The 612-acre Perry County farm of Calvin Ibendahl and his wife, Jean, near Tamaroa is more than just another southern Illinois grain and hog operation. It`s also a preserved nook of rich, regional history going back 145 years.
The farm`s history dates to 1839, when one B.G. Roots settled the land. He built Locust Hill Academy, Illinois` first institution of higher learning, according to Mrs. Ibendahl.
The Ibendahls` home, built about 1854, was once a stop on the pre-Civil War ”underground railroad,” where smuggled slaves from the South sought refuge on their way to freedom in the North. A false wall in the farmhouse disguised an entrance to a fake cistern where slaves hid while waiting to start the next leg of their journey northward.
Also on the farm is a log cabin built in the 1850s and a one-room schoolhouse built in 1916.
The farm`s history will be preserved through the Ibendahls` charitable gift of the farm to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The gift, valued at $1.1 million, is the largest private gift in the university`s history, according to SIU President Albert Somit and James R. Brigham, chairman of the SIU Foundation.
It exceeds the previous largest gift, $1 million by Chicago financier-philanthropist W. Clement Stone in 1969, which was used to pay construction costs of Stone House, residence of SIU presidents since the early 1970s.
”Gifts like this from people interested in helping SIU are absolutely invaluable in assisting us to preserve and strengthen the quality of our educational program,” Somit said.
The Ibendahls have been active in agriculture outside their farm. Mrs. Ibendahl is vice chairman of American Agri-Women, a former president of Illinois Women for Agriculture and a former chairman of the National Livestock and Meat Board. She also has been a member of a U.S. Department of Agriculture task force to help improve high school agriculture economics programs.
