Obituaries

Listed below are the obits published in the past month in the Astoria South Fulton Argus, in alphabetical order by issue. More recent obituaries are listed toward the top. Obituaries older than a month can be found by following the links below.*


SEPTEMBER 20, 2023 ISSUE

		Gary Bradford Gary L. Bradford, 82, of Sparland died at 2 p.m. Sept. 10, 2023, at his home. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/20/2023

		Leon Dutton Leon Eugene Dutton, 88, of Greensboro, Ga., died at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 6, 2023. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/20/2023

		Cindy Leighty Cindy Lee Leighty, 65, of rural Vermont died at 12:04 a.m. Sept. 18, 2023, at McDonough District Hospital in Macomb. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/20/2023

		John Modlin John W. Modlin, 79, of Macomb died at 6:47 p.m. Sept. 17, 2023, at St. Johns Hospital in Springfield. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/20/2023

		Irma Salisbury Irma I. Salisbury, 102, of Canton died Sept. 16, 2023, at The Loft. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/20/2023

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023 ISSUE

		Etsu Baldwin Etsu Jean (Yonaiyama) Baldwin, affectionately known as “Nana”, 85, of Canton died Sept. 8, 2023. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/13/2023

		Donald Danner Donald N. Danner, 72, of Ipava died at 3 p.m. Aug. 5, 2023, at his home. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 8/9/2023 (pending), 8/16/2023 and 9/13/2023 (memorial)

		Thomas Gossage Thomas E. “Tom” Gossage, 63, of Vermont died at 11:37 p.m. Sept. 8, 2023, at McDonough District Hospital Emergency Room. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/13/2023

		Betty Royer Betty Lou Royer, 81, of Lewistown, formerly of Astoria, died at 1:39 p.m. Sept. 6, 2023, at Clayberg Nursing Home. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/13/2023

		Randall Windsor Randall Windsor, 70, of Canton died at 11:34 a.m. Sept. 5, 2023, at his residence. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/13/2023

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023 ISSUE

		Shirley Baker Shirley A. Baker, 86, of Beardstown, formerly of Rushville, died at 4:45 p.m. Sept. 3, 2023, at her home. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/6/2023

		Thomas Dwyer Thomas M. Dwyer, 63, of Clinton died at 6:14 a.m. Sept. 2, 2023, at Carle BroMenn Medical Center in Normal. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/6/2023

		Donna Kreps Donna R. Kreps, 80, of Macomb died at 12:02 p.m. Aug. 27, 2023, at Blessing Hospital in Quincy. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/6/2023

		Gary “Mac” McDonald Gary Dean “Mac” McDonald, 76, of Rushville died at 12:40 a.m. Sept. 2, 2023, at HSHS Saint Johns Hospital in Springfield. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/6/2023

		Janice Sullivan Janice “Jan” E. Sullivan, 80, of Peoria died Aug. 28, 2023, at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 9/6/2023

AUGUST 30, 2023 ISSUE

		Jason Hammon Jason Lee “Turtle” Hammon, 48, of Ipava died at 3:10 p.m. Aug. 22, 2023, at Blessing Hospital in Quincy. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 8/30/2023

		Mary Merritt Mary Sue Merritt, 79, of Rushville died at 10:15 p.m. Aug. 23, 2023, at her home. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 8/30/2023

		Kenneth Rice Sr. Kenneth William Rice Sr., 79, of Rushville died at 6:10 p.m. Aug. 25, 2023, at The Elms in Macomb. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 8/30/2023

		Dorothy Weaver Dorothy Weaver, 92, of Lafayette, Ind., formerly of Table Grove, died at 2:30 a.m. Aug. 17, 2023, at Saint Anthony’s Nursing Care in Lafayette. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 8/30/2023

AUGUST 23, 2023 ISSUE

		Carol Bradford Carol Elaine Weaver Bradford, 80, died at 10:52 a.m. Aug. 15, 2023, at Carle Methodist Hospital in Peoria. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 8/23/2023

		Sondra Smith Sondra J. Smith, 80, of Astoria died at 11:27 a.m. Aug. 19, 2023, at Rushville Nursing and Rehab Center. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 8/23/2023

Submitting an Obituary

If you would like to submit an obituary, there is no fee. You can download our obituary submission form HERE. The file is a PDF document that you can fill out and return electronically. To open the file, you will need the free Adobe Reader software. If you have a photo, you can attach it to the email when you return the form. For more information on submissions to the Argus, please click HERE.

To download the free Adobe Reader software, click the button below:

Finding an Archived Obituary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

To find an archived obituary, click above on the first letter of their last name. Maiden names and additional married names will be cross-referenced with married names at the time of death, so try whichever name you know. If you don't find a name at first, please come back to our site another time and try again. This is a long-term archival project and will continually be updated as we have the time to do so. Our obituary record index currently goes back to Jan. 1914. We also have access to microfilm covering older obituaries beginning in 1886, and some of those obituaries are also being added as time permits. You can email us at argus@kkspc.com with any obit requests for obituaries you do not yet find here. PLEASE NOTE: We are missing microfilm for the year between Aug. 23, 1939-Aug. 28, 1940. We are also missing microfilm for the year between Aug. 1949-Aug 1950.

Any issues from June 1910 up to Jan. 29, 1930, were called The Argus-Search Light. Beginning on Feb. 5, 1930, the name was tweaked to The Argus-Searchlight. "Astoria" was added to the name sometime after that, to be called The Astoria Argus-Searchlight (Laura's note - I will add that date here once I determine the exact date), which remained the name up to and including the Nov. 6, 1974 issue. Papers after that date were published under the The Astoria South Fulton Argus name when The Astoria Argus-Searchlight combined subscribers with The Table Grove Herald.

CLICK HERE for the Master List (Jan. 5, 1914 - current)

We have compiled a master list of all obituaries beginning Jan. 5, 1914, to the current week. The list is organized alphabetically by most recent surname, and summarizes each person's name(s), age, death date, and town of residence at the time of death if available. This can aid you in narrowing down the issue of the Argus in which the obituary was published. Please click HERE to access the master list. Please note that there are now a number of obituaries older than 1914 available; if you are looking for an older obit, check our index and see if we have added them yet.

Obituaries may be available in full online; if so, they are marked (FULL OBIT) in the index. You can access these by clicking on the words "(FULL OBIT)." We currently have all obits from 1996 to the present completed. For obits older than 1996, only the estimated year of publication is listed on the surname pages until they are added to the archive.

Item of note: There are a number of local towns — such as Vermont, Cuba, Tennessee, Washington — that may appear to be states or countries to a researcher not familiar with the area. In this index, place names are assumed to be in Illinois unless otherwise noted.

As we continue adding older obituaries to our online collection, we have run across some that are only short death notices. They contain limited information, but we are including them, marked as "(BRIEF OBIT)", as they can occasionally help with genealogy research.

Back issues of the Astoria South Fulton Argus are available for sale for a year following publication. Older issues are available for viewing on microfilm at the Schuyler Jail Museum and Genealogical Center in Rushville or the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield. For more information, please click HERE.

We have also been adding a few additional obituaries that were not originally published in the Argus, but by other publications in the area. They have been compiled by Marilee Griffin and Lonnie Weinstein, who have relatives in the area. We will attribute the original publication in these cases when we can, so that you know the original source. We appreciate their offer to help round out the genealogical record for researchers.

Where possible, we are cross-referencing information from the Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths Index, in order to have more complete information listed, especially for those obituaries or death notices that are very short.

*Note: Our online obituary archives are incomplete due to the fact that this is an ongoing project. Most obituaries older than 1996 are not yet available in full online, although we have been adding older obits as time allows (including obits older than 1914). The obituary archive index covers from 1914 to the present, and is sorted alphabetically by last name (at the time of death) rather than by death date to make it easier to use. In addition, we are in the process of indexing all surnames on their own individual pages (this task is not fully complete yet). If you are searching for an obituary listing and cannot find it, please email us at argus@kkspc.com and we can look it up for you. ALSO: We have discovered there are a number of obituaries from the mid-20th century that are not listed in the master index; perhaps they ran in a correspondent's column rather than on the front page, and thereby got missed by the indexers from that era. If you don't see a name you expect to see in the master index, contact us with the death dates and we can look closer at those issues to see if they turn up.