Page 8 - The Newcomer - Fall 1999 Collector’s RESOURCE Center Phone 219-474-6944 Corner 224 N. Third, Kentland, IN 47951 • Robert E. Williamson, County Historian The Newcomer Several of he County Historian program is jointly our sponsored by the Indiana Historical Society Does Anyone Know Just What A publication of the NEWTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. community Tand the Indiana History Bureau. Robert Indiana’sYOUNGEST County members Williamson is the Newton County Historical This Tool Might Be, and How It have their Society Historian. His function as the County Fall 1999 • $2.25 own Historian is to collect materials calculated to shed Would Be Used? collections of light on the natural, civil, and political history of memoriablia the county, the promotion of useful historical Ade’s Fables In Slang Took The Country By Storm and antiques knowledge, and the friendly interchange of ideas that of such citizens of the county as are disposed to Close of the Century Marks Centennial of Literary Event represent promote the aforesaid objects. By John Yost their family Robert is a member of the Indiana Historical or Society and Indiana Genealogical Society. He is s this century draws to a close it is appropriate George decided to write the piece in the As 1899 community also responsible for the Newton County InGenWeb to take a moment to mark the centennial of a homespun Hoosier dialect that he knew so well from wore on, Ade Aliterary event which had no small impact on his boyhood days listening to the old timers telling continued to history. This site on the internet. You can access this page at prize (~www.rootsweb.com/~innewton/) Newton County. For in December 1899 the tales around the potbellied stove in the back of A.J. work under the Keystone <http://www.rootsweb.com/innewton/>, which publication in book form of a collection of George Kent’s dry goods store in Kentland, IN. In this first press of the Moviegrah is a comprehensive Data Base for historical and Ade’s fables took the country by storm, ranking as fable the story was of two decidedly dissimilar sisters, daily deadline Patent genealogical information. It includes a Newton one of the top ten bestsellers of that long ago season. one plain and hardworking, and the other, pretty, not pressure as a Number County Query link and complete census records Fables in Slang is certainly George Ade’s most too bright, but lazy. It carried the title The Fable of newspaper 572W features an Edison Light Bulb, (see inset), and and indices for 1850, 1860, and 1870. enduring work. Ade’s fables had their origin in his Sister Mae Who Did as Well as Could Be Expected. columnist. He plugged into the old porcelain light sockets of days Robert also has links to Allen County Public newspaper work. After three years in various duties at It got some very favorable reader response, and two also continued gone by. Owner Howard Kessler is happy to Library, Jasper Newton deaths, updated daily, the Chicago Record, in 1893 Ade was given an months later Ade wrote another fable, again using the to be pressed demonstrate how the film is placed through a slot in Genealogy.com, the leading resource for family opportunity which launched his literary career. Hoosier dialect, and this was similarly well received. by his book publisher for that novel. What he did the top, then rolled through manually between the history, U.S. Census Bureau, Family Tree Maker With the opening of the Columbian Exposition At this time in his career, Ade was one of the top instead was collect some of his fables and write some bulb and lens. Anyone have any idea what era this is online genealogy resource, and the Family Search This tool is approximately 28” in length, the Record created a daily column called All Roads priced writers on the paper. His columns were hugely new ones. He turned them into his publisher and from? Genealogy service and library catalog of the weights about 15-20 lbs, and has 4 openings Lead to the Cairo devoted to coverage of the event. successful. He was even getting some regional notice offered them under the title Fables in Slang. Give Howard a call at Farmer’s Supply in Brook if Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the end, smallest 1 1/4”-1”-3/4” to 1/2”/ Most of the articles were contributed by Ade. The throughout the Midwest. Three collections of his The book rolled of the presses in December, you know! 219-275-2411. (Mormon). Please stop by the Research Center, The width of the holes are 2”. Any clues? Call feature proved to be very popular, and at the close of columns, one each about Doc Horne, Pink Marsh 1899 and became a sensation. The little book of located at 224 North Third in Kentland, Indiana. the editor if you know! the Fair, Ade convinced the editor of the paper to and Artie, had been reprinted in book form, and stories told in the Hoosier dialect of his Kentland, IN allow him to continue writing this type of pieces they enjoyed a modest success. hometown changed Ade’s life and led indirectly to the which were carried under the heading Stories of the Throughout 1898-99 period George continued to transformation of the American musical comedy Streets and of the Town. The articles represented a write widely varied columns, occasionally sprinkling theater. During the year that followed its publication, major step in evolution of the modern newspaper in a fable. But he was also getting somewhat restless. this collection of 25 of his funniest short pieces sold column. He had ambitions to tackle a larger project, and his an astonishing 70,000 copies. Demand was so strong Ade’s column was carried on the paper’s book publisher was continually after him to write a that a year after that initial publication, a second The Newcomer editorial pages and many were illustrated by his novel. In truth, Ade needed little pushing to write a volume, simply titledMore Fables , was brought out, Purdue University Sigma Chi fraternity brother John novel because he had had an idea for such a book for and it enjoyed equally brisk sales. A publication of the NEWTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. T. McCutcheon. A fellow Hoosier, McCutcheon grew sometime. Ade wanted to write a novel using a What madeFables in Slang so popular? Indiana’sYOUNGEST County up four miles south of Lafayette, IN on the Wea college setting. Obviously their wonderful humor, but also, I think, Plains, and he later became acknowledged as the He had the idea of employing a fiction based on the kindly, gentle attitude they projected in that dean of American editorial cartoonists. A Pulitzer the famous Monon Bell football rivalry between charming prose.Fables had appeared in American Prize winner, McCutcheon’s most famous work is DePauw University and Wabash College. He talked literature before. Nathaniel Hawthorne had written a Injun Summer the two panel drawing of a about the idea for a novel with his friends and few deeply allegorical one, and my kinsman Ambrose grandfather and grandson looking at corn stalks received much encouragement. With his Bierce wrote many, and they were laced with his which become transformed into dancing Indians. development as a writer, many expected that it might ferocious cynicism. George Ade’s were different. They In theStories of the Streets and the Town , Ade turn out to be one of the great American novels. But poked fun at the follies and pretensions of the had a free hand to write about any aspect of the city the demands of writing a daily column denied Ade human race, but without sarcasm and harm. As Ade which struck his fancy. He created some stock the time he needed to do a sustained work. himself put it, the idea was to tell the truth about characters through whom he told many of his George never did get around to writing that what was going on and get a little fun out of the stories. These characters included Doc Horne, the novel, but he did not discard the concept of the story. foibles and weaknesses and vanities of a lot of our hotel residing retiree and raconteur; Artie, the brash Five years later, after his career had been neighbors without being brutal and insulting. young newspaper copy boy; and Pink Marsh, the transformed and he had become the nation’s leading But always there was the humor. Couched in the bootblack whose stories became one of the first playwright, he returned to the Tudor mansion near homespun Hoosier vernacular of his Newton County written portrayals of urban Blacks. Brook, IN. Ade retired to his study and in just three home, George Ade could turn a phrase that described What’s On Our Agenda... Ade’s columns were enormously popular. One weeks he wrote a play based on his college football a person or situation in humor that is still funny a The Newton County Historical Society meets every fourth Monday of each month. The meetings are held in different areas reason for their popularity was that he employed a lot idea. It wasThe College Widow , and it was his most century later. Consider the following: She was of variety in his subject matter and style. One day in successful work. It enjoyed a long run on Broadway invariably the first one over the fence in the mad of the County at 7:00 p.m.