We drove through Kinderhook, Illinois and I fell in love with its little post office. I was mightily impressed with Dr. Dechow's memory wall.
People came from miles around to see the "memory wall" that Dr. P. H. Dechow has built at Kinderhook, Ill. It is a wall of stone and cement, 54 feet long, thickly studded with a conglomerate mass of useless trinkets, each representing a contribution from a friend of the doctor. Shells, china dishes, doll heads, a police badge, collar buttons, a part of a chandelier, bottles, pipes, radio tubes are but a few of the odds and ends imbedded in this strange wall.
Defiance Crescent-News
December 20, 1929
Dr. P. H. Dechow 1878-1956
That quote is at the top right corner of the newspaper page. I will post the whole clipping though, so you can salivate at the thought of Fancy Animal Cookies for Christmas Tree Decoration. Just the right size. Anise Flavored. 20c a Dozen.
Other tidbits I discovered about Dr. Dechow:
From a 1936 history of Kinderhook in the newspaper September 24, 1936:
Dr. Dechow then bought the old Odd Fellows Hall and remodeled it for a hotel. Mrs. Newman took charge of this and it became a popular place with transients. At present, we have no hotel, but a good rooming house and two superior restaurants.
Among the doctors who looked after the health of the early settlers, were Dr. Andrews, Dr. Sprague, Dr. Leaney and Dr. Penick. In the late nineties, Dr. C. W. Trautwein and Dr. E. R. Motley were both located in the town. Dr. Kuntz and Dr. Henry were here a short time. After the death of Dr. Trautwein in 1903, Dr. Gaston was here for several years. Dr. P. H. Dechow took over his practice in 1907 and has built up a large practice in Kinderhook and vicinity.
And noted in the Barry Record, January 15, 1913:
Monday evening about 7:00 p.m. L. J. Callaway, the undertaker, was notified of the death of Orlando Gard, living about two and one-half miles south of Kinderhook. He had been in Kinderhook during the afternoon, where the writer had greeted him with a hand shake, and at that time he was not complaining, but returned home in the early evening, doing his chores and then sitting down by the sitting room fire, greeted his little grandchildren, who came running into the room, he seemed as if gasping for breath, and his wife running to his side and also his daughter, they placed his feet in warm water and sent for Dr. Dechow at Kinderhook, but life was extinct before he reached there.
Dr. Dechow's wife was Ida, but she died years before him, in 1926. Sadly, on September 27, 1952, the Jacksonville Daily Journal noted the following information. He must have rallied however, as lived another four years. I'm so glad that he built his memory wall, and that he inscribed his name in it!