with his father John Reeves. My grandfather John Frank Reeves had been in the Colchester Nursing Home for 6 years because of eye problems and the inability to care for himself at home. He was born June 26, 1882 at Plymouth, IL. At the age of two in 1884 he moved with his family to Brooklyn, Schuyler Co., Il. where his father had a job working at a flour mill on Crooked Creek later named Lamoine River. He went to school in Brooklyn through the 8th grade. December 16, 1906, Frank married Maude Ella Johnson, a pretty girl who lived across the road in Brooklyn. During his adult life he operated a steam engine and separator threshing grain for farmers for many miles around Schuyler and McDonough Counties. He also bought 80 acres of trees on the flood plain of Crooked Creek, built a sawmill on this ground , and cut all of the trees but 10 acres. After the trees were cut he would blow the stumps out of the ground with dynamite and burn the stumps. Then he would farm the ground. He later moved the sawmill to his farm home in Brooklyn and continued to saw logs into lumber for other people.

Research Notes

I have fond memories while growing up of staying with my grandparents every chance I could. My Granddad Frank could look at a tree before it was cut and tell you how many board feet were in the tree. He was true sawyer. I remember helping him to saw lumber and to rake bean stubble and then bale it for feed or burn it in the field if it had too many weeds in it. I remember shucking ears of corn by hand in the fall. I got to drive his Ford tractor to pull a cart as granddad could not get on or off as easy as I could. Sometimes we would put the mature corn plants in shocks and leave them in the field to dry for winter feeding.

Granddad's shop was a whole different world. All kinds of tools lined the wall above his workbench. He did not have electricity in the shop at first so he had a system of pulleys and axles overhead which was powered with a gas engine. Drills, an air compressor and other power tools were run by this method. At one end of the shop he parked his favorite machine, his Ford tractor, maybe it was a Fordson tractor. At the other end of the shop was his forge in which he would heat metal with coal, get the metal red hot and hammer it out on his anvil into whatever he wanted to make. He could make anything that was needed. I remember him making horseshoes and knives. If a piece of metal broke, he would heat up the forge and fuse it back together, probably stronger than it was before. Today we would call that welding, but Granddad never had a welder.

Sources

Birth:          Schuyler County History 1983, p 488
Marriage1:  Schuyler County History 1983, p 488 Memorial Record Booklet from the funeral home
Death:        Obituary newspaper The Augusta Eagle and the Macomb Journal
Burial:       Find a Grave Brooklyn Cemetery, Brooklyn, Schuyler Co, Il

1880 Census:  Lamoine Twp, McDonough Co, Il, page 257
1900 Census:  Brooklyn Twp, Schuyler Co, Il
1910 Census:  Brooklyn Twp, Schuyler Co, Il page 10A
1920 Census:  Brooklyn Twp, Schuyler Co, Il page 10A
The Reeves Family p 488-489 Schuyler County Illinois History 1983
Personal observations and memories of TRP Member LarryJ_Bartlett