At the Archives

“Archives are the pay dirt of history.  Everything else is opinion,” Germaine Greer

 

above, Dick Meister, below, Gary Nabhan

Dick and Joan Meister visited IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives seeking information on Save the Dunes pioneers Dorothy Buell and Ed Osan for an upcoming program of the Ogden Dunes Historical Society.  At the previous meeting the topic was Diana of the Dunes.  Dick and I talked about Carson Cunningham, now coaching at Carroll College in Montana, who taught history courses both at IUN and DePaul, where Dick was Vice President of Academic Affairs.  Both of us tried to get him hired at our respective schools.  Dick and Joan told me about Gary Nabhan, a 63 year-old University of Arizona professor who grew up in Gary (his father Theodore was a city councilman) and is an expert on ethnobotany and seed saving (preserving indigenous plants).  Among Nabhan’s many books are “Cross-Pollinations: The Marriage of Science and Poetry” (2004) and “Food, Genes, and Culture: Eating Right for Your Origins” (2013).  In 1977 Nabhan wrote a poem about Diana of the Dunes for Great Lakes Review (Winter 1977) in which he refers to Diana’s home as “the Land of Sacred Reeds and Sand,” which J. Ronald Engel refers to in “Sacred Sands: The Struggle for Community in the Indiana Dunes” (1983). The poem contains these lines, imagining Diana swimming in Lake Michigan:

stroking the water

your breath pulsing    pulled on

by some aquaspheric force

too strong to be called current.

 Scott Williams

Vicki and Scott Williams visited the Archives in search of a copy of my Portage Steel Shavings.  Last November Scott was elected to the Portage city council and wants to know more about the city’s history.  Vicki and Scott were neighbors of mutual friends Peg and Corky Horvath.  Son Tom went to high school with Phil and Dave and drops in to see us whenever he’s visiting from Germany.  Vicki, whose maiden name was Wisneski, was attending IUN when I started teaching in 1970.  Interviewed by Nancy Ferro for a Shavings issue on the history of IUN (“Educating the Calumet Region,” volume 35, 2004), she recalled her hippie English Composition professor and first meeting Scott.

     Morrie Scheckman was out there on the edge.  He had shoulder-length hair and wore jeans.  After I missed an exam, he gave me his address in Chicago so I could come make it up.  After black students pressured the university into offering Black Literature, they didn’t have anybody to teach it.  I took both L101 and L102 with Scheckman, who was Jewish and very sympathetic to civil rights.  Most students in the class were white.

     I met my future husband in an evening Geography class.  I was retaking it because I flunked the first time.  I needed a map, but the bookstore had closed early for inventory.  Scott was in the hall and saw how upset I was.  He had an extra map and offered it to me.  He said, “I figured I’d screw up, so I brought an extra one.”  We enjoyed the Tuesday and Friday dances.  About three months later we were married.  We tracked down the professor, who also taught at Valparaiso, and invited him to the reception.  He said, “Well, if anything goes wrong, don’t blame me.”

On the same page as Nancy Ferro’s interview with Vicki Williams is an article Emily Schuetz wrote about T.J. Stoops, who was a freshman in 1968 and is presently IUN’s Director of Sponsored Research.  Schuetz wrote: “Her real name was Tedgena, but a young man in English class called her Tomato Juice because of her red hair.  Later he shortened it to T.J., and soon everyone started calling her that, even family members.”

Julie and Paul Kern in 2011

Paul and Julie Kern having embarked on a trip from Florida to California, he reported: “On a cold, rainy miserable day we are in the Texas Hill Country.  At least we were able to enjoy a nice dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Guadalupe River.”  Forty years ago, Paul took our family to a cabin in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.  During the drive we played tapes of Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Band on the Run” and the Eagles’ “On the Border.”  A recent blog of mine entitled “Already Gone” that mentions Eagle Glenn Frey’s death has (for me) gone viral, with well over 200 hits, four times the normal amount and easily surpassing the previous most popular one, on the legacy of Region radio and television personality Tom Higgins.

The Archives has been a beehive of activity these past few days, in addition to the presence of our numerous volunteers.  John DeGan brought nephew Mike to see family letters in the Carl Krueger Collection, a treasure trove of correspondence by several family members that Toni discovered in a foot locker at a house within the National Lakeshore about to be demolished.  Another visitor was looking at our yearbook collection.  Student Devin Dove, interested in Gary history, was checking out my Eighties Shavings.

An East Chicago Central student needed information about IUN scholarships, so I met with Director of Admissions Dorothy Frink.  She was very pleasant and extremely helpful, even providing suggestions about matters that I didn’t think to ask about.  She hasn’t met former Admissions director Bill Lee, whom I occasionally run into at the credit union, so I might try to arrange it.

Student organizations manned tables in Savannah Center.  The Muslim group gave away cookies and had a sign reading, “Meet a Muslim.”  No sign of the History Club, defunct since popular professor Jerry Pierce left unwillingly, or the LGBT group Connectionz, whose former faculty adviser Anne Balay will be speaking at Valparaiso University next month.  She was also given the boot.

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Toni and I enjoyed “Brooklyn,” about an Irish immigrant set in the early 1950s.  The scenes on board the ship that brings her to New York City, the boarding house where she rooms, and of the department store where she works are very realistic.  At Christmas Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) volunteers to serve dinner to homeless men, and a priest tells her that these people built America’s, roads, railroads and bridges.  Very moving.  As the New Republic’s Will Leitch put it, “I could have hung out with everyone in Brooklyn for hours: it’s a world you won’t want to leave.”  Near the end of the film Eilis tells a newcomer to America, “You'll feel so homesick that you'll want to die, and there's nothing you can do about it apart from endure it. But you will, and it won't kill you... and one day the sun will come out and you'll realize that this is where your life is.”  Brooklyn is one of eight films nominated for best picture, and Ronan is nominated for best actress.

I wore a favorite shirt for one final time.  It has a frayed collar, and the left sleeve ripped.  I often wore it on airplane trips because of its pockets and warmth.  Archives volunteer Dave Mergl gave me a nearly identical one, but, of course, I doesn’t feel as comfortable.  When I look at old photos, I often notice what I’m wearing, so I won’t forget it.

Dick Maloney bowled despite a sore thumb (with a black nail) that was the result of catching it in a door.  I rolled two 149s and would have had a third if I’d converted a 6-10 at the end of the second game and then struck.  With five strikes in a row opponent Doris Guth bowled a 235.  Twice pins fell after she’d turned away, just before the rack came down.  I should be so lucky.  My final frame I needed a strike to win my second quarter pot (paid out every tenth strike).  I left the 6-10, spared, and as my next ball curved into the pocket, jumped up as all the pins fell.  Collecting the quarters, I told Mel Guth, “I only do that on my last ball.”  My back ached later.

Region Proud

The scenic Lake Michigan views,

The Dunes sand in my shoes,

The tradition of steel

And the political deal;

Where Chanute first took flight

So others could get it Wright.”

         Phil Wieland

A clever poem by Phil Wieland appeared in a NWI Times feature called “NWI is Region Proud.” References to Gary include mention of gambling casinos and Michael Jackson being a lad there “before he became so “Bad” – a reference to the King of Pop’s 1987 album and subsequent world tour encompassing 123 performances on four continents.  Wieland’s poem concludes:

Fine dining, history and culture galore

Await you outside your door.

I could go on, the reasons are legion

For why we should all love our Region.

The Times wants me to contribute a piece for the “Region Proud” column.  After mulling the offer over, here’s what I came up with:

  Experiencing Northwest Indiana in all its richness for the first time in 1970 as a newly hired professor of History at IU Northwest, I was struck by the Region’s blue-collar flavor and impressed by its ethnic and racial diversity.  I soon learned about the city of Gary’s rich, albeit, brief history since its founding by U.S. Steel Corporation in 1906: its progressive schools under Superintendent William A. Wirt; labor union struggles and triumphs; racial progress under black leadership, beginning with the election of Mayor Richard Gordon Hatcher.  On the flip side, I have lamented its travails as a Hoosier stepchild in an age of de-industrialization, neglected and disrespected by downstate officials.  Though a tough environment, especially for those struggling to find work and raise families, Gary in the past has afforded opportunities for a host of athletes (i.e., George Taliaferro, Alex Karras), actors (Karl Malden, Avery Brooks), musicians (Pookie Hudson, Michael Jackson), entrepreneurs (Vivian Carter, Andrew Means), and other notables (including astronaut Frank Borman and Nobel laureates Paul Samuelson and Joseph Stiglitz) who have achieved success elsewhere.  Even more impressive are those who stayed and became community pillars, such as the recently deceased historian Dharathula “Dolly” Millender and Coach Claude Taliaferro.  While some lament what the city has lost, I see a ray of hope for development of Gary’s lakefront, airport, and academic corridor, and even possibilities for its commercial rebirth.

 Line dancing at DC's; NWI Times photo by John Luke

NWI Times feature writer Vanessa Renderman is parting ways with the paper after ten years.  I wonder if she was forced out, like so many other talented writers and editors.  Her last story dealt with the closing on January 30 of DC’s Country Junction, a Lowell honkytonk where since 1975 live bands have been playing country music and people have been line dancing.  Merle Haggard once performed at DC's.  Renderman wrote:

  There were some cowboy hats in the crowd, but camo coats, flannel shirts, cowboy boots, Carhartt jackets and camo baseball hats were more common attire.

What hasn't changed is the traditional call-and-answer of DC's twist on the Hank Williams Jr. tune “Family Tradition.”

“Why do you drink?” the band sings.

“To get drunk!” the crowd shouts.

“Why do you roll smoke?” the band sings.

“To get stoned!” the crowd shouts.

The song continues, and instead of singing the line, “It's a family tradition," the band sings, "It's a DC's tradition.”

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The 1975, a band from Manchester, England, that soon-to-be grandson-in-law Josh Leffingwell introduced me to, has a current song that made Rolling Stones’ Playlist -  “Ugh!”  - from a forthcoming album titled “I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It.”  “Girls,” on their self-titled 2013 CD contains these lyrics: “She can’t be what you need if she’s 17.  They’re just girls.”  Good advice.  The band’s “The City” contains the line: “Community service was the best job he ever had.”  Clever.

Even Donald Trump himself is amazed at the things he can say and get away with.  The latest: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”  It’s almost as if he’s tired of running for president and trying unsuccessfully to torpedo his own campaign.  His latest stunt is boycotting the debate that FOX is hosting.

 above, USS Essex; below John Sullivan

From a Post-Trib SALT column by Jeff Manes about Porter County Museum coordinator Megan Telligman I learned that Porter County was named for David Porter, commander of The USS Essex, a sailing frigate during the War of 1812.  Noting that the historical exhibit contained information on Indian removal (The Trail of Death) during the 1830s and the Ku Klux Klan activities in Valpo during the 1920s, Manes wrote: “I have the highest respect for Megan Telligman and the rest of the staff at the Porter County Museum because they refuse to sugarcoat our past.  It’s unfortunate that some history books were written by liars.”  On a lighter note Manes asked Megan about photos of Valpo native “Bronco” John Sullivan, a Wild West Show performer, and one from the Calumet Regional Archives taken in 1922 at Gary’s Bailly Library of kids celebrating their ethnic heritage.  As Manes wrote: “Each student is holding his or her own sign: Croatian, Bulgarian, Spanish, Jewish, Lithuanian, Czech-Slovak, Hungarian, Austrian, German, Mexican, Italian, Russian, Polish, Greek, Romanian... . The melting pot.”

Jeff Manes recently asked if I could write a blurb for a forthcoming volume of his series “All Worth Their Salt.”  I appeared in volume one and son Dave evidently will be in volume two.  Here is what I came up with: 

With his blue-collar perspective, no-nonsense sensibility, and Region wit, Jeff Manes is a consummate interviewer.  Curious, persistent, and a good listener with an ear for the catchy phrase or telling insight, he turns his interactions into a shared experience among equals.  What he achieves, without pomposity or artifice, is contemporary social history of the highest order - or, to quote scholar Jesse Lemisch, "history from the bottom up."

I ate well over the weekend, first a taco salad at Round the Clock with Dave and James after bowling, then steaks on the grill at Wades with salad and Darcey’s incomparable potato salad.  Sunday I cooked bacon, scrambled eggs, potato pancakes, and mushrooms and chopped onions.  At Hagelbergs for bridge Cheryl made a pasta dish with turkey, tomatoes, cheese, and mushrooms, served with a salad and delicious bread.  Dick and I caught the exciting AFC championship: despite Tom Brady’s heroics Peyton Manning of the Denver Broncos will get a chance for a second Superbowl ring against the Carolina Panthers.  It would match Broncos executive and former QB John Elway’s pair.

 photo by Raymond Smock

Several friends out East posted Facebook photos of the historic blizzard that dumped as much as three feet of snow on some communities.  From West Virginia Ray Smock noted: “We will not be entertaining on our deck this weekend.”

Chris Young has taken over Micah Pollak’s Economic History course.  Since economic development has always been part of his American History courses, he’s enjoying the opportunity to interact with Business majors.   Nicole Anslover asked me to speak in her History Methods course.  When I taught the course, I invited departmental colleagues to discuss researching in their particular fields.  She thought that was a good idea.

Already Gone

“Remember this, when you look up in the sky

You can see the stars and still not see the light,”

         “Already Gone,” Eagles

Glenn Frey of the Eagles passed away at age 67.  Although “Already Gone” is about a guy breaking up with his girlfriend after hearing she planned to leave him, it’s the headline many newspapers used to announce his death.  “Already Gone,” sung by Frey, was the first cut on the classic 1974 album “On the Border,” which also contained “James Dean” and “Best of My Love.”  In addition to a solo career after the Eagles broke up in 1980, Frey appeared in episodes of Miami Vice and as an agent in Jerry Maguire.

At Inman’s where James now bowls, a thin layer of ice almost caused me to fall in the parking lot.  James rolled a 440 series, better than my average these days, and I was happy to see many familiar faces, including Chris Lugo’s and Tom Dick’s families.  A couple Christmases ago at Inman’s I couldn’t find my car for some anxious minutes, as I exited from a different door than the one I first entered.

 

above, cast of "Young Frankenstein"; below, Angie and Becca

Sunday we braved arctic conditions to see the Mel Brooks musical “Young Frankenstein” at the Star Plaza.”  Becca was in the chorus and had several tricky dance numbers, including “Puttin’ On the Ritz.”  Ribald songs included “Deep Love” and “Roll in the Hay” featuring sexy Inga (Rachel Livingston) and Frederick Frankenstein (Justin Williams).  The show, first presented at Valpo’s Chicago Street Theatre, so impressed Star Plaza CEO Charlie Blum that he booked an enhanced version into the much larger venue.  Before the curtain went up Robin Halberstadt introduced me to a half dozen friends, including the sister of the person from whom we bought our condo, and I chatted with Stevie Kokos, a former softball teammate who has worked at the Star Plaza since majoring in Performing Arts at IUN.

On Jeopardy all three contestants bet everything on the final question and guessed incorrectly, leaving them with no money.  The category was State Capitals and the clue was: A 1957 event led to the creation of a national historic site in this city, signed into law by a president whose library is now there too.  Guesses were Atlanta, Montgomery, and Springfield.  Realizing that the desegregation of Central High School took place then and that Bill Clinton’s Presidential library is in Little Rock, Arkansas, I knew the answer.  None of the contestants would return.  Two of them had tied for the lead, so their bets were understandable, but the third person really blew it.

 above, Debra Dubovich; below, Daddy King

On Martin Luther King Day at Gino’s Debra Dubovich ably reported on Taylor Branch’s “Parting the Waters,” volume one of the 2,912-page trilogy “America in the King Years.”  King’s first name was originally Michael, and he became Martin Luther King, Jr., after “Daddy” King changed their names when he was five.  Married to Alberta Williams, the daughter of the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the elder King restored it to financial solvency after Reverend A.D. Williams died in 1931.  Dubovich concentrated on the Montgomery Bus Boycott and mentioned the role E.D. Nixon played as President of the Montgomery NAACP whom Rosa Parks worked for.  Jailed, Nixon acted like it was a badge of pride, inspiring others not to fear the many harassment tactics.  Brian and Connie Barnes mentioned that Richard Morrisroe spoke at Hobart Unitarian Church the previous day about being gravely wounded in Lowndes County 50 years ago.  Morrisrroe figures prominently in Taylor Branch’s “At Canaan’s Edge: America during the King Years, 1965-1968.”

Explaining to Steve McShane’s students to explain their oral history assignment -  to interview someone from Northwest Indiana who was a teenager during the 1980s -  I read excerpts from two articles in my Eighties Shavings (volume 38, 2007), “The Uncertainty of Everyday Life.” Rebecca Sanders wrote about 1989 Hammond High grad Jered, whose dad took him to wrestling matches at Hammond Civic Center.  Jered enjoyed going to Woodmar Mall, where he and his best friend hung out at Radio Shack and a record store and tried to pick up girls. Stephanie Short wrote about LaCretia Tucker, who got pregnant her senior year after a December turnabout dance.  Short wrote:

  LaCretia had planned to go into the marines, and her biggest regret is the derailing of those plans.  She kept her pregnancy secret even from her parents.  At graduation they gave her a dozen roses in a presentation bouquet.  As she sat through the ceremony with the flowers on her lap, she watched them move around as the baby was going “kick, kick, kick.”

        

Duplicate bridge partners with Charlie Halberstadt at Duneland YMCA in Chesterton, my low point was going down four in four spades.  It turned out, however, that it was a good sacrifice bid because it kept our opponents out of game.  Seventeen people showed up, so director Alan Ynve played with someone without a partner and one of the nine pairs sat out each round.   If 16 or 20 folks show up Alan doesn’t play.  If there are 18, he calls our neighbor Janice Custer, who lives minutes away, and plays with her.  If there are 15 or 19, Alan plays and no team has to sit out.

Jeff Manes profiled Miller Beach mainstay George Rogge, president of the Miller Citizens Corporation and active in a half-dozen other civic groups.  Rogge discussed the threat to homeowners a decade ago when U.S. Steel’s tax assessment got reduced from $248 million to $113 million, the epitome of corporate irresponsibility.

  All of a sudden, people were about to get a bill for 9 percent of their assessed valuation for their market price. Some people bought their houses for cheaper than that.

  I put together a small group, and we put together a three-pronged plan. The first prong was that we would sue the state. The second prong was the legislature. I said that we should cap the rate at 2 percent, which was higher than the rest of what the state was paying, anyway. We settled on that.

  I went down to Indianapolis and actually bought a condo. I spent the entire time down there. The third prong was we put together a group that was really affected, liked retired teachers. 

The bill eventually was written up: 1 percent for homeowners, 2 percent for rental, and 3 percent for commercial. Those were the caps. The bill was passed, and it is now in the state constitution. It's the biggest thing I ever did.

At a condo owners meeting the hot topics were tree trimming and how to stop woodpeckers from drilling holes in people’s units.  One person recommended buying plastic owls and filling them with sand.  Another suggested pie tins that reflected.  By the time I got back home Golden State was blowing out the Bulls.

I was unable to edit my blog or make a new post until Augie Reyes from IUN tech services connected it to the Foxfire.  It appears that the latest Safari update made the blog incompatible with my MAC.

I started reading Sean Wilentz’s 2005 biography of Andrew Jackson, shorter but more scholarly than Jon Meacham’s “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.”  Wilentz wrote that “the charismatic general and hero of the War of 1812 embodied the hopes of ordinary citizens” and that his presidency was “a hinge between the founding of the republic and its rebirth in the Civil War.”

I bowled my best game all season, a 190, enabling the Engineers to win game two, and finished with a 483 series.  Opponent Judy Sheriff threw a ball that broke sharply to the left, necessitating that she throw it perilously close to the right gutter.  After one of her strikes, the octogenarian exclaimed, “I’m a happy hooker.”

Gary Roosevelt student Cary Martin protests conditions at school; NWI Times photo by Carmen McCollum

Gary Roosevelt students protested the lack of heat and other problems that have kept the school closed much of the time since Christmas.  He once-proud school has fallen on tough times, exacerbated by being taken over and run as a charter school.