Giving Tuesday: Support CCHM & CCNDI

The Champaign County Newspaper Digitization Initiative at the Champaign County History Museum is within $2,500 of the goal to scan the St. Joseph Record from 1940 to 1962 and convert it to a researchable digital format. Once it is converted, it will be available free of charge on the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection through the University of Illinois Library. https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/

Starting in December 1941, just after Pearl Harbor, Charles W. Dale, the editor of the St.Joseph Record, began sending weekly editions of the paper to every serviceman for whom he had an address. The soldiers and sailors from St. Joseph, Ogden, Flatville, and Royal frequently wrote home telling of their experiences. This generation is practically gone, and I feel we owe it to them to tell their stories.

I have attached what Aldolph Willms (Steve, Marilyn, and Wanda’s dad) wrote home in June 1944 from somewhere in the Pacific. This was not his first mention in the paper. He had been deployed since 1942, and his family would periodically put in the paper a small article about where he was and how he was doing.

It costs 62 cents a page to digitize the paper. If you want to contribute, go to the Champaign County History Museum website https://www.champaigncountyhistory.org/ and look under the heading SUPPORT for the Newspaper Digitization Initiative, or contact me to make a donation. Seventy-five people donating twenty dollars each will get us across the line to meet our goal.

(written by Mary Butzow)

Additional Note: If we receive all of the grant funding we have applied for, any leftover funds will be used immediately to digitize other Champaign County small town newspapers, and an announcement will be made to that effect.