I'd heard the name Deloris Lavin for as long as I could remember.

She was a Peoria girl, graduating high school just as World War II was ending. She married her sweetheart, Jim, and though I wasn't yet born at the time, I later saw photos of her wedding dress -- since my frugal mom borrowed it to marry my dad!

As a young bride-to-be, Deloris worked at a Peoria distillery on the south side of town. A few months ago, I happened to visit an antique mall not far from Hiram Walker, the distillery which employed Deloris and which had shut down over 20 years ago.

Now, I'm not one to sit down often; but at the antique mall this particular day, I happened to try out a rocking chair. Glancing around the booth, I noticed a whiskey keg lid dated 1911. The inscription read, "Hiram Walker 35 Year Old Whiskey," and the lid was signed by each attending employee. At the top of the list of handwritten signatures was, "Deloris Lavin -- 1946." Such a small, small world.