Historic Heartbreak: Tamaroa Home Which Traces Back to Civil War Abolitionist B.G. Roots and Underground Railroad Stands Neglected
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[What most still know as the Calvin & Jean Ibendahl home at 7883 Kimzey Road south of Tamaroa was arguably the Holy Grail of education and civil rights.
Eight years after Mrs. Ibendahl sold the house at auction to SCD Investments of St. Louis for $131,250 in 2004 and less than five years after it was purchased in 2007 by Jonathan and Aimee Niswonger of Anna, IL. for $180,000 the house and nearby Roots School stand empty, vandalized and neglected.
These are historic landmarks whose days are numbered unless someone steps in--but apparently can't-- at this writing.
The house went back to lender Countryside Financial when the Anna couple filed for bankruptcy in December 2008, The case was closed on May 10, 2010.
Countryside's assets are now owned by Bank of America, which has the house in its inventory of assets, but says is not currently for sale.
To fast forward the paper trail, the Perry County treasurer's office shows that Bank of America tax services paid last year's taxes of $3,564.38, but Bank of America's foreclosure department will not tell the newspaper whether they are the owner or still only the lienholder. The bank simply says it is not for sale.
The Niswongers purchased the historic home after a similar home they purchased in Du Quoin years before--the Leach home on North Vine Street--burned in Fall 2006.
William Timpner of the Perry County Historical Society says there are no financial means to rescue the home and he's not sure if the interest is there to do so. "Some people from here (Pinckneyville) went up there recently and I understand there was a man there with a clipboard trying to figure the cost to demolish it. He said he was from a bank down south. History is not everybody's interest," said Mr. Timpner.
Historic values are an intangible, largely in the eye of the beholder. The house and 680 acres was a wedding present in 1958 and for over four decades the Ibendahls were stewards of the mansion's great significance. In fact, before he died it was the late Sen. Paul Simon's mission to once and for all trace its beginnings to the Underground Railroad during the Civil War--a network of safe harbours for slaves. Basement diggings and relics largely confirm that theory and the house was listed as a stop on the Underground Railroad. It also became worthy of Historic Registry consideration. In the throes of that work, the home was sold.
In more recent years a descendent of a slave even visited the home and talked about its meaning.
The home was actually the third home of educator B.G. Roots--Jean's great, great grandfather, who established the Locust Hill Academy, which schooled John A. Logan for a year.
Roots is also credited with founding what came to be known as this country's grade school system. Years ago the newspaper chronicled all of the work to restore the home to its original grandeur and Jean's contribution's to education and agri-business. To this day, she is well-traveled and well-respected.
The house had six bedrooms, two full baths, a library, a pair of Tiffany chandeliers, sunroom, two walnut staircases, beautiful oaken woodwork and many other distinctive features.
At some point, many of the fireplaces were removed and converted into 16 closets, although two large fireplaces remained, one in the library and one in the master bedroom. The five acres surrounding the home were at one time home to 59 varieties of native trees, including four cherry trees. The 40-foot-long living room covered the entire south side of the home, which was built with walnut and tulip poplar, impervious to termites.
The two-story home has a full-size attic which had a ladder leading to a trap door in the roof where people could go to keep a lookout on the widow's walk in the days when slaves were hidden in the home.
Roots once owned 1,600 acres and had a team of horses and a hired hand for each 40 acres, Ibendahl said.
Roots was also an Illinois Central Railroad surveyor and he laid out the Centralia-to-Carbondale route with a curve so it would pass through his property, which was already on the Shawneetown to St. Louis Trail.
The train thus stopped right at the Roots home and one day when Roots alighted from the train he heard the rattle of chains and quickly reboarded the train, where he found a man named Jim Grey in chains. The slave was a free man but had been captured by slavecatchers. Roots risked his own life to fight the legal battle that he ultimately won to help Jim Grey remain a free man.
Roots was also an attorney and a passionate educator. The four-room Roots School he founded in 1858 was relocated to the Ibendahl's farm, too. There was also a log cabin the Roots lived in while the mansion was being built.
The Ibendahls gifted the surrounding farm acreage to Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 1984 in an annuity and the university has since sold the ground with the proceeds being used by the university for agricultural scholarships.
The acreage surrounding the property is currently farmed by the Pitchford family and the house and its five acres have become a rapidly deteriorating island whose chandeliers, plumbing and wiring have been vandalized. Some of the floorboards are said to be gone. The exterior is dotted with failed attempts to install different windows and an original door or two lay broken in the weeds with plywood covering the entrance.
Maybe it's no longer Southern Illinois' business to worry about what happens to the house. But, at the least, it's a crying shame.