Thinking outside the brain drain

I'm the guy who overcame all of the odds.  I went away to college and came back home to the community I felt responsible to make a difference in, to improve, and to care for.  The numbers are stacked against most people who want to come back to their hometowns like I did.  Or are they?  We hear over and over again how there just aren't any jobs, so, swoosh, another brain drains from this precious Hoosier soil for greener grass.

This past summer River City participated in the one book-one town program and read Hollowing Out the Middle, a book that investigates the brain drain experienced in the Midwest.  The book suggests this hollowing out is causing the loss of our best and brightest, and those whose leadership we need to move our communities forward.

Every time I hear about the wringing of our hands over this issue, and the call to alarm and action for what can be done, I have to admit I get a little incensed.  And generally the inside-the-box answer is always more and better jobs.

I swear I don't want the next few statements to sound as if I am applying for martyrdom, but I think we need to wake up to some inconvenient truths (to steal a line from Al Gore), and rethink this issue.  For all of my friends and peers out there who managed to keep their brains here locally-thank you.  You've probably never been thanked for being the ones who went against the grain, "overcame the odds".....and in some cases put community over career.  And you know exactly what I'm talking about.  I've got friends with a wide spectrum of careers-doctors, accountants, attorneys, teachers, cops-who, whether they were born here in Republicania County or not, are Hoosiers who chose to stay and make this their home.  You likely gave up a heck of a lot of money to not put career at the top of your list and, like me, said that money wasn't everything.

I don't buy the line that the kids we spend a fortune educating and losing would stay here if the right job were here.  Sorry.  I know far too many who have moved away, if not out of state, at least to Indy.  My cousin is a marine biologist over an aquarium in Hawaii-obviously, we don't have those kinds of jobs here.  However, most jobs we do, but we're teaching these kids that $$$ is the definition of success.  By doing so, of course we are going to lose them.  When they graduate they already have a built-in sense of entitlement to the best the world can offer.  If I did the same job in Chicago, Denver, or pick any coastal town, I'd make a lot more of the green stuff.  But that's not success....at least not in my book.  I had someone tell me that "somehow I found a way to make it work".  Yeah, my wife and I committed to live simple lives.....that's how we made it work, along with a whole lot of faith.

Besides the false definition of success we are feeding these kids, we have another problem.  We're raising kids who have to be entertained-in fact, it is there right to be entertained.  They no longer are capable of producing or being a part of ways in which social entertainment once occurred.  No, they want on-demand entertainment that most small towns simply can't afford or have the infrastructure to provide.  Let me put this in simpler terms.  At one time if a few people felt it was important to have some form of performance theater.......they got together with more like-minded folks and created a community theater.  I feel that River City needs an art gallery.  I'm not going to move away because we don't, but I've been trying like heck to figure out how to make it happen.  I think it's the difference between givers and takers and what I am suggesting is that a chunk of the brain drain is full of takers.  Sorry.

Now-that's not an excuse for allowing our towns to crumble around us, both physically and culturally.  If there are things that we, as communities, can do to better ourselves to be more attractive to compete for brains-then by all means we should do it.  I remember the fight in River City just to get a bike trail constructed because of out-dated thinking.  Now, everyone loves it.  But we need to be honest with ourselves and take a critical look at what our communities look like and ask "why WOULD someone want to come back here?"  Many of our neighborhoods and downtowns look worn out.  When we see another shooting in South Bend reported on the news and they pan the neighborhood it happened in it seems I can always say, "geesh, that neighborhood looks better than most in River City".  But God forbid we do anything to change the course of slumlord control (our rental to homeowner rate is nearly 50%).  So, ask yourself, if YOU wouldn't live there why would you expect anyone else to, much less these gifted, college-educated brains we're losing?

Maybe I'm saving the best for last here, and maybe this is going to sound like sour grapes, but I don't think we really want the best and brightest anyway.  We can talk all we want about needing these young minds to become our community leaders-but certainly my experience tells me that it's best to check your brain at the door.  Critical thinking in most Indiana small towns....well heck, I'll throw in the statehouse while I'm at it, is dismal at best.  Critical thinkers are needed for solid leadership in moving our communities and our state forward.  The problem is that critical thinking leads to very non-partisan solutions.  And in River City and Republicania County.....and most of Indiana it appears, you're not going to be allowed to lead unless you've got a mouthful of right-wing nonsensical banter.  I have several good friends that I may not agree with wholly, on both sides of the aisle, but we can sit down and have dialogue on how best to solve problems because we think critically about the problems at hand.  Sorry, but I am far too familiar with way too many politicians sitting on local boards all the way up to the state level who gave up thinking 20 or more years ago.  Just tell me the way the party wants me to vote and I'll be a good boy and toe the line.

My problem is that I've never been a good boy.

There needs to be a multi-pronged approach to solving the brain drain if we really want our kids here.  Jobs is a part, but a very small part of the answer.  We need a shift in the culture or definition of what success is.  We need to teach kids what it actually means to be part of a community and not lead them to believe they need a ticket for the first flight out....but to dig in and make it what they want it to be.  And we need to value everyone-all ideas-and work toward solutions bred from critical thinking.  People gravitate toward where they feel valued and can contribute.  This occurs in social organizations, the work place, churches, and yes-our communities; those of us on the outside, if we haven't already taken our brains elsewhere, become cynical in the hope for change.  We need to end the good ol' boy system that protects and perpetuates the disease that is leading to our "hollowing".

John Lloyd Wright's second round of accolades

The most popular image of John Lloyd Wright

Here are the other two John Lloyd Wright homes recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places....

Jackson House or "House of Tile", 1938

Lowell E. and Paula G. Jackson no doubt were well aware of the work Wright had created in Long Beach when they contacted him to design his own retreat.  The Jacksons purchased the lot in 1938.  Lowell Jackson was a division manager for Sears, Roebuck & Co.  Jacksons owned the home only a few years before they sold it to Earl St. Pere and his wife in 1942.  The Jackson House became Wright’s eighth home designed in Long Beach and it was just two doors east of one of his better known works “Shangri-La” completed just a year prior.  Wright’s residential work leading up to the Jackson House had shown the Prairie Style as an over-riding influence in his design.  Wright received a commission to design the Long Beach Town Hall and Coolspring School near Michigan City in 1931 and 1938 respectively.  Both of these designs reflected Wright’s desire to apply the International Style.  In the Jackson House Wright was able to embrace the International Style fully and the result was genius.

 

The George Jaworowski House was the last building designed by John Lloyd Wright during his career in Indiana.  It is a unique design not repeated in his other work, particularly as it relates to the shape and function of the roof which is its most identifying feature.  Created in 1945-1946, it has strong similarities to the officer housing Wright proposed for the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant.  It is unclear if any of this housing type he proposed was ever created, making the Jaworowski House the only building constructed with this unique Prairie styling.  The house is also known as “Early Birds” and fits neatly into the natural dunes landscape of Duneland Beach, Indiana.

George Jaworowski was a Chicago radio personality who had an early morning show targeting Chicago’s Polish population during World War II.  The home he and his wife had designed in Duneland Beach was nicknamed “Early Birds” because of the early nature of his radio program.  Jaworowski was probably referred to John Lloyd Wright by others in the Long Beach and Duneland Beach community.  Wright had created over a dozen residential designs in the lakeside communities and Long Beach’s Town Hall and School.  Several of his early designs had Prairie styling as the guiding principal influence, but Wright had begun to develop his work in the International Style since he traveled to Europe in 1930.  Commissions for design dried up at the opening of World War II and with the exception of a parking addition, Wright had not completed any private work during the 1940s.

"Early Bird", 1945-46

Wright had, however, worked for the Federal government in the design of buildings and officer housing at the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant south of LaPorte, Indiana.  One, and possibly two, buildings that were constructed can be attributed to Wright.  Industrial in nature, Wright provided hipped roofs and wide overhanging eaves in a nod to the Prairie Style, but also included large expanses of glass asymmetrically arranged that lent itself more to the International Style.  Most related to his design of the Jaworowski House were Wright’s proposed designs for officer housing at the ordnance plant.  Wright experimented in the designs to create three, four, and five bedroom residences for officers’ living quarters at the plant.  The designs featured tall hipped roofs with wide overhanging eaves, tall chimneys, and corners of buildings cut away with large expanses of glass or enclosed porches.  Of all Wright’s work, only the Jaworowski House is similarly designed to these proposed buildings, and appears to be the only extant design because the officer housing, if built, no longer exists.

John Lloyd Wright's overdue accolades

I've written about John Lloyd Wright, the son of the other famous Lloyd Wright, Frank, on this blog before.  JLW was a skilled architect in his own right and started down his road to fame right here in Indiana.  LaPorte County to be more specific.  In fact, other than the Arcades Hotel he designed (and was razed) at the Indiana Dunes State Park in Porter County, all of his work during his independent early years from 1923-1946 was done in LaPorte County, and mostly in Long Beach.  Recently JLW received accollades previously reserved only for his father when four of his designs were first listed in the National Register of Historic Places this year.  So here are the earliest two houses......

Hoover-Timme House, 1929

Wright was commissioned to design a home by Adelaide H. Hoover after she purchased the lot in 1929. Adelaide Hoover was a widow and private school teacher who lived in Chicago.  Mrs. Hoover was born in 1893 in Illinois.  She had been married and widowed by the 1920 census.  She lived in Hammond, Indiana during the 1920s and was a school teacher at Wentworth High School.  Mrs. Hoover owned the house only a few years before it was sold to Raynor and Ruth Timme in 1934.  Raynor was born in Nebraska in 1900; his parents were natives of Germany.  They moved to Chicago where Raynor attended school and registered for the draft in World War 1.  He was involved in the insurance and investment business when he married Ruth Bedford in 1933.  They had two adopted children and appeared to make the Long Beach home their permanent home by 1935.

The Hoover-Timme House is one of the finest residential examples of the Prairie Style created by John Lloyd Wright during his career in Long Beach, Indiana.  The son of famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright came to design prominence in his own right as he developed his design philosophy in the exclusive lake community of Northwest Indiana.  Created in 1929, the house exhibits the architect’s skill and creativity in creating spaces and fitting the building into the landscape.

Burnham "Pagoda" House, 1934

The John and Isabel Burnham House was designed by John Lloyd Wright in a blended interpretation of the Prairie Style and the International Style.  The house was constructed in 1934 in the Lake Michigan resort community of Long Beach, Indiana for the owners of a local manufacturing company.  The house is also referred to as the “Pagoda House”.  The house resembles a Japanese pagoda because its five floor levels are delineated by roofs and because of its position on the Lake Michigan shore.  The original owners of the Burnham home were John and Isabel Burnham.  They were close friends of John and Hazel Wright and frequently attended parties in each others’ homes.  John Burnham was the son of Frederic H. and Alice Burnham.  Frederic established the Frederic H. Burnham Company, Inc. at 1602 Tennessee Street in Michigan City in 1902.  The company is still in operation.  Burnham was attracted to the area because of the available labor of experienced glove makers.  The company became a large manufacturer of gloves and mittens throughout the United States.  In 1918 the company purchased Tecumseh Facing Mills.  John Burnham became president of the company after his father passed away in about 1928.  His mother, Alice, remained vice president of the company.  By 1938 the company had grown to include three buildings that covered over 40,000 square feet.  During World War II the company opened a plant in Missouri and reached its peak employment of 250 employees.

He's on his soapbox again: Syria and Obamacare

I've had so many blogposts with political bents spinning in my head, but then I get distracted, cynical, or just plain apathetic that the fervor for what I wanted to write goes from a boil to a slow simmer.

But not this time.  Pick your topic.  Chemical weapons in Syria, corporations ending healthcare for their employees, the general decline of education in Indiana, or how amazing my wife is.......she told me to write that.

Let's start with chemical weapons.  I don't care what your position is really, but I think we could all agree that they shouldn't be used, much less on children.  So-if we start there, what can we do?  I just find it so odd that the folks decrying this the loudest are the same ones who went into the last half dozen sovereign nations with guns a'blazin.  But this is different.....it's a Democrat in the White House and now all of a sudden we're about keeping our nose in our own business?  I don't know who the bad guys are, maybe they all are, but it seems to reason that at the very least we could target or control chemical weapon stockpiles.

I mean, if we feel that we shouldn't get involved unless it spills over into another country, then I guess the logic would hold up that so long as Hitler had stayed in Germany and ONLY exterminated German Jews with gas, well.......that's ok.  And maybe it's too much of a leap, but why is it my pro-life colleagues can stand back and watch children go through writhing convulsions to their death and that's ok?

I find it sad and disturbing that Britain's debate on supporting our action in Syria rested on "fool me once USA, shame on you.....fool me twice, shame on me."  Of course they were referring to the non-existent chemical weapons in Iraq under GW's watch.  Way for us to be the leader of the free world.  If Obama hasn't made his case, shame on him.  If we have the ability to prevent another mass killing of children and we don't, shame on us.  I might mention that a former US soldier-turned congressman from Illinois essentially said the same thing. And guess what.....he's a Republican.

I'll skip standing on my soapbox concerning education for now, but this blog has a date with Mr. Bennet and a privatized Purdue coming soon.  As for now.....well.....let's talk Obamacare.

The sky is falling.  Seriously.  Chicken little posted it on facebook just today.
Actually I took great comfort in the fact that the Kroger Corporation is ending some of its health care benefits and pointing people to state health exchanges.  Do you not understand how this translates as good news for us folks who buy health insurance?

The more people who are independently seeking out and purchasing health insurance for their families, the more health insurance companies, and possibly providers, will have to COMPETE for individual customers.  Competition generally means LOWER COSTS.....or have my fellow Republicans forgotten this?  This is the beauty and one saving grace of Obamacare-that we (independent business owners and self-insurers) would actually be able to get into exchanges and reap some of the benefits that group policies allow for employer-funded coverage.  Lower costs.  More competition.  I still believe the BEST way to lower health care costs and relieve huge financial burdens from business is to fully do away with employer-funded health insurance coverage.  It works for home and auto insurance, it would work with health insurance.  My guess is that their lobby is too large, and at least in Indiana......we're too politically charged to set up the exchange, protecting corporations over people.

Coming soon.....Tony didn't ben'it, he broke it.

Calling all descendants of Patriot Nathaniel Cole

My wife capturing the moment with me and my kids

This will be a first.  I don't think I've ever used this blog as a call to action, but here we go.  I have noticed on many occassions that the blog post about my ancester Patriot Nathaniel Cole often gets a number of hits.  I assume it's not folks looking for "patriot" or "tea party" in the title, because occassionally I am contacted by fellow descendants.

This past summer we took a slight detour on our way back home from vacationing on the East Coast.  As if all the cemeteries we visited weren't enough, I had to visit my ancestor's gravesite near Binghamton, New York.  The Colesville Cemetery to be more specific, near the Nathaniel Cole County Park, both named for my ancestor.....a Revolutionary War patriot known for his courage and tenacity under fire.  Cole was born in Connecticut and after the Revolution, moved with his family and a small band of neighbors to Broome County, New York and established Cole's Hill, later Colesville, along with a tavern and inn on the market road.

I wasn't sure what to expect at the cemetery, but it wasn't that the namesake of the park and village buried there, in the middle of it all, would have a broken and nearly illegible gravestone.  Fortunately there was some contact information on a brochure at the cemetery-which was well-kept-no complaints there.  When I returned home I sent an email asking about how I could participate in repairing his stone.  I never heard anything until about a week ago when I was contacted by a headstone preservation specialist.  I didn't know such a thing existed.  I asked "can you make a living at it?"  He assured me he could, and does.....a young fellow with a passion for preservation.  Reminded me of me, and not just because we shared the same uncommon first name.

This might have been my wife making fun of me

So, he shot me a price.  And I understood then how he could make a living at this.  It was $200.  Not a steep amount, but I'm going to offer YOU, oh distant cousins of mine, a chance to participate in this worthy effort and return a little respect to the gravesite of our patriot-ancestor.  If you contact me with an email address I will let you know how you can participate.  I am working through a local preservation group for the tax benefit and some accountability for the contractor.

"the door" to LaPorte

LaPorte, French for “the door”, was established at the edge of the prairie in northern Indiana.  The village was first platted in 1833 by five men who purchased 400 acres at the land sales office in Logansport.  In that same year a government land office was established in LaPorte and with its establishment a number of pioneers and land speculators began to move through the community.  LaPorte was chosen as the county seat of LaPorte County and the town was incorporated in 1835.  City government was adopted for LaPorte in 1852 when the population reached 5,000; ten years later the population reached 8,000.  The city’s streets were described as “wide and well shaded” with “long rows of dark green maples” and “groves and lakes and charming drives”.

By 1916 LaPorte was described as the “City of Maples” with a population of 15,000.  Interurban lines had been developed by this time and connected “suburban retreats” with the downtown.  The Lincoln Highway had been routed through the city in 1913 bringing motorists and a national channel for distributing the products manufactured by LaPorte’s leading industries.  The growth and prosperity realized in the city’s manufacturing sector during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries is witnessed by the grand and imposing homes constructed by their founders in the Indiana and Michigan Avenues Historic District.  A substantial addition was created on the south side of the original plat of the city by Capt. A. P. Andrew Jr. where much of the housing in the northern part of the Indiana and Michigan Avenue neighborhoods was created.  As additional plats followed, the boundaries of the city continued to push south. The size and styles of housing also changed from early mid nineteenth century homes, to more substantial brick and frame Queen Anne homes, to early 20^th century styles as the city expanded.  The houses at the far south end of the district are more modest and begin to fall into mid 20^th century styles.

One area of particular interest was a small community unto itself called “Hail Columbia” that was established in about 1850.  A few homes from that period still exist in the area and include the Pulaski King House and the Dr. Rose House.  Hail Columbia loosely included the area between the west side of Michigan Avenue and the east side of Indiana Avenue, along Osborn Street, also known as “King’s Alley” due to its relationship with Pulaski King’s house.  The area was eventually surrounded by the city by 1860, and then finally incorporated by LaPorte.

The Indiana and Michigan Avenues Historic District is located along Indiana and Michigan Avenues on the south side of the city.  The district encompasses several blocks between Maple and Kingsbury Avenue.  Within the district are some of the city’s finest homes representative of styles from the second half of the 19^th Century and first half of the 20^th Century. 

The Afters - Light Up The Sky - Official Video

Couldn't help but think of this video while watching fireworks at the big Blue this past Sunday.....and the times in my life when God lit up the sky.

A long summer of good byes.

 

Before summer had a chance to begin, it seemed I couldn't get out of the "good bye" mode I had been in after losing both my step-grandparents through the winter and spring.  After a long illness, we said good bye to the first cousin on my dad's side to pass from this life to the next.  It's those times when you start to feel that time is passing too fast and that the people that you have carried along with you your whole life......aren't going to be there forever.  Here are my two siblings and a few of my first cousins gathered at my cousin Jim's memorial service.  Bonus points if you can identify who my sister and brother are above.  If there was any good to come from it, I had the chance to see my dear cousin who grew up in North Carolina, for the first time since my grandfather's funeral in 1995.

 

 





 

In late July the last of my grandmother's siblings passed away.  He was 82.  He'd been pastor of the same church in Hammond for as long as I had been alive and had just retired the year before.  That seems crazy.  My only regret here is that in all my working trips to Hammond I never stopped by to see him.  It had probably been 20 years.  And there was his name on the church's sign by the road:  Pastor.  Only a few blocks from the main route I took in and out of the city.  We called him Bugsy.  I always assumed it had something to do with the famous outlaw.  So, we asked several of the family why "Uncle Bugs"?  His wife said that my grandmother (centered above) said that he had bug eyes and she called him that since they were little.  Uncle Bugs is on the left above.  Seems to me, the outlaw story is more complimentary.  My dad looks sooooo much like Uncle Bugs that some distant family, and particularly the parishioners, looked as though they had seen a ghost as my dad made his way to the front of the church.  And Bugs' daughter even gasped, and said, oh does he look like dad.

 

As I sat in the little old suburban church on Hammond's south side, in a diverse congregation Martin Luther King would be proud of, I got a bit overwhelmed at how they loved this guy.  Never preached to throngs, never broadcast across the airways.....just kept with the same folks for generations.  Because he loved people.  And they loved him back.  Well done, good and faithful servant.

 

 

About August I got word that my cousin, much more like a little brother to me, was investigating a job in Hawaii....as if Florida wasn't far enough away.  The kid grew up surrounded by cornfields and hay, went to Ball State for marine biology, became a rock star in the aquarium world, and wrote his ticket to paradise.  Dang if I won't miss him......that's a whole lot of wet stuff between us man!  So, we cousins gathered again in August and gave him a proper send off.  Another good bye.  Don't we look like a motley bunch.  He's in the shades.

It was a long summer of good byes.  Take a good look around, slow down.....before you know it everything changes.

From Attica to Monticello by mail & canvas

 

Attica Post Office

If you think that I am building to some kind of grand thought behind the posts on New Deal-era post offices and murals....I hate to disappoint you.  The regionalism painting that was being done in the Midwest during the 1920s-1930s is probably my favorite style.  Throw it in a historic building and you've captured my attention.

 

And so it happens when my New Deal radar goes off passing a post office that screams "hey, mural inside!"  No, seriously, I hear that when I drive by.  And I quickly pull over, camera in hand, and mosey up the steps into a lobby where the locals are pulling the mail out of there p.o. boxes as if it were still 1932.  Except that some guy, clearly from out of town (I give off that vibe), snaps a few shots and scurries back out the door.....with eyes following me all the way back to my car.
So it should be no surprise that on my way back from Covington a few weeks ago, a detour through Attica (to stop at Wolf's Chocolates), put me on the street past their post office and ding, ding, ding....the radar went off.

Attica's Trek of the Covered Wagon

Attica's post office is pretty unassuming, standard, government-issue 1930s, but with an exceptionally detailed stone doorway.  A recollection of historic post office murals made me think....hmmm....I think Attica has one.  So, up the steps and into the lobby, snap, snap.....and on my way.  Now-nothing against Attica here, but they have the smallest commissioned mural I've seen.  It is entitled Trek of the Covered Wagon by Reva Jackman, a woman artist.

Monticello Post Office

And then just last week I was on my way back from Delphi via Monticello, which is slightly out of the way but necessary for a stop at the Whyte Horse Winery.  Now-I've been in Monticello several times and had always wanted to stop by their post office, so this trip I made time.  Monticello's post office is again, straight from the period, but somehow they managed to get a building entirely cut from limestone.  And a further unusual detail is the fluted return walls of the doorway and windows.  It has a hint of both classicism and modern architecture.  Nicely done USPS.  The mural in the Monticello Post Office is a classic example of Midwest Regionalism capturing the heartbeat of farm life.  The painting is entitled Hay Making and it was done by Marguerite Zorach in 1942.



Monticello's Hay Making

It may be all-together appropriate that I touch on a couple of New Deal era "get America back to work" projects on this Labor Day.  For all the crap FDR gets, we've inherited some pretty amazing things from the labor of the 1930s.  Stay tuned....I'm sure there will be more.



Hoosier pioneer left a New England mark in LaPorte County

1842 Captain Ames House, LaPorte County, IN

One of the oldest homes in LaPorte County is the Captain Charles Ames House located northwest of LaPorte.  Ames served in the War of 1812 from his home state of Massachusetts.  Ames came to LaPorte County by waterway in 1836 two years after his brother, George, landed in Michigan City and established a business.  George Ames became a wealthy philanthropist who had a hand in establishing the public library in the 1890s.  Immediately Charles struck out to build a cabin and later a barn in 1838 which still exists.  He built a Federal style home inspired by his New England roots in 1842.  The house features corner posts exposed inside the home, a certain New England construction method and quite rare to find in the Hoosier state.

In 1856 Charles son, Augustus Ames, constructed a home near his father's house.   Augustus Ames kept a diary during the year of 1851 which gives some insight into the life of a young pioneer man.  The diary is part of the Ames Family archives of the La Porte County Historical Society.  Augustus recorded his daily work activities that included dragging logs that had been cut on the property to the mill during the winter months of January and February.  He also recorded cutting rail timber for fences in a number of entries and mentioned doing so once with Mr. Mayhew, who was likely his future father-in-law.  He mentioned cleaning the ice house and stable and “drawing corn into the barn”.  In the spring Augustus mentioned making wagon shed poles, digging holes for them and covering the wagon shed, presumably with wood siding.  He also mentioned cleaning out the barn and boarding up the ice house.  Later that spring he split rails for fencing and replaced the old fence.  In the early summer Augustus recorded mowing the orchard.  He also recorded buying a yoke of oxen and going to pick them up.

Augustus also recorded in his diary other activities of pioneer life besides work.  He mentioned several times attending Sunday meetings to hear Minister Cunningham preach at the “brick school house”, the location where Augustus also attended “singing school”.  He recorded attending an event with his future bride, Amanda “in the forenoon”.  Augustus mentioned visits from his father’s uncle Thomas, and from uncles Fisher and George, who lived in Michigan City.  He recorded attending the funeral of Uncle Fisher’s baby in Michigan City on March 16^th and James Orr’s funeral on April 6^th.  James Orr was a La Porte County pioneer with a neighboring farm.  Augustus recorded attending the dedication of the Methodist Church in La Porte on July 27^th.   He also recorded that his father had “come home from the East”, presumably to visit family.  Augustus had also traveled east going to New York with his uncles Fisher and George to visit his grandmother.  At the end of 1851 Augustus recorded a trip he made to Milwaukee.

 

The Ames' family homesteads are being carefully preserved and were listed to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

The Garwood House: inspiration for the Golden Dome?

Garwood House, c. 1900

John Garwood Jr. came with his father to LaPorte County in 1831 where he later married in 1854.  John Jr. inherited his portion of his father's estate and constructed an impressive farmhouse west of LaPorte.  The historic John Garwood Jr. farmhouse was constructed in the "Italian Villa" style in c. 1866, which, as the name implies, reflected the rambling villas of the Italian countryside.  John and Cynthia left the home to their son, George, in 1893.  George established Garwood Orchards, a fixture in LaPorte County's countryside to this day.  George's sons later inherited the farm.

Garwood farm as depicted in LaPorte County History Book, 1874

While the house is architecturally extraordinary, the more fascinating aspect is the home's possible connection to Northern Indiana's most iconic example of architecture.....the Golden Dome.

Just east of the Garwood house is the William Orr House, constructed in 1875 and designed by Chicago architect Willoughby J. Edbrooke.  Edbrooke became a nationally-known architect who designed the Georgia State Capitol and the Treasury Department in Washington DC, among many other large-scale government buildings.  But what does this have to do with the Garwood house and the Golden Dome?

Note the cream-colored brick and burgundy-colored stone trim

The level of design craftsmanship in the Garwood house led me to research the only other contemporary architect-designed building in the vicinity, the Orr house.  That led to the discovery of Edbrooke's design for the new administration building at Notre Dame in 1879.  But what caught my eye was the match of materials used on ND's administration building and those used on the Garwood house.  The use of cream-colored bricks on both buildings was maybe coincidental, but the use of burgundy-colored sandstone window embellishments was uncanny....I've yet to run into it anywhere else in Northern Indiana.  Other minor stylings of ND's administration building also have the feel of the Garwood house.

Note the similarity of materials used

So, the question became if Edbrooke didn't design the Garwood house, did the Garwood house inspire Edbrooke's design of Notre Dame's new administration building?  I tend to think that Edbrooke had a hand in the design of the Garwood house, which predates the Golden Dome by about a decade, but no paperwork has ever been found to connect the architect with the home....it could quite possibly be one of his earliest designs.

The Garwood House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

Valpo's link to the invention of the hypodermic needle

Conrad and Catherine Bloch settled in Valparaiso and became early merchants of the city.  They constructed their large double-pile brick home in the Italianate style in about 1873.  Luther Bloch Jr., a grandson, leased the building to Dr. Harvey Cook who turned the building into a hospital in about 1923.  Dr. Cook was a resident of Valparaiso living just blocks from the hospital at Morgan and Chicago Streets.  The hospital closed in the early 1930s.

Harvey Samuel Cook, born in Gilman, Illinois in 1888, is best known for his contribution to medicine by his invention of the hypodermic syringe.  Cook, while an Army-medic during World War I and in need of local anesthetic as quickly as possible, developed the idea for the syringe by drawing inspiration from the cartridges used by Army riflemen.  Cook created brass syringes with double-pointed needles which locked into place; he cut glass tubes and rubber pencil erasers which were used for stoppers.  Cook filed an application for patent of the hypodermic syringe on October 21, 1916 and it was patented on June 26, 1917.  He branded it as the Cook “Carpule” System of Hypodermic Medication. At this time he was a resident of Worthington, Indiana.  Later he moved to Chicago and established Cook Laboratories from which the syringe was produced.
 
Dr. Cook relocated to Valparaiso, Indiana and established the Valparaiso Hospital and Sanitarium in about 1923.  Cook graduated from the Kankakee Conservatory of Music at Kankakee, IL and later attended Valparaiso University for two years.  He married Ida Mae Doty in Valparaiso in 1910.  He entered the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery and graduated in 1913.  He began his medical practice in Gilman, IL, but entered World War I as a medic, receiving the rank of first lieutenant.  Cook returned to Valparaiso in 1920 and established his hospital a few years later, but was “forced to give up the venture because of a health breakdown.” Cook served as city health commissioner and city councilman, both positions he resigned from due to his illness.  Cook was credited with extensive oversight of the city’s health and was credited with helping the community avoid large scale illness during a major typhoid epidemic in 1933.

Today the former hospital is a single family home again.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.

A nod to Labor for this upcoming holiday

Rows of worker housing in the Standard-Pullman Company Town

A neighborhood comprising approximately 150 homes is located in Hammond's northeast side near the old industrial area that made the city an important steel and manufacturing hub for both rail and ship freight alike.  The neighborhood is one of only a very few "company towns" constructed in Indiana and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.  Known as the Pullman-Standard Historic District, the community radiates out from a center public square on Columbia Avenue.  The Standard Steel Car Corporation was founded in Butler, Pennsylvania in 1902 by John Hansen and “Diamond Jim” Brady with financial backing by Andrew Mellon.  The company became immediately successful as one of the largest steel rail car manufacturers in the United States.  Eyeing Hammond, Indiana as a prime location for production because of shipping ports and steel production, SSC opened a second plant at this location in 1906.  Their manufacturing facilities grew to cover over 350 acres, with a workforce of 3,500 men and production of 100 cars a day by 1912.

In 1917, during World War I, the United States Housing Corporation formed to provide housing near industries supporting the war effort.  Standard Steel Car Corporation was one such company and benefited from what became known as “Industrial Housing Project No. 457”. The USHC contracted with architects and planners to establish development designs; Chicago architect J. C. Llewellyn was selected for the Hammond site.  The plan began to be implemented in 1918 with build-out of 131 buildings by 1919.  The design included single-family homes, duplexes, quadplexes, and a large hotel/boarding house in a large central block.

Standard duplex design

In 1919 the Standard Steel Car plant became the scene of a long and violent summer of marches, confrontations, and riots centered around labor issues at the plant. SSC, while recognizing the labor union representing most skilled, native born labor, did not recognize the union representing less skilled and predominantly non-native born laborers. This union was known as the Amalgamated Union. In August of 1919 4,000 rioters manned barricades at the plant’s entrance. A month later a thousand men gathered at Columbia Avenue and Highland Street and began a march toward the SSC plant. The men, gathered behind the American flag, collided with police officers near the end of Highland Street. Four workers were shot and killed and sixty more were injured. The strike ultimately collapsed in October and the Amalgamated Union ceased to function.

Standard quadplex design

The strength of demand remained strong for the Standard Steel Car Corporation.  In 1929 Chicago’s Pullman Corporation purchased SSC. The corporation was Hammond’s largest employer with over 5,000 men just as production came to a halt at the onset of the Great Depression.  The company closed its doors in 1929 and remained closed for nearly 10 years. Little remained in Hammond other than small industry. In 1934 the company became a merger of SSC and Pullman and was renamed Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing.  By about 1938 thousands were returning to work as the war in Europe resuscitated the railroad business, waking the Pullman-Standard plant.  After the Germans invaded Poland in 1939 the plant received an order for 500 freight cars. The company became prosperous again during World War II as manufacturing lines were retooled to produce field guns, 81 mm mortars, shells, and thousands of 28 ton Sherman tanks.  After the war the company “shrugged off” government contracts and returned to railroad car production. During the second half of the twentieth century the company saw expanded production of freight cars in 1966 and production of Amtrak passenger cars during the 1970’s.  1981 saw the last production of railroad cars; the company closed the same year.

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But if you want to have a discussion on architecture.....

The 1876 "Deutsche Evanelische Lutheranische Saint Paulus Gemeinde" in Michigan City

We're not about a building.

It's like a badge of honor we wear in our churches today.  What we really should say is we can't afford to be about a building.  I can buy that, or, other things are of higher priority.  That at least sounds spiritual....depending on what the priorities are.  Saving souls of course.  Maybe this is a part 2 to the last post, but the prior post's message was about preserving a place for God in our churches, not so much about the architecture....but if you want to have a discussion on architecture, let's go.

But our lack of attention to architecture goes far beyond ecclesiastical buildings.  This infatuation with starving architecture has also made a tremendous impact on civic and government buildings.  Here we say we're just being prudent with taxpayer dollars.  Well, who could argue against that and not come across as a liberal?

Now, at the same time we expect where we buy our coffee or hamburgers to look and feel like the latest trend because if it doesn't, we'll just go elsewhere.  I always get a little bewildered when I see a building not more than 20 years old get shuttered or demolished in order to make way for the latest and greatest model.  And we're more than all right to open our wallets wide to pay for that, but forget about something that might represent our highest cultural ideas or much more, how we feel about our Creator God.  He's good with just a warehouse, but Starbucks better make me look and feel good about myself.

And then there are the temples that we create for ourselves.  Our mini-castles outfitted with the latest home theaters, craft rooms, a bath for each bedroom, our personal studies, elaborate great rooms, and the list goes on and on.  And we stay in them on an average of 5 years now until we upgrade to the newest neighborhood "Generic Estates".  But collectively, as a society, it's about pinching pennies.

Fountain County Courthouse, 1934, built during the depths of the Depression but with magnificence

At one time the two types of buildings that have suffered most at this shift in our cultural thinking were built with little expense spared as symbols of what we espoused and aspired to be.  Government buildings, particularly city halls, schools, and courthouses were constructed as the pride of their communities almost in competition with their surrounding towns and counties.  Terms such as "magnificent" and "splendor" were often used to describe a community's public buildings during the 1800s and early 1900s.  When was the last time you heard those to describe the newest municipal building?  I'm thinking specifically about Republicania County's new jail as I write this.

Religious buildings have also taken quite a hit.  And a personal hit to me.  The church of my ancestors in Bremen has a date with the wrecking ball and in its place a parking lot and a fancified pole building.  Gone are the iconic stained glass windows and vaults that inspired the soul to better commune with God.  Instead metal walls, white-boxed inside, and little if any natural light define our new churches today.  When only up to the 1970s, congregations still felt compelled to build with a bigger picture in mind.  Church architecture's rich history of not only teaching its members through inconographical representations in murals and windows, but also through subconsciously inspiring its members to contemplate the glory of God in its architecture is gone....long gone.  In its place larger and larger screens, more lights, and more sophisticated sound equipment.  In many ways replacing the real and tangible with hype.

I'm not in favor of waste, or excess in any form.  But it is time to return to a thoughtful and meaningful approach to the design and creation of space in which we live and give shape to our most important civic buildings.  It's what we expect out of our coffee shops-it seems like our churches and public buildings ought to be at least as important.

The Loss of Sacred

Once while driving around with my elderly great aunt, she pointed at a corner in the countryside where two roads intersected.  It was obvious something had been there at one time due to the large old trees and the lay of the land; now it was the extended lawn of a modular home pulled up to the road just south of the corner.

"There was a church at that corner..."  my aunt said "...my dad knew the man who tore that building down, his whole family got terribly, terribly ill and he died.  That's why my dad said never would he tear down a building that had been used for God's house."  Based on my knowledge of the area, I guessed that the church was razed over 100 years ago.

We, well, not me, tear down churches all the time.  I imagine if there was some hard-and-fast conclusion that people who tore down old religious buildings became cursed and died, I suppose that church demolition would have ceased a long time ago.  We've turned churches into homes, parking lots, antique stores, bakeries, and even night clubs.....that's got to be worse than a bulldozer.  I'm familiar with the practice of "consecrating" and inversely, "de-consecrating" buildings for the use of God's purposes.  That seems to add some level of understanding that the building itself may be a vessel for God's use, not unlike what we are called to be.

But I think my aunt's trepidation went beyond this thought that the building itself was a fixed sacred site not to be tampered with.  I think it was the larger concept of the callous loss of something sacred that should concern us.  I recently gave a presentation about a downtown historic district that once included a grand building constructed in 1867 for use as a Methodist church.  When I showed the slide with the photo above, aside from the local, older, Methodists in attendance, folks were unaware that the building existed.  The building was reduced to an auto garage in 1912, then almost entirely razed by the time its back wall became part of a pizza shop today.  Magnificent house of worship-turned auto garage-turned pizza place.....nothing sacred about that.

I suppose the reverse could be true.  New congregations are springing up in strip malls, downtown storefronts, and warehouses (like our church)....they are taking the secular and making it "sacred"?   Maybe.  I don't want to get too side-tracked on church architecture's present state of decline, but it would be a great history lesson for churches to understand the importance architecture once played, and could still play, in lifting the soul in worship.  Far greater I think than a light and sound show.

I'd be the first one to acknowledge that God's presence is not confined to any one building or particular site....that a church is more about the people than the building, but even then do we understand the sacred?  And I'm not talking about specific music, ritual, or how we dress.  I'm referring to how we engage in the presence of God-and yes-specifically on Sundays for the purpose of this discussion.  Is church routine?  Is it just a place to have a good time with our friends?  When we walk into the sanctuary doors, in what state is our heart?  Are we rushing through a ritual (that occurs even in our evangelical churches) that is too busy to acknowledge we might just be in the presence of God?  I remember a communion service once when the pastor was breaking the loaf of bread and a small piece fell to the floor.  An elder went to pick up the bread and the pastor stopped him; instead he knelt down and carefully picked it up using the two pieces yet in his hands.  Sacred.  And I remember a time when a joke was told during communion.  It just felt really, really wrong.

I can recall just a handful of services in my 40+ years when it became clear that God "showed up".  Oddly enough.......He wasn't planned into the schedule of service.  It seemed as though His spirit found a small window, entered, and the rest of the schedule was given to Him.  I don't think that most of us even come to church with the expectation that God might actually show up.  To me this is the loss of sacred.  As much as I'd love to save old churches, I'd much prefer the fight to save a "place" in our churches for God.

While Christ's crucifixion may have torn the veil to provide access to God's presence, God is no less holy.....His presence is no less deserving of our sanctity.  I think about all that the priests went through to enter the Holy of Holies to meet with God.....and yet, do we even contemplate much less lose a step-when we stride into our sanctuaries Sunday after Sunday?  It may actually help if they didn't look like warehouses, but I suspect our brothers and sisters in the most beautiful cathedrals may suffer some of the same ambivalence to God's house.  Let us bring back the sacred-not an outward show, but that rendering of our hearts and minds with the expectation that God might actually show up if we let Him.

How to get rich in 5 years

Mr. E.....pondering the ancients

Another five year anniversary came and went on August 1st with little fanfare.  My wife was in Haiti and my kids were with their grandparents, otherwise it may have been more eventful.  August 1 marked the first day of my preservation/consulting business after I left the only post-college job I had known in 2008.  I wasn't sure where that leap of faith would take me.

Well, I'll tell you where it took me.

I spent the better part of the day on August 1, 2013, trompsing around in the woods with a most interesting 88 year old man with a long career in agriculture on a federal level, and a profound history with politics.  The old kind.
Mr. E, as we'll call him, had a number of questions about the history he has managed to preserve on his family's farm that dates back to 1854.  The history of the farm includes some fascinating glacial kettles that are believed to have been American Indian meeting sites, along with a known Indian trail that traverses his property.  As would be expected, I was soaking it in.

He asked if I would stay for lunch.  Sure.  A helper made us sandwiches, we said grace, and dove in.  After some more interrogation by Mr. E, he stopped and said "what absolutely fascinating work you are involved in".  I concurred, then I followed it up by saying it was never going to make me rich.  To which he suggested the measure of wealth is not in dollars, but in the richness of people in our lives and then what we give our lives to.....the satisfaction of enjoying what we do.

Well said.  I'd still like to be pulling down six figures, but well-said nonetheless.  And it was probably what I needed to hear on this 5-year anniversary of sorts.  I get dang frustrated on any number of issues that arise but I still set my own hours doing what I enjoy.  I'm not sure you can put a price tag on that.  I've been fortunate to have met so many great people, visit cool and interesting places, and learn some fascinating Hoosier history.....and to this day when people ask what I do, I get a smile on my face when I say, well, it's a little hard to explain.