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Note: Vital Information:
name: Lyman Peck [1]
father: Edwin Truman Peck [1]
mother: Lydia Huffman [1]
born: January 29, 1893 [1]
spouse: Julia Meyer
References:
1. Lena Huffman Peck [wife of Berton Eugene Peck], "The Little Red Book".
When young, Lyman had a motorcycle. When Julia attended teachers' school in Valparaiso, Indiana [southeast of Gary] he rode from Arenzville to Valparaiso to visit her.
When Lyman was in his 80's he took sick while staying with his daughter Rosemere in Pennsylvania. Mom took him, and all his medicine, to the family doctor, Doctor Webber, in Coopersburg. While examining Lyman's medicine, Dr. Webber discovered that Lyman had put all his pills into one bottle, and had been taking whatever he took out.
Every 4th of July the family had a picnic in Beardstown at Uncle Burt Peck's, and went to see the boat races on the river.
Lyman and Julia moved to Beardstown about 1945. Mom [Rosemere] had graduated from Springfield Memorial Nursing School, and worked at Schmidt Hospital in Beardstown for only a few months before moving to Pennsylvania.
Officer Beaten By Bandits
Plans for either a train or a bank robbery at Arenzville were frustrated at 8:30 o'clock Friday evening when Lyman Peck, garage owner and deputy sheriff of this place, was knocked in the head and loaded in an automobile by a quartet of outlaws. Mr. Peck was carried into a cornfield seven miles from Arenzville, where he was bound hand and foot and warned not to utter a sound.
The incident occurred when the deputy sheriff was called to investigate the theft of tools from the C.B. and Q. Section house at Arenzville.
Mr. Postelwait, who operates the block at Arenzville, noticed four men loitering about the Sinclair-Schultz grain elevator as he was going to his house. One of the four attempted to accost the railroad man as he drew near but Mr. Postelwait went to the center of the road and thus avoided going immediately past them. One of the men acted as if he wanted to follow the pedestrian. Upon arriving home he called the deputy sheriff and told him of the incident.
He was accompanied by Fred Kloker, manager of the elevator and by Justice of the Peace, George Brockhouse, went to the elevator. Mr. Peck went directly up to the car where two of the men were examining the engine. His companions started to encircle the elevator to determine whether or not the building had been broken into.
The officer questioned the men about their presence, but he was unable to gain a satisfactory answer. With gun in hand and with a flash light, he leaned over to look into the rear seat of the Ford touring car. Just at the junction, two others who had been standing back in the darkness, grabbed him from behind. One of the assailants struck him from behind. Mr. Peck's pistol was knocked from his hand. In the struggle Peck became groggy from the effect of the blow on the head, he also received deep scratches about the face and body.
Working hastily, the four loaded the officer in the back seat of the car and speeded west. Peck regained consciousness as the car got underway but he shamed in the hope that he could fain some information from the conversations that might develop. The men remained silent. As they neared McKindre Chapel, six and one half miles west of here, they stopped and after binding the deputy hand and foot with bailing wire, they carried him 200 feet into a cornfield where they dropped him on the soft earth. Enjoining him not to utter a sound, they went back to their cars and speeded away, continuing west. When he heard the sound of the motor, Peck squirmed around until he obtained a pair of pliers in his hip pocket. With these he cut the wires and was back on the road before the sound of the motor had died.
Mr. Peck went to the nearby home of Fred Webber and was driven back to Arenzville. A wide search of the country was made the same night. The following morning the men were tracked to Bluffs where the trail was lost.
It was found on Saturday morning that the quartet had broken into the C.B. and Q. quarters of the section house and had stolen sledge hammers, crowbars, chisels, and other tools.
Residents of this place, now recall seeing two men strolling about town several times previous that afternoon. No person remembers seeing them scanning the two bank buildings closely.
Owing to the darkness, the deputy was unable to see his antagonist closely enough to obtain a description.
- The Virginia Republican Gazette, August 7, 1925
- The Cass County Historian, September 2004
The Town Tattler (Arenzville, Illinois), July 4, 1945
Mrs. George Lovekamp purchased the home vacated by the Lyman Peck family and will move there soon.
- http://www.burgoo.org/veterans/tattler4.html
SSDI record: LYMAN PECK 29 Jan 1893 Oct 1984
62611 (Arenzville, Cass, IL) (none specified) 344-03-3831 Illinois
glc - grandfather
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