The first two installments in our series on the history of 1119 Hamilton Street covered the house’s first 43 years. The most notable event in the house’s history during that time was the shooting death of Pekin bootlegger T. B. “Red” Storer on 22 May 1929, who was killed by Pekin Police Officer Jack DeFrates while Storer was terrorizing his family and threatening the police.
In this final installment in our series, we will bring this house’s history up to the present. As we shall see, Storer’s crimes and violent death were not the only tragic events to which the house at 1119 Hamilton stood silent witness.
After Storer’s daughter Annette and her family moved from 1119 Hamilton St. in or 1940, the house was bought by Henry Charles Gschwend (1912-1984) and his wife Louise L. (Nack) Gschwend (1915-1994). Henry and Louise were the parents of three sons and one daughter — Wayne Henry (1934-2023), Robert Lewis (1936-1970), Kenneth Eugene (1941-2021), and Darlene Irene (1942-2022). The Gschwends lived at 1119 Hamilton St. for about 22 years, with Pekin city directories listing Henry and Louise at that address from 1941 to 1962. Both Henry and Louise worked blue collar jobs in Pekin, Henry working as a plant worker for Corn Products Refining Co. and Louise working as a table operator for American Distilling Co. The positions that Henry held at Corn Products, according to city directories, include mechanic, iron worker, and rigger.
With their children grown, Henry and Louise moved from 1119 Hamilton St. to 1102 Shire Ave. in Pekin, selling 1119 Hamilton to Henry’s co-worker at Corn Products, George Rollie Hill Sr. (1930-2020) and his wife Opal Z. (Canady) Hill (1935-2015). George and Opal lived at 1119 Hamilton until the end of the 1960s, with Opal operating Opal’s Beauty Shop out of their house. Pekin city directories show the beauty shop at 1119 Hamilton St. from 1964 to 1969. However, in 1970 — the final year that George and Opal are listed at that address — Opal’s Beauty Shop is not listed there.
The following year, the 1971 Pekin city directory shows that the Hills had moved from 1119 Hamilton St. to 122 Arrow St. In their place, we find listed Robert L. Gschwend and his wife Susan Carol “Sue” (Long) Gschwend (1945-1970). Like his father before him, Robert was a plant worker at Corn Products — and Robert had moved back to the house in which he’d grown up, living there with his wife Sue and their daughter Donna Sue, born in 1967. Sue was Robert’s third wife: his first wife, whom he married on 14 Sept. 1957, was Patricia A. Williams (1939-2010), but their marriage ended in divorce. Robert remarried on 4 March 1959 to Wanda M. Moore, with whom he had a son, Robert M. Gschwend, in 1963 — but their marriage also ended in divorce. Robert tried at marriage a third time on 3 April 1966 when he and Sue married.
But like Robert’s two previous marriages, he and Sue had a very unhappy marriage. This time, however, it ended in tragedy, as was reported in the Pekin Daily Times, Saturday, 5 Sept. 1970, page 2 —
Following is a complete transcription of the Daily Times’ article on the deaths of Robert and Sue Gschwend:
Tragedy Discovered by Babysitter:
Couple Found Dead Of Gunshot Wounds; Apparent Victims Of Murder-Suicide
The gunshots deaths of a Pekin couple, who were found dead in their home at about 5 p.m. Friday by their three-year-old daughter’s babysitter, is still under investigation today by the Pekin Police Department and Tazewell County Coroner Louis H. Imig. Authorities are awaiting reports of an autopsy performed this morning and results from the Illinois Crime Lab.
Robert Gschwend, 33, and his wife, Sue, 25, both of whom had been residing at 1119 Hamilton street, were found dead in a northeast bedroom of the Hamilton street home when Mrs. Ray Allen, of 1415 Stout street, brought the couple’s small daughter home.
ACCORDING to Pekin Police Chief George V. Harris, the tragedy is believed to be a murder-suicide but final determination cannot be made until laboratory tests have been completed. Robert Dubois, of Washington, was making tests for the Illinois Bureau of Investigation.According to authorities, Mrs. Gschwend had rented a house at 411 Main street, in Creve Coeur, and officers were told by neighbors that a moving van appeared at the Hamilton street home shortly before noon Friday and began moving out furniture. The only furniture left in the house at the time of the shooting was the bedroom suite, authorities said.
OFFICERS were told that Mrs. Gschwend was home and told the men doing the moving that she would meet them at the Creve Coeur address, but when she did not arrive movers unloaded the furniture and left.
The movers told authorities that as they left the front of the Hamilton street address they heard three noises which could have been gunshots, and a neighbor told officers that he heard sounds, such as gunshots, at 1:40 p.m.MRS. GSCHWEND’S body was found in a hallway between the bedroom and kitchen, and her husband’s body was lying in the bedroom about 10 feet away, with a .22 caliber revolver nearby.
Both died of gunshot wounds to the head.
According to authorities, the revolver is believer to be new. Officials found the box it had been packed in, in the trunk of Gschwend’s car, along with a partial box of .22 caliber long shells.Tazewell Coroner Imig will schedule an inquest.
Funeral services for Mr. and Mrs. Gschwend will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday in the Preston Funeral Home.
Rev. Ralph Cordes, pastor of Second Reformed Church, will officiate. Burial will be in Glendale Memorial Gardens.
Friends may call at Preston’s from 2 until 4 and from 7 until 9 p.m. Monday.
Robert L. Gschwend, 33, was born Sept. 13, 1936, at Pekin, a son of Henry C. and Louise L. Nack Gschwend. His marriage to Sue Long occurred at Pekin Apr. 3, 1966.
A employee of CPC International, Inc., for the past 11 years, he was a millwright. He was a member of Pekin Boat Club and of Local 7-622 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union.
Surviving are his parents, of Pekin; a daughter, Donna Sue, a home; a son, Robert, of Pekin; his grandmothers, Mrs. Vina Nack Fitzanko and Mrs. Tillie Gschwend, both of Pekin; a sister, Mrs. Larry (Darlene) Loeffelmann, also of Pekin; and two brothers, Wayne Henry Gschwend, stationed in Germany with the U.S. Air Force, and Kenneth Eugene Gschwend, of Pekin.
Sue Carol Gschwend, 25, was born Feb. 10, 1945, at Bloomington, a daughter of Adolph Henry and Betty Lorraine Perkins Long.
She was employed as a secretary, in the office of Laborers’ Local 165 at Peoria.
Surviving are her daughter, Donna Sue, at home; her mother, Mrs. Betty Poindexter of Havana; her father, of Pekin; a brother, David A. Long, of Pekin; and a sister, Mrs. Raymond (Denise) Colvis, of Havana.
As the above news report states, Robert and Sue are buried together at Glendale Memorial Gardens in Pekin. It should be noted, however, that their daughter was not yet 3 years old at the time.
The next residents of 1119 Hamilton St. were Jacob Frederick “Jake” Penning Sr. (1933-2005) and his wife Margaret (Reis) Penning (1936-2017), who are listed in the Pekin city directories at that address from 1972 until 2009. Jake and Margaret raised a family of five daughters and three sons. Jake, a Navy veteran of the Korean War, worked for 25 years for the City of Pekin Street Department. Margaret worked at 14th Street Hardware, and later was a bus monitor for the Pekin Bus Department and Hoyle School Transportation. At the time of Jake’s death, he and Margaret had 18 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren — and when Margaret followed him in death 12 years later, the number of their great-grandchildren had increased to 11. Jake and Margaret are buried together at Lakeside Cemetery.
In the years following Jake’s death, Pekin city directories continue to list both him and Margaret at 1119 Hamilton St. for three more years, from 2007 to 2009. From 2010 to 2018, however, 1119 Hamilton St. disappears from the city directories, which either say “No listing” or “No current listing” during those years.
Then from 2019 to 2021, the directories show Karl A. Heller (1959-2020) as the resident of 1119 Hamilton St. Heller lived there with his longtime companion Jennifer Kay Durbin. Heller, a U.S. Army veteran, worked as a machinist in the Pekin area. After his death, he was cremated and his remains were interred in Glendale Cemetery in Washington, Illinois. Since his passing, Pekin city directories have listed 1119 Hamilton’s residents as Jennifer Durbin (who is shown in Tazewell County Assessor’s records as the current property owner) and Jennifer’s mother Linda K. (Cobb) Durbin (1943-2021), and Daniel Plante, son of Jennifer Durbin and her ex-husband David Darrell Plante.
Thus, we see that in the 128 years of this house’s history, the families who have lived at 1119 Hamilton St. have borne the following 16 surnames: Maurer, Haupts, John(s), Mott, Olander, Carrick, Marrs, Storer, Arthur, Alexander, Gschwend, Hill, Penning, Heller, Durbin, and Plante. Two of those families, Storer and Gschwend, suffered great tragedy there.
