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We're going back to George E. Turner who homesteaded on Winn Road and had thirteen children with two wives, Sarah Jane Reed and Janette Adams. This story focuses on James Henry, George's first child with second wife, Janette, and number seven child overall.
James was born on March 16, 1857, on the farm on Winn Road. He grew up there and attended the local schools. On April 26, 1881, he married Eva Ann Peacock, a neighbor and schoolmate and the daughter of Ann Richardson (who was born on the prairie in 1836) and William Peacock, pioneers of Burton Township. (Eva's sibling Howard Peacock was the postmaster of Spring Grove for many years.)
James and Eva started farming, first renting land near his father’s farm for five years. Then, in 1886, they purchased 260 acres four miles southeast of Hebron. In 1903 they sold that farm and bought 120 acres a little west of Hebron, called Florentine Farm. In 1905, a long write-up of the farm, along with photos, was in the Woodstock Sentinel newspaper. There was a beautiful home and barn, 50 acres of corn, a dairy herd and a four-acre garden and fruit plot containing fruit trees, grape arbors, and many types of berries. They had five children from 1882 – 1900.
James was active in promoting various farm and livestock organizations which included the county fair, the county Farmers’ Institute, and the county Farm Bureau, which he assisted in organizing in 1913. He collected 102 samples of the trees of McHenry County, along with hundreds of other samples of the county’s products, which he would exhibit at fairs while Eva would display something of her culinary skills.
In 1902 he helped organize the first Boys’ and Girls’ Club in the state and it was at his home that the Farmers New Era Telephone Company was organized in 1904. He was a member of its board of directors and also president of the Hebron-Alden Mutual Fire Insurance Co. for 39 years and was the director of the Universal Trading & Supply Company in Chicago, a farmer’s co-operative (the building still stands at 35th and Morgan Street). He retired and moved to Hebron in 1917 (although he would stay on as president of the insurance company into his 90s).
He was described as being possessed of a genial and sociable nature and his aptitude in making acquaintances and forming friendships was so pronounced that through the years it brought him some notoriety. On one of his visits to the Illinois State Fair, a friend said of the day, “Jim has got acquainted with everyone on the Fair Grounds today - 10,000 people.”
On April 26, 1931, Eva and James celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary with 117 relatives, friends and associates. It was also Eva’s birthday, which made the occasion especially happy. Two years later, in July of 1933, Eva died suddenly at the age of 75. When James turned 90 in 1947, he was described as being in excellent health, reading the papers daily, along with books and magazines and listening to the radio. He lived another four years and died at the age of 94 in 1951.
Story by Laura Frumet
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