I figured that finding the Meyer/Meyers/etc., children would be easiest going through the 1870 census because one of the girls would have been 1 yo and the other 3 yo. However, going through all the possible spellings of their last name is taking hours and hours. The children, in a document from the orphanage who had them, spelled them Meyers, but i found nothing with that spelling.

The State of Illinois has been very helpful to me. A contact with their archives people resulted in getting one document in the mail (free of charge), and a phone call resulted in finding that no info was available from the newspaper archives in ref to an obit.

A look through state of illinois' website may be helpful also. Try http://illinoiscyberdrive.com (though may be easier to Google illinoiscyberdrive first). The results may make it easier to find the content you're looking for.