This digital story recording was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student documentary initiative, called "Coming Home." The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
DeKalb County History Center and several partners in DeKalb County, IL collected 100 objects about the country that will be displayed in an exhibition titled “History of DeKalb County in 100 Objects,” opening on June 11, 2022. Inspired by this exhibition and as a part of Museum on Main Street’s Coming Home project, area students created a project inspired by one of the 100 selected objects. Each student completed deep research on the topic, interviewed local residents, and edited and produced a video. Topics include: the North Grove One Room School, the Olympic Torch, the Navy’s TDR – 1, and the Sycamore Pumpkin Fest.
Roger Keys (00:11): My name is Roger Keys, and that's K-E-Y-S, just like car keys. It's too simple. It's always misspelled. But I'm actually a general contractor. I specialize in historic restoration and I've been doing that since about 1973. I do a lot of work in the city, but I do work out here too.
Roger Keys (00:35): About 35 years ago, my kids were real little and on a Sunday, my wife and I, with the kids, were driving around on a Sunday and we're in water man. And all of a sudden she sees a sign for a garage sale and sure enough, this was on a table at a garage sale. And I picked it up. See that this is solid wood, it's very well constructed. And the markings are very authentic. Had no idea what it was. And so I paid five dollars for it, which was pretty cheap, but I kept thinking, "well, this is something significant".
Roger Keys (01:10): And it turns out it really was, but it took me eight years to actually identify this thing. I had this for eight years and I would take it to events where maybe plane enthusiasts were an experimental aircraft association would have fly-ins on farms around here. And then about eight years later, I took it to one of those and a guy came up and he said, "that's an interstate TDR. Where did you find that"? So once I had a name, then I was able to actually start doing my research on this. Now 35 years ago, we didn't have the internet, obviously. I'd write to the Naval archives or the national archives. And about six weeks later, I might get a really, really ghost-y looking photocopy of stuff. And I started talking to people. The one that told me what it was actually worked on it out of high school in 1944.
Roger Keys (02:00): He was out of high school, and before he went into the service, he worked at the [inaudible 00:02:05] plant on this airplane. So he knew what it was, but he had no idea. He said, "well, it never went anywhere. It was all experimental and it was never went anywhere". So I just figured it was just something interesting they did during world war II in DeKalb and [inaudible 00:02:21] was involved in, which was a cool story. But as I started getting stuff back from the Naval archives, I found out it not only was used in the south Pacific, but I actually found the air group.
Roger Keys (02:31): The Navy air group was having reunions that actually operated this in the south Pacific. So all of a sudden, I'm putting the story of the people that built the airplane in DeKalb together with the guys that flew in the war in the south Pacific. And neither side knew anything about the guys that flew and had no idea where it came from, because it was top secret where it was built and all this stuff. The people that built it had no idea that it actually went into the war.
Asset ID: 2022.27.02.b
Find a complete transcript at www.museumonmainstreet.org
