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By 1879 the bitterness of the Civil War had been transformed, by memory and new fortunes, into an event which, in retrospect, conferred virtue and glory upon all (Union) participants. At the Palmer House dinner, the menu, appropriately glorious, featured oysters, champagne, prairie chicken, buffalo, shrimp salad, hardtack and cigars. At 10:45 the speeches began. General U.S. Grant, the guest of honor, had just returned from a world tour. He expressed a slightly be fuddled surprise at being called upon to speak, and declared that Americans "are beginning to be regarded a little by other powers as we, in our vanity, have here tofore regarded ourselves." Table-top fireworks, the Star-Spangled Banner, universal shouts of approval followed Grant's remarks. After the speeches and 15 toasts (the last one to "the babies, as they comfort us in our sorrows, let us not forget them in our festivities"), a literary guest named Samuel Clemens responded: "We haven't all had the good fortune to be ladies; we haven't all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground."
The history of McLean County during this century is mostly a story of dreams richly come true. The seed the Funk brothers developed yields 150 to 160 bushels of corn an acre. The Funk Prairie Home, once center of a 25,000-acre farm, is now a museum, and the seed company is a division of Ciba-Geigy. Land that McNulta bought for $150 an acre now hovers around $4,000 an acre, too much for anyone ever to start out farming there now, but not a bad price for to day's farmer/investor to use as a tax write-off. The Osage orange hedges, planted a hundred years ago against the chilling wind, are being torn out, because machinery these days needs more room just to turn around. The wind sweeps down, carrying off the topsoil, buffeting the farmer who can, thanks to progress, plant 300 acres in two days all alone with $100,000 worth of machinery.
Mrs. Hoffman's nephew Ulmer Beetzel, now 61, and his wife Doris, 57, have lived for 26 years on the farm his grandfather worked after the Civil War. "It's an industry now, not a life," says Doris. "It's the life of Riley," says Ulmer, correcting her. No livestock, no need for extra help, the ticker tape running constantly at the Anchor co-operative grain elevator, bringing prices from the commodity exchange up in Chicago. But only one of the Beetzel's four children is a farmer.
The three Beich brothers obliged their great-grandfather McNulta, and smoked General Grant's gift cigar. They found it mild and surprisingly fresh, but they didn't smoke it too far down. General Grant was known for his habit of giving out exploding cigars. -Jane O'Reilly