(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Coming up tonight.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - It was our family history.

It became a town, it became a settlement, and then it became a memory.

(upbeat music) - My inspiration was just creating a space that I felt like my grandma's home and I hoped it would resonate with people, but it was more a place to be a home away from home and somewhere that would feel really comfortable.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] Nestled in the rolling countryside of Pike County is a town that changed the course of history, New Philadelphia, Illinois.

Founded in 1836, it wasn't just any town.

It was a daring experiment in freedom, resilience, and equality.

- The first town that was registered and platted by an African American before the Civil War is pretty extraordinary.

Free Frank bought his own freedom.

He bought the freedom of many members of his family, and part of that was done through selling off plots in this community.

And the fact that this was an multiracial community is also such an extraordinary thing for having been done prior to the Civil War.

- [Narrator] Frank McWorter, better known as Free Frank was once a slave who managed to buy his own freedom and the freedom of 16 family members through his hard work mining and selling saltpeter.

When he established New Philadelphia, it was a bold and groundbreaking act of self-determination.

He dreamed of creating a place where people of any race could live and thrive together.

For free Frank's great-great grandson, Gerald McWorther, New Philadelphia is a personal story.

- It was our family history.

Subsequent to that, because of my cousin who did her doctoral dissertation on the Free Frank, New Philadelphia story at the University of Chicago.

And my aunt, her mother who was a teacher and she always had these boards with newspaper clippings and pictures, et cetera.

She's elementary school teacher.

And so we heard the story every time the family gathered.

But again, it was only later that we began to understand how amazing the story was because now it's our story in the sense of it's a country story and not just our family story.

- [Narrator] At its peak, New Philadelphia was a thriving community where black and white residents lived and worked side by side.

The town had everything, a post office, a blacksmith shop, stage coaches coming through, a schoolhouse and a general store.

But when the railroads passed it by, the population started to shrink.

And over time the town faded away, eventually disappearing from the maps.

- It has changed.

And in our book we say "It became a town, it became a settlement and then it became a memory", and it's now being recreated through the archeological dig and through the fact that it's now a part of the National Park System.

And what's interesting, we found out when we came here, that people had never forgotten New Philadelphia.

There are people who always remembered New Philadelphia and it wasn't just the McWorter family, they were other descendants.

- [Narrator] In 2005, New Philadelphia was designated a national historic landmark.

Today it serves as a powerful reminder of the intersection of race, resilience and the American dream.

(gentle music) - So for almost 30 years, this organization has been preserving the memory and wanting it to become a national park.

And by golly it became a national park.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Many have lived their whole lives in nearby Barry, Illinois and don't know this historic story.

- But it wasn't until I came to work at the Barry Public Library, I was the library director.

It wasn't until then that I really heard the story.

And it's a fascinating story.

And then you can't help but look into it and learn more about it.

And it's just fascinating.

So then later I found out there was a family connection.

Directly behind me, about two miles back is approximately the place where my great-great grandpa had his homestead.

And right here is where Gerald's great-great grandpa had his homestead.

And it is just kind of neat to know that they were there.

I've heard that they, family story, that they had business connections.

I like to think that maybe he even was sympathetic to the Underground Railroad aspect.

But I believe that he was a special man.

He was smart, he was an entrepreneur.

He was a visualizing the future for himself and his family.

- Free Frank fought for equality, freedom and even the right to claim his name.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Often when there was a last name, it was associated with the family that owned the slaves.

My great-great-grandfather was owned by McWhorters that spelled their name, M-C-W-H-O-R-T-E-R.

Subsequently, after he moved to Illinois, he got the Illinois state legislature to actually pass a law known as the McWorter Law, where he could then as a Freedman sue and be sued.

He had a place, a standing in courts, et cetera, which was quite unusual for the time.

When he had that law passed, he took the H out because he didn't want the people from Kentucky or South Carolina to come, to claim that they owned this land based on that name.

And so whereas many people think of the last name as a slave name, we think of it as a freedom name.

- [Narrator] Free Frank and his wife Lucy, built the town from 20 blocks of rural Illinois land, creating a legacy that continues to inspire generations.

Their story shows how working together can pave the way towards equality.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (whimsical music) (whimsical music) - So I discovered glassblowing at Southern Illinois in Carbondale.

I was a biology student and I had to walk past the glass studio in order to get to my other classes.

And I looked in and I thought, what are they doing?

This is amazing.

At that time there was a professor coming in, Che Rhodes and he was a master glassblower and I had a chance to meet him and watch him work.

And I was absolutely enthralled with what his skillset was and I was so inspired I wanted to be like him.

(whimsical music) So I decided to change my major and I came home and I told my parents that I discovered glassblowing and their jaws dropped open and they said, "What?

You're a year from graduating in your biology degree."

I said, "I know, but this is really amazing.

And I just, I need to touch this glass."

I'm celebrating 15 years in business and after college I moved to Oregon and I worked for a few glass blowers.

And then while I was home visiting my parents over the holidays, I picked up a couple of catering gigs for Dave Alwan at Echo Valley Meats.

He also bought and sold equipment on the side and he said, "I see a passion in you for the glass.

I see how dedicated you are and what a hard worker you are.

Let me help you and you help me by running the catering management, with the stipulation that once you become successful," he didn't say "If you came became", He said, "Once you become successful, promise me that you'll pay it forward and you'll give somebody else an opportunity like I'm giving you right now."

He's like, "Well, I have a spare meat locker and once we find that equipment, we can set you up in this, in the meat locker."

So yes, my very first studio was in a meat locker.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) - And then right here she's gonna force her air into the end of our blow pipe.

She caps the back end with her thumb and then that air she blew is traveling to the only expandable point right there, which is our hot glass.

So it's gonna start to push itself into the hot glass and that's what we call our starter bubble.

- I had an opportunity to go out to Corning Museum and work on a project with them for three weeks and they had bus groups of people coming in and watching the glass blowers and their mouths were open in disbelief what they were seeing and they were mesmerized by it.

And I thought to myself, "Well, nobody has seen this in Peoria.

I can do this.

And let's offer a public studio that people can come in and have a hands-on experience with me."

But I'm fortunate to have some really skilled glass makers.

I have right now, three employees, two of which are professional glassblowers.

My family has always been there for me.

My husband encouraged me to seek a public place out.

So I opened the doors to the public that October of 2013.

(uplifting music) - [Instructor] The big wooden tool she has is called a block and it helps to shape our glass.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) - One man I got to teach, he was blind.

I got to teach a blind man how to blow glass and he was turning at the bench back and forth and he could literally feel the contour and the shape of the glass.

I mean he was blown away by it.

It was one of the most fulfilling experiences that I've ever been able to give before.

(uplifting music) - [Instructor] This is the traditional way of blowing glass, usually having a partner here and instructing them when and how much to blow.

And then this is the more modern way.

One of the newest additions to the glass world in general is the blow hose.

And it gives the artists a little bit more independence as well as when we are teaching classes, it gives the students the ability to blow into their own project as well.

(uplifting music) - Just come and enjoy it, you know, and just get a sense of fulfillment, just watching some art and some glass on fire.

And so I love to be able to offer something to somebody that's gonna help them feel better about the space that they're putting it in.

Glassblowing to me is a dance.

So when I really get into it, it's just like this freeform dance for me.

And of course through a lot of like practice, you know, you have to fail a lot in order to succeed.

But it's, it just gives me a greater sense of humanity and the fact that I'm in a public studio, if I can inspire others to do something and not even blow glass.

But if I can inspire people to go back to something that they love to do, I feel like I'm meeting a lot of my mission, my purpose to being here.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (thoughtful music) (mellow upbeat music) - My name is Whitney Calvert.

Feel free to make yourself at home.

(mellow upbeat music) Matilda's is a cocktail lounge that I started.

The whole idea behind it wasn't necessarily about being a cocktail lounge, although cocktails are what I love and like my history and bartending and hospitality.

But it was more a place to be a home away from home and somewhere that would feel really comfortable to come all the time, no matter whether you wanted to drink or not.

(mellow upbeat music) My inspiration was just creating a space that I felt like my grandma's home and I hoped it would resonate with people, but it's come around that everyone who comes in here is like my grandmother had that table or my mom put her magazines in that same table.

But I swear, and it sounds crazy, I woke up one morning and was like, the name is Matilda's.

This is the idea.

This is a concept and this is where we're going for it.

So I don't know if I just had a dream or like my grandma spoke to me or what, but I was like, this is where it's at and this is where it's going.

And then we never looked back.

(mellow upbeat music) Everyone's asked me this all the time since we opened and they think that my name is Matilda's or Matilda, but actually Matilda's is the street that my mom's mom and my dad's sister lived across the street from each other when I was growing up.

So that was the inspiration for this.

(mellow upbeat music) I'm from Pekin, so I grew up in Pekin.

I traveled and I lived in London for a while, which is where I got a lot of my like cocktail knowledge.

I studied biochemistry and psychology, but I also ran their college activities program for the whole time I was there.

So I always loved like entertainment, hospitality, like making people feel welcome and it's what I did all the time while I was there.

And then I bartended there and I had a great time there for five years learning a lot of different stuff.

And when I finally moved back here, I continued to work in hospitality.

So I always knew that I wanted to like own my own place and make a place that felt like comfortable for other people.

And cocktails was always the base of that, but never like everything about it.

(mellow upbeat music) So we're trying to do as many of our cocktails as non-alcoholic as possible just because we want you to come in and feel comfortable with your friends even if you're not drinking.

So we've done a lot of like root beer floats and milkshakes.

(blender whirring) (mellow upbeat music) I put the root beer floats on the menu because every year for my grandmother's, not the grandmother that Matilda Street was based on, but my dad's mom, she did root beer floats for her birthday.

It's always what she wanted instead of cake.

I wanted to give that grandma some part of this as well.

(mellow upbeat music) Our specialty drinks, so I base them off, so they're based off "Sesame Street".

But it all kind of started because I knew I wanted to do a cereal milk cocktail.

So I've always wanted to do one and I was like, what cereals could I do?

And I what ones are nostalgic that we all think about and have a memory of?

And I was thinking about Cookie Crisp and I was like, well what about Cookie Monster?

And then that nostalgia kind of all played into it and I was like, well if I did Cookie Monster, how could I make a red drink for Elmo and how could I make a purple drink for The Count?

And it just kind of snowballed from there to be cohesive.

And then obviously the name Matilda's is based on a street, so it was nice that we could start off with Sesame Street.

(mellow upbeat music) I would say there's two things.

One is like seeing my like family come in.

It's making me more emotional than I thought it was going to.

Is seeing my family come in and spend time together and like the same space that was inspired by like where we spent time together already and like my nieces coming in for our soft opening and playing the same game with my aunts that like we used to play like across the street, which is like what Matilda's was based on.

That's been really like overwhelming.

And also besides the family aspect, but also maybe it is the family aspect.

The girls that I work with or the women that I work with, Ayana, and Angelica, it's been just so nice to like work so hard with them and at the end of the night we're still just really happy to be able to get to work together.

(mellow upbeat music) I want it to be a place where you can like sit down and forget where you're at for a little bit or break out cards and puzzles and not even be worried about the drinks.

Even though the drinks are great and the service is great, I want you to be worried about the people that you're with and spending time with them and I wanted it to be different than anywhere else in Peoria.

I think a lot of people understand the space and they get what, what I'm trying to do, which when you take a chance, you're not sure people are gonna understand it.

And so it's really nice to have people come in.

I had someone the other day that was like, "I think you hit this outta the park."

And I was like, "You don't even know what I, you didn't even know what my idea was."

But that really hits home a lot too.

(mellow upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Miller Park Zoo is not just a zoo.

We're told it's also the origin of a unique love story that started in the rainforest aviary between two crested wood partridges.

- We have Benji and Jolene are our parents.

- Okay.

- We introduced them to each other in November of 2022 and they instantly fell in love.

- Oh.

- You can see them, still to this day if you come in, you can see him dancing and like leaning down to like show off for her to show that he's still a good mate.

And they typically mate for life and they definitely are a pair for life because they love each other.

- [Narrator] A love story that continued to grow.

And soon Jolene was expecting her first clutch of eggs.

- They can lay up to five to six eggs and they're perfectly like little, round, white eggs.

Except a really sad thing about them is they have a really low survival rate.

- Oh.

- So it's about 40%.

So a lot of eggs can hatch, but they tend to die within the first few days.

- Okay.

- Because of that, their breeding recommendation is to pull the eggs, incubate them, and then have keepers hand raise them.

- Okay.

- But when we were talking to the SSP about it, we said this pair is in love.

- Oh.

- And Benji was really good at building the nest and taking care of Jolene.

And we said, you know what?

We're gonna try it.

And they took care of those babies great.

- [Narrator] All of that nesting and caretaking led to a surprise when these little guys hatched.

- They did a really cool thing when they hatched, usually birds just make a hole and like bust out.

- Right.

- These guys, they literally like go around and cut the egg around the whole top and cap it off before they come out.

- So the in inside- - Inside they just turn around and they make like a little like circle all the way around so it caps off.

- That's cool.

- Instead of busting it out.

It was a really cool thing when they first hatched.

- Yeah.

- And then they're really small and they come out running so they're like road runners- - Gotcha.

- Running around everywhere.

So when we did have them hatch, we did close the aviary for a day or two- Sure.

- So we could make sure everybody was doing good because of that survival rate too.

- [Narrator] The little family grew with the addition of the four boys.

Each boy was named after a legendary country superstar like Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers, Porter Wagner, and Otis Redding.

With names like these, you'd think the boys would be the ones giving the orders, but make no mistake, it's Jolene who's in charge.

- She tells them where we're gonna go and sometimes she still nests when she's nesting.

She typically nests over there, but she picks some random places every once in a while and if we can't see her for a day or two, we know she's nesting.

But we can tend to find her because all of the boys are hanging out in that area.

- [Narrator] You would typically find the crested wood partridges in Southeast Asia rainforest.

This little family is thriving right here at Miller Park Zoo because of some great parenting.

- Benji was like hand feeding them.

Jolene didn't care, she was just eating her food.

- So the dad is the one that's taking care of em.

- Yeah.

So both of them, both parents will take care of 'em.

- Yeah.

- Except Benji's definitely a better parent than Jolene.

She's like, I did the work, I made 'em and I'm done.

- That's awesome.

- And yeah, he hand feeds them and takes care of 'em and kind of like told them where to go.

- Yeah.

- So yeah, they all follow her, but he really took a better care of them than her.

- [Narrator] The boys are also the ones who love to exhibit their show stopping plumage.

- So that crest is really just a good way to show off and how beautiful you are.

- Yeah.

- They really use that during their dance too.

The way they move their heads, they lay their head down so the female can go through the crest, but that is how you differentiate the female and the male.

So the female's is that nice green and she does not have that crest.

- Right.

- And then the males do.

- [Narrator] This fine feathered family is sure to be a visitor favorite for years to come.

- I love these birds.

They're a great bird that we have in this aviary.

They're very, very personable.

They have a lot of attitude and they, like I said, they own this aviary.

So when you come in here, they're definitely a highlight to see.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Thank you for joining us on this journey.

If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to explore even more local content.

You can connect with us on our social media channels, visit our website or download the free app.

We can't wait to see you next time on "You Gotta See This".

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