And I’d rather live in this
left-over city
Than any suburb I know.”
Gary Postscript 1989” John Sheehan
In
preparation for a talk about my Gary research interests, I’ve decided to stress
how poems, journals, and oral histories have enriched my attempts to capture
the city’s social history. For example, “City
of the Century” (1978) cites over a hundred interviews I conducted, ranging
from Johnny Kyle, Gary’ first sports star, to Mayor Richard Gordon Hatcher. “Gary’s
First Hundred Years” (2006) contains poems by Carl Sandburg and John Sheehan,
excerpts from the diaries of pioneer Albert Anchors and Red Scare political
prisoner Katherine Hyndman, and journal entries by 2003 IUN students of mine.
Photos by Jim Sullivan
On his
“Places That Were” site, photographer Jim Sullivan shared over a dozen shots of
Horace Mann School, which opened in 1928 and closed in 2004, calling it a
monument to the lost prosperity of Gary.
It was designed by famed architect William B. Ittner as a unit school with grades from kindergarten to 12 in
accordance with Superintendent William A. Wirt’s work-study-play educational
philosophy of learning through doing. Sullivan
wrote:
I parked
beside a crumbling brick apartment building in downtown Gary, Indiana. On a
cold autumn morning, a few people were still asleep in nearby cars, a cruel
irony in a city with so many abandoned homes. Across the street, a sprawling abandoned high school filled the horizon.
Like the breathtaking ruins of City Methodist Church, which I had explored the previous
evening, Horace Mann School was a casualty of Gary, Indiana's shrinking
population. Several
middle-aged couples walked laps along the track that stretched the length of
the building.
The school was enormous, with a
capacity of around two and a half thousand students. It originally consisted of
three main structures that were eventually joined together. On the large
plot of land in front of the school's main entrance, an existing ravine was
transformed into a pond with several pedestrian bridges and a rock garden,
giving it the appearance of a beautiful park. It was a popular location for
picnics, fishing, and ice skating in the winter.
The school was named after Horace
Mann, one of the most important reformers of the public-school system. He
believed that a free society cannot exist without equal access to education and
that schools should not be aligned with any particular religious denomination.
Though controversial at the time, his ideas eventually became widely
accepted throughout the United States. Many schools have been named in his
honor.
In 1929 Horace Mann School had a
student body of 870. By 1937, it increased to nearly 2400 students and 80 staff
members. When
enrollment grew to nearly 2600 in 1956, exceeding Horace Mann's intended
capacity, the district decided to build an additional school on the southern
portion of the property. John H. Vohr Elementary School opened in in 1958.
Sadly, the pond was filled in to make room for a parking lot. By 2003,
Horace Mann High School had only 546 students, roughly a fifth of its capacity. The final
graduating class consisted of only 72 students.
It seems unlikely that the building
will ever be put to use again. Vandalism and the elements have taken a heavy
toll. There is a great deal of water damage in the basement. The floor of the
gym is so heavily warped from moisture that a large section of it has risen up
and buckled.
Princess Garvis (Scott) replied to Sullivan:
I am a graduate of Horace Mann, class
of '93. I was born and raised in Gary, though I've since moved. I walked these
very halls, used these lockers, watched many presentations in this auditorium,
used the Science Labs, as well as classrooms. I'm heartbroken by it all, but
the gym with the buckled floor brings tears to my eyes. I was a cheerleader all
4 years here. I cheered on this floor and watched MANY games. I know the young men who are the Champions on
the gymnasium wall. I had P.E. and swam in these pools. I have yet to see Horace Mann's ruins in
person. I have to say, I don't know if
I'm emotionally ready.
Denny Cavanaugh; photo by Johnny Gorches
Horace
Mann grads I’ve written about include former IUN Bookstore manager Ruth Nelson,
radio and TV personality Tom Higgins, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, football
coach Joe DeSoto, and baseball star Dennis Cavanaugh. Mann teams were nicknamed the Horsemen. Coincidentally, reporter Johnny Gorches did a
Post-Tribune feature on Cavanaugh
entitled, “At 79, Denny Cavanaugh keeps rolling along.” He competes in six
bowling leagues, including mine (Thursday
Mel Guth Seniors at Hobart Lanes). Gorches
wrote:
“I've been bowling for 60 years and in
six leagues right now,” Cavanaugh said. “I'm gonna drop out of a couple of
them. I find it hard to compete with the
'young swingers' anymore. It's just hard
to keep up with them."
Still, he's done a decent job in recent
years. Cavanaugh has eight career 800 series and 16 career 300 games. In
February, 2014, he rolled a pair of 290s two days apart at Hobart Lanes. His
last 300 came earlier that season at Cressmoor.
I
gave the new Steel Shavings to Alan
Yngve and Charlie Halberstadt at duplicate bridge and got requests from several
others after Charlie showed his off. Kris
Prohl noticed a photo of the late Home Mountain Printing owner Larry Klemz,
formerly her close friend. Charlie and I
did well despite two low boards. In one, everyone passed; the opponents had more points than us, but every other East-West
pair that bid got set. In the other,
Charlie preempted 3 Clubs, and East doubled.
I held 8 Spades headed by the Ace, King, Queen, plus a lone Diamond and
2 Queen doubletons. I jumped to 4 Spades
and lost the first four tricks, two in Clubs and 2 in Hearts. Other North-South pairs stopped a 3 Spades
or, in one case, made 5 Diamonds (opponents must have opened with a Spade or
Diamond lead). Charlie had 7 Diamonds headed by the Ace, King, the 10 and Jack
of Spades, and, like me, losing doubletons in Hearts and Clubs.
Harold Haydon
Harold Hayden, figures at beach
Bridge
opponent Marcia Carson, an Education Division instructor for many
years, now teaches Art History both at IUN and Valparaiso University. During the 1970s, Toni had
such a course at IUN from artist Harold Haydon, who had retired from the University of
Chicago and was living in Northwest Indiana.
After Toni told me how interesting he was, I audited the class.
At
Hobart Lanes, the Pin Heads had to spot us Engineers 127 pins, and we ended up
beating them scratch in game one, enough to take series before losing the final
two games. Teammate Frank Shufran brought me some treasures for the Calumet
Regional Archives, including bowling records former teammate Bill Batalis saved
dating back to 1961, when the Electrical Engineers were in the Good Fellows Supervisors
Bowling League. I learned that in 1964 Dick Maloney, still on the team but then
with the Mechanical Engineers (as was Bob “Robbie” Robinson), rolled a 266. Here are the 16 teams in the order they
finished in 1963-1964: Electrical Engineers, Blast Furnace, Construction
Engineers, New Era Electric, Locomotive Shop, Mechanical Engineers, Accounting,
Design Engineers, #3 Sinter Plant, Test Engineers, Safety, Services, Industrial
Engineers, Electric Shop, Central Maintenance, Machine Shop. In 2011, Bill’s final year bowling, ours was
the only U.S. Steel team left in the Wednesday Night Sheet and Tin League. His records show that I
finished with a 161 average; my friend Clark Metz, who subbed for us on six
occasions, finished with a 160 average.
Larry Klemz at 2004 quilt show
Frank
Shufran also brought me booklets from the String-A-Long Quilt Guild’s first
(1986) and tenth (2004) biennial quilt show (both he and wife Joan are
quilters). Frank and Joan
invited Toni and me to a show, held that year at Timothy Ball Elementary
School in Crown Point. On display were not only quilts by both of them but
others by good friend Al Sterkin’s wife Carol, IUN colleague Jim Tolhuizen’s wife
Marilyn, and Home Mountain Printing owner Larry Klemz’s spouse Jeri.
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