The Elusive Elijah Iles

Look who I found back in the storage shelves today! :-) I absolutely LOVE working in the IHPA collections with Linda. The only bad part about it is that my job will end at the end of this month. Linda even invited Greg and me over for Thanksgiving with her family! She is extremely nice, and Greg and I are excited to spend the holiday with them.

This morning Linda asked me to go take a picture of a painting in the collection. The painting was of a man named Elijah Iles who lived in Springfield at the time Abraham Lincoln was here. I think Elijah was also the first postmaster here. Anyway, there is a museum at the Elijah Iles House (which is the oldest standing house in Springfield), and they were wondering if they could borrow the painting. So Linda wanted to send them some pictures. I went down to the storage area and looked on the shelf where the painting was supposed to be . . . but it wasn't there. I was very confused. So I started looking everywhere for it. I was crawling through shelves, climbing ladders, and looking in every possible corner of the storage room--but no Elijah Iles. I told Linda that Elijah was MIA, and she was equally confused. She went to the storage room with me and we searched it again--but no Elijah Iles. We then started asking all of the Old State Capitol workers if they had seen Elijah Iles anywhere, and they kept saying things like, "Oh yeah, I remember that painting. It used to be down in Malcom's conservation lab, but it's not there anymore. I don't know where it is," or "That painting used to hang in the House of Representatives chamber, but it's not there anymore." We were thoroughly perplexed. Then, finally, this funny man named Dennis remembered almost tripping over Elijah Iles not very long ago, and somehow Dennis led us to this back room at the Old State Capitol where--we found Elijah Iles! The painting was sitting there with a painting of Governor Duncan. Nobody knew how the paintings had gotten stashed back there, but we took them back to the storage area and put them in their appropriate places. It was quite an adventure. Tomorrow I get to go with Linda up to the cupola on top of the Old State Capitol and into the tower at the old train depot! Good times.

The weather has been beautiful here, but supposedly it's going to get a little colder. Since it was so beautiful outside on Tuesday, Greg and I raked the leaves in the yard into a huge pile, threw some branches on it, and had a little fire in the backyard. We roasted hotdogs and then made some delicious smores! It was very fun and fall-ish. Well, I'm off to bed.

Oh, another cool thing I found today was this old Springfield newspaper from 1845 that talked about how some people were trying to kick the Mormons out of the state. I was surprised to read that the author of the article sided with the Mormons and felt that it wasn't right for people to be intolerant of them based on their religious beliefs. It was very interesting to read!