William E. Quick, Whiteside County

William E. Quick (1877 - 1951) was sent to Illinois in 1888. He lived with the John F. Seavy family near Morrison, Illinois. Mr. Seavy wrote a report to the asylum in 1889 and reported that William was robust and had grown six inches during his first year in Illinois. He chastised William for telling untruths and threatened him with being returned to the Asylum if he continued lying. Mr. Seavy sent William to different churches so that he could choose his own religion. Mr. Seavy said that William was good at school except for writing and spelling.

William wrote his own letter in 1891. He was still living in the Seavy home and planned to live there throughout his indenture. The Seavy farm was made up of 135 acres. They had brought in 50 bushels of corn on 25 of those acres. William had gone to Lyons, Iowa (Fulton, IL) to see the opening of the new bridge over the Mississippi River.

William later lived in Aurora (Kane County) as an adult. He was married to Lida Hillicker, whom he married in 1905 in DeKalb, where they both were living. They had just one daughter, Berneice.

In 1918 William is noted as a Captain in the office of Adjutant General of the Illinois National Guard. He was also the head of the ROTC training at Mooseheart in Kane County, an orphanage run by the Order of the Moose. William must have had a longer history with the Illinois National Guard to be a Captain with the Adjutant General, but I have not found that history. William continued to be active with the Guard for several years after World War II and was still a military instructor for a state school in the 1930s. In the 1940s he was an insurance agent, still in Aurora.

William died January 31, 1954 in Kane County. He is buried in the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Oswego, Illinois.