McHenry County Blog

Lowney's Fruit & Nut Chocolates box. In the lower right corner are the words, "A Crest Package."

I finally opened a Lowney’s Fruit & Nut Chocolates box that contained Valentines and Christmas Cards that I thought my grandmother Addie Watling-Skinner had saved.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered my mother, Eleanor Stevens Skinner, had save the contents.

I knew there were Valentines in there, but I also found Christmas cards, her acceptance letter from Washington College, cards and letters from boys from West Point, Trinity College in Connecticut and Catonsville, Maryland.  Courting by letter is a lot different from doing so by phone or texting, I would imagine.  The letters showed fear of rejection, that’s for sure.

None were from my father.  My guess he was too busy working his way through college, holding jobs of egg candling in a market in Southwest Washington that still has a commercial use and a warehouse in the same area on a main highway.  He did have a car though and attended the University of Maryland, so maybe his courting was in person after Mother took a job teaching on the Western Shore.

It appears my mother was on more than one college boy’s mind.

The Valentine was a complicated one of embossed thin cardboard. This bird was attached by the paper tag at the bottom behind the part that says, "To My Valentine." You can see where below. The bird's image is approximately to scale compared to the rest of the card below.

Her one-time farm neighbor, Calvin LeRoy Skinner, was the winner in the marriage stakes.

A cherub seems to be hammering rings on top of the card.

But, not until I was driving him around Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, while he was being treated for lung cancer (from cigarettes, of course) did I even learn that.  Roy, his tenant-farmer father had rented the land next to the Stevens’ family farm near Barclay for a while when they were both in the same class at Sudlersville High School.

You can see the windmill used behind the more ornate stamped images in front.

I can’t be certain that this Valentine is from my father to my mother.  It is “To Eleanor…From Guess Who…Calvin W.”

If this is not from my father, I wonder who "Calvin W." was.

My Dad’s middle initial was “L.”  So, what’s with the “W?”

Did she know two “Calvins?”

Keely can't wait to chase bats in our home. In the background are photos of my parents and daughter Alexandra.

They’re back.

The rabid bats, I mean.

I first got interested with rabid bats when the McHenry County Health Department used them as an excuse to try to impose what I came to call the McHenry County Republican Cat Tax.

The pitch was that all cats had to be immunized against rabies in order to protect them.

Oh, yes.

Each cat had to be licensed so the county health department could make sure they had had their rabies shot.

As our Keely Cat knows, some cats are not allowed to go outside, even though that mean man in the smelling office has stuck a needle in him.

Anyway, Keely Cat would welcome the opportunity to chase a fellow mammal. Being limited to the occasional insect hardly satisfies his hunting instinct.

And, he still wonders why the county board ordinance exempted cats that live in barns. Wouldn’t they be the most likely to run into bats?

The county’s press release follows:

McHenry County Department of Health (MCDH) confirms its 2nd and 3rd rabid bat – both in Woodstock – with one resident undergoing rabies preventative treatment. It is strongly recommended that residents not release a bat but contain it in a room, under a bucket or blanket and keep people away from it.

In order to test bats for rabies, it is important they be in good condition – either alive or recently deceased. Specimens that are in good condition and test negative for rabies eliminates the need for rabies treatment.

McHenry County Animal Control should be contacted immediately. – call (815-459-6222).

The State Health Department has reported 16 rabid bats state-wide. Lake, Kane, Cook and Will County are among those reporting rabid bats in 2010 in addition to central and southern counties.

The best way to avoid rabies is to avoid exposure.

Keely is ready for any bat that menaces the Skinner household.

Rabies is a deadly disease caused by a virus that attacks the central nervous system and can only be confirmed in a laboratory.

Residents are encouraged to take a “hands off” approach to wild animals to reduce their risk of exposure. Parents also need to educate their children of the dangers.

Keeping pets up to date with vaccinations will not only keep them from getting rabies but also provide a barrier of protection for you if your animal is bitten by a rabid animal. Most bats leave in the fall or winter to hibernate so these are the best times to “bat-proof” your home.

A bat that is active by day, found in a place where bats are not usually seen (such as in your home, in a swimming pool or on the lawn) or is unable to fly, is more likely than others to be rabid. A rabies fact sheet is available at the Illinois Dept of Public Health.

Questions about exposure should be directed to MCDH’s Communicable Disease Program at 815-334-4500.

The Badmitten may look like he’s in hunting mode above, but a guy can always be vigilant, right?

It's not as if a guy can be alert all the time. It's been four years and I've never seen a bat.

With the new WordPress program I am using, I get notified when people link to a story.

Thursday I got a “pingback” about from

“Motivate Grammar.”

The author, Gabe Doyle, “a fourth-year graduate student in Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego,” who is “a computational psycholinguist, which means that I use computers to model how people think about language,” was talking about the current use of “hopefully.”

In my article,

Indian Jones Coming to a Toy Store Near You,

I use it in the tradition way. It’s probably not because my mother, Eleanor Skinner, was an English teacher (and took her girl’s basketball team to a second place finish in Maryland’s state tournament in her first year of teaching in the mid-1930′s).

I think it’s because I took German and think of “hoffentlich’s” definition whenever I use the word “hopefully.” (Not that I could spell the German word after my last German class 48 years ago without looking it up.)

What’s it mean?

“It is to be hoped,” the traditional meaning of “hopefully.”

If I still drove or walked my son to South Elementary School, I would have seen the activity in my neighborhood before 2.

As it was, I noticed cars on Meridian Street in front of our home.  As I drove down the driveway, I noticed more toward the lake, so I decided to see what was up.

At the corner, I noticed a Crystal Lake Service League House Walk directional sign.

My mother wanted to buy it, but my conservative father did not. The price at the time was $40,000. They could have afforded it, I figure. We kids were out of college.

And, it still had the side lot then.

With the last lot on the lake–a tear down–having just sold for what I’ve heard was $450,000, we probably couldn’t afford to pay for the taxes.

Think this license plate refers to the intention of its owners to stay married?

It says,

Today is the anniversary of my parents’ wedding on July 31, 1938.

There’s the happy couple.

When I clicked on the wedding certificate, I noticed it said they were married in Wilmington, Delaware.

When Vernon Kays retired from being County Clerk, Dad ran for the office against Vernon’s Chief Deputy Rosemary Azzaro. Rosemary won, even winning at least one Crystal Lake Coventry precinct in which she knocked on doors. Dad didn’t do any door-to-door campaigning.

Two years later he was back on the county board.

In the 1980′s, the county board was bold enough to announce potential sites for ten or so county airports. What a way to engender opposition.

Tom Smrt, the owner of Fox Valley Systems in Cary took offense. He raised English Shires sought of Marengo on Route 20 next to the Tollway. He created the McHenry County Chronicle, which was mailed to at least all who voted Republican regularly. Every month. Smrt’s attacks on the county board led to Dad’s allies winning all four seats that were up that year.

In the fall of 1987, his wife Eleanor was killed in a truck-car accident at Route 14 and Dean Street Road. It took over ten years after that for a traffic signal to be installed.

Dad and Mom had been scheduled to go up to Mayo the next April. Dad didn’t go.

The night the summer drought was broken by a severe thunderstorm Dad had a county board meeting.

On Country Club Road almost to Crystal Springs Road, he ran into a tree branch. He hit his chest on the steering wheel. That might not have been so bad, but when he plowed into the big tree branch there was a young man trying to move it from the highway. Dad’s bumper crushed the Good Samaritan’s leg between his bumper and that of the young man.

About a year later he developed lung cancer where his chest was bruised. He had smoked cigarettes, then, a pipe, but had stopped maybe eight years before the cancer showed up.

It would have been caught early had Dad kept the appointment at Mayo, but, after Mother’s death he skipped it.

He ended up being treated at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. He and I lived with my sister Jan in a zip code in search of a town between Annapolis and Washington. The zip code was called Severn.

In December, Dr. Stevens would not release him when he had to leave in order to get back to McHenry County to vote for Ann Hughes for county board chairman. He didn’t think her opponent would be independent enough.

He signed himself out.

You see the photo of my wheeling him in for the crucial vote. Somehow he managed to retain his position as vice chairman, even though a deal had been cut to elect another man.

After Dad died in the summer of 1989, I executed his estate.

To do that I had to get his birth certificate.

To my surprise, I found that his middle name of “LeRoy” read “Leroy” on the birth certificate. Apparently he decided to capitalize the “R” at some point in his life. So, I’m not really a “junior” because my birth certificate reads “LeRoy.” I guess being a regular “Leroy” wasn’t fancy enough for him.

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Earlier articles in this ten-part series can be found in the links below:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

Prior to the 1972 elections, the United States Supreme Court ruled that legislative bodies like the McHenry County Board and city councils had to be apportioned on a one-man, one-vote basis.

The county board divided the county into three districts, Dad’s consisting of Algonquin and Grafton Townships.

Dad didn’t like the way the districts had been apportioned and challenged it acting as his owner lawyer in Federal Court.

Because the district lines Dad came up resulted in more closely matched populations and were at least as compact as the county’s the judge told McHenry County State’s Attorney to discuss a settlement with Dad.

State’s Attorney Bill Cowlin did not do so before the next scheduled court date.

When both showed up before the judge, Dad told the judge that Cowlin hadn’t gotten in touch with him.

The Federal judge then ordered him to do so before returning for the next hearing.

Dad didn’t get exactly what he asked for, but the county board members came up with a much more acceptable map. Algonquin and Grafton Townships were put in District 1, one-third of the county’s population.

Dad and his allies put together a slate, which they called “Responsible Republicans.” They made the ballot order so they could tell people to vote from “Bick to Burns.” (John Bick, an older conservative and 10-acre tree farmer from Barrington Hills; Brad Burns, my to-be brother-in-law, from Crystal Lake’s Coventry.)

The regular Republicans won all eight seats up in 1972, but my father got more votes than any other county board member running in Districts Two and Three.

The next time Dad ran, he and his ally Lou Anne Majewski won. Lou Anne got more votes, helping validate my theory that women have an automatic advantage when they run for office.

McHenry County Courthouse, build with non-referndum Public Building Commission bonds.

I remember on serious disagreement we had. When an addition was being built on the new courthouse, he voted to let the Public Building Commission issue bonds without a referendum.

I reminded him that he had campaigned against similar action when the new courthouse had been constructed.

More tomorrow. You can read earlier articles by looking at early days of McHenry County Blog or linking below:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

This is the fourth in a serialization of my father’s biography. Previous parts can be found below on McHenry County Blog.

One of Dad’s inspirations for running for office involved an unresponsive city government.

I can hear the sounds of gravel to this day hitting the water below my feet as my Dad held my hands after I managed to slip into the open storm sewer.

Dad went to city hall and asked for a grate on the sewer. (You might say my and my father’s political careers started that day…in the gutter. That what I said about my own when I announced for the U.S. Senate in 1981 at my then in-laws’ Herb and Millicent Geist’s David Adler mansion at at 955 Lake Avenue in Lake Forest.)

Dad didn’t get what he requested.

So, when the post of president of the town council became vacant, he had a real reason for running.

Needless to say, storm sewers soon through Easton soon had grates.

Jan Skinner with parents Cal and Eleanor Skinner in 1965, the year they went to Europe.

First daughter Janet was born in 1944.

I remember the family joined the Miles River Yacht Club. We had a small outboard in what seemed to be a very big berth to someone about six. I remember the day we came to the yacht club and it had sunk.

More scary were the fireworks that blew onto our blanket when the wind blew in from the east during the 4th of July celebration.

Dad then bought a leaky, old fishing boat. We had just seen the “African Queen,” so it probably was in 1951 or 52. The boat ran aground in Kent Narrows and the men got off to push it off the sandbar. I was put in charge of the pump at age ten, while my eight-year old sister Janet sat with me inside the small cabin.

The yacht club is where I got introduced to slot machines. They were nickel slots and I have to admit I did not understand the sign above them:

I knew there were no mines nearby.

My father and his assistant Jack Rue, who became a congressional assistant to either Rogers C.B. Morton or his successor, took off the boat’s copper sheathing and spend hours putting wooden match sticks into the holes where the nails had been.

One day a snow goose showed up in the back room where the washing machine was kept. Dad had shot it. I remember Mother’s pouring boiling water over to loosen the feathers, which she plucked. I don’t think she was too happy about having that task.

Sometime in the late 1940′s Dad bought a used offset press and started a printing business in the side room where we played. I guess he thought the family needed more money than Tri-State Packers paid him.

Dad was in the caravan of Eastern Shore public officials who were the first to drive across the new Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952.

So much for the ferry rides across the Bay. They were a real treat to us kids.

That was the same year that second daughter Ellen entered the world. Jan and I were asked if we wanted a little brother or sister. My guess is that Mom asked the question after she was pregnant.

More tomorrow

= = = = =
Links to all the stories are below:

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

Previous parts of this biography can be found below on McHenry County Blog.

The night I was born, June 11, 1942, my father and his Methodist minister friend Charles (Charlie) Jarvis, who baptized all three kids and, having moved to Illinois to the first pastor the Oak Park Methodist Church, officiated at Dad’s funeral, sat on the porch of the Easton Memorial Hospital drinking beer.

His wife Eleanor was inside doing the heavy work.

It was the night of the first blackout. (During World War II communities prepared for air attacks by using shades to block light coming from their homes.)

Since I was conceived before Pearl Harbor, my father was not drafted. He also was working in what was considered an essential industry. Those two factors, rather than his mis-set broken arm probably keep him out of harm’s way.

A local owner of property, Mrs. Hubbard died and her homes went up for auction to settle her estate. Dad was bidding on her home, which was at 212 S. Aurora Street. As I remember the story, he had $2,000.

The bid went higher.

Mr. Frank Shook, his boss at Tri-State Packers, offered to loan him $500 and, with that money, he bid $2,500 and bought his first house. (It had weathered wooden shingles then. I remember tossing what Mrs. Hubbard had stored in the attic out the window, which seemed very high up to someone in grade school. I got a lot of great old stamps, because she saved every letter.)

Shortly thereafter Mr. Shook retired and Dad became the Tri-State Packers’ Executive Secretary.

That must have been about the time Dad was spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill. As one of the closer trade associations.

The National Canners Association often called on him to appear before congressional committees during World War II. Dad always got cannery operators to testify, knowing that congressmen would rather hear from someone in the trenches than a hired gun.

The high-powered attorney the national association retained gave him some advice I have repeated many times:

“Cal, there are two kinds of lawyers. Those who tell you why you can’t do what you want to do and those who tell you how to do what you want to do.”

Dad and I preferred the latter.

Besides working at the trade association, Dad managed a cannery at least one summer.

He also worked his father’s farm when his father became incapacitated. You see him behind the mule.

As an up-and-comer in Easton, Dad was elected president of the Easton Rotary Club, which met in the Tidewater Inn. From the award for club excellence I found, it appears that must have been in 1944-45. (Plaques just don’t take the place of those hand-lettered awards, do they? Click to enlarge.)

His friend Walter Barnes, who ran a men’s store across from the courthouse, was Mayor of Easton. When a vacancy occurred as head of the legislative branch, the town council, Dad ran unopposed and won. (I remember walking with my mother when she voted at the fire house on the side street near the Avalon Theatre.)

More tomorrow.

= = = = =
Links to all of the stories can be found below:

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

The first part of my father’s multi-part biography ran yesterday. Today, Father’s Day, we’ll

Dad graduated debt free from college in three and a half years.

Somehow I have gotten the impression that he was something of a lady’s man. I don’t know how he had time.

He had to take off one semester to work the farm while he father was sick, which I didn’t know until I read my sister Jan Patel’s memories.

Dad’s goal in life was to become a county ag agent.

One of his part-time jobs was candling eggs at a market in Washington, D.C. The Southeast District of Columbia market still exists and I believe it is now an upscale shopping area.

(Later, during the Richard Ogilvie administration, the McHenry County Republican Party sent out a list of jobs that were open. Dad had been elected Algonquin Township Precinct Committeeman in 1966, when I ran for McHenry County Treasurer, and served until 1988. He had been head of the local Nixon citizens committee in 1960. He lost a GOP primary race for County Auditor in 1964 to Harley Mackeben, McHenry County Board Chairman and Grafton Township Supervisor.

(In any event, “egg candler” was one of the jobs and Dad guessed rightly that no one else would have relevant experience. Don’t know where the job was located, but he didn’t get it. Of course, he didn’t really want it.)

Mom was teaching in Elkridge, Maryland. It’s on the Western Shore. Her first year, she coached her girls basketball team to second place in the state tournament.

My mother and father were married on July 31, 1938, in Wilmington, Delaware. The fancy marriage certificate says it was by a Methodist Episcopal minister named Wingate Daniel Short.

Mother lived in Barclay at the time; Dad in Sudlersville, both in Maryland. Helen Roe Stevens and Addie Louise Skinner were the witnesses.

After college, my father taught agriculture in Cordova, Talbot County, Maryland, but discovered it didn’t pay well enough to support a wife.

Then, he took a job with the Federal Land Bank in Baltimore. The two lived in an upstairs apartment in a row house.

As an appraiser, he worked with farmers who held loans with the Land Bank when the Pennsylvania Tollway right-of-way was being purchased, among others.

In 1941,he took a job as assistant to the Tri-State (Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey) Packers Association in Easton, Maryland, with the prospect of becoming its Executive Secretary when the man who hired him retired. I think his name was Frank Shook. They lived in half a house until I was born in 1942.

My September, 1941, conception occurred before Pearl Harbor and for some reason that kept Dad from being drafted. Dad also worked for what the government considered an essential industry–food production. That may have contributed to his deferment later in World War II.

I found a Red Cross Volunteer arm patch, which I assume was Dad’s.

I know he told me that he did serve as a lookout along the shore to see if German submarines were within site.

I’m not sure where, but the coastal areas were worried that a submarine would land spies or saboteurs, I guess.

Our home county of Talbot has more miles of waterfront than any other in the country. (And, the British did bombard St. Michaels during the War of 1812. And, the Nazis patrolled the Eastern Seaboard looking for Allied ships.)

Tomorrow – More of Cal Skinner, Sr.’s biography.

= = = = =
Links to all the articles can be found below:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death