My dad’s sister, Lorraine, and her husband, Al Weghorst, were faithful servants in the St. Joseph Catholic Church, as my cousins, Dick and Donna Weghorst, and Pat and Warren Gay, are today.  Like nearly all Pekinites, the Toel’s are a down to earth, hard working, God and country loving people.  Grandpa taught all the grandkids the love of God by pure example.  Grandma made sure the family was tough and together.

 

During the summer after first grade at Douglas School, I came down with polio.  I was rushed up to St. Francis Hospital and spent ten tormenting days in an isolation ward receiving spinal taps, food and not much more.  There were too many very sick kids in too short a time.  Thank goodness they know more today about treating sick kids.  My mom was told I would always walk with a limp but through her dedicated efforts, and the grace of God, I was completely healed.  Later I even went on to be able to play football for an Army team and a fairly decent game of tennis. (Mostly guts over talent.)

Lisa and I were married by Rev. Roger Jenks in the University Church, Champaign.

Sean and Eric

Maggie, Emma and Katie

When I was born in 1945 my family lived in a rental house at 1009 Hamilton Street.  My dad, Bud, worked at CILCO, starting as a laborer and steadily working up to be Gas and Electric Superintendent.  My mom, Eileen, was a housewife and part-time J.C. Penney’s employee who took care of me and my sister, Nancy.  My family was active in the old First Presbyterian Church (next to the old Carnegie library), my dad taught Sunday School, and my grandpa, Henry (Hi) Toel was the church secretary. 

After Douglas, I attended McKinley, Washington Jr. High and then graduated from Pekin High in 1963 (from the old West Campus).    In my junior and senior year I worked for Lloyd Armstrong at the Pekin Daily Times as a cub reporter alongside my lifelong friend Gary Brecher.  I also washed cars at Tosi’s, worked at Pekin Prescription Lab for Mrs. Samms, and did many other odd jobs in town.

In 1965 I enlisted in the Army.  After a stint at Corn Products carrying bags and working starch pack and Amidex and every other 2^nd and 3^rd shift job no one else wanted (shoveling the clinkers from under the boilers was good fun), I caught the bus from the old B&F bus stop up to Chicago.  After completing training I was waiting for my orders to ship off to Vietnam when my Company Commander, Captain Foster, called me into his office and told me he’d decided that I was to attend Officer Candidate School.  In 20 years he had never had a nominee get through OCS.  This was an incredible honor for a private from Pekin, and rare without a college degree.  He gave me a slip of paper that said “there was nothing worth having that wasn’t worth going through hell to get” and he was right.  After surviving OCS (over 50% of the candidates were usually “washed out”) I was chosen to stay on and be the senior tactical officer for the next class coming in (this is like a drill sergeant for officers).  After that I was shipped off to Okinawa, Japan (a staging point for Vietnam).  After arriving I was promoted to Captain (the youngest in that theatre I was told) and selected to command a company that was basically in mutiny.  It was the largest company in the Far East with 420 Army soldiers and a platoon of Marines.  We were on duty 24/7.  About one third of my troops were in Vietnam at any one time.  I got to choose my own first sergeant, a wonderful African American man named Floyd Reddick, who had survived bayonet wounds and a Korean POW camp, and with his help shaped up the company from the worst to become number one out of 26 units in the command. 

Before I shipped off to the Army, I had married my high-school sweetheart and our first child, Kim, was the first baby born in Pekin in 1968 (I got news two days later from the Red Cross).  Our son, Jim, was born three years later.  They are both wonderful people of whom I’m very proud.

After my service was up with the Army, nearly four years active duty, I came back to Pekin and reported back to work at the Corn Products plant to carry more bags.  I think someone must have got my military record confused because I was given first class treatment by the company; summoned to the NY City headquarters and later favored by top management for a fast track.  I was promoted to Senior Grain Buyer as well as serving as the President of the Board of Trade.  In 1974 CPC nominated me to the Executive MBA program at the U of I.  That was quite a handful, a wife and kids, the MBA, and working 70 plus hours a week.

In late 1977 my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer in Arizona and I took my family out so we could be with him.  He died six very painful months later.   In Arizona my career took off.  I started in banking as a teller trainee and within a few years was a bank president and CEO, but I went through a rocky period in my personal life.  Long hours, too many commitments, and the problems of transplanting a family from a small tight-knit community to a big fast-paced city caused increasing problems at home.

 

After a few years I felt it was time to get back to my roots in Central Illinois.  I came back to Pekin for a summer, taught golf lessons at the Park District, and was hired to the faculty of the University of Illinois, teaching as many as five courses a semester.  The students were very good to me.  My reputation as one of the toughest faculty members somehow made me one of the most popular.

In 1988 I was greatly blessed to meet a beautiful woman named Lisa Davies.  In May of 1989 she became my wife.  Lisa has worked for Honeywell for fifteen years and has had a “home office” for the last eleven.

 

After we were married I taught another semester at the U of I and then we moved to beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia where I was hired by the University of Virginia and we lived for about five years.   We were fortunate to live on a farm there and have horses.   I built a corral and fenced the majority of a 21 acre pasture with only a tamping bar, a hand post-hole digger, and hammer and saw.  It took me forever, but it’s something I feel very good about.

Kim and her Grandpa

Jim

I spent 1 year, 11 months and 1 day in the Far East.  Veterans Day is very important to me.  People who put their lives on the line in uniform, and those who love God… those are “my” people.

Bill and Nancy on Hamilton Street

In 1994 we moved to Arizona to be with my mom and my kids who were ready to start families.  (Nancy and her husband, Chuck Reid, had moved to Arizona in the 60’s and Mom and Dad had followed.)

 

We lived in Arizona for ten years where we took care of my mom and I taught at Arizona State University at both the Tempe campus and the West campus.  The last few years I was primary instructor for international finance.  Sometimes I had as many as 300 students in a class and grading handwritten exams by hand was quite a chore. 

In 2000 I took a chance running for the U.S. Senate as an independent with no party and virtually no money.  The standard set to get on the ballot was meant to be impossible.  We sat in front of grocery stores with a card table until we proved them wrong.  We both learned some important lessons from the race: Well worth the effort.

Mom and Dad 1962

While we lived in Phoenix all five of our grandchildren were born in a six year period: Sean, Eric, Maggie, Katie and Emma.   Each one of them is a wonderful young person and we love them dearly.

William Henry Toel

Personal Life