Ragged Yann Turns Seventy-5

of Indiana and Midwestern History Fall 1990 Vol. 2, No. 4 A Publication of the Indiana Historical Socie t y 5 . 0 0 THE ELECTION OF 1840 FRONTIER FIRST LADY A NEW LOOK AT INDIANAPOLIS TERRE HAUTE’S PAINTER-IN-LITTLE i :* _ — Ragged yAnn Turns Seventy-5 F_521 _I48_V0L2_N04 Indiana Historical Society Board of Trustees James J. Barnes, Crawfordsville Dianne J. Cartmel, Seymour William E. Ervin, Hartford City Bert R. Fenn, Tell City Ralph D. Gray, Indianapolis Byron R Hollett, Indianapolis Mary M. Mullin, Brookville Kathleen Stiso Mullins, South Bend Alan T. Nolan, Indianapolis, Chairman Larry K. Pitts, Indianapolis, Treasurer William G. Prime, Madison Evaline H. Rhodehamel, Indianapolis, Vice President Richard O. Ristine, Crawfordsville Richard S. Simons, Marion, President John Martin Smith, Auburn Indiana’s Best Kept Secret is Out! Theodore L. Steele, Indianapolis Stanley Warren, Greencastle Herman B Wells, Bloomington Since its founding in 1830, the Indiana Administration Historical Society has striven to protect, Peter T. Harstad, Executive Director Raymond L. Shoemaker, Assistant Executive preserve, and promote the rich heritage Director and Business Manager of the Hoosier state and the Old North Annabelle J. Jackson, Administrative Assistant Carolyn S. Smith, Membership Secretary west. It has established a reputation as a Ray E. Boomhower, Public Relations Coordinator vital organization, well known for its re Division Directors search library, authoritative publications, Bruce L. Johnson, Library educational conferences, and outreach Thomas K. Krasean, Field Services Thomas A. Mason, Publications programs. A private, nonprofit organization, the Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History Society relies on memberships to allow it Thomas A. Mason, Executive Editor to continue preserving Indiana’s past. For J. Kent Calder, Managing Editor Tony Woodward, Art Editor just $20 per year, members are entitled to Kathleen M. Breen, Editorial Assistant these generous benefits: Megan L. McKee, Editorial Assistant Contributing Editors • Four issues of Traces of Indiana and Paula J. Corpuz Midwestern History ($5 per individual Robert M. Taylor, Jr. issue) Douglas E. Clanin Photographic Services • Four issues of the Indiana Magazine of Stephen J. Fletcher, Curator of Visual Collections History, edited and published by Indiana Kim Ferrill, Photographer Susan L. S. Sutton, Coordinator of Visual University in cooperation with the So Collections Services ciety ($3 per individual issue) Lisa T. Lussier, Visual Collections Assistant • Six issues of the Society’s newsletter, Editorial Board Edward E. Breen, Marion Chronicle-Tribune which keeps members up to date on con Andrew R. L. Cayton, Miami University ferences, acquisitions, publications, and David E. Dawson, Indianapolis Ralph D. Gray, Indiana University, Indianapolis programs Monroe H. Little, Jr., Indiana University, Indianapolis • A complimentary copy of at least one James H. Madison, Indiana University, book published by the Society Bloomington Richard S. Simons, Marion • At least a 20 percent discount on all So John Martin Smith, Auburn ciety and many Indiana University Press Emma Lou Thornbrough, Butler University publications Typesetting Weimer Typesetting Co., Inc. • And, at no additional cost, periodical Printing publications from any two of the Soci Shepard Poorman Communications Corp. ety’s four interest groups: archaeology, Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History (ISSN 1040-788X) is published black history, family history, and medi quarterly and distributed as a benefit of membership by the Indiana His torical Society; editorial and executive offices. 315 West Ohio Street. cal history. Indianapolis, Indiana 46202. Membership categories are Annual $20. Sustaining $30. Contributing $50, and Life $500. Single copies are Membership in the Indiana Historical $5. Second-class postage paid at Indianapolis, Indiana; USPS Number Society is open to all. Categories are An 003-275. Literary contributions: A brochure containing information for contributors is available upon request. Traces accepts no responsibility nual, $20; Sustaining, $30; Contributing, for unsolicited manuscripts submitted without return postage. The In diana Historical Society assumes no responsibility for statements of fact $50; and Life, $500. Fill out the member or opinion made by contributors. Indiana newspaper publishers may ob tain permission to reprint articles by written request to the Society. The ship application in this issue of Traces and Society will refer requests from other publishers to the author. €> 1990 Indiana Historical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the United become part of the effort to preserve and States of America. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History, Indiana Historical Society. 315 West promote the rich heritage of a proud state. Ohio Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202. RECEIVED Fall 1990 Volume 2, Number 4 FEB 7 1391 INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY j ^ „ * Alice Fischer of Terre Haute (above) was a popular Broadway actress when her friend from home, Amalia Kussner, came to New York City seeking recognition as a painter of miniature portraits. Kussner’s career is the subject of Frances Hughes’s article, which begins on page 38. 2 4 Letters A Child at Heart: The Fanciful World of Johnny Gruelle 3 by Patricia Hall Editors’ Page 14 28 The Triumph of Old Tip: Focus William Henry Harrison and the Election of 1840 by Kenneth R. Stevens 46 Destination Indiana 22 Anna Symmes Harrison: 4 8 First Lady of the West Hoosier Home Carl Sferrazza Anthony 30 Indianapolis text by Howard Caldwell photographs by Darryl Jones 38 Amalia Kussner: Front cover: Photograph by High Priestess of the Daintiest of Arts Darlene Delbecq. by Frances E. Hughes LETTERS A Norwegian Christmas Not all the letters received by the editors o f a be not forth-coming, he grabs the history magazine are current. This one is maid around the waist and dances provided by Contributing Editor Robert M. Taylor, Jr., who is presently directing the So her to death. ciety’s Ethnic History Project. In the first is After dinner the doors to the best sue o f Traces, Taylor wrote about Bruce room or salon, as it is called, are Calvert, the Lake County iconoclast. This thrown open, a hush falls over all, a 1944 letter from Calvert's sixty-eight-year- lovely tree greets you, full of shining old widow, Anna Gulbrandson Calvert, to Theodore Debs (Eugene Debs’s brother) re candles. Electric lights are efficient calls childhood Christmases in Norway in and safe, but they can never evoke the 1880s. “As we approach Christmas in our the warm glow and glamor of can country,” writes Taylor, “and as the Society dles. We had no costly ornaments like stresses Indiana’s ethnic experience, an ac the colored balls and tinsel used count o f a nineteenth-century holiday in an other culture, and its lingering significance here; but ours are made of colored for someone long absent from her native glazed paper, such as chains made of land, seems especially appropriate.” The different colored links, woven paper original is in the Debs Collection, Indiana baskets into which are put all sorts State University Libraries, Terre Haute, of goodies—raisins, nuts, cakes Indiana. etc;—figures (men, animals etc.) of gingerbread or colored sugar. Gilt walnuts hang invitingly under the candles. On the lower branches hang Brooklyn 27, N.Y. apples and occasionally an orange or Feb. 10, 1944 two. The grownups as well as the chil Dear Theodore Debs and Mrs. Debs— dren join hands and walk or dance around the tree singing Christmas It is my turn to thank you for your carols. beautiful letter with its reminder of Anna Gulbrandson Calvert. Then followed what we called har Bruce and his ideas anent the vesting the tree. All the goodies on Christmas madness. He was sound the tree would be divided among the on that, as on so many other matters. children. And if any presents (simple I have my ideas on Christmas too. hurried home by lighted windows to ones such as mittens) were given, it The memories of Christmas in Nor their homes, the snow hard and crisp was to children only. To this festival way are so poignant, so beautiful, so under their feet. or rite, all the playmates in the sad, that I can’t endure spending On every roof or above the door neighborhood were invited. The next Christmas Eve, the great Norwegian was a sheaf of oats or wheat for the night we would be at another tree festival, with my folks who carry out birds. Like as not, the floors were harvesting at a neighbor’s—and so the tradition of the country of my scrubbed white, with cuttings of on for the rest of the holiday season. birth, but go off somewhere by my spruce or balsam strewn over them. I remember we children were self, to deaden those memories as The dinner would be a dried codfish happy and grateful for the slightest much as I can. that had been pickled for weeks til it attention shown us, so you can see In Norway, Christmas was not a was slippery (called lutefisk), boiled what ecstasy was ours with these commercial matter, at least not at the and served with butter and egg festivals. time I lived there. It was a spiritual sauce, a roast loin of pork, and rice But enough—I hope I haven’t tired affair; and no matter how poor in pudding. Then followed coffee and you too much, and that you are in this world’s goods one was, one still special bakeware Julekage (Christ good health. had that genuine spirit of Christ mas cake) and bakkels (a delicious “With every good wish until we mas. He could not escape a quiet ra cake or thin rolled cookie with car meet around the next bend in the diance created when at five o’clock on damom seeds in it). A dish of rice is road,” believe me.

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