Keck-Rachor Family              

Margaret Keck & Peter Russell Moran

Margaret Keck was born in Zellhausen, Germany on 20 Mar 1837[1].  She came to America with her parents and siblings in 1844 and settled in Latrobe, PA from 1844-46.  She moved with her parents and siblings to Minerton in Vinton Co, OH in 1846 where her father raised sheep.  She is listed on the 1850 and 1860 census as living at home with her parents in Vinton Co. OH.  At the age of 24, Margaret married Peter Russell MORAN, 31, on 9 Jan 1861.[2]  Two children, Anna (1862) and George R. (1864), were born in Vinton Co. 

In Feb. 1866, when George was two years old,[3] Russell and Margaret moved to Cumberland Co, IL.  Russell and his brothers bought 400 acres a few miles west of Neoga from Dudley Kingsman (or Johnson), Sr, who was a government land agent.[4]

The land lay north and west of Trowbridge, which had been settled by people from Minerton, OH.  Russell and Margaret began making a new home on this land covered with hardwood trees.  Russell built a log cabin and a log barn on a flat area cleared by Native Americans (erosion later exposed many artifacts).  They lived on this farm almost 40 years.  Seven more children were born in IL: Matilda Catherine, 1868; Thomas, 1870; Elizabeth, 1872; Marguerite, 1873, Peter Russell, 1876; Dora, 1877; and Clara, 1884.  They raised cattle, hogs, and sheep.  Margaret planted hops for beer in the hedgerows between fields and each fall made dry yeast to last the year for her family and friends.  Margaret carded the wool and spun it into thread, then knitted it or loomed it into fabric.  The nine children all had their own chores to help around the farm.  They even learned to knit their own stockings at an early age.  As time went on, Russell raised cattle, hogs and sheep.  Field power was provided by a team of oxen named Rock and Brandy.

By 1876, they had progressed enough to build a new house and buildings north of the first cabin.  The barn was constructed of timbers and boards sawed from hardwood trees on the land.  The logs were held together with wooden pegs.  The new house had four large rooms downstairs and two upstairs.  This gave them four bedrooms for the parents and six children.  The new homestead had a smokehouse for curing meat and a summer kitchen, in which to cook in the hot summer months.

A small, one room schoolhouse was built about a mile east of the home, where the children learned to read, write, spell and “cipher.”  It was named the “Mud School” because the surrounding land was low and wet.

While growing up in Ohio, Margaret learned from her mother how to grow and use herbs for healing.  She became known in time to have much talent with herbal remedies and was frequently called upon by neighbors to doctor the sick.  When her little son, Tom, accidentally cut his sister, Tilly's, toe off, she quickly took charge.  Tom was sent to the barn to collect some clean cobwebs while she soaked some thread and a needle in carbolic acid.  After the cobwebs had slowed the bleeding, she sewed the toe back on.  When the doctor later saw it, he couldn't believe it.  Tilly could feel the knot of the thread under her skin the rest of her life.

Margaret was a noble and Christian woman, a devoted wife, and a kind and loving mother.  Her home was always a peaceful and a happy one where her children and grandchildren loved to gather[5].  Daughter Margurite died in 1902.  Her daughter, Elizabeth, became a Franciscan nun in Joliet and died there in 1903 of tuberculosis. 

In 19?? Ollie and his daughter, Loraine, visited from Logan, OH.  Ollie was the son of Margaret’s brother, William.  Visits between the Illinois and Ohio Keck families were rare.  But family reunions and visits between the Morans and Kecks (Andrew’s and George’s families) in central Illinois were common.

 In 1904 Russell and Margaret moved to Sigel, IL to live a quiet and retired life.  Margaret received the last rites from her pastor, Rev. Father Pennartz [6] and died of heart failure at 71 yrs. on 13 Nov 1908. Her funeral was held from St. Michael's Church in Sigel at 8:30 Sunday morning conducted by Rev Father Pennartz and was attended by a vast concourse of sorrowing relatives and friends.  The bereaved family have the heartfelt sympathy of all in this their great hour of sorrow.  Those attending from a distance were Mr. and Mrs. Constance Isabel of Columbus, OH (daughter Anna), Mr. Frank Keck of Chillicothe, Ohio, Mrs. Mary Moran of Effingham and Miss Emma Rice of Shelbyville.[7]  She is buried in the Sigel cemetery.

Tuberculosis also claimed the lives of Clara and Dora in 1913 and Thomas in 1915.  Towards the end of his life, Russell lived with his son, Thomas and his wife, Frances.  During his last six weeks he lived with his son, George, whose last wife, Laura Wilson, was a nurse and cared for him.  Russell died there of a stroke in 1915 at the age of 87.  He is buried in the Sigel cemetery alongside his wife. 

Tom Dougherty (who later married Russell's sister, Sarah Moran) came to visit and bought a farm less than a mile south of Russell's.  This is the farm that Russell's son, Thomas, later purchased and where he brought his bride, Frances Rice, to live.  The little log cabin that Tom and Sarah Dougherty lived in was on the property until about 1915.  Frances Rice Moran sold the farm just prior to her death in 1946.

October 2004                                                                                                                          Jim Keck

(to be continued)                                                                           jkeck1@triad.rr.com   336 229-0426