"/by j-J jJs/y ui rizttDi&ni—11 ^ i,i , , i

F_521_l48_VOL15_N04 INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF TRUSTEES Michael A. Blickman, Indianapolis, Second Vice Chair Edward E. Breen, Marion, First Vice Chair Dianne J. Cartmel, Brownstown Patricia D. Curran, Indianapolis Edgar Glenn Davis, Indianapolis Daniel M. Ent, Indianapolis Richard E. Ford, Wabash R. Ray H awkins, Carmel T homas G. H oback, Indianapolis Larry S. Landis, Indianapolis Polly J ontz Lennon, Indianapolis J ames H. Madison, Bloomington Mary J ane Meeker, Carmel J anet C. Moran, Hammond Andrew W. N ickle, South Bend George F. Rapp, Indianapolis Robert L. Reid, Evansville Bonnie A. Reilly, Indianapolis Evaline H. Rhodehamel, Indianapolis, Secretary Ian M. Rolland, Fort Wayne, Treasurer P. R. Sweeney, Vincennes Michael L. Westfall, Fort Wayne, Chair William H . Wiggins J r., Bloomington

ADMINISTRATION Salvatore G. Cilella J r., President Raymond L. Shoemaker, Executive Vice President AnnabelleJ. J ackson, Controller Susan P. Brown, Senior Director, Human Resources Stephen L. Cox, Vice President, Collections, Conservation, and Public Programs T homas A. Mason, Vice President, IHS Press Linda L. Pratt, Vice President, Development and Membership Brenda Myers, Vice President, Marketing and Public Relations Dara Brooks, Director, Membership Carolyn S. Smith, Membership Coordinator

TRACES OF INDIANA AND MIDWESTERN HISTORY Ray E. Boomhower, Managing Editor WHAT’S NEXT? Kathleen M. Breen, Assistant Editor George R. H anlin, Assistant Editor J udith Q. McM ullen, Assistant Editor

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS M. T eresa Baer Douglas E. Clanin Paula J. Corpuz Leigh Darbee

PHOTOGRAPHY David T urk, Photographer Susan L. S. Sutton, Coordinator

EDITORIAL BOARD Edward E. Breen, Marion H oward C. Caldwell J r., Indianapolis J ames A. Coles, Indianapolis Ralph D. Gray, Indianapolis J ames H. Madison, Bloomington Dale O gden, Indianapolis Lester M. Ponder, Indianapolis Robert L. Reid, Evansville Eric. T. Sandweiss, Bloomington T he winter issue of Traces Bernard W. Sheehan, Bloomington explores the life of Hoosier funnyman Herb Shriner. The Richard S. Simons, Marion William H. Wiggins J r., Bloomington

harmonica devotee endeared himself to audiences around DESIGN R. Lloyd Brooks the country with his laid-back wit, including the observa­ Thrive, Inc.

tion: “Living in a small town is peaceful. You don’t do PREPRESS AND PRINTING much. You’re afraid to. You’re sure to get caught.” The Graphic Arts CENTER/Indianapolis IHS WORLD WIDE WEB PAGE issue also features articles on the career of U.S. surgeon http://wwvv.indianahistory.org general Leroy Burney, the kindergarten movement in Indiana inspired by Eliza Blaker, and the art collection amassed over the years by Wishard Health Services. Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History (ISSN 1040-788X) is published quar­ terly and disuibuted as a benefit of membership by the Indiana Historical Society Press; editorial and executive offices, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202-3269. Membership categories include Student $10, Individual $35, Family/Dual $50, and Sustaining $100. Single copies are $5.25. Periodicals postage paid at Indianapolis, Indiana; USPS Number 003-275. Literary contri­ butions: A brochure containing information for contributors is available upon request. Traces accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts submitted without return postage. Indiana newspaper publishers may obtain permission to reprint articles by written request to the Press. The Press will refer requests from other publishers to the author. ©2003 Indiana Historical Society Press. All rights reserved. Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History, Indiana Historical Society Press, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202-3269. Traces is a member of the Conference of Historical Journals ® vol.15 no 4

Editors’ Page: The Quiet Man 3 Ray E. Boomhower

All about Anne: The Acting Career of Anne Baxter 5 David L. Smith

Gil Hodges: The Hoosier Hero of Brooklyn 17 Wes D. Gehring

Tet Then and Now: A Hoosier Veteran’s Return to Vietnam 27 Daniel H. FitzGibbon

A Community within a Community: Indianapolis’s Lockefield Gardens 39 Rachael L. Drenovsky

Images of Indiana 48

Front Cover: Indiana baseball great Gil Hodges thrilled fans for years as part of the legendary cast of characters known as the Brooklyn Dodgers. Credit: Baseball Hall of Fame Library. O pposite: Comedian Herb Shrincr pon­ ders his small-town roots for a series of commercials titled Home Town, Indiana, made for DuPont in 1963. Credit: Courtesy Wil Shriner. RAYE. BOOMHOWER

The “Amazin' Mets" pose for a 1969 team photo. Manager Gil Hodges is seated in the second row, fifth from left. THE QUIET MAN

THE YEAR 1969 proved to be a momentous and contentious time for America. On 20 July astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder on the lunar excursion model and became the first person to walk on the moon. Just a month later approximately half a million young people camped out in the muddy pasture owned by Max Yasgur in Sullivan County, New York, for four days of music at a festival known as Woodstock. To a thirteen year old growing up in Mishawaka, Indiana, however, something truly miraculous was happening that summer— the Chicago Cubs looked as if they were headed to the World Series.

Longtime Cubs fans will tell you that cheering for the Cubs’ long-suffering fans, me among them. I cursed team takes some intestinal fortitude. As National Public the Cubs’ ineptitude and the Mets’ brilliant play. Radio broadcaster Scott Simon once observed, being a Heartbroken over my team’s collapse, I failed to Cubs fan is like rooting for the Italian army or raving about notice the quiet man wandering the Mets’ dugout, offer­ your Edsel. Led by manager Leo Durocher and powered ing a steady guiding hand to a team filled with talented, by the hitting of third baseman Ron Santo and the pitch­ but young, ballplayers. Indiana native Gil Hodges, pro­ ing of right-hander Ferguson Jenkins, however, the Cubs filed in this issue of Traces by Wes Gehring, guided the were the talk of baseball in the summer of 1969. Forgetting Mets to not only a division title, but the National League their usual ‘June swoon,” when the heat of day baseball at pennant and a World Series victory over the heavily Wrigley Field saps the strength of their players, the Ctibs favored Baltimore Orioles as well. “They say that a man­ on 14 August led the National League’s Eastern Division ager only wins a few ball games here and there over the by eight and a half games over the second-place St. Louis course of a season,” said Joe Pignatano, a Mets coach, Cardinals and nine and a half games over the third-place “but Gil Hodges won the 1969 World Championship. All New York Mets. I watched as broadcaster Jack Brickhouse the players know that. He did it with his mind.” described every thrilling Cubs victory, each one cemented Hodges, of course, knew the game intimately from his by Santo clicking his heels with glee. days as a stalwart first baseman with the Brooklyn What happened next is still hard for me to believe. Dodgers. A powerful hitter with 370 home runs to his The Cubs faded, and as they struggled to win games, credit during a career that began in the 1940s and the Mets caught fire, winning thirty-eight of their last ended in the 1960s, Hodges earned the respect of team­ forty-nine games to pass Chicago and take possession of mates and fans alike. “He was the strong, silent type first place for good on 10 September. Tom Seaver, Mets and everybody who played for him .. . respected him,” pitcher and today a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame, said Art Shamsky, who played for the Mets from 1968 said that when he and his teammates journeyed to to 1971. “Maybe some of us didn’t agree with him, but Chicago in October for the last series of the season after we always respected him.” Although a heart attack took clinching the division title, “I felt kind of sorry for some Hodges’s life in 1972, he lived long enough to disprove of the Cubs.” Seaver should have spared his feelings for a famous quote from former foe Durocher. Sometimes, the opposition and instead placed his sympathy with the at least, nice guys do finish first.

TRACES Fall 200 3 3

Opposite: Anne Baxter embraces William Eythe in The Eve of St.

Mark. 1944. Right: Baxter (right) appears with eleven-year-old Indianapolis native Shari Robinson. Anne Revere, and Dan Dailey in You're My Everything, 1949. Anne Baxter “I wanted to be an ACTRESS because that was the thing I was best at. I k n e w l c o u l d DO IT. There are very few things in life that we know we can do.”

Wright, once described as “the only architect who he ran a successful architectural practice. Through achieved the popular status and recognition of the years he designed several civic buildings and a movie star,” was pleased, expressing pride at hav­ numerous residences and vacation homes. ing a granddaughter who achieved the celebrity Catherine Wright had married Kenneth Stuart Baxter status he had always enjoyed. on 11 March 1919. Shortly after their marriage the cou­ As had fellow Hoosier actress Carole Lombard, ple moved to Michigan City, where Kenneth became Baxter came from a wealthy family. Her mother was manager of the Sheet Steel Products Company and later Catherine Wright Baxter, the daughter of the famed worked as a salesman and in public relations for the architect. Frank Lloyd Wright spent significant time Frankfort Distillers Corporation. On 24 January 1920 in Indiana, primarily because two of his children Catherine gave birth to James Stewart Baxter. James settled near the dunes on Lake Michigan and com­ died in his crib when he was just five months old. missions came his way from several sources in the The Baxters’ first residence in Michigan City was at 916 state. Wright designed eight houses in Indiana and Pine Street, where on 7 May 1923 the couple’s second at least five projects never constructed, including a child, Anne, was born. Shortly after Anne’s birth the fam­ fraternity house at Hanover College. ily moved to the Sherman Apartments. In 1926 they moved The Wright children were born in Oak Park, into a house built by Kenneth Baxter on the east side of Illinois, where Wright maintained his home and stu­ Franklin Street south of Coolspring Avenue. Three years dio for many years. Wright’s second son, John Lloyd later Kenneth took a position with Seagram and Sons Wright, became an architect, but his chief claim to Company, and he and his family moved to White Plains fame was his invention of the famous Lincoln Logs for and Chappaqua, New York, before settling in Bronxville. children in 1916. In the early 1920s John was living in After relocating, Kenneth and Catherine had a third child, Chicago working with his father when their relation­ Richard Tobin “Toby” Baxter, born in April 1933. Anne ship disintegrated because his father refused to pay was delighted to have a brother, but joy turned to sorrow him a salary. John’s sister, Catherine, had moved to when Toby died of pneumonia shortly after his third birth­ Michigan City with her husband. She suggested John day. The Baxters had no other children. join them, and in 1923 he settled in Long Beach, a Anne Baxter was just six years old when she left Indiana, lakeside resort community near Michigan City, where but she later credited the place of her birth and her

According to one biographer, even as a child Baxter “achieved a remarkable degree of sophistication. She insisted on knowing the why of everything.” These girlhood images include views taken in Michigan City in the 1920s (left and center) and a 1933 Christmas photograph with brother Toby (right).

6 TRACES Fall 2003 Baxter (center) swims with childhood friend Carter Manny (top) at Long Beach. Indiana, along the Lake Michigan shoreline, 1920s.

TRA C ES Fall 2003 7 Above: One of Baxter’s earliest roles was in the 1938 play There’s Always a Breeze. The teenage actress sits in the window in this cast photo. Below: Jack Benny, posing as the title character in the 1941 film Charley’s Aunt, receives kisses from Baxter (right) and costar Arleen Whelan. ciences S and

rts A icture P o tion M ok

cademy A th e

ourtesy C

Baxter appeared in dozens of films in a career spanning forty years. Her movies include (clockwise, from top left): All about Eve, 1950 (for which she received an Academy Award nomination); The Razor’s Edge, 1946 (with fellow Hoosier Clifton Webb); One Desire, 1955 (with Rock Hudson); The Spoilers, 1955 (playing an Alaskan saloonkeeper); Twenty Mule Team, 1940 (her first film); and The Blue Gardenia, 1953 (with Nat “King” Cole). Anne Baxter But Baxter was determ ined to stay in Hollywood. Zanuck Baxter said, “I’m going to bring up a strong character, lent her to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she made her let her make her own decisions in life. We hope we film debut in Twenty Mule Team, released in 1940. The can provide the background for a happy, healthy, filmed starred Wallace Beery, who complained that well-adjusted little girl.” Unfortunately the marriage was Baxter was overacting in her role. She managed, how­ a short one; the couple divorced in 1953. Hodiak died ever, to tone down her histrionics to Beery’s satisfac­ of a heart attack two years later. Katrina followed her tion. As a result, she did so well in this film that her parents into acting, appearing in at least one film , Jane home studio cast her opposite John Payne in the John Austen in Manhattan. She now has a teenage son, Tobin, Barrymore film The Great Profile the same year. After named after Baxter’s brother. Baxter’s only grandchild, she did her first bit in the film with her arms “wildly he enjoys singing, dancing, and acting. flailing,” Barrymore asked, “Does she have to swim?” right visited his granddaughter again when she Because she was still of high-school age, the studio costarred with Tallulah Bankhead in 1945’s A enrolled Baxter in the Twentieth Century-Fox Studio WRoyal Scandal. Baxter recalled that after seeing School. After a short stay there, she enrolled at Los Bankhead at work, Wright remarked, “Not bad for an Angeles High School. Upon her graduation in 1941, old dame.” Bankhead overheard the remark and bris­ she had already appeared in four films. The same year tled. The next scene called for Bankhead to tap Baxter she graduated she was Amy Spettigue in Charley’s Aunt lightly on the shoulder. “But she responded with an

“I was good, I was respected, l h a d a g r e a t p a r t , the script was superb; the actors were perfect and p e r f e c tly c a s t . Even me, and I wasn’t always.” opposite Jack Benny, and she worked with the great uppercut that sent me reeling,” said Baxter. “Then she French director Jean Renoir in Swamp Water, shot on smiled sweetly and retired to her dressing room.” location in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. When Zanuck began searching lor the right actress to play Although the film did not do well with critics, Baxter the doomed character Sophie Macdonald in a film adap­ received good notices for her work. tation ofW. Somerset Maugham’s book The Razor’s Edge, In 1942 Baxter was cast in one of her best roles to date, he found it to be a frustrating experience. No one seemed Lucy Morgan in Orson Welles’s adaptation of Booth to fit the part. One Sunday at Zanuck’s pool a friend sug­ Tarkington’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Magnificent gested that Baxter could play the role. At first Zanuck Amhersons. Tarkington, Baxter, and Richard Bennett, who dismissed the idea but then decided to let director Edmund played Major Amberson, were all Indiana natives. Some Goulding meet with Baxter to see what he thought. critics place this film in the same category of greatness as Goulding was impressed enough to give Baxter a test, and Welles’s Citizen Kane. Baxter called a rough cut of the film she got the part. She always said that she won the role “an utter masterpiece,” but the released version was cut because Sophie’s background was similar to her own—a drastically by RKO and did not do well at the box office. midwestern girl used to attending country-club dances. Unfortunately much of what was cut were scenes that fea­ Baxter’s portrayal of Sophie gave the screen one of its tured Baxter. During the film’s shooting, Frank Lloyd most memorable characters of the 1940s. Sophie is a Wright visited the set. Although Baxter had called the sets gentle young mother who loses her husband and child magnificent, her grandfather had quite another opinion. in an automobile accident. When she becomes a tragic “The old man used to visit us all the time we were shoot­ alcoholic prostitute in Paris, an old friend (played by ing and made withering remarks about the sets,” Welles Tyrone Power) unsuccessfully attempts to rehabilitate noted. “I kept saying, ‘But Mr. Wright, we agree with you. her. The cast was full of highly respected actors, includ­ That’s the whole point.’ But he couldn’t get over how ing Gene Tierney, Herbert Marshall, and Hoosier Clifton awful it was that people ever lived in those kind of houses.” Webb. The film marks the only time two Hoosiers were In 1944 Baxter gave an outstanding performance as both nominated for best supporting Oscars in the same a girl with a false smile and a sick mind in Guest in the film. While Baxter won her first and only Academy House. Also that year she appeared in Sunday Dinner for Award, Webb lost out to Harold Russell’s performance a Soldier. A romance blossomed between Baxter and in The Best Years of Our Lives. Both Webb and Baxter, costar John Hodiak. They were married on 7 July 1946 however, won Golden Globes for best supporting roles. in the hom e o f Baxter’s parents. A daughter, Katrina, was While Baxter’s performance in The Razor’s Edge earned born 9 July 1951. Shortly after her daughter’s birth, her a supporting-actress Oscar, her 1950 role opposite

TRACES Fall 2003 11

A n n e B a x t e r Bette Davis in All about Eve gave her an opportunity to win an Academy Award for best actress. It was an unex­ pected break because Jeanne Crain, who was originally cast as Eve Harrington, had to relinquish the part because of a pregnancy. Baxter expressed delight with her performance and with the picture: “I was good, I was respected, I had a great part, the script was superb; the actors were perfect and perfectly cast. Even me, and I wasn’t always.” As the scheming understudy, Baxter more than held her own against the venerable Davis. As Eve, Baxter was full of treachery, but offscreen she and Davis became good friends. “Anne was really play­ ing a double role: one thing on the surface, another Left: Baxter and director Alfred Hitchcock enjoy a moment together in underneath,” said Davis. “I called it the ‘sweet bitch.’ 1953, when Baxter starred in Hitchcock’s film I Confess. Right: In 1983 Her part was more difficult than mine.” Baxter joined the cast of the television series Hotel. Standing behind her avis and Baxter both received nominations for in this photo are costars James Brolin and Connie Selleca. best actress. Although urged to accept a nomi­ celebrities. Nothing pleased him more than to see one D nation for best supporting actress, Baxter of his granddaughters become famous. refused, believing it might be her only chance to win As she walked away from Wright’s memorial ceremony, the best-actress honor. Davis and Baxter split a num­ still shaking with emotion, Baxter was told she had a phone ber of votes, leaving the way open for Judy Holliday to call. When she answered, a voice said, ‘This is Ranny Galt.” win for her performance in Born Yesterday. She later reflected that her “grandfather’s death had All about Eve marked the high point in Baxter’s career. brought a stranger from another world into mine.” She With rare exceptions, she had little luck in getting agreed to meet Galt for dinner. On 18 February 1960 roles that utilized her skills as an a ll a b o u t e v e marked the h ig h p o in t in Baxter’s career. actress. She did get an important part as Queen Nefretiri alongside With rare exceptions, she had l it t l e lu c k in getting Charlton Heston’s Moses in Cecil roles that utilized her skills as an actress. B. DeMille’s 1956 film The Ten Commandments. She was widely criticized for her por­ they were married in Honolulu, Hawaii, Galt’s birthplace. trayal of the queen as a “sex kitten,” however, even The couple had a daughter, Melissa, on 5 October 1961. though she acted the role as DeMille had directed. Shortly after Melissa’s birth, the new family, including In 1959 Baxter was in Australia on location for Baxter’s daughter Katrina, moved to Australia. Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (later retitled Season of The first years of this marriage were spent on a 36,000- Passion) when friends tried to introduce her to a local acre ranch 150 miles north of Sydney, ten miles from rancher. Unfortunately, Randolph Galt was in the the closest neighbor. Baxter found life lonely and hard. Philippines at the time. Baxter soon forgot about Galt. In spite of this, she died to make the best of things by run­ On 9 April 1959 Baxter awoke at 3 A.M. to a ringing ning the household and doing many of the ranch chores. phone. It was her mother, who informed her that her “We make our own electricity,” she said. “There are no grandfather, Frank Lloyd Wright, had died. At the pushbutton kitchens, no frozen foods. Our groceries time of Wright’s death, Baxter had developed a rela­ come by delivery truck twice a week . . . along with the tionship with her grandfather that was closer than her mail. I do all the cooking. Help is hard to get in Australia.” Opposite: A reporter for the mother had ever experienced. Later Baxter wrote a best-selling book, Intermission: A Washington Post once wrote Catherine Wright Baxter never True Story, based on her Australian experience. that Baxter had “a husky forgave her father for leaving When Baxter became pregnant again, the couple voice, a deep-throated sound her mother, and their rela­ decided that she should have the baby in the United that carries a hint of a hidden tionship was always cool. But States. They moved hack to California, where daughter chuckle." Such attributes lent Anne Baxter was a different Maginel was born on 11 March 1963. Shortly after her an air of unconventional story. Having worked hard to Maginel’s birth, Ran, as Baxter called her husband, beauty, which audiences gain fame, Wright was happy decided they would not return to Australia. He surprised found attractive. to meet and mingle with other her by buying an 11,000-acre ranch near Grant, New

TRA C ES Fall 2003 13 Anne Baxter Mexico. Baxter recruited her cousin, Eric Lloyd Wright, two of Noel Coward’s one-act plays, Come into the Garden to design a 3,000-square-foot adobe home on land near and Song at Twilight. Her old friend Hume Cronin, who the Zuni Mountains. Baxter and her three girls moved played opposite her in her second Broadway appear­ to New Mexico, but it was apparent the marriage was ance in 1938, was her costar along with his wife, Jessica not working. Baxter and Galt separated in 1967, and Tandy. The plays ran for 140 performances. she returned to Hollywood with her daughters to resume In a 1975 interview with the Chicago Daily News, Baxter was her career. The couple finally divorced in 1970. asked how she managed to have a successful career and a On 30 March 1970 Baxter returned to Broadway as a family. “Nobody has ever done both at die same time to full replacement for Lauren Bacall in Applause, th e satisfaction,” she replied. “Anyone who says she has is lying.

WHAT RIDGWAY IS DOING IN TOKYO

Left: In July 1951 Baxter gave birth to her first child, Katrina. The following month the celebrity mother was the feature of a national newsmagazine article.

Right: Twenty years after the release of All about Eve, Baxter appeared in Applause, a musical based on the movie. This time she played Margo Channing, the aging actress betrayed by the young ingenue Eve Harrington (the character Baxter played in the film). One critic called the role reversal “one of life's braver attempts at wit.” musical version of All about Eve. This time Baxter played When you are working, you feel guilty about the family. When Margo Channing, the role Davis played in the movie. you stop working to care for them, you feel guilty about your Despite the fact that this was her first Broadway musical, vocation. I think that in order to be happy one has to realize Baxter proved to be a hit in the role and remained in it that you probably won’t have the very best of both. You have until 27 July 1972. Penny Fuller, who played Eve Harrington to settle for a little less (ban you would if you did only one of in the musical, considered Bacall “a movie star/actress” and those things. You can’t have it all.” When she traveled with a Baxter “an actress/movie star.” Fuller noted that it was show, Baxter usually had her girls travel with her. She said Bacall’s “charisma and her persona that carried the show they seldom came to see her perform. “I honestly think it when she was in it. And that’s not to belittle her acting. It embarrasses them to see me on stage,” Baxter said, as they was Anne Baxter’s acting, on the other hand, and not feared she might make a mistake. “After all, children watch­ charisma, that defined her performance.” ing their parents in a show are just like parents watching their Baxter returned to Broadway in 1974, appearing in children. We always worry the other won’t do well, don’t we.”

14 TRACES Fall 2003 Anne Baxter Instead of raising her children in glitzy Hollywood, out because of illness. The show’s producers called Baxter chose suburban Brentwood, where her three Baxter and asked if she could report for work imme­ daughters walked to public school and did the usual diately as a replacement for Davis. In seventy-two hours household chores. “Growing up was boringly normal,” Baxter was back in Hollywood in another reenactment said Melissa, who noted her mother exposed her daugh­ of the replacement scene in All about Eve. ters to art galleries, theaters, and museums. Melissa loved On 4 December 1985 Baxter was walking down her mother’s zest for life, her passion for her work, her Madison Avenue in New York on her way to her hair­ ability to speak in front of an audience without butter­ dresser when she collapsed, suffering from a cerebral flies, her love of writing, and her creative energy. hemorrhage. Eight days later she died at age sixty-two in Lenox Hill Hospital without regaining conscious­ ness. She had just signed a contract with the William Morrow publishing house to write a book about her family, tracing her talents from her grandfather. According to her wishes, her ashes were scattered under an apple tree in Spring Green, Wisconsin, near the site of her grandfather’s famous Taliesin estate. here was no funeral. Baxter’s daughters asked that donations be made to the Frank Lloyd Wright THome and Studio Foundation in lieu of flowers. At the time of her death Baxter was still a regular on the Hotel television series. “I adored her and I loved work­ ing with her,” said her costar, Connie Sellecca. “Her death is a great loss to me personally and a tremen­ dous loss for the show.” Charlton Heston noted that the world had “lost a remarkable actress and a signifi­ cant star. Anne was a stimulating actress to work with and a fine woman as well. I will miss her.” During her lifetime Baxter returned to Indiana at least twice, according to childhood friend Carter Manny, whose parents were close friends to the Baxters and stayed in touch with them. In 1946 Baxter’s parents returned to Michigan City to visit Frank and Grace Garrettson, who had been their neighbors. A cocktail party was given for the Baxter family, and Anne was in attendance. In 1982 she attended a fund-raiser for the Frank Lloyd Wright Home In the mid-1960s Baxter guest-starred in the television series Batman. She and Studio in Chicago. She then went to Michigan City, played the villainess Zelda in two episodes but is better known for her where Manny took her to see her birthplace on Pine Street recurring role as Olga, Queen of the Cossacks (seen here scheming with and to the house her father built on Franklin Street Manny’s Egghead, played by Vincent Price). m other gave a picnic lunch for Baxter and was joined by On 30 January 1977 Baxter married Wall Street some old bridge-club associates of her mother. After Baxter banker David Klee, who died ten months later. Baxter saw many of her childhood haunts, Manny remembers, kept the Connecticut dream home they had started to she told him, “Oh, Carter, you can’t go home again.” renovate and commuted to California for her stage David L. Smith is professor emeritus at Ball State University. and television work. In 1983 Bette Davis was cast as the His article on Hoosier silent-film star Monte Blue appeared in lead in a television series, Hotel, but was forced to drop the fall 2001 issue of Traces.

F o r F u r t h e r R e a d in g Baxter, Anne. Intermission: A True Story. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1976. I Corbin, Patrick. “Annie Goes Hollywood.” Indianapolis Star Magazine, 29 June 1947. I Fowler, Karin J. Anne Baxter: A Bio- Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. I Gill, Brendan. Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987. I Staggs, Sam. All about “All about Eve”: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made. New York: St. M artin’s Press, 2000.

TRACES Fall 2003 15 '• . ■■ ■ v \

H o o sier H ero of Brooklyn Excelling as both a major-league player for the Brooklyn an all-star first baseman, he initially logged playing time Dodgers and later as manager of the New York at both third base and catcher. Through the years, Hodges Mets—the “Miracle Mets” who captured the World Series also occasionally doubled as an outfielder. The Hoosier in 1969— his memory is honored today as much for intan­ boy who had been only too happy at any position played gibles that never turn up in the record books. As New York that versatility into major-league stardom. Times columnist Arthur Daley pointed out, “It so happens Though baseball received a great deal of fatherly empha­ that Gilbert Ray Hodges is one of the finest persons ever sis in the Hodges home, young Gil was equally skilled at to wear a big league uniform .” Daley, the first sportswriter every sport he tried, from football and basketball to track. to win a Pulitzer Prize, later noted upon Hodges’s death That teenage resourcefulness was best demonstrated by the that the former first baseman served as “the solid anchor­ fact that Hodges’s track specialties were the 220-yard dash man around whom the others revolved. He lent class and and the shot put—speed and strength, an unusual combi­ dignity and respect to his team and to his profession. As nation. Moreover, while attending the small Petersburg has been written—and rightly so—he had all the attributes high school, Hodges played six-man football, a much faster of an Eagle Scout. This was quite a man.” game than the conventional eleven-player variety. Even hese superlatives say nothing of Hodges’s Lincolnesque here, Hodges played the speed position of halfback. Standing sense of humor. W hen his classy behavior, home-run more than six feet in height and weighing nearly two hun­ power, and grace at first base led dred pounds, Hodges had, at that time, Tbaseball historians to compare him to excellent size for a high-school athlete. Brooklyn manager LEO New York Yankee legend Lou Gehrig, Perhaps Hodges’s greatest physical d u r o c h e r Hodges balked at the association with noted that attributes, however, were his hands. the Hall of Famer. “I appreciate the com­ when moving Hodges to Legendary Dodgers official Branch pliment but Gehrig had one advantage first base he had told Rickey, who integrated major-league over me,” said Hodges. When asked what him “to have some fun. baseball with the signing of Jackie the advantage was, Hodges simply Robinson, was frequently on record as say­ replied, “He was a better ballplayer.” Three days later, I looked ing the young “Hodges has the quickest The self-deprecating Hodges came up and, wow, I was hands I ever saw.” Of equal importance from humble beginnings in Princeton, looking at t h e b e s t fir s t was their unusually large size, even for a Indiana, where he was born on 4 April big man. His close friend and fellow b a s e m a n 1924. Like his frequent World Series I’d seen since Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese enter­ rival, Mickey Mantle, he was raised by a Dolf Camilli.” tainingly observed, “Gil’s hands are so father who worked as a miner but huge that he could play first [base] with­ yearned to be a ballplayer. Charles Hodges had played out using a glove. He uses one only because it’s fashionable.” semi-professional baseball, and he tutored his two sons, Those monster hands were not, moreover, just famous for Bob and Bud (as Gil was then called), in hardball basics scooping up bad throws to first base. They were also helpful and urged them to find careers other than mining. when Hodges played the peacemaker. For example, during As the boys grew up in Petersburg, where the family had his first spring-training stint with the Dodgers in 1948, Hodges moved when the elder Hodges obtained a better job with adeptly rescued Reese from a much larger opponent: the Ingle Coal Corporation, conventional wisdom held that “Hodges reached out with a massive paw, grabbed the loose the older sibling was the better bet to make the major folds of [Fort Worth manager Les] Burger’s shirt front and leagues. Bob was the more aggressive type, while “Bud—well, lifted the 200-pounder clear off the ground. ‘I don’t know he’d play all right but he was sort of—well, easygoing.” where you’re going, Les, but it won’t be near Pee Wee.’” Ironically, Bob’s pitching career in the minor leagues was Between graduating from high school in 1941 and sign­ cut short by a sore arm at approximately the same time Gil ing with the Dodgers in 1943, Hodges attended St. Joseph’s was making his presence known with the Brooklyn Dodgers. College in Rensselaer, Indiana. The institution possessed An even greater irony was that Gil’s easygoing nature a good athletic program, and Hodges continued his involve­ assisted in his making it in the majors. As a child he was ment in several sports, hoping for a future as a college seen as overly complacent about playing various baseball coach. His baseball break came in the summer of 1943. positions based upon the needs or desires of other play­ While working for Indianapolis’s P. R. Mallory Company as ers. This flexibility and athleticism, however, encouraged a drill-press operator, he played baseball for the company’s the Dodgers to keep Hodges when he struggled with hit­ industrial-league team. His hitting brought him to the ting early in his career. Thus, while he eventually became attention of Stanley Feezle, a scout for the Dodgers, and

18 TRACES Fall 2003

Hodges (above, right) and Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese sign autographs before a game for fans at Ebbets Field. Reese described Hodges as a “man who led by example. In every inning of every game Gil ever played he gave his absolute best.” H o o sie r H ero of Brooklyn

after tryouts in both Olean, New York, and New York City, as a hitter (particularly with regard to the curveball) from Hodges signed with the Brooklyn ball club, receiving a “when I rapped Feller for two, maybe three good hits. And five-hundred-dollar bonus. Hodges even managed to log right then I knew—I knew—that I was going to make it.” one game at Ebbets Field in 1943, playing third base. Many of Hodges’s hits came by way of the long ball. In Hodges’s major-league career was delayed, however, by fact, a 1951 Hodges profile in the Saturday Evening Post World War II. Earlier in 1943 he had enlisted in the Marine was titled, “The Dodgers’ Home-Run Kid.” Fittingly, the Corps; he was called to active duty in September. He served same year as the Post piece, he found himself being com­ as a gunner in an antiaircraft battery and pared to Babe Ruth as his home-run total h o d g e s always saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. rivaled, for a time, the Yankee’s 60 home Consistent with Hodges’s quiet nature, maintained close ties runs in 1927. Though Hodges cooled he seldom spoke about his war experi­ With his INDIANA ROOTS, off to a mere mortal 40 home runs, ence. But one of his early Dodger it was still heady company for a young teammates, Don Hoak, later remem­ returning often to visit slugger. Hodges’s career year occurred bered, “We kept hearing stories about friends and family and in 1954 when he smashed 42 home this big guy from Indiana who killed Japs runs, had 130 runs batted in, and hit with his bare hands.” Officially, Hodges’s to pursue his LOVE OF for a .304 batting average. courage under fire on Okinawa led to a HUNTING. Hodges’s finest game as a player was promotion from corporal to sergeant, also tied to the long ball. On 31 August fter his discharge from the service, Hodges soon found 1950, against the Milwaukee Braves, he slugged four himself playing for a Dodgers farm team in Newport home runs in a single Ebbets Field game, at that time ANews, Virginia. The Brooklyn game plan was to convert only the second modern-era National Leaguer to accom­ this former shortstop to catcher. His stay in the Piedmont plish the feat (fellow Hoosier Chuck Klein was the other). League was successful, and in 1947 Hodges played in twenty- Afterward his playing buddy Reese kidded him, “As far eight games for the Dodgers as the team’s third-string catcher. as I can see, all you did was prolong the game.” Hodges became a full-time player for the Dodgers in 1948 In addition to such humor, Hodges’s performance in but was moved to first base in order to make room for future this memorable game also brought about a change in his Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella. Brooklyn manager living arrangements. The slugger and his family (wife Leo Durocher noted that when moving Hodges to first base Joan and two children) had had difficulty finding an he had told him “to have some fun. Three days later, I looked apartment to rent, forcing them to stay with Joan’s up and, wow, I was looking at the best first baseman I’d seen Brooklyn parents. But when this fact surfaced in press since Dolf Camilli.” The transplanted Hoosier was now on coverage of Hodges’s four-home-run game, the Dodgers the verge of his Brooklyn glory years. Starting in 1949, Hodges were inundated with amusingly generous lodging offers drove in more than one hundred runs (still one of for little or no rent. Needless to say, the family’s baseball’s premier accomplishments) for seven consecutive housing problems were soon solved. seasons. The turning point that season came in a game against This affectionate outpouring was an early example of future Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller. In a conversation what soon became a long-term love affair between the Hodges had with his brother, chronicled in Milton J. Shapiro’s Brooklyn fans and their power-hitting first baseman. Of biography of the first baseman, he dated his confidence course Hodges had immediately scored points both by

TRACES Fall 2003 21 Top: Hodges started his career with the Dodgers as a catcher. Here he shows his form along with Bruce Edwards and Bobby Bragan. Bottom, Left: Although he hit forty home runs in 1951, Hodges's penchant for the long ball also resulted in his striking out ninety-nine times, which led the league. Bottom, Center: Hodges crosses the plate after one of the 370 home runs he hit during his career. His final round-tripper came as a member of the New York Mets on

3 August 1962. Bottom, Right: Displaying the murderous tools of their trade are (left to right) sluggers Hodges, Roy Campanella, and Duke Snider. Hoosier H eno of Brooklyn

Left: Of the Brooklyn Dodgers in this photograph, only Hodges, at right, is not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The other Dodger greats are (left to right)

Snider, Jackie Robinson, Campanella, and Reese. Right: Branch Rickey, president and part owner of the Dodgers, gestures as he talks to (left to right) Hodges, Gene Hermanski, and Robinson on 4 October 1949. The next day the Dodgers took on the New York Yankees in game one of the 1949 World Series.

marrying a Brooklyn girl and making the borough his booed in Yankee Stadium and Stan Musial booed in home in the off-season. The attraction went much beyond St. Louis. But the Brooklyn fans cheered for Gil.” that and beyond his baseball skills as well. There was a quiet In a phone interview, Erskine, a native of Anderson, dignity about this family man, born of a strong religious Indiana, reiterated Hodges’s special status to both fans and faith, which was both well known and respected in a bor­ teammates. According to Erskine, the big first baseman ough more celebrated for its eccentricity. Once again a constantly provided “stability and insight in just a few Hodges testimonial also showcases his rich sense of humor. words.” By the way, all that fan support during his bat­ Harold Parrott, traveling secretary for the Dodgers, recalled ting slump ultimately paid off. Hodges turned things a flight to St. Louis for a game. Sitting next to Hodges, around in 1953, hitting over .300 for the first time in his Parrott noticed that the Catholic slugger had pushed aside career, as well as knocking in 122 runs. his steak dinner. When Parrott asked Hodges why he had hough Hodges was an adopted Brooklynite, part of his left his dinner untouched, the ballplayer noted that it was aura of class and dignity was tied to his no-nonsense supposed to be a day of “fast and abstinence” for his faith. Indiana background. Indeed, Hodges and Erskine were Tso associated with the Hoosier State that Ebbets Field organ­ “Not for us it isn’t,” said Parrott. “I checked with the bishop and he said that it was permissible for Catholics to eat meat ist Gladys Gooding played “(Back Home Again in) Indiana” when traveling if nothing else was available.” Hodges whenever Hodges homered or Erskine warmed up to pitch. responded by asking the height the plane was traveling. In Erskine’s autobiographical Tales from the Dodger Dugout, When Parrott reported approximately thirty thousand feet, he added, “Gil and I both had strong des to our home state, Hodges noted: ‘Too close to headquarters.” and Gladys never missed a chance to play that song for us.” Maybe the best example of this mix of humor, faith, Hodges always m aintained close ties with his Indiana baseball, and fan support occurred when Hodges roots, returning often to visit friends and family and to suffered a lengthy batting slump that touched parts of pursue his love of hunting. He also managed during his two seasons. By a warm Sunday in May 1953 the first career to transfer the major-league allegiance of his old baseman’s parish priest was moved to observe from Petersburg stomping grounds from the St. Louis Cardinals the pulpit, “It’s too hot for a sermon. Keep the and Cincinnati Reds (two relatively close cities) to the Commandments and say a prayer for Gil Hodges.” Going Dodgers and later to the New York Mets. beyond prayers, Brooklyn and his Indiana hometown In a playing career that lasted until 1963, Hodges created sent him countless letters of encouragement, religious many memorable moments, such as his four-home-run medals, and other good-luck objects. More amazingly game, a major-league record he shares with several play­ the Dodgers’ sometimes rabid fans never rode Hodges ers (including Gehrig). Though now eclipsed, another during this rough period. His teammate and fellow of Hodges’s still-impressive records involved home runs, Hoosier Carl Erskine called it “probably the most unusual too. For many years he held the National League mark incident in Brooklyn baseball history. I saw Joe DiMaggio for most career grand slams (fourteen). On the way to

TRACES Fall 2003 23 ibrary L ame F of

i . aj H asebaii

Above, Left to Right: Hodges prepares for the upcoming year during spring training for the New York Mets in 1962; Campanella finds himself in the middle of both sides of the Dodgers inner defense at Vero Beach, Florida, in March 1952 along with (left to right) Robinson, Hodges, Billy Cox, and Reese; and Hodges takes a congratulatory phone call in the Mets clubhouse following a World Series win against the

Baltimore Orioles in 1969. Left: A grave-looking Hodges ponders his team's chances during B spring training before the 1969 season. Right: ibrary

The winning manager receives hugs of joy from L ame his wife and daughter in the victorious New York F

Mets clubhouse following the team’s World a l l o f H Series triumph. aseball B

season records for double plays by a first baseman, Hodges of physical comedy that would have done fellow Hoosier won several of baseball’s annual Gold Glove Awards for Red Skelton proud: “Gil popped out from the bench, leaped being the best at his position. His career batting average up on the dugout roof and began to approach the helmet for six All-Star games was an impressive .333. stealthily, as though it were some kind of dangerous viper. ore important, however, were all those quality intan­ He circled it warily, allowing time for the Japanese in the gibles, forever laced with humor. One such inci­ stands to understand what he was doing. Then, after mak­ M dent, during a 1956 exhibition tour of Japan, might ing a few tentative stabs at the helmet, he pounced on it, have even averted an international incident. During a game threw it back on the field, and finished the scene by doing in Tokyo, a player for the Dodgers, upset over being called a swan dive off the dugout roof.” In response to his antics, out on strikes, threw his batting helmet on the ground so hard the Japanese crowd gave Hodges a ten-minute ovation. that it bounced to the top of the Brooklyn dugout. The large The Dodgers’ 1957 move to Los Angeles was as hard on Japanese crowd became deathly silent. For a culture steeped Hodges as it was on Brooklyn. Now in the twilight of his in politeness and honor, this was a shocking embarrass­ playing career, he found it difficult to leave his transplanted ment—both to the game and the presiding umpire. Hodges, home. While there were a few glory days left (such as bat­ who had entertained Japanese crowds earlier in the tour ting nearly .400 in the 1959 World Series, in which the with some baseball miming, defused the tension with a bit Dodgers defeated the Chicago White Sox), his career was

24 TRACES Fall 2003 H o o s i e r H /•: no or B it o o k l y n

quickly winding down. Still, New York City got one final the Mets to the most improbable of triumphs—both a chance to celebrate Hodges as a player. After the 1961 sea­ National League pennant and a World Series victory over son the expansion New York Mets acquired his services. the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. In what is arguably Playing in the old Polo Grounds, once home to the New still the greatest turnaround in major-league history, York Giants, the 1962 Mets were something of a Big Apple Hodges more titan proved his managerial timber by orches­ nostalgia team, right down to having the legendary Casey trating the team now known as the “Miracle Mets.” Stengel as their manager. Stengel, who had formerly man­ Another of Fitzgerald’s sayings has become a popular aged both die Dodgers and die Yankees, envisioned Hodges axiom in American biography: “Show me a hero and I will as a future skipper. “Hodges has the write you a tragedy.” While that frequently stuff managers are made of,” said The early Mets had been happens (the personal pettiness recently Stengel. “Number one, he has an even BELOVED MISFITS, losing revealed about Yankee legend DiMaggio disposition. Number two, he’s a good games in every way serves as an example), it certainly does not teacher. He’s helped a lot of other imaginable, despite the apply to Hodges. The man led the most young men. Three, he never criticizes honorable of lives, both on and off the anybody else. And he has never had a presence of aging diamond. Maybe the greatest tribute to stain of any kind on his career.” veterans such as Hodges Hodges came from teammate Reese, who Stengel’s crystal ball proved correct. and the incomparable summed up the man by saying, “If you had While F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are Stengel. There was too a son, it would be a great thing to have no second acts in American lives, the him grow up to be just like Gil Hodges.” much INEXPERIENCE, TOO knowing baseball fan could refute this The only tragedy associated with simply by pointing to Hodges. After LITTLE SENSE OF TEAM. Hodges is his premature death by a heart retiring as a player in early 1963, he attack, less than three seasons after the broke in as a manager with the Washington Senators that miraculous 1969 triumph. Like the seemingly indestruc­ same year. And, in a happy development for both Hodges tible Gehrig, with whom he was so often compared, he and New York, he returned to the Mets as manager in 1968. died much too early, only two days before his forty-eighth The early Mets had been beloved misfits, losing games birthday. But Hodges’s legacy was an ongoing influence in every way imaginable, despite the presence of aging vet­ upon anyone who had ever followed his career. As Mets erans such as Hodges and the incomparable Stengel. There pitcher Tug McGraw said upon Hodges’s death, “As long was too much inexperience, too little sense of team. But it as I’m a ballplayer, no matter who my manager is, there’ll did not really matter. New York, stung by the late-1950s be one man I’ll be playing for—Gil Hodges.” defections of both the Dodgers and Giants to California, Wes I). Gehring is professor of telecommunications at Ball embraced the Mets with record crowds. State University. A frequent contributor to Traces, Gehring is Although the team possessed some talented young play­ the author of twenty books, including a forthcoming baseball ers when Hodges took over as manager, the Mets still fin­ volume, “Mr. Deeds Goes to Yankee Stadium”: Baseball ished in ninth place. The following year, however, he led Films in the Capra Tradition.

Fo r Fu r t h e r R ead ing Amoruso, Marino. Gil Hodges: The Quiet Man, Middlebury, Vt.: Paul S. Eriksson, 1991. I Danzig, Allison, and Joe Reichler. The History of Baseball: Its Great Players, Teams and Managers. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959. I Erskine, Carl. Tales from the Dodger Dugout. Champaign, 111.: Sports Publishing, Inc., 2000.1 Gildea, Robert L. “A Major League Friendship: Carl Erskine Remembers Jackie Robinson.” Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History 9 (winter 1997): 40-48.1 Shapiro, Milton J. The Gil Hodges Story. New York: Julian Messner, 1960.

TRACES Fall 2003 25

Am . photographs courtesy Daniei. H. FjtzG ibbon TRACES TRACES al 2003 Fall 7 2 A bove: Schoolchildren in uniform prepare for the dedication ceremony of a schoolhouse constructed by the Ha Tay Special Forces

Camp detachment. Below: Map showing the location of Fifth Special Forces detachments, including Ha Tay. TET THEN AND NOW A team’s NCOs were highly trained (and cross-trained) in specialties such as heavy and light weapons, engineering and demolitions, intelligence, commu­ nications, and medicine. Each A team operated from a base camp in a remote part of the countryside and was responsible for an area of operations typically covering several hundred square miles. The American A team advised a Vietnamese Special Forces coun­ terpart team, which technically commanded the locally hirty-four years after the 1968 Tet offensive, recruited forces; in practice, the Americans often ran I returned to Vietnam as a tourist in time for the show. The local forces, which numbered several Tanother Tet celebration. This hundred in each camp, were time I was accompanied by my wife, paramilitary units not subject to mil­ Joan, and for part of the trip by a itary law and discipline; they were fellow 5SFG veteran, Roger called Civilian Irregular Defense Parkinson, and his wife, Maureen. Group (CIDG) soldiers. Special Forces soldiers were among By early 1968 there were about the American military advisers ini­ eighty Special Forces A teams and tially sent to South Vietnam during camps spread throughout the coun­ the early stages of the war. Despite try, many alongside major NVA the presence of large regular infiltration routes near the Laotian American combat units starting in and Cambodian borders. Others 1965, Special Forces units still played were in provinces suffering espe­ a major role while I was there. cially heavy concentrations of VC Special Forces are primarily Special Forces Sergeant First Class Daniel Grau and NVA units. Our general strat­ designed for unconventional, or at Ha Tay. The view looks north from the top egy was to create an effective CIDG guerrilla, warfare. They recruit, of the hill at the camp. fighting force in each of these organize, train, and equip local partisan forces in critical locations and, once the area was relatively countries controlled by the enemy, then lead or advise pacified, convert the CIDG into a regional militia these forces in combat and related operations against under the control of district and provincial officials enemy troops and facilities. In South Vietnam our role or into a regular Army of the Republic of Vietnam was reversed; the VC conducted guerrilla warfare (ARVN) unit. The American and Vietnamese Special against the established government and its armed Forces teams would then move on to a new and more forces, so we conducted counterinsurgency operations. challenging location and repeat the process with other We employed our locally recruited forces to seek out CIDG troops recruited from the local populace. and engage the VC, using a combination of intelli­ I was twenty-five years old when I arrived in Vietnam, gence activities, small patrols, ambushes, and large having graduated from West Point and the army’s unit sweeps. We also conducted combat operations, Airborne, Ranger and Special Forces schools. I also sometimes in coordination with regular American com­ had been given intensive instruction in demolitions bat forces and air/artillery support, against major and the Vietnamese language. In addition, I had served North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units based in or pass­ almost three years in West Berlin, where I participated ing through our assigned areas. In addition, we car­ in both training operations and tense Cold War ried out the important added functions of promoting situations, before volunteering for Vietnam. I felt rea­ civil government, providing medical care and hygiene sonably well prepared for that unnatural state of affairs assistance to local civilians, organizing construction known as combat, and I approached my new assign­ projects, and conducting psychological operations. ment with enthusiasm and belief in our cause. The basic Special Forces unit was (and is) the In my first eight months in Vietnam, from February A team, which in Vietnam consisted of three officers through October 1968,1 commanded a Special Forces (a commanding officer, an executive officer, and a A team based at a camp called Ha Tay. This camp was civil affairs/psychological operations officer) and ten a small outpost surrounded by rice paddies, a few experienced noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The villages, and many steep, forested mountains near the

TRA C ES Fall 2003 29 Tet Then and Now central coast of South Vietnam in an area populated primarily by ethnic Vietnamese. Our CIDG forces at Ha Tay were converted into regional militia in March 1969, some five months after I left the camp. After Ha Tay, I took charge of another A team for a couple of months at Due Lap in the central highlands of South Vietnam near the Cambodian border, an area of rolling hills, thick vegetation, and rubber planta­ tions. Due Lap was part of a region occupied almost exclusively by various nomadic ethnic hill tribes that the French collectively called Montagnards. I left Due Lap in December 1968 to become a staff officer in the S-3 (operations and training) section of the 5SFG headquarters in Nha Trang. The Due Lap camp continued under Special Forces control after my departure until the end of 1970, when its CIDG force became an ARVN Ranger battalion. y time in Vietnam was a very intense experi­ ence for me, leaving good, bad, bizarre, and M otherwise routine memories that will never be erased. 1 was fortunate to make it safely through my nineteen months there, departing in late August 1969. I later became a practicing lawyer in Indianapolis, a husband, and the father of two children. After three decades I was curious about conditions in Vietnam, especially the areas of Ha Tay and Due Lap. What was the country like under communist rule? What traces, if any, of the bunkers, airstrips, and other phys­ ical facilities of my camps remained? Were the villages near my camps still standing, and what did they look like these days? Were there remaining in the villages any people whom I would know, or who would know me, from my comparatively brief time among them? What sort of welcome would I receive, given the long and FitzGibbon (right) and a Vietnamese Special Forces sergeant prepare to tortured American presence in that country? move out to reinforce a besieged company during combat operations in the Perhaps more important, Vietnam had become a Highway 506 valley near Ha Tay in May 1968. FitzGibbon’s Vietnamese festering emotional sore for me, and I needed to find interpreter took this photograph and the ones on page 31. a way to heal it. This was not because of the war itself or my participation in it; instead, it was because of my personal and defensive reactions to the war protests and to the negative portrayals of our soldiers and vet­ erans that seemed to pervade the media and the arts and entertainment industries. Over the years these emotion-triggering incidents continually recurred, as each offending article, movie, or other reference to the subject seemed to pick the scab on my sore. It was hard to hear or read the word “Vietnam” without feel­ ing my heart race and my stomach churn. I had reached the point where I, personally, needed to nor­ malize relations with Vietnam and with everything the name connoted. I concluded the best way to start the

30 TRACES Fall 2003 Ter Then and Now normalization process would be to see Vietnam first­ hand as the functioning country it has now become. Having decided to return to Vietnam, Joan and 1 worked with a travel company to schedule a customized tour that would take us to the sites of my former Special Forces camps as well as the usual tourist spots in the country. The company arranged an itinerary that included stops in Ho Chi Minh City (which out of habit and principle 1 will persist in calling Saigon), Qui Nhon (the departure point for Ha Tay), Nha Trang (a lovely seaside resort city where the 5SFG headquarters was located), Buon Ma Thuot (a major city in the central highlands and my gateway to Due Lap), Hue (the former imperial capital, which I had never visited), Hanoi (the capital of French Indochina, North Vietnam, and now all of Vietnam), and the scenic islands o f H a Long Bay. Flying and driving throughout Vietnam, I was struck once again by the natural beauty of the country. Photographs and travel brochures cannot do justice to the majestic coastal mountain ranges, the rich com­ bination of lush green colors in the rice paddies, trees, and other vegetation, and the long and undisturbed sandy beaches. I was pleased to see little evidence of the wartime defoliation and bomb craters that had once scarred portions of the countryside, though defo­ liation was never as widespread or effective as com­ monly understood. I actually caught myself identifying ideal ambush sites, concealed approach routes, and impenetrable staging areas, and I wondered how we coidd ever have expected to eliminate a well-supplied guerrilla force in this environment. Despite the passage of more than three decades and all that had intervened, Vietnam seemed very familiar to me, and I was comfortable and relaxed throughout

Top: Troops, including FitzGibbon, wait for a chopper to land on Ha Tay’s my trip. The people were very friendly, and small chil­ runway to take them into combat. Bottom: FitzGibbon takes a breather dren seeing our facial features often waved and said, behind a 60mm mortar along with two members of his counterpart “Hello!” As our guides and travel books pointed out, Vietnamese Special Forces team. Vietnam is a country of eighty million people, some 60 percent of them not born when the war ended. At one point, during our attempt to locate Ha Tay, we talked with several villagers who were uniformly cordial and helpful, and we were even invited in for tea by a former district chief in the area. My Vietnamese lan­ guage skills, rusty despite a pretour review of my old textbooks, allowed me to handle simple conversations and dealings without an interpreter, and my meager efforts seemed to be appreciated. I found that Saigon looked much as it had during my brief visits in the late 1960s, with most of the same cen­ tral hotels and government buildings still standing and

TRACES Fall 2003 31 The schoolhouse constructed in 1968 by the Ha Tay Special Forces Camp detachment as it appeared in February 2002.

32 TRACES Fall 2003 T f. r T hen and N ow nicely renovated. Stores and stands were everywhere, address similar woes, Vietnam adopted an even more and the city markets were teeming with people, sweeping program called doi moi to restructure its own vehicles, and merchandise. Saigon is clearly a city economy. Ownership of property, including rice motivated by commerce and bustling with activity. paddies and other agricultural land, was transferred There are some reminders of a communist regime, to private individuals, and entrepreneurial activity was such as street-side banners (complete with stars and encouraged. Over the ensuing years the government the hammer-and-sickle logo) commemorating the has taken measures to stimulate foreign investment seventy-second anniversary of the Vietnamese and has even begun to privatize government-owned Communist party, and die occasional propaganda museum, enterprises. It is ironic that having fought a war to sign, or monument. To the outside observer, though, make the entire country communist, the government Saigon seems almost unaffected by die war’s outcome. has found salvation through capitalism. anoi was a pleasant surprise for all of us, as we Still, Vietnam remains a poor country, struggling to expected a dour Sovietized city and a population provide job growth to match its rapid increases in H to match. Instead, the old quarter and French population. Rice production has grown dramatically quarter are very attractive, and the latter contains wide streets and hand­ My time in Vietnam was a very INTENSE some buildings from the French EXPERIENCE for me, leaving good, bad, period. The section of the city con­ taining the Ho Chi Minh memorials bizarre, and otherwise routine memories that and residences was pretty and well WILL NEVER BE ERASED. I was fortunate to maintained. Of course most of Hanoi make it safely through my nineteen months reflects the poverty that still pervades the country. The people in Hanoi there, departing in late August 1969. again were friendly and seemed somewhat more cos­ but only because the rice farmers are working harder mopolitan, and certainly more formally dressed (due (for their own accounts) and not because of techno­ partly to cooler temperatures), than their Saigon coun­ logical advances. Major roads, even Highway One terparts. Hanoi did not seem to have quite the degree running the length of the country along the coast, of street traffic and commercial activity we noticed in are in bad condition, though there is evidence of con­ Saigon, but it was still a busy place with many shops and struction activity and we were told that international other enterprises. The city did have more communist loans were being applied to that purpose. symbols and propaganda, though, beyond the memo­ Though economic freedom appears entrenched in rials to “Uncle Ho.” For example, the remaining sec­ Vietnam, political freedom is another matter. The tion of the former “Hanoi Hilton” prison that housed government simply does not tolerate dissent, criti­ American POWs is now devoted not to our airmen but cism, or plurality of viewpoints. People who have to the Vien amese communists imprisoned there by the distributed critical flyers or spoken out against party French. It contains a sign stating that the American policy have been imprisoned for long terms in captives were “well treated with adequate food, shelter unpleasant conditions. Roger Parkinson, my former and clothing” in accordance with the Geneva 5SFG colleague who traveled with us, is now promi­ Convention. I would have found the sign and accom­ nent in the newspaper industry, and he had met in the panying propaganda photographs amusing but for the United States with a Vietnamese dissident who had realization that most visitors probably believe them. been imprisoned for fifteen years for circulating a The Vietnam of today is a contradictory blend of negative pamphlet. The dissident served his term, rigid communist totalitarianism and free-market cap­ published another critical pamphlet, and was again italism, similar in some respects to China. Immediately sent to jail, this time to be released and exiled as a following the war the government of Communist party result of international pressure. He gave my colleague secretary Le Duan instituted collective farms and several names of other dissidents under house arrest socialist enterprises that proved to be inefficient in Vietnam, one of whom we were able to telephone and unproductive. As one of our Vietnamese guides surreptitiously to offer encouragement. described the system, “We were all equalized—into We were in Buon Ma Thuot for Tet and spent “New poverty.” In 1986, as the Soviet Union introduced Year’s Eve” with the crowd at the circle in the center private economic incentives through perestroika to of the city. Festivities included a lengthy stage show

TRACES Fall 2003 3.1 T e T T hen and N ow out of either ignorance or a desire to extract bribes. I had been concerned about Due Lap, since it is in the central highlands where Montagnard protests had taken place a year before and where foreign travel had been temporarily suspended, but arrangements were supposedly made for us without difficulty. The day after I arrived in Vietnam, I learned from our local travel service that the police had barred me from visiting both Ha Tay and Due Lap because of a joint U.S./Vietnamese search for Americans missing in action (MIA). This seemed improbable since the two locations are 150 miles apart, and further inquiry determined that the joint MIA team had no searches scheduled for the period of my

with acts ranging from traditional Vietnamese and Left to Right: FitzGibbon and a Vietnamese Special Forces Montagnard music to glitzy song-and-dance routines sergeant; FitzGibbon speaking at ceremonies for the dedication of accompanied by rock music. Joan and I stood in the the new schoolhouse near Ha Tay; American officers and local audience, apparently the only foreigners present. government officials watch the school dedication. A Voice of Vietnam radio reporter interviewed camp visits. I was then told that the prohibition Joan in English, and she gave suitably diplomatic applied only to Ha Tay and that I would be free to visit responses to the reporter’s questions. Around 11 p.m . Due Lap. Because I spent so long at Ha Tay and the public-address system began playing patriotic especially wanted to see it, I pressed the issue with music (including songs to Uncle Ho) and propaganda my U.S. tour operator and the American consulate speeches, which dampened whatever enthusiasm had in Saigon, but to no avail. developed among the audience to that point. At mid­ As it turned out, I actually visited Ha Tay but was night an impressive fifteen-minute fireworks show later prevented from seeing Due Lap. In the case of began on the circle before several thousand people, Ha Tay, I had a guide who was willing to proceed after which the crowd dispersed for home. We headed without official permission. When I later traveled to for our hotel on the circle, hopeful of sleeping late the Buon Ma Thuot en route to Due Lap, however, I had next morning, but we were awakened at 6 a .m . by a different guide who told me that travel to Due Lap patriotic speeches on the public-address system. was impossible. I was given numerous excuses for the The Vietnam tourism officials had my itinerary at refusal, none of which was persuasive individually or least several weeks, if not months, before my arrival, collectively. It became clear after further appeals that and my travel company told me I would be able to see the government would not budge, my guide would both of my Special Forces camps. The government’s not risk the trip without permission, and I would not official policy is that foreigners may visit anywhere get within twenty miles of Due Lap. This was a major except military installations, though local police and disappointment to me, but perhaps I will have party officials reportedly impose occasional barriers another opportunity to visit the camp in the future.

34 TRA C ES Fall 2003 TE T THEN AND NOW On the list of historical American disappointments covered by vegetation. During the war my team had con­ from Vietnam, this one has to rank pretty low. structed a concrete observation and control tower on the h e n I flew in to Q u i N h o n ’s a ir p o r t (th e hill in the middle of the camp, but only a few stray pieces former Phu Cat air base), prepared to plead of concrete remained where the tower had been. Wwith the local police, I was met by a guide who At Ha Tay, I stood on top of the hill and looked in was willing to take me to Ha Tay a day ahead of sched­ all directions at sights so familiar it was almost as if ule. So we set out for Ha Tay without special I had never left. There were the two hilltops near my permission from the police, with instructions from camp where we had positioned security outposts; the my guide to stay inconspicuous and inside the car. large and thickly forested mountain range to the After some false leads and errors in navigation (never south and east of camp; the Kim Son River to the my strong point), and after repeated stops to consult with north and west that divided the friendly villages near local villagers, we made it to what unmistakably was my the camp from the hostile village of Vinh Hoa across former camp, despite the lack of buildings and the effect the river; the rice paddies to the west where I had of thirty years’ worth of foliage overgrowth. Here I per- launched my first combat operation; and the so-called

Left to Right: The Ha Tay Special Forces Camp in 1968 from the air with the Kim Son River in the background; a view of the camp’s facilities; FitzGibbon with Tham, a local orphan "adopted” by the American Special Forces A team at Ha Tay. suaded my guide that I could freely get out of the car and Highway 506 valley to the east where my most intense walk around since there were no houses or villages in sight. and difficult battles had taken place. The villages The flat surface of the camp’s former airstrip, with traces were almost hidden from view now, thanks to new of its tar coating, was recognizable despite the growth of and larger trees surrounding them. I paused for a few trees on the runway. Virtually all the wood, tin, and other minutes to reflect on my eight months there and materials that had gone into construction of the camp the people I had known and worked with during had been removed, presumably by residents of the area for that period. I was thankful so many of us had made their own use. Even the concrete walls lining our mortar it out safely, and I remembered with sadness those pits and walkways were missing, though the pits and who had not. I wished the villagers now living in the trenches themselves remained as treacherous traps area health, happiness, and prosperity. After leaving my camp, I asked It was hard to hear or read the word “VIETNAM” the guide to drive us along without FEELING MY HEART RACE AND MY STOMACH Highway 506, now as then a dirt road in a valley with rice paddies CHURN. I had reached the point where I, personally, on both sides and steep, densely needed to normalize relations with Vietnam and wooded mountains just beyond. 1 thought of the violence, destruc­ with everything the name connoted. I concluded tion, and fear that had marked this the best way to start the normalization PROCESS valley during my earlier stay, and 1 took great comfort in the the thrivin g would be to see Vietnam firsthand as the rice paddies and peaceful scenery functioning country it has now become. now evident all around me.

TRACES Fall 2003 35 Top: View from the site of the former Ha Tay Special Forces Camp looking north from the top of the hill in February 2002

(left), and a look to the west as well. Bottom: Highway 506 looking southeast from Ha Tay. Although electricity has been added, the road remains unpaved. TET T hen and N ow Returning to the main road leading northeast from meaningless as the empty pits and trenches on the site Ha Tay to Bong Son, we passed the villages where my of the former Ha Tay camp. Then I thought about the team and I had made frequent visits in order to cement schoolhouse we had built, and I realized that it had pro­ relationships with village elders, provide medical and duced part of a new generation of educated citizens and hygiene assistance, and set up occasional night ambushes perhaps had laid the foundation for the other schools along approaches to the villages. I regretted that I was that followed. I considered our small role in the effort unable to get out and walk around the villages, but I to block an expansionist communist system, and I real­ understood my guide’s unwillingness for me to do so ized that the local society was flourishing under capi­ given the risks he had already taken on my behalf. I talism and that communism had receded, not expanded, later realized that visiting the villages would undoubt­ in the world. 1 took note of the young Vietnamese who edly have proved disappointing and that I had been had completed their educations during the war, and of vain and naive to have thought otherwise. While my the neighboring countries that had developed and eight m onths’ ser\ice there m eant a great deal to my life, prospered during that period, and I realized that I and it would have been a brief and inconsequential moment to a generation of people who had endured so much fighting, deprivation, and change over so many years. s we drove past the villages, however, I saw one building that caught my eye and brought us to a A quick stop. It was a small concrete schoolhouse for primary-age children, constructed under the supervi­ sion of my A team in 1968 as the first school in the district. At the time it was built, it was the cause of considerable excitement in the area. The dedication ceremony was attended by numerous ranking South Vietnamese and American civilian and military leaders, and it was featured in a photo spread in the 5SFG magazine. It was unclear from the road whether the FitzGibbon stands on the landing strip at the site of his former base in schoolhouse was still used as such, since there were no Vietnam. signs to mark its function, but at least it stood as silent more than two million other Americans who served in testimony to our efforts on behalf of the people there. Vietnam had bought them vital time to mature and suc­ It was gratifying to see that progress had come to the ceed. Finally, I recalled that I had volunteered for villages around Ha Tay. Instead of huts with bamboo Vietnam, and for my duty as an A team leader, in order or clay walls and thatched roofs, most of the residents to help the people of that country, and I realized with lived in concrete houses with clay tile or tin roofs. pleasure that the people there are doing well. I Electrical wires and poles lined Highway 506 and the concluded that our service and sacrifices did have road to Bong Son, and most houses were topped with meaning and our efforts were not entirely in vain. television antennae. The people in the Fields and vil­ I didn’t neutralize all of my emotions associated with lages appeared to be fed and clothed reasonably well, Vietnam, and perhaps I never will. I still get agitated wearing western-style apparel rather than the old black when I read some comment that, in my view, misstates pajamas. There were quite a few new buildings in the or distorts what we did in the war and why we fought it. area, most of them government or Communist party But now when I see the word “Vietnam,” I don’t think facilities. Perhaps the most rewarding sights were the first of a war or a source of national division and discord; numerous schools in the area, buildings that were far I think of a real and vibrant country. larger and nicer than the schoolhouse my team had Daniel H. FitzGibbon is an attorney in the Indianapolis constructed, accommodating not only primary grades office of Barnes and Thornburg arid served from 1983 to but also high-school students. We were told repeatedly 1993 as a member of the firm ’s management committee. of the high literacy rate among the people of Vietnam FitzGibbon, who received his law degree from Harvard Law these days, and certainly the abundance of schools School in 1972, practices primarily in Barnes and would seem to support that claim. Thornburg’s business, tax, and real-estate department. As we proceeded to Highway One and Qui Niton, In 2006 the Indiana Historical Society Press will publish I wondered if my time in Vietnam had been as the letters he sent home from Vietnam to his parents.

TRACES Fall 2003 37

IHS, Indianapolis R ec o rd er C ollection OKFED GARDENS LOCKEFIELD tp ad gop ffre rsdns t Lceil pci i te 90 (bottom). 1980s the in picnic Lockefield a at neighbors. residents their former of with group a and ties (top) strong developed and community their in pride took Gardens Lockefield of Residents Photos on the opposite page show a group of children in one of the common areas during Lockefield’s early days days early Lockefield’s during areas common the of one in children of group a show page opposite the on Photos firm, prospective tenants place themselves on a on themselves place tenants prospective firm, L successfulby rental communities Indianapolis’s run Sexton Companies.Sexton According tothe management private the Indiana University Medical Center, the Indiana Center, the Medical University Indiana the they and advance, in year a to up list waiting choose Lockefield Gardens because of its proximity to proximity its of because Gardens choose Lockefield (IUPUI) campus, and the downtown area. downtown the and campus, (IUPUI) University-Purdue University at Indianapolis at University University-Purdue ockefield INDIANAPOLIS’S INDIANAPOLIS’S AHE . DRENOVSKY L. RACHAEL G ardens

is todayis one of the most

9 3 L ockefield Gardens developed the projects as neighborhoods. They designed low-rise buildings with modern conveniences, plenty of sun and air, play spaces, and recreation rooms. Slum-clearance projects often demolished acres of build­ ings, but planners situated developments within walking distance of existing shops, schools, and transportation. They also encouraged public-housing managers to be caring stewards of their communities. Nationwide, urban dwellers needed better housing dur­ ing the Great Depression. Many of the poor lived in little more than shacks without modern conveniences such as electricity, central heating, or plumbing. Indianapolis shared these needs. According to U.S. Department of his contrasts greatly with attitudes toward the hous­ Commerce statistics, in the 1930s more than 20 percent ing developm ent in the 1970s and 1980s, when it lay of Indianapolis homes were unfit for human habitation, vacant for more than a dozen years. Once referred and more than 27 percent had no indoor toilet. Near the T center of the city statistics ranged much higher. to as an eyesore and a shambles, Lockefield Gardens was almost demolished, but a portion of it was saved because For a num ber of reasons African-American city dwellers of its significance in the community’s political, social, and typically fared the worst. First, many were newcomers to architectural history. First opened to tenants as public urban life, having moved from the rural South to north­ housing in 1938, Lockefield Gardens has been influenced ern cities for factory work during the Great Migration of by prevailing attitudes toward urban life and develop­ World War I and the 1920s. Second, although every com­ ment, and it has faced significant changes in its history. munity had its leading middle-class professionals, African One of the nation’s first federally funded public­ Americans tended to be poor because many held low-skill, housing projects, Lockefield Gardens rose out of the low-wage jobs. Finally, discrimination limited their hous­ economic depression of the 1930s. The Franklin D. ing choices. Residents of all-white neighborhoods formed Roosevelt administration, elected to office in 1932 on civic associations to protect themselves from an influx a promise to give the country a New Deal, implemented of blacks, and real-estate agents believed it unethical the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act, which estab­ to introduce minorities of any kind into exclusive lished the Public Works Administration (PWA) and neighborhoods. Landlords often took advantage of the other programs. The PWA undertook numerous situation, renting unfit housing to African Americans construction projects, including highways, public build­ who felt compelled to put up with the conditions rather ings, and low-cost housing. In February 1934 the PWA’s than become homeless. During the 1930s Flanner House, Housing Division began building fifty-one low-income a social-service agency that aided poor blacks in housing projects in thirty-six cities in the United States, Indianapolis, conducted a local study that found Af rican the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Locations included Americans generally lived in areas of the city character­ New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Louisville, and Atlanta. ized by outworn buildings and high land values. Indiana received two projects, Lockefield Gardens in In 1934 the PWA proposed to improve living con­ Indianapolis and Lincoln Gardens in Evansville, which ditions for some African Americans in Indianapolis. both opened to residents in 1938. Housing Division administrators named the city as The establishment of public housing accomplished a recipient of a slum-clearance public-housing project. num ber of political, economic, and social goals. Politically, The plan required clearing twenty-two acres of land the Roosevelt administration wanted the New Deal to suc­ bounded by Indiana Avenue and Locke, Blake, and ceed and saw stimulation of the housing industry as a North Streets. Twenty-four modern apartment build­ means to this end. Housing had been in a slump since the ings with landscaped grounds replaced more than 350 late 1920s, and construction of public housing provided unsightly, unsafe structures located there. The pro­ jobs and cash to an important business sector. Furthermore, ject, named Lockefield Gardens for its Locke Street housing activists, including those named to the Housing boundary, was located in the traditionally African- Division, saw the program as a way to eliminate inner-city American neighborhood near Indiana Avenue, known slums and to shelter ill-housed urban dwellers. Referring for its black-owned businesses and jazz clubs. to their plans as the “gospel of housing,” PWA employees The Lockefield Gardens project received support from

40 TRACES Fall 2003 L ockefield Gardens o u j c h o n C ompany C h o to P ass IHS. B Hundreds of dilapidated homes and outbuildings were cleared to make way for Lockefield Gardens. th e Indianapolis Recorder, the city’s weekly African- Gardens and Evansville’s Lincoln Gardens were two of American newspaper. Editorials described how the seventeen projects built to house African Americans. project would be a boon to African-American renters Local administrators also selected the architectural, who had been hit hardest by the economic downturn demolition, and construction firms that developed each and had been forced for decades to live in substandard project. In Indianapolis architects William Earl Russ and housing. Like most housing reformers of the time, the Merritt Harrison received the contract to design newspaper inferred that the psychology, lives, and habits Lockefield Gardens, a fortunate choice. Their plan of those who moved into the modern apartments would received high praise and became a model for similar be transformed, making them better, healthier citizens. federal housing projects, which were featured in the Recorder editors also believed that this experiment in monthly journal American Architect in 1935. housing would demonstrate to cities across the country Before construction of Lockefield Gardens could that blighted areas could be restored. begin, however, hundreds of existing structures had to The Recorder and the federal government had high be cleared. Also, people living in the slum-clearance expectations for Lockefield Gardens, but some area—some of Indianapolis’s poorest citizens—had to be Indianapolis politicians were not convinced. A 7 September relocated. Officials promised that the government would 1934 article in the Indianapolis Star noted that take care of those on public assistance, but less than a Representative Louis Ludlow, Senator Frederick Van Nuys, month before demolition began one-third of area resi­ and Senator Arthur R. Robinson had not contributed to dents had not vacated their homes, finally a court order the decision-making process. Ludlow, in particular, was issued to compel the last residents to move. objected to Lockefield Gardens because he believed that ventually every structure except Indianapolis public housing competed with private enterprise, a theme Public School no. 24 was torn down, allowing the often repeated in Indianapolis and elsewhere by those Egroundbreaking for the Lockefield development who opposed federal housing projects. to occur on 31 July 1935. Speaking at the ceremonies, Although Indianapolis politicos maintained that they Indiana governor Paul V. McNutt congratulated had little say in the establishment of Lockefield Gardens, Indianapolis on being awarded the project and thanked the Housing Division in Washington, D.C., yielded con­ its sponsors, including the Indianapolis advisory trol over numerous decisions to local bureaucrats. Lor committee for federal low-cost housing, the Indianapolis example, local administrators selected the specific loca­ Chamber of Commerce, and the Indianapolis tions of projects within cities. Top administrators in Construction League. He also expressed a hope that Washington insisted that blacks be allowed to partici­ the project would encourage private enterprise to pate in government housing, but local bureaucrats wipe out the city’s economic troubles. chose the racial makeup of projects. Although five Lor the next two years the N. P. Severin Company of projects housed racially mixed populations, most fol­ Chicago constructed the development’s twenty-four lowed the prevailing attitude that homogeneous buildings. Structures included apartment buildings communities were harmonious ones. Thus the major­ with three-, four-, and five-room units and group houses ity of projects were racially segregated. Lockefield with five and six rooms. There were 748 total units

TRACES Fall 2003 41 Locke field Gardens built. The plan also incorporated recreation rooms and storefronts that related to the existing Indiana Avenue business district. In total Lockefield Gardens cost approximately $3 million, or $899 per room, which was less than the national average. The general contractors completed the buildings by the summer of 1937, but construction problems delayed occupancy by half a year. The Severin Company blamed government specifications, saying that it was forced to pour concrete floors without expansion joints, and when the slabs expanded they pushed the walls apart. Cracks developed in the exterior walls, ruining the plaster and even splitting some of the bricks. Inclement weather during the autumn prevented caulking, and water seeped into the buildings. Repairs took months, and the problems received national press. Construction issues were resolved by the spring of 1938, and residents began to move into Lockefield Gardens during February as individual buildings were certified. The Reverend George and Edith Martin, along with their two children, became the first to live in Lockefield. Local businesses placed ads that congratulated Lockefield’s new tenants in hopes of gaining business from those who would need to furnish their new homes. o qualify for occupancy, prospective tenants faced a rigorous application process. The Housing The 26 February 1938 edition of the Indianapolis Recorder featured on its Division established minimum and maximum cover the first tenants to move into Lockefield Gardens: George and Edith T Martin and their two children, George Jr. and Leslie. income levels—sufficient to cover rent and other expenses but not more than five times the rental and to conduct themselves in exemplary ways. Every two utility costs. Criteria also favored occupancy by nuclear weeks residents received a newsletter that reinforced families. A limited number of people could occupy this view. The newsletter offered compliments to each room, families could not take in lodgers, and unre­ tenants for keeping their homes neat and their lated working adults or two married couples could not children well behaved, and it gently suggested that share a single apartment. In addition, applicants had they conserve electricity, report maintenance prob­ to demonstrate that they had resided in Indianapolis for lems, and lock their doors. Sometimes management a year and that they lived in overcrowded, substandard became more direct. Soon after Lockefield Gardens housing. Management visited the homes of prospec­ opened, the maintenance staff had to unstop a tive tenants to check their current living conditions number of toilets because improper items had and character. Despite the strict rules, numerous fam­ been flushed down them, including newspapers ilies applied and qualified over the next several months. and orange peels. Residents were sternly instructed Those who moved into Lockefield Gardens received to tell their children to use incinerators for those affordable housing that far exceeded the quality of items. It was likely those responsible had never lived private accommodations in the surrounding neigh­ in a home with an indoor toilet. borhood. For $20.80 to $30.10 per month, they The newsletter and a column in the Recorder also obtained dwellings with modern plumbing; steam heat; reminded residents of the numerous social and educa­ electric lights, refrigerators, and ranges; fully equipped tional activities available at Lockefield. Clubs for men, children’s play areas; club rooms; incinerators; cen­ women, and children quickly formed. For example, the tral laundries; and hardwood floors. Modernaires met for sewing and “eats,” while the La People selected to live in Lockefield Cardens con­ Peer Sport Club planned dances and cocktail parties. sidered themselves privileged, and management, led Girls joined the Charmrettes, and boys could become for several decades by Lionel Artis, reminded them members of the Boy Scouts. There was a m en’s club and

42 TRACES Fall 2003 a men’s softball team. The Marion County Recreation of 1938, businesses began to move into the twelve Division also led activities for children and adults. storefronts incorporated in the project. About 140 firms Children learned and socialized at local Indianapolis applied to establish themselves at Lockefield. The first public schools. Older students went to nearby Crispus stores included an ice-cream company, a grocery, a Attucks High School and School no. 17, while grade- bakery, a dry-goods store, and a laundry/dry cleaner. school students attended School no. 24, located within Generally those who lived in Lockefield Gardens the project’s superblock. Preschoolers and kinder­ during its first decades of existence have warm memo­ garteners were taught in the Lockefield buildings. The ries of the project. In 1985 the Lockefield Civic elementary school, in particular, became a vital part of Organization, a group composed of former residents, the community. Students attended classes during the published Lockefield Memories, a booklet that captured day and then played in the schoolyard after hours. their remembrances of the project from 1938 to the mid- Teachers at the school also sponsored extracurricular 1950s. Photos overwhelming depict smiling, well-dressed activities such as drama clubs. Parents appreciated children and young adults who knew one another well and having the school on the project’s grounds. The grassy central Those who lived in Lockefield Gardens promenade afforded a clear view during its first decades of existence have warm of the school from most apart­ memories of the project. . . and look upon their ments, so parents could easily . . . keep track of their youngsters. stay as a positive injluence upon them. They could meet students coming home from school enjoyed one another’s company. A 1988 documentary and quickly solve any issues that arose on the playground. film, Lockefield Gardens: A Community within a Community, Residents satisfied their shopping and entertainment offers a similar picture. Interviewees repeatedly describe needs on Indiana Avenue. Stores, restaurants, theaters, the buildings and grounds as “beautiful,” and those who and jazz clubs had thrived on the avenue prior to the grew up at Lockefield Gardens look upon their stay as a construction of Lockefield Gardens. By the spring positive influence upon them. According to interviewees,

Left: This aerial view shows the layout of Lockefield Gardens. The angling street on the northern edge is Indiana Avenue. Indianapolis Public School no.

24 stands at bottom center, facing North Street. Right: Judge S. Hugh Dillin in 1971, during the time when his decisions on school desegregation in Indianapolis affected the future of Lockefield Gardens.

TRACES Fall 2003 43 L ockefield Gardens 260050-F , ollection C ompany C hoto P ass B IHS,

Left: William Earl Russ and Merritt Harrison designed Lockefield Gardens in the International Style. European architects pioneered the style after World

War I, but it did not catch on in the United States until the 1930s, when Lockefield was built. Right: The Walker Theatre, located just a short distance from Lockefield Gardens, was at the heart of the Indiana Avenue neighborhood. kids could take part in plenty of structured activities, and Gardens was particularly affected. Many businesses along people looked out for one another’s children, disciplin­ Indiana Avenue succumbed to the wrecking ball, and ing them as necessary. Former resident Ruth “Rudy” numerous residences near Lockefield Gardens were Keno said that Lockefield provided “everything that you demolished to make way for 1-65 and for the IUPUI would ask for to help young people to grow.” campus, established adjacent to Lockefield Gardens As time progressed, however, the situation at and the Wishard Hospital complex in 1969. Lockefield Gardens changed. Part of the early success As early as 1968 die IHA sought funds to rehabilitate and of Lockefield Gardens and other PWA projects rested on modernize Lockefield Gardens. Typical of priorities set by the stringent selection criteria. During the rental-housing the Department of Housing and Urban Development shortage of the 1930s and 1940s, management could (HUD), the federal housing agency formed in 1965, plans choose applicants who demonstrated a stable family life called for the culling of buildings to reduce population and income. Following World War II, though, African density by more than half, renovation of the remaining Americans had more housing choices as their income lev­ buildings, and construction of new ones earmarked for els began to rise, and more housing became available families and elderly residents. In 1974 the city received a when whites moved from the city to suburbia. People grant from HUD to complete the undertaking. left public housing for a number of reasons, but accord­ enants vacated the public-housing project, but they ing to federal rules, those who earned too large an did not return. In fact, Lockefield Gardens stood income had to relocate. When the PWA projects opened, Tempty until the 1980s because U.S. district judge working-class nuclear families populated public hous­ S. Hugh Dillin ruled in a school desegregation case, ing, but by the 1960s single-parent families on public U.S. v. City of Indianapolis, that the IHA could not com­ assistance predominated. Furthermore, the federal plete its renovation and reopen Lockefield Gardens to government allotted fewer dollars for security anyone except the elderly. According to Dillin, if the and upkeep, and public-housing projects became project were populated by young African-American ten­ unsafe places to live. At the end of 1964 the federal ants, it would encourage racial segregation within the government ceded control of Lockefield Gardens to a Indianapolis public schools. The ruling put the IHA in revitalized Indianapolis Housing Authority (IHA), but a bind. When Lockefield Gardens was transferred from the administrative change did not rectify the situation. federal to city control, the quitclaim deed stipulated that In fact, unsanitary conditions at Lockefield Gardens led the project be used as public housing for forty years; to threats of a rent strike by tenants in 1970. otherwise, it would revert to the federal government. The decline in Lockefield Gardens not only reflected No one wanted a vacant and decaying Lockefield a national trend in public housing, but it also mirrored Gardens, and Dillin’s ruling created a dilemma that led deterioration and depopulation of the surrounding to protracted debate over the project’s fate. neighborhood. Like most cities, Indianapolis had a pro­ Various groups took interest in Lockefield Gardens, gram of urban redevelopment that aimed to revitalize each formulating different solutions. City officials saw the aging inner city, and the area around Lockefield demolition as their most viable option. They believed

44 TRACES Fall 2003 L ockefield Gardens o ix ectio n C e c o r d e r R ndianapolis I IHS.

Left: Many young men who lived in Lockefield Gardens played in the Dust Bowl, a popular basketball tournament held at the complex beginning in the

1940s. Right: Members of the Indiana Avenue Association meet with Indianapolis mayor Richard Lugar (right) in 1969 to discuss neighborhood concerns.

the empty project was an eyesore and a hindrance to the In early May 1977 the Advisory Council made its area’s economic development. Preservationists, including recommendation. Despite organized support for demo­ the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana (HLFI) lition, the council advised that Lockefield Gardens should and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’s not be destroyed. The Department of the Interior had Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, moved deemed the project eligible for listing on the National toward recognizing Lockefield Gardens as historically Register of Historic Places, and the council believed that significant and worthy of protection. rehabilitation options should be studied m ore fully. At an impasse, the Indianapolis office of HUD in 1976 Over the next several years a task force was formed asked the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and a number of studies were undertaken. The based in Washington, D.C., to make recommendations Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee’s Task Force on Lockefield Gardens. The Advisory Council offered included representatives from HUD, state and local several alternatives involving either full or partial politicians, and members of the Midtown Economic rehabilitation for residential use, public housing, or Development Industrial Corporation (MEDIC), university housing. Every option had drawbacks, namely a group of business leaders who aimed to revitalize prohibitive cost, Dillin’s ruling, or a lack of interest in the neighborhood surrounding Lockefield Gardens. downtown residences. The Advisory Council followed up The circle of decision makers had widened to its report in a consultation meeting with the numerous encompass members of the neighborhood and the groups interested in Lockefield’s fate. At the meeting the African-American community, but no local preserva­ city emphasized the need for demolition. The Advisory tionists were invited to join the task force. Council was also informed that the African-American By June 1980 the group forged a plan that received community viewed Lockefield Gardens as an embar­ federal approval in November 1981. The “Action Plan rassing symbol of the segregation era. for Revitalization of the Midtown Neighborhood” called A public hearing called by the Advisory Council indi­ for the retention of 175 to 275 Lockefield units, which cated otherwise. On 22 March 1977 about 150 people would be administrated by a for-profit entity. The gathered at the Fall Creek branch of the YMCA. Officials remainder of Lockefield would be demolished, but from the city and IUPUI attended, but no one from more housing units would be built. The city would HUD went to the hearing. The crowd was overwhelm­ straighten Locke Street to improve emergency access to ingly African American and included state representative Wishard Hospital, and IUPUI would be given the option William Crawford and state senator Julia Carson, whose to purchase land that would allow it to expand its hos­ families had both lived at Lockefield Gardens. Contrary pital complex. The city would also finance construction to statements made at the consultation meeting, speak­ of 150 units of housing for the elderly and sponsor rent ers indicated that members of the African-American subsidies in 20 percent of the Lockefield units. community remembered Lockefield Gardens as a mecca As the main players in the action plan negotiated of culture, not as a disgrace. Frustrations about being compromises and details, preservationists worked to left out of the decision-making process also surfaced. save Lockefield Gardens. HLFI solicited architects,

TRACES Fall 2003 45 By the mid-1970s, as city officials, preservationists, and concerned citizens debated the fate of Lockefield Gardens, the apartment buildings sat abandoned and decaying.

Various groups took interest in Lockefield Gardens, each formulating d if f e r e n t s o l u t io n s . City officials saw demolition as their most viable option. They believed the empty project was an eyesore and a hindrance to the area’s economic development, preservationists . . . moved toward recognizing Lockefield Gardens as historically significant and worthy of protection. looking for a firm willing to preserve the project in its entirety. It also helped MEDIC to submit a nomination of seven Lockefield Gardens buildings for the National Register of Historic Places. These buildings were offi­ cially listed in March 1983. Historic Indianapolis, Inc., took a more public approach. In the spring of 1983 the preservation group rented a unit from the IHA and remodeled it with $600 and volunteer effort. The group took the apartment from garbage-strewn and uninhabitable to clean and livable in an attempt to convince city officials that Lockefield Gardens could be rehabilitated economically. nswayed, on 8 April 1983 Mayor William H. H udnut ( ioifc i n o N released a statement that reiterated the city’s inten­ U tion to hold to the approved action plan. The Rj-coiuint mayor—who hoped to transform the Hoosier capital n d ia s a p o u s from “India-no-place” to “India-show-place”—believed I that the plan balanced the needs of the city, the neigh­ IHS, borhood, and IUPUI and that historic preservation, while In the summer of 1983 crews began demolishing much of Lockefield important, could not be the basis for every action. He Gardens to make way for new development. Today all of the buildings along also maintained that “after twenty ... years of false starts the western edge of the complex— as well as Locke Street itself— are and broken promises to the Black community, we have gone, replaced with a new roadway that passes over what was the central a project that is going to restore Indiana Avenue’s promenade. Only seven buildings that were once along the eastern edge of historic past, and help to build its historic future.” the complex survive. Despite the objections of Historic Indianapolis, Inc., On 18 October 1987 the restored project officially the city kept the mayor’s promise. Demolition began reopened for the first time since the mid-1970s. during July 1983. When completed, only seven struc­ Just as in the 1930s, Lockefield Gardens was a new tures remained—six apartment buildings and the community. Once again, a blighted area had been refur­ commercial strip, which were protected by their listing bished to serve a particular segment of the population. on the National Register of Historic Places. Over the In the former era, the federal government sought to next two years the city and IUPUI negotiated to estab­ house African Americans of low to moderate incomes. lish a primary and secondary historic district for Now a private management firm marketed Lockefield Lockefield Gardens and to arrange for payment and Gardens to university students, young professionals, and transfer of the parcels of real estate. IUPUI would own hospital employees. Adored by its first tenants, who had the property but lease it for fifty years, ending in 2035. few choices in housing, Lockefield Gardens was again In 1985 redevelopment of the area began. transformed into a popular place to live. Lockefield Associates, a partnership of the Sexton Rachael L. Drenovsky is the education program specialist Companies and the Mansur Development Company, at the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She was a won the contract to construct 294 units in twelve researcher for the Indiana Historical Society s exhibition Five buildings and rehabilitate the remaining six apart­ Unsettling Stories, which features a section on Lockefield ment buildings into 199 units. The BOS Community Gardens. The exhibition is on display through 4 January Development Corporation also participated as a gen­ 2004 at the Indiana History Center, located at 450 West Ohio eral partner, guaranteeing a minority presence. Street in downtown Indianapolis.

...... |...... - ...... Fo r F u r t h e r R e a d in g Bauman, John F., Roger Biles, and Kristin M. Szylvian, eds. From Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth-Century America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. I Gelfand, Mark I. A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government and Urban America, 1933-1965. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. I Hays, R. Allen. The Federal Government and Urban Housing: Ideology and Change in Public Policy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985. I Radford, Gail. Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. I Thornbrough, Emma Lou. Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

TRACES Fall 2003 4 7 ffice O s ’ overnor G ourtesy C hotos P

The Indiana Historical Society pays tribute to Governor O’Bannon, a longtime member of the Society, and honors the O’Bannon family for its dedication to our state’s heritage. “We for generations in Indiana have had an ongoing argument about what the definition is of a Hoosier. I think we know what the definition is of a Hoosier. It’s

Frank O'Bannon." —Governor Joseph E. Kernan, speaking at Governor O’Bannon's memorial service, Indianapolis, 19 S eptember 2003