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John McKoon is a young farmer from Nauvoo, Illinois, dropped into the challenge of war in 1942. He advanced to the rank of 1st lieutenant and became a reconnaissance pilot, flying over Europe and the Philippines.
John McKoon, left, and his brother Bill McKoon pose for a photo with their mother, Mary White McKoon, while they're home on leave. They and their brothers were farm kids yanked into a world war.
John McKoon, a farm kid from Nauvoo, Illinois, sends home a photo from base to his mother and fiancée. The photo was likely taken in 1942 or 1943.
Innocent barefoot farm kids in overalls, John McKoon, front, and his brother Bill McKoon play with their dog. They didn't know in 20 years they would both be fighting for their lives.
It's a typical photo of a farm family in the early-1900s. Posing on the front porch of Cale and Mary McKoon's farmhouse in Nauvoo, Illinois, are, counter-clockwise, Bill, Art, Ed, John and Mary McKoon -- and their farm dog.
Farmers head out on a hunting trip from the McKoon farmhouse in Nauvoo, Illinois. Seated at the far end of the wagon is John McKoon not long before World War II erupts.
Iva Jeanette 'Jan' Datin and John Willis McKoon marry Aug. 7, 1943, in Nauvoo, Illinois, while he's home on leave from the U.S. Army. Because he was an officer they were able to have their honeymoon on the beach in South Carolina at the officer residence there.
Cale McKoon, right, talks to a fellow worker at the St. Mary's Academy in Nauvoo, Illinois. Because he was a farmer and carpenter, he was exempted from the draft; farming was an essential occupation.
Willis McKoon works with horses on his farm, likely in Nauvoo, Illinois. Born in 1868 at the end of the Civil War, he was too old to join the military for World War I. But his grandsons were in World War II.
Ezra McKoon, a Civil War veteran, poses for a family photo in Nauvoo, Illinois, where his descendants live.
Morgan McKoon, fourth from left, then a farmer in Michigan, poses for a 9th Michigan Regiment photo in 1865.
The extended family holds a reunion, likely in upstate New York at the family homestead. Morgan McKoon is sixth from left in the third row.
The huge D.G. Young homestead in upstate New York still exists, though some buildings are missing. Morgan McKoon likely spent much time here before heading west. When he returned many decades later, he helped take care of the then-ailing D.G. Young, inventor of several types of dairy knives.
Part of the D.G. Young homestead remains. A McKoon reunion is held here every year around the 4th of July.
Some things never change. While farming in Michigan, Civil War veterans Morgan and Ezra McKoon have jobs off the farm, managing the Cook Hotel and Bar in Richmond, Michigan. It still stands, though only as a bar. Most of the interior still looks as it did when Morgan and Ezra were there.
John McKoon -- spelled various ways in records such as Magoun -- is a Scottish prisoner of war when he's brought to this country in 1650 as an indentured servant. But by 1666, married, he has bought several tracts of farmland and builds this house in Pembroke, Massachusetts. It's still lived in. Much of his farmland is now a nature preserve, often walked by a distant cousin with his wife and dog.
John McKoon's house still stands. It was the subject of a recent HGTV documentary. Built in 1666 by the farmer soldier, it's the oldest existing house in the area.
The Scottish Battle of Dunbar in 1650 sends many young farmer soldiers to their graves -- including to a newly discovered mass grave next to Durham Cathedral in England, where they were forcibly marched. Young farmer-soldier John McKoon survived to be brought to the Massachusetts Colony as an indentured servant.
Farmers are the backbone and heart of this continent. Farming here goes back more than 10,000 years. Soldiers are the reason that in this century we are able to be free to be farmers. Until the past few decades, a huge number were one and the same.
Julie Belschner writes on various agricultural issues; she is the managing editor for Agri-View based in Wisconsin.
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Iva Jeanette 'Jan' Datin and John Willis McKoon marry Aug. 7, 1943, in Nauvoo, Illinois, while he's home on leave from the U.S. Army. Because he was an officer they were able to have their honeymoon on the beach in South Carolina at the officer residence there.
The huge D.G. Young homestead in upstate New York still exists, though some buildings are missing. Morgan McKoon likely spent much time here before heading west. When he returned many decades later, he helped take care of the then-ailing D.G. Young, inventor of several types of dairy knives.
Some things never change. While farming in Michigan, Civil War veterans Morgan and Ezra McKoon have jobs off the farm, managing the Cook Hotel and Bar in Richmond, Michigan. It still stands, though only as a bar. Most of the interior still looks as it did when Morgan and Ezra were there.
John McKoon -- spelled various ways in records such as Magoun -- is a Scottish prisoner of war when he's brought to this country in 1650 as an indentured servant. But by 1666, married, he has bought several tracts of farmland and builds this house in Pembroke, Massachusetts. It's still lived in. Much of his farmland is now a nature preserve, often walked by a distant cousin with his wife and dog.
The Scottish Battle of Dunbar in 1650 sends many young farmer soldiers to their graves -- including to a newly discovered mass grave next to Durham Cathedral in England, where they were forcibly marched. Young farmer-soldier John McKoon survived to be brought to the Massachusetts Colony as an indentured servant.
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