Since embarking on this journey a year and half ago I have had requests from friends and various other people for some biographical background. So, for what it is worth here it is.
I was born 56 years ago today November 16, 1959 on what I presume was a cold Monday morning at 6:33am, or so my birth certificate alleges. Like most non-Catholics in the Peoria area I was delivered at the Methodist Hospital in downtown Peoria, Illinois.
My parents were Bruce and Lydia Weigelmann Schoenbein who called 116 N First St Morton, Illinois home.
Dad was a Morton police officer born on the family farm south of Morton, Illinois in 1929 the year of the stock market crash. His grandfather, Ernest Schoenbein, settled in Morton soon after arriving at Ellis Island in 1882 from southern Germany.
Dad was later diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and was fired from his job as a police officer. My family never informed us children of this. I had to learn about when reading one of my law cases at John Marshall Law School in Chicago. The case considered the issue of whether a mental illness was considered a disability or not. My father's disability settlement was denied by Morton Village officials. The resultant litigation went all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court where dad lost. That case was later reversed.
Dad later worked for Otto Baum and other contractors as a mason laborer. In June of 1967 he was killed in an automobile accident. I was 7 years old at the time. Mother was left to raise us 5 children alone.
Mother was born to German nationals living in the old Soviet Union around Kiev in the Ukraine at the beginning of World War II or what the Soviets called The Great Patriotic War. After the German Army suffered a catastrophic defeat at Stalingrad in 1943 the now retreating Germans advised all local Germans to flee back to Germany with them. So, my mother's family and friends packed up what belongings they could and instantly became refugees arriving in Germany after a harrowing escape. Because my grandfather, Rudolf Weigelmann, spoke fluent Russian he was attached to the Luftwaffe as a translator.
Soon after the war in 1952 my mother's family emigrated to the United States arriving in Congerville, Illinois. Mother and father married in 1958 and purchased the circa1908 bungalow located on the southeastern corner of First Street and Madison in Morton, Illinois.
What can be said of my childhood in small-town America in the 1960s and 70s?
Like most children back then I fled the house on hot, humid summer days riding my banana seat bicycle all over town playing with my pals.
In the 70s I hung out with the likes of Scott Witzig and Robert Henderson. Scott went on to college and worked in the family business at Witzig's Clothing Store until they went out of business. Later he became the Executive Director of the Morton Chamber of Commerce. Now he runs the Morton Community Foundation.
Bob Henderson graduated from West Point Military Academy and became a Major. Nowadays, Bob works in the IT business in Bend, Oregon.
I graduated from Illinois State University with a BS in Political Science and then attended The John Marshall Law School. While at John Marshall I interned for the US Department of Justice US Attorney for the Northern District in Chicago.
In that capacity, I performed paralegal work on Operation Greylord and for Strike Force, a committee composed of FBI Special Agents, Postal Inspectors, Treasury Agents and others who investigated and prosecuted organized crime figures and organizations under the RICCO Act.
One of my supervisors was Asst. US Attorney, Scott Turow, who later became the best-selling author of the crime thriller, Presumed Innocent, which was later converted to the big screen starring Harrison Ford.
I left law school after 2 years and went to work for State Farm Insurance handling non-auto property and liability claims.
Along the way I married and had three children. We bought homes in Delavan and Morton. In 1988 I ran for and won the position of Tazewell County Commissioner from District 2 at the age of 29 years.
I divorced in 1998. In 2002 I married a second time to a school teacher from Denver. In 2003 I moved to Denver my wife's home. In 2010 I divorced my second wife and moved back to Illinois.
Later, I worked a number of years handling national catastrophe claims from Hurricane Hugo to Hurricane Ike including Katrina in 2005.
For several years I was an insurance fraud investigator in Los Angeles, CA responsible for investigating workers compensation and property fraud cases. I would then package up my cases and present it to the applicable District Attorneys office for prosecution.
I entered the insurance industry in late 1983 as a worker's compensation examiner and now here in late 2013 I worked my last catastrophe, a half billion dollar hail storm in the Texas Panhandle.
I arrived back in Morton in December of 2013 and agonized over what life had in store for me. A once assured job as an executive for an insurance restoration company in Indianapolis didn't pan out. And, my attempts at restoring my failed second marriage were unsuccessful.
So, without a job and prospects for reconciliation with my former wife very dim, I sat down in the home in which I grew up and opened the Bible hoping to find some comfort in that great collection of poems, exhortation, history and illustrations of God's love. But, instead when I fortuitously turned to the Book of Luke I found conviction which after reading led to more angst and consternation.
I began to compare my life with that of the 12 disciples in Luke and found no similarities between their lives and mine. They gave up everything to follow Christ. I gave up nothing. They gave up their occupations, their families their very way of life to follow this poor itinerant would be rabbi on the road to self denial and death.
In February of 2014 I made the decision to become a modern day disciple. I began to hike the River Trail between Morton and the Illinois River in Peoria walking 20 miles daily gearing up for my departure date into a lonely and unknown life of complete and utter faith.
On April 28, 2014 I left the house and my family with $150 in my pocket. This vagabond life on the road has been both harsh and rewarding.
In early 2015 I helped found a church in Englewood, Colorado where I was ordained a minister. My job was to proclaim the Kingdom of God throughout the United States starting in the mountains of Colorado.
On January 21, 2015 I came to Idaho Springs, Colorado the site of the great gold rush of 1859. Thinking I might stay for a month or so it has now been 10 months since I arrived here knowing no one.
Since that time I have been commissioned by Clear Creek Neighborhood Church as a missionary to the US. I have preached and proclaimed God's Word in the Baptist Church, United Church and Clear Creek Neighborhood Church.
Lord willing, I plan on leaving Idaho Springs in April or May of 2016 and head west to the Pacific.
After that who knows? Only God knows where I am headed in this great journey across our country.
BR Schoenbein
November 16, 2015- Monday
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