Yesterday was the formal dedication of the Illinois Veterans Home in Quincy.
This completes the $300 million construction of a 260,000-square-foot residential long-term care facility and 80,000-square-foot independent living facility for Illinois veterans.
The long-term care facility houses 210 skilled-care beds with full resident amenities. The independent living building, a domiciliary, has 80 independent living units, with accommodations large enough for resident spouses and children. Currently, the Quincy Veterans’ Home supports 379 individuals in long-term skilled care and 88 residents in independent living and domiciliary care. Amenities include dining rooms with elevated meal service, living rooms with fireplaces, outdoor spaces with interactive art, a chapel, a movie theater, and a pub.
Historical Facts: (This is an excerpt from HISTORY OF ILLINOIS SOLDIERS’ & SAILORS’ HOME written by Charles H. Curry, who came to the Illinois Veterans’ Home in 1971, and loved it. Mr. Curry’s words may well sum up, better than anything, an overview of the Home and its residents throughout the years. You can read all 16 pages here.)
Many things have happened since the 1885 Illinois State Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, when the department commander, in his address to the assembled Civil War veterans, told of his dream that each GAR Post and each of the 20,000 members “use all honorable means” to establish and maintain a soldiers’ and sailors’ home in the State of Illinois. Age, old wounds, disease and nightmares were catching up with the veterans of that most terrible of wars, and the number of disabled veterans had increased to the degree that the consensus throughout the state was that they should be treated as honored wards of the State of Illinois. From this dream has come an outstanding example of what can – and has – been done to honor the veterans of our state and nation. A bill was introduced and passed in the General Assembly that very year to establish a soldiers’ and sailors’ home for disabled Illinois veterans, twenty years after the War between the States, and thirty-seven years after the Mexican War. The appropriation for building the home was two hundred thousand dollars. Governor Richard J. Oglesby appointed several citizens as “Locating Commissioners” with the task of finding a suitable site. Fifty-two cities offered sites for the home of the new veterans’ facility, but technicalities decreased the number to thirty-five. The citizens of Quincy were determined to have the new facility, and quickly organized to convince the committee to erect it on what was known as the “Old Dudley Homestead” on the north side of Quincy, at an asking price of $22,000, for which Quincy residents donated $17,000.
139 years ago on this date was the formal dedication that occurred on October 19, 20 and 21 of 1886. It was said to have been one of the most flamboyant celebrations Quincy had ever known. Called the Soldier’s Reunion and Encampment. Six hundred tents were erected by the State for the use of the veterans and named “Camp Oglesby.
Five hundred vets were housed on cots in the auditorium of St. Boniface (SAYNT BON-i-fays) School, and everyone in town was awakened each morning at sunrise by firing of the veteran twelve-pounder brass cannon.
Members of the 69 GAR Posts, consisting of twenty to fifty men each, arrived that first morning and were assigned to places in “Camp Oglesby.” Special rates were given the Posts by the railroads, of one cent a mile, with non-veterans charged more.