[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5807-5808]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      REMEMBERING WALLY HENDERSON

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago I lost a dear friend and my 
hometown of Springfield, IL, lost one of its best. His name was Earl 
Wallace Henderson, but everyone knew him as Wally. He was an acclaimed 
architect who helped design Springfield's future while, at the same 
time, preserving its priceless past as the hometown of President 
Abraham Lincoln.
  In the 1960s, Ferry & Henderson, the architectural firm he co-
founded, took on one of its most important projects: expanding 
Illinois' historic old State capitol building to include underground 
parking, room for the State historical library, and other modern 
amenities.
  The concept of architectural preservation was relatively new at that 
time, and Wally became one of its pioneering leaders. Expanding the old 
State capitol involved taking the building apart piece by piece, 
cataloguing and moving more than 3,300 stones to the Illinois 
fairground, and then painstakingly rebuilding the structure over the 
new parking garage and library.
  Wally's decades of innovative work in architectural preservation 
earned him admission in 2011 to the American Institute of Architects 
College of Fellows, one of the highest honors in his field.
  Interestingly, Wally became an architect almost by accident. What he 
wanted to be all through high school was an astronaut. More to the 
point, he wanted to be the first man to walk on the moon. This was back 
in the late 1940s, which gives you an idea of Wally's ability to 
imagine a future that few others could see.
  Wally left Springfield in 1949 to study aeronautical engineering at 
the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. He was his parent's only 
child, and the first person in his extended family ever to go to 
college. When he came home for spring break during his freshman year, 
his parents were so proud of their son, the college student, that they 
invited a bunch of friends over.
  One of the neighbors asked Wally, ``What are you studying?''
  Wally told them, ``Aeronautical engineering.''
  Another neighbor asked, ``So you want to build airplanes, do you?''
  Wally replied, ``No, I want to be the first man on the moon.''
  Years later in an interview, he recalled what followed.
  ``As those folks departed my mother said, `Here, sit down, your dad 
and I want to talk to you for a moment.'''
  Wally sat down between his dad and his mom, whom he respected 
greatly. His mother said, ``You know, it's alright to say that to your 
dad and me about `wanting to go to the moon.' But everybody else thinks 
you're crazy.''
  That was the end of Wally's dreams of being an astronaut. He went 
back to the university and asked a counselor what other school on 
campus would accept the credits he had earned.
  Fortunately for Springfield, Wally's counselor suggested 
architectural engineering. That was the start of his long and 
distinguished career.
  Wally graduated from the University of Illinois in 1954, moved to 
Indianapolis, and went to work for an engineering firm. Six months 
later, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Korea. This was several 
months after the ceasefire that ended the conflict. Wally was assigned 
to an engineering battalion.
  One day, a young Korean boy about 11 years old was polishing Wally's 
boots to earn money for his family. The boy was telling Wally about his 
hometown, a little village. He said it was the best village in the 
world.
  Wally said he started bragging about his own hometown, reached into 
his pocket and pulled out the only coin he had, a penny with Lincoln's 
image on it, and said, ``I'm from his hometown.''
  The little boy had probably never traveled farther than 10 miles from 
his own village, but when he saw that penny, his face lit up. To this 
young boy, Wally said, ``Abraham Lincoln was everything.'' Right there, 
3,000 miles from home, Wally listened as this Korean child told him the 
story of the Great Emancipator.
  Wally was stunned. He thought, ``Here I am, from Abraham Lincoln's 
hometown. I lived nine or ten blocks from Lincoln's home, and this 
child knows as much about Abraham Lincoln as I do.''
  Over the next several decades, that would change. As an architect and 
architectural preservationist, Wally would play a crucial role in 
helping to preserve what is now called the Lincoln Home National 
Historic Site and the Capital Complex. As I mentioned, he also helped 
preserve and rebuild the old State capitol in Springfield, where 
Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous ``House Divided'' speech, warning 
that the Nation could not endure half slave and half free. 
Coincidentally, it was also at the old State capitol that another lanky 
lawyer from Illinois, Barack Obama, announced his candidacy for 
President of the United States in 2007.
  I was honored to serve with Wally Henderson on the commission that 
helped create the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in 
Springfield. We also served together on the Abraham Lincoln 
Bicentennial Committee, which helped lead the Nation in remembering 
Abraham Lincoln during 2009, the bicentennial of his birth.
  Wally was a past president and longtime board member of the Abraham 
Lincoln Association, a distinguished group of Lincoln scholars. In 
2009, the Lincoln Association awarded him its Logan Hay Medal, for his 
work in preserving and making more accessible buildings and landmarks 
associated with President Lincoln's life.

[[Page 5808]]

  In 2013, the Springfield Journal Register named Wally Henderson 
Springfield's ``First Citizen.'' The ceremony took place, fittingly, at 
the old State capitol State historic site, which Wally's firm had 
helped to restore.
  That Wally became such an important and cherished part of Springfield 
is a bit of an irony. You see, when Wally Henderson left Springfield to 
go to college, he vowed to himself that he would never move back.
  After serving in Korea, Wally used the G.I. Bill to earn his master's 
degree in architecture at the University of Illinois. He met his first 
wife, Sally; they got married, and Wally landed a great job working as 
an architect in Denver.
  Then came the fateful phone call: Wally was contacted by a young 
architect in Springfield, the brother-in-law of Wally's best friend in 
high school. The brother-in-law's name was Don Ferry. He was working 
for a Springfield firm that was designing hospitals, and they needed 
another architect. Was Wally interested?
  Wally came home, talked with Don Ferry, and left unimpressed. He went 
back to Denver and finished work on a church that his firm was building 
in the Rocky Mountains. The completed church was spectacular. At its 
grand opening, Sally nudged Wally and said, ``You're leaving.'' She 
knew that Wally needed another professional challenge. So, at the age 
of 28, after 4 years as an architect in Denver, Wally packed up his 
wife and baby and moved home.
  He told Don Ferry that he would work with him, but he had conditions. 
He told Don, ``You quit your job, I'll quit my job and we'll open an 
office in Springfield because, by God, Springfield needs higher 
education and a whole bunch of other things.''
  His other condition: Wally said, ``We're not competing with anybody. 
We're going to bring contemporary architecture to Springfield, 
Illinois'' There were about a dozen architectural firms in town at that 
time, but no one was doing much of anything new.
  Wally Henderson and Don Ferry formed their own firm, Ferry & 
Henderson Architects, in 1961. They started out in a one-room office 
that contained two stools, a drafting table, and a telephone. They 
worked together for decades and literally transformed Springfield.
  They spearheaded projects including the Springfield Municipal Plaza, 
the Willard Ice Building, and the building that houses the Springfield 
Journal-Register.
  One reason Wally had vowed never to return to Springfield was because 
the town lacked a university. Ferry & Henderson helped rectify that 
omission when their firm designed the Public Affairs Building, the 
first permanent building at Sangamon State University, now the 
University of Illinois at Springfield. Wally remained a strong 
supporter of the university until the end of his life.
  When Wally moved back to Springfield, the area surrounding the 
Lincoln Home was run-down and nondescript. Wally helped stir 
Springfield's civic pride and its resolve to take care of its priceless 
legacy as Abraham Lincoln's hometown. I have been proud to have my 
congressional and Senate offices in this restored area.
  Just as that little Korean boy had enabled Wally to see Springfield 
through new eyes, Wally helped others in Springfield to envision a 
future in which the Lincoln Home, the old State capitol, and other 
places that Lincoln loved would become the crown jewels of America's 
Lincoln historic sites.
  Last year, more than 233,000 people visited the Lincoln Home National 
Historic Site in Springfield, up nearly 20 percent from the year 
before. Those visitors spent more than $13.8 million at local 
businesses.
  My wife, Loretta, and I were fortunate to count Wally Henderson as a 
dear friend and neighbor. We both extend our condolences to Wally's 
wife, Brynn, and to their children and grandchildren, all of whom Wally 
loved deeply.
  When Abraham Lincoln left Springfield to start his inaugural journey 
to Washington, friends from all over town came to see him off at the 
Great Western Railway station. In what is now known as his Farewell 
Address, the new President said: ``My friends, no one, not in my 
situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To 
this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything.'' He 
closed by saying, ``I bid you an affectionate farewell.''
  Likewise, to my old friend Wally Henderson, who did so much to 
preserve the legacy of President Lincoln and to enrich our hometown in 
so many other ways, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

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