Law enforcement beyond this point

 

I have an affinity for driving two-lane highways. Avoiding interstates comes at a cost, of course. But the rewards of captured views, small town living, and general reduction in my stress level more than make up for the extra time required for driving. Such was the case when I needed to go from my home in northern Indiana to a conference of state byways in Metamora.

Highway 27, running north-south along the east edge of the state, isn’t the most rural of Indiana two-laners, but it served my need…my need for less speed. I left myself a two-hour cushion for arrival, which, I get, is a luxury some don’t have. I also needed to return some archival documents to folks in Decatur. They recommended we meet for lunch at the West End Restaurant, where they also recommended the tenderloin. Indiana being what it is, where it is, who it is, and what it produces, requires an unholy reverence of the tenderloin. And I, being terribly Hoosier, have been on a mission to find the best tenderloin. The waitress asked for my order and I said, “tenderloin..” and glancing at my fellow diners, added “of course” for which they were well-pleased. And it was good.

Highway 27 used to run through the center of Decatur. It’s what connected all the seats of government for counties stacked along the eastern border with Fort Wayne and Richmond near the north and south ends. 27 passes such notable landmarks like the giant Swiss clock-tower in Berne, and in Geneva, Gene Stratton-Porter’s home on the edge of the Limberlost. Then there’s Fountain City, where the Coffins ran a railroad, of the Underground sort. Big chunks of 27 have bypassed towns now to the east or west, often with four lanes, so it takes some effort to find the nostalgia of Hoosier life I look for on blue highways.

One of these bypasses threw me while driving 27 around Winchester several years ago. I knew the first time I went through, I, well, went through, on a genealogy adventure while in college. But on my return trip some 10 years ago or so, I realized that I was going around Winchester. Winchester is the county seat of Randolph County, probably best-known-for me anyway-as the place where several senior calendar girls bared all to raise funds to save their majestic courthouse. My first project in Randolph County was writing a National Register nomination for a one-room schoolhouse in Ward Township, which I detoured to in order to get a great post-restoration photograph. But this time, on my way through Randolph County, I wanted to visit two family cemeteries.

Based on previous research on that genealogy trip years ago….and what college kid doesn’t take genealogy trips-I knew the location of one. It was the Neff Cemetery on the south side of Winchester where old 27 and the 27 bypass come back together. I had spied it long ago and kept my eye on it each time I passed through. You see, there’s an issue with this cemetery. It is a small, graceful burial ground of my ancestors perched at the edge of a bluff, in the middle of a massive cow pasture, with no access lane, and owned by Randolph County. This is why I never stopped. It became part of the Randolph County Infirmary when the Neff’s land was purchased by the county in the mid-1800s to build a poor house. I first learned this when I visited the un-bypassed Winchester in the late 1980s. And I remembered this when the new owner of the county infirmary contacted me during my time as county commissioner since we were also in search of a new owner for our complex. Randolph’s owner was operating it as, as I understood it, a place for paranormal research and cinematography. That wasn’t going to play in Peoria, or, Plymouth for that matter.

With this new owner information, I plotted my visit to Randolph County’s old poor farm. There was no discernable drive to the family plot based on my satellite imagery snooping, but I thought that a drive may appear before me, like crossing the Red Sea. I slowed, turned into the drive of the vacant infirmary complex, and paused to note that there was no vehicles on the premises. I had the owner’s name as a way to sound legitimate if needed. But it seemed that just ghosts were home. And the cows. Several buildings make up the complex, which is impressive in its own right since so many counties have done away with their infirmaries altogether. During the mid-1800s, counties were required to care for their poor and indigent and most built large dormitory style homes at which the poor were required to work the farm, kitchen, or other duties as a way to earn their keep if they could. The farms were, essentially self-sustaining and usually composed a few hundred acres. By the late 1800s, due to deteriorating conditions of many poor houses, Indiana instituted design requirements for new buildings. These, along with orphanages and other social safety nets came under the auspices of the State Board of Charities. And, consequently, many of the county poor houses took on a certain look due to required programmatic layout. I’ll share a story about my involvement with our poor house in the future.

I pulled my truck up a little further scanning the lawn for any lane that appeared to lead toward and through the pasture to the cemetery. Only the drive I was on continued ahead. I moved ahead, with a bit of trepidation, and then saw that I was about to move to a point of no return since a sign posted on a building said law enforcement only beyond this point. I’ve had mixed interactions with law enforcement. I didn’t want to add trespassing to the mix, however, there I was, essentially between buildings and could see there was a turnaround ahead. So I inched forward, and there was a sheriff’s deputy. Crud.

Evidently the county still owned the property beyond that warning sign. And it was used as a shooting range for target practice. He shot me a look like I could be getting into trouble, but I figured I had a good and honorable reason for driving past the sign. I don’t think that I look threatening. Stupid maybe. But not threatening. I rolled down my window and, as if to complete the sign aloud, said “and there’s law enforcement.” Which barely brought a change in his demeanor. I continued with “is there any way to visit the cemetery on the hill?” He wanted to clarify I wasn’t looking for the poor farm cemetery, which is oddly marked by cheap, short ornamental fencing on the corners of the little square patch behind the infirmary. I glanced over at it and said, no, the one in the pasture….my ancestors are buried there. Assuming he knew something about the Neff family, and their connection to Indiana politics of the 1800s, I thought he might be impressed. Again, I appeared more stupid than threatening. It did seem to put him at ease.

He said he knew the veterinarian who leased the property from the county to graze his cattle, and said he’d give him a call to see if I could visit those long-dead family members. He talked to him a minute before he put him on speaker phone and the old vet began to tell me how to drive back to the cemetery. His directions went something like this, now, you’ll have to ford the creek and then continue back on the ridge, then turn and stay against the fence, stay on the ridge, and now there’s no bull in there, but stay along the fence until you can turn back to the hill the graves are on. Mostly I heard, ford creek, ridge, fence, and bull. No bull put me at ease but it was already too late because the thought diluted the other directions. The deputy asked how long I’d be….not more than 15 minutes I thought, so he said he’d help me out by opening and shutting the gate so I wouldn’t have to manage driving, gate opening, and corralling cattle.

Now, I don’t know if the deputy told the vet I had a truck, but anything less would not have forded the creek. I dialed over to four wheel drive and proceeded through the creek, or crick, as it were. I figured driving straight toward the fence which ran the ridge, made the most sense. I looked in the rear view mirror and I had a nice convoy of cattle following along behind. I’m guessing the vet also has a black Ford from which he delivers feed to his herd.

So, driving along the fence or ridge, or what looked like where I should go, led me so far, then I caught a glimpse of the cemetery way off to the side. By this time the herd had given up. I then drove in a straight line, now perpendicular with the fence to the cemetery, hemmed in itself by woven wire farm fence and a cattle gate. Arriving, I put the truck into park and sat there for a few minutes looking out across this little burial ground, barely any stones standing, overlooking the grand openness of the valley below and the grand brick mansion from 1899 for the poor and destitute to the south.

I decided to let the truck run. I could imagine losing the keys or it simply not starting after my visit. And that was a heck of a long walk back, with or without a bull pushing me along. I opened the door and hopped out and then within three steps, my heel grazed a cow pie. Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m so green to not have the sense to look around, but my grandad had horses, and those leavings are easier to spot and less, shall we say, sticky.

I rubbed my foot on the ground, then proceeded to climb the cattle gate up and over with a hop. After more than 30 years, there I was, standing in the family plot. I walked and read every stone, that was legible, maybe a dozen, and saw plenty of small stones knocked over, rather ingloriously, and lying flat. There were two other surnames located in the cemetery, but as I walked up and down the three or so rows, I saw no Neffs, none of my family. I assumed that these other names were also family but I was disappointed I didn’t find my family, though I kept in mind that they died in the 1850s. Clearly, over the years, the county didn’t provide any upkeep, for over 100 years. I snapped a few pictures, stood in the far corner, and tried to imagine what this place looked like, felt like 170 years ago.

As I walked back, I noticed in the lower corner a small stone I had not read. I walked over, stooped down, and could make out the name Cordelia Neff, a daughter of my ancestors who died young and was placed in the family plot. It was both sad and comforting. She alone was left to represent the name for which the land was first opened and cultivated, the name by which the cemetery was called, she alone, at least at this place, represented a name revered in early Indiana politics. I knelt there for several minutes, with my hand on the small marble tablet, gazing down at the traffic whipping by below the bluff on 27, then again at the brick home. I wondered about all the things Cordelia has seen from up there on the bluff since she was placed there in 1847. And I was proud to have met her, and acknowledged that she represented our family well as the sentinel on the hill.

And then I heard that guttural sound of a bleating cow. Then more. It appears the herd had found me, or maybe it was their time of the day to wander over to the bluff to pay their respects. It spooked me, as you can imagine, and then I laughed to myself and walked back to the gate, climbed and descended with a hop. The cows didn’t care. I drove back to the fence, then back to the creek and sped up a little to ford it with a splash this time. The deputy was waiting and opened and closed the gate behind me. I got out of the truck to thank him, and then asked for directions to the second graveyard to visit that day. He said he had heard of it, then brought it up on his screen fixed to the dash of his patrol car and told me to lean it to see it. I thanked him again, then drove away with a smile as I took the truck out of four wheel drive. The visit couldn’t have been timed better.

The second stop was longer, but admittedly had less of an impact for me. My Wheeler ancestors, who were Quaker, had been buried at a graveyard by a church that had been built almost 20 years after they passed in the 1840s. The church belonged to the Mt. Zion Methodist congregation, but I imagined because of the way the graveyard was split in two, the Methodist church probably replaced a Friends Meeting House at the same location. The small, white frame church was perched into the hillside that allowed the graveyard to rise up behind it. I scouted it out, realizing the Wheelers would be in the older section. I found them within five minutes of looking, resting there beneath some aged old trees that helped to frame the church in orange and yellow in their fall glory.

The Wheelers and Neffs were joined in marriage by the 1840s, and had come to Randolph County in the 1820s. They were Quaker before some descendants, my ancestors, joined the Brethren church in Elkhart County. My Anabaptist roots are pretty deep in Indiana, but more on that later. John Neff, who established the cemetery on his farm at the passing of his daughter, Cordelia, was also the father of Colonel Neff of some Civil War military notoriety, and grandfather of John E. Neff, Indiana’s Secretary of State in the 1870s.

It was a good day, a beautiful late fall drive, stress-free, entering some of Indiana’s prettiest landscape in the east central valley. Visiting the land of my ancestors, and paying respects, made my heart full and grateful, and probably put me in the right state of mind to join other Hoosiers that night as we talked up our beloved heartland to each other.