It bothered me that I could not find a photo of George. When I posted about his death several weeks ago, I felt that there should be a photo of him somewhere. I felt for sure, with his stellar archeology career, that there should be a photo of him somewhere. But I could not find anything online, just of his wife. For now, I thought there would be no photographic record of George Schoenbeck.
Then, on Valentine’s Day, I was trying to find a baseball photograph among my photos, and when I pulled up the information, I found a photo of Uncle John with his baseball team, The Keller Baseball Club; imagine my surprise when I saw the name George Schoenbeck right there next to our Uncle John. I enjoy baseball and am amazed at how much this family does as well. So, even though it’s not what I might have wanted as a photo of George, I’m so thankful to have this record of him.
Sometimes, when you’re looking through family papers, you come across things that you never thought you’d see. The first time I saw this, all I could think of was, “Who in the world is George Schoenbeck?” Who was Geoge Schoenbeck? I’m very happy that I can tell you exactly who he was.
George was born on December 21, 1885, to Johanna G Wenke and Richard Schoenbeck. He is the grandson of our Johann Wenke and Katherina Munderloh. His mother, Johanna Wenke Schoenbeck, and our George D Wenke were brother and sister. That meant that George and his siblings were cousins to our Anna Wenke Burd. George married Ethel Lovilla Power on June 10, 1913. They had two sons, Fredrick born in 1914 and Richard born in 1916.
Ethel and George led exciting lives. At least to me. They were Archeologists! Maybe they didn’t go to exciting places like Egypt or South America but there was plenty in Illinois to keep them busy.
For most of their life, the Schoenbecks lived in Peoria. That area was made their particular field of study with other neighboring counties. They collected thousands of potsherds, arrowheads, stone and copper axes, beads, pipes, and all sorts of prehistoric tools and carefully recorded where they were found.
The site now known archaeologically as the Clear Lake Village on the Illinois River was most frequently visited by the Schoenbecks. They got most of their material from this site. Their findings represent many of the known prehistoric Indian cultures of Illinois. Little would be known of this aboriginal Indian village of Clear Lake if it hadn’t been for the perseverance of the Schoenbecks. They recovered 24,000 pottery shards from the site representing every potter type found in Central Illinois. The Illinois State Museum received all artifacts recovered by the Schoenbecks. Clear Lake has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Other sites the Schoenbecks explore are Stuben Village near Peoria and the Sisters Creek site in Fulton County.
That tells you who George Schoenbeck was. Now, let’s talk about how he died. According to the Peoria Journal Stars morning edition, George suffered from a heart attack and was found dead in his son’s driveway on December 14, 1955. After knowing all the wonderful and amazing things that he and Ethel had done in their lives I feel that this article did not do justice to honoring his memory. I really wanted to find a photo of George, but I keep coming up empty handed in that regard. I have several of Ethel, but none of George. Hopefully some day, we will find some of him. This is why it’s so important to put names to all your photographs.
I started out thinking I’d write about all the deaths on this page of the paper (Reverend Brown in the right corner of the photograph), or even more about how George died, but it quickly turned into more for me when I started looking at who he was. His work in bringing to light the aboriginal history of the general Peoria region and the important artifacts he either found himself or assisted in finding was a great gift and value to the people of Peoria and Illinois.
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