HOOPESTON — While doing genealogy research, Kevin Berkshire uncovered family connections to Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley, and a 100-year-old unsolved murder of his grandmother’s cousin in Hoopeston.
Berkshire will visit Hoopeston Public Library at 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 10 to talk about his work and share excerpts from his new book, “Dead Hoopeston Girl.” He will also have copies available for sale and signing.
In April 1922, 25-year-old Gertrude Hanna had been missing for a month when her carefully preserved body was found in the basement of the church parsonage across the street from her home on Hoopeston’s north side. Complications in the investigation began to multiply after an autopsy reveals the unwed young woman was soon to be a mother.
Berkshire at first thought the story would make a great novel, but that approach was abandoned when the allure of the mystery and how it was sensationalized in the reporting of the day became a story unto itself. The book takes a unique approach to the story, combining old newspaper reports with Berkshire’s own research, as well as adding a fictionalized bit of “what if.”
The Hoopeston Public Library is located at 110 N. 4th Street in Hoopeston.