John Cecil Hastings

John Cecil Hastings, eldest of the eight children of Mary Lena Brown and Frank Opal Hastings, was born 19 March 1897 near Freeport, Stephenson County, IL, and then was raised mainly in Martintown, Green County, WI. He is not to be confused with his first cousin (who was simultaneously his second cousin) John Warner Hastings, who was born two years later and then was raised on farms in nearby parts of Green County. Both Johns were not only great-grandsons of Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader, but grandsons of John Quincy Adams Hastings (aka “Picket” Hastings) and Barbara Ann Spece. Both lived to be ninety-two years of age. However, their life stories diverged as they reached manhood. John Warner Hastings moved to California in 1918 and remained there, whereas John Cecil Hastings spent nearly all his adult life in northern Illinois. Another way of distinguishing them is that John Cecil Hastings was occasionally known by his middle name. For convenience, he will be referred to that way for the rest of this biography.

Life began for Cecil in a house that still technically belonged not to his parents, but to his maternal grandparents Cullen Penny Brown and Emma Ann Martin. This was one of three Martin-family homes that stood on the north bank of the Pecatonica River next to Nathaniel Martin’s legacy sawmill and flour mill. Immediately to the west was the residence of Lena’s uncle Horatio Martin and family, and just beyond that, the estate house of Nathaniel and Hannah themselves. As the 1880s and 1890s had progressed, Emma and Cullen had taken to spending large amounts of time in Arkansas, but had made a practice of inhabiting the Martintown dwelling as well. Lena had a particular affection for the latter home and she and Frank had been glad to begin their married lives there. When Cecil was a baby, the couple did make a several-months-long attempt to reestablish themselves in DeQueen, Sevier County, AR so that Lena could be in close reach of her parents and sisters, and were there when Cecil’s brother Leland Francis “Hap” Hastings was born at the beginning of October, 1898, but the sojourn was unsatisfactory overall and Lena and Frank came back to Martintown by the end of the year. They became the primary residents of the old house. From 1898 on into the Twentieth Century, Cullen and Emma and the rest of the family only used it for visits.

Frank Hastings was an employee of Illinois Central Railroad, employed in track maintenance. This took him to various worksites in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin and sometimes he had to lodge away from home for days at a time or even longer, Lena remaining back home with a rapidly-expanding clutch of children. When Cecil was nine, a different arrangement arose, with Lena and the kids packing up and moving into a new temporary home in Dilly, Vernon County, WI, in order to be near Frank’s new work site. The experiment ended after a year or so and the Hastingses resumed living in Martintown. They did not reclaim the historic family house, but moved into a different one in the main part of the village across the river from their old home, in the uphill section near the church that Nathaniel Martin had built in 1879. It was there that Cecil finished coming of age.

(At right, Cecil is the oldest boy shown here in this 1910-12 image of the five sons of Frank and Lena Hastings posing with their father on one of the handcars he used as part of his job as a section foreman for Illinois Central. This scan was made from a print of the original photograph, which the photography lab rendered in postcard form, a popular option back in the early 1900s. The image was a family favorite, and it is no surprise that a number of the postcard prints have survived even though it has been over a century since they were made. The image has been published at least three times: in the 7 November 1965 edition of the Rockford Morning Star, in 1990 in Our Part of America, Browntown-Cadiz-Jordan, a commemorative edition issued by the Centennial Committee of the Citizens of Cadiz Township, Green County, WI, printed by New Life Press of Monroe, WI, and in 1991 in Early History of Winslow, Illinois by Harold Fowler. Shown left to right, Leland, Cecil, Jim, Ernie, and Fred Hastings with Frank standing at the right.)

The nearest high school to Martintown was Winslow High in Winslow, Stephenson County, IL, a mile south of Martintown. A two-year institution at the time, Cecil graduated from Winslow High in the summer of 1912 at only fifteen years of age. He immediately supplemented this schooling in South Wayne, Lafayette County, WI. The trend among the clan was to enter occupations other than farming or craft trades, and this required more education than earlier generations had known.

Reaching adulthood, Cecil established himself in Winslow. The community and its general vicinity would remain the stomping ground of the Hastings/Brown clan for most of the 20th Century -- and is still home to quite a few of its members. In the summer of 1918, at age twenty-one, Cecil was an assistant cashier at the State Bank of Winslow when he decided to join the war effort. He served in the U.S. Army S.A.T.C. 14 Aug 1918 to 11 Dec 1918 in Indianapolis, IN, reaching the rank of Private. When he became a civilian again he began working as a shipping clerk at a milk factory, quartering as one of dozens of single-male lodgers at a large boarding facility in Freeport, Stephenson County’s largest town.

(At left, John Cecil Hastings the new soldier poses in uniform back home with his three sisters. In order of age, the three are Ruth, Mary, and Anna.)

Cecil married Wanda Genevieve Gore 23 February 1924 in Freeport. Wanda, born 16 August 1904, was a Winslow native, a daughter of John Avery Gore and Gertrude Maude Reeves. The couple had three children, all born during the 1920s. Sadly, the first baby, Wanda Jean Hastings, only lived eleven months, dying before her younger siblings came into the world.

(At right, the grave of John and Wanda and their baby girl Wanda Jean at Rock Lily Cemetery. Photo taken by Tammy Glendenning 18 September 2007.) With his wife, Cecil owned Hastings Confectionary, but it is fair to say his main career began when he rejoined the State Bank of Winslow in 1946, when he was forty-nine years old. The bank would remain his employer for decades. He served a long period as executive vice president, and in his seventies became president and chairman of the board. He continued to be a banker into his late eighties, his retirement finally coming in January, 1985. (Even after that point, he continued to serve as an honorary director.)

Thoughout his adult life Cecil was heavily involved in local fraternal activities. He joined the American Legion about 1920, the Order of the Eastern Star in the 1920s, and was active in the Winslow Masonic Lodge (#564) from about that time, and remained in all those associations through his twilight years. He served a stint as clerk of Winslow and was also on the village board, on the local school board, and on the board of Rock Lily Cemetery. He was a member of Grace Episcopal Church of Freeport.

Wanda spent some of her working life teaching school in nearby Mount Morris, Ogle County, IL. This community was also where the couple’s youngest daughter settled, and so it became their milieu as well in their extreme old age. By contrast they saw considerably less of their other surviving daughter, Frances, who had long since relocated with her husband and children to a suburb of St. Louis, MO.

Wanda passed away there in the Pinecrest Manor nursing home 16 May 1987. Cecil survived her by a couple of years, succumbing 16 July 1989, also at Pinecrest Manor. Husband and wife were each laid to rest at Rock Lily Cemetery, Winslow, IL, among the graves of many members of the Hastings extended family. (While Cecil was on the board of directors of Rock Lily Cemetery, one of his duties was to maintain the records. In so doing, he watched over the graves of many relatives of past generations.)

Arranged youngest to eldest, the five sons of Frank Opal Hastings with their father, in an image from the late 1930s. From left to right, Ernest Brown Hastings, Frederick Cullen Hastings, James Lawrence Hastings, Leland Francis “Hap” Hastings, John Cecil Hastings, Frank Opal Hastings.

Descendants of John Cecil Hastings and Wanda Genevieve Gore

To go back one generation, click here. To return to the Martin/Strader Family main page, click here.