F_521_I48_V0L22_N01 1 INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

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MORRIS FRANK M. BASILE Indianapolis Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center Indianapolis JANE NOLAN MARY ANN BRADLEY Indianapolis Indianapolis ERSAL OZDEMIR - home of the Indiana Experience JOSEPH E. COSTANZA Indianapolis Munster MARGARET COLE RUSSELL opening March 20, 2010 SUE DeWINE Indianapolis Hanover WILLIAM N. SALIN SR. WILLIAM BRENT ECKHART Carmel Indianapolis JANE W. SCHLEGEL Free THG: Connections - a RICHARD 0. FELDMAN Indianapolis Indianapolis JOSEPH A. SLASH RICHARD E. FORD Indianapolis semiannual family history and Wabash DENNY SPONSEL genealogy magazine Greenwood TRACES OF INDIANA AND MIDWESTERN HISTORY RAY E. BOOMHOWER EDITORIAL BOARD Senior Editor RICHARD D. FELDMAN Free subscription to the Indianapolis, Chair CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JAMES H. MADISON award-winning bimonthly Bloomington, Vice Chair M.TERESA BAER newsletter INPerspective KATHLEEN M. BREEN NANCY NIBLACK BAXTER DOUGLAS E. CLANIN Carmel PAULA J. CORPUZ ALAN A. 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WITCHER Fort Wayne www.indianahistory.org/join Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History (ISSN 1040-788X) is published quarterly and distributed as a benefit of membership by the Indiana Historical Society Press; editorial and executive offices, Act now to take advantage of 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202-3269. Member­ ship categories include student $20, Individual $40, Family/Dual our low prices available through $50, and Sustaining $100. Periodicals postage paid at Indianapolis, Indiana; USPS Number 003-275. Literary contributions: A brochure February! containing information for contributions is available upon request. Traces accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts submit­ ted 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 ©2010 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, Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center. 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis. Indiana 46202- 3269. Traces is a member of the Conference of Historical Journals. 2 Front Cover: Although raised in Editors’ Page the age o f the horse and buggy, The Only Thing We Have to Fear Lawrence D. Bell o f Mentone, Ray E. Boomhower Indiana, helped craft some o f the country’s finest aircraft. The Bell 4 line included such airplanes as Waxing Poetic (from top to bottom) the XP-77, Jazz Pioneer Ezra Wickemeyer the P-39 Airacobra, the P-63 Rick Kennedy Kingcobra, and the P-59 Airacomet, the first jet-powered 14 fighter for the U.S. Air Force. A Quiet Hero BELL AIRCRAFT MUSEUM Ryan White Twenty Years Later Nelson Price 40 Air Dreams Aviation Legend 24 Lawrence D. Bell Black History Ann Allen News and Notes African Americans and the 52 Dry Crusade in Indiana My Indiana Everyday People: Mattie Coney Earl Conn Remembered and the Citizens Forum Lucy Higgs Nichols: From Slave to Civil War Nurse o f the 56 Twenty-third Indiana Regiment Images of Indiana EDITORS’ PAGE

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RAY E. BOOMHOWER

The boy’s locker room at Mary Phillips Elementary School in Mishawaka, After a nine-month court battle, W hite Indiana, where I attended classes from kindergarten through sixth grade, won the right to return to school, but with concessions, including separate restrooms, became one of the rooms I visited frequently during my years there. In addi­ no gym class, a separate drinking fountain, tion to showering after playing on the basketball team, it was the place we all and the use o f disposable eating uten­ went for the frequent tornado drills we students endured during the spring. We sils and tray. These were not enough for were used to these occasions, as they mirrored our trooping to the basement at parents o f twenty students, who responded home when the sirens wailed their warnings of approaching thunderstorms. by starting their own school. At school, W hite became the target o f slurs and There were other drills, however, that of White, who had been diagnosed with lies— he supposedly purposely spit on food puzzled me. These came from time to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and urinated on bathroom walls— and his time and involved possible attacks from at the age o f thirteen from contaminated locker was vandalized. “ Even at church,” a country I had trouble at that young age blood-based products used to treat his W hite said, “people would not shake my finding on a map— the Soviet Union. hemophilia, made national news. Deter­ hand.” Although White and his family As we huddled for cover in the locker mined to live a normal life, W hite in­ received support from citizens and celebri­ room, we could see stacked in the corner formed his mother, Jeanne, that he wanted ties around the world, the situation grew large, dark-green tubs filled with water to return to his classes at middle school. so bad in Kokom o that they moved to and provisions. The locker room was well “It was my decision to live a normal life, Cicero, Indiana— a comm unity that stocked with supplies because it was a go to school, be with friends, and enjoying greeted W hite with open arms. fallout shelter in case o f a nuclear attack. day to day activities,” W hite noted. “It was In this issue o f Traces, Nelson Price, As I walked the hallways at the school on not going to be easy.” who wrote about W hite’s battle for the my way to my classroom, I could see the That was an understatement, to say the Indianapolis News, takes a look back at yellow-and-black sign indicating that the least. W hite’s wish to return to school was the controversy from the vantage point o f building had a fallout shelter and listing its met with close to hysteria by members o f twenty years gone by. Price goes behind capacity (what that number was has been the school board, the principal, parents, the scenes and brings to light stories and lost in my memory). Although we did not and teachers alike. Although Indiana state individuals who might have been lost in have regular duck-and-cover drills as did health commissioner Woodrow Myers the media spotlight— friends of White’s children in the 1950s, that sign became a indicated that W hite posed no risk to from Kokom o who endured taunts for daily reminder o f the potential for nuclear anyone at the school, W hite had an illness standing by their pal and a grandfather annihilation. most associated with the homosexual com­ whose life might have been saved by The fears and uncertainties o f that munity; parents were frightened that their White. In Price’s story W hite comes across time came back in a rush to me when I children might be infected through even as a normal teenager who met the situ­ read Nelson Price’s article featured in this casual contact with W hite. “ It was really ation with uncom m on grace, courage, issue o f Traces. Instead o f the threat o f an bad,” remembered Jeanne. “ People were and wisdom. “ It was difficult, at times, to international superpower, as had been the really cruel, people said that he had to be handle; but I tried to ignore the injustice, case in my school days, however, Price’s gay, that he had to have done something because I knew the people were wrong,” piece explores how a community acted bad or wrong, or he wouldn’t have had it. W hite said in 1988. “M y family and I when faced with the supposed threat o f a It was G od ’s punishment, we heard the held no hatred for those people because sick child: Ryan White. In 1985 the story God’s punishment a lot.” we realized they were victims o f their own ignorance.” • Opposite: Sixteen-year-old Ryan White, a hemophiliac who contracted AIDS, does homework while sitting at the kitchen table with his mother, Jeanne, in April 1988.

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EZRA C. A. WICKEMEYER IS A SHADOWY FIGURE IN EARLY JAZZ. IN THE EARLY 1920S, THE GERMAN HANDYMAN RAN THE PRIMITIVE RECORDING STUDIO FOR THE GENNETT LABEL IN RICHMOND, INDIANA, AND PRODUCED THOUSANDS OF 78-RPM DISCS BY OBSCURE MUSICIANS PASSING THROUGH TOWN, FROM SACRED CHOIRS AND VAUDEVILLE SINGERS TO HOTEL ORCHESTRAS AND BACKWOODS FIDDLERS. BUT AMONG THE NO-NAME PARADE WERE FUTURE JAZZ ICONS LOUIS ARMSTRONG, KING OLIVER, JELLY ROLL MORTON, BIX BEIDERBECKE, AND HOAGY CARMICHAEL. THEY GAVE WICKEMEYER A CERTAIN IMMORTALITY. By 1956 when Wickemeyer died in Left: Ezra Wickemeyer poses with an apartment above an O hio savings and members o f his family in Richmond, Indiana. Below: Nicknamed Stachmo, loan where he worked as a janitor, music Louis Armstrong became one o f the historians worldwide already coveted the most important American musicians jazz performances that he had etched with o f the twentieth century, according to a hard needle onto blank wax discs in the a number o f jazz critics. “My whole Gennett studio. Today, those same old life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is records are digitally remastered and sold to blow that horn," Armstrong told a doctor a few months before he died in on compact discs and as Internet down­ 1971, refusing to cancel an appearance loads to new generations o f listeners. in New York. “The people are waiting The Indiana Historical Society’s John for me," said Armstrong. “I got to do it, MacKenzie Collection preserves hundreds Doc, I got to do it." o f original Gennett “recording cards” that detail Wickemeyer’s daily sessions. Yet, recording studio for Gennett Records, an city’s south side. Despite the notoriety, little is known about the man who offshoot o f Starr Piano. Trying to attract the band had never stepped foot inside a preserved the history. new listeners with sounds mostly ignored recording studio until now. On a rainy April 5,1923, King Oliver’s by larger labels, the Gennett family, own­ Wickemeyer, a thirty-year-old former Creole Jazz Band took a train from Chi­ ers o f Starr Piano, found both in the jazz office clerk in the factory and a member cago across Indiana farmland to the stately blowing in the W indy City. o f the local Ku Klux Klan chapter, ran the brick depot in downtown Richmond. The Oliver’s 1923 personnel, together only session. A natural with tools and drawings, band headed down a nearby narrow road a year, was a “dream team” in jazz history: he had helped to construct the studio two into the bustling Starr Piano factory, the Oliver and Louis Armstrong on cornets, years earlier and became its “recording town’s largest employer. Rows o f huge brothers Johnny Dodds on clarinet and director.” The studio was his kingdom, and brick buildings were secluded in a glacial Baby Dodds on drums, Lil Hardin (Arm­ few people outside of musicians gained gorge near the Whitewater River, an area strong’s future wife) on piano, Bill Johnson entrance because his techniques were that locals dubbed “Starr Valley.” on bass, and Honore Dutrey on trombone. closely guarded secrets. Outwardly friendly Joe “King” Oliver and six bandmates All but Hardin were from New Orleans, and with a cigarette usually planted in were the lone African Americans amid and they became wildly popular in their his mouth, he could startle people at first hundreds o f artisans and woodworkers. adopted home of The band unloaded instruments at a mod­ Chicago with young est, single-story building in the back along blacks who filled the a railroad spur that had once housed kilns Lincoln Gardens for curing wood for pianos, but was now a dance floor on the

ARMSTRONG’S POWERFUL CHOPS SIMPLY OVERPOWERED HIS OLDER BOSS, OLIVER, AND THE BAND.“JOE AND LOUIS STOOD RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER AS THEY ALWAYS HAD, AND YOU COULDN’T HEAR A NOTE THAT JOE WAS PLAYING.”

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glance because his head, arms, and hands BECAUSE MICROPHONES AND ELECTRONIC were scarred from severe burns received as a boy in a natural gas explosion. These RECORDING WERE NOT INTRODUCED UNTIL scars likely explained his ever-present hat. LATER THAT DECADE, WICKEMEYER ENGAGED IN Because microphones and electronic recording were not introduced until later “ACOUSTIC” RECORDING, WHEREBY MUSICIANS that decade, Wickemeyer engaged in “acoustic” recording, whereby musicians HUDDLED AROUND A MEGAPHONE-LIKE huddled around a megaphone-like horn HORN PROTRUDING THROUGH A WALL protruding through a wall. The horn trans­ ferred sound through a crystal to a record­ ing stylus that engraved sound vibrations onto a polished, blank wax disc turning on a recording machine. Wickemeyer ran the machine on the wall’s other side. He ex­ perimented with various horns, depending on the instruments recorded. To achieve proper sound balance, he placed musicians at various distances from the horn. Before recording a performance, he might record on disc a short snippet o f the musicians performing, and then play it back through the horn to make sure he had them placed right. During the trial-and-error process, the twenty-three-year-old Armstrong gave Wickemeyer fits, creating a memorable moment in jazz history. Armstrong’s pow­ erful chops simply overpowered his older boss, Oliver, and the band. “Joe and Louis stood right next to each other as they always had, and you couldn’t hear a note Armstrong at the piano holding his trumpet with fellow Hot Five members (from left) banjo that Joe was playing,” Hardin recalled. player Johnny St. Cyr, clarinetist Johnny Dodds, trombonist Kid Ory, and pianist Lil Hardin, Wickemeyer faced a similar problem in circa 1926. 1922 when trombonist George Brunis of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, a popu­ cited a less dramatic distance. “Uncle Ez permouth Blues,” Oliver’s howling cornet lar white jazz band, blew his instrument so loved to tell that story,” said Mel Helmich, captures the New Orleans jazz spirit, while loud that the stylus bounced on the blank Wickemeyer’s nephew. “ He said he put on “Chimes Blues,” Wickemeyer posi­ wax disc. Wickemeyer placed Armstrong Armstrong near the door [o f the studio] tioned Armstrong near the acoustic horns several paces behind the band, and the because he played so loud.” for his first ever recorded solo. Armstrong’s actual distance became urban legend. Distance aside, the nine Gennett bold sound soon transformed jazz and Armstrong later claimed he was fifteen releases by King Oliver’s band from the elevated the solo instrument in American feet away, and Hardin agreed, noting, twenty-seven waxed takes made over two popular music. “He [Louis] thought it was bad for him days in April are widely regarded as the These were heady days for Wickemey­ to have to be separated from the band.” first recorded masterpieces in jazz, preserv­ er. From 1922 to 1924, Gennett beat the Baby Dodds remembered Armstrong as ing a polyphonic New Orleans style pro­ dominant Columbia, Victor, and Edison standing behind the rest of the band, but pelled by Oliver and Armstrong. On “Dip- labels in recording jazz from Chicago,

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where New Orleans and midwestern musi­ cians forged a classic style that ultimately “ UNCLE EZ KNEW HE WORKED WITH achieved world renown. Fred Wiggins, manager o f Starr Piano’s Chicago store, SOME BIG NAMES, BUT I DON’T BELIEVE convinced Fred Gennett, one o f three brothers running Starr Piano, to pursue HE RECOGNIZED THE IMPORTANCE OF the city’s black and white jazz players for its “colored artists” sales catalog. Also, HIS WORK AT GENNETT.” Gennett established cross-promotional ties with Melrose Brothers Music Company in Chicago, which published sheet music by jazz players also on Gennett. one o f New Orleans’s first jazz stars. composer and pianist at the session, and it It was not artistic altruism, but pure In 1924 Wickemeyer recorded a white was suggested that he improvise additional business that led Chicago jazz pioneers territory jazz band, the Wolverines, with measures. Wickemeyer relented and waxed into Wickemeyer’s sweaty studio. As Bix Beiderbecke on cornet. Wickemeyer another take with Carmichael’s added notable as Oliver’s band was pianist Jelly afforded the band considerable latitude, piano solo. “Washboard Blues” became Roll Morton, a New Orleans Creole. From allowing them to record “Riverboat another early jazz classic. 1923 to 1924, Wickemeyer waxed fifteen Shuffle,” the first song written by an “Uncle Ez knew he worked with some of Morton’s piano solos. Despite their unknown Indiana University law student big names, but I don’t believe he recog­ modest sales on Gennett, these recordings named Hoagy Carmichael. W ith his hands nized the importance of his work at Gen- have since been transcribed note for note customarily stuck in his front pockets, nett,” said Helmich. That is understand­ and performed worldwide with a reverence Wickemeyer posed for a snapshot with the able, as from 1921 to 1927, Wickemeyer afforded classical music. Also, Wickemeyer Wolverines at a railroad car in the piano recorded obscure musicians o f every genre, recorded Morton with the New Orleans factory. When Hitch’s Happy Harmonist, including some who arrived unannounced, Rhythm Kings in one o f the first integrat­ an Indiana jazz band, recorded in 1925, and their records sold modestly. Even the ed recording sessions. M orton’s sessions Wickemeyer rejected “Washboard Blues” future jazz immortals were still unknown with Chicago’s Doc Cook and his Dream­ because it was twenty seconds short of to the general public. land Orchestra featured Creole cornetist the standard three minutes for 78s. This Also, perhaps it’s hard to imagine pre­ Freddie Keppard, who, like Oliver, was rejection irked Carmichael, the song’s serving history in such a parochial milieu. Wickemeyer never knew a world without Starr Piano. Born in Richmond in 1893, the son o f a German immigrant carpen­ ter, he grew up with his parents and four siblings in his grandmother’s two-story brick house at 300 South Third Street, only twenty-five yards from a steep ridge overlooking the piano factory in Starr Valley. Along the ridge were tracks where he watched for Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad locomotives thundering toward downtown. W hile he never made headlines as a record producer, Wickemeyer did as a twelve-year-old boy in February 1905 after surviving a gas explosion. Newspaper accounts said his mother smelled natural gas in the house and had young Ezra lead

8 | TRACES | Winter 2010 Harry Germett Senior looks on as an unidentified Gennett Record Company employee carefully prepares to use the firm’s recording machine. Although never a huge supporter o f the recording side of the business, Gennett allowed his son, Harry Junior, to prodcue sound-effect records for use by radio stations and film companies until the 1930s.

a repairman to the basement. The man reportedly collapsed from emotion. 7he Helmich, recalled: “ Uncle Ez’s hands were foolishly lit a match, and the blast col­ bom bed-out house attracted hundreds deformed the worse from the burns. He lapsed two exterior brick walls. In flames, o f curiosity seekers. (Rebuilt, it stands had terrible scars on his face. But he sur­ the boy fought his way out. His mother, in today.) “Although suffering intensely, the vived, and it didn’t keep him from being a the kitchen with her four other children, boy [Ezra] displayed nerve and presence real fun character, a real kidder.” led them to safety through a blown-out of mind,” the Richmond Evening Item City directories list the teenage W ick­ wall. The children’s grandmother, in the reported in a banner story on February emeyer as working as a clerk and attending backyard when the explosion occurred, 24. Another Wickemeyer nephew, Robert Richm ond Business College while liv-

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ing at home. He appears as a Starr Piano stenographer (writer o f office shorthand) in 1914. During this era, it seemed every­ body in town (population 25,000) either worked or had friends or relatives who worked in the sawdust in Starr Valley. In fact, Wickemeyer’s uncle and future father- in-law were woodworkers there. After serving in W orld War I, W ick- emeyer resumed his job as a Starr Piano office clerk and married a local woman, Katherine Helmich. The couple moved to a house at 112 South Seventh Street near downtown, and only a half-mile away from the piano factory. By then, the Gen- nett family had expanded into Starr pho­ nographs and their own 78s, first on the “Starr” label, and then “Gennett.” They opened a recording studio in Manhattan, where they waxed most Gennett 78s in The Starr Piano Company became one of east-central Indiana’s leading businesses. During the the first years. They built a second studio early 1920s, the firm produced fifteen thousand pianos, thirty-five thousand phonographs, and in Starr Valley in 1921, and Wickemeyer three million records. became the engineer. Eventually, it served as the label’s main studio. “ Uncle Ez was known as a guy who could put things tiles, the studio was deadened with monk’s top o f the gorge. together, and he set up the Richmond cloth draperies from ceiling to floor. On The recording machine turntable oper­ studio, which got him involved in the one wall hung a Mohawk rug from Starr ated by a cable and pulley system like a recording end,” said Robert, who passed Piano president Harry Gennett’s house. grandfather clock; the center pin on the away in 2008. To improve sound resonance, Wickemeyer turntable was attached to one end o f the The studio was makeshift, just 125 feet simply pulled back the drapes. During cable, which had a large weight on the by thirty feet in size. Adjoining it was a sessions, he flicked on an outside light to other end. W hen the weight was lowered control room where Wickemeyer manned alert the factory, especially the railroad down a shaft, the turntable spun, though the recording machine. A potbelly stove car operators using the secondary spur it could result in inconsistent speeds, kept the musicians warm. To soundproof just outside the studio. His big challenge causing some 78s to waver slightly in the studio, factory sawdust was packed was anticipating noise and vibration from pitch. (W hen the 78s are remastered for between the exterior and interior walls. Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad locomo­ compact discs, the speeds are adjusted.) Plus, without the advantage o f acoustic tives roaring above the studio along the The machine’s cutting stylus, which etched sound vibrations from the horns onto a wax master, was made o f glass, mica, dia­ THE POLISHED WAX DISC, m ond, or sapphire. Wickemeyer brushed powered graphite into the wax grooves to MADE OF CARNAUBA WAX, ensure smooth etching. The polished wax disc, made o f carnauba wax, was about 1.5 WAS ABOUT 1.5 INCHES THICK. inches thick. A persistent rap on Gennett 78s is poor sound quality, generally below the era’s competitors. The blame does not fall on Wickemeyer; the Richmond studio

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was limited, and Gennett pressed with described perspiration “as big as a thumb” cheap shellac materials that created surface falling off Oliver’s band during record­ noise. The late Marion McKay, leader ing. W hen pianist Earl Hines debuted o f a popular regional dance band in the at the Richm ond studio in 1923 with 1920s, later observed that Wickemeyer was Lois Deppe’s Serenaders, band members THE MACHINE’S meticulous and “a good guy to work with. removed their shirts. Summers in the They had plenty of their own problems humid river gorge were typically brutal, CUTTING STYLUS, getting the right sound and balance. You but “ it could be February and still eighty WHICH ETCHED had to be patient sitting through all the to eighty-five degrees in there,” McKay playbacks.” said. In surviving photos inside the studio, SOUND VIBRATIONS Wickemeyer toiled in constant heat the musicians appear to have performed in required in the unventilated studio to keep a sauna. FROM THE HORNS the wax masters soft for etching. Dodds All o f these peculiarities assure Gennett ONTO A WAX MASTER, Records a charmed place in early recording history. However, its Ku Klux Klan discs WAS MADE OF GLASS, still raise eyebrows. It was a cash, custom­ pressing enterprise in a state with the MICA, DIAMOND, nation’s largest klan contingent in the early OR SAPPHIRE. 1920s, and Gennett produced thousands o f 78s for area klaverns, usually featur- WICKEMEYER BRUSHED POWERED GRAPHITE INTO THE WAX GROOVES TO ENSURE SMOOTH ETCHING.

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ing vocalists backed by piano or orchestra tion waned, and the Gennetts singing old hymns with politicized lyrics, focused on “hillbilly” and rural such as “The Bright Fiery Cross” (based gospel performers to fulfill large on “The Old Rugged Cross”). The discs, record production contracts for labeled “ KKK” with a burning cross, never Sears and Roebuck’s discount sold in Gennett catalogs. The Gennett labels, which were sold by family was not involved with the KKK, mail-order catalog. The shift led but Wickemeyer and other Starr Piano Wickemeyer to produce sessions employees were members, according to by rural performers at the genesis IHS documents. While KKK slander in o f country music, including Ken­ 1920s Richmond focused mostly on Jews, tucky’s D oc Roberts, one o f the most Catholics, and immigrants, Wickemeyer’s recorded Appalachian fiddlers in the KKK membership as a producer o f classic 1920s. A company letter in 1926 described African American jazz is ironic, if not Wickemeyer’s numerous struggles install­ startling. ing new electronic recording equipment in Gen nett It is unclear why Wickemeyer left the Gennett studios. Regardless o f the reasons, label ceased firm in 1927 after directing hundreds o f his departure signaled the beginning o f the in 1930, and after recording and pressing sessions. By then the label’s market posi­ end. Crushed by the Great Depression, the discount labels for another four years, the Gennett family abandoned music In addition to record­ recording. ing such jazz greats After leaving Gennett, Wickemeyer as Duke Ellington, briefly worked as a Prudential insurance Jelly Roll Morton, and agent in Richmond. Ever the handyman, Hoagy Carmichael, he and a local storeowner and cigar dis­ Gennett, starting in the 1920s, also tributor named Ed Feltman jointly applied became known for its to the U.S. Patent office in 1928 for their work with old-time invention called the “Glare Eliminator,” country music by such a shading device attached to the rim o f artists as Gene Autry, eyeglasses to remove glare from the sun or the Tweedy Brothers, bright auto headlights. Despite a patent and Bradley Kincaid. award in 1931, their device was never put on the market. The Wickemeyers, who never had children, left town in 1928 for Chicago. Due to the passage o f time and no imme­ diate descendants, details o f their post- Richmond life are scant. Their nephews fondly recalled visiting them in the 1930s in Chicago, where Wickemeyer worked several years for Brunswick, a manufac­ turing conglomerate that also operated a record label. “He always wore a straw hat and was a chain smoker,” said Mel. “ He always took me to the flea markets on Maxwell Street.” The nephews also recall him working in New York for a company engaged in early color film. As part o f the

12 1 TRACES | Winter 2010 JAZZ PIONEER EZRA WICKEMEYER

H job, he photo- borders Cincinnati. Near the end of Gennett 78s, O ff The Record’s producer I graphed fruits Wickemeyers life, the couple resided in David Sagar praised the excellent sound ■ and vegetables in an apartment above a Reading savings and balance, calling Wickemeyer a studio ■ outdoor markets. loan owned by relatives, and he served as engineer “who knew his stuff and obvi­ W In 1942 the custodian. He died there unexpect­ ously spent a good bit of time setting up r the Wickemeyers edly at age sixty-three. He was returned to the band.” moved to Cincin­ Indiana and buried near a large contingent In full agreement is another modern nati, Ohio, where o f Wickemeyers in Richmond’s Lutherania record producer, Charlie Dahan. Based in he found work at the Cemetery, a few miles from Starr Valley. Tennessee, Dahan is a music producer and new, massive manufac­ Katherine was buried next to him in 1981. agent also involved (with producer Mal­ turing complex of WrightA five-paragraph obituary in the Richmond colm Rockwell) in the daunting task o f Aeronautical (today’s site o f Palladium-Item briefly mentioned Wick­ compiling a complete discography o f the GE Aviation), which employed emeyer's studio work for Starr Piano. Gennett label. The Starr Gennett Founda­ almost thirty Ithousand people during Yet that legacy has lived on in new tion in Richmond, which is preserving the World War II and produced piston engines ways. Since the 1950s, the Wickemeyer Starr/Gennett legacy and the Starr Valley for B-17 and B-29 bombers. W hen the name has appeared in fine print as the in the gorge, is financing the discography war ended in 1945, the plant closed, and Gennett producer of any number of project. “It’s hard to imagine the nature Wickemeyer worked for many years in 33-rpm vinyl and CD jazz anthologies. o f Wickemeyers job, this roller-coaster the warehouse o f the Drackett Company, Even fifty years after his death, O ff The ride o f different musical styles and levels a Cincinnati chemical firm that invented Record, a music label that remasters classic o f musicianship,” Dahan said. “Yokels one Drano, Windex, and other consumer 78s, stunned the jazz world by achieving day, King Oliver the next. It was an ‘o f products. unprecedented sound clarity with a CD the moment’ endeavor. The sheer variety Until Wickemeyers death in August compilation of King Oliver’s 78s from and volume o f music that he recorded is 1956, he and his wife lived in the small 1923, including thirteen Gennett sides amazing.” working-class city o f Reading, which engineered by Wickemeyer. Evaluating the As Dahan and Rockwell sift through original Gennett ledgers at Rutgers Uni­ versity and Gennett recording cards at OFF THE RECORD, A MUSIC LABEL THAT Rutgers and at the IHS, the name “Ezra C. A. Wickemeyer” is omnipresent. “ Real REMASTERS CLASSIC 78s, STUNNED THE JAZZ history occurred in that studio in Rich­ m ond,” Dahan said, “and Wickemeyer was WORLD BY ACHIEVING UNPRECEDENTED the one in the middle o f it.” Rick Kennedy is the media manager for SOUND CLARITY WITH A CD COMPILATION OF GE’s aviation division in Cincinnati, Ohio. KING OLIVER’S 78s FROM 1923, INCLUDING He is author o f Jelly Roll, Bix and Hoagy: Gennett Studios and the Birth o f Record­ THIRTEEN GENNETT SIDES ENGINEERED ed Jazz, and coauthor, with Randy McNutt, o f Little Labels Big Sound, both published BY WICKEMEYER. by Indiana University Press. •

FOR FURTHER READING------

Carmichael, Hoagy, with Stephen Longstreet. Sometimes I Wonder. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965. | Gara, Larry. The Baby Dodds Story, as Told to Larry Gara. Los Angeles: Contemporary Press, 1959. | Kennedy, Rick. Jelly Roll, Bix and Hoagy: Gennett Studios and the Birth o f Recorded Jazz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. | Ward, Geoffrey, and Ken Burns. Jazz: A History of America’s Music. New York: Knopf, 2000.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 13 NELSON PRICE

14 | TRACES | Winter 2010 THE SCENE UNFOLDING ON THE FRONT LAWN OF A TWO-STORY, in December 1984. His request to attend SUBURBAN HOUSE IN CICERO,INDIANA, SEEMED SURREAL MICHAEL Western M iddle School in Russiaville, the school to which his Kokom o neighbor­ JACKSON CAME CALLING THAT SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN APRIL 1990, hood was assigned, had been initiated WITH BODYGUARDS AND A CHAUFFEUR IN TOW. WEARING A FEDORA, in the 1985 fall semester.) W hen I met SUNGLASSES, AND A BLACK OVERCOAT, THE KING OF POP WAS ACCOM­ Ryan in his bedroom, he stood four feet, PANIED BY TYCOON DONALD TRUMP WHO ALSO WORE A LONG, DARK eleven inches tall and weighed seventy- OVERCOAT.THE TWO CELEBRITIES AND THEIR ENTOURAGE HURRIED six pounds, making him look more like a INSIDE THE CICERO HOUSE WITHOUT SPEAKING TO THE CROWD ten-year-old boy instead o f an adolescent GATHERED ON THE LAWN. SOON ANOTHER FAMOUS FACE, ROCK STAR who was a few months past his fourteenth birthday. ELTON JOHN, ARRIVED AND JOINED THE OTHERS INDOORS. Other than his short, somewhat frail Witnessing all o f this wheels. The car not only was appearance, everything about Ryan— from on the lawn were dozens o f Ryan’s prized possession, but his slang and his straw-colored bangs to his national news correspondents, it also played a transforma­ com ic books, posters, and love for his dog, autograph seekers, and H oo- tive role in Jeanne’s life, as I Wally— came across as a typical midwest- siers toting video cameras. The learned, and reported to read­ ern adolescent. Later, television analysts group also included Hamilton ers, two years later. credited that “average kid” quality as an Heights High School class­ M y first encounter with explanation for Ryan’s impact. “He could mates o f Ryan W hite, neigh­ Ryan occurred in a different have been my nephew, your son, your kid bors, other Cicero residents, house, a more modest one— a brother, your grandson, your neighbor, or and members o f the local one-story ranch residence in your student,” I recalled for an audience in media, including me, a feature Kokomo, where Ryan had Kokom o years later during a return visit to writer/columnist for the Indianapolis spent most o f his childhood and ado­ speak to an interfaith church group. One Star-News who had been covering Ryan’s lescence. Specifically, I met Ryan in his furnishing in Ryan’s bedroom that seemed crusade as a teenage Acquired Immune bedroom. “This bedroom could belong atypical o f a boy his age caught my writer’s Deficiency Syndrome activist almost since to any thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy,” eye. It was a framed m otto that Ryan had its inception. I thought when I stepped inside it, at posted above his waterbed. It read: “I It is hard to believe that the sur­ Ryan’s invitation, in April 1986. He had Know I’m Somebody . . . ’cuz God Don’t real scene I witnessed on the lawn o f the GI Joes stashed around the room along Make N o Junk.” Cicero house where Ryan spent the last with Spider Man comic books. Draped W hen I showed up in that bedroom years o f his life occurred twenty years ago. across his waterbed was a bedspread with in the Kokom o house so early in Ryan’s He died at age eighteen on Sunday m orn­ a camouflage pattern, which had just crusade to attend school amid his pleas ing, April 8, 1990. Within a few hours become wildly popular. Like bedrooms of for tolerance, newspaper readers in the In­ o f Ryan’s death in the intensive care unit most boys his age, Ryan’s haven was a bit dianapolis area knew very little about him of Riley Hospital for Children in India­ o f a mess. and his mother in Howard County. They napolis (where he had been admitted nine Amid the clutter were photos o f televi­ merely were aware that the Whites were days earlier for a respiratory infection, a sion star Michael J. Fox. I sensed that starting to create a national stir with their complication of AIDS), Jackson, Trump, Ryan identified with him in part because insistence that Ryan be allowed to go to and John arrived in Hamilton County o f his short height. At this point, just as Western M iddle School— more precisely, to express condolences to Ryan’s mother, Ryan was beginning to make headlines, to repeat the seventh grade— even though Jeanne, and his sister, Andrea. Even before he had been sick periodically for most of he had AIDS. Accompanied by a photog­ their arrival, Ryan’s red Mustang— a pres­ his life: first with the hemophilia that was rapher, I arrived at the Whites’ home with ent that Jackson gave him the previous discovered soon after his birth, then with two burning questions that I sensed also summer— had been moved to the front both it and AIDS, which he contracted were on the minds o f many o f my readers. lawn as a makeshift memorial. Flowers, through a blood transfusion to treat the The first: W hy go to school if you have posters, and cards were placed near the hemophilia. (The AIDS diagnosis came a fatal disease? Put another way, if your

TRACES | Winter 2010 I 15 RYAN WHITE

days are numbered, why spend them in interviewed for an unrelated story had a classroom, particularly if many people shared with me: There are no greater age- do not want you there? The second major group conformists than adolescents and question was more for Jeanne: If so many teenagers. Later, while Ryan rearranged people are hostile to you in this com m u­ his GI Joes in his bedroom, Jeanne and I nity, why don’t you move? settled in their living room, and she told “So who, Nelson, will want to buy the me, “ Personally, I would rather have given A ID S House’?” Jeanne instantly replied. it up a long time ago,” referring to the The Whites were working-class people. crusade to allow Ryan in the classroom. “It As she raised Ryan and his younger sister, would have been a lot easier on me, and a Andrea, who was twelve and a sixth grader lot easier on the rest o f the family. . . . But at Western M iddle School at the time o f this is what Ryan wants to do, and I want THERE ARE NO GREATER AGE-GROUP CONFORMISTS THAN ADOLESCENTS AND TEENAGERS.

my first visit, Jeanne held down a factory what he wants.” Underscoring the point, job in Kokomo at Delco Electronics, a she emphasized that any parent o f a child division of General Motors. When I began stricken with a fatal disorder would fight showing up along with other media in ferociously to ensure he was able to spend early 1986, she had been divorced from his days the way he desired. Ryan’s father, Wayne White, for nearly Her reference to “the rest o f the family” eight years. During all o f the events to touched on issues (Andrea’s reaction to her follow, I never met Wayne. He did not brother’s fragile health, and to the inter­ speak in public and never assumed a role national attention focusing on him) that in the controversy surrounding his son’s endeared Jeanne to me. She was almost school attendance. For Ryan White: My painfully open about feeling overwhelmed Own Story, Ryan told coauthor Ann Marie as a parent by the complicated, sibling re­ Cunningham that he and Andrea “didn’t lationship challenges that were playing out see Dad much at all” after their parents’ between her children. Previously, Andrea, honest, this has all been hard for Andrea,” divorce. whose straw-blond hair was fashioned she continued. “ Ryan gets a lot o f mail, Concerning the crusade to attend in bangs like her brother’s, had been the packages, more T-shirts than he could ever school, when 1 asked “why?”— separately, family star. A regional champion in roller wear, T-shirts from [television star] David to both Ryan and to Jeanne— each of skating among her age group, Andrea had Hasselhoff, from Harvard Medical School, them explained that Ryan wanted to live as even competed in national tournaments. from [singer] Ronnie Milsap. Nothing a typical fourteen-year-old, which meant For several years, Ryan had been taken to ever comes for Andrea. She used to get all going to school and hanging out with his so many o f his sister’s meets that he had o f the attention, I mean all o f it, because friends. Instantly, I was reminded about begun to shun them— “and 1 can’t say o f the skating. N ow she gets none o f it. It an insight that psychologists whom I had as I blame him,” Jeanne told me. “I’ll be has really been a big adjustment for her.”

16 | TRACES | Winter 2010 AthcMum

Ryan had been born in Kokomo on by a compromised immune system, the A relaxed Ryan White talks with a group of December 6, 1971. His health caused Whites had to cope with public hostility his new friends in the halls of Hamilton Heights High School in Cicero, Indiana, in immediate concern. “After he was cir­ that took the form o f epithets, placards, January 1987. “I’m just one o f the kids,” cumcised, he bled for three days,” Jeanne and anonymous threats over the phone, White said in testimony before a national told me. “Ryan has less than one percent glares when they entered restaurants, and commission on AIDS, “and all because the clotting factor in his blood, so the doctors vicious, far-fetched rumors. “You know, students at Hamilton Heights High School began labeling him a ‘severe hemophiliac.’ Ryan’s been seen spitting on grapes in gro­ listened to the facts, educated their parents I thought, ‘Please, G od, no, not this.’” cery stores,” a Kokom o resident whispered and themselves, and believed in me.” The worst, o f course, was yet to come. to me in 1986, reflecting the outland­ In addition to the daily challenges caused ish perception that the boy deliberately

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 17 RYAN WHITE

intended to infect others. When Howard County town where the family moved To the extent Ryan embodied cour­ County residents with that attitude toward during the summer of 1987 to a warm age while in Kokom o, he was not alone. the family were interviewed on national greeting. (The Whites eventually could Among those in Kokomo who stood by television newscasts— sometimes with afford to move in part because o f fees paid Ryan was his best friend, a sixth grader placards in their hands, sometimes shout­ by producers of The Ryan White Story, a named Heath, who lived across the street. ing taunts, and often openly rejecting 1989 made-for-television movie. Ryan Ignoring peers who taunted Ryan with an­ assurances from medical experts, including had a cameo role as a hospitalized AIDS tihomosexual slurs (even though they had Indiana Health Commissioner Woodrow patient in the ABC-TV production, which been told he had contracted AIDS from a Myers, about how AIDS was transmitted starred actress Judith Light o f Who’s The blood transfusion), Heath and a few other (and how it was not)— an outpouring o f Boss? fame as Jeanne, and, as Ryan, the friends continued to sleep overnight at the empathy for the Whites was nearly instan­ young actor Lucas Haas, who had won Whites’ house and to swap comic books. taneous. A newsroom colleague o f mine acclaim as an Amish boy in the movie Even Heath, though, was the target o f put it this way, referring to the excuse that Witness.) Was one Hoosier town primar­ cruel taunts for sticking up for Ryan. “It scarce information was available despite ily populated by hostile, suspicious people hurts,” Jeanne told me as she bit her lower the continual, detailed explanations from and the other by tolerant, enlightened lip. “I won’t pretend that it doesn’t.” With so much drama playing out in public, I strived to report fresh, untold aspects o f the story. Sometimes I learned long afterward about episodes involving medical crises that had been kept quiet by the family, even when revealing them would have enhanced Ryan’s image. It turned out that, a few months after my first visit to the Whites’ home in 1986, Ryan’s maternal grandfather, sixty-year-old Tom Hale, had suffered a heart attack. As Hale later explained it to me, he was convinced his famous grandson had saved his life. Although Hale’s wife, Gloria, regu­ larly had cared for Ryan and Andrea while Jeanne worked at Delco, the grandparents were seldom seen on television or quoted in newspapers as the controversy unfolded. That’s because, after Hale retired, they moved to Leesburg, Florida. During a return visit to Howard County, Hale, then age sixty-four, shared details o f his heart attack and his gratitude toward Ryan. “ My son and I had gone out to eat breakfast,” Myers and others: “If these people are ones? O f course not. The American public, Hale told me. “I came home just as I ignorant, it’s because they have chosen including Hoosiers, quickly sensed how was having the attack. W hen I got in the ignorance.” some Howard Courrty residents were com ­ house, I told Gloria, ‘My chest hurts, and It is tempting, but simplistic and ing across on national television with their I’m sweating something fierce. Sweat is somewhat unfair, to draw contrasts be­ taunts and protest signs. People learned pouring o ff o f me.’ Ryan was in the house tween some Kokomo-area residents and from that, even if they would not admit it with us. He spoke up and said, ‘Grandpa, their counterparts in Cicero, the Hamilton out loud, and the level o f tolerance surged, you’re having a heart attack. You get to the a major benefit o f Ryan’s crusade. hospital right now.’”

18 | TRACES I Winter 2010 Left: A photographer for the Indianapolis Star captured White enjoying a comic book in his bedroom at his home in Kokomo during the height of his battle to remain in school. Top and Above: The Childrens Museum o f Indianapolis re-created White’s bedroom at his home in Cicero as part o f its exhibition The Powers o f Children: Making a Difference, examining the lives o f three children who faced great odds during their youth and became heroes. In addition to White, the exhibition explores the stories o f Anne Frank and the Holocaust and Ruby Bridges and the civil rights movement.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 19 A sea o f microphones and reporters surround White during a press conference following a talk he gave at a religion class at Father Edward J. Flanagan’s Boys Town in Nebraska.

Because o f Ryan’s lifelong struggles a puppy. As was typical regarding her son’s Indiana University Natatorium, topped with hemophilia— followed by (and cou­ wishes, Jeanne capitulated, and the dog, by the diving competition at the same pled with) the major challenges associated Wally, was the result. (The Whites also had venue during the evening— I found myself with AIDS— much o f his young life had a cat, Chi Chi.) Here was Ryan’s explana­ briefly detached from developments in the been spent in hospitals. By any reckoning, tion, delivered in his typical, straightfor­ Ryan White saga. Suddenly, I encountered he was wise beyond his years about medi­ ward manner: “It’s my life, and I want a the family on the Natatorium pool deck. cal problems. “ If he had not been there, pup. I want a pup that likes no one but That’s because the star o f the Pan Am I would have shrugged o ff those pains,” me. Games, double gold medalist Greg Louga- Hale said. “I might not be here today.” Although he typically displayed a nis, who is still regarded as the world’s best This did not mean that frail, deter­ resilient, almost steely, attitude in my pres­ competitive diver in history, had joined mined Ryan always followed his doctors ence, Ryan could not always conceal his the celebrities supporting Ryan. orders. In fact, as I regularly reported, he delicate health. In August 1987 Indianap­ In emotion-packed moments on two often ignored them. Medical experts at olis hosted the Pan American Games. A evenings after the medal ceremonies ended Riley Hospital for Children had instructed lifelong Olympics enthusiast, I successfully and the public filed out, Louganis gave the Whites not to own pets; they feared lobbied my editors to let me cover two of his gold medals to Ryan, whose appear­ animals in the house could spread diseases the marquee sports, swimming and diving. ance startled me in several ways. During or infections that would be life threatening Consumed by reporting on the buildup to the intervening months since I had seen to Ryan, with his compromised immune the international competition— then by him, he had become much more fragile. system. Ryan, though, insisted on having covering swimming during the day at the The contrast on the pool deck, and in

20 | TRACES | Winter 2010 RYAN WHITE

photos that appeared nationally, between at the Pan Am competition, with Ryan ex­ Taj Mahal, when the reclusive pop stair the muscular, bronzed athlete (Louganis is pressing his admiration for Louganis, who learned o f Ryan’s death. Trump offered o f Samoan heritage) and the pale, scrawny achieved a stunning array o f perfect scores Jackson the use o f his private plane; the teenager with droopy eyelids was so stark from judges and surpassed his own record pop singer, in turn, asked the tycoon to that it was unsettling. (Eight years later, point totals from the previous games. accompany him to Indiana to “comfort long after Ryan’s death, Louganis revealed The champion diver, though, continually him” en route, a spokesman for Jackson that he was H IV positive.) emphasized that he had been inspired by explained to me. (I remember being In catching up with the Whites, I the young Hoosier with AIDS. “Ryan’s got astounded that anyone would turn for learned that Ryan was taking the drug a lot o f strength,” Louganis said. “ I have a comfort to Trump, whose public image „ AZT, which had prolonged the lives lot o f things to learn from him.” certainly was not associated with sponta­ o f some AIDS patients. I also learned Louganis, Jackson, and several other neous compassion.) that Andrea had performed with other celebrities continually extended support to Others who gathered on the front lawn roller skaters— as well as dozens o f other the W hite family. Other famous figures, included Hamilton Heights High School athletes, dancers, and musicians— in the including Trump, were more tangential students and recent graduates. Some Pan Am Games’ opening ceremony at the figures. I was perplexed when the business told me they were in Ryan’s accounting Indianapolis M otor Speedway. I had at­ tycoon, who had not been associated with or Spanish classes. Others worked with tended the ceremony, but had not noticed Ryan’s crusade to attend school, arrived him on the yearbook staff, where he was Andrea among the performers at the race with Jackson in Cicero on the morning of a copy editor. “We were educated about track. Jeanne’s experience was poignant. his death. After questioning the celebri­ AIDS by the time Ryan got here,” Bob “ Ryan and I didn’t get to see her,” she ties’ entourage, I learned that Jackson had Linville, the student photographer for the told me. “W e were caught in traffic.” The been in Atlantic City, New Jersey, visiting yearbook, told me. “ He was regarded as a W hite family became a frequent presence Trump’s new resort hotel and casino, the nice guy.” Several classmates indicated that because o f Ryan’s perpetual health prob­ White leaned on his mother, Jeanne, for lems, he was absent more frequently than support during the he attended classes. Explaining that they controversy about immediately wanted to express sympathy his illness. “AIDS can and admiration on that Sunday morning, destroy a family if you several teenagers showed up directly from let it," White noted, church services— in many cases, that’s “but luckily for my sister and me, mom where they learned about Ryan’s death— taught us to keep go­ and placed flowers or cards in front o f the ing. Don’t give up, be Mustang. proud o f who you are, The crowd included a thirty-four- and never feel sorry year-old Cicero man who lived three for yourself.” doors away from the Whites, and whose friendship with Ryan was sparked by the Mustang. Roy Ginder, a mechanic who worked at a Carmel body shop, also was becoming a source o f com fort for Jeanne, although their slowly evolving relationship did not become romantic or even public knowledge for another tVvo years. O n the Sunday o f Ryan’s death in 1990, Ginder, a single father o f three children who became

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 21 Elton John keeps vigil with Jeanne White at the bedside o f Ryan White during his final illness at the Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, where he 'died on April 8,1990. John would go on to perform at White’s funeral ceremony.

friends with Andrea as well as Ryan, did an AIDS fund-raiser in Indianapolis. So not stand out among the neighborhood began a courtship that I documented in a well-wishers. Even so, I quoted Ginder newspaper story headlined “Ryan’s Mother in my news story about the media frenzy to Re-Wed” that appeared in advance o f because the mechanic, a quiet man who the couple’s wedding in August 1992. A spent his spare time tinkering with classic couple o f months later, Jackson released a cars, came across with simple eloquence. much-anticipated new album that in­ White’s story captured nationwide media “ I hope my kids grow up to be like cluded a song about Ryan, titled “Gone attention. He told his story on such television Ryan— honest and decent,” Ginder said. Too Soon.” programs as Nightline, Today, Phil Donahue, “We’ve lost a good friend. We’ve lost a By then, Jeanne had been transformed Sally Jessy Raphael, West 57th, Good from a factory worker into an interna­ Morning America, and Prime Time Live. good neighbor.” He also appeared on the cover o f People It turned out that Ginder owned a tional advocate for AIDS research and magazine three times, the last for an article restored 1957 Chevrolet. The vintage funding. W ithin two years o f Ryan’s death, detailing his final illness and death. car had caught Ryan’s eye; he asked his she had testified before the U.S. Congress neighbor to help him customize his twice, been named to the board that over­ Mustang, beginning a friendship between sees the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and trav­ them. After Ryan’s death, Andrea urged eled across the country speaking to groups her mother to ask Ginder to escort her to ranging from surgeons, parents, and col­

22 | TRACES | Winter 2010 RYAN WHITE

lege faculty members to elementary school him a convoluted question with multiple Ryan W hite’s story, though, also is about students. After their marriage, Jeanne and parts that didn’t make a lot o f sense and second chances. It demonstrated that Roy delayed a honeym oon so she could ended with something like, ‘So how do many people can be welcoming and sup­ speak in Copenhagen, Denmark, at an you respond to people who criticize you?’ portive— and their capacity for tolerance international conference about AIDS. Ryan thought for a moment. Then he said, can expand when they are enlightened. The couple began spending more time ‘I just want to tell everyone something. Nelson Price is the author o f several in Florida, eventually settling there. Jeanne Please don’t hate us.’” books, including Indiana Legends: Famous is occasionally in the national news, such That was an example o f Ryan’s un­ Hoosiers from Johnny Appleseed to David as in October 2009 when President Barak canny skill at zoom ing to the core o f an Letterman, Legendary Hoosiers, and In­ Obama invited her to a ceremonial signing issue with plain, powerful words. Both dianapolis Then and Now. A former feature at the W hite House. W ith Jeanne at his press conferences, separated by more than writer and columnist fo r the Indianapolis side, Obama signed the Ryan W hite H IV / twenty years, involved references to the Star, he is the host o f Hoosier History Live! AIDS Treatment Extension Act o f 2009, panic, intolerance, and unwarranted anger on WICR-FM (88.7) at 11:30 a.m. every a federal program providing assistance to that consume some people during a crisis. Saturday. • low-income people with HIV or AIDS. “It would have been easy for Ryan and his family to stay quiet and fight the illness in private,” Obama told those assembled for the event, including a bipartisan group o f congressional leaders. “ But what Ryan showed was the same courage and strength that so many HIV-positive activists have shown over the years.” In following the news about that press conference, I recalled another, long-ago media event, this one described by M y­ ers, the state health commissioner during Ryan’s years in the spotlight. The press conference occurred in the library at Hamilton Heights High School in 1987 following a ceremony during which Gov­ ernor Robert Orr honored the teenager with the state’s Sagamore o f the Wabash award. “ Ryan was comfortable with the President Barack Obama signs the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act o f2009 local reporters, but there were out-of- surrounded by members of Congress and Jeanne White (right) on October 30, 2009, in the towners who asked some hostile, compli­ Diplomatic Room o f the White House. The act is the largest federally funded program for people cated, and absurd questions,” Myers told living with HIV/AIDS in the United States. me after Ryan’s death. “ One reporter asked

FOR FURTHER READING------

Louganis, Greg, with Eric Marcus. Breaking the Surface. New York: Random House, 1995. | Price, Nelson. Indiana Legends: Famous Hoosiers from Johnny Appleseed to David Letterman. Indianapolis: Emmis Books, 2005. | White, Ryan, and Ann Marie Cunningham. Ryan White: My Own Story. New York: Dial Books, 1991.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 23 AFRICAN AMERICANS a n d t h

JASON S. LANTZER

BY 1920 THE DRY CRUSADE-A DECADES-LONG REFORM THE WORLD.THEIR RHETORIC CLAIMED THAT PROHIBITION WOULD

MOVEMENT CENTERED ON THE PROHIBITION OF ALCOHOL-HAD HELP FAMILIES, BENEFIT ALL AMERICANS REGARDLESS OF RACE,

SEEMINGLY TRIUMPHED IN INDIANA AND ACROSS THE NATION. AND IT WAS SOMETHING THAT ALL CHRISTIANS COULD AGREE ON

A COALITION CONSISTING OF EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT AND SUPPORT.THEIR MESSAGE ATTEMPTED TO RALLY FAMILIES,

CHURCHES, BUSINESS OWNERS, AND POLITICIANS HAD RALUED AFRICAN AMERICANS, AND CATHOLICS TO THE CAUSE.THE COALI­

TO THE BANNER OF REFORM. DRY CULTURE’S VICTORIOUS TION THAT PASSED PROHIBITION INTO LAW WAS FORGED IN SUCH

COALITION, HOWEVER, WAS LARGER THAN THOSE CONSTITUEN­ INCLUSIVE RHETORIC. HOW THE RHETORIC STOOD THE TEST OF

CIES. DRYS BELIEVED THAT PROHIBITION WAS GOING TO BE A REALITY HAD IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES FOR THE FUTURE OF

FORCE OF SOCIAL UPLIFT IN THE UNITED STATES AND AROUND BOTH DRY CULTURE AND PROHIBITION AS A REFORM.

24 | TRACES | Winter 2010 DRY CRUSADE in INDIANA

Perhaps the clearest example o f the to achieve respectability and equality with nations, believed that whites needed to up­ mismatch between dry rhetoric and reality white America. lift the nation’s blacks by giving them the can be seen in the case o f African Ameri­ Blacks and whites had different goals gift of Prohibition. But notions of uplift cans, whom drys courted as the cause for the dry cause. African Americans be­ were also tinged with racism. The Patriot matured. Considering that the vast major­ lieved that they could use the dry agenda Phalanx, organ o f the Prohibition Party ity o f blacks were members o f evangelical to further racial equality on their own in Indiana, believed that “The strongest Protestant denominations, it seemed likely terms. By openly supporting the Eigh­ argument in favor o f prohibition is the that they would be a part o f dry culture. teenth Amendment, they hoped to build imperative necessity o f keeping whisky out As Anne Firor Scott has noted, “the momentum for the Fourteenth and Fif­ o f the reckless, colored, element.” H oo- church was so central an institution in the teenth amendments. The quest for black sier wets, on the other hand, argued that emerging black communities that there respectability often clashed with white Prohibition in the South led to increased was never a clear line between church- paternalism, racism, and awkward steps to­ racial tensions because African Americans related and secular associations.” Support ward equality that transcended the wet/dry were unable to control themselves when o f the order brought by Prohibition was divide. Northern Methodism, like most alcohol was illegal. The Reverend Edward seen by many African Americans as a way other white evangelical Protestant denom i­ S. Shumaker, who led the Indiana Anti-

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 25 BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES

Saloon League from 1907 until his death The idea o f accommodating a degree “separate but equal” temperance societies in 1929, had his thoughts on race molded o f white prejudice in order to achieve and accommodationist thought rather by these notions and was not unlike most respectability was advanced by Booker T. than challenge it. As the Reverend B. F. white Hoosiers who had little or no direct Washington. The Wizard o f Tuskegee was Riley, a white Southern Baptist who contact with African Americans. quick to make the connection between served as the general superintendent o f the Ultimately dry culture’s stance on alcohol as a means o f keeping blacks in a Southern Negro Anti-Saloon Federation, blacks and Prohibition was created in degraded state (as well as a state o f danger) told Ernest H. Cherrington o f the national the South, not the North, because that is and Prohibition as a means to uplift the ASL in 1909, his group was a needed where the majority o f African Americans entire race, seeing the dry cause as “es­ “supplemental force” that could do things still resided in the early twentieth century. sentially a moral movement.” He believed “in the South which could not be so easily White southerners had long worried about that the “miraculous sweep o f temperance done” by the ASL. blacks and alcohol. In the antebellum sentiment throughout the South” was “a Some black drys attempted to convince period, temperance had been a virtue for long forward step in the working out o f the ASL to fight for a more integrated whites and a requirement for slaves. After our racial problem,” because “when you approach. The National Baptist Conven­ the Civil War and Reconstruction, that mix ignorance and bad whiskey, you will tion begged the ASL in 1925 to take up virtue became a “moral crusade,” heav­ be sure to have a difficulty, whether the in­ the cause o f African Americans. D octor ily influenced by the emerging Jim Crow dividuals are black or white.” Washington L. G. Jordan, the denomination’s histo­ order. Prohibition sentiment advanced in became a vocal advocate for the dry cause, rian, wrote to F. Scott McBride before the the South due to the racial fears o f whites. arguing the benefits that blacks could reap league’s national convention pleading that: Blacks, it was argued in the wake o f such where Prohibition laws were passed and “I truly hope that the League will not events as the 1906 Atlanta riot, turned enforced. He believed temperance was the adjourn without planning for work among violent when they drank, and so both best thing to happen to blacks since eman­ Negroes in a greater or less degree, for I alcohol and African Americans needed to cipation and linked dry laws in the South am anxious as to the future o f my people, be tightly controlled. to a decrease in lynching. especially in the large centers, who are Many blacks responded to these atti­ In their quest for respectability, African left with no moral suasion or temper­ tudes by claiming the promise o f respect­ Americans developed a complicated rela­ ance agitation, absolutely at the mercy of ability that came with dry culture, while tionship with the ASL. In many respects, the moonshiners and bootleggers. Com­ ignoring the racist rationale some whites the league was a product o f the same munists are untiring in their efforts to used to justify Prohibition. Adherents to midwestern evangelical Protestantism that spread ‘Red’ propaganda among us and this duel approach argued that doing so a generation or two before had supported law-breakers, sad to say, are finding apt was the only way they could work with the antislavery crusade and the efforts o f pupils. In my judgment, a department of “the best element o f the educated and Radical Republicans during Reconstruc­ your work should be organized to offset church-going white people” in a common tion. However, as the ASL moved into the these growing evils. I do not know to cause. Blacks in the South were told by South, where it found new fields for its whom to apply, or whom to address, but I their ministers and leaders “that in the message and both white and black sup­ believe that with the backing o f the League death o f the liquor traffic the day is at porters, its northern leadership was forced I could organize and educate the Negro hand when the Negro shall find an exalted to consider race and reform. In order to so that he will be a helpful asset to you, plane socially, morally and politically” in get the support o f most southern whites, where he is now a most dangerous menace the United States. the ASL opted to accept the emergence o f to our cause.” In a later letter, calling work with Afri­ can Americans a “neglected field,” Jordan “I THINK IT HIGHLY IMPORTANT THAT THE made the case that “the Negro should not ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE SECURE A STRONG, CAPABLE, be conceded to the liquor people without a vigorous protest.” The Reverend A. J. RELIABLE NEGRO LEADER AND PUT HIM AFIELD TO Barton, who was chairman o f the ASL’s national executive committee, supported REPRESENT THE LEAGUE AMONG THE NEGROES” Jordan, writing to Cherrington in January

26 | TRACES | Winter 2010 Recognized in his lifetime as the foremost black educator in the country, Booker T. Washington preached self-reliance based on hard work for African Americans. “There was no period o f my life that was devoted to play,” Washington once wrote. “From the time that I can remember anything, almost everyday o f my life has been occupied in some kind o f labor.”

1926: “ I think it highly important that throughout the nineteenth and early if the column was intended to reach out the Anti-Saloon League secure a strong, twentieth centuries. Readers o f the state’s to blacks in a misguided attempt to talk capable, reliable Negro leader and put Republican newspapers were confronted down to them, or if it was a way to show him afield to represent the League among with stories about lynching and African readers that even an ignorant black man the Negroes. I do not believe there is any American disenfranchisement. But while knew that the Prohibition Party was the more constructive piece o f work that we these stories condemned what was hap­ only way to achieve temperance. could do.” Cherrington told Barton to go pening in the South, they also used words For Hoosiers in communities with ahead and start work on getting an African such as “fiendish” and “brutal” to describe long-standing ties to African Americans, American program together; however, African Americans accused o f crimes, and relationships could be different. There was he warned him that there would be little blacks were said to be o f “an inferior race” pride in the Civil War and in what the financial support from the national office. with “a savage element” in their nature as North had stood for, and sometimes it still Many white northerners liked to view well as overly “superstitious.” The Patriot found expression. W hen Prohibition Party the nation’s race issues as a “southern Phalanx ran a column entitled “Uncle member Albert Carter, “a colored farmer problem.” W hile there was a sense among Zimri.” The drawing o f the supposed living near Westfield,” was denied the use Hoosier whites that conditions for blacks author was o f an elderly African American o f an elevator at the Claypool Hotel in were not good in the South, black mi­ man, whose “unlearned” English pushed Indianapolis during a party meeting, white gration to the state was a touchy subject a pro-Prohibition message. It is unclear members snuck him in and the meeting

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 27 BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES

passed a resolution condemning the hotel. This type o f reaction was more exception than rule, however. As blacks began to leave the South in large numbers in search o f more oppor­ tunity in the North, white attitudes were further tested. “The Great Migration,” according to historian James Grossman, “turned the attention of thousands of black southerners toward a northern industrial world previously marginal to their consciousness.” They saw the North as a place where they could enjoy a better life. W hile Indiana did not receive as many African Americans as neighboring states during the migration, the black population nearly doubled between 1910 and 1930, with most o f the new arrivals settling in cities such as Indianapolis and Gary. Black Hoosiers whose families had come to Indiana before the Civil War In 1925 the Reverend Edward S. Shumaker was able to persuade the Indiana legislature to pass hoped to see African Americans in the a bill strengthening the state’s Prohibition stand. Known as the bone-dry law, the measure South benefit by com ing North, trans­ provided stiff penalties against possessing liquor, including a $100 fine and thirty days o f jail forming these “Jim Crow Negroes” into time for first offenders. productive members o f society and thus showing whites that “race prejudice is the in the black community. As the India­ able to accomplish something together as most foolish thing in the world.” To those napolis Recorder, the leading black-owned the state was a blend o f North and South. ends, black ministers railed about saloons newspaper in the state, pointed out, “race The Indiana Woman’s Christian Temper­ and vice from their pulpits as strongly prejudice [was] a valuable commercial ance Union had a long history o f outreach as their white counterparts. Indeed, the asset” for African Americans who wanted to blacks, dating from the 1880s, with National Baptist Convention, the home to operate a business. Ads for saloons often African American associations in India­ denomination for the vast majority o f appeared in the paper. W ith pool tables, napolis, Seymour, Franklin, New Albany, African American Baptists, had supported tobacco products, and food they were Richmond, Greenfield, and Plainfield. The dry work since the 1890s, with Hoosiers just as active in seeking customers as their state’s white Baptists believed blacks could often sitting on the denomination’s tem­ white counterparts. But black-owned clubs both carry the South for Prohibition as perance committee. The body condemned were also the places whites liked to use well as aid in making the North dry. As the liquor traffic in the same terms as to demonstrate their zeal for law enforce­ for the IASL, state superintendent U. G. their white brethren, equating the sale and ment. In 1907 Evansville police raided a Humphrey had made it a point to speak consumption o f alcohol with sin. Black “stylish Negro club” because they alleged it at African American churches. Records Baptists were also called on to vote dry was an illegal “blind tiger,” an unlicensed indicate that he spoke at several African and rejoiced with other drys over the com­ saloon. In 1908, tinder the same false pre­ Methodist Episcopal churches. Blacks were ing of national Prohibition, believing that tense, a black-owned hotel in West Baden a part o f dry rally events at the Proctor it would create better social conditions for was dynamited. W hite-owned clubs rarely Law battles, during the push for statewide all Americans. faced similar official or unofficial harass­ Prohibition. African American drys heard Despite the fact that drinking was a ment. speakers claim that saloons were a bigger problem for some African Americans, Indiana held possibility for dry culture problem for blacks in 1916 than slavery saloons played an important economic role as a place where the two races might be had ever been, and during the 1920s the

28 | TRACES | Winter 2010 BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES

league could count on help from the state’s progress on the liquor problem could be the white man and the colored man. The black Baptists. expected if Democrats and their brewer organization o f a colored league in Indiana As for Shumaker’s stance on race, he allies won. to oppose the traffic is a source o f congrat­ left scant record o f his personal opinions Having set the stage, Shumaker ulation to all citizens who have the good about African Americans, with the excep­ made a bold move. In August 1908 the o f the colored race at heart.” tion o f a single page o f his unfinished au­ Recorder ran a notice from the National As quickly as it appeared, the CASLI tobiography. While discussing his time as Colored Temperance Teague saying that vanished from the historical record, per­ a student at DePauw University, he wrote “the churches and church auxiliaries o f haps a victim o f Republican gubernatorial that he was “frequently in tears” while the state” had been encouraged to send candidate James Watson’s defeat at the reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “Since then I delegates to a temperance convention to hands o f his Democratic rival, Thomas never could look with anything else than a be held at Indianapolis’s Jones Tabernacle Marshall. The CASLI was an opportunity spirit o f Christ likeness toward the Negro.” African Methodist Episcopal Zion in for the IASL to demonstrate, within the W hile it is hard to say what he meant by September. The city’s Interdenomina­ racial confines o f the time, real leadership. this, he did take one dramatic step during tional Meeting o f Ministers endorsed the While Shumaker and the IASL made his tenure as leader o f the IASL that is meeting, which ultimately produced the moves toward a more inclusive movement worth noting. Colored Anti-Saloon League o f Indiana. in 1908, those efforts were not sustained Shumaker’s overture to African Ameri­ While Shumaker and the Reverend D. F. in the years after. Like the national league cans came about because o f the 1908 W hite addressed the meeting, it was Indi­ that cited regional and econom ic reasons, election and the debate over a county- ana Attorney General James Bingham who the IASL settled back into more familiar option law. The law was designed to gave the keynote speech on the subject of patterns o f advocacy and away from the circumvent concentrations of wet voters in “temperance and good citizenship.” He color line. By not growing the league when cities and towns by including rural voters urged the passing o f county option and it had the chance, however, white drys (who tended to support Prohibition). The said, “ Drink unfits the poor and the rich, were to find themselves very lonely when Recorder, which had strong ties to the state repeal came in 1933. The end o f the dry GOP, was open to the LASL’s agenda. The crusade, with the passage o f the Twenty- paper reprinted the league’s survey o f can­ first Amendment, illustrated what a missed didates for the 1908 election in which the opportunity the previous years had been to majority o f Democrats refused to answer both white and black drys. Like so many where they stood on temperance, while other things in American society, racism all the Republicans voiced support for eventually deprived the dry movement the party’s county-option plan. The paper from being its fullest and dry rhetoric editorialized “Indiana’s temperance hosts about uplift largely contributed to the know that those not with them are against segregated status quo. them,” and it took special aim at Thomas Jason S. Lantzer is an adjunct profes­ Taggart and the Democratic machine. sor o f history at Indiana University—Pur­ African Americans were warned that no due University at Indianapolis and Butler University. Much o f the information fo r this A double portrait o f Shumaker to mark article comes from his book, “Prohibition his graduation from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, in 1895. The college was Is Here to Stay”: The Reverend Edward founded in 1837 and originally named Indiana S. Shumaker and the Dry Crusade in Asbury University in honor o f Francis Asbury, America, published by the University o f the first American bishop o f the Methodist Notre Dame Press in 2009. • Episcopal Church.

FOR FURTHER READING ------

Lewis, David Levering. W E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000. | Rael, Patrick. Black Identity and Black Protest in the Antebellum North. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. | Ihornbrough, Emma Lou. Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 29

BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES

EVERYDAY PEOPLE Mattie Coney and the Citizens Forum

WILMA L. MOORE

I first met Mattie Coney in 1981. in first grade, I presented her a detailed to instill a sense o f responsibility, pride, After the Flanner House Library opened, account o f the day’s activities capping it and good conduct and citizenship. Mattie, she called to ask if I, as branch manager, with “Mrs. Coney said I have good a retired schoolteacher, became the group’s would speak at a neighborhood meeting diction.” executive director. Her husband, Elmo, hosted by Citizens Forum. She wanted W hile growing up on the near west was the project director. The Coneys pro­ me to talk to the group about the new side o f Indianapolis, I do not recall know­ vided the organization with the guidance branch— what kind o f materials we of­ ing o f Coney or Citizens Forum. At that and impetus needed to insure its success fered, our hours, and the rarity o f a branch meeting in 1981, I considered that the for twenty years. o f the Indianapolis-Marion County Public organization espoused some o f the same As a grassroots neighborhood rehabili­ Library being located in a social-service ideas that were part o f the annual “ Clean­ tation self-help program, Citizens Forum agency. Coney had a pleasant-sounding up, Fix-up, and Paint-up” campaign that I aided in the formation o f block clubs that voice and she seemed genuinely pleased remembered as a young school child dur­ were the core o f the organization. Through when I readily agreed to the first o f several ing the late 1950s or early 1960s. Every these block clubs various programs were dates that she suggested. spring, families were encouraged to repair, executed, including the following: De- I went to the meeting. My recollec­ clean, and beautify their homes and yards. RAT-ification Campaign, Dogw ood Tree tion is that along with Coney, John Hall, Like patriotism, this was understood to be Caravan, Beautification Awards, Concerts a representative from Richard Lugar’s U.S. a vertebra o f good citizenship. in the Parks, Adopt-A-Park, and Rake- Senate office, and several people from A-Thons. The Helping Hand Program, Historical Sketch (by Sally Childs- various neighborhood associations were in begun in 1973, was the most widely Helton) attendance. I spoke briefly to the group. successful program, spreading to other In­ Citizens Forum was founded in Coney asked me whether I had attended diana cities and towns and other states. It Indianapolis in the fall o f 1964 by Mattie elementary school locally and which provided “safe” houses in an emergency for Coney. It began as a citizens’ group that school it was. I felt extremely proud when children on their way to and from school, organized for the purpose o f getting an the retired schoolteacher told me that my and for adults as well. open-housing ordinance passed. Origi­ diction was good. This was high praise The organization also provided a major nating as a “Better Neighbor Program,” for me— a person who had grown up in a service to its constituent block clubs by Citizens Forum expanded into an interra­ family that revered education and teachers. providing a channel through which com­ cial, interfaith, nonpolitical organization. When I got home, I immediately tele­ plaints about neighborhood health and Its goals included improved health, safety, phoned my mother. As I would have done safety issues could be passed on to the ap­ and beauty of neighborhoods, and sought propriate city authorities. The Complaint Assistance/Referral Program aided many Opposite: Mattie Coney’s work won praise from establishment figures such as President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who wrote and told her “not only have I been impressed by your common sense block clubs in gaining improved services philosophy, but even more by the patriotism, energy and organizing ability that are so evident from public agencies. in the record you have made.”

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 31 BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES

Citizens Forum provided community education on a variety o f topics, includ­ ing home and neighborhood health and safety. Through newsletters, newspaper articles, the Citizens Forum Says weekly television programs, and speeches to block clubs, churches, schools, civic and labor groups, and other organizations, Citizens Forum spread its campaigns and programs throughout Indianapolis and beyond. Mattie and Elmo, along with Citizens Forum, gained nationwide attention and received numerous local, state, and nation­ al awards for excellence. Other large cities, including Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, New Orleans, and Washington, D .C ., all began programs patterned after Citizens Forum. Citizens Forum disbanded in 1984 Lady Bird Johnson, the wife o f former President Lyndon B. Johnson, presents Coney with a Keep because o f financial difficulties It was not America Beautiful award in 1969. Formed in 1953 by a combination o f business leaders, continued after the death o f Elmo and the nonprofit groups, and concerned citizens, the Keep America Beautiful organization worked to failing health o f Mattie. reduce litter throughout the country.

The Citizens Forum collection (M from the many people who responded to assessments o f problems and credit the 425) at the Indiana H istorical Society’s the article are in the organizations files. efforts o f Citizens Forum for solutions. William Henry Smith Memorial Library Coney regularly received kudos for her In a 1976 letter to Ford, she said that contains records o f the organization in­ efforts from business leaders, politicians, Indianapolis did not have a riot or burning cluding incorporation papers, constitution and concerned citizens. The collection during the sixties because her organization and bylaws, financial reports, minutes and includes letters from everyday people and had formed thousands o f block clubs “in meeting agendas, and feasibility studies; such prominent names as Lugar, Birch which neighbors talk to neighbors about correspondence; block club materials; and Bayh, Gerald Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, what they can do in a responsible way to printed items depicting some o f the varied and Eli Lilly. discourage vandalism, arson and general programs o f the agency. The collection Coney and the organization received destruction.” materials provide a detailed picture o f the extensive coverage from local and na­ Coney, in her signature large, stylish activities and programs o f the organization tional media. She appeared on radio and hats became synonymous with the organi­ and hints at the energy o f its leaders and television shows including the nationally zation for which she led, lobbied, and ad­ workers. popular Mike Douglas Show and the Today vocated. Citizens Forum built and fostered The collection suggests that Mattie Show. The group’s work was the subject alliances, resolved neighborhood problems initially tried to organize Citizens Forum o f numerous articles in Indianapolis and and issues, and identified opportunities to in 1962. An article about the organization other cities’ newspapers and Time, U.S. enhance neighborhoods. appears in the Indianapolis Star on August News and World Report, Grit, and Good Wilma Moore is senior archivist, African 9, 1964, and subsequent correspondence Housekeeping magazines. American history, fo r the IHS’s William demonstrates that this second attempt Coney was quick to give simplistic Henry Smith Memorial Library. • to organize the group galvanized support and built up momentum and Citizens Forum was born. The article identified the Opposite: Chester Little (front), Elmo Coney (left), and other members o f a Citizens Forum block club help to clean litter from an Indianapolis neighborhood as part o f a spruce-up campaign at mission and goals o f the program. Letters Twenty-second and Illinois streets. Inset: Citizens Forum used such promotional items as buttons and flyers to help promote its Helping Hand and De-RATification programs.

32 | TRACES | Winter 2010 TRACES | Winter 2010 | 33 LUCY HIGGS NICHOLS From Slave to Civil War Nurse of the Twenty-third Indiana Regiment

PAMELA R. PETERS, CURTIS H. PETERS, AND VICTOR C. MEGENITY

34 | TRACES I Winter 2010 BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES

It is a compelling story, and it is all THE COURT RECORDS DELINEATED THE the more compelling because it grew out o f a research quest yielding treasures LEGAL DIVISION OF SLAVES IN 1861 BETWEEN when one might expect that there was no information available. The story o f Lucy THETWO CHILDREN.IN THE DOCUMENT, Higgs Nichols is an inspiring account o f a woman who overcame many odds to move NICHOLS AND CHILD WERE VALUED AT $1,400. from being shuffled about by several slave owners to becoming a valued participant a reunion o f the Twenty-third Indiana were an 1849 inventory o f slaves belonging during the Civil War. After the war, she Volunteer Infantry Regiment; it is the only to Wineford Amanda Higgs, Yalobusha moved to New Albany, Indiana, the home known picture o f her. Fellow historian County, Mississippi, and an 1860 petition o f many o f the soldiers with whom she Richard Eastridge learned from his grand­ to divide slaves between Wyly and Pru­ had served and became an honored citizen. father that Nichols annually made the dence Higgs. Nichols was listed by name This story is encouraging to anyone who fifty-mile train trip to English, Indiana, for on both documents. has ever been told that a research project the reunion. Mary Stauble, a local genealo­ We decided we needed to go to Mis­ is hopeless and that there are “no reliable gist, corroborated this story. sissippi, so in August we took another trip sources.” In 2008 Vic Megenity, a local historian to Coffeeville, one of two county seats of Before telling Nichols’s story, let us and retired history teacher, found N ich­ Yalobusha County. The county historian, share a few details o f our search— infor­ ols’s name while doing research to save Mike Worsham, showed us several docu­ mation that we have gathered primarily the historic Floyd County Hom e. He also ments in the courthouse, one o f which in the last two years. In 1995 while doing unearthed material detailing the successful from the 1840s still had the wax seal research for her book, The Underground quest that several veterans pursued to get intact. We were again amazed that several Railroad in Floyd County, Indiana, Pam her a military pension. of the documents mentioned Nichols by Peters interviewed Pearl Kimbrough, an Working together, we decided that the name. One gave the cost o f transporting elderly African American, who told her interesting story required a trip to Bolivar, her and other slaves from Bolivar to Cof­ about Nichols. Kimbrough said that an Tennessee, in search o f details regard­ feeville in 1846. Using the information enslaved Nichols had escaped from her ing the “Lucy story.” We easily recruited from the documents, we were able to find owners near Bolivar, Tennessee, joined Peters’s husband, Curt, a person who loves and visit the beautiful rolling hills and up with a Union military regiment, and adventure and uncovering the unknown, property where Nichols lived while in Mis­ served as a nurse in the Civil War. After into our team effort. So in May 2009 the sissippi. the war, Nichols was invited by the sol­ three o f us headed to Bolivar, an interest­ Heading north, we stopped near diers to settle in their hometown. She was ing county seat about sixty miles east o f Bolivar, Tennessee, and with the help o f made an honorary member o f the Grand Memphis. W e stayed in the house that Robert Harrolson, a retired teacher and Army o f the Republic, and she rode at William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses local historian, we visited a farm and saw the head o f town parades with the mayor. S. Grant used as their headquarters in the a building where Nichols might have Kimbrough said that her son was living in summer of 1862, the summer Nichols stayed during the 1850s. Curt went to the the house that had formerly belonged to escaped slavery. Hardeman County Courthouse and dis­ Nichols and her husband, John. At the Bolivar-Hardeman County covered records that we had been told were Nichols received a slight mention in Library, a librarian, Jannette Tignor, and a destroyed by the Union army in 1864. Peters’s book. Later at the local public researcher, Pat Vincent, were very helpful. He found a deed o f the farm purchased library, Peters discovered an 1898 picture The documents they retrieved from the in 1839 by Nichols’s early owner, Reuben o f Nichols in the midst o f many men at archives amazed all o f us. Am ong these Higgs, and an 1860 deed dividing the land between his children, Wyly and Prudence. The court records delineated the legal division o f slaves in 1861 between the two

Opposite: Lucy Higgs Nichols (standing, center o f second row) poses with veterans o f the children. In the document, Nichols and Civil War and Spanish-American War during an annual reunion in English, Indiana, in 1898. child were valued at $1,400.

TRACES | Winter 2010 I 35 BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES

Using the information from the deeds, we were able to visit the property along Gray’s Creek that had been Nichols’s home between 1839 and 1862. We were struck by the property’s beauty. The splendor was no doubt a stark contrast to the condition o f her daily life before she ran about three miles to the camp o f the Twenty-third Regiment in the summer o f 1862. We have the testimony o f Jacob Higgs, Reuben’s father, that Nichols was born in Halifax County, North Carolina, on April 10, 1838, but possibly this had never been communicated to her, for in a later deposi­ tion she estimated her age. Before she was one year old, she was transported along with other slaves and goods when Reuben and his second wife, Elizabeth nee Higgs, a

Brantly Higgs, moved to the area from North Carolina. The following year, after a brief third marriage, Reuben died, leaving Nichols and the other slaves to his surviv­ ing children. In 1845 there were four surviving chil­ dren, three by Elizabeth (Wyly, Marcus, and Prudence), and one by Reuben’s first wife, Eliza (Wineford Amanda). Nichols was one o f three young slaves that W in­ eford Amanda inherited. Here is where the treasure trove we found in Coffeeville becomes important. W e learned from the Top: The authors were able to find Lucy Higgs first cousin, crossed the Blue Ridge M oun­ documents that Eliza had moved with her Nichols’s name for the first time in an antebel­ tains and moved to southwest Tennessee. daughter from North Carolina to Missis­ lum legal document in Hardeman County, Ten­ nessee. From the left are: Victor C. Megenity, On April 1,1839, they bought property sippi after her divorce from Reuben and Pat Vincent, Jannette Tignor, and Pamela R. along Gray’s Creek, located three miles that she had died there in the early 1840s, Peters. Above: An old log structure inside a northeast o f Bolivar. In the next five years leaving Wineford an orphan under the barn on the Mary Higgs property in Hardeman they established their farm and had four guardianship o f a neighbor, Samuel G. County. It may have been slave quarters at one children, one o f whom died in infancy. Wheeless. time. Several tragedies struck the family. W e discovered in the court files that In 1844 both the infant and Elizabeth on February 10, 1846, Wheeless hired G. died. In order to help with the children, W. Hill to transport Nichols and the two Elizabeth’s widowed mother, Mary P. other slaves from Bolivar to Coffeeville (a

36 | TRACES | Winter 2010 BLACK HISTORY NEWS AND NOTES

distance o f some eighty miles). At a cost o f the guardianship. A total o f ten slaves tion o f the land along Gray’s Creek. Thus, o f seventy-five cents per day, Wheeless were divided between Wyly and Prudence. Nichols spent the last part o f her slavery paid six dollars for the eight-day roundtrip Nichols and her child went to Prudence, where she had lived as a child. made by horse and wagon. Thus, before and their value was listed at $ 1,400— It is at this point that the legal records her eighth birthday, Nichols had lived more than any o f the other individual in Tennessee related to Nichols end, but in three states under various owners and slaves. Two o f Lucy’s siblings, Aaron and for the rest o f the story we can look to guardians. She had been torn from family, Angeline, were allotted to Wyly, so her own words as well as other letters and like most slaves she was treated as Nichols was again separated from family and newspaper articles. Here is what she chattel. The turmoil and mistreatment members. The old Reuben Higgs farm was dictated for a deposition more than thirty only worsened. also divided between Wyly and Prudence. years after she ran to the Union forces. It is In May 1847 Wineford died, and at Soon thereafter Prudence married Albert dated April 12,1894, and was part o f her the age o f nine Nichols became a pawn L. Cheairs, and they bought Wyly’s por­ appeal for a government pension: in a legal battle over ownership. Back in Tennessee, John Higgs, the uncle and guardian ofW yly, Marcus, and Prudence, had Theophelus Higgs Jr. (another uncle) appointed attorney-in-fact, and a Tennes­ see court issued an order that the court o f Yalobusha County have the three young slaves returned to Reuben’s three living children as the rightful heirs. In a letter dated March 1848, Wheeless fought the order; his attorney claimed that no Ten­ nessee court had any jurisdiction in Mis­ sissippi. O n April 12, the Mississippi judge rejected Wheeless’s position, dismissed him as guardian, and ordered the three slaves be returned to the Higgs children in Tennessee. Nichols was moved again, although it would not be the last time she would see Coffeeville. For the next twelve years she lived as a slave under different Higgs guardians, and documents indicate that she was hired out as a worker to Elizabeth’s mother, Mary. It was on her farm that we saw inside a large barn an old log structure that may have been a slave dwelling in (Left to right) Megenity, Robert Harrolson, and Peters pose by the family cemetery on the Higgs which Nichols lived. farm in Hardeman County. Mary Higgs is buried here. In 1860 at the age o f twenty-one and the mother o f a child, Nichols was once again an object in a legal case. By this time, Marcus, one o f the three Higgs children, had died, and Wyly, who was approaching legal age, petitioned the court for his share o f land and slaves outside

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 37 I am about 51 or 52 years old; I am a housekeeper, and my post office address Primarily using newspaper articles, we is New Albany Floyd Co., Ind. I am the identical Lucy Nichols who claims pension are able to add a few details to support Nichols’s account o f her work during the as nurse during the War of the Rebellion. I claim pension under the Act of August Civil War. In the late summer o f 1862, the 5,1892. Dr. Brucker employed me as nurse at Bolivar, Tenn. I went to the regi­ Twenty-third Regiment from New Albany, ment-23 Indiana in 1862, and was employed by Dr. Brucker to nurse the sick and Indiana, and surrounding counties, was wounded soldiers of that regiment-the 23 Regiment of Ind. Vols. of the United camped on the north side o f Bolivar, as

States Army. Dr. Brucker was the regimental surgeon. Dr. Byrn was also a surgeon; Grant marched south with several regi­ ments attacking Confederate forces east he left us after the surrender at Vicksburg, Miss. He now lives at Marengo, Ind. o f the Mississippi River. This thrust, along Dr. Brucker is now dead; he lived at Tell City, Ind. We went from Bolivar, Tenn. to with the Unions victory at Gettysburg, Corinth, Miss, and the regiment got into a skirmish there and then fell back, and was a major turning point in the war, and we took our old camp again at Bolivar, Tenn. Then we staid [sic] there awhile, and it helped catapult Grant into prominence. then we went to Grenada and Holly Springs, Miss. Then we went to different places Nichols and her child, and possibly her child’s father, escaped from their owners in Mississippi, and across to Atlanta, Ga. and to the Sea— at Beaufort, S.C. Then and went to the camp seeking refuge and through Virginia to Washington City, D.C. We camped there awhile, and from there protection. Newspaper articles reveal that we went to Indianapolis, Ind. and we were mustered out at Indianapolis. her owner traced her to the camp o f the After Vicksburg surrendered, the regiment was furloughed for 60 days, and I Twenty-third Indiana, but she begged came home with them, and went back with them. I was with the regiment during protection, and the soldiers kept her with them. By November the army had moved the whole time from Bolivar, Tenn. to Indianapolis, Ind. I served as nurse about south to Coffeeville, where Nichols had 3 years. I cooked for the soldiers, dressed their wounds, gave them medicine, and lived earlier as a young slave, and we can washed for them, and did anything I was called on to do. I served in the hospital only imagine her deep feelings as she saw at Bolivar, Tenn. I served under the name of Lucy Higgs and since the war I have that area now as a free person. married John Nichols— hence the name of Lucy Nichols. I have no documents Several accounts report that Nichols was very helpful during the time she was showing that I was employed or discharged. with the Twenty-third Regiment. The N ew Dr. McPheeters of Hardinsburg, Ind. and Dr. Byrn of Marengo, Ind. had Albany Ledger claimed that “she fought, charge of the hospital at Bolivar, Tenn. They will remember my services. Lorenzo D. nursed the sick, and cooked and washed Emory, Charlie Villiard and B. F. Welker were members of the regiment and know for the officers.” A Louisville Courier article of my service. Col. Wm. Davis was Col. of the 23rd Ind. and he will remember me. included the statement that at the Battle o f Vicksburg her husband, who had escaped John Hoffman, Hendersonville, Clark Co., Ind. also knows of my serving as nurse. with her, was killed and that Nichols “took I am not able to earn a support on account of having bronchitis and quisy [sic] up his rifle and marched in his stead.” most all the time, and I have been sick and under treatment of a physician all the Some o f this may be exaggeration, but this winter. Dr. Burney has been my physician. I work some but I cannot work much; I much seems certain: Nichols used her con­ am compelled to work to make something to live. My husband served in the army, siderable skills to nurse, cook, and wash for the Hoosier soldiers. but he does not receive a pension and has never applied for one. I have no children Nichols stayed with the Twenty-third that served in the army. throughout the war. She no doubt saw I never received a nickle for my services as nurse; Dr. Brucker told me I would more than her share o f wounded and get paid, and I worked on in the hope of getting pay after awhile. I was not under dying soldiers, as well as all o f the illness,

Miss Dorothea L. Dix. I was never in any hospital, but that of the 23 Ind. Vols., filth, inclement weather, and destruction that went with army life in the field during and was with them till I was relieved at Indianapolis. the Civil War. Her daughter died at Vicks­ Lucy Nichols (X, her mark) burg and was buried there. Nichols was at honors next to her husband in the “colored cemetery.” With neither written records nor tombstones to mark the site, the exact location o f their graves is unknown. Nichols’s story had been virtually forgotten and some details had never been known. But it is an account that needs to be preserved. She was a remarkable woman who lived an important and productive life overcoming unbelievable difficulties. The Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany is developing a permanent exhibit on Nichols in connection with its award-winning exhibi­ tion Ordinary People, Extraordinary Cour­ Above: Nichols is buried in an unmarked grave, exact location unknown, in age: M en and W om en this cemetery in New Albany, Indiana. Right: Megenity, Pamela Peters, and o f the Underground Curtis Peters pose while conducting research on Nichols’s life and times. Railroad. The exhibi­ tion about Nichols major battles in Mississippi including Port nurse from September will be dedicated Gibson, Raymond, and Champion’s Hill; 1862 to the end of sometime this year. at battles in Georgia including Kennesaw the Civil War. It was Pamela R. Peters, a Mountain and Jonesboro; at the battle in approved in a “ Special historian and speaker, Bentonville, South Carolina; and at the Act” under the Army Nurses Pension. is the author o f The Underground Railroad sieges o f Atlanta and Savannah. Nichols was described by members of in Floyd County, Indiana. Curtis H. Peters At the end o f the war, Nichols joined the regiment as a “good, true and faithful is a professor emeritus o f philosophy at Indi­ her unit at the Washington, D.C., review nurse, rendering great aid and com fort to ana University Southeast. Victor C. Megenity of troops. The men o f the Twenty-third sick and disabled soldiers in the camp hos­ is a historian and retired history teacher from invited her to settle in New Albany, pital.” D octor Magnus Brucker said that Scribner Junior High School in New Albany, although the community had a history of he could not have gotten along without Indiana. The authors have worked together not being welcoming to blacks. She ac­ Nichols’s assistance, and that she always on several historical and preservation projects cepted the invitation and moved there. In knew what to do and was attentive and in New Albany and have played key roles 1870 she married John Nichols, and they ready to assist. in the establishment o f the Floyd County lived on Naghel Street in the West Union John Nichols died on November 12, Historical Society Padgett Museum and the area o f the city. 1910. W ith no one to care for her and Division Street School, a restored segregated “Aunt Lucy,” as she came to be called, being in poor health, Lucy entered the African American school that now serves was made an honorary member o f the Floyd County Poor Farm on January 5, an important educational role for the New GAR. In 1892 Congress passed a special 1915, and died there a few weeks later on Albany—Floyd County Consolidated School act allowing nurses to apply for pen­ January 29. She was buried with military Corporation and the surrounding area. • sions, and the following year the men of the Twenty-third Regiment requested a IN 1892 CONGRESS PASSED A SPECIAL ACT ALLOWING pension for Nichols. It took several years of application and reapplication, but in NURSES TO APPLY FOR PENSIONS, AND THE FOLLOW­ December 1898 she received a pension of ING YEAR THE MEN OF THE TWENTY-THIRD REGIMENT twelve dollars per month from the U.S. government as a result o f her work as a REQUESTED A PENSION FOR NICHOLS.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 39 AIR DREAMS

AVIATION LEGEND LAWRENCE D. BELL

Unless otherwise indicated, photographs courtesy Bell Aircraft Museum

40 | TRACES | Winter 2010 Lawrence D. Bell hated to fly but he loved airplanes. “No matter where I the horse. Larry, however, read everything am,” he said, “when an airplane flies overhead, I’m going to go outside and he could about aviation and soon knew the names o f every pilot willing to take to look at it. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that.” While the Mentone, Indiana, the sky. To his delight, the new industry native never got over his fear of flying, his love of airplanes helped him was being nursed through its infancy prac­ soar as an aviation pioneer whose company created the United States’s tically in his California backyard. Still, he first jet-propelled aircraft, first supersonic rocket plane, the world’s fastest did not see his first airplane in person until and highest flying airplane, the world’s first aircraft with variable sweep- 1910 at the Dominguez Field (Los Ange­ les) International Air Meet. It was love at back wings, and the world’s first commercially licensed helicopter. first sight— not only for sixteen-year-old Larry, but also for his twenty-six-year-old Those accomplishments, along with his Young Larry begged to differ, but he brother, Grover. contributions in the field o f guided mis­ held his tongue. He still had no dreams o f W ithout knowing it, the Bell broth­ siles and rocket engines, earned him some his own, but when he did, he intended to ers were watching a virtual W ho’s W ho of o f aviation’s highest honors— the Collier make them come true. The youngest early aviation. The United States had two Trophy, a Guggenheim medal, honorary o f Isaac and Harriet Sarber Bell’s ten chil­ dozen licensed pilots and many o f them, degrees from a number o f universities, and dren, Lawrence Dale Bell, forever known with the exception o f the Wrights, partici­ inclusion in the Aviation Hall of F am e- as Larry, was born in M entone on April 5, pated at the air meet. Lincoln Beachey and heady rewards for a career Bell never 1894. W hile Isaac preferred horses, Har­ Roy Knabenshue raced dirigibles before envisioned as a boy in Mentone where he riet liked to read and frequently sent Larry Beachey raced Louis Paulhan, a self-taught helped his lumberman father train a horse to the library, where it was necessary to French aviator. Neither was fast— it took to race. pay a twenty-five cent rental fee every Paulhan three minutes to make a lap, Both knew a good horse was a valu­ three months. but it took Beachey’s dirigible five min­ able possession, one capable o f great speed, The Bell family was comfortable but utes. Other featured pilots included such faster by far than the laborious cars o f far from wealthy. Knowing there were notable names as Glenn Martin, Glenn that era. Neither realized that W ilbur and many other needs the twenty-five cents Curtis, Charles Hamilton, and Charles Orville Wright were only a few years away might fill, Larry told his mother, “We Willard. Riding back to Santa M onica from designing and building a flying craft should be able to borrow books without from the air meet in a car that broke down that could be controlled while in the air. having to pay.” She retorted: “ Until books eighteen times, much to the chagrin o f the The father and son certainly would never are free, we will pay to read them. If you imagine that aircraft would eventually can’t read, you can’t do anything.” To her exceed the speed o f sound, or that the delight, Larry was a good student, inter­ THE AIRPLANE... younger Bell’s life’s work would entail such ested in many subjects and always alert for terms as XP-59A and XS-1 rather than innovative ideas. SEEMED LIKE A “gee” or “haw.” All they knew was that, In 1903 the Wright brothers made no matter how hard they worked with the their historic first flight, but few newspa­ PASSING FANCY, horse, it never won a race. Townspeople pers carried the story. It was not until 1907, laughed at their attempts with the gangly the year the Bell family sold its horses ONE THAT WOULD animal. and moved to Santa M onica, California, “It doesn’t seem fair that they laugh at that readers became aware o f the Wrights’ NOT LAST AND us,” Larry complained. achievement. Few were impressed. The MOST CERTAINLY “It doesn’t matter,” his father told him. airplane, then called the aeroplane, seemed “N ot all dreams com e true. Sometimes, like a passing fancy, one that would not WOULD NEVER much as we want a thing, it can’t be had.” last and most certainly would never replace REPLACE THE Opposite: Grover Bell takes to the air in a biplane built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. Martin’s firm later achieved success with its MB-1 bomber, which entered service for the HORSE. U.S. Army after the end o f World War I.

TRACES | Winter 2010 I 41 LAWRENCE D. BELL

driver, their brother Vaughn, Larry and Grover could talk about little except the airplanes they had seen and the money to be made in flying. Paulhan, for example, returned to France nineteen thousand dol­ lars richer than when he had arrived in the United States. The Bell brothers immediately set about building a model airplane, mak­ ing improvements on what they had seen in Los Angeles, and rejoicing when their model flew. It did not take Grover long to aban­ don models to seek his fortune in the real thing. He looked up the Glenn L. Martin Lawrence Bell, kneeling, and his brother, Grover, standing at right, building a model airplane Company in the Los Angeles telephone from scraps after seeing the 1910 air meet near Los Angeles, California. directory and found it listed under amuse­ ments. For five hundred dollars Martin Beachey” and blamed the aviators for their had a dream— a career in aviation. Best o f taught Grover to fly. Larry cheered when own deaths. Beachey, who never again flew all, he was living it with his older brother. his brother landed his plane in a vacant a dirigible after the Los Angeles meet, had The two planned a company o f their own, lot near the Bell home, becom ing the first turned to the airplane, constantly finding with Grover earning start-up money with pilot to land in Santa M onica. He was new ways to excite the public. His 1911 his exhibition flying while Larry set up equally excited when Grover went to work flight under a suspension bridge at Niagara shop. Living in repair shops and hangars for Martin as an exhibition flyer and in­ Falls was reported in every newspaper in on the show circuit, they spent long after­ structor. By selling some property, Grover the country, but not always favorably. show hours discussing rotary-wing and was able to purchase a Martin biplane, In 1912 Grover, already recognized as amphibious aircraft. finding it easy to make a living as a flier. a daring pilot for having flown “a grand Then, on July 4, 1913, six racehorses The early twentieth century proved cross country exhibition flight” from Santa tied to a post became frightened and broke to be a unique period in aviation history. M onica to Los Angeles— a trip that today loose when Grover brought his airplane in Ignored by the business world and with would be termed a short hop— teamed up for a landing at an air show in Petaluma. little government money, the technology with Beachey, by then known as “the man The only way he could avoid the horses o f flying was sustained primarily by exhibi­ who owns the sky,” while continuing to was to make a 180-degree turn at a very tion pilots who paid the bills by present­ work for Martin. Larry, his course work low altitude. He missed the horses, but ing exciting shows. By the end o f 1910, completed, dropped out of high school his plane crashed after dragging a wing; he thirty-two pilots had died in airplane short o f graduation to become a grease died from his injuries the next day. crashes. Some said it proved the air would monkey for the high-flying pair. It was the Packing up the pieces o f his brother’s not forgive man for trying to conquer best o f times for the Bell brothers. Each airplane, Larry saw his dream as shattered it. Others called pilot stunts “trying a was doing what he wanted. Larry at last as the tiny plane. It seemed ironic that racehorses should have triggered Grover’s death and reminded Larry o f the advice his father had given him in a discussion years ONE OF MARTIN’S FAVORITE STUNTS, THE BATTLE earlier in Mentone. OF THE CLOUDS, INVOLVED MAKING LOW-LEVEL “I decided I would do something else,” Bell later recalled. He remained FLIGHTS OVER A FIELD AND DROPPING ORANGES unemployed until a friend asked his help in getting a job building airplane floats. AS IF THEY WERE MINIATURE BOMBS. When the employer asked for both of

42 | TRACES | Winter 2010 LAWRENCE D. BELL

BY THE TIME HE WAS TWENTY, HE WAS SHOP FOREMAN FOR MARTIN, SUPERVISING CONSTRUCTION OF BOMBERS FOR SHIPMENT TO FRIENDLY EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND, LATER, HELPING MODIFY THE BOMBERS INTO MAIL PLANES FOR THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE.

them, Bell dug in with his usual tenacity, Lawrence D. Bell finding it like old times to sleep in the poses at the controls shop and cook over blowtorches. His mind o f a Martin pusher biplane in a 1912 cleared by the work, he accepted a job at photograph. the Martin Company as a nine-dollar a week stockroom clerk. This time not even the death o f his friend Beachey in 1915 could stay his enthusiasm for aviation, even when it again took him on the air-show circuit where his job was even less glamorous than it had been when he tightened bolts for Grover. One o f Martin’s favorite stunts, The Battle o f the Clouds, involved making low-level flights over a field and dropping By the time he was twenty, he was shop ing Japanese army officer to fly without oranges as if they were miniature bombs. foreman for Martin, supervising construc­ ever having taken o ff or landed a plane. Bell, concealed on the ground, exploded tion of bombers for shipment to friendly At the time, all instruction was given from black-powder charges he had hidden the European countries and, later, helping the ground since trainers only had one night before. It was a popular attraction m odify the bombers into mail planes for seat, so it was easy for Bell to conceal his that helped to finance more serious forms the U.S. Postal Service. own lack o f knowledge. of aviation. That show proved so spec­ For a short time, the Martin Com ­ Bell was vice president and general tacular that representatives o f Mexican pany joined with the Wright brothers’ manager o f the Martin firm in 1928 when, revolutionary Pancho Villa, then in exile firm, operating from New York. Martin, tired o f always being the number two in the United States, asked Martin for an however, preferred being president o f his man, he left to become sales manager for airplane to drop real bombs. Martin ac­ own company. He sent Bell to Cleveland, Consolidated Aircraft Corporation in cepted, offering to supply a plane for ten Ohio, to build a new factory. By then Buffalo, New York. He wanted a voice in thousand dollars (bombs were extra), with plant manager and supervisor, Bell was major decisions, and M ajor Reuben Fleet, Villa’s group responsible for shipping the credited for urging Martin to hire Donald owner o f Consolidated, was more open to plane to Mexico. Bell designed and built W. Douglas Sr. and J. H. Kindelbarger. that than Martin had been. Seven years the bombs from two-and-a-half-inch iron Douglas later became a leading builder o f after Bell joined Consolidated, Fleet, de­ pipe, two feet long, filling them with dy­ transport planes and Kindelbarger became ciding to move to California, offered him namite and detonator caps that triggered board chairman o f North American Avia­ an opportunity to return to his adopted on impact. tion Company. state, but Bell said, “I think I’ll stay here Proceeds from The Battle o f the Always ready to encourage others, Bell and form a company of my own.” Clouds and the Villa bomber put the remained apprehensive about becoming Assisted by Ray Whitman and Robert Martin Com pany in the black financially. a pilot. Some say he never learned to fly; W oods, Bell began raising funds to form Within a year, World War I launched big­ others think he did so, reluctantly. Every­ Bell Aircraft Corporation. To be capital- ger battles and helped propel Bell’s career. one agrees, however, that he taught a visit­

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 43 The Bell Brothers exhibition team. Lawrence Bell served as a grease monkey and mechanic for his brother, Grover, sporting a bandaged nose from an earlier aircraft mishap. ized at $500,000, the fledgling company demanded p roof he was in good health. tools from Fleet before offering him one needed to have $150,000 in cash. Scraping Feeling the same sting o f humiliation he dollar for everything Consolidated did not together everything they had, they found had felt in Mentone when youngsters want to move to California. W hen Fleet it totaled $90,000. derided his father’s racehorse, he persisted. agreed, Bell sorted through the collection W ith $60,000 to be raised in three Eventually, and just in time, they raised o f machinery, benches, coat hangers, and months, they moved into a small office the needed funds. junk and sold everything he could not and began work on airplane designs to O f the $150,000, only $35,000 could use for $17,000. Even with only a dollar be submitted for government inspection. be used for tools and equipment. The invested, econom y continued to be the While ringing doorbells in an attempt to cardinal rule was that no desk could cost watchword for many years. raise needed cash, Bell found himself do­ more than five dollars, no chair more than During its first year in business, the ing pushups for one doubtful investor who a dollar. Bell bought $17,000 worth o f Bell firm relied mainly on subcontracts,

44 | TRACES | Winter 2010 LAWRENCE D. BELL

“BEING PRESIDENT IS NO LONGER A QUESTION OF RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS, IT’S A QUESTION OF KEEPING YOUR BUSINESS FROM RUNNING AND KILLING YOU.”

An open house at the Bell assembly plant attracted a blur o f visitors. In the background are P-39 fighter aircraft being assembled. Almost half of the P-39s produced by Bell were sent to the Soviet Union, where the Airacobras served with distinction.

while its engineers continued working on fighter airplane, the P-59, and a number new airplanes. The first, the Airacuda, with o f firsts in armaments and gear. a top speed o f 300 miles per hour, was Bell pushed himself mercilessly during faster than any airplane the U.S. Army had those years. W here he once tired o f being in its inventory. “Ahead o f its time” was the number two man in Martins com­ the verdict when the military said no. pany, he found himself rebelling against Bell engineers kept working. Avia­ the loneliness and pressure o f being the tion had com e a long way from the early head man. “Being president is no longer days o f exhibition flying. The army’s ac­ a question of running your business,” he ceptance o f the Bell Airacobra, which it told his assistant, David Forman. “It’s a Bell discusses aviation with Lieutenant General called the P-39, ended thirty-five years o f question o f keeping your business from Jimmy Doolittle. During the early days of search for peacetime uses for air power, running and killing you.” Production World War II in the Pacific, Doolittle led a but the race to find new ways to defend collapsed at Bell Aircraft Corporation in daring bombing raid against Japan. Sixteen the United States and its allies with faster, the days after Japan surrendered. W ork­ B-25 Mitchell bombers took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to bomb targets in more powerful airplanes continued. Even ers celebrated, returning once more to Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama, Osaka, and Nagoya. after America entered W orld War II and their peacetime careers. At the same time, Bell plants in three states worked around work continued in a shop set aside for the the clock to meet production demands, development o f a helicopter. In 1944 the there was always time to experiment with first indoor helicopter flight in the United new types o f aircraft. In short order Bell States impressed an audience o f Civil Air introduced the nations first jet-propelled Patrol pilots and cadets. Two years later,

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 45 LAWRENCE D. BELL

Bell Aircraft received the Civil Aeronautics BELL LED HIS COMPANY IN BUILDING THE Administration’s first commercial license for helicopters and later built the first heli­ FIRST AIRPLANE CAPABLE OF FLYING TWO copter designed specifically for antisubma­ rine warfare and the first turbine-powered AND-0NE-HALF TIMES THE SPEED OF SOUND. helicopter. At the same time, the company was attempting to break the sound barrier. The speed of sound is 760 miles per term that had caused jet pilots to report called the X -l aloft and dropped it from hour at sea level, at altitudes higher than their controls had frozen or their airplanes its bomb bay. Although the X -l was 35,000 feer, it is 650 miles an hour. The had been bounced around when they hit designed to take o ff under its own power, barrier is formed by air particles ahead o f it. Attempting to penetrate the barrier had it was dropped as a glider from a B-29 at a fast-moving airplane not having time cost many lives, but until it was shattered, high altitude, giving pilot Captain Charles to change their position. Scientists say space exploration would remain a dream. Yeager ten minutes o f glide time to de­ that instead o f following the shape o f It was not a dream Bell wanted to forsake. termine the stalling speed before the four the oncom ing airplane, the particles are Finally, on October 14, 1947, a B-29 rocket engines bred. It worked, breaking squeezed into a wall o f thick air, the same bomber carried a needle-nosed airplane the sound barrier and making aviation his­ tory. For that feat, described as the greatest achievement since the first successful flight o f the original Wright brothers’ airplane, President Harry S Truman presented the Collier Trophy, considered America’s high­ est aeronautical honor, to Yeager, Bell, and John Stack, a government research scientist with the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics. Continually challenging himself to tackle new horizons, Bell led his company in building the first airplane capable o f flying two and-one-half times the speed o f sound, the first jet-propelled vertical

Above: Bell tries out the pilot's seat in a P-39 fighter aircraft. Always meticulous in his plans, Bell once said,"Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things and I’ll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things.” Right: Bell tucks New York governor Thomas E. Dewey into the tight confines of one of his early helicopters.

46 | TRACES | Winter 2010 In his tidy office, Bell shows Dewey a model of the B-29 Superfortress bomber— the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II in the Pacific. Bell’s factory in Marietta, Georgia, produced more than six hundred B-29s.

takeoff and landing airplane, and the first exciting,” said Sue Pyle, now a member o f While few outside Mentone knew him, convertiplane that incorporated a tilting the Lawrence D. Bell Aircraft Museum’s they were aware o f Bell’s accomplishments. rotor system. The thermal barrier followed board o f directors. “Trains hardly ever Across the entire area, the thundering roar the sound barrier in falling by the wayside, stopped in Mentone, but they did for o f a jet breaking the sound barrier prompt­ and new fighters, bombers, and missiles Larry Bell.” In 1941 Mentone arranged ed schoolchildren to say, “That’s the work were developed from data collected by the a Larry Bell day during its annual Egg o f that man from Mentone.” supersonic airplanes, which actually were Festival. (The town is heralded as the Egg Speed fascinated him, but Bell her­ flying laboratories. Basket o f the Midwest because o f the sur­ alded the helicopter as the vehicle o f Throughout those years, Bell frequent­ rounding poultry industry.) By that time, the future, eventually building a five- ly returned to Mentone to visit with old Bell employed 11,000 workers and had a million-dollar plant in Texas. “ I want friends and to relax. Still fearful o f flying backlog o f business worth approximately an organization that thinks helicopters in spite o f his aviation accomplishments, $100 million. In spite o f that, Bell and his morning, noon and night,” he said. “We he usually arrived by train. “ It was always wife led the parade, accompanied by town have a great variety o f projects in Buffalo. officials.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 47 LAWRENCE D. BELL

The staff doesn’t have time to give more lives, not destroying them. guests at his apartment, many o f whom than a lick and a promise to the helicop­ Bell returned from Korea tired and expressed interest in his vast memorabilia ter.” His faith in the helicopter paid o ff determined to slow down. By that time, collection housed in boxes and stored in a during the Korean War when more than his thirty-three year, childless marriage had spare room. 85 percent of the 20,000 wounded men ended in divorce, and he had moved out O n his return from a trip to Europe— evacuated by rotary-wing aircraft were o f his large home into a small apartment. one made by sea, not by air— he discov­ flown in Bell choppers. “Angels o f mercy,” He had survived proxy battles and labor ered his housekeeper had converted the he called them. Bell paid his own way to disputes, and he was exhausted. spare room into a display o f his memen­ take a frontline look at how the helicopters “I think a man o f sixty can do in two tos— pictures, medals, awards, newspaper were being used in combat, taking great hours all he’s capable o f doing,” Bell said. clippings, even ticket stubs from the 1910 pleasure that his name was useful in saving Still, he maintained a steady flow o f dinner aviation meet in California. “It’s my life!”

Just before the United States entered World War II, Bell, pictured lifting off with an unidentified pilot, saw a small helicopter model crafted by Arthur Young. In just six months, a team at Bell Aircraft designed and constructed the first Bell helicopter, officially known as the Model 30.

48 | TRACES | Winter 2010 LAWRENCE D. BELL

Left: A helicopter assembly line in the Bell plant shows frames ready for assembly o f their power plants. Below: Bell Aircraft Museum president Gerald Romine, left, and Niagara Aerospace Museum vice president Pal Faltyn, right, guide a restored Bell 47-H1 helicopter onto a trailer that took it to Niagara Falls. Larry Blyth, the driver, watches in the back­ ground. Members of the Bell Aircraft Museum Association restored the 1,800-pound craft for the New York group.

Bell gasped when he saw it. “It’s m y whole Back in Buffalo, life.” on July 9,1955, Bell Though he enjoyed slipping into the assembled some of room for a few moments o f recollection the men and women and relaxation, Bell continued to focus his who had helped him thoughts on the company that, in 1954, start his company in had 18,850 employees and $185.6 mil­ 1935. O f the fifty-six lion in sales. W ork continued on the first original employees, jet-powered vertical takeoff and landing twenty-one were still airplane and a convertiplane but, by 1955, with the company. Bell noted in his annual report message Ray Whitman, mas­ that more than 75 percent o f the com­ ter o f ceremonies, pany’s scientific and technical effort was and Roger Lewis, assistant secretary o f the 1956, Bell resigned as president o f Bell concerned with guided missiles and related U.S. Air Force, presented the Exceptional Aircraft Corporation, but was elected work. Service Award, the highest honor the air chairman o f the board. Within a month, That same year, the Bell Foundation, force can bestow on a civilian, to Bell, he suffered a heart attack and died ten a charitable trust run by Bell Aircraft hailing him as “one o f that small band o f days later on October 20, 1956, the dean executives that Bell had founded following American pioneers who have conspicu­ o f American aviation. His career had World War II, sponsored a new library for ously contributed to the development of spanned from the days o f Beachey and the the Mentone School, and Bell returned to air power.” stunt pilots to the dawn o f the space age. his hometown for the last time to attend Still later that year, Bell achieved a In July 1960 the defense business o f the dedication. In his welcoming remarks, personal goal when his Society for the Bell Aircraft was sold to Textron Inc., Morrison Rockhill, a longtime friend Rehabilitation o f the Facially Disfigured headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, which o f Bell’s, told assembled schoolchildren, established a Clinic for Reconstructive continues to manufacture Bell helicopters. “Lawrence Bell’s favorite saying is, ‘Pretty Plastic Surgery o f the Face in New York. With plants in the Dallas/Fort Worth good is not good enough.’ Lawrence Bell Fie attended that ceremony but his failing area; Mirabel, Quebec, Canada; and Ama­ did the best he could with what he had,” health prevented him from going to Texas rillo, Texas, plus key logistics supply and he added. in 1956 for the dedication o f a high school service centers in Europe, Canada, and named in his honor. On September 18, Singapore, as well as in the United States,

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 49 Clockwise, from Top: Throughout its history, Bell Helicopter has delivered more than thirty- five thousand aircraft to customers around the world, including the Bell 412; the Bell Memorial Library, an outgrowth o f Bell’s last gift to Mentone, Indiana, was built to honor his parents; Bell’s study is re-created at the Bell Aircraft Museum; the museum includes a static display of a Bell helicopter and others are being restored in its work area; and the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft developed jointly by Bell Helicopter and Boeing Rotorcraft Systems.

50 | TRACES | Winter 2010 LAWRENCE D. BELL

“SHOW ME A MAN

Bell is an easily recognized name WHO CANNOT in the helicopter industry. H ow ­ BOTHER TO DO ever, Lawrence D. Bell’s name is often forgotten in aviation history LITTLE THINGS books. Nowhere, however, is Bell’s AND I’LL SHOW memory more alive than in Mentone, his hometown. The YOU A MAN WHO youngsters who once taunted his father for failing to produce a CANNOT BE good racehorse have been replaced by grandchildren who take pride TRUSTED TO DO in Bell’s accomplishments. In his BIG THINGS.” will, Bell left $20,000 to Mentone to be used as a tribute to his parents. The erected signs at the edge o f town herald­ pickups and enlarged the museum to money was spent to build Bell Memorial ing Mentone as Bell’s birthplace. In 1976, provide space for Mentone memorabilia. Public Library, a place where anyone with nearly twenty years after Bell’s death, the Constant projects are under way in which a library card could borrow books without Lawrence D. Bell Aircraft Museum was es­ early era Bell helicopters are restored. paying a fee. “It was a tribute we felt Larry tablished in Mentone with Yeager and ac­ “Mentone is privileged to have been the would approve of,” said the librarian. tor Bob Cummings as speakers at the fund birthplace o f Larry Bell,” said Gerald Bell’s private collection— the mu­ kickoff. “This museum gives Larry Bell his Romine, president of the museum. “We seum o f his life and almost the history of rightful place in American history,” Yeager want to do everything possible to keep his aviation itself— was shipped to Mentone said. “ Knowing him personally was an name alive. He helped make aviation what where it remained in storage until being inspiration for me.” it is today.” displayed at the former Mentone High Throughout its newsletter and the mu­ Ann Allen is a form er editor o f the School. Eventually, it moved to a corner o f seum itself, are reminders o f Larry Bell’s Akron/Mentone News and correspondent the library erected in memory o f his par­ personal credo: “Show me a man who can­ fo r the Rochester Sentinel. She is past presi­ ents. That library has since been replaced not bother to do little things and I’ll show dent o f the Womans Press Club o f Indiana. by a far larger facility, one with an X -l you a man who cannot be trusted to do Her article on Reece Oliver appeared in the room for public meetings. big things.” Taking those words to heart, summer 2008 issue o f Traces and received Over the years the local bank added the museum’s active membership has the Jacob P. Dunn Jr. Award fo r the best a picture o f a Bell helicopter to its check, worked to create a pad used by helicopters article to appear in the magazine that year. • and the local chamber o f commerce from area hospitals making emergency

FOR FURTHER READING------

Bilstein, Roger E. Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. | Mortimer, Gavin. Chasing Icarus: The Seventeen Days in 1910 that Forever Changed American Aviation. New York: Walker and Company, 2009. | Pisano, Dominick. Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-l: Breaking the Sound Barrier. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; New York: Abrams, 2006. | Tobin, James. To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. New York: Free Press, 2003. | Yeager, Chuck. The Quest for Mach One: A First-Person Account of Breaking the Sound Barrier. New York: Penguin Studio, 1997.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 51 WARSAW BIBLICAL GARDENS, WARSAW In these days o f ever-escalating gasoline prices, it’s a good idea if you can tie to­ gether several places to go during one trip, especially if they are close to each other. One such possibility would be to com­ bine a visit to the Warsaw Biblical Gardens and nearby shopping at the Village at Winona at Winona Lake, which offers an expanding shopping center specializing in arts and crafts. If you like to walk and browse, maybe take some time for coffee or a good meal, then you’re going to love shopping at the Village. First, though, consider stopping at the Warsaw Biblical Gardens. The Biblical Gardens, said to be one o f only a few in the United States, came about because o f the work o f a single MY INDIANA woman, according to the gardens’ Web site. W hen Warsaw’s Levin and Sons scrap Earl Conn Remembered yards were closed in 1981, the area was cleared and remained open park land The Indiana Historical Society Press lost a valuable author and friend with until Saralee Levin, who had visited other gardens around the country, had the idea the death of Earl L. Conn on September 20, 2009, at Ball Memorial Hospital o f creating a biblical gardens— one where plants, trees, flowers, and herbs mentioned in Muncie, Indiana. A former journalism professor at Ball State University in the Old and New Testaments could be studied, grown, and admired. and the first dean o f the university’s College o f Communication, Several years later, with private donations of more than Information, and Media, Conn since 1998 wrote the column $600,000 and the support “Traveling Indiana” for the Muncie Star Press and other newspa­ of the Warsaw Community Development Corporation, pers around the state. He turned those columns about intriguing the gardens were formally dedicated on June 23, 1991. places in the Hoosier State into two books for the IHS Press— My The gardens contain more than 110 species, representing Indiana: 101 Places to See (2006) and My Indiana: 101 More the diversity o f climates found Places to See (2009). To honor Conn’s gift for storytelling, the following in Israel. Gardens’ literature reports that most o f the plantings can be sustained in are samples o f his writing from his most recent book that reflect what his the midwestern climate; others are replant­ ed annually or are “wintered elsewhere.” friend Roger Lavery, current dean o f CCIM, called Conn's “zest for life.” The gardens include a “gathering area” near the entrance and a “sitting area,” meant to be especially conducive to medi- Photographs by Earl Conn

52 | TRACES | Winter 2010 rating, in addition to the six specific bibli­ cal areas: herbs and crops, desert, brook, forest, orchard, and meadow. The planners consulted biblical authorities in deciding upon appropriate garden creations. None o f the areas is large, o f course, gathered as they are in less than an acre o f land. The meadow is in the middle o f the gardens. A flowing brook passes through several environments, while a dry brook is related to the desert. A grape arbor is the centerpiece o f the orchard. The forest has large shade trees and plants. The herbs and crops section contains more than thirty varieties o f mostly useful plants, a large number for medicinal purposes in older times. Then, only a few miles southeast of U.S. 30 is Winona Lake with its long-standing religious history and Clockwise from Left: Park part o f the impetus for the Biblical gardens located near the Biblical Gardens. One o f its most famous Gardens in Warsaw, just north residents was Billy Sunday, the early o f downtown; a grape arbor 1900s evangelist. It is estimated is the highlight of the orchard section o f the Biblical Gardens; that, without the aid o f radio, a flowing brook at the Biblical television, or speaker systems, he Gardens; and the home o f preached to more than one hundred well-known evangelist Billy million people. N ow a museum, the Sunday sits atop this hill at house, together with a nearby visi­ Winona Lake. tor center, comprise the Billy Sun­ day Home Museum and Visitors Center. IF YOU GO Nearby is the Village at Winona with Getting There: In Warsaw on U.S. 15 north o f downtown, turn west into Central about twenty artsy, craftsy shops plus Park and right to the Biblical Gardens at the corner o f Canal Street and Indiana 15. nooklike eating places, including the Boat G o east on U.S. 30 to the Center Street exit and then south to Argonne Road to House restaurant, an area favorite. Well, W inona Lake. actually it’s more than that as its reputa­ Information: Call (574) 267-6419 for information about the Biblical Gardens, tion is well known throughout the state. the W eb site is http://www.warsawbibligalgardens.org/; (800) 800—6090 for the A good time to plan a visit is in late Kosciusko County Convention and Visitors Bureau, http://www.koscvb.org/. Hours spring when the Biblical Gardens have are dawn to dusk, April 15 to October 15; tours can be scheduled between May 15 more color. (In the autumn the meadows to September 15. The Web site for W inona is http://www.villageatwinona.com/ and grasses are the highlights.) In any or call (574) 268-9888. season there’s always shopping and, who knows, maybe the price o f gasoline will Fees: None, but donations accepted. have gone down.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | S3 EARL CONN REMEMBERED

MARENGO CAVE, MARENGO Blanche Hiestand, a fifteen-year-old They kept the news to themselves until Today, the cave no longer uses the girl working as a cook at the Marengo the following Sunday when they told sinkhole entrance the Hiestand children Academy, overheard students talking about Samuel Stewart, who owned the land. He followed to enter the cave. Instead, two a hole they had found not far from the gathered together a group of men and boys other man-made entrances provide easier school. It was at the bottom o f a sinkhole who retraced the Hiestands’ route and access to where walking tours into the cave and they planned to check it out. found, according to a cave history, “vast begin. Blanche, determined to get there passageways and splendor such as none o f The Dripstone Trail Tour is seventy before the students, hustled home, con­ them had ever seen before.” minutes and takes visitors by soda straw, scripted her younger brother, Orris Hies­ At least that’s the way the story goes. stalactite, and stalagmite formations, in­ tand, eleven, and set out to be the first to The history o f the cave, in the inter­ cluding sections called Music Hall, Pulpit explore the hole. They found the sinkhole, vening 125-plus years, has been a series o f Rock— yes, ministers have preached from surrounded by trees, not far from the town exploring new sections of the cave, above it, and Penny Ceiling, where you can toss cemetery. Climbing down to its bottom, and below ground improvements, changes up a penny and it likely will stick to the they found a small opening in the ground. o f ownership, and econom ic ups and cave ceiling. (In 1999 there were 90,370 Lighting candles they had brought from downs. coins removed from the ceiling, totaling their house, they slithered into the hole A highlight came in 1984 when the $3,855.56.) and went down and down— and down. cave was designated a U.S. National The shorter forty-minute Crystal Pal­ The hole got bigger and bigger until finally Natural Landmark by the Department of ace Tour includes huge flowstone forma­ they found themselves in a large room o f the Interior. It called Marengo “a textbook tions and a special lighting presentation. a cave. It was September 6, 1883, and they example o f a cave in the middle stage o f O f course, you can do both as many had discovered Marengo Cave. development.” cave visitors do. Marengo Cave also operates the nearby Cave County Canoes on the Blue River, which attracts about 30,000 paddlers an­ nually. Readers will remember the 2004 tornadoes that ravaged the southern and middle parts o f the state, including the town o f Marengo. Marengo still was recovering when I was there. Damaged buildings, trees uprooted and sheared off, and signage twisted or destroyed offered visible evidence o f the path o f the storm. The cleanup has since been completed. In the cave itself, before laws protecting caverns were passed, the cave was damaged by those who wrote graffiti, took rocks, and otherwise despoiled the underground treasure. Thankfully, those days are over. The cave is lighted so the old graffiti does not show, and its operators believe that, as cave shows go, it is near pristine This flowstone is an example in Marengo Cave where the rapid flow o f water over many years has condition. • caused a heavy deposit o f calcite along the side o f a cave room.

54 | TRACES | Winter 2010 • jv'.

Clockwise from Left: The “lake” seen here appears to be a deep body o f water due to the reflection o f the cave ceiling in the still water, but actually measures only a few inches; the welcome center at Marengo Cave in southern Indiana; and some o f the formations in one of the “rooms” at the cave. IF YOU GO

Getting There: Indiana 64 goes through Marengo. The entrance to the cave is east of the town on the north side of the highway.

Information: Call toll-free (800) 7 0 2-2837or (812) 363-2705. The Web site is http:// www.marengocave.com/. Summer hours, Memorial Day to Labor Day, are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; winter, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

Fees: Different fees for the tours. Three years and younger, free.

TRACES | Winter 2010 | 55 IMAGES OF INDIANA

Gristmills dotted the landscape o f early Indiana. They were a necessity for settlers who needed the flour and meal ground by the miller. This mill was on the Whitewa­ ter Canal. In one photograph a team and wagon can be seen. The other shows the mill, canal, and lock, as well as railroad tracks. The Indiana Historical Society con­ ducted a project to document the mills of Indiana. The images and documentation may be examined in the IHS s William Henry Smith Memorial Library at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center. The library is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Images submitted by Susan L. S. Sutton, IHS coordinator o f visual reference services •

56 | TRACES | Winter 2010 "> J 'y *