The photographer may have been Maxine Steven’s grandfather Wiley who lived near West 71st and Zionsville Road (now Park 100).
 
Please forward this link  (to the glass plate negative slide show) to anyone who might enjoy seeing these pictures.   Lots of school class photos, some New Augusta buildings, and a great photo of the NEW Bethel Methodist Church on 52nd. Since it was built in 1905 that is my general guess for when these pictures were taken.
 
There are few “named” photos but there is a Geo. Hollingsworth barn depicted, as well as a Kissel family barn.   But I don’t know where these barns were located.   Lots of Pike School #9 photos (high school).     It would be really neat if we could identify some of these folks.   Please have people contact me at this email address if they can help.   I will be bringing a small collection of prints to the October 30 event.
 
This has been great fun and I am indebted to J.K. for providing me with so much entertainment.  And not a single plate broke!
 
In case anyone asks, the process for getting from the negative to these images did not involve traditional photo developing baths or solutions.   It was entirely dry!    I used a white screen on my computer (like a light box) and carefully laid the negative onto the computer screen in a “dark” room (just a windowless closet).      This provided backlighting that was sufficient to illuminate the plate.   I mounted my digital camera on a tripod and photographed the 4″ x 6″ plates first, then I readjusted the tripod and photographed the 5″ x 7″ images.   Then I removed the memory card from the camera, inserted it into my computer and reversed all of the images (to make them positive) using photo editing software.   This really didn’t take more than a few hours.   A lot faster than manually printing each one in a real wet darkroom with the three baths of developer, toner and fixer.   Once the images were filed on my computer it took five minutes to upload them to the internet.    They are in two separate slide shows.   There are some duplicates and that is unintentional.   The original photographer probably took about five minutes between each photo (because of the time required to remove the glass plate from the camera, carefully store it, unwrap the next negative plate and insert into the camera etc.)
 
One interesting observation about plate glass photography, it was on its way out in 1905.   George Eastman had invented roll film in 1885 that could be taken to a photo lab (like an apothecary) and developed professionally.    An amateur photographer taking pictures with plate glass in 1905 was a serious and devoted hobbyist or a professional.   It was not a casual device or a toy that anyone can operate (like the one I used to take the pictures of the negatives!)

1. Wendy Ford organized a second major planting at the Traders Point Gateway Project (West 71st and Lafayette Road) with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful. Dozens of volunteers spent a major part of their weekend beautifying government land west of Lafayette Road and north of West 71st to welcome us home and to distinguish our area to visitors.

2. Jerry and Cindy Baker led a grass roots campaign in a landmark case heard by the Indiana Regulatory Commission in which legal tree

trimming by utilities was redefined. What started as a simple request by neighbors to understand private property rights and duties by utilities has turned out to be a major victory for tree owners with a media spotlight focused on Traders Point.

3. Cindy Lamberjack and Fritz Kunz receive notification from the United States Department of Interior/National Parks Service that 1500

4. Former Indiana resident Sheila Fortune breaks ground on a new barn on her organic farm located on the northwest corner of West 86th and Moore Road. TPAN assisted in attracting the out of state owner when we learned that Pike Twp. Schools were considering the site for a new middle school.

5. Neighbors and Indiana Historic Landmarks attracted a buyer for the Historic Asher home on Moore Road after we learned it was slated for demolition. This 135 year old home is considered an important contribution to the Rural Historic District. New owners plan a faithful renovation for their family residence.

6. Traders Point Creamery donates its facilities and all gate proceeds to Greater Historic Traders Point at the annual Oktoberfest event. Funds will be used by Greater Historic Traders Point to raise awareness and appreciation for the area.

In the coming year we will be using this publication to widen the awareness and appreciation for the history and many distinguishing

Please accept an invitation from neighbors Patti and Dennis Smith to join them at their home, featured on the cover of this publication, on Friday, March 12th around 6:00 ~ 8145 Moore Road.

acres within Pike Twp and Traders Point has been designated a Rural Historic District. Neighbors are currently organizing a board, Greater Historic Traders Point to address the needs of the district and educate the public about it. It has been said that this is the largest Rural Historic District in the nation that is located within a metropolitan area, a fact made possible by our rural area being within the city limits of Indianapolis.characteristics of our area. We invite you to attend our meetings and to contact our officers if you would like more information about TPAN. We always have room for new ideas, and new projects. But one of our greatest pleasures is getting better acquainted with the neighbors we already have.

Please RSVP: 290-0022 – (if they answer, “Hello DLS”, that’s because they have a construction office in their home.) Patti will make

I look forward to seeing you soon.

a main dish, maybe a big pot of soup, but if anyone wants to bring anything to add to the meal or drinks, please feel free. Let Patti know what you can add. They look forward to sharing their beautiful home. We hope everyone can make it, and please feel free to bring your kids if they want to come. We have new folks in the neighborhood and it will be nice to meet them as well.

Ross Reller

Vice President

TPAN

Eagle's Edge

Eagle’s Edge ,8140 Moore Road, The Samuel Dowden House, is currently owned by Dennis and Patti Smith. It was built in 1930 for Attorney Samuel Dowden and has since been owned by several prominent Indianapolis doctors and lawyers. It is believed that Dowden originally constructed a cabin in the 1920s with a sunroom on the site which overlooks Eagle Creek. In 2004 Dennis and Patti, who are professional contractors, meticulously renovated the original structure. Their renovation took nearly every wall down to the original plaster lathe. They moved doorways, butler pantries, hallways, even bathrooms. They turned a maid’s room into a master closet. They also

installed hickory plank flooring and crown moldings as the home would have had originally and opened ceilings in the foyer and the master bedroom. It is a showplace for the Smith’s capabilities in remodeling the older home. The original house was rated by Indiana Historic Landmarks in 1990 as an outstanding example of the Colonial Revival architectural style. The property is also noted in Eliza Steelwater’s comprehensive document “National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form” that led to the recognition of the Traders Point area’s significance by the U.S. Department of Interior/National Park Service which in 2009 named a portion of Pike Township a Rural Historic District.

view of elder farm from church school site

Cows graze atop this triangular knoll today.   It’s a wedge-shaped parcel created by Lafayette Road on one side and Moore Road on the other.  By the late 1800s the Tolbert Moore Free Gravel Road was the preferred route from Traders Point to Zionsville.   Even today this winding cow path of a shoulder-less road is a popular scenic route.  

So it is hard to imagine a time when a brick school house stood atop the hill between these roads.   The Rural Academy, or School # 12 as it was called by the Pike Township authorities, was a two-room school house where area farmers sent their children from the 1850s to the early 1900s.   A neighbor told the writer many years ago that the school’s water well pipe, with its handle still attached, was a familiar site to motorists long after the school had come down.    Evidently the highway department had removed part of the crown on this hill where the two roads came together.   Highway 52 (as Lafayette Road was called for a while) was carrying large amounts of traffic as the main route to Lebanon.   So in the interests of safety, a hill was softened but in the removing of the crown they left behind the odd sight of a lonely towering pump.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)was once called the most famous man in America.   He preached in a church on this infamous pasture long before there was a school here and at least a decade before the creation of Traders Point, Indiana in 1855.  In 1884 Berry R. Sulgrove authored a comprehensive and well-respected history of Indianapolis and Marion County.   His account of Prospect Presbyterian Church where Beecher preached in Pike Township omitted its exact location.  A recent discovery of an 1855 map of the area included the words “Prospect Pr. Ch.” near this intersection.    All we know about Prospect Presbyterian Church is from Sulgrove:

Prospect Presbyterian Church was organized
about 1835, at Burns’ school-house, by the families of
Thomas Burns, Thomas McMannis, James Moore,
James Duncan, John Duncan, Joseph Patten, and
some others. In a few years after the organization
they built a house for worship on the northwest corner
of James Duncan’s land (where the Rural Academy
now stands), and the first preacher who occupied the
pulpit there was the Rev. Stewart, who continued to
preach for this church for a number of years. After
him the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (the noted Brook-
lyn divine) preached here, and he was followed by the
Rev. Reed, who preached for the church for a number
of years, and the Rev. Long, who was the last minister
of this church. As some of its leading members had
moved to the West, and others had died, the house
was sold for a school-house, and is now known as Rural
Academy.

Who was Henry Ward Beecher and why was he once called the most famous man in America? In a review of Debbie Applegate’s biography on Beecher: The Most Famous Man in America, : “Now nearly forgotten, Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) was an immensely famous minister, abolitionist and public intellectual whose career was rocked by allegations of adultery that made nationwide headlines. In this engaging biography, American studies scholar Applegate situates this curiously modern 19th-century figure at the focus of epochal developments in American culture. Beecher’s mesmerizing oratory and fiery newspaper columns made him one of the first celebrities of the nascent mass media. His antislavery politics, though often tepid and vacillating, Applegate argues, injected a note of emotionalism into the debate that—with his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin—galvanized Northern public opinion.”  

Before Beecher was famous, and long before his fame was marred by scandal, he preached in Indianapolis for eight years.

Beecher, who was to become the subject of Thomas Nast cartoons and the idol of the thousands who each Sunday crowded into churches to hear his spell-binding preaching, first came west from New England to study at a seminary in Cincinnati and preach in Lawrenceburg, Ind. That’s where the Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis discovered him and invited him to the big city, which Lyman Abbott in Henry Ward Beecher: A Sketch of His Career, said was then a town of fewer than 4,000 souls where dog fennel grew wild and pigs ran wild through the streets.

That was May of 1839 and Beecher accepted the call. Beecher brought with him his wife and two sons. His wife Eunice Beecher, according to Claudene Atkinson’s account in the November 1980 edition of Indianapolis Magazine, enjoyed poor health.

Said Atkinson: As [had been the case] in Lawrenceburg, Eunice became the object of some discussion by locals. She was known as the boyish Beecher’s ‘ailing and wailing wife,’ and no one believed it for a minute when, eight years later, the family accepted the call to Brooklyn because of Eunice’s `illness.’ 

Yes, Beecher was in Indianapolis only eight years, but those were important ones for him, and for journalism.

Hungering both for a wider audience and for a way to help feed his family, Henry Ward Beecher founded the Indiana Farmer and Gardener, a semimonthly journal devoted to farm life. The financial backing for the periodical came from the Whig newspaper, the Indiana State Journal, and Beecher was given permission to reprint as much of the contents of the Journal as he wished. He advised his backers he would do so only insofar as he was allowed to identify the source of the materials, for he detested and often spoke about the prevailing practice of plagiarism.

Beecher did his writing and editing early in the morning, before breakfast.

According to Jane Shaffer Elsmere in Henry Ward Beecher, the Indiana Years, Beecher’s wife had long ago taught him the habit of rising early. As a result, Beecher said, “most of my work on the paper is done before my neighbors are up in the morning. His work included mostly information about gardening and farming, but Beecher never passed a chance to preach. In one passage quoted by Abbott, he told farmers it was very shiftless to build your barnyard so that every rain shall drain it; to build your privy and dig your well close together…

After spending eight years in Indianapolis, Beecher had developed a reputation for his skill as a speaker. In his sermons he vehemently attacked drinking and slavery. He also called for more political and legal rights for women. As the North and South grew further apart during the 1850s, some ministers condoned violence to settle the differences between the two regions. Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, he sent rifles to anti-slavery forces participating in “Bleeding Kansas.” These guns became known as “Beecher’s bibles” because they arrived in Kansas in crates marked “bibles.” During the American Civil War, Beecher’s church equipped an entire regiment of Union soldiers. The entire Beecher family opposed slavery. Beecher’s sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

“And on the day (in 1847) when the railroad came at last to Indiana’s capital, bringing with it prosperity and fortune to those who had held on through so many years of hardship and patient faith, Henry Ward Beecher left, . . . the first passenger out of Indianapolis on the new railroad.”  (from Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait” by Paxton Hibben and Sinclair Lewis.)

Eighteen years later, in 1865, Traders Point, Indiana, was platted in the valley of Eagle Creek, a short mile from the church where Beecher had preached atop Lafayette and Moore Roads.

(Indiana American – March 27, 1869)

Grandfather drew his chair nearer the fire and began: ” I well recollect the time.  It was in 1822 and in the month of January  that the event took place which I am about to relate.   I was living on Eagle Creek at the time, some ten or eleven miles northwest from the present site of Indianapolis.  It was the only settlement then known on the above mentioned stream.   There were still some of ‘the red men of the woods’ on the outskirts of the settlement, and, of course, were none too honest in their dealings with anything which might strike their fancies in absence of the owner; in fact, they would steal almost anything movable, if it came handy for them to do so.   They were a tribe of the Miamies, and were camped first in one place and then in another, so that they were very much of the nature of the Irishman’s flea.

At the close of one day, in the month above-mentioned, one of my neighbors, David McCurdy, came to my house and informed me that the Indians had stolen a fine horse of his, and that his object in coming to me was, that he was raising a company of his neighbors in order to go in pursuit of ‘the noble red men,’ and

 bring back the stolen animal, and that he would be glad to count me in one of his company.   I was ever ready to lend a helping hand in case of such an emergency, and so informed him that I would go.

We were to assemble at the house of one Israel Jackson, by early sunrise next morning in order to start together.   Accordingly, the next morning, the neighbors gathered at the time and place appointed to the number of ten; these ten, including myself, comprised the whole active force of that entire region, and perhaps it would not be out of place to mention their names; they were, John Reed, John McCord, James McCord, Thomas Kearns, David McCurdy, Jesse Lane, Alexia, John and Edward Jackson.   One of the Jacksons, ‘Leck’ as he was called for short, expressed an unwillingness to comprise one of our company.   For, said he, if we were to meet the varmints, I’d be sure to kill some on ‘em, and then there would be a thunderin’ muss!’   The remarks were mostly addressed to John, ‘the little wild Irishman’, as he was called, who replied, ‘sure Leck, and its meself that belaves that if yer was widtwer virgins, divil a one wud yer kill!’   It was plainly evident that the idea of meeting the ‘varmints’ as he called the Indians, was decidely repulsive to his feelings of safety; but finally he was prevailed upon to accompany us.

The next thing was to determine which course we should take in order to come up with the Indians.   A difference of opinion at first existed, but finally it was decided that we should strike for the place where the were last known to be encamped.   It was away upon on stream now known as White Lick.

There were no roads to follow, like we have now–not even paths, so that our progress was slow indeed.   After some hours, we came to the above-mentioned steam, and, by following it, we hoped to reach our destination more easily than to trust our powers of discrimination; so on, and on we plodded, until it was near noon, as well as were able to be determine, when we concluded to stop and make a draw upon our rations of corn bread and venison, as well as to rest ourselves and compare ideas.   This all done to our satisfaction, we resumed our march until near three o’clock in the afternoon, when, by the rapidly increasing number of mocassin tracks visible to in the snow, we naturally arrived at the conclusion that the owners of the mocassins could not be a very great way off.   So we halted and held a short council concerning our future base of operations.   We knew not how strong they were, or whether they would be inclined to show fight or not, but we looked to the priming of our guns, and thought, as we did so, that if any skirmishing was to be done, it would not be an altogether one-sided affair.   Leck Jackson wished to be devoted as a sort of ‘rear guard’, but unfortunately his wishes were blasted by our deciding to not have any ‘rear guard’, by which the poor fellow was compelled to face the music, and perhaps, be compelled to listen to a tune he had never heard before.   But we hardly supposed they would think of attacking us unless they were crazed by rotten whisky, which they sometimes purchased from traders, who occasionally visited them.

We were to march into the camp in an unconcerned manner, until we found some clue to the missing horse, and then we were to openly demand that the animal be given up immediatley.   We now advanced, and grouping our way through a tangled copse of underbrush, we found ourselves in the midst of the camp.   The camp was sholly deserted.   No one remained to bid us welcome, or say, ‘Go way, white man!’

From the appearance of things, it was to be seen that they had not been gone longbefore we come up.   Making a detour round the encampment, we found they had taken a northeasterly direction upon leaving, and, without further ado, we decided to take a northeasterly direction too, in hope that we might yet succeed in making known to them the fact that McCurdy could not well do without his horse, just at that time.

The evidence of a sudden departure having taken place, convinced us that they knew something of the stolen animal, so we pressed onward as rapidly as we could, in hope that we might come up with them before nightfall.   On, an on, over rough and mirey ground, over old and prostrate trees, that looked as though they might have lain for centuries, through thick jungles of brush and sometimes lacerating our hands or face so that it was anything but pleasant, that trip was.

Thinking of that time, reminds me very much of what Milton says,

“Oe’er many and a dark and dreary vale,

They passed; and many a region delorous.

O’er many a frozen ; many a firey Alpl

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades

     of death;

A universe of death.’

I do not know, but it appears to me that is in reference to that part of Indiana, when he wrote the above versel but to continue.

At last it began to grow dark, and no signs of any fugitive red men.   The surrounding lend no cheerfulness to the coming night gloom, and an owl gave an occasional hoot from his home in the top of some great forest tree.

A mile or more had been traversed in silence, when the wild Irishman broke the stillness with, ‘An shure, and its meself that smells a hafe stake a cookin’, and wouldn’t myself like a bit of the same!’   It was not long before we were of the same belief.   It might not be exactly a beef steak, but there was flesh of some kind being exposed to the fire, at no great distance, for the odor reached us sensibly.   Some one of the party suggested that they might be holding a feast on the flesh of some of their enemies, they probably had that day slain; whereupon Jackson proposed that we would start for home, as it was getting late.   We believe that we were in the immediate vicinity of the Indians; and our surmises were correct, for upon emerging from a thicket of hazel brush, we saw a little way off the Indian camp, and gathered round the camp fires, were a number of them, roasting venison sharpened sticks.   We were on the eve of advancing into their midst, when all at once, there came at us about a dozen dogs of all sizes, barking and roaring like an East India Tornado.  I had heard dogs bark before, but this display of theirs beat anything I had ever seen or heard tell of; it made the woods resound far and near.   One of the canines made several attempts to seize hold on Jackson’s leather unmentionables from behind, and at last succeeded, whereupon Jackson set up such a howl as frightened the dog away, which no doubt wondered what kind of an animal it had got hold of; driving the dogs before us, we entered the camp.   They doubtless knew what we were after.   Scowling at us, they asked us why we came into their camp at that time of night.   Before any answer could be given by the leader of our party, the wild Irishman yelled out’ ‘Because ye stole Mr. McCurdy’s horse, ye did so dirty pups!”   He was made to keep quiet for fear of irritating the Indians, in which case unnecessary trouble might occur.   The spokesman of the Indians was asked if he knew anything concerning the stolen horse but he replied in the negative.  It was insisted by our party that they knew something concerning the animal.   From the tinkling of the bells upon their horses, we ascertained that they were picketed on the other side of the camp, so telling them that we would go and see for ourselves, we found our way to their horses, hardly expecting to find the one we were in search of, but he was there sure enough; they had not taken the precaution of keeping him separate from the rest, or perhaps they might have baffled us. 

We immediately took the animal in charge and, although many were the threats we heard, and gestures we saw, they failed to intimidate us.   After we started for home, we could hear the rascals following us for some distance, but finally they gave it up and went back.   Continuing our march all that night, we reached home next morning at sunrise.

The places where that event occurred were wild and lonely then.   But how changed today!   There the hoot of the night-owl is seldom heard, and the howl of the prowling wolf which rang through those wild forests is hushed forever.  (Jerry Reade, Traders Point resident, published March 27, 1869 in Indiana American.

Ross Reller notes: In Sulgrove’s History of Indianapolis, Pike Township, the following is noted: Pike, like the other townships of Marion County, was laid out and erected a separate township by order of the county commissioners on the 16th of April, 1822, and on the same date and by the same authority it was joined to Wayne for township purposes (there being but few inhabitants in either), and the two together were deemed a single township, called the township of Pike and Wayne.   This continued until May 10, 1824, when the commissioners of Pike separated from Wayne (the inhabitants being sufficiently numerous) and an election was ordered to be held at the house of Alexis Jackson for the choice of a justice of the peace on the 19th of June following, David McCurdy to be inspector of election.  At this election there were but seventeen votes cast, and John C. Hume was elected the first justice of the peace by a majority of three votes, Mr. Thomas Burns being his opponent for the judicial honors of the township.   J. C. Hume at that time lived in the northern part of the township, in the Harman neighborhood (north of 86th St. and east of Eagle Creek ed. rr), on the south part of the farm now owned by Samuel Hornaday, and Thomas Burns lived in the southwestern part of the township, on the east side of Eagle Creek, on the farms now owned and occupied by his grandsons, Thomas and Oliver Reveal. (History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana by B.R. Sulgrove, 1884)

Prospect Presbyterian Church:    This church was organized about 1835 at Burns School House by the families of Thomas Burns, Thomas McMannis, James Moore, James Duncan, John Duncan, Joseph Patten, and some others.   In a few years after the organization they built a house of worship on the northwest corner of James Duncan’s land (where the Rural Academy now stands) and the first preacher who occupied the pulpit there was the Rev. Stewart, who continued to preach for this church for a number of years.   After him Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (the noted Brooklyn divine) preached here, and he was followed by the Rev. Reed, who preached for the church for a number of years, and the Rev. Long who was the last minister of this church.   As some of its leading members had moved to the west, and others had died, the house was sold for a school house, and is now known as Rural Academy. (1884).   Below this double spaced information is the following single spaced note:  As I recall, some of the folk used to talk about the Traders Point school  was known as the Academy.   I trust this information will be of some interest and help to you, and he signed his name.   Beneath his name was another single spaced typed note: Since writing the above I learned that this land ws where the church was built was owned by a Mr. Abraham Busenbarrick.   It is also the same location where the Pleasant Hill cemetery is located on the Moore Road about one mile north of Traders Point.

Could this be true?   According to many published sources, the chronology makes this highly possible. 

Henry Ward Beecher, the fourth son of Lyman Beecher (whose mantle, reputation, and personality he inherited), (and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe) was born on June 24, 1813, at Litchfield, Conn. Though an undisciplined student with a greater gift for speaking than studying, he graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and Lane Theological Seminary in 1837. He was ordained by the Presbyterian Church (New School) in 1838, serving first a small parish at Lawrenceburg, Ind., and then the larger Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis after 1839. Here he developed the oratorical style – a singleness of aim which sought to achieve a moral response and change in his hearers – that enabled him to become the most conspicuous preacher in the nation for several decades.   In 1847 Beecher moved from Indianapolis to Brooklyn, N.Y., to become pastor of the newly formed Plymouth Church. He remained there the rest of his life and made it one of the most renowned and influential American pulpits, attracting crowds of 2, 500 regularly every Sunday. His striking appearance, dynamic delivery, and ability to speak directly on topics of popular interest gained him a national audience. A stenographer recorded his sermons, which were regularly published and widely read.  

   And a confirming note from “Anecdotes of Henry Ward Beecher” by N. A. Shenstone, p. 62: “(while in Indianapolis) He always preached twice on a Sunday, and in various districts of the city held an average of five other meetings a week.   During three months of every year, by consent of his people, he devoted himself to missionary work throughout the State,  making the journeys on horseback and preaching at some place every day.  His fame spread throughout the whole country, until finally his arrival in any town was sufficient to attract a multitude of people to hear him.   And from page 65: “There was then a feeling in the church, almost throughout the country, which was especially strong in Indianapolis, against discussions on slavery from the pulpit.  Some of Mr. Beecher’s most prominent parishoners were bitterly opposed to the subject being even publicly named by a Christian minister.  But he emphasized his position by early introducing into the synod a resolution declaring that every minister should preach a thorough exposition and condemnation of slavery.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), American Congregational clergyman, was an outstanding preacher and lecturer. He was probably the best known and most influential Protestant minister in the United States between 1850 and 1887. 

So yes, Henry Ward Beecher was in Indianapolis from 1839 to 1847 and he could well have preached here on a regular basis.   But one of the most interesting facts of this timeline is that while the church was here at the time Beecher preached in Indianapolis, the village of Traders Point was not platted until 1864.   

Any historical references to Beecher preaching at this church will be cited as Prospect Presbyterian Church, (which was less than one mile north of the village).   It is also quite possible that the Old Pleasant Hill Cemetery on Moore Road was affiliated with Prospect since we know that it was not affiliated with the other churches of Traders Point.  We also know, based upon dates on graves, that the Old Pleasant Hill Cemetery predates the establishment of Traders Point.

site of church where Beecher preached

A new barn will soon appear on Moore Road as part of Fortune Acres, a new organic farm in the Traders Point area. The barn will house equipment and livestock and will have office space in one end. The structure, which will face Moore Road, will be built on the west side of the street between 86th and 88th Streets.

Fortune Acres reunites the old Gakstatter farm properties, which consist of the home at the southwest corner of 88th Street and Moore Road and 40 acres of adjoining fields. The property has already produced organically grown pastry flour and animal feed.

Speaking to a group of about 20 who turned out for the groundbreaking, landowner Sheila Fortune spoke about the heritage of the farm and told the crowd that “many yummy things” would be produced there. She also noted that the barn, though new, would be constructed largely of reclaimed materials and that very few trees would be harmed in the construction process. posted by Katzenfinch at 11:44 PM

15 acre redden homestead

“. . . and now if I had the strength and the privilege of walking that mile again, as I did many times in my childhood – I would like to start at Ches’s store in Traders Point, grab some crackers from the cracker barrel, if it were still there, and walk past the little homes, the churches, the doctor’s office, past the school that I loved so well, and the McCurdy Hill on up to my first home that we all loved so well, and sit there a while on the steps to rest and dream of my childhood.”

Traders Point Gives Up the Ghost

One would be hard-pressed to find a point in Traders Point, much less a trader. Traders Point is gone–population zero. All that remains of the settlement on U.S. 52 northwest of Indianapolis is a Farm Bureau Co-op building, Pike Township Fire Station No. 2, an abandoned Standard service station, 19 telephones and eight road signs. Although it has not been confirmed, it is believed that what remains of Traders Point will someday be gone–highway and all. It is six-tenths of one mile between city limits signs. Located between the two Traders Point signs four years ago were 14 homes, a grocery, two churches, a garage and what now remains.

Demolition crews and bulldozers have succeeded in making Traders Point just a ‘wide place in the road.’ Why? Eagle Creek Reservoir, says the Indianapolis Flood Control Board office. ‘Political move,’ says a former lifetime resident of Traders Point. Normal pool elevation of the reservoir will be 790 feet above sea level. Flood elevation would be 811.5 feet. Traders Point elevation is 800 feet. Hence, at flood level, Traders Point would be 11 feet under water. Therefore, U.S. 52 might also be abandoned, with I-65 or a new section of Ind. 100 now under construction to be used in place of the highway.

Albert Hardin, 8104 Wilson Road, is a 62-year old employee of Purdue University. He has been a resident of the Traders Point area since 1906. ‘The people who have been moved out of Traders Point look at the reservoir as a political joke,’ Hardin said. ‘It’s a crime that they made people move out of there. We can’t understand why they took ground higher than the Interstate (I-65) because it might someday be under water. Back when I was a tot I can recall my grandfather talking about going to the Civil War from Traders Point, so that gives you some idea as to how old the settlement is, Hardin said. There were good, livable homes in Traders Point which had been handed down from generation to generation, and now it’s gone. But, he concluded, I’ve quit worrying about it.’ So have a lot of other people. There’s no one left in Traders Point to worry.

Indianapolis News Aug. 1, 1968)

The Life of an Octogenarian by Bertha Lee Redden Shaw

Much has been said about great or famous people who reach the age of 80 or more, at least an octogenarian.   Questions are asked about what they ate, drank, how much coffee or tobacco, how much sleep and how much exercise to attain this longevity.

Well I’m just another Senior Citizen who happened to live a long life. “The Golden Age” some call it.   But it so happened that I never had the easiest life, Which I think you will see when you read my story.

Some of the things might have helped to toughen me for a long life.   But this is not to say that it was undesirable – on the contrary for I believe if you work hard and have some responsibility that you will appreciate what you have all the more.   And I like to work, And my life in the country for a few years – gave me that.   It is said that the best things in life are free.   Sunshine, rain, fresh air, walking and other exercise.   The sunshine had its valuable Vitamin D.   But of course we didn’t know that years ago.   Nevertheless we got it just the same.  

Walking was always a pleasant exercise for me and no doubt it was healthful.  And I sang a great deal while walking.   We had, at our home, a deep well known for its healthful water.   These things were all free.   But I never realized until a year or so ago that I really was growing old. 

That was when my daughter and son and their families, my 6 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren celebrated my 80^th birthday with a lovely dinner at her home, with nice food, birthday cake, flowers, gifts of perfume, cosmetics etc.   With all of my grandchildren standing around, watching me open the gifts, cut the cake, and the boys taking pictures of all (see if a photo of her exists), — I really enjoyed it and at the same time the thought came to me-well I guess I’m growing old.

I am a Hoosier, born in Marion County, Pike Township, Indiana, at Traders Point, And very proud of it.

I was born in the year 1880.   Only about 13 miles from Monument Circle in Indianapolis.   Our state road 52 or the Lafayette Road as it was called then, and still is by the oldest people.   It’s a short distance now but that is because the horse and buggy days or the spring wagon days have long been crowded out.   But this is the way my mother made the trip twice a year to Indianapolis from our little home in Traders Point, in her spring wagon to shop (and lay in) material for our clothes for the coming season.

My father, a Civil War Veteran, died when I was about 9 months old.   And there were three other children.   The oldest a boy about 13 years old  (Thomas Oliver) , a girl about 8 years old (Luisa) and another boy (Charles) about 5.   My father was never well from the time the war was over.  He had suffered too much from exposure to bad weather, lack of warm clothes, need of more and better food, rest and medical care.   All this had left him with what the doctor called inflammatory rheumatism.   And after a long sickness in our little home – with mother caring for him – he died of a heart attack.

Mother owned 15 acres of land on the Lafayette Road – a short distance from the well-known McCurdy Hill.  The hill was named for our very nice neighbors who lived at the bottom of the hill on a nice small farm.  Mr. and Mrs. John McCurdy and their son Everett.  He was a school teacher for many years and a fine young man.  

The little home was given to my mother by her parents-just 3 rooms – when she and father were married – and they were married there.   Also my sister was married there.   The house is still standing and in fine condition, with some more room added.   There was a fine orchard with about all kinds of fruit – peaches, pears, apples, plums, cherries and crab apples, and small fruits – grapes, currants, raspberries.   And when a tree died, mother replaced it.   The remainder of the small farm was tillable ground and was used for corn, wheat, potatoes, melons and a patch of cane.   This is something not used so much now – but was then by about all farmers.

After father knew that he could not get well – he talked to mother about her plight – and he advised her never to sell her home.   He said “it will be very hard for you I know – but it would be much harder without a home.   And he urged her never to separate the children.  Father was a good manager and so had her parents been – so mother had no intentions of selling the home.   And he went on to say – that by dividing the work and giving all the children their jobs – that there would be no quibbling about who did it last.   And that we would get our work done easier and be happy together.   As I grew older I had my jobs too.  And I am sure that mother remembered always what he had said – and tried to carry out his suggestions in everything.   I have wished more than anything else just to know how my father looked.   Everyone told me that he was a very nice looking man, tall, very black hair, blue eyes and very neat.   But there were no good pictures in those days.   About all I think were tintypes.   At least that was all we had. (see if a tintype of her father can be found by contacting relatives).   I have a tintype of him and also one of mother and her little twin sister, who died when she was about 3 years old.   Mother’s name was Susannah and her twin’s name was Rosanna.   I’m sure it was very hard indeed for mother to find courage to go on – and to get accustomed to her new life after father’s death.

But “She took up her burden of life” again, saying only it might have been to use the words of the John Greenleaf Whittier in his beautiful poem Maud Muller.

MAUD MULLER

by: John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

AUD MULLER, on a summer’s day,

Raked the meadows sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth

Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee

The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But, when she glanced to the far-off town,

White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest

And a nameless longing filled her breast–

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,

For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,

Smoothing his horse’s chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed

Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,

And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down

On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

“Thanks!” said the Judge, “a sweeter draught

From a fairer hand was never quaffed.”

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,

Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether

The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown,

And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

And listened, while a pleasant surprise

Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay

Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away,

Maud Muller looked and sighed: “Ah, me!

That I the Judge’s bride might be!

“He would dress me up in silks so fine,

And praise and toast me at his wine.

“My father should wear a broadcloth coat;

My brother should sail a painted boat.

“I’d dress my mother so grand and gay,

And the baby should have a new toy each day.

“And I’d feed the hungry and clothe the poor,

And all should bless me who left our door.”

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,

And saw Maud Muller standing still.

“A form more fair, a face more sweet,

Ne’er hath it been my lot to meet.

“And her modest answer and graceful air

Show her wise and good as she is fair.

“Would she were mine, and I to-day,

Like her, a harvester of hay:

“No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,

Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

“But low of cattle, and song of birds,

And health, and quiet, and loving words.”

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,

And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,

And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,

When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,

Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,

Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth’s bright glow,

He watched a picture come and go:

And sweet Maud Muller’s hazel eyes

Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft when the wine in his glass was red,

He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,

To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,

“Ah, that I were free again!

“Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.”

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,

And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,

Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot

On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall

Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again

She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with timid grace,

She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls

Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,

The tallow candle an astral burned;

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,

Dozing and grumbling o’er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,

And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,

Saying only, “It might have been.”

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,

For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,

Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies

Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may

Roll the stone from its grave away!

But there was always so much to do, and for her to look after – that perhaps this helped her to go on.   I’m sure father’s advice to her – helped her to see the silver lining in a cloud.

One can hardly imagine the things a tiny baby can get into.   Just a short time after father’s death – on a wash day – mother sat me on a pallet surrounded with pillows and chairs, (there were no play pens then and never had been heard of then.)  And no washing machines and dryers.  Just the hard way of washing with a tub and board.   And homemade soap which mother made.   And a clothesline in the back yard to dry them.   But mother would always say the clothes smelled so fresh when dried in the sun.   And this is true to this day.   Careful as she always was with all of us – she made the mistake of giving me a small ear of calico corn to play with.  She didn’t think that I could possibly get a grain off the cob.   Soon she came in to look after me and saw at once that my nose was bulged.   She was so frightened she picked up the ear, saw there were six tiny grains missing, she looked around for them but none were to be found.   What to do was a problem in those days of no telephones.   She knew that all three of the horses were being used back in the field plowing.   If only one horse were there she could take me on horseback to our family doctor in Traders Point.

But knowing she must do something she picked me up, started to walk the mile to his office.   Wishing all the while that someone would come along “to give her a lift” as they say now.   She was almost to the office when I sneezed – and out came the six grains of corn.   But being so near the office she continued on – to let him see exactly if I were all right.   No harm done, only the delay in mother’s washing.  So she and Dr. L.O. Carson just had a good laugh.

Time went on and I was old enough to do some light shopping for mother at Chesley Ray’s store.  It was an old fashioned two story white building with a large hall above, where a men’s lodge held meetings, and about all the men attended and perhaps do yet.

.

The building was almost torn down not so long ago, the front completely wrecked by a truck.   But every one lamented the passing of the old store.   So some one did some plastic surgery or just plain carpentry and painting on it – and now it looks like it did many years ago.   I was so glad it had been repaired – when I saw it again.   It was quite a trip for a little girl to shop at the store and quite a thrill to go.   Sometimes mother would send some eggs in a basket to pay for the things.  That was a custom then.   Ches, as he was called – had candy in beautiful glass jars with fancy lids.   I can remember to this day just how pretty they looked.  He always had large heart shaped chewing gum.  It was like wax after the sweet was out of it.   About the only nice thing about it was – the pictures on it, of flowers in bright colors.  It was many years after that – that we had Wrigley’s and other brands of good gum.

Mother didn’t want me to carry much – just the things she needed.  My brothers brought the heavy things.  I remember the little pot belly stove, the cuspidor, the men spitting “at it”.   Sometimes they hit the mark.   And the cracker barrel was near by.   Ches didn’t have paper bags then – so he wrapped the sugar in heavy brown paper.  I remember seeing him spread the paper on the counter, weigh the sugar, put it on the paper, fold it neatly at the corners and reach up over head for twine, pull it from the ball to tie it with.   This fascinated me and I wished I had a store to play in.   My candy selected – or sometimes I didn’t want candy – but I would get crackers from the barrel.  (These were really the cracker barrel days.)   I would be on my way home.  I knew all of the men in the store for they were our neighbors.   Usually one of them got up and opened the door for me.   This I thought was very nice.   I didn’t think mother expected me home soon – because I knew everyone along the way, and if they were on their porch or near – I would chat a while.   It’s a good thing we couldn’t get ice cream at the store in those days – for it certainly would have melted on the way.  

I got many rides with Dr. Carson.   He would stop on his way making calls on his patients.   And I usually got to ride on way or the other.   He was jolly and loved children.   He had his horse trained to turn a little, so that it was easier for me to get into his nice Phayetton which was a very popular rig then.  To me these were the “good old days.”   And I still have a fond memory of those days so long ago.

I was old enough now to start school.   And was very timid and shy the first days.   So a very nice boy – one of the oldest at school, took it on himself to lead me and try to get me to play with other children.

(The Traders Point School was located within the northeast corner of Lafayette and Moore Roads midway between Traders Point and Bertha’s home.   Although the site has been cleared and is now farmed, the tree remains.)

He was Will Jennings (I think the youngest son of the family – friends of our family – and who helped to lay out the village and gave it the name of Traders Point.  Many years later – after Will was married and he and his wife lived in Indianapolis, and both worked for years in the post office – I went to mail a package.   We saw each other and he told me that he too had always liked Traders Point and the neighborhood – and that they had bought the home that had been my grandparent’s home (mother’s father and mother), and that he had built a garage and made a few other changes.   We also lived in Indianapolis then and Mrs. Jennings took me out in her car to visit and to have dinner with them, and I had the great pleasure of seeing this home that had been my grand parents  home again.   And to see and know that it was in good hands.

Traders Point was a very appropriate name for the village – for it was truly a traders point, in the early years.   A place where the farmers congregated to barter and exchange anything that they had.   Horses and harnesses, carts of all kinds and any conveyance were popular.   But hogs were their main interest.   They now had a stockyard in the village doing a good business.  And they would drive hogs to the Indianapolis stock yards and even to Cincinnati.   It was said that if the men got up early and started that they would make the trip to Cincinnati in a day.   This seems unbelievable almost.   When we see the trucks and automobiles that are on the roads now.   There were now the grocery store (I think it was first operated by Clark Jennings) at least one of the Jennings family.   Later owned by Chesley Ray, but Ches is the only one that I can remember as the “store keeper”.   The two good churches, Christian (now Disciples of Christ) and the Methodist, a doctor’s office and his home together, a mill with a race which ran for about one mile back of the houses, churches and Dr. home and office.    My mother’s sister, my aunt Mary McCorkle, owned and lived in one of the small homes.  Her husband died years ago.   She didn’t like the race being there – because it cut her vegetable garden into right in the middle, and she had a little foot bridge made across it.  

But I liked it very much, because when mother and I went to spend a day with her – I could run across the bridge.

I think another of the Jennings brothers had a blacksmith shop for a while beside the grocery store. 

I loved Traders Point – the school, the church and the people.   No finer folks could be found – and they were all wonderful to mother during father’s sickness and death.   All of the men and young men were so willing to help with anything about the farm and work.   I remember the Lovett boys, the Malson’s and the Brunes boys and many others.  Just stopping often to see if they could help in any way.   This was indeed a great help to two young boys to know that they were standing by to help at any time.  Our school, which was a pretty two room brick building, No. 12, stood on top of a rolling hill.  Just below the hill was a baseball “diamond” on level ground near the Moore Road.  Where the boys played ball at noon, recess and sometimes they stayed a while after school, Charley, my brother, was a good player and always on hand.   But mother didn’t want him to stay after school because he had work to do.   I was sorry after we moved away – to hear that the school was no longer there but had merged into a a school on 71^st near Augusta.   It was then called Pike school.  

(photo of Traders Point Church of Christ located on the eastside of Lafayette Road about a mile south of the Redden farm)

(the above photo depicts the pump and  well at the Traders Point school following  a major excavation to remove the crown of Lafayette Road adjacent to the school. Old timers said the pump stood high and inaccessible for months maybe years following the road work.)

We had fine cold water at the well on the grounds at the school. 

 With an old rusty tin cup fastened to the pump.   And we children lined up waiting for our turn to have a drink.  We didn’t know that some day this would not be allowed, but that we would have a board of health and inspector which would change all this.   There was also a large bucket of water which stood on a table in the little room – as we called it (where the first grade pupils were).  This large bucket also had a tin cup to drink from.    The children would hold up their hands and ask the teacher if they “may please get a drink”.  This was not very sanitary – as we found out later.  Many years after that – we were blessed with paper cups for individual use – in parks, in homes, everywhere.   This eliminated getting germs from colds etc.   I remember Dr. John Hurty as our first health doctor and great promoter of health through sanitation.   Many tales were going around then about our new cleanliness measure.  And no doubt many of them started at Ches’s store.  Just for a joke, that when a person was seen driving a rig that looked like it had to do with the board of health, that in a certain family the husband would call to the wife and say “Rachel grab the child and wash him – here comes the board of health”.  Any of you of the “Golden Age” may remember this joke.   But it wasn’t long until every one was glad that we had this wonderful thing called the board of health.

I remember when horses and mules were the only transportation.  Hitched to a buggy, wagon, sled, sleigh, spring wagon, plow or any thing about a farm.   Mother made her trips to Indianapolis safely twice a year in her spring wagon.   To shop (or trade) as it was called then.   Many years later automobiles came into use and the spring wagon was retired.  Mother would (put up) old Jane at the checkered stable not far from the Star store, where she did most of her shopping.  She would have dinner at a small restaurant near by.   About everyone from out Traders Point way shopped at the Star store as it was one of the largest then.   But oh, what a change since then.   For that was not far from the state library and other fine buildings around there now.   And some of the grand eating places which can be reached by a tunnel from the library and other places.   The Star store had a large star at the front, near the top – and was there for many years after we came to Indianapolis to live.

(photos of the Star Store in downtown Indianapolis).

Mother would buy yarn for knitting our things for school – although the yarn was good, it was not pretty pastel shades then.   Also she would buy material for dresses and my brothers shirts for the coming season.   I have been in that store several times when we lived on the farm and drove down, and many times after we moved here.   I don’t think ready-made dresses were to be had so long ago, but mother could buy shirts for my brothers.  Mother did nice sewing and had a good sewing machine (now passé) with a foot treadle and rubber band which went around a wheel and slipped off sometimes and she would stop to fix it.   She also knitted beautifully.   But there were no sweaters to be had then – not until many years later.  I remember when they came into use.  And I think that they are one of  the most practical garments; for all occasions, to take along in case of rain or that it might it might turn cold. And they always look pretty.   But speaking of knitting I almost wished that mother didn’t knit stockings – for they kept me scratching my legs.   But they were warm for those bitter cold winters.   Besides the long stockings for my sister and I, she made pretty scarfs, mittens and caps.   And socks for the boys.   Nice cpas with earmuffs for school and their work around the barn.  On her shopping trips – she would also bring groceries.

In the same block near the Star Store was a general store called Rinne’s tea store.   Tea of course was their specialty.   But they had a fine store for so long ago.  I liked looking at the different kinds of green tea – in so many different bins.   And it all looked alike to me – but I guess there was a difference.  Mother always bought tea, but many other things too.   It was a great day for Charley and I when mother went to the city.   Charley especially liked the city.   Charley especially like bananas, which we couldn’t get often in a country store then.   I liked to see the large stalks of bananas hanging up in the stores, not cut in little bunches of 3,5,7 or 9 as they are now in the modern supermarkets.   Charley and I could hardly wait that last hour until mother arrived.   And when it got near the time she usually arrived – Charley would get down, lay his head on the ground and listen.  (I guess you can hear a horses hoofs a long way off) and he would say “yes, mother’s coming across the bridge at Traders Point.”  I would ask him how he could tell old Jan from any other horse – he would say I know it’s the sound of her hoofs”.   But whether he was right or wrong in due time she would arrive tired but happy with her days shopping.   And Charley would have plenty of bananas.

Mother was always busy as you might know.   But there were few interruptions at night.   No telephone, no radio, no tv, no automobile and no daily paper.   But mother kept getting a paper from father’s hometown for many years.   She would sometimes see something in the paper about some of his cousins or friends.   And if it was sad news she would cry.  The absence of all these modern things – made it possible for her to accomplish much more at night.  One of the things she did on long evenings was to cut strips from our discarded dresses and the boy’s shirts, our aprons etc. sew them together, wind them in balls and put them in a large bag for a nice new wall to wall carpet in spring.   At house cleaning time she would take them to a lady who had a large loom and made them into a pretty carpet.   And now again these same kind of rag rugs are popular.   But I doubt if the carpets and rugs now are made by hand – like mother did.  

I always went along with mother because I liked to see the loom and how it worked.   As for keeping the carpet clean – we used a broom of course, for there were no carpet sweepers for many years.   I remember when I saw the first one demonstrated many years ago.

Nothing every seemed too hard or too much work for mother.   But any one knows that starting a carpet from scratch or scraps I might say and working night after night – was not like buying a new one or having an evening of cards or some other pleasure.   I believe that all four of us got some of the ambition and endurance that mother had.  Many times I read to her from my first readers, sitting in a little rocker by her side while she worked.   She liked to hear me read and at the same time it helped me.

You have heard so much of the cold winters we used to have with so much deep snow.   Well they were not just saying that.   For I can remember when deep snows stayed on for weeks and weeks, and our faces would sting from the cold.   It was a custom then for every school girl and boy from 6 to 16 to congregate and go to Traders Point school together.   I would stand at a window at our home and watch and we three from our house would join them.   This was the gang from the west road as we called it.   About 80^th St. I think on Lafayette Road.   And as we went down the McCurdy Hill there would really be a snow ball fight.   You had to play the game in self-defense.  I have gone home many times with my throat so sore that I would dread to speak and if I did mother would know that I had been playing in snow.   But she would “doctor” us up with linament and a flannel cloth around our neck and we would most always be ready to go back to school the next day.   We had to use whatever we had for medicine in those days, as we did not have the modern quick acting medicines of today.   But we had faith in the medicine and faith in mother, which after all is medicine itself, or as much needed.   I remember that doctors then had quinine and some little pills in tiny black boxes, called pill boxes.  (Now ladies wear pill box hats.)   I had the job of filling the quinine capsules at our house when I was a kid.   There were no bottles of aspirin then to be had at the corner drug store – and no corner drug store.   But strange enough we were never sick much.   Our colds didn’t last long, not until another snow ball fight but being the youngest and smallest child in the group – my brother and sister came to my rescue if I needed them in a snow ball battle.  During one of these deep snow periods we had a long plank at school which we would get on, I believe 8 or 10 at a time, and slide down the steep hill.   It was a lot of fun – but once it proved to be very dangerous, for when we were going down we lost control of the plank and the girl on the front, fell off and into a rail fence across the road and got a pretty bad cut on the leg.   That ended that sort of play when the teacher saw what we had been doing.

There were many things we did for pleasure then that were more interesting than what the children do now.   About all the churches in those days had protracted meetings at night.  Sometimes they would last for three or four weeks, or I think as long as the snow stayed on.   Mother’s brother had a large bobsled and would gather up all the neighbors who wanted to go to church.   Nothing like the “good old days”.   The merry jingle of the sleigh bells I’m sure the children enjoyed being in the sled rather than being on the floor at home watching TV if they had TV in those days.  But it was many years before they were to be had or even thought of.   My uncle also had a surrey with fringe which were very popular then to use in summer.   They would stop by for me on Sunday to take me to Sunday school, and often I went home with them until they brought me back to the night service.   My cousin Nellie had many nice play things and dolls and I loved to play there.   There were only China dolls to be had then.   But we loved the ones that we had.   One of my mother’s brothers was never very well, and passed away very young.   He was very handy at wood working and he made some nice play things for me.   A pretty doll cradle and a cute rocking chair for me.   He painted both things a pretty shade of green.   I thought so much of them and I kept the doll cradle until I had a grand daughter who played with it when she came for vacations with us every summer.  (Joyce)

It was a custom then to invite the minister and perhaps some others home for dinner (noon meal) on Sundays quite often.  And this Sunday I shall never forget.   She had asked the minister and several others.   She had a nice dinner including plenty of fried chicken.  It has always been a joke that preachers like fried chicken and why not – everyone else does.   And as there were too many many for the first table, I had to wait for second.   Well, I began to think – what I could do while waiting.   So I went into the bed room, got a long corset of mother’s, put it on over my dress, the long strings hanging on the floor and marched around the table with another little girl who was playing with me – I took one look at mother and my day was spoiled.   For I knew that I would be punished when the company left.   I’m sure Rev. Neal McColum wanted to laugh, and sure that he didn’t want me punished.   But I suppose mother thought of him as a minister and not just another person.

(photo of Traders Point Christian Church on Lafayette Road about 1955)

To one who never used any of the old-time house-hold gadgets, they really now are antique and collectors items.  But in those days, were used to them.   There were no dish washing machines, but my sister Lula and I got them clean.  She always washed them and I dried them.   I started to help before I was tall enough to reach the table top.   So we had a small wooden box which I stood on – and we kept it under a window when not in use.   But we did the dishes as soon as the meal was over – for mother didn’t like the habit of putting things off.   I’m glad she taught me that way – for today I like things orderly and in place, and the longer you put things off – the more you dread it.

Our irons were the old, old heavy kind and had to be heated on the kitchen stove while we were ironing.   When one got cool – we put it back on the stove and took another one.  It was just as simple as that.   There were no ironing boards then and we just folded a sheet, put it on the table and ironed there.   Soon it was finished and the clothes looked fine.   Also in those days we had curling irons which we heated on the stove.   I could never see why this didn’t ruin our hair but it didn’t.   My sister had the most beautiful white hair when she passed away at 87.   And it did no damage to my hair that I could see.

Many people collect old fashioned lamps.  I wonder if they would if they had to keep them trimmed and burning.   This had to be done every day.   Filled with kerosene oil and trimmed early in the day so they would be ready when needed.   If it was a dark, cloudy evening they would be needed earlier.   And as we didn’t know there would ever be anything different – like electric lights – the task just didn’t seem so hard.   There were also lanterns to be kept clean to be used around the barn.   I think my brothers took care of them.   Many years later we had in the cities and towns – the lamplighters, who came along in the late afternoon, got out of his cart, took his ladder and got up to the lamp post to put the light in order.   He would always sing or whistle, have something to say to the folks he saw every afternoon.  That one in order he would drive on to the next one.   And as the lamplighters were always jolly – there was a song which came out years later about “The Old Lamplighter of Long, Long Ago”.   I always liked the song, and once in a while yet, I hear it on radio.

 (editor’s note: this recipe may be similar to what “mother used to make”:  

Handkäse
This means handmade cheese like Old Fashioned Cottage Cheese
or Bauernhandkäse would be Farmer’s Hand Cheese

Put the curds into a bowl and salt.

Often there were droughts and people living all around us would come with jugs, jars, buckets and all sorts of containers to get water from our well.   Their wells had completely gone dry.   But ours was never dry.   This shortage of water lasted until we had plenty of rain again.   And mother would say sometimes “oh what if our well would go dry” but then she would say “but we can’t deny people a thing that they must have”.  But because the water was so cold – they all liked it and many came for water after they had water.

Our yard was always beautiful all summer.  We had a large front yard with gravel walk from the front gate leading up to the steps at the front door.  Mother and I loved to sit out on the steps in the cool of the evening of those long, nice summer days and listen to the bees in the white clover and watch the moon.  I would wonder what it was I could see in the moon.  And I would ask her if that was God.  And we just thought the moon was beautiful to look at – never giving a thought that some day there would be trips to the moon – first by a monkey and then by a man.   In that way things have changed so very, very much in my almost 83 years.

There was a large flower bed on each side of the walk.   With hardy flowers always blooming.  I also remember a lovely yellow rose, small but very fragrant.  I loved to wear one or two either in my black hair or just pinned on my dress.   There were no hose for sprinkling then, but mother carried water in a large bucket from the well and watered them with a goard dipper or a tin cup.   But the flowers thrived on this treatment.   And we didn’t know that there would be hose and improved hose later on. 

There were three large cherry trees in the front yard, which had large red cherries.  I had a swing on one of the trees.  It was made of heavy rope and I loved to swing and hear the birds sing.  These large cherries were very good as the birds found out and often we would wish we could get some of them like we did before the trees had grown so tall.   But I think mother thought that since we had May cherries in the orchard for pies and canning, that those in the front yard were “for the birds”.   At the south of the house – between the yard and the garden – was the largest and most beautiful elm tree.   The top was as round and smooth as if it had been kept trimmed.   But it never had any work on it the entire time we lived there.   It was known to everyone in the country for its beauty.   People would drive by and look and look and remark about its size and beauty.   But it died soon after we moved from there.   Mother loved that tree and would sit near it often and admire it.   I always had a desire to tame a little humming bird which came almost every day to flit around the lovely red flowers of the trumpet vine, which grew for years twined around the body of the huge elm.   The flowers are bell shaped so that the tiny visitor would get almost inside the flower in quest of nector.  The trumpet vine is their main source of nector.   There was a large bench under the tree, against the picket fence.  This was where I sat and played for hours with my dolls.   Many of these lovely red bells fell off during the night and I would pick them up in the morning and use them to trim my play hats.   I think this was one of the nicest places any little girl ever had to play.   It seemed that the tiny humming bird liked me too for it stayed near me – but if I went nearer to it – it had business away from there.   I am a lover of birds and there were many kinds of pretty ones came to the yard to sing and to get cherries.   And they were all around, in the yard, the orchard and the woods near by.   Sometimes I feel that I can hear their sweet songs yet.

Just across the garden to the south – there was a little hill with trees and shrubs.  The prettiest tree there was the lovely Lynn tree.   The little blossoms are very fragrant.  Bees liked this tree also.  I have played under the tree many times while mother worked in the garden nearby.  Here I would use my imagination a great deal, by playing that I was visiting a friend.   Of course I would take my dolls along.   I was delighted to see the tree again last summer when passing in a car.  It is at least 75 years old now and has grown some taller and still lovely.  I probably do not have to tell you – that tears came in my eyes when I passed there and thought of the many happy hours I have spent there.   It was like meeting an old friend again.  

I do not know who landscaped the place – but I know they did a fine job of selecting some very choice trees.   But I do remember helping mother plant about 15 plum trees.   A kind especially good for making jelly.   And as that was mother’s favorite kind – she wanted some planted in our orchard.  I was a little child then but I remember holding the trees straight while mother filled in the dirt around them.   Someone came along and asked mother why she was planting so many – she said – “well, they were given to me – and if some die I will have plenty left.”

In the lower part of the front yard was a small cedar tree.  I don’t think it is there now.   It was pretty and every Christmas I would get a small branch from the tree to use for a Christmas tree for my dolls.   I would trim the tree with whatever I could find, for there were no pretty decorations then, like our stores are filled with now at Christmas time and even long before.  So I used my imagination very much again.   This tree and a stocking hung on our pretty old fashioned mantle – filled with pretty colors of stick candy and an orange on top – and some nice cookies that mother baked – just about completed our Christmas.   Oranges were very scarce then and almost strange to us – for there was no way of getting them to us without spoiling on the way.   No refrigeration on the trains and no plane to hurry them here.   So we were lucky if we each got an orange.   This of course was a great contrast to the Christmases now.   But we enjoyed them.   But Charley usually got a home made sled if he didn’t already have one.  Also sometimes I got a new doll.   Our dolls were very plain – none of the beautiful ones of modern times.   No walking and talking dolls then.   And a sled was almost a “must” in the bad snowy weather.   Then there was always the small tree at school.   And a party given by the two teachers.   Here we were always presented with a small bag of hard candy.   But for all the plainness of our dolls and toys – I do not think any one more enjoys Christmas more than we did then.

Charley, my youngest brother, and I played together so much, because we were the ages to enjoy the things that we played.  My oldest brother, went hunting much of his spare time, and my sister was now learning to cook and she liked to read.   She was a very apt pupil and got exelent grades.  So we played things that would be strange indeed to children now.

We had a little dog.   He usually went with us everyplace.  Grover Cleveland was president then – his first term.   And just about every family who had a little boy or a dog – named it Grover.   Some one sent me a little dog by my brother – so we named him Grover.  We liked to chase little ground squirrels out of a rail fence and see them run along on the rails.   Mother would always say “don’t let the dog catch them- but just chase them” – and that is what we did.  We also liked to hunt the queer little guinea fouls nest.   Because they all layed in the same nest.  And they liked in a hidden place.   Mother knew they had been laying for several weeks so we hunted and hunted thinking we would have to give up.  At last we found the nest in a stump of a large tree that had been sawed off.   There were more than 100 tiny speckled eggs.   We did not take them out – for they are small and not good to eat.   Also they had been there too long.   Although they are a cute and pretty foul – they are not good to eat.   But in those days almost every family had some of them and it was said that their shrill voice at night scared prowlers away.   And this I can believe.

Once my sister went with us to the woods and she and Charley made a swing by pulling some huge limbs of a beech tree down and tying them together.   Well I was swinging high when the limbs pulled apart and I fell on my stomach, they picked me up and ran home (the woods was just over our orchard fence).  I think I was scared worse than hurt, for in a little while I was all right again.   Mother scolded them and told them never to make that kind of swing again.   That ended the swing making.   Under these same trees we picked large mushrooms in early spring.  After a rain and the sun would shine out.   Mother would fry them and we had them usually for supper.   Here is a story of another accident which could have been a very bad one.   I liked to go to the field at noon and ride old Jane back when the boys came to dinner.   Old Jane was gentle but this time the gate was open and she ran in the yard dragging me off on the wire clothes line, hanging by my neck, toes tipping the ground.   I managed to work myself down.  I think I have a tiny mark on my neck to this day.  I wasn’t hurt badly but awfully scared and disappointed in old Jane.

Charley and I always liked to play at the large gravel pile.   This was hauled there in gravel wagons and dumped along the road side just over our garden fence.   Near the Lynn tree.   There was always a large pile there to repair the roads when and where needed.  In those days the roads were very bad and not much money to repair them.   But they started, did a little each year and now many years later we have the finest roads and fine bridges.  Mother had an elderly cousin living in Clinton County who she tried to visit once a year.   I always liked to go with her.   But because the roads were so terrible – I would get afraid and cry and would cling to mother’s arm.   And called it the terrible old cobbled up road.   But we always made the trip in the spring wagon.

Now some of the finest roads north are around Lebanon, Indiana and on through Traders Point.   But the gravel pile played an important part in the upkeep of the roads long ago.   And Charley and I all the while played in the gravel about every evening.  We loved to run down there after supper every evening and play bare foot in the cool gravel.   We would build mountains, tunnels, houses, barns with fences around the house and barn, made with tiny rocks we picked out of the gravel.   We would make flower beds – taking the flowers from home to “plant” in them.   I remember one evening Charley took a little brown paper bag when we went to play, filled it with small rocks, twisted the top up – and placed it in the middle of the road and we hid to watch someone come along – get out of his rig and pick up the bag thinking it was candy or peanuts inside.   We didn’t have to wate long – for in a short time a young man came along, got out of his high wheeled cart – picked up the sack and looked bored at the mistake.   These are some of the things we did in the “good old days”.

One of the nicest sights – that we watched every year – was the bycicle riders coming down from Indianapolis, going to the Lebanon fair.   Every year for a long while.   There would be from 8 to 10 young men in a line and several lines, on the Lafayette Road.   Just as straight-lined as if they were cadets on parade.   Every year we also watched for them to go back to Indianapolis.   They were so orderly.   No rowdy behavior.   It really was lovely to see.   Perhaps they raced at the fair – as it was a popular sport in those days.   And now I hear that bicycle riding is very popular again.   Especially for persons wanting to reduce.

Mother about always went to the state fair at Indianapolis.  In the spring wagon of course.   Most always I went with her.   Sometimes I stayed home with my sisters.  I always wanted to go – but would get so tired.   And it was also tiresome for her to lead me around all day.  One year when Charley and I both went we were loaded down with papers, cards, samples just as they would have every year yet.   I would always play with them until I got so tired that I finally threw them away.   But Charley found some interest in watching games being played.   One in particular – it was a small table about the size of a card table with canes through holes in the four corners.   And he listened to what they were saying.   Mother bought him some of the rubber rings – red, yellow, green and blue.  He went home full of the idea of making a game like that.   So he hunted up some boards, made a table, used long poles for canes and we were ready to play.   He would yell “the cane you ring is the cane you’ll carry away”.  This is what he heard them saying at the fair.   We had a lot of fun with it.   I think they still play this at the fairs.   I suppose we had as much fun with this little crude home made game as many now have with fine boughten things.   Any way he was learning to build something and use his imagination.

My uncle Jim (Eudaly) and aunt Lue (Louisa) mother’s youngest sister, operated the toll gate a short distance from Traders Point on the Lafayette Road.    

(the original toll house manned by James Eudaly still stands at approximately 6800 N. Lafayette Road)

I loved both of them very much – for as I never remember my grand parents – all of them were dead when I was born, aunt Lue and uncle Jim tried hard to make up for it.   And aunt Lue was a good substitute.   I’m sure every child loved aunt Lue.   They had a pretty home.   There was a glass conservatory for her flowers.   She had some very unusual flowers and large plants and had good luck with them.   Many were large, tall plants and grew to the tops of the windows.   Some were oleanders in small tubs with lovely pink and rose colored flowers.   But of course nothing to compare to the beautiful oleanders growing wild in California.   Our plants here had to be kept in the house all winter.   This made a lovely place for us to play.   When Aunt Lue knew that I was coming she would have several little girls come to play.   Then after a while she set a nice lunch for us in the flower room.   She always had candy on hand and dolls for us to play with.   Often I stayed there when mother went to Indianapolis.   Especially if it was a very cold day.   Always something to look forward to – was when aunt Lue came to spend the day at our house.   Or usually we never knew when she was coming for there were no telephones.   But she would drive in, leave her Phayetton buggy in the drive way, put her horse in the stable and I would have a wonderful day playing in the buggy with my dolls.   Even though we had so many flowers she would always bring a lovely bouquet from her yard.   There would be Dahlias of many different colors and other flowers.   Also candy, cookies, part of a new kind of cake and other things which she knew that children loved.   I have wondered many times why she always knew so well what to do for children – when she had none of her own – but that just might be the answer.   Uncle Jim was always very kind – a fine man.   Always on hand for church.   The (Disciples of Christ) and had been both deacon and elder in the church for many years.   That is another reason for my kind feelings for Traders Point.  I never knew any one there who wasent for the better things of life and to help when they could at all times.  I’m sure one of the reasons that I missed not having grand parents living is – that I have sewed and mended for my grand children and great grand children.   Also made dolls, doll cloths, party favors, little baskets and crepe paper dolls, and paper flowers for any of their parties – if they were required.   Taking a bag of candy when I went to spend the day – and standing by when they needed me.   So in my way of thinking a child misses a lot when they don’t remember their grand parents.

I remember something my brothers had a lot of fun over – many years ago.   Even though the joke didn’t turn out like they expected it to.   We always kept several cats around the bard to keep mice away from the corn.   And they did a wonderful job, for we didn’t have much corn destroyed.   But the boys at one time thought we had too many cats – 11 – and they decided that something must be done about it.   That we should get rid of a few.   Ollie said “next time I go to Augusta to have some grinding done at the mill – I’ll put some in a sack and take them along.   He put them out at a reasonable distance far enough from home- that they could not get back.   But to his surprise when he got back the cats were all there.   And so the joke was on the boys.   And it was always a wonder – how they crossed the creek.   Ollie’s only comment was – he thought any one lucky enough to get one – would be delighted to have this beautiful Maltese cat for a pet.

There were many peddlers in those days, who came along the road, some walking, some driving a horse.   This was a help to the people living in the country – for there were so few stores and so far apart.   Every year mother bought pots of geraniums from a man who had a long spring wagon.   The flowers always looked so pretty in the open wagon.   Especially pretty – after a long winter.   She would get several geraniums and always one or two fuchsia plants for they were her favorite plant.   There would be book peddlers usually walking, nurserymen with fruit trees, but the peddlers who fascinated me the most – was the man with the long black suit case, with many little articles – which are so easy now for us to stock up on in the 5 and 10 stores, the super market and many other places.   So if I would be out in the yard playing when he came along – I would always come running in to see all – not miss – anything. He would always have spools of thread, black and white but no colors.   Hooks and eyes, buttons, scissors, a few kitchen knives, some narrow black garter rubber in yard lengths or to be had by the yard.   All children and ladies wore garters then.  So when Lillian Russell was in town with her beautiful large hats and ostrich plumes and fancy garters, swishing her skirts to show off her garters – this was something to see especially way back in those days.   I can almost see her  pictures around English Opera House yet.

(Lillian Russell was one of the most famous stars of the 1920s and performed in Indianapolis at the English Hotel and Opera House on Monument Circle)

But in the peddlers collection of small articles – there was nothing so modern as Scotch tape, a ball of twine, or a bottle of paste.   But mother would buy a good supply of thread, needles of different sizes and knitting needles if she needed them.   And she was always glad to get the things when he came by.   Then there was of all things – an old man from Zionsville who peddled meat.   This was before the days of the board of health.   He had a clean, respectable looking covered wagon – horse drawn.   The wagon had an end gate – which he let down to display his meats.   And a cow bell which he rang to let us know that he had arrived.   All of this fascinated me very much.   There was no ice to be seen about the meat which was just covered with a white sheet.   And as we always put up our own meat – mother didn’t need to buy but, once in a while she would buy a large soup bone, and make delicious soup by adding plenty of vegetables.

We always dressed in our Sunday clothes and went to Sunday school and church.   And mother sang in the choir.   I remember watching her and thinking how pretty she looked.   There was no bobbed hair then, no permanents and no cosmetics except in circus tents.   But she was very neat.   She made her own clothes and had worn bussels and hoop skirts.   She liked black and white striped material and so do I.   Her dress that day black and white very narrow stripes.   It was a style then to wear tight long basques.   This was made that way with a lot of tiny black jet buttons down the front.   I have a tiny tin type picture of her with this pretty dress on and a white tissue at her neck.   This also was the best of styles in those days.   Her lovely brown hair was coiled on the back of her head.   She really looked charming.   And in later years – I have thought how pretty she would have looked with a little make up on.

I liked going to Sunday school at Traders Point – one reason was that we were given tiny cards each Sunday until we got five then we were given a large one.   Each had dainty colored flowers on them – and a verse from the bible.   They were given to us by our teacher.  I remember how I cherished those cards.  Kept them all together in a small box.

Our good neighbors near by owned the woods joining our orchard.   There were black walnuts and some hickory nuts there and every fall we gathered them for our winter use.   Charley would haul them home in his wagon and put them in a pile to ripen and dry, and then later he beat off the hulls with a ball bat.   As they had no small children – they gave the nuts to us.   We also liked the pa paw that grew in large patches in the woods.   And as no one in their family liked them – we got them to.   Many people do not like them.   I think it is because they do not know when they are ripe.   I have seen people break a real hard pa paw open, taste it and say – “how can people eat them” but they must be very soft, real dark brown to be good.   We knew that people destroyed them when they were green – and so Charley and I picked every one that was soft and turning brown, brought them home, layed them in the tall grass, covered them lightly with grass and in a few days they were delicious.   I have bought them in the city market many times in later years.   They sell them when they are ripe and ready to eat – but they are very expensive.   There are not many bushes now.   The large woods are being cleared for housing.   And the Hoosier banana as some call them – will soon be a relic too.   Every year in beautiful October – which happens to be my birth month – I have a yearning to ramble over the woods in search of nuts, pa paw, berries and just pretty leaves.   Then when the blackberry season came along, our same neighbors had plenty of them also in their woods.   Large patches with fine large berries.   They would gather all they wanted to use in season and for canning and then turn the patch over to us.   For many years we picked berries there.   Mr. and Mrs. Davenport told mother they liked for her children to have whatever grew there – because we did not destroy anything.   So we all picked every morning and mother canned them.   Then we became merchants for selling the remainder.   I remember that we picked several gallons and took them to Zionsville and sold them at about every house.   And took orders for our next load.   I don’t remember what we were paid but a very good price for then.   We we felt that we were in business now.   And we were so proud that we had a chance to make this money to help with our school needs.   I think we all realized that we had a responsibility to help mother – and in our new adventure we were happy and proud.  Blackberries were a favorite fruit then.  And there were many fine wild berries then.   It was common to see several people going berry picking together.  With buckets on their arms, ladies with long black gloves pulled up over their arms.   The gloves were made from long black cotton stockings which were worn in those days instead of silk ones.   These protected their arms against mosquitos, and from briers.   Berries grew then about everywhere, in fence corners, woods, all open spaces.   But time changed all of that.   They were used for so many things.   Pies, desert, jelly, preserves and cobbler with a large pitcher of cream sitting by to use on them.   And of course the juice made a fine drink.   And to this day blackberry pie is my favorite – as they are with many people.   That is because we had so many when we were young.   I liked also the walking involved in it.   Walking for miles and miles was common when I was a child.   I’m sure people would be happier and healthier if they would walk more.

If you never have played around a large sugar camp at night when you were a child – hide and seek around the large maple trees – where they were tapped and the sugar water running into large buckets, and saw the large trough full of sugar water being stirred with a large wooden paddle, and at about eleven oclock you were called in to partake of a delicious night meal with lots of chicken cooked while the syrup was cooking, and many other good things – fruit, pie, cake, cookies, coffee and milk – topped off with a large round cake of maple sugar candy – made right there in the camp – then you have missed a lot.  The people who owned and operated the camp loved children and they had two of their own.   They would invite a bunch of children and their parents about every night, to share their camp and outside picnics.   This alone was a lot of work – just to prepare the food for so many.   There’s work around a camp from the time it is opened in the spring.   And not many people opened a camp.   Even if they had maple trees.   You must have the right things to work with.   There were four of this nice family – but all are dead now – their daughter about one year older than me – has been dead many years.   It makes me wonder about longevity.   About who has it and who not.   We lived about one mile from them.   She was my closest play mate.   We must have lived about the same kind of life.  She was a little the largest.   We didn’t have a camp.  Mother’s brother had a small one.   But didn’t open it every year.   But when it was opened my oldest brother worked with him and helped him everyday that he was needed.   So they shared the syrup with us.   It takes many gallons of sugar water to make one gallon of syrup.   But nothing could be better than maple syrup on hot biscuits or pancakes in winter.   It’s healthful and especially good for children.

Thrashing was great times years ago.   For wherever the thrashing machine was – all the men in the neighborhood would be there to help, also the ladies, the men’s wives did their share by having a wonderful dinner.   And when the dinner bell rang, that was the time – and the men didn’t waste much time.   There was always the best of food and plenty of it. 

(James White, a Traders Point farmer, lived on Moore Road.  This photo may be of a barn still standing on Moore Road on the Bowman Elder farm)

Here is a sample as I remember it.   Baked chicken with dressing, stewed chicken with home made dumplings, stacks of fried chicken, wonderful country smoked ham, baked dishes of all kinds, vegetables, spicy home made pickles and many kinds of fine pie and cake.   There were no salads then – it was before their time.   But we had the finest of sun ripened tomatoes and there would be several dishes of sliced tomatoes placed along the table.   What a feed.   What a day.  Mr. Tom Kunan owned and operated the thrashing machine in that area.   He was a fine man and everyone like him and looked forward to seeing him every year.   Everyone was sorry when that kind of thrashing ended.   And perhaps they would all like to go on with the dinners too.   I will always remember the day thrashing was being done at my uncle’s house.   There was a terrible noise around the equipment like an explosion – all the ladies ran to the door, Mother called me – I didn’t answer because I didn’t hear her and she fainted because she was afraid that cousin Nellie and I were hurt.  But we were playing in a little shed near by and just couldn’t hear for there was a great deal of noise being made all the time.   But mother recovered quickly when she saw the we were all right.

Still another big day for farmers where worked together was butchering day.   This did not require so many men, but a lot of work was involved in it.   Only about a 2 or three men as I remember it – and perhaps not that many for 1 or 2 hogs.   But the first thing in the morning was to prepare plenty of hot water.   We always had plenty of wood near the fire.   The large black out door kettle would be filled with water and soon it would be boiling to use in the cleaning and preparing the hogs.   I don’t remember too much about the work – although I tagged around after my brothers and my mother in about everything they did.   But I remember the large out side table for cutting.   The ham sides, and shoulders, ribs, all parts.   Nothing was ever wasted.   Small pieces were cut for sausage.   This was ground at night – and it was a big night for me – because I got to stay up longer.   The sausage grinder would be gotten out and mother and the boys ground it.  After the grinding was done, mother finished the remainder of the sausage work.   It was delicious for she knew just how to season it.   Salt, pepper and a little sage.  We always had sage growing in our garden and mother always dried a large bunch of sage for winter use.   When the sausage was seasoned and stirred well – she stuffed it in white muslin polks and it was hung up in our smoke house to be cured.   High on hooks over real hickory bark smoke.   Not the kind that comes in bottles now – but real bark gathered from the trees around our place.   That is why we that have used the real bark know there is a difference.   The other half of the smoke house was where our water trough for milk and butter and cream are kept cold.

The big out door kettle was used for many things.   Mother made her own soap.   Very nice to.   She would cut it out in squares and store it to last until she made soap again.   One good reason that she made it – was there was none to be had yet.   I read in the World Book Encyclopedia that the first soap factory was started in the 1880s.   That was the year I was born.  Just think, she could have started the first soap business had she thought of it.   She also made delicious apple butter and fine peach butter.   They would usually peal the apples at night.   This was seasoned with cider a little sugar and a very little cinnamon or other spice.   And stirred almost all day with a large wooded paddle.  And then mother canned it in stone jars.   On nights of apple peeling – I got to stay up late.  And not to watch TV.   These large iron kettles were a common thing to be seen on farms in those days.  I suppose they are not used so much now since foods are canned, frozen and meats already prepared in many ways.   I still marvel at the wonderful way we kept food fresh in the old days.  Never did any of us have any food poisoning or any stomach troubles.   But its much easier to walk down an isle in a large store and pick out any kind of meats you choose.   I don’t think an ice box was to be had in those days.   If so you had to be watching for fear the pan under it – to catch the over flow of water – would run over.   I’m sure there were no refrigerators until years later.   But if we wanted to put on a bit and wanted some ice for home made ice cream – this could be had – sometimes.   They cut large blocks of ice from Eagle Creek when it was frozen over and packed it in saw dust.   It kept this way very well.   They didn’t deliver however, like the large ice deliveries in the city.   The Zero 100 and others.   The few times that we bought some – my brothers went after it.   But our system of pumping our cold water through the trough twice a day, kept milk perfect and better cold and solid.   The other half of the room was the smoke house.

Mother dried a lot of fruits, we liked dried fruits – but this requires a lot of work.   We had a small home made dry kiln.   Just a small shed build so that the top tilted down and gave the drying foods the benefit of the sun.   She dried corn also which is delicious.   The drying seems to retain all the flavors.   Peaches when dried taste more like fresh peaches.   They should be cooked slowly.  Mother dried some apples to – but we didn’t care so much for them.   Perhaps that was because we kept fresh apples all winter.   I wondered why dried fruits are so expensive – until I read in the World Book Encyclopedia that it takes so much longer to dry them than to can or otherwise prepare them.

We always had a patch of cane for making sorghum.   Its very good in winter.   We all liked it.   But mother made fine cookies – using some sorgum in them.   It doesn’t require a lot of work to raise it.   Just plant in well prepared soil, hoe or plow it twice.   Then when it is grown there is pretty shinging tassel of black seed, then it is stiped of blades, taken to the mill – where the syrup is made then put into large 1 gallon bottles.

In summer we raised fine canteloupes – all we wanted for our own use and treats for our neighbors and friends.   We raised watermelons to.  And my brothers took spring wagon loads to the state fair.   They would always sell all of them.   I became a very good judge of melons.   Often when someone came wanting melons, if the boys were not there – mother would send me to the patch which was near the house to show them.   They would select some, play me and be on their way on the Lafayette road.  Another place that the boys sold melons was the Old Settlers meeting – which was held every year at Broad Ripple.   This was one of the outstanding gatherings in those days.   Every family attended, or at least part of the family.   Everyone took a basket of nice food.  

Every one took a basket of nice food.  They sometimes called it the basket dinner.   I remember going with my mother when I was a very little girl.   Usually my sister went to.  I also remember hearing one of the fine young men of our community address the crowd.   He was lawyer Emsley Johnson, Sr..   He was one hand every year and every one looked forward to hearing him.   Every family was sorry when the Old Settlers meetings were discontinued. 

My oldest brother was a fine marksman and he kept us in the nicest of game.   Rabbits, squirrels and quail.   We never really thought at the time what a luxury this was.   There were so many then – and no hunting laws or limited time.   Nothing only sometimes a farmer would have a sign on a tree saying be careful when hunting – not to shoot near the stock.   Every one I think in those days observed this mild notice.   There is no better meat to my way of thinking – than a nice fried rabbit or squirrel.   We often had a squirrel for breakfast or two if more were needed.   There would always be a nice piece for our school lunch.   And quail was common at our table for a wonderful meal.   There is just the breast of quail – but they are so large and very tender.   Nothing else was needed for a fine breakfast but some nice hot yeast biscuits and cream gravy.    Then of course there was quail for our lunches.   Ollie knew how to prepare both rabbits and squirrels.  He would dress them, and hung them out in the back yard to freeze.   This took all of the wild taste out of them.   We surely didn’t know how lucky we were to have all this fine game free.   Often I wish for a nice quail or two, just like we had in “the good old days”.  Just opposite our vegetable garden – on the Lafayette road was a little culvert – where rabbits sometimes came.  My brother would set a trap at night and about always catch one.  These were fine to eat – because they would have no shot in them.   The rabbits came there because our garden was close.   They are very destructive to a garden because they will eat and nibble every kind of vegetable.

Our little cave for fruits and vegetables in the winter for storage was a fine place to keep them in those days.   We did not have a basement or cellar.   Many people had a cave then.   We kept apples until spring.   They are so good and retain their flavor when kept in a cave.   And we always had a nice large red apple for school lunch.   We also kept potatoes, cabbage, beets, turnips and parsnips.   Mother would often remark about fine the vegetables were even at spring time.   The cave was dug out much like a cellar, a top built over it, and a door.   Then, we put the vegetables and apples in cover with a little straw, a little dirt, close the door until the next time we took out some and that was all there was to do.   It was opened several times during the winter.   They would take out enough to last several weeks.   We never kept sweet potatoes or yams in the cave.   It would have been to hot for them.  But we kept them about all winter wrapped separately in paper and stored in a cool place in the house.   Later such home made things were not needed.   The fine stores refrigeration and the transportation being what it is.   But they served their purpose well then.  And some of us have lived a long life to be able to remember the outdoor cellar.  And as I look back and think how each of us did, our share what good food we had – because we never failed to work hard for it – and how happy we were together.   I wish I could live those happy days over again.   I’m sure many of the “Golden Age” wish the same.   There certainly was good management and cooperation to be able not only to “make it” but that we could be proud of it.

My oldest brother Ollie, or Oll as the boys called him – had always wanted to be a doctor.   In fact, when he was a small boy – he played doctor to all the children in the neighborhood when they came to our house.   Mother could never keep the red vinegar on beet pickles because he used it for medicine.   And he also made mud pills, and kept them in a tiny box, much like a pill box that the doctors had in their days.   And she wondered if he ever game them to the children.   Long before father died – Ollie talked of wanting to be a doctor.   But after his death – he said to mother “now I won’t get to be a doctor will I mother” – well his answer was quite grown up for a boy so young.   He said, “well mother, I’m the oldest of four children and I will have to help you, all I can – there just won’t be any chance” and she said “oh yes there will be – every spring after you have helped get our crop in and started you can get light work of one of the farmers who need help, and save your money, and I’ll help you all I can and you’ll make it.”  It seemed settled that Ollie would be studying medicine soon.   And he not only “made it” but he was the one who gave the valedictory address.   After mother made the suggestion that he work for a farmer – soon he had work for a farmer who lived on the Dandy Trail near Traders Point – who had always known our family and whose parents we knew and lived a short distance from us on the Lafayette Road.  Ollie worked for him each summer until he graduated.  He would work all day and study at night until 12 o’clock.   During the season while he worked for them he stayed nights, as it would be quite a walk every day for him.   The farmer’s wife was very kind to him – they had children to and she baked cookies often.   She would come to the door where he studied every night with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk and say “now Ollie when you have had your lunch – you must go to bed and get your rest.”   He spoke many times of her kindness to him.   Now that he was to start to medical school in Indianapolis, the matter of transportation was a great problem.   No bus ran past the door in those horse and wagon days.   But mother thought of a way.   Although it couldn’t be possible now with automobiles and trucks.   But this was the day of horses and horse drawn rigs.  Our family knew this kind man who was a huckster and drove a horse to a covered wagon.  He lived near Royalton, also on the Lafayette Road.   And he hauled poultry, eggs, butter and all produce to Indianapolis to restaurants and other places.   And as we had known him and mother sold produce to him like most other farm families along the road – Mother thought that he could get a ride every two weeks home – as well as back to the city.   So when she asked him – he said “he certainly can ride with me for Ollie will be company for me.”   And as his wagon came along early in the morning – before day light – mother would sit by the window and watch for the light of his wagon.  He used a lantern hanging for light – mother then would call Ollie to get up and be ready.   Each trip he brought his laundry and took fresh clothes back.   This was all very hard on Ollie as well as mother.   But their great desire for his success made it pleasant for both rather than a hardship.   I believe God must have been with him all the time – even though it all looks so impossible looking back.  But another break as they say now was that a fine doctor who we had known when he had an office in a small nearby town – now had an office in Indianapolis.  And when he heard that Ollie was going to school in the city – and as the doctor to – had a struggle to get through college – he offered him a room – complete with bed in his basement office on Ohio street and there would be no charge.   He also gave him permission to use his fine books.   And as medical books were expensive – this was a very valuable help to him.   But Ollie brought a little gift to the doctor each time he came home,  a bushel of fine hand picked good eating apples.   He also shared them with Mr. Glendenning, the huckster, who also enjoyed them.

Last days of school at Traders Point were so nice that I always think of them fondly.   Every year a great deal of preparation was made.   A program of songs, recitations, dialogues and always a few nice remarks from the teachers.   Then every boy was busy after the program – helping the teachers arrange the long tables across the center of the room.  In all it was a happy day.   The children happy that our mothers came for the day.   And very happy indeed because of the wonderful dinner we were soon to share.   Mothers, teachers and children.   And there would be just about everything good to eat.   Prepared by wonderful cooks who mashed their own potatoes, all kinds of good meats, chicken fried and baked, the finest of cakes and all kinds of pie.   There would be vases  of flowers on the table.   Everything looked pretty as well as being delicious.   No one watched their weight – and dieting had not been heard of.  And so – you just tried a piece of every ones cake and pie and thought nothing of it.   And now I wonder how all those ladies got to school on time.  Having to depend on old Dobin, because all ladies go to church affairs, bridge clubs, recitals and everywhere in their own car or pick up a group.   But that was the way in the “good old days”.   And they seemed to get along all right.   We didn’t have P.T.A. clubs then and not for many years later.   But one nice thing that helped take its place was that the mothers visited the schools often and had the teachers come home with their children for supper at least once during the term.  After all I feel sure that was leading up to the time when we did have Parent Teachers Associations   But I’m sure all the children felt on last day that they were glad when their part of the program was over.   And also glad when a little box of hard candy was handed to each of us.   This little gift from the teachers – we received every year.

Now that Ollie was to graduate in medical college – this was also when I was about 12 years old – it was by far the nicest thing I ever attended.   The commencement was held in the old Grand Theater in Indianapolis near where the Indiana Theater is now.  And my brother who I had loved and looked to for help and advice and much love – was to be there in this great fine building which was all decorated with flags and bunting – and he would sit on the large stage in the very front chair for he was to give the valedictory address.   And so proud of him.   As I sat there by mother I watched him.  I never took my eyes off him, and wanted to go up and kiss him.  For such a young child as I was – I must have realized that it had all been very hard to help pay his way, having to live away from home, and transportation poor.   Some of the great doctors of that day were his professors.  I remember hearing him speak of – and in fact – I have his program yet, old and yellow with age.  Dr. William Niles Wishard, a wonderful doctor and professor.  He spoke many times to mother of him as a fine professor and as a fine man.  Dr. John H. Olliver, D. Lehmand, H. Dunning, Dr. William M. Wright, Dr. John M. Hurty lecturer on hygiene and of others.   Some of these doctors have had and still do have sons who practiced medicine in Indianapolis.   I’m sure many of these doctors can be very proud of their fathers who were professors.   My brothers graduation was on Wed. March 30^th 1892.   One of the board of trustees was Dr. James D. Gatch of Lawrenceburg.  He was an uncle of our wonderful Dr. Willis D. Gatch who passed away more than a year ago.   Dr. Willis D. Gatch operated on me for cancer when I was 70 and he was 72 at the Methodist Hospital.   It was remarkable I think – that I was only there 14 days.  No doubt at all that he saved my life.   It has now been more than 10 years ago.  I liked him as a doctor, liked me as a patient and he remarked that I just read my book (Wagon Train) and didn’t bother nurses by calling them much.  Our city and I think the whole United States suffered a great loss at his passing.   The morning I read in the Indianapolis Star of his death – I cried and cried.   But I was glad that I had known this great and good man.   I’m sure that many people felt the same.

After my brother’s commencement exercises were over – it was sad indeed to see all of those young men and two ladies who were graduating take tearful leave of each other.   For they knew they would be separated and scattered all over the United States and many would never see each other again.   And mother having heard Ollie talk of them, their families and home life – was sad also.  In fact, I think about every one there cried with the graduates.   For transportation being as it was then, they could never be brought together for conventions, doctors meetings as they are now with all modern modes of travel.  This had been a long and hard experience for my brother coming and going as he did, and his looks denoted it.   The strain it had all been on him.   But that night after the farewells we took him home in the spring wagon.  It seemed like old times as he drove the spring wagon home.   He had lost some weight but after some rest and squirrel hunting he soon looked much better.   And now that Ollie was graduated – he would begin to be known as Dr. Thomas Olliver Redden.   It was to make a new life for him and for all of us.   For after a short rest he would be hunting a location for a young doctor.  It wasn’t long until he heard of a fine location which was to be had very soon.   In a small town in Boone County.   An elderly doctor was retiring soon.   So our young doctor lost no time in investigating.  He drove to this town and visited the doctor in his office.   And as he had been a long time in practice in that town and community around it, he was well known and liked.   This was all a great help to my brother who was just coming in his place.   And with his long experience and knowledge of judging – he saw a fine prospect in this bright young man.   And began praising the young doctor he was to leave for them.   It was a good location.   The town was small but the farmers around soon became his friends and patients.   They were well to do and payments were made immediately or just as soon as they sold their hogs, cattle, farm produce etc.   The new doctor liked the people he met while there in the office – and before he left that day – he had bought the office furniture and some valuable books.   And they were always best of friends throughout the remainder of the old doctor’s life.   One or two of the books in the collection – he always cherished greatly.   They were by the famous Dr. Sir William Osler, the brilliant Canadian Physician.   One of the greatest doctors of his time.   Doctors to this day refer to him and his teachings, after my brother had taken his place he began to think – mother would not care for the farm along.  And that she should come to the little town to live also.   My sister was now married and Charley had taken a job in Indianapolis.   Now there would be just mother and I.   We moved, however mother didn’t think when she moved that she would never go back there to live – to this little place she loved so well.   And as she didn’t want to sell – she rented it to my sister and her husband.  He had always been a farmer and had always lived near us and she knew he would be a good tenant.   They managed the place – but it had been her home so long – and was just a short distance from where she was born – my grandparents home – that she really was not happy any place but there.   I made nice friends in the new place and went to high school there.   Also I took a special course in penmanship – from a fine teacher whose home was in this town.   But he taught in Marion, Indiana.   He came home every summer.   There were about 20 in the class and I won the first prize for most improvement.   Some of my friends there now – elderly – are still living in the house they bought or built years ago.   I was married in that town and my first child – a boy was born there.   In one year my brother the doctor married a very fine young lady who lived with her parents on a large farm.   She was very pretty – and I’ll always remember seeing her play the organ in church on Sundays.   She passed away about 3 years ago.   I have missed her so much – because we were always very close – more like real sisters I think.   Many little children in and around the town and country were named Thomas or Tommie for my brother or Myra for his wife.   Mother, after selling the farm, bought a nice cottage.  And as she was not well now – my husband, a little boy and I lived with her and I cared for her until her death.   Our little boy who she adored as he did her – was now 5 years old.   During the time mother was ill – I hardly left the house – for her ailment and suffering was such that I could not be content to leave her with anyone else.  My brother was her doctor of course.  And he watched over her with the tenderest  care.   After her death we came to Indianapolis to live.  My husband was a carpenter and there was more work of that kind here than in a small town.   After a while we had a little girl.  When she was six and going to school – diphtheria was a terrible epidemic in the schools that year.   They were sending many children home from school if they seemed sick in any way.   She got diphtheria and we had a near by doctor.  If he knew she had it – he didn’t say so.   But she got well – and I came down with it.   Because I was with her all the time caring for her.   I 2 now had  a little boy 2 ½ years old and a baby boy.   My baby had to be put on bottle feeding – and my sister took her to her house and gave him the best of care – but the formula’s many years ago were not as good as they are now.  After a few weeks he didn’t gain and became sick.   I always wished that I could have nursed him – as I did my other children and did him until my siege of diphtheria.  After a while we lost him.   But all of our children were born in our home and breast fed – which seemed perfect for them.   This was the first year that antitoxin was used.  And as I had a very bad case of it- the doctor who took care of me – gave antitoxin freely.   He was my brother Dr. Thomas O. Redden.   Because of the newness of antitoxin, many people were afraid to have it used and many doctors did not want to give it.   My brother gave me a very large amount of it – injected in my back on either side, from my shoulder to my hips for he said “any smaller amount would not save my life.  The bacteriologist just came to see me three times.   The last time he came I was sitting up in bed.   He marveled at this and said “is it possible you are sitting up.  I never expected to see this.”   But he went on to say “your brother is a brilliant man – and I don’t think any one else would have saved your life.”   But I do know that my brother always made a study of the newest treatments to come out.   And of course I had great faith in my doctor and the treatment as I always had in him.   I remember that it was a custom then to card the house where there was a contagious disease, to be kept up to three weeks – but this being the most serious case known anywhere then – they left the card up another  three weeks.   I was very weak for months.

Now that we were in World War I my husband knew that government carpentry was needed badly.   So he took a job in Cincinnati at the nitrate plant, just out of the city a short distance.   Our oldest son then about 17 worked in the office there.   This was during the time when influenza “flu” was raging and far and far the worst it had ever been.   It was killing so many people.  I’m sure all older people remember this.   The men there working at the plant were told to bring lemons every day or night whichever time they worked.   And use the juice freely.   My husband and son worked at night.   Many at the plant had to stop work and go home.  And many around our house had it.   We had rented a doctors home for the duration.   He had a government position in the interest of health down on the Ohio river.   We were lucky to get his nicely furnished home with a large front porch and large back yard where our children could play.   And I kept them there as I didn’t know any one, or who had the “flu” for it always came on so suddenly.   As many people will remember this – that the doctors were so tired and were wearing out from going day and night.  And because they could not see all the sick – many told their patients to get a bottle of Vicks and go to bed.   I think this terrible siege of “flu” must have been good advertisement for the Vicks firm.   I had been trying so hard to keep from having flu but one evening – when my husband and son were starting to work – they found me in bed – I just had to give up.   I was hoarse, had sore throat and could not speak above a whisper.   I had already heated Vicks and used it thoroughly.   And wrapped flannel cloth around my throat.   My husband said “I hate to leave you – but stay in bed – there are so many absent at the plant, sick and dying – that I just must go”.  But he and our son escaped it.   They took their lemons every day.   I saw to it – that there were plenty in the house all the time.  But I was much better that night when they returned.   The children and I also used lemons.  I still think lemons are valuable and that hot lemonade before going to bed helps to get rid of a cold.   And this may have been another close call for me – but again I had faith in the Vicks and the lemons.   This move to Cincinnati may have been a good thing for me – as I was so weak from the diphtheria and had grieved so much about our baby’s death.   And when we came away from there – in about 4 or 5 months – I had gained strength and put on 9 pounds.   We were not there long it seemed until the armistice was signed and we returned to Indianapolis as soon as we could get ready.   My husband and son were in the armistice parade.  I have never seen such a crowd and such hilarity.   The children got very tired and I was sorry that we went.   But my daughter says she can remember the parade.   As we came back home on the train – all the train help and conductor were wearing gas masks because of the flu and the conductor said to my husband “did you get gas masks – they won’t let you off unless you have them on.”  The men at the plant, where my husband worked, presented him with a lovely large flag for a gift – because he was the supervisor of carpenters.   We always hung it on our porch for all occasions.   And during World War II when our son who was 3 ½ years old when we had diphtheria had grown up and was in that war – I used the flag very much.   I still have it although it is out of date lacking two stars for the two new states.  Paul Shideler came out to our house and took a nice picture of the flag.  I was holding it so that it showed how large it was.   Mr. Shideler was the wonderful photographer for the Indianapolis paper for 53 years.   He wanted the picture for the paper because it had figured in two world wars.   But for some reason –it being that we were in war – I was afraid so I refused.   I was sorry later that I didn’t when I read of his death in the paper.   But I still have the proof picture.   Still a good picture.

(the following mention of Paul Shideler in a book of firsts illustrates his place in history)

I remember and laugh sometimes about a purchase I made for myself in Cincinnati just before coming home.   It was a pair of very high top shoes, black and light gray tops, with 17 buttons on each shoe.  Very good style then.   But in just a short time the stores began selling low cut shoes.  So my pretty high top shoes became antique to.

My daughter after a while was married and living in a city in the north part of the state.   My husband died – the first year we were in World War II.  Our son took his training at camp Livingston, La.   After his three months training he was sent to Ft. Hamilton N. Y. He was there several months and then sent to Casablanca.  After being there several months he went across the beautiful Medditerranain to the port of Naples, Italy.   Here he disembarked at the beautiful Isle of Capri.   He spent more than two years here at Naples.   General Mark Clark was his general.  While my husband was very bad sick – our son was still at Fort Hamilton.   At our doctor’s request – I sent a telegram for him to come immediately.   He came for 1 week and we were so glad that they had this time together.  Our oldest son, the one who worked at the Nitrate Plant in Cincinnati in World War I, was now to old for service – but he had and important job in the United States.

Now with my daughter living in another city, my husband’s death, and both sons away from home – this left me alone in a large two story house.  But those were times when rooms could be rented.  So I did that.   I had some very fine ladies who worked at different government jobs, and one worked at Ft. Harrison.  She was with me a long time.  This gave them a good home and kept me from being lonely.  I had one fine young couple from Mississippi who were just married and came to my house to live.   He was in training here at Butler University.  After a few weeks he was sent to France and I cried when he left as I did when my son left.   For I realized now – that we were really in war.   He liked living at my house and he and his wife Doris and I had many meals together.   He liked my old fashioned fried potatoes and Dutch apple pie.    Before he left – he asked me if Doris could still stay with me while he was away and he said “I’ll be satisfied if she is here with you” for she has a good position here in the city and a nice room in your home, with laundry and kitchen privileges and a good piece of pie and fried chicken often.  Jim her husband wrote often to her – and sent me a nice bottle of French perfume.   I also had some nice young soldiers, most of them due over seas in a short time.   Two who came together lived in Marietta, Ohio.   They were studying to be ministers and attended the church that I did every Sunday.   

But speaking of Perfume from Paris – is quite modern compared to the old time things I have been writing about.   But I realize that weather old fashioned or modern, we live in a very beautiful world to beautiful to describe.   But being older now – I can say that I enjoyed the old style things  – and the modern as we came to them.

My four children were all born in our home.   It was the way then.  But I am sure that I had good treatment.   And no bad results.   It was common then to have a practical nurse.   In those days – one could just pick up a newspaper – turn to the want ads – and read of several wanting home nursing.   Call one and she would come to your house and take charge.   For $15 per week – she would take care of the mother and baby.   Beginning when the doctor left, the baby’s laundry, and mother’s meals.   And as it was the custom then for the mother to stay in bed no less than three weeks, the nurse stayed that long.  This gave the mother a good chance to rest – which is badly needed at that time, and to get used to her new baby.  With that treatment – I never had any trouble with the vains in my legs and never heard of anyone who did in the old days.   This home treatment by a good doctor and a good practical nurse was fine then.   Also all my four children were breast fed – except the last – my fourth – who had to be taken off breast feeding when I had diphtheria.   He was doing fine until that happened.   But time changes things – when they first started to take the patient to the hospital for delivery – I was like everyone else , afraid of it.   Now I think I would be afraid of home treatment.  

I remember the mule drawn street cars – when extra mules were used at the viaduct near the union station, to carry the heavy load up the ramp.   And the summer street cars – open on all sides, and such pushing and shoving as there was to get a seat.   My husband and I used to go to the city market when it was open then on Saturday nights.   There were no super markets, or chain stores then.   The city market was invaluable and everyone then liked going.   Rich or poor – it made no difference.   For just like it is today, there was no nicer foods to be found.   They would carry large baskets and most of the ladies went every market day also.   Many years ago there were market stands around the court house square, the stand operators shouting their wares.   Many stands piled high with apples, peaches, green beans corn, radishes, cabbage, beets, all kinds of greens and many other things.  If you wanted, chicken, fish, rabbits, cheese, butter and eggs – you got them inside the markethouse.   And as the food became handled and bruised – they lowered the prices.  So the later you stayed the less the price.  I knew many fine ladies on the north side and elsewhere who always went to market and still do.   Many of the stand operators have been there for years and now have children and grand children who also have grown up in the business.   I wonder what we would have done years ago without the market.   I remember to that at decoration time you were sure to get flowers at the market.   Beautiful peonies in tubs of water.   This served us all well back in those days – and should not be forgotten.  I also remember Thomlinson’s Hall over the market house, or at least over part of it.  I have gone there many times with my husband.   The red hot political speakers, by such great orators as Albert J. Beveridge, and William Jennings Bryan.   And our well remembered Lew Shank and the beloved “me and Sarah” as Lew always said.

In 1910, the Republicans elected shambling Samuel Shank, “friend of the poor people,” to be Mayor of Indianapolis. The next year he became nationally known by hawking potatoes, geese, onions, eggs, tomatoes and cheeses from the steps of his city hall in an effort to break a commission merchants’ trust. A street car strike ended his term prematurely, the carmen refusing to promise they would strike no more while he was mayor. He had threatened to resign if they failed to promise and he made the threat good.

All the time that I was alone and living in apartment – I went to the market for most of my food and many other notions.  To me it is so convenient to get everything under one roof – especially if it is bad weather.

My husband and I used to take our first two children and go to Fairview Park – now Butler University on Sundays.   On a summer street car, and spend the day.   We would have a tiny carriage for the baby, another older child, and a basket of lunch to care for.   It was always cool out there – but terrible getting home.  There were plenty of the open cars coming all the time – but those of us with two little children or asleep and some luggage – had no chance.   And many times it was very late before we could get started home.   But we were young then.  There was always so much attraction out there then.  A fine band and band stand in the shade of so many large trees – and always fine music.

(A postcard from the 1920s featured Fairview Park)

One of the great attractions then on Sundays was to hear Pink Hall sing.  He had a wonderful voice and we especially liked to hear him sing “Hearts and Flowers”.  Many people came to the park just to hear him sing – and especially that song.  I was sad when I read of his death.   And now the park is gone – but in its place stands the beautiful buildings of Butler University.  I like to ride through the grounds and see the flowers, the lovely buildings and the stately trees.  Many of the trees are old – and were there when it was Fairview Park.

Many things happened back in the “good old days” that were funny, some sad and some queer.  Just as they do now, I remember when all funerals were held in the homes, there would be a design of flowers or a wreath placed on the door of the home by the conductor of one of the funeral homes.  The flowers remained on the front door until after the funeral service and burial.   That was the way in those days.  And when they changed from the service in the home – was hard to get used to it – for many people felt that it seemed cold – to take them away from their home for this service.  But time changed that – and I’m sure it wasn’t long until everyone knew that it was by far the best.   Better for the family for it took a great deal of strain off the family.  And better for those in care of the service.   I remember the old fashioned narrow horse drawn hearse.   But no matter how they are held, they are and always will be sad.  And speaking of funerals – this is a little on the queer side.  Many years ago – I do not remember it- mother told me about it – “there was an Irish settlement up north – one cold morning several of their rigs went by and one stopped and a woman got out, came to the door, carrying a child wrapped from head to foot in a shawl – she knocked and mother opened the door – she asked if she could come in and get warm.   Mother said yes and tried to make her comfortable around the stove.   The woman mentioned that her baby was dead.   Mother looked out, none of the vehicles looked like a hearse.   And she asked the woman “where is your baby” she motioned to the child in her arms and said in a very Irish brogue – “Here is my baby”.  Mother asked her how they would bury it and she replied “we’ll get a box when we get there.”  It was such a gruesome experience – that mother could not keep from thinking about it for a long time.

A very good writer of good and sometimes funny articles in one of our daily papers – had this article in the papers not so long ago entitled “Good Old Daze”.  It follows you have made quite a journey through time if you can look back and remember when –

You had to crank the telephone to get the operator, and when she responded you said Hello Central – and then told her the number you wanted.   When movies were silent and back ground music was provided by a neighborhood piano teacher.  When you asked a stranger what time it was, he reached in his vest pocket for his watch.   When many a farmer made up his mind what and when to plant according to what the almanac said – and not what the government ordered.   When you could order a fine set of false teeth by mail (they might not fit very well, but then you didn’t have to wear them except to church, while attending a funeral or other formal function).  When every neighborhood had a few old ladies who enjoyed lighting up their corn cob pipe and telling how life was in the good old days.   When young boys wore long black stockings that usually had a hole in the right knee caused by playing marbles.  When a wife was so proud to be honored on mothers day that she worked herself to death cooking her family one of the biggest meals of the year, when every farmer kept a shotgun primed with bacon rind to fire at youngsters who tried to steal his watermelons  – if you got hit, the piece of bacon stung like a thousand bumble bees.  When nobody was on a diet and if you didn’t order a second helping of every dish set before you, the hostess took it as a personal criticism of her cooking – and might cry after she left.   The fellow who had enough time to go down to the depot and watch the morning train arrive – and the morning train leave – was widely regarded as a pretty shiftless character.  When only city people got up by the alarm clock, town and country people had the rooster in the back yard to serve the same purpose.

I was glad this writer reminded me of some of these things which I had forgotten.   But I’m sure he forgot to mention one thing that was very important in the years of long ago.   The old fashioned way of keeping flies off of the table – before the days when we had screens.   Fly bushes were home made of course.  Made on a long stick, with several folds of newspaper cut in strips and tacked to the stick.  The paper strips were thick along the stick and hung down far enough to scare the flies away.   Or if you didn’t have the newspaper – or the time to make this elaborate one – you could just break a long slim branch from a peach tree, which served the purpose just as well.   The main thing was to keep the brush moving.  I have used both kinds.  But oh how wonderful those screen doors and windows were – when we first got them.   It seemed like a greater invention than the cotton gin or even a jet plane.  But the fly brush was a great help in its day.  I have wielded the brush often while others ate.   We used to take turns at the job.   Consider what a job this was at a family picnic or a thrashing day – when there was so much good food and such hungry men.   Long before the days of screens there was white fly net which could be bought by the yard in the stores and when tacked in the windows – it kept the flies out and let cool air in.  This to was a great help.

Well now a good many years have slipped away – and our dear son – the oldest child – died more than ten years ago.  And is buried in California.  He was a civil engineer along the west coast.   His death was very hard for me.   And now all of my parental family are gone also.  Mother, father, my two brothers, the doctor and Charley and my sister.   And I the youngest will soon be 83.   But I have my two children married.   Each has 3 children.  Each two girls and a boy.   All living in Indianapolis.  My oldest grand daughter has four children, two boys and two girls.

And now I will confess that I feel I am growing old.  Some were such happy days, some with so much sorrow.   But I feel that I would like to live it all over, if that could be.   I am very happy to look back at all the struggles that I have had in a long life time, and how much happiness also.

And now if I had the strength and the priviledge of walking that mile again, as I did many times in my childhood – I would like to start at Ches’s store in Traders Point, grab some crackers from the cracker barrel, if it were still there, and walk past the little homes, the churches, the doctors office, past the school that I loved so well, and the McCurdy Hill on up to my first home that we all oved so well and sit there a while on the steps to rest and dream of my childhood.

(Editor’s note: according to records accompanying the manuscript, the author’s mother, Susannah Redden, died February 14, 1905.  Cause of death given was cirrhosis of liver.   Her brother Charley took his life on August 16, 1922 during poor health by slitting his throat with a razor, and her brother the doctor Thomas O. Redden died March 3, 1933 and is buried in Lebanon, Indiana.)

 Autobiography of the Childhood of Bertha Lee Redden Shaw

In a sense, this is also a record of my Grandmother Susannah Redden, for she enters into almost every episode.  She, as the young widow of a Civil War soldier, is shown as capable, efficient and energetic in rearing her children.   They lived near Traders Point, an old town in Pike Township, Marion County, on the old Lafayette Road, later U.S. 52.   The area is now on the north border of Eagle Creek Reservoir, or possibly on Moore Road.

My Mother, Bertha, was born in 1880 and lived to be 84.   When she was in her 80’s she wrote this autobiography.   My mother was a very energetic person who never idled her time away.   She had many practical skills

which helped her to rear her own family.   For instance, our uncle “Doc” had established a medical practice, where she went to spend many hours reading his medical books.   In fact, he commented that she would have made a wonderful doctor herself.   She found cause to use this knowledge well.

She retained her mental sharpness all her life.   This autobiography means a great deal to the family and it might be of interest to others also.

Geraldine F. Carrington

Date unknown but probably around 1960.

A note from editor Ross Reller, Feb. 2010:

The preceding hand written Redden manuscript was given to the Pike Township Historical Society by Geraldine F. Carrington, daughter of Bertha Lee Redden Shaw.  Mrs. Shaw was born in 1880 and spent the first 20 years o on 15 acres located at the northeast corner 82^nd and Lafayette Road, about a mile north of the village of Traders Point which was destroyed in 1962 by the Indianapolis Flood Control Board to make way for the new Interstate 65 and Eagle Creek Reservoir.  The original hand-written manuscript can be found in the Pike Township Archive Room at Pike High School, Indianapolis.  This typed version represents her style of writing, complete with occasional misspellings and other errors.   I have added poems, songs, photos, recipes and have noted these additions to the original text by changing the type font.   The black and white photos  of Traders Point printed herein are from the private collection of  Eddie Hightshue.  Eddie’s great-great grandfather Nicholas was one of the area’s early settlers and was a founding member of Ebenezer Christian Church which later split to create Traders Point Church of Christ and Traders Point Christian Church. When the manuscript was presented to the archivist, it was accompanied by the following typed letter from her daughter.  Indiana.  Susannah Redden’s gravesite is located in the Old Pleasant Hill Cemetery on Moore Road, near Traders Point.

About this book:

Nearing the end of her life, 83 year old Bertha Redden was asked by her daughter to write her life story. 

In 1960 she sat down and produced a surprisingly engaging hand-written manuscript.   Although she has been gone over 50 years, her story propels us into the “good old days”.  

Her memories of a simple life in a small town are a celebration of two lives; young Bertha and her sturdy mother, Susannah.  

Her story is filled with detailed descriptions of life on a small farm in the horse and buggy days.

It is told with warmth by the youngest of four children raised by an industrious Civil War widow.  

This autobiography is the property of the Pike Township (Indiana) Historical Society Archives located in Pike High School, Indianapolis.   Ross Reller, editor and Pike Historical Society Board Member has integrated relevant material related to the storyline as well as photos from Traders Point native Eddie Hightshue into Bertha’s narrative.