Lida Crabb: Promoting Personal Contact, Building Community

 

                                                            John Hallwas

 

            Perhaps the most beloved Macomb-area woman of the later 20^th century was Lida Crabb, whose newspaper column was popular in McDonough County for 30 years and who made a positive impact on the lives of many people. But few in town knew much about her background. In a sense, she succeeded in helping others partly because her own life was so filled with spiritual struggles.

            Lida was probably born in January 11, 1887 (she was never sure of the date) in Iowa. When she was three, her father died in a railroad accident, and then her impoverished, teenage mother, Nellie Backus, left Lida and two siblings with their grandmother and went off to the West. Her incapable grandmother soon sent Lida to an orphanage, but on the way there, she was given to foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hector Milne, at Scotch Grove. They never formally adopted her, nor did they help her to contact the siblings from whom she was separated.

When she was six, the Milnes moved to Monmouth, where they farmed and raised Shetland ponies. After growing up there, and graduating from high school, with straight A’s, Lida taught at a country school near Avon. She then discovered that she had a sister, Maude, who was living in Iowa, and was able to make a connection with her. 

           But difficulties came too. In about 1905 Lida’s foster father was arrested for raping a young woman, was convicted in a much-publicized trial, and was sent to Joliet prison. Through that family ordeal, young Lida, in her late teens, was an indispensable source of compassionate support for her foster mother. She also gave up teaching for a time, to help run the farm.

          A year or so later, Lida enrolled at Western Illinois State Normal School. There she was a fine student, who led the Emersonian Society (which held debates and public readings), edited the yearbook, and graduated with high grades in 1909.

She also met Carle Crabb, who was very active in sports, music, and theater. He graduated, too, and they were married a few years later. They soon started a family---and struggled with poverty, in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Georgia. Those were all places where Carle taught, and was often in conflict or was dissatisfied.

          In 1921 they returned to Macomb, where Carle operated a farm northeast of town, started a retail dairy business, and eventually (in 1934) launched a chain of six small-town newspapers. Meanwhile, Lida returned to Western, was again a campus leader, and earned a B.A. degree in 1927. She also later earned an M.A. (1930) in history at the University of Iowa.

          Lida was already editing the McDonough Times when Carle suddenly died in 1950. Two days later, struggling to cope with that loss, she started her personal experience column, “A Day at a Time.” As she said in one of the early articles, “There are days when life’s dark moments loom so big that we can scarce see around them,” but she received a torrent of sympathy and good wishes, from her many readers, which made her grateful. So she continued. In honor of her husband, she also created at WIU a revolving loan fund, which has helped numerous economically disadvantaged students over the years.

          But her own tragic struggles were not over. In 1972 her son, and co-editor, Carle, Jr., died in an auto accident. A few years later, Lida sold all the Crabb newspapers, but she kept writing her popular column for the “Business News.”  

          And she continued to focus on appreciation for the community in general and for the people she interacted with—relatives, friends, teachers, workers, and others. In fact, the very first local person who ever made kind comments in print about a publication of mine, back in the mid-1970s, long before I started writing my first newspaper column, was Lida Crabb.    

         In another of her articles for “A Day at a Time,” Lida printed some poetic lines, a kind of non-sectarian prayer that may have been written by her, and which expressed her outlook:

“Give me some friends who will love me for what I am,

And keep ever burning, before my vagrant steps,

The kindly light of hope. . . .

Teach me still to be thankful for life.”

        As local historian Kathy Nichols said in a 1995 article, “Mrs. Crabb spoke of and to her readers as a kind of extended family. She expressed pleasure with their achievements and regret for their misfortunes.” Yes, and in doing so, she was a groundbreaker in our region, a newspaper professional who provided what many people, especially women, were anxious for—personal contact with someone like themselves, which helped to foster a sense of belonging.

         Late in her life she received several honors. The Governor’s VIP Award, for her column, came in 1974. Because she championed the maintenance of cemeteries, she also received the DAR Medal of Honor in 1977. Other awards came from WIU and the City of Macomb.

            Lida eventually became the oldest newspaper columnist in Illinois, and she was still at it when she died in 1981, at age 94. She was buried at Oakwood Cemetery, alongside her husband, who had died 31 years earlier. Generations from now, the inscription on her gravestone will probably puzzle anyone who sees it, but we who recall her column, and know about her lifetime of personal struggles, realize why it simply says, “A Day at a Time.”