March 12, 1966: TO HIGHEST BIDDER

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 12, 1966.

TO HIGHEST BIDDER

This 1929 Chevrolet fire truck will be sold to the highest bidder at auction planned by Kouts town board at the community's Town Hall on March 21 at 8 p.m. No longer used by Kouts Volunteer Fire department, this vehicle was a former chemical tank truck and was converted for hose usage in 1939 when Kouts got its water works. Vehicle has 1,165 miles registered on its speedometer. In truck, George Fall; front, Leland Jarnecke, town marshal, and Fire Chief Richard Chael.

March 12, 1936: Chesterton, Porter Plan Big Banquet To Bury the Hatchet; Fire Truck For Farmers Sought

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 12, 1936.

Chesterton, Porter Plan Big Banquet To Bury the Hatchet; Fire Truck For Farmers Sought

CHESTERTON, March 12.ーThe age-old rivalry between Chesterton and Porter, miniature “twin cities” of Porter county, may soon be just a memory of the horse and buggy era.

If present plans materialize the two towns may join handsーnot to the extent of forming one communityーbut to bind two units into a group working together for common benefits.

Not so long ago a reorganization of the Chesterton Business Men's club was effected and a younger element gained control. More recently a membership drive was sponsored by the Porter Chamber of Commerce and the new blood obtained has enlivened the group considerably.

The latest result of this unheard of phenomenon is that a committee has been appointed by the Porter group to meet with a similar body from the Chesterton organization and smoke the pipe of peace. Porter representatives are M.H. Smith, Arthur Hokanson and William Givens. The Chesterton group will be appointed next Monday night by President Leslie Pratt of the Business Men’s club.

The two committees will formulate plans for a joint banquet at which time the hatchet which has taken so many scalps in the past will be buried and the promotion of projects to mutually benefit the two towns will be discussed.

One of the proposals is being clothed in airtight secrecy but that both towns would welcome a new factory is common knowledge. Recreation parks, attractively landscaped and with facilities for kittenball and tennis is the most immediate goal of the Chesterton club which has appointed Lester Gunder as chairman of a committee to obtain permission for the use of Railroad park, located in the heart of the north Porter county community.

To date no active attempt has been made by either Porter Chesterton to entice the hundreds of summer resorters at Lake Michigan into visiting their shops and churches. A program of this nature is expected to be one of the major issues at the hatchet-burying banquet.

The one immediate problem: where will be the banquet be heldーin Porter or Chesterton?

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A spark which Friday night started the fire that completely destroyed the home of Carl J. Rhoda, Jr., has also generated a blaze of sentiment for the purchase of a new fire truck. Leaders in a new movement to get such equipment for the use of farmers in the north end of the county are John Lenburg, C.A. Anderson and M.P. Brummitt.

Township trustees of Westchester, Pine, Jackson, Liberty and Portage will be asked to contribute toward the purchase of a light truck equipped with a 500-gallon tank.

The fire Friday night was the second disaster to befall the Rhoda’s within the last year. The owner had just recently completed a new barn, the old one having been destroyed by a conflagration. Because of the frozen water main and lack of other adequate water facilities both the Chesterton and Porter fire departments were handicapped in fighting the most recent blaze.

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Chesterton is entering a “wite hope” into the heavyweight ranks. He is Bill Peterson, 19-year-old giant, son of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Peterson and a graduate of the local high school in 1934.

Bill was spotted by a fistic expert while working at the Inland Steel company and now holds a membership in the George Trafton gym, Chicago. The local fighter, while a student at Indiana university, was a star member of the boxing squad.

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Bernard Wiseman is reported improved following a dangerous double mastoid operation at the Mercy hospital, Gary, last Friday. Earlier reports which gave the cause of his critical illness as streptococcus infection and a spinal meningitis complication were not substantiated by a more complete medical examination.

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Twenty-one Boy Scouts were guests of their sponsors, members of the Chesterton Lions club, at a chicken dinner held Tuesday night at Mrs. Krueger’s restaurant.

Boys who enjoyed both the dinner and the entertainment were: James Lillywhite, Kenneth Magnuson, James Somers, Richard Wiseman, Richard Friday, Henry Radiger, Ned Beatty, Horace Cooper, Harlan Behrendt, Raymond Deiotte, Howard Johnsen, Milford Hageman, Cleon Trowe, Myron Braun, Bud Fend, Dewayne Yost, James Dee Vaughn, Richard Klinkman, Walter Peterson, Frank Brunk, and Robert Miller.

March 12, 1931: Home Brew at City Hall Fails to Tempt Samplers

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 12, 1931.

Home Brew at City Hall Fails to Tempt Samplers

Over at the city hall police station, Chief of Police Robert L. Felton and his police aids have an undying faith in humanity as a whole.

Reason for this statement is born out by the fact that for many days, nineteen bottles of near beer, taken in a raid on the Albert Schumacher place, near Chicago Mica company, have reposed in an open dry goods box in the council chamber, in plain view of everyone who comes in the main room of the city hall, with only a few newspapers to cover them, and no one has even attempted to molest them.

There has been no move on the part of Chief Felton to lock up the evidence, it being his belief that the public can be trusted. And the confidence of the chief in this respect has not received a set-back, despite the fact that hundreds of persons have set foot in the place, looked at the imposing array of “live ones” and were not tempted.

Formerly there were twenty bottles of the home brew, but Attorney J.J. McGarvey, for Schumacher, obtained one upon court order for analysis as to alcoholic content in preparation for defending his client.

March 11, 1981: Recycling still going strong

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 11, 1981.

Recycling still going strong

By Jan Aikens

Lifestyle editor

Mrs. Gloria Keller, chairman of the recycling project, hands a stack of newspapers to an unidentified PACT (Prisoners and Community Together) worker during a Saturday collection day. Valparaiso Woman’s Club, who took over the project in 1974, recently passed the $10,000 mark for the club’s contribution to an endowment fund used for scholarships at Valparaiso University. (V-M: Jan Aikens)

When the 1970s started, Americans were faced with college uprisings, peace signs and this country’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict.

If one looked hard enough, there were some events Americans were witnessing. One of these was the sudden look at the appearance of the nation and the desire to clean up the side of the roads, parks and fields. “Recycling” became a household word and recycling centers opened in many communities across the country. Bottles, aluminum cans and newspapers were all items that could be recycled back into the environment.

Valparaiso was not slighted in this new trend. Two families ー the Johanns and the Daughertys ー started newspaper recycling and ran the operation for about two years before the project became too much for them to handle. Valparaiso Woman’s Club, not wanting the program to die, undertook the task in 1974 and have been operating it ever since.

“It was not easy for me to get the women to take on this project,” said Gloria Keller, chairman of the recycling project. “Most of the women are elderly and are unable to do much lifting,” she said pointing to the newspapers as they are lifted by boys onto the truck.

The last Saturday of the month residents can take their old, clean newspapers to the City Garage, corner of Axe and Brick streets, anytime between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. There the newspapers are put on a truck provided by A.J. Berrier Co. and sold to a recycling center.

“We have made from $5 to $50 a ton depending on the status of the economy,” said Mrs. Keller, a woman who has dedicated herself to preserving the remaining resources this country has.

However, the Woman’s Club does not keep the money for themselves. In 1976 an endowment fund was established for scholarships at Valparaiso University. This year the club passed the $10,000 mark for contribution to the fund. The first scholarship was given in May 1977 for use during the 1977-78 school year. Mrs. Keller said that this May, when the scholarship will be awarded, it will be worth $500.

For the last three years members of PACT (Prisoners and Community Together) have helped lift the newspapers on the truck.

“I have been very impressed with the boys from PACT. This is one way they can work off their prison sentence within the community and help us at the same time.”

Mrs. Keller said that the program is running smoothly and mentioned other organizations have tried similar projects but weren’t successful. However, she feels that the community involvement is very low.

“There is only one percent participation of the community in the recycling project. More people could participate if they would just get into the routine of saving their newspapers.”

She said that some people have block participation in which one person would pick up the newspapers from their neighbors on their block and bring them down to the recycling center.

“This way the people save gas as well as newspapers.”

Now, that’s the way to preserve America’s resources!

March 11, 1961: White Rat Studies Win Liberty Girl Advancement In Talent Search Program

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 11, 1961.

White Rat Studies Win Liberty Girl Advancement In Talent Search Program

By RITA GETZ

PROGRESS IN SCIENCEーSandra Johnson, (left) 16, Liberty township senior, and former Regional Science fair winner, discusses latest achievement, placement as finalist in Annual  Science Talent Search. She will attend Junior Scientist Assembly March 17-18 at Indianapolis when winners of Westinghouse Science Scholarship Awards will be announced. Interviewing her is Mrs. Rita Getz of V-M Editorial staff.

Miss Sandra Johnson, 16-year-old Liberty Township High school senior, has just been notified that she is a finalist in the Annual Science Talent Search in competition for the Westinghouse Science Scholarship awards.

Winners will be announced at the Junior Scientists Assembly which will be held March 17 and 18 in the Claypool hotel, Indianapolis.

Sandra’s entry, “Motor Elements in Simple Cognition” is an experimental psychology study with white rats, dealing with perception.

The project, result of 1½ years research, won the Future Scientists of America award for the attractive young brunette last year. As a result of this win she was appointed to the Indiana University Science School seminar which was held last June in Bloomington.

Through her work at the Institute, Sandra was invited to remain at the university for an additional six weeks, where she worked in the psychological psychiatry lab with Dr. Russell DeValois.

Starts As Freshman

Sandra’s passion for science began in her freshman year, she stated. A regular entrant in the Science fair, she won first place in the junior division in 1958 with a study on colored vision in guinea pigs.

The following year she won top senior division honors at the Northwestern Regional Science fair and was awarded a coveted trip to the National Science fair at Hartford, Conn.

Her present project, which she perfected over the past two years, consists of a three sectioned maze, light avoidance box.

As part of her study, Sandra operated on several white rats, cutting their eye muscles. She learned the surgical procedure from Dr. W.C. Gunther, associate professor of biology at Valparaiso university.

Looks To Future

The young student would like to make experimental psychology her career, she stated. If this is not possible, she would like to enter the biological field.

She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Johnson, RFD 5, Wauhob Lake.

Sandra is the second member of her family who has shown an avid interest in science. A brother is now studying for his Ph.D. in psychology.

A graduate of Liberty, and Valparaiso university, he did his graduate work at Western Reserve university. It was access to his books which sparked Sandra’s interest. She noted.

Although her scientific research takes up much of her spare time, Sandra has organized a Science club at Liberty, and is now its president.

In addition she helped organize the schools’ chapter of the National Honor society, and retains her membership in it through her high grades. She is also on the rosters of the Latin club, French club, National Music Honor society, and is a past officer in the student council.

Her extra-curricular activities include membership in the Young Democrats of Porter county, and the Chellburg Science seminar, which meets weekly at Chesterton High school.

At the moment, she concluded, her biggest ambition is to win a substantial scholarship to one of the nation's colleges.

March 6, 1976: Museum Curator’s Grandma Early Jail ‘Prisoner’ - Proprietor Of The ‘Community Attic’ Finds Local Roots Helpful In Work

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 6, 1976.

Museum Curator’s Grandma Early Jail ‘Prisoner’

Proprietor Of The ‘Community Attic’ Finds Local Roots Helpful In Work

By MARY HENRICHS

AS MRS. TREVOR STALBAUM works among exhibits at the Porter County Historical Museum, she laughingly comments that she is now curator of an area where her Grandmother Elma (Skinner) Bull was once locked in a jail cell.

Mrs. Skinner used to tell her granddaughter about having been playfully locked in a cell of the Porter County jail when it was being built in 1871 and she was 11 years old. The “jailers” were construction workers who were relatives of a school chum with whom she’d gone to inspect the building project.

The maternal side of Mrs. Stalbaum’s heritage stems from the Bull family which settled in Rolling Prairie in the 1840s and she finds, “having roots in the community saves lots of leg work and searching in books” because she often knows the people about whom she gets requests for historical information.

The curator noted that because many Americans are currently working on genealogy, she often receives letters from distant places asking for material on Porter County ancestors.

MRS. STALBAUM also said that many items with some historic relationship to this area have been given to the museum by people living elsewhere. For example, an Illinois woman in her 80s who was the granddaughter of Army Capt. John Louderback, a Porter County Civil War leader imprisoned with his men at Andersonville, sent the museum a plate which Louderback had brought home from that notorious prison.

A Hobart resident gave the museum a book of photographs, taken about 1920 of people who lived in the Cooks Corners neighborhood. In it, Mrs. Staulbaum found a picture of her paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Wohlenberg, which she had never seen before.

“Sometimes a museum is like a community atticーa hodgepodgeーbut we have a good variety of items,” the curator noted proudly as she pointed out that the Historical Society still has several objects from its original 1916 display, including a melodian and a brass clock.

Nearly everything in the museum collection has been donated and many of the exhibits loaned for the 1916 Centennial program at the Valparaiso Public Library were reclaimed by their owners.

THE PORTER COUNTY Historical Society was founded in 1916 with the goal of “collection and preservation of all records and materials calculated to shed light upon the natural, civil and political history of Porter County and surrounding country, the marking of historical places…,” according to a history of the organization written in 1966 by the late Mrs. Alfred R. Putnam, former Society president.

In 1918, the Society purchased some articles of historical interest from the Joseph Bailly Homestead then being sold by Bailly’s granddaughter, Francis Howe. That same year, the Valparaiso Library Board gave the Society permanent display space in what is now the library’s genealogy room. Shortly thereafter the DAR assumed responsibility for operating the museum which it continued to do until re-incorporation of the Historical Society in 1948. In the meantime, the museum had been moved in 1937 to the fourth floor of the newly-rebuilt Porter County Courthouse where it remained until opening in its present location in September, 1974.

“This is the first and only museum I ever moved, and I don’t want to move any more,” laughed Mrs. Stalbaum, who recalled that many items were carried from the courthouse to the old jail by the Stalbaum family’s tractor and hay wagon. Two trucks and three men from Landgrebe Motor Transport, Inc., needed three days to move the rest.

Mrs. Stalbaum became interested in the museum when she joined the DAR and she recalls that Mrs. WIlliam Johnston and Mrs. Fred Bartz were then donating their time to keep it openーat first, by appointment and, later, on Fridays every week.

IN 1963 the Porter County Council approved a $4,500 budget for the museum and the Commissioners used some of those funds to hire Mrs. Irving Bundy as part-time curator in 1964.

Mrs. Stalbaum soon began assisting Mrs. Bundy and, “Although she had lived in Illinois and Missouri before coming here, we discovered we had two common ancestors ‘way back.”

Mrs. Stalbaum succeeded to the curator’s post after Mrs. Bundy retired in December, 1966.

“Porter County can be thankful that people are interested enough in the museum to donate articles to ot and that the Commissioners are helpful,” commented Mrs. Stalbaum as she displayed a letter from Marion Isaacs, former Porter County Historical Society president and current resident of Florida: “After touring other parts of our country, I believe we are the most blessed society of any to have our county government behind us. Down here the society is trying everything they can to do to preserve an old house and just can’t get enough money.”

March 10, 1936: COUNCIL VOTES FAST TIME CITY TO MOVE UP CLOCKS ONE HOUR SUNDAY

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 10, 1936.

COUNCIL VOTES FAST TIME

CITY TO MOVE UP CLOCKS ONE HOUR SUNDAY

Action Merely Adopts Fast Time at Earlier Date for Summer, Not For Year Around.

WOMEN CRITICIZE TIME TINKERING

Valparaisos will switch to daylight saving time next Sunday at 1 a.m.

The city council in regular session Monday night by unanimous vote adopted an ordinance advancing the time for changing from central standard to fast time from April 26 to March 15.

Beginning Tuesday, March 17, and continuing every night thereafterーexcepting Sundaysーlocal tavern proprietors will benefit by the advancement of the daylight saving time by the city council, which will permit them to remain open until 2 a.m., on week days and 3 a.m. on Sundays. State laws, operating on central standard time, permit the extra hour of trade Sunday at 1 a.m. at which time cloaks will be turned to 2 a.m. After Sunday taverns will benefit an extra hour by the change.

Previous to voting the council staged a forty-five minute caucus in which the matter was threshed out and all members agreed to vote for the ordinance on first reading making it effective next Sunday.

Councilman Schuyler C. Leffler explaining the ordinance pointed out that the council was not adopting eastern standard time throughout the year, but merely was getting an earlier start on daylight saving.

“I am voting aye on the ordinance, but I want it distinctly understood that it is not a yes vote for eastern standard time, except as a stop gap between March 15 and April 26, when daylight saving times starts,” Councilman Leffler said.

Council members were content to leave advance time on a temporary basis until September in the hope that the controversy in Chicago (which has adopted eastern standard time) will have been adjusted during the interim.

Mayor C.L. Bartholomew in commenting on the ordinance referred to it as a gesture of recognition of a fine element of the city’s populace who are dependent upon the Chicago and Calumet districts for their living.

“We are simply marking time through the ordinance,” he said.

“The council is not bound by it, and if Chicago continues eastern time the proposition can be submitted to a vote of the people and the question of eastern time the year round decided.”

Mayor Bartholomew pointed out that a large number of Valparaiso citizens depend upon their living on the Chicago and Calumet districts. These people, he said, have not arbitrarily asked for the ordinance. They have been told when to come to work and when to quit. They lose two hours under the new arrangement. The council is only trying to be fair and advance the time to help them out.

Mayor Bartholomew and members of the council asserted they were not sold on the eastern standard time setup, but felt that it was no more than fair to cater to desires of the commuters, who it is said, represent one-sixth of the city’s population.

A booster for the time change comprised a delegation of valparaiso university students, headed by Kenneth Wunsch, editor of the Torch, school publication.

Mr. Wunsch stated that in a recent poll of university students and faculty, 251 voted in favor of the change and 51 against.

One of the main reasons advanced by the student body for the new time was the inconvenience caused to a large number of students who commute back and forth between Gary, Michigan City and other towns, and go to Chicago on week-ends.

Another salient reason for the advanced time is that the students will have an additional hour for their athletic activities, Editor Wunsch said.

Bitter criticism of the time change was voiced by two women who attended the council session. They were Mrs. Bayard Wycoff and Mrs. Niles Fisher.

Said Mrs. Wyckoff: “I cannot see where any advantage is to be gained by this step. Is it necessary for the rest of the citizenry to get ip and see them (the commuters) off? It has been stated that Valparaiso will lose trade if it does not adopt the new time. I think it is the other way around.”

Said Mrs. Fisher: “It looks like the council is inconveniencing the majority of the people of Valparaiso for the benefit of the commuters, a small part of the population.”

Mayor Bartholomew explained that the ordinance carries no penal clause and those who do not care to observe it are at liberty to do so.

The city is scheduled to go on daylight saving time on April 26, anyway, so that the new ordinance only provides for a six-weeks’ period of observance before the regular fast time ordinance adopted on March 22, 1929, is effective, he added.

March 9, 1971: Order Appropriating Jail Land Signed

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 9, 1971.

Order Appropriating Jail Land Signed

An order appropriating property for construction of a new county jail and appointing appraisers for the two condemned parcels was signed today by Porter Circuit Judge Alfred J. Pivarnik.

Appraisers to be sworn in Thursday are Dorothy Fry, James Dickey and H. Pete Hudson, for the property of Mr. and Mrs. Donald FIndling at 103 Monroe; and John Griffin, Max Dickey and Gilbert Gregory, for the property of Bruce Bornholt, 155 Franklin.

Appraisals are to be returned March 23. The county may then gain possession of the land by paying the amount of the appraisal into the clerk’s office. County Atty. Roger Claudon reported that the county would like to have possession April 1.

If the county or landowners in either case object to the court appraisal as being too high or too low, and a condemnation trial results, the county or landowners pays the difference required after the jury award.

Tenants on the Findling property are Mr. and Mrs. Walter Lamberson and John, Anthony and Ann Nykiel, who are also listed as defendants in the condemnation suit. Bornholt’s niece, Ann Browning, has an interest in his property and is also a defendant in the condemnation suit of his parcel.

Hearing this morning was on the question of whether the County Board of Commissioners was entitled to appropriate fee simple title to the land.

Judge Pivarnik ruled that the county has the power to build jails and that the Board of Commissioners has the power to appropriate real estate, and condemned the property for the use of the county.

The condemnation suits against owners of the two parcels were authorized by the Board of Commissioners Feb. 1 after the landowners refused to sell their land for the amount of appraisals made for the commissioners last year.

Owners of two other parcels to be taken for the jail settled for the appraisal offers. The county paid $20,000 to Leslie Large for property at the corner of Franklin and Monrow and $10,000 to Mrs. Jennie Cavinder Porch, 103½ Monroe, west of the alley in the blok.

Bonds for $1.96 million for construction of the jail were sold by the county in December at a rate of 4.02 per cent to a group of banks including Northern Indiana Bank and trust Co. and several Chicago financial institutions.

The new jail is to be built south of the present jail, and will include juvenile and sheriff’s facilities and room on the fourth floor for county offices until the space is needed for future jail facilities.

Architect Campell Kane is working on specifications for bids for construction of the jail.