JOSEPH R. AND MARY E. WALSH FAMILY

Joseph Walsh was born in Naperville in 1905. His parents, Richard J. Walsh and Emma Schroader Walsh came in 1904 from the Crown Point area of Indiana. Richard was a telephone repairman, started the Buick garage and was the electrician for the city of Naperville. Richard’s parents came from Ireland and Emma’s from Germany.

Mary E. Walsh was born in Shabonna, Illinois in 1909. Her father, Henry Wetmore, was the conductor on the milk train from Shabonna to Chicago before he died in 1918. Mary raised in Eola, where her widowed mother, Elizabeth Beckman Wetmore, was the post mistress. Her father’s parents came from the Warrington, New York area, of a long time Yorkey family. Her mother’s parents came to Naperville from Germany in 1852. Mary taught school at the North Eola School before she married Joseph.

Joseph worked at Kroehlers before he went farming in 1936. He first farmed on 20 acres south of C.B.&Q. railroad tracks, on the east side of Route 59. Then he farmed on 113 acres in Wheatland Naperville-Plainfield Road and Modaff Road. He farmed there from 1941 to 1969, when the west part of the farm was subdivided.

They had three children: Elizabeth Louise (Klanang), William A. Brockunier and Mary Margaret Koop. Elizabeth died in 1979 and Joseph lives on Highview drive, a short distance from where he farmed.