"People sit and they visit. They don't get up and leave."

Every morning in Ellsworth, kids gather at the bus stop on the corner across from Bonnie Hammons's house. Her goldendoodle, Chloe, trots out to greet them. The kids already know her.

"Hi, Chloe," they call out.

In a village of 189 people — with five bus stops, a post office, a garage, a Methodist church, and a clutch of people who support one another — everybody knows the dog's name. That tells you most of what you need to know about Ellsworth.

Hammons has lived here for generations. She sits on the village board and has led the town's annual Labor Day celebration for close to ten years. Sheila Sonka moved to Ellsworth from Fairbury in 2004 with her husband, John, and their two boys, now 35 and 32. She works as the office assistant at Tri-Valley Elementary. Between them, they carry a good share of the institutional memory of a town that takes its traditions seriously.

This year marks Ellsworth's 155th community celebration, held as always over Labor Day weekend. They had to push the sesquicentennial a year late because of COVID, but they held it. The celebration has grown over the decades — Hammons remembers the earliest versions as just the Legion guys doing fish and chicken fries on Monday night, and the first big parade came with the town's hundredth anniversary — but the core hasn't changed. People show up. They stay. They visit.

The current lineup fills a full weekend: garage sales, a movie in the park with free popcorn, a flag raising and national anthem, a car show, inflatables, knocker ball, a foam cannon, a dunk tank (the mayor asked who'd be sitting in it — Bonnie told him it was him), snow cones, a bags tournament, a church service, a parade, a cakewalk, root beer floats by the Legion Auxiliary, and the Monday night fish and chicken dinner that has anchored the whole thing for as long as anyone can remember.

"Our goal is not to make money at this," Hammons said. "Our goal is to have a nice community event."

It takes a village — almost literally. Planning starts in February. Hammons texts every number she has in town and posts on the community Facebook page. This year, about fifteen people showed up to help, which she considers a good turnout. Volunteers split up responsibilities: food vendors, children's activities, the logo contest for the anniversary T-shirts, parade logistics, and the memorial plaque ceremony. They used to plant a tree every Labor Day for community members who had passed away. They do plaques now — six so far, mounted in the village hall — because, as Bonnie put it, they couldn't keep the trees alive.

On Saturday morning, the church hosts a pancake and sausage breakfast. Sheila and John have been working the griddle for twenty years running. Last year, they served close to 150 people, with all proceeds going to the volunteer fire department.

"People come from other towns," Sonka said. "And they sit and they visit. They don't get up and leave."

The celebration also pulls Tri-Valley's schools into the community in ways that stick. Last year, the high school band and cheerleaders came to march in the parade. A bus full of teachers and administrators rode through town — hanging out the windows, waving. Elementary kids spotted their principal, Mr. Swearingen, and couldn't stop talking about it.

"Mr. Swearingen, we saw you hanging out the window!" Sonka recalled them saying at school the next week.

At the Tri-Valley Ellsworth Reunion — an annual gathering at the church in Downs — a student stood up and spoke about being in that parade. He said he hoped they'd do it again this year.

"He loved it," Hammons said.

Some of those same band kids hadn't even known Ellsworth existed before that day. They'd been in the district their whole lives.

The school district itself deliberately draws families. All three Tri-Valley buildings have earned National Blue Ribbon recognition — an achievement that's difficult for a single school, let alone an entire district. Families call constantly asking about houses for sale.

"They want to get into Tri-Valley," Sonka said. "For the special ed services. The small classroom ratio."

When Sonka's boys were growing up, there were hardly any kids in Ellsworth. That's changed. Young families have filled the streets. In the summertime, kids ride bikes past Sonka's house and wave. The streetlight rule still applies: when they come on, you go home.

And there was Dorothy. A beloved neighbor who lived to 104, Dorothy positioned her chair so she could see the reflection of the Sonkas' television in their window across the street — and would tell Sheila what she'd been watching. If the boys had friends over during the summer while Sheila was at work, the phone would ring.

"Now, Sheila, those boys — they have so-and-so over," Sonka recalled, laughing.

"She kept track of the kids," Hammons said.

Visiting parents from bigger towns have asked Ellsworth residents, in all seriousness, where they even get milk.

"I'm like, we're ten minutes from Bloomington," Sonka said. "We're not on a desert island where we have to ration supplies."

She paused.

"They don't know how lucky they are," she said quietly — about the young families filling Ellsworth now.

Labor Day weekend is just around the corner. Chloe will be at the bus stop. The pancakes will be on the griddle. And 189 people will do what they've done for 155 years: show up.