Marion Annexes Eight Lots Near Golf and Country Club
Eight lots in the Country Club Heights subdivision near the Southern Illinois Golf and Country Club in Marion were annexed to the city Monday night.
The city council took the action at the request submitted July 23 by the property owners, Marshall and Martha Skelcher, David and Cynthia Guard and Charles and Marilee Luckett. Continue reading
William N. Mitchell was the paternal ancestor of a long line of prominent citizens, he served as Williamson County Clerk, Marion Postmaster, was the fourth and last person to serve as President of an incorporated Marion Board of Trustees before Marion started using the Mayoral form in 1874 and he helped organize and ran on the first ever Republican ticket in Williamson County, not to mention his involvement in the first Republican county newspaper. Continue reading
Boundaries often are stretched to include Barnett’s Addition
Gent’s Addition: In mid-Marion, yet separated
Even the name connotes separation. Something added on, a portion merely attached to the whole.
And yet, Gent’s Addition is located almost in the center of the city of Marion, a few blocks southwest of the Public Square.
The boundaries stretch from College to Boyton Streets north and south and from Van Buren to Court Streets east and west. But the boundaries often are stretched to include Burnett’s addition, the 700 block of South Liberty Street between Cline and College. Continue reading
Clara Kirk Sees Gent’s Addition as a neglected part of Marion
Words are easy to speak; songs are easy to sing. A popular song begins “Love makes the world go round, love makes the world go round.” Ministers preach these words. People’s actions often mock them.
Clara Kirk lives by them. Miss Kirk spent 41 years of her 69 years teaching primary grades. Before her retirement in 1969, she taught 30 years in Douglass School, Marion’s only all black school. After the school was abolished in 1965, she spent the last four years of the career at Washington School. Continue reading
Young Black sees some adults as race’s big problem
“I am a citizen of Marion, a citizen that lives in Gent’s. I don’t consider myself a black man, just a man. Just Donald Allen, not black Donald Allen.”
But the community of Marion, Allen feels, has not let him or other young blacks drop the added labels of definition. Not that he is ashamed of his race, simply prouder of being a man. Continue reading