In our mission to keep local history alive, we are posting each volume of the Milan Community Association Newsletter dating from 50 years ago in its entirety.
Bonnie Wood supplements these original MCA newsletters with her “More About History” column.
“More About History” Excerpts
Supplement to 11/1968 issue:
Shookville Church on Shookville Road remains a Milan landmark. For photos, Burton Coon’s history of the church, and additional details see Shookville Church on our local churches page.
In Stone By Stone, I reminisced in the Foreword …
As I walked from the Shookville Methodist Church along the stone wall erected from the surrounding fields, I paused to reflect on how this wall stood as a testament to my ancestors’ tenacity. As I stood beside it, I found a place to contemplate how the land might have appeared before any inhabitants. I imagined how my ancestors, descendants of Palatine immigrants, first stood here on soil that seemingly only grew rocks. Yet, they began by moving one stone. Stone by stone, these mighty souls persevered. Stone by stone, they overcame each burden. Stone by stone, they cleared the land. Stone by stone, they built a farm and a family.
and included Burton Coon’s paraphrasing of his father William Coon’s heart-wrenching diary entry:
The next year (1865), in September, diptheria invaded this quiet hamlet. The little daughter of Philip and Charlotte Coopernail was taken with it. She was about five years old and a great favorite with my father’s daughter, Jemima, who went down to see her. There was no quarantine in those days and disease must have been of a malignant type, for they both died, one on the 4th and the other on the 7th of September.
And they are buried inside the iron fence in the old Shookville cemetery, the little one at the feet of the older one. So they are together there in death. At the top of the little one’s stone is the figure of a broken rosebud, and underneath her name and age are the words: “Go with me.” Her friend went…
Supplement to 1/1969 issue:
Can You Identify?
Local musician, Ferris Jackson (far left) and local writer, Burton Coon (second from left)…? Who are the other men in the photo?
Ferris Jackson, an African American who lived with his sister Emma, served as organist of the Church and would arrive early every Sunday to provide beautiful music as the congregants arrived. Ferris also served as Church Treasurer and sang in the choir with his rich bass voice. Ferris and Emma were strict observers of the Sabbath. They walked to Church every Sunday so the horse could rest. At Church dinners, he would be the last to sit down – he would wait until he was sure everyone else had a seat. Ferris Jackson died in February 1940. His funeral was held in this Church on a day with a heavy snowstorm. Even with the storm, so many people attended his funeral that the Church was standing room only.
From Ryan Orton’s History of the Rowe United Methodist Church – Written for the 175th Anniversary Celebration 1838-2013
Check out “More About History” in the Milan 50 Years Ago blogs.
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