Lilleys to be honored as Homecoming grand marshals

Carbon Hill’s 75th Homecoming Week will be June 18-22, and this year we will honor long-time residents Allan and Ruth Anne Lilley as our Grand Marshals.
Mr. and Mrs. Lilley join a long list of neighbors who over the years have served the community during homecoming weeks and throughout the years.
The Lilleys live in their neat and tidy home on the north side of Judson Street. Their shady lot is noticed for its cheerful well tended border garden of roses and daylilies set among other annuals and perennials and larger shrubs in the landscape.
It seems like when anyone is asked how they came to live in tiny Carbon Hill everyone has a unique story.
Allan David Lilley was born nine miles north of Mattoon, IL in Humboldt IL, near Amish country and Arthur, IL. Allan is often called Joe. He explains this is because when he was born his Mom was reading a book with a character named Jody and started to call him Jody; the nickname stuck but got shortened to Joe.
The Lilley family moved to land between Seneca and Marseilles when Allan was 7 or 8. Allan attended rural Fall River School and declares he didn’t cause any trouble in school. The class had three boys and six girls. Allan went to Seneca High School.
Living in Norman Township he farmed for Bud and Maxine Burroughs off DuPont Road and also tended their 500 livestock cattle until he was called into service in 1964.
Allan served in the Signal Corps at Fort Carson Colorado. He was in line getting his shots when he got called into HQ. They asked if he wanted to go to Vietnam. He said he’d go wherever they sent him; they pulled his orders and he didn’t go to Vietnam. Allan said our generals didn’t want to get our soldiers stuck offshore bobbing in the water at sea for their tours of duty. So Allan did his entire service stateside in Colorado and came back home.
Meanwhile, Ruth Anne Matteson was working at Morris Saving and Loan. She and her friends would ride around Morris buzzing the gut after work. Allan and Ruth Anne were country neighbors who really didn’t know each other until they pulled their cars over to talk and the rest is history. That’s the short story of how they got together.
Ruth Anne Matteson attended rural Woodbury School. She was the only one in her class. Her Eighth grade Graduation ceremony was held in Center School in Morris for all the rural school graduates. Ruth Anne attended High School in Morris for two years and then moved to Mazon High School.
Rural kids back then were driven to and from school by local women hired by the township or county to get the kids to and from school. So Ruth Anne went to school in a big old station wagon driven by Mrs. Hazel Thomas.
Ruth Anne’s Dad worked at the DuPont plant on DuPont Road. Her family rented on Buffalo Road and for a time on Shabbona Road. Her grandmother was Tess Phillips. The Phillips family farm was on Carbon Hill Road.
Ruth Anne said, “dad, mom, and I lived there for a while when I was about 2 or 3 and likely mom was the housekeeper as the uncles were single men.” Great Uncle George was a kind man, Ruth Anne says, and she was sort of spoiled. She noted her parents found a house of their own to rent well before the 1948 tornado whipped through the Phillips farm property.
Allan and Ruth Anne married on Feb. 3, 1968 in Morris’ Immaculate Conception Church. Ruth Anne’s sister Mary (Mrs. Bill Shoudis) was her maid of honor: Allan’s sister Sharon Lilley Schmuker and Pam Chada (a cousin) served as bridesmaids.
Allan and Ruth Anne came to Carbon Hill in 1972 to the Fornelli house where Great Aunt Kitty (Phillips) and her husband Uncle Joe Fornelli had lived. The lot west of that house was where during Homecomings baseball players and carnival workers showered among the shade trees and the chicken house with some privacy for cleaning up. This lot is where Allan and Ruth Anne built their new home where they live today.
Allan and Ruth Anne’s first Homecoming living here would have been 1973. Allan called bingo for Barney DeGrush. Ruth Anne baked four fruit pies each night to sell in slices in the food stand. The two of them were alternating volunteering with his night in bingo and her night in the food stand so the kids could go to the carnival every night to play the fish game and toss the dime in the dishes and ride the rides.
And it was family reunion time at their home during homecoming too. Ruth Anne was a leader of the Brownies troop so their house was the gathering spot for the troop when they walked in the parade. Daughter Beth remembers Joe Fornelli made them a covered wagon with a wooden horse leading it and Beth and Lisa rode inside the wagon in the homecoming parade.
Allan called Bingo with Barney for 8 or 10 years until shift work at ComEd put Homecoming volunteering on hold.
Allan went to Auctioneer School with Russ Chapman. He worked at Cornbelt selling fertilizer and chemicals to area farmers and at Alumax for a bit and then at ComEd’s No 9 coal station on Patterson Road.
ComEd years were spent at Dresden, Joliet, Streator, and Homer Glen. Through it all, Carbon Hill has been home.
The old Fornelli house has had many occupants over the years. Karen & Dave Togliatti lived there when their kids were little. Ruth Anne and Allan were renting there when Joe Fornelli died. Sonny Macketta said buy the house or move. So they bought it.
They lived in it until 1996, raising both girls there. They rented it out for a while after they built their home. They eventually sold it. Josh and Jordan Brainard live there today.
Joe Fornelli also owned the old Big Four coal company store on Third St. and kept a big garden and shelled corn there. The brick buildings and silo held his farming equipment and empty lots along the east side of Third St. held his water troughs for his big gardens. Karen and David Togliatti bought those lots on 3rd St. long ago. Their daughter Tricia lives in the house where the old brick coal company store once stood. Every lot, every building and every family are the threads in Carbon Hill’s tapestry.
In 1996, Allan and Ruth Anne built their new house. Allan retired from ComEd and went to Englewood Electric and drove parts for them. Then Allan and Ruth Anne both worked for the Special Ed Co Op and were assigned to go to different schools as Special Ed aides.
Allan was at Nettle Creek caring for a boy in a wheelchair. Ruth Anne stopped the special ed aide work to baby-sit in her own home, watching over Maddie, Zack and Trevor.
Three grandchildren and three great grandchildren have brought happy times into the Lilley home. Daughter Beth and her husband Bentley “Bud” Hatteberg have one daughter Tess (Collin) Grogan.
Tess and Collin have three children: Carter, 7, Caleb, 3 and Selah, 1 year old. Beth and Bud’s son Grant is the retail manager for Field Day Sporting Co’s Field Day store in Morris. The Lilley's daughter Lisa, and her husband Kirk Walker, are parents to Trevor, a student and athlete at Coal City High School.
Asked what is good about Carbon Hill and both Allan and Ruth Anne say it is quiet and peaceful. They enjoy living across from the playground. The village park has had many improvements.
Todd Cumming and others are good neighbors to them. And Josh Brainard is a big help especially while both Allan and Ruth Anne recover from surgeries and experience aging issues.
Celebrate this year’s grand marshals on Wednesday, June 18 at 6 p.m. at the flagpole in the park where Mayor Johnson and the village board will speak a few words of appreciation and the couple will receive a plaque.
The kiosk near the bingo stand will feature photos.
Grand Marshals Allan and Ruth Anne will lead the parade at 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 22 and at 4 p.m. that day they will gather with family and friends at the museum on 2nd street for sharing stories and enjoying refreshments.
The general public is welcome at all these events! See you all at Homecoming # 75.