Obituaries

Listed below are the obits published in the past month in the Astoria South Fulton Argus, in alphabetical order by issue. More recent obituaries are listed toward the top. Obituaries older than a month can be found by following the links below.*


JUNE 3, 2026 ISSUE

		Velva Fletcher Velva Ann Fletcher, 72, died May 21, 2026, at Springfield Memorial Hospital with her loving family by her side. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 6/3/2026

		Janet Moore Janet A. Moore, 68s, of Rushville died May 30, 2026, at Mason District Hospital in Havana. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 6/3/2026

		Ed Oest Edwin Jonathan “Ed” Oest, 75, of Havana died at his home at 4 a.m., May 23, 2026. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 6/3/2026

MAY 27, 2026 ISSUE

		Louie Cowin Louie Edmond Cowin, 82, of Bushnell died at 3:48 p.m. May 22, 2026, at Carle Health Methodist Hospital in Peoria. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/27/2026

		Scott Jones Scott M. Jones, 61, of La Grange, Mo., died at 8:30 a.m. May 22, 2026, at Blessing Hospital in Quincy. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/27/2026

		Gene Walker Eugene Wayne “Gene” Walker Jr., 82, died May 11, 2026, at the Illinois Presbyterian Home in Springfield. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/27/2026

MAY 20, 2026 ISSUE

		Alice Bennett Myrtle Alice Bennett, 86, of Vermont died at 1 p.m. May 12, 2026, at her home. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/20/2026

		Robin Gorsuch Robin Lynn Gorsuch, 67, of Decatur died May 3, 2026, at Decatur Memorial Hospital. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/20/2026

		Bill Lyons William Dale “Bill” Lyons, 90, died May 11, 2026. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/20/2026

		Jeremy Spencer Jeremy Wade Spencer, 53, of Astoria died May 14, 2026. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/20/2026

		Daniel Wherley Daniel Edward Wherley, 79, of Table Grove died at 3:39 p.m. May 12, 2026, in Macomb. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/20/2026

MAY 13, 2026 ISSUE

		Gary Bloyd Gary Bloyd, 82, of Joplin, Mo., died at 12:15 a.m. March 17, 2026, at National Health Care in Joplin of natural causes. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/13/2026

MAY 6, 2026 ISSUE

		Marilee Casper Marilee Casper, 87, of Canton died May 1, 2026, at Methodist Carle Health in Peoria. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/6/2026

		Brad Hunter Brad W. Hunter, 59, of Vermont died May 3, 2026, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/6/2026

		Forrest Jones Forrest William Jones, 54, of Davenport, Iowa, died April 12, 2026, at his home. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/6/2026

		Philena McCombs Philena Mae McCombs, 94, of Rushville died April 29, 2026, at her residence. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/6/2026

		Janet Parry Janet K. Parry, 81, of Vermont died at 8:55 a.m. April 28, 2026, at The Elms in Macomb. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/6/2026

		Russell Taylor Russell H. Taylor, 70, of Bardolph died April 28, 2026, at Countryside Care Center in Macomb with loved ones by his side. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/6/2026

		Bradley Utter Bradley D. Utter, 44, of Chicago died April 29, 2026, at his home. Published in the Astoria South Fulton Argus on 5/6/2026

Submitting an Obituary

If you would like to submit an obituary, there is no fee. You can download our obituary submission form HERE. The file is a PDF document that you can fill out and return electronically. To open the file, you will need the free Adobe Reader software. If you have a photo, you can attach it to the email when you return the form. For more information on submissions to the Argus, please click HERE.

To download the free Adobe Reader software, click the button below:

Finding an Archived Obituary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

To find an archived obituary, click above on the first letter of their last name. Maiden names and additional married names will be cross-referenced with married names at the time of death, so try whichever name you know. If you don't find a name at first, please come back to our site another time and try again. This is a long-term archival project and will continually be updated as we have the time to do so. Our obituary record index currently goes back to Jan. 1914. We also have access to microfilm covering older obituaries beginning in 1886, and some of those obituaries are also being added as time permits. You can email us at argus@kkspc.com with any obit requests for obituaries you do not yet find here. PLEASE NOTE: We are missing microfilm for the year between Aug. 23, 1939-Aug. 28, 1940. We are also missing microfilm for the year between Aug. 1949-Aug 1950.

Any issues from June 1910 up to Jan. 29, 1930, were called The Argus-Search Light. Beginning on Feb. 5, 1930, the name was tweaked to The Argus-Searchlight. "Astoria" was added to the name sometime after that, to be called The Astoria Argus-Searchlight (Laura's note - I will add that date here once I determine the exact date), which remained the name up to and including the Nov. 6, 1974 issue. Papers after that date were published under the The Astoria South Fulton Argus name when The Astoria Argus-Searchlight combined subscribers with The Table Grove Herald.

CLICK HERE for the Master List (Jan. 5, 1914 - current)

We have compiled a master list of all obituaries beginning Jan. 5, 1914, to the current week. The list is organized alphabetically by most recent surname, and summarizes each person's name(s), age, death date, and town of residence at the time of death if available. This can aid you in narrowing down the issue of the Argus in which the obituary was published. Please click HERE to access the master list. Please note that there are now a number of obituaries older than 1914 available; if you are looking for an older obit, check our index and see if we have added them yet.

Obituaries may be available in full online; if so, they are marked (FULL OBIT) in the index. You can access these by clicking on the words "(FULL OBIT)." We currently have all obits from 1995 to the present completed. For obits older than 1995, only the estimated year of publication is listed on the surname pages until they are added to the archive.

In order to get as wide a range of obituaries as we can while the process is ongoing, we have been focusing on completing specific years, jumping back decade by decade. Following is a list of years for which we have completed the obituary archive:

1995 through the present
1990
1985
1980
1975
1970
1965 (second half of the year only)
1960
1955 (in progress)
1950 (second half of the year only)
1940 (second half of the year only)
1930
1920
1910 (second half of the year only)
1900
1890

As you will notice above, some years we only have half of the year, because we do not have microfilm of the first halves of those years (the yearly volume changes around the month of August). We are now working on 1955. Please don't forget that if you have a specific obituary you are searching for and we don't have it uploaded yet, please email Laura Hickle at argus@kkspc.com and she can look it up for you.

Item of note: There are a number of local towns — such as Vermont, Cuba, Tennessee, Washington — that may appear to be states or countries to a researcher not familiar with the area. In this index, place names are assumed to be in Illinois unless otherwise noted.

As we continue adding older obituaries to our online collection, we have run across some that are only short death notices. They contain limited information, but we are including them, marked as "(BRIEF OBIT)", as they can occasionally help with genealogy research.

Back issues of the Astoria South Fulton Argus are available for sale for a year following publication. Older issues are available for viewing on microfilm at the Schuyler Jail Museum and Genealogical Center in Rushville or the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield. For more information, please click HERE.

We have also been adding a few additional obituaries that were not originally published in the Argus, but by other publications in the area. They have been compiled by Marilee Griffin and Lonnie Weinstein, who have relatives in the area. We will attribute the original publication in these cases when we can, so that you know the original source. We appreciate their offer to help round out the genealogical record for researchers.

Where possible, we are cross-referencing information from the Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths Index, in order to have more complete information listed, especially for those obituaries or death notices that are very short.

*Note: Our online obituary archives are incomplete due to the fact that this is an ongoing project. Most obituaries older than 1995 are not yet available in full online, although we have been adding many older obits as time allows (including obits older than 1914). The obituary archive index covers from 1914 to the present, and is sorted alphabetically by last name (at the time of death) rather than by death date to make it easier to use. In addition, we are in the process of indexing all surnames on their own individual pages (this task is not fully complete yet). If you are searching for an obituary listing and cannot find it, please email us at argus@kkspc.com and we can look it up for you. ALSO: We have discovered there are a number of obituaries from the mid-20th century that are not listed in the master index; perhaps they ran in a correspondent's column rather than on the front page, and thereby got missed by the indexers from that era. If you don't see a name you expect to see in the master index, contact us with the death dates and we can look closer at those issues to see if they turn up.