The Town She Left Behind, Part 2

In my last post, I provided a glimpse of La Moille, Illinois, the town woman soldier Frances Hook left behind when she enlisted as a soldier.  Click [HERE] for the post.  In this article....which is more like part 1.5 instead of part 2....I discuss the means by which she left her small town, bound for Chicago.

The Town She Left Behind - Frances Hook's La Moille, Illinois

Mark and I stopped by woman soldier Frances Hook's hometown yesterday.  Located in Bureau County in northern  Illinois, La Moille was settled in the 1830's and named for the Lamoille River Valley in Vermont.  Yes, Lamoille is another spelling.  I have also seen it listed as LaMoille with no space.  As for the pronunciation - well, I discovered I had been saying it "wrong" the whole time.  Down here along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the French Canadian influences can be readily seen and heard in the names of our towns and surnames of the people.  So I naturally wanted to pronounce La Moille like what I was used to.  Nuh uh.  It's la - MOIL, as in the last part rhymes with oil like you put in your vehicle.  And now it's going to be difficult to change the way I say it because I had been pronouncing it a certain way for so long.  Plus, we  Southerners have problems saying "oil."  Just ask us.

Spanish Fort: Two Women Soldiers Experience One of the Last Engagements of the War

In the spring of 1865, the Confederacy was in its final death throes.  Lee was being run into the ground by Grant in the east.  And then in the west, the Federals had turned their attention to capturing Mobile, which was one of the best fortified cities in the Confederacy.  Admiral David Farragut damned the torpedoes and, on August 5th, 1864, made a run past Forts Gaines and Morgan which guarded the the entrance to Mobile Bay.   This is ironic because Farragut spent his childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, about 30 miles from Mobile.  He was born in Tennessee but moved with his family to the Gautier area.  You can pronounce it as either GO-shay or GO-chay.  Both will work.  But some sources say it wasn't Gautier anyway but Pascagoula.  My research points towards Gautier.  There is a Farragut Lake north of Gautier, and there are still descendants of the admiral's in the area.  Matter of fact, I have played tennis with/against one.