This picture was included in the Pantagraph on April 5, 1931, probably to lift spirits during the dark times of the Great Depression. Who wouldn't admire six boys who scraped together their own fun and built a clubhouse! The house was in the alley of the 500 block of East Taylor Street.
The boys were:
Edwin Regan (b. 1917) -- Edwin had a good reason to want a clubhouse. He lived at home with five sisters! His father was a switchman on the steam railroad. Two of his sisters worked as waitresses in restaurants. In December, 1934 Edwin's mother died after a long illness. In 1940 Edwin was living with his father and three of his sisters. He had completed high school and was working as an oil station attendant.
Charles (left) & John (right) Holforty (b. 1918 & 1921) -- Charles and John lived at 403 1/2 Jackson Street with their parents, Wesley and Alice Holforty and three sisters. Wesley Holforty was a decorator/painter in Bloomington. Charles & John both attended the Bloomington High School and then continued their educations at Wesleyan.
Charles attended Wesleyan for four years and studied business administration, graduating in June 1941. Prior to the U.S. involvement in WWII Charles enlisted in the Navy and was placed in the Panama Canal Zone. John attended Wesleyan as well but interrupted his education when he entered the navy as an air cadet.
William Alexander (b. 1924) lived at 313 S. Gridley with his parents, Howard
and Mabel, and his brother and two sisters. His father drove a truck for the bakery. Before 1940, the Alexander family moved back to Fairbury in Livingston County where William was noted for his activities with the Boy Scouts. He attended Fairbury-Cropsey High School 1938 - 1942.
Glenn and Paul Dearth lived with their mother, Lulu Dearth. Unfortunately, divorce had broken up their home. Their mother worked as a servant to support her sons. In 1920 their father Everett Dearth had been a farm laborer on a Normal farm. In 1940 Glenn and Paul were working as coal truck drivers in Normal. They lived with the parents of his father, who was living with his new wife and two step children in Downs, Illinois. Their mother also remarried but did not appear in a census in 1940.