Notable Burials West Laurel Hill Cemetery: Oil, Paper Towels & Singers

BILLY PAUL  (1934-2016)--  Born Paul Williams.  Singer of "Me and Mrs. Jones."

TEDDY PENDERGRASS  (1950-2010)--  R&B / Soul singer

JOSEPH NEWTON PEW  (1848-1912)--  Founder of Sun Oil Co., now Sunoco.

ARTHUR HOYT SCOTT  (1875-1925)--  Inventor of the paper towel.

We Got a Good Thing Going On.  --DaCoot

About the Octagonal Barn in Spring Grove That Is Endangered at the Former Fred Hatch Farm

 From the October 1, 2022, Northwest Herald (McHenry County, Illinois) "Only you can ensure local history will be 'barn' again" by Kurt Begalka.

The exterior of the 1876 octagonal horse barn in Spring Grove, Illinois, is not much to look at (despite being octagonal).  However, go inside and look up.  Well, that's a whole different story.  That ceiling appears almost cathedral-like.  

And, it might well be the only remaining octagonal barn in McHenry County.

Jack Pease, president of McHenry-based Super Aggregates Inc., recently bought the remainder of the Fred Hatch Farm (site of the now-demolished first silo in the United States that was designed by Fred Hatch).  This farm was most recently owned by the Kattner family.

I knew one of the Kattners, Ed.

Pease said he intends to mine the estimated 100 acres on the north side of Main Street and develop the current Kattner farmstead to the south (where the barn is located).  That means tear it down, subdivide it into lots.

This land is on Spring Grove's Main Street a short distance east of Wilmot Road.

--Cooter

Charles Willson Peale-- Part 3: Not That Painting, That Museum

And, by the way, that painting of Washington which Dolley Madison supposedly saved from the White House was not by Charles Willson Peale.  It was by Gilbert Stuart.  Just in case you're wondering.

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Peale was quite the Renaissance Man as he knew a lot about a lot of things.  He not only had expertise in painting, but also many other fields like carpentry, dentistry,  optometry, shoemaking and taxidermy.  Around 1804, he obtained  the American patent  rights to the polygraph (creates a copy of writing) from its inventor John Isaac Hawkins.

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The Peale Museum

He also had a great interest in natural history and organized the first U.S. scientific expedition in 1801.  That led to his founding of  what became the Philadelphia Museum, later known as  Peale's American Museum.  After his death, his museum failed and was sold to showmen P.T. Barnum and Moses Kimball.

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Peale had ten children, most of them named after his favorite artists.  Three of them became noted artists:  Rembrandt Peale,  Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale.

--CootPeale

More On Ohio's Presidents-- Part 7: Could the Use of an X-Ray Machine Have Saved McKinley's Life?

Another oddity to President McKinley's  assassination was that part of the exposition was the demonstration of a new device called  an X-Ray Light  Machine.

The surgeons operating on President McKinley removed one of the bullets but couldn't find the other and they sewed him up with the bullet still lodged.  Later, McKinley inquired  that maybe the doctors could use the X-Ray machine to find the second bullet, but they refused because they didn't know of possible side effects of its use.

Instead, they opted to reopen the wound and look some more, but still could not find it.

When McKinley died, it was later determined that he had died of a bacterial infection resulting from unsanitary operating conditions at the time.

--Cooter

Deaths: Charles Sanna-- Part 4: Parents Were Italian Immigrants, Served in WW II

Charles Albert Sanna was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 9,1917.  Both parents were Italian immigrants.  His father came to the U.S. at age 13 and later managed a dairy company in Philadelphia, and ice cream company in Washington and a gelatin operation in Chicago.

The family eventually settled in Madison, Wisconsin where Charles graduated high school and attended the University of Wisconsin and received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1939.  He joined the Navy two years later and rose through the ranks to become a superintendent of submarine construction at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine.

While there, he met Margaret "Peggy" McGee and they married in 1946.

After WW II, Sanna's father convinced him to join the family dairy business, then known as Sanna Dairy Engineers.  This proved crucial to the company as he designed a 60-foot-tall stainless steel dryer in Menominee  that powdered milk and died eggs.

Even though his postwar career was mostly involved with dairy, he never forgot the men who served on his submarines during the war.  I'll write about that in my Tattooed On Your Soul: World War II blog later today.

--Cooter

Deaths: Charles Sanna and Swiss Miss Cocoa-- Part 3: Name From Laurel and Hardy Film

The airlines eventually cancelled their contracts as the mix was expensive, so Charles returned too the kitchen and reworked the recipe, again with the help of his children. He replaced the whole milk with powdered skim milk which was cheaper and gave the cocoa mix a longer shelf life.

The new product was named Swiss Miss, the title of a film by Laurel and Hardy.  It was marketed with mail-order Swiss Miss dolls and inspired similar mixes by Carnation, Nestle and Hershey.  It was a hit.

To say the least, it was a hit even in Antarctica

Charles Sanna retired and Sanna Dairy was sold to Beatrice Foods in 1967.  Since 1990, Swiss Miss has been a part of Conagra, which says it sells more than 50 million boxes of it each year.

--Cooter

Deaths: Charles Sanna and Swiss Miss Cocoa Mix-- Part 2

"The product had a wonderful flavor," Sanna once wrote, "I believed that it would make an excellent ingredient for a hot cup of cocoa.  To confirm my belief, I consulted the family cookbook."

He tested his recipe with the help of his five children then with the children at a parochial school in his hometown of Menominie, Wisconsin.  Thus Sanna created what became known as Swiss Miss, a powder that when poured into hot water or milk, became a favorite of Americans and even Antarctic explorers.

It launched the instant hot chocolate industry of the early 1960s.

He was trained as a mechanical engineer and began his career maintaining blast furnaces and coke ovens for U.S. Steel.  But he always had an amazing sense of taste and smell.

After figuring out how to turn surplus military milk powder into a delicious beverage, next he had to market it.  His brother Tony Sanna gave it the name Brown Swiss, after a breed of dairy cow, even though Charles used milk from Holstein cows which produce a higher volume of milk with less butterfat.

The mix had some early success after it was sold to airlines.

--Cooter

Deaths: Charles Sanna and His Swiss Miss Cocoa Mix-- Part 1: Built Submarines in WW II

CHARLES SANNA  (1917-2019)

From the April 5, 2019, Chicago Tribune  "He poured genius into Swiss Miss cocoa mix" by
Harrison Smith, Washington Post.

And, he was a builder of submarines during World War II and invented towering spray dryers.  But, he was best-known for his Swiss Miss cocoa mix.  I sure had a lot of that while growing up.

"Fiddling at his kitchen stove in the late 1950s, standing over a pot of creamer, sugar, cocoa and vanilla, Charles Sanna... was on the verge of a culinary breakthrough."

At the time, he was chief engineer at Sanna Dairies, a Wisconsin business founded by his father, an Italian immigrant who sold his own mozzarella and ricotta.  During the Korean War they had supplied the U.S. military with powdered sweetened whole milk coffee creamer.

To avoid penalties written into Army contracts for failing to make enough creamer, the company had overproduced the creamer and now had warehouses full of the stuff

Something  needed to be done with it and Charles decided to do something about it.

A New Filing Cabinet Patent in DeKalb in 1944

From the March 20, 2019, MidWeek  "Looking Back."

1944, 75 Years Ago.

"A patent has been granted to J.A. Miller of North Ninth street according to word received from Washington, D,C.,  for an improved filing cabinet.

"Mr. Miller, superintendent at the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, has had several  patents granted in the past few years and his friends will be interested  to learn of the latest one."

A drawing of the new patent accompanies the article.  I was unable to find out anything else about Mr. Miller.

--CootPat

Elva Women Doing Their Part in World War I Effort in 1917

From the July 5, 2017, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois)  "Looking Back."

1917, 100 Years Ago

"The larger clubs of Elva, that is, the Homemakers, the Woman's Club and Woman's Christian Temperance Union, have discontinued their meets for an indefinite period, turning their interest toward Red Cross work."

The war is on.

Elva is located five miles south and southwest of DeKalb, Illinois, and was developed by Joseph Glidden, the inventor of barbed wire, and named for his daughter.

--Cooter

Christopher Latham Sholes "Father of the Typewriter"-- Part 1

From the July 15, 2015, Hi-Liter "Just our type: Kenosha newspaper editor recognized as 'Father of the Typewriter'  by Sandra Machaq.

Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Sholes is known as the "Father of the Typewriter" according to Charles Edward Weller in his 1918 book "The Early History of the Typewriter."  Sholes also is known as the inventor of the QWERTY keyboard which is still being used on computers.

Latham Sholes was born in Pennsylvania and became a printer apprentice after which he moved to Wisconsin and worked for his older brothers who owned and published a newspaper in Green Bay.  Next, he went to Madison and became editor of the Wisconsin Enquirer.

One year later, he moved to Kenosha, then known as Southport and became publisher of the local newspaper.He then got into state politics.

--DaCoot

"Operation" Inventor Needs One, Can't Afford It

From the October 30, 2014, Chicago Tribune by Tony Briscoe and Colleen Mastony.

John Spinello, 77, of Bloomingdale, Illinois, invented the popular board game "Operation."  Now, he really needs one, only, he can't afford it.

This has fueled a huge reaction.  Some people have said this game inspired them to go into a medical career.

He was a student at the University of Illinois in an industrial design class when he came up with the game as a project.  A relative who worked for Marvin Glass and Associates, a Chicago novelty and toy company and the boss, Marvin Glass liked it so much, he offered to buy the rights for it for $500 and give Spinello a job after graduation.

In 1965, the game reached the Milton Bradley Co. and was redesigned to feature a patient in an operating room.  The game became a smash hit

John Spinello, meanwhile, got his $500, but never worked for Glass.  he started a warehouse and shipping company which ended up declaring bankruptcy two years ago.

Right now, Spinello needs dental implants which will cost $25,000, a crowfunding website has raised $21,000 of  that amount as of Wednesday.

Maybe Milton Bradley Co. should kick in some money after all the dough they made on it.

--Cooter

A "Twinkie" in Her Eye-- Twinkies-- Part 1: Who Invented Them?

From the Nov. 18, 2012, Chicago Tribune "Expiration date for Twinkie?" by Joseph Ruzich and Ted Gregory.

Of course, this article came out when the country was facing the loss of Twinkies, but, they're back now.

The Twinkie was born on April 6, 1930, in Illinois, at the Continental Baking Company in River Forest. Plant manager James Dewar came up with the recipe in his quest to create a two-for-a-nickle snack, reportedly coming up with the name after passing a billboard for Twinkle Toe Shoes.

Dewar was looking for a way to use shortcake pans that had been used seasonably for a strawberry shortcake knock-off called Little Shortbread Fingers.

Dewar said it was "the best darn-tootin' idea I ever had."

He related that he ate at least three Twinkies with a glass of milk every night before he went to bed.

Good Calories? --Cooter