“Liberation is not deliverance,” Victor Hugo
In a chapter
entitled “Ambiguous Liberation” Molly Geidel, author of “Peace Corps Fantasies:
How Development Shaped the Global Sixties” discussed how atrocities committed
during the Vietnam War caused members of the Committee of Returned Volunteers,
composed of former Peace Corps members, to advocate the abolition of the very organization
they once served, believing it was doing more harm than good to indigenous
peoples.
In the Archives
Friday were four Valparaiso Technical Institute graduates looking through our
collection of their alma mater. When I first spotted them, I guessed
incorrectly that they were from SOAR (Steelworkers Organization of Active
Retirees). I had an appointment with VU
English professor Allison Schuette to show her how to make use of Gary city
directories, with listings both by name and street address, for a project
tracing white flight during the 1960s and 1970s. On my suggestion she first met with librarian
Tim Sutherland to learn more about utilizing census data. Then we toured Gary neighborhoods.
Allison Schuette
Driving through Glen
Park on Harrison Street, I pointed out the house where Fred “Pop” Pearson, a
press operator at Anderson Company, once lived.
The father of the kids’ Portage Little League coach, he was one of many
longtime residents who resisted family pressures to flee Gary. We passed shuttered Lew Wallace High School,
and I described the once-viable Junedale and Morningside areas. We passed the house on Adams Street where 74
year-old Ruth Pelke was murdered by several teenage girls – a deathblow for the
area’s reputation. Crossing Broadway, I
drove by St. Joseph the Worker Church that was once a social center for the
city’s Croatian population. Heading
south, I pointed out Michael Jackson’s old neighborhood near Roosevelt School
and well-tended homes on the West Side, including near St. Timothy Church and
where former Mayor Richard Hatcher lives.
Passing through Tolleston, I located the house on Fifth Avenue where
Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas grew up and Dolly Millender now resides.
Approaching Aetna,
Allison and I ruminated about the many folks who bought starter homes there in
the 1950s, including some Allison has interviewed from Valparaiso, and, on my
end, former Post-Trib managing editor
Terry O’Rourke’s family, and our good friends Jim and Kate Migoski. Bowling teammate Melvin Nelson still lives
north of the South Shore tracks in Glen Ryan subdivision. Heading back to campus, I took Allison down
Martin Luther King Drive and turned right on Twenty-First Avenue, pointing out
4 Brothers Market and the Delaney housing projects across from a more recent
one. On Thirty-Fifth the bungalow where
Congressman Peter Visclosky grew up looked to be in decent shape. Next time, I promised, we’d go to the site of
Wilco Foods, owned by Jon Costas’ parents, and to my Jay Street neighborhood
that, up and down Third and Fourth avenues went from all-white to virtually all
black in what seemed a matter of months. We used to shop at Wilco on Miller Avenue,
which became Ralph Foods before being boarded up, like the Dairy Queen across
the street whose milkshakes I loved.
Looking up Jay
Street in Gary city directories, I noticed our neighbors the Demkos,
Polizzottos, and Mokrises, who moved away before we did. When we purchased a house within the Indiana
Dunes National Lakeshore in 1977, the only original neighbors left were the
Withams, Blandos, and Arellanos across the street from us.
After 10 people were
gunned down at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, Republican Presidential
candidate Jeb Bush, pandering to Tea Party fanatics and the NRA, said, “Stuff happens,” adding: “The impulse is always to do something and
it’s not necessarily the right thing to do.” After being criticized for being “tone deaf,” Bush claimed he wasn’t
referring to the Oregon tragedy. The GOP
Establishment candidate has no credibility and trails anti-politicians Trump,
Carson, and Fiorina in the polls.
On Saturday grandson
James bowled a personal high 188. IU put
a scare on number 1 ranked Ohio State, losing 34-27 in a contest that came down
to the final play, an incomplete pass in the end zone. Had the Hoosiers scored, Tom Wade and I are
certain that Coach Kevin White would have gone for the win and attempted a
2-point conversion. That evening Dave
was one of four finalists nominated for best East Chicago teacher of all time.
Sunday Patty Heckler
invited friends and members of the orchestra formerly known as Rusty Pipes to a
party at son Mike’s home in Hebron. A train
buff, Mike actually had a miniature model in working order that folks rode
around his property. Due to the chilly
weather, Mike kept a big bonfire going. Brother
Bob, a Merrillville H.S. science teacher who performs gigs at a Wrigleyville
bar, sang while playing an organ and accordion.
Beforehand, Dave, Marianne Brush, and I guessed what his first number
would be. I thought it would be
something by Lynyrd Skynyrd, his dad’s favorite band. Having seen Bob perform many times, Marianne
nailed it, but I was close because the second number was “Sweet Home Alabama.” Bob was in Voodoo Chili along with Dave and
Missy Brush’s dad, “Big Voodoo Daddy.”
At the party was Tom
Johnson, for eight years a football coach at Andrean along with Ted Karras,
Jr., Brett St Germain, and Wally McCormack, who went on to become head coaches
at Walsh University, Lake Central High School, and Portage respectively. Johnson recalled linebacker George McGuan,
one of the 59ers stars and the son of good friends of ours. When he heard Horace Mann High School was
closing, Johnson took his mother in a wheelchair for one last look. They were amazed how well maintained the
building was and how respectful the students were to them. What a shame a purpose could not be found
for the jewel of Superintendent William A Wirt’s work-study-play progressive
educational system.
Jeff Manes
interviewed Teamster Local 142 recording secretary Harvey Jackson, who played
football and swam at Hammond Gavitt High School. He told Manes:
I grew up in Columbia Center. It’s a housing project. That area has changed for the better
today. The houses we lived in were all
red block buildings. My dad left when I
was 2. It was just me and my mom. She was one of 14 kids from Decatur,
Alabama. She kind of migrated up here
with her brothers who got jobs in the mill.
Paula graduating in 2001 being hugged by sister Rhonda Labroi and with Archbishop Tobin
The Post-Trib also ran AP writer Sharon
Cohen’s heartbreaking article about suicide victim Paula Cooper entitled “No
Escaping Brutal Past.” After serving 27 years
in prison for murdering Ruth Pelke, Paula seemed to have made a successful
transition to life on the outside. She
had a boyfriend, a job as a legal aide with the Indiana Federal Community
Defender’s Office, and friends who believed in her, including Indianapolis
Archbishop Joseph Tobin. Nonetheless she
felt unworthy of the love she was receiving and guilty over what she did as a
15 year-old. While she ultimately
learned to cope with life in prison, the real world proved too much for her to
handle. She was prone to fits of temper and
may not have trusted her inner demons. Before
she shot herself, Paula bought a new outfit and wrote notes to her sister,
mother, fiancé LeShon Davidson, and close friend Ormeshia Linton. Paula wrote: “This pain I feel every day … I can’t deal with this reality … I must
have peace, peace of mind, peace in my heart.” At a memorial service Archbishop that Ruth
Pelke’s grandson Bill attended, Tobin asked the “angels of God to lead her to paradise.” So, so sad. Abused and molested as a child, Paula
deserved a better fate.
Legal Aide Paula Cooper, 2015
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