Articles

By Bill Kemp. Published on August 14, 2016.

Bloomington’s streets were eerily quiet for several weeks in late November and early December 1872. Missing from the normally bustling ...

By Bill Kemp. Published on November 25, 2018.

Ellen B. Ferguson, who made Bloomington-Normal her home in the 1870s, was a remarkable but ultimately inscrutable champion of women’s s...

By Bill Kemp. Published on January 27, 2019.

Back in the 19th century when miracle pills, plasters, creams, powders and tonics promised to cure all—from mild indigestion to pancrea...

By Bill Kemp. Published on April 21, 2019.

Editor's note: This is Bill Kemp's 650th original "Page from Our Past" column. Bill began writ...

By Bill Kemp. Published on May 19, 2019.

“It is very seldom that a town of some 350 inhabitants can boast of an up-to-date hospital,” declared a spring 1923 advertisement for D...

By Bill Kemp. Published on September 8, 2019.

“Be careful or you'll end up at the poor farm” was a popular admonition well in the mid-20th century.From the early 1860s u...

By Bill Kemp. Published on November 3, 2019.

During the summer of 1855, cholera swept through Bloomington and outlying communities. It was one of the largest outbreaks of this drea...

By Bill Kemp. Published on December 8, 2019.

Winning a war is not only about killing—it’s also about saving lives, especially if those lives are wounded soldiers fighting on your s...

By Bill Kemp. Published on December 29, 2019.

One hundred years ago, New Year’s Eve 1919 brought hope for better days to come. After all, the nation had been deeply scarred by the t...

By Bill Kemp. Published on March 15, 2020.

“Do Not Fear Influenza,” read a local Red Cross notice from October 1918. “Learn how to avoid it—How to care for those who have it—What...

By Bill Kemp. Published on July 4, 2021.

Carle BroMenn Medical Center has undergone one transformation after another since its modest beginnings 125 years ago. It opened on May...

Articles about Health and Medicine