A couple of weeks before the Christmas holiday, Morrison-Talbott Library in Waterloo received an early gift to bolster its genealogy section.

Tim Ogle of the O’Fallon Historical Society delivered a collection of Lemen family documents to the library on Dec. 16. 

Included in the delivery was an album of Lemen family photographs – some from the 1800s – a book of Lemen family history and genealogy, an 1856 diary belonging to Robert W. Lemen and a copy of “Pilgrim’s Progress” circa 1826  belonging to his father Robert Lemen.   

The donation adds to the existing Lemen collection at the library, which chronicles the descendents of James Lemen Sr., founder of the New Design settlement in 1793 south of Waterloo.

New Design is regarded as the first “truly American” settlement in Illinois.

This latest addition to the library’s collection almost didn’t happen.

Robert Lemen of St. Louis, a direct descendant of James Lemen Sr., was contacted in 2001 by attorneys handling his late uncle Richard Lemen’s estate in Moline regarding items of family history that had not been claimed.

Robert told the Republic-Times he thought his brother Thomas should keep his uncle’s collection to “carry on the Lemen…