PEORIA — Imagine if the walls could talk in a house built in 1872. In a way, they did for a home located in the heart of tiny Green Valley, a village located 30 miles south of Peoria. A 14-year-old girl's message, written 48 years ago and hidden in a bottle behind a wall in an ancient house in Tazewell County, was discovered this month by a carpenter, sparked a mystery, and led to a viral video on an online social media site and tales on a Facebook page. Sunnyland resident Dakota Mohn was working on the house as part of restoration from a fire. When he pulled apart the living room wall, the framework had a message scrawled on it: "Note 9/29/1975" and arrows pointing to a notch in the wood. Behind that notch was a compartment as a resting place for a bottle holding a two-page note signed by Stephanie Herron. "My crew was in there demolishing the front living room of the house," said Mohn, an Illini Bluffs graduate who is a third-generation carpenter. "I was cleaning up debris and I looked up and saw lettering on the wall said 'Note.' I stuck my cell phone in there and took a picture and saw it in this bottle. Took it out and read the note. "It was like this 14-year-old girl was standing there talking to us, took us back almost half a century right there."
Stephanie Herron grew up one of five girls, living with her parents at the old house in Green Valley from 1968 until she headed off to college at Western Illinois University. Her parents continued living there until 2002. Today, she is Stephanie Poit, she is 61, and she's lived a lifetime in New York, married and with five kids. "I was shocked, absolutely shocked, when I heard about the note," she said. "Honestly, I forgot all about it. Life goes on, years go by … I can't believe how much this has struck people. I've gotten notes from people who remember me as a kid growing up in Green Valley. It was a good place to grow up. "And I'm getting notes from people I don't know, teachers a lot of them, who are inspired to have their students do the same thing now. Hey, I guess I'm a Facebook sensation. The whole thing is amazing." She's a TikTok sensation, too, with a video about her hidden message approaching 1 million views this weekend. The house in Green Valley had a railroad track running next to the property, and she and her siblings would watch the trains every day. Her father was a lineman for the Chicago & North Western Railway. The old house was initially a two-level structure, but the family kept adding additions, closing in a front porch to create a living room, kitchen and bathroom. During one such renovation in 1975, Stephanie Poit wrote a two-page letter, rolled it up into a small bottle, and put it behind the frame, where it remained hidden behind the wall for nearly 50 years. "Do you remember why you did something at age 14?" Poit said, laughing. "We were moving into the bicentennial, and everyone was doing time capsules, it was a thing all over the place in 1975. So I did one. Then I went off to college, and moved to New York City and forgot all about it."
Poit's hand-written note included her parents' occupations, her sibling's name, the name of the current President, the railroad near their yard and special wishes for those who might one day live in the house. To whoever finds this: Today is Sept. 29, 1975. My name is Stephanie Herron. I live here with my mother, father (Earnest), Becky and Valerie. Gerald Ford is president. Mrs. Lay is our neighbor. Mom is pregnant and the baby is due any day now. As far as we know, this house was made in 1872. We are remodeling the house. The Illinois Central Railroad is on the west side of the house. We have lived here for 8 years. My dad works the Chicago Northwestern Railroad. Green Valley has about 650 people. I am 14, Val is 16 and Becky is 12. I hope you have lots of happiness in this house. Steph PS: My mother's name is Rose Herron. She is a registered nurse. She works at Hopedale Nursing home. She was born in Nebraska. She is a very good mother. Her youngest sister, by the way, was born the very next day. Life after Green Valley The Herron family lived in the Green Valley house until 2002, although Stephanie was off to college and New York well before that. Her father died in 1998, and her mother died in 2002. She has a sister residing in Hopedale and another in Decatur. She hasn't seen the house in Green Valley in decades. "I went to New York after college because I wanted to work with inner-city kids, and I did that for a lot of years," Poit said. "I lived in the Bronx for a while. Now I live in Brooklyn. I worked for a boys club program that put children and animals together. I'm working now in a chiropractic office, and I teach children through my church. Teaching is where my heart is. The Lord opened some doors for me." And fortunately, closed up some walls, too, or we wouldn't have this mystery and walk back through time.
There was more than Poit's note found at the house in Green Valley. Poit hid some coins in another location, and those have turned up. Mohn also found a toy car. "That's a mystery, I didn't have any brothers and my sisters and I didn't have any toy cars," Poit said. "I have no idea who put that there." Mohn said the house is owned now by Dylan Alig. He says their plan is to build a shadow box into the wall, displaying the message on the wood. "And both of us are going to leave a note in the wall for someone else to find in the future," Mohn said. And Mohn says there is another mystery in Green Valley. He says Poit recalls a time capsule being buried somewhere in the town over 50 years ago. It's been forgotten to time, and he says it's never been found. As for Stephanie Poit's letter, what is to become of it? "I think they should just put it back," Poit said. "Let it stay in that wall, be a mystery for someone else to find later."
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @icetimecleve.