Portrait of a Life: Kenneth DeSollar 1926-2005
		They say that just before we pass away, we all see our lives flash before our eyes. If Kenneth DeSollar was able to see his life flash before his eyes just before he left us, he would have seen images of a family and friends who loved him…and he would have been the one behind the camera. He was born March 4, 1926 in Beardstown to Elza and Annie DeSollar and was the youngest of their four sons. He attended Beardstown Schools and after a stint in the US Navy in World War II where he was stationed in the Philippines, he enrolled at the University of Illinois in Champaign for one year. He returned to Beardstown, where in 1957, he bought a loaf of bread at the Kroger’s in Beardstown and met a friendly and vivacious checker named Bessie Irene Jockisch. She was the perfect foil for his quieter disposition and their first date was the Illinois State Fair on August 14 of 1957. They were married on August 14, 1958. To everyone else, she was Irene, but to him, she was always Bessie. He was proud of their two children. Karen, who is her “father’s daughter,” similar in temperament, and interests, became an editor and public relations professional. Kevin, who in personality is probably more like his mother, continued his father’s love affair with the railroad to become an engineer, perpetuating a decades-old family tradition. For four decades, Kenneth and Irene made a living taking pictures and recording the important moments in the lives of individuals and families from all over the area. Family portraits, weddings and the ever-present fixtures at Beardstown High School graduation ceremonies, they and the “magic hand” have helped preserve the life stories of many of their neighbors. He enjoyed the aesthetics of getting a good picture and working in the darkroom, a natural fit for his quiet temperament. When he was healthy, before the ravages of Parkinson’s disease, he was a strapping 230 pounds and 6’3” in his bare feet. In disposition, he was shy, gentle-spirited and even-tempered. “He would have to be to stay married to me for 47 years,” Irene said, self-effacingly. He was a closet intellectual and many evenings, walked downtown to the library when it was still in the City Square, to check out books on subjects ranging from trains, a life-long interest, to exotic places around the globe. If it wasn’t the library, it was Charlie Hunter’s newsstand to pick up the recent issue of “National Geographic.” He loved jazz, the music of the big bands and PBS television. He was an active person, a vegetarian, and could often be seen around town on his bicycle, even when he was well into his sixties. He had a great sense of humor and wasn’t above using sarcasm. When it first became common for large city TV stations to put traffic reporters in helicopters to cover rush hour traffic, he suggested that Beardstown’s answer was Art Zeech on a stepladder at the corner of Fourth and State. When he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a few years ago and realized he was losing the life-long good health he had enjoyed, he did some serious reckoning with God. In response, he made a public profession of faith and was baptized at Black Oak Church in Beardstown. He is survived by his daughter, Karen, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina; son, Kevin of Rushville, and his wife, Julie, who in recent years, had become a daughter to him; his beloved grandchildren, Andrew, of Kansas City, and Candice of Springfield; and one brother, John, of Galesburg. And, of course, Irene, his constant companion for over 47 years. They are about as opposite as two people can be, but together they made a whole. They built a business, a family and a life together. Over those years, Kenneth DeSollar took literally thousands of pictures and created a virtual photographic history of this area. And for that we are grateful. But none of those images are as precious as the ones he left us of his own life.
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