A good place to call home

It happened more than 50 years ago, but it's hard to start a story about the Piatt County village of Bement without mentioning Marilyn Monroe.

The Hollywood megastar visited town in 1955 to celebrate its centennial. She picked Harry Porter's father, Cotton, as winner of a beard-growing contest, she kissed him and launched him into his own 15 minutes of fame: an appearance on the popular network television show "I've Got a Secret."

She catapulted Bement into the national news, something that didn't happen again until, 44 years later, a zealous village policeman busted a man for driving his lawn mower without a valid driver's license.

And Monroe blew away a celebrity-packed list of other people well-connected Bement native Carleton Smith convinced to show up at the centennial. People like Chicago poet Carl Sandburg, whose picture hangs in the village library.

"She was it," said Harry Porter, who watched the action from a distance because he had been assigned to look after a team of oxen brought to the village from New Salem. "There will never be anyone like her again. She was pretty special."

Politicians came from several states, including Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen, and the guest list even included professional wrestlers The Mighty Atlas and Ivan Rasputin.

It's all recorded in "The Bement Story: the First 150 years" published in 2005. The book also includes the back story about Monroe's appearance: She and Smith met in a New York hotel where she couldn't pay her sizable bill. Smith picked up the tab after extracting a promise from her to attend the event back home.

Village history

Bement was a railroad town from the beginning.

"Three guys came here (on Christmas Day 1853) to check out where the railroad was going to go," Porter said of Joseph Bodman, L.B. Wing and Henry Little. "They came over cemetery hill and saw prairie grass for miles. But they had a vision that it would amount to something, so they bought that swampy ground.

"They staked out the land and went back to railroad and government headquarters in Danville."

Bodman is a great uncle of Bement resident Bob Bodman, 94, an avid historian.

Even the village's name is tied to the railroad. A bell in the lobby of the local library tells that story. Edward Bement, secretary of the Great Western Railroad, promised a real railroad bell to a community that was named after him, according to Librarian Carol Bowen. City founders complied in 1855, but Bement died before he could get the bell to the community. The Wabash Railroad delivered the bell in 1955 for the centennial.

"We're proud of our library," Bowen said of the library's tenacious hold on that bell.

Bement takes celebrations seriously – and that enthusiasm isn't limited to the centennial and sesquicentennial. State Bank of Bement President Art Wilkinson, the most recent in a progression of family members to hold that job, said the Fourth of July parade every year is a big deal, as is an annual homecoming event.

In 2008, the village's Glory Days will be June 14, and residents and visitors also regularly hold celebrations at Bryant Cottage, the state's smallest historical site that links the village to its most famous visitors: Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.

A caring community

One of Bement's finest moments was when village leaders organized to recognize their veterans.

"There was a board downtown with names on it, but we thought there should be something permanent to honor them," said, who was co-chairman of the project. "We got it together in 1998. Raising money was the easy part. We collected $64,000 in five months. The money poured in."

On Saturday in 1998, volunteers constructed the memorial in the city park facing Illinois 105 at the entrance to the village.

"We had 54 volunteers who did the work," Porter said. "Edith Fay, who was 93 at the time, was there. Kids worked. Cement workers volunteered their time. It was an amazing day."

Porter said the people of Bement watch out for each other. The village's 1,747 residents have organized social and fraternal organizations, a food pantry and a community organization to keep an eye on the general welfare.

"It was formed after the centennial with money left over from it," said village native Jeff Funk, who practices law in Monticello but lives in Bement. "We sponsor fireworks in the summer, we take care of Christmas decorations, we have a soup lunch in February to raise money and our representatives bring reports about things that need attention."

He said the town motto, "A Good Place to Call Home," says it all.

"It's a good place for kids," Funk said.

Challenges

Michelle Gross taught music before she moved back to Bement to work at the State Bank of Bement.

"I always felt safe here," said Gross, a candidate for village board. "I wanted my kids to have a neighborhood. It's a great place to grow up and I wouldn't be here if I didn't think there's a future here for my grandchildren. That's why I'm so involved."

The bank has grown aggressively by going out of town and by investing in technology and physical improvements. Wilkinson, a former president of the Illinois Bankers Association, said when he started at the Bement bank in 1975, it had assets of $12 million. Today that bank, the largest of the three in the Bement Bankshares Inc. chain, has $55 million in assets and Bankshares has $90 million.

"We need to grow," Wilkinson said of the community's future. "We need more kids in the schools and more young people in the community. We need housing."

Gross, who is Wilkinson's daughter, agreed.

"We need an industrial park, beautification, housing," she said. "Part of the problem is there are few lots available, few houses to buy. We need to be proactive."

Dick Thomas, longtime manger of Topflight Grain Company on Bodman Street, said his cooperative – one of the state's oldest – also had to go out of town to grow into one of the state's largest.

After a merger with two companies in the late 1990s, Topflight grew from a company with five elevators to 19 facilities with 24 million bushels of storage and 45 full-time employees doing more tha'n $100 million in business every year.

Thomas said the elevator moved into major market player status in 1972, with the help of its customers and others in town.

"On a cold day in January 1972, the first 100-car train was placed to be loaded," he said. "It had to be loaded in 24 hours, and with the help of 45 farmers, five employees and several people from town, it was loaded on time. That was a major accomplishment for a country elevator at the time."

Central Illinois Manufacturing Co. was founded in 1956 by Chicago transplant Richard Ayers, who invented a tank cap that revolutionized the petroleum industry.

Today, CIMCO is Piatt County's largest private employer. Ayers' sons, Will and Jim, run the business. Jim Ayers' son, Jeff, has joined the staff as head of engineering.

A study completed by Western Illinois University estimates CIMCO had a $13.7 million impact on the Piatt County economy in 2004.

The brothers said their father, who was mayor in the 1960s when the village built its sewer plant, fell in love with the community where he located his business.

Jim Ayers said he and his siblings were surrounded by family members and teachers who cared while they were growing up, with plenty of personal attention. He hopes the village takes a careful look at the future and comes up with solutions that make it promising.

"We have a big investment in Bement," Ayers said.