March 24, 1966: 5 Will Tour Washington, New York

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 24, 1966.

5 Will Tour Washington, New York

Five high school students from Porter county will have the opportunity this year to see Congress and the United Nations in action during the World Day Affairs spring tour April 3-8, under the auspices of the Indianapolis Council on World Affairs.

Spearheading the drive to secure Porter county organizations to sponsor and defray the $130 cost and expenses of the tour is the Porter County League of Women Voters.

Mrs. Albert Langlutting, league president, and Mrs. Phillip M. Cagen, chairman of the student tour, were pleased with the enthusiasm evidenced by sponsoring groups this year.

Students selected by their respective high schools and the organizations which will sponsor them are: Miss Joyce Casbon, Valparaiso High school, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Donald G. Casbon, 562 Grove, Tri-Kappa; and Miss Christine Mrak, Portage High school, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Mrak of 10522 E. 29th, Portage, Portage Federated Woman’s club.

Also, John Carlson, Liberty High school, son of Mr. and Mrs. Harold E. Carlson, RFD 5, Liberty school, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Meska, RFS 5, Liberty PTA; and Miss ROse Baranko, Jackson High school, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Baranko, RFD 1, Chesterton, Jackson Township PTA.

In Washington, D.C., students will visit foreign embassies, the state department, the capitol and will watch Congress and US senators in action.

The group will then travel to New York where the main emphasis will be placed on the United Nations where special appointments will be made.

Also on the New York itinerary is a Broadway musical and a special summing-up session at the World Affairs center.

Students will be accompanied by adult leadersーone for each 12 persons participating in the tour. Adult leaders are under the direction of Dean Virgil Hunt, head of Indiana University’s downtown campus.

The five students from Porter county and their mothers attended a briefing Wednesday night at the home of league member Mrs. Paul Viezke, 1302 Summit place.

Present also were representatives of two sponsoring agencies and Valparaiso High school students who participated in the tour last spring.

Those taking the tour are all junior students and were selected by their high school faculties because of their interests in world affairs.

Because they will all return to their schools next fall as senior students, they will have the opportunity to share their tour experiences with their fellow students and respective communities.

TALK ABOUT MUSICAL

Mrs. George Schiller, (left) representative of Portage Woman’s club which sponsors a student to World Day Affairs tour, tells students selected for tour they will see a Broadway musical in New York, Students are Rose Baranko, Jackson High school, (center) and Christine Mrak, Portage High school.

FROM LIBERTY

Liberty school juniors Darlene Meska and John Carlson who will take World Day Affairs tour, talk over itinerary with Mrs. Paul Vietzke (left) who held briefing session for all county participants in her home Wednesday night.

SIGHTSEEING PAMPHLETS

Mrs. Charles Anderson (left) representing Tri-Kappa sorority which is sponsoring Valparaiso High school student to Washington and New York, and Mrs. Phillip Cagen, (center) Tour chairman from County League of Women Voters, give sightseeing pamphlets to VHS student Joyce Casbon. All students will have opportunities to see Washington and New York during tour.

March 24, 1936: GRADE STUDENTS URGED ENROLL AS JUNIOR “WARDENS” OF CITY, SPONSORED BY GARDEN DEPARTMENT, WOMAN’S CLUB, SAVE LAWNS

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 24, 1966.

GRADE STUDENTS URGED ENROLL AS JUNIOR “WARDENS” OF CITY, SPONSORED BY GARDEN DEPARTMENT, WOMAN’S CLUB, SAVE LAWNS

The Valparaiso Woman’s Club through the garden department, invites you to join in a bit of conservation work fostered by the National Federation of Women’s Clubs.

You upper graders know about the national conservation movement; what it means to us of today, what it means to us of today, what it will mean to generations to come. But you little folks are not concerned just now, with any dar away tomorrow, and perhaps, in explaining this invitation to simple service to you even the older boys and girls may sit up and take notice.

We’ll begin with a simply defined meaning of the word:

“Conservation”means to protect, to preserve. In a larger sense it means official supervision over our natural resources, our rivers, forests, etc. Conservation also throws protective care over wild life, animals, birds and yes, flowers, too.

You have heard, I know, of that fine organization, the Men’s Conservation Club of Porter County, have heard what they are doing to foster the increase of game life in the county. The Boy Scouts know about this club’s patriotic effortsーthrough birdhouse buildingー to provide protective homes for our song birds.

By this time you’re probably wondering what in the world is left for you, our juniors, to do. And when I tell you how simple the service will be, and how very much it will mean to every dweller in Valparaiso, this centennial year, I shall expect an overwhelming response of approval from you, not to mention others.

Well, last week in Chicago a young student of the Art Institute there won first prize in a poster contest sponsored by the park district in their city-wide conservation campaign to protect the grass in parks and on parkways. The prize winning poster was a six word, simply decorated sign, reading:

“PLEASE save this lawn for summer.”

Nowーwhat do you think of it? Mighty fine work for juniors, don’t you think so?

Well, that’s exactly what this invitation and message means to you children of Valparaisoーit means an invitation to cooperate in saving our lawns for summer. And you will, won’t you?

No child is compelled to join in this conservation work, you service must be voluntary, but if you do enroll, remember you are on your honor to do your bit towards making your city a lovelier place in which to live. I believeーI hopeーyou will find every adult in Valparaiso is with you.

To be sure of having the full approval of our school authorities, I spoke of our school authorities, I spoke to Rev. Fr. Sullivan of St. Paul’s parochial school, and to Mr. Roy Julian, superintendent of Valparaiso public schools, and obtained their consent to bring this to the notice of your teachers.

The plan is for the children of each school to be gentle, yet watchful wardens over their own residence block. Wherever you live, that particular block is under your supervision. Some city blocks may house twenty children, some only five, but in either case tha block belongs, in a conservation sense, to the junior or juniors living there. They are wardens or watchers of it.

You are not asked to perform any labor in this campaign, yet if you feel the impulse, sometime, to pick up a piece of old paper or rag off somebody’s lawn it won’t hurt your standing as a conservation junior to do it. One important thing you can do is talk to youngsters who forget and run over lawns and parkways, even their own; particularly weather like this when the ground is soft, and the least football crushes grass that someone has tended patiently. Then there are the bicycle tracks on soft lawns, (corner lawns suffer most), tracks that just miss the sidewalk’s edge and plow through good grass sod.

Right here I am reminded that when I was preparing plans for this campaign it was suggested by a loyal high school woman fan that students in the Valparaiso high school would hardly need a “please save our lawns” club, for they never offended. I wonder? Anyway, if there are high school students who wish to join this loyally with the “graders” in this job of presenting a city of clean, lovely, well supervised lawns to centennial visitors, you’ve surely welcome to our midst.

Remember this must be a voluntary campaignーno bossesーbut a mighty fine ideal of service that children, and others, will delight in.

If Mr. Whipple, editor of the VIdette-Messenger, will permit us a bit of space now and then in the pages of our paper, your chairwomanーmyselfーwill love to talk to you in print, and tell you all our news as it happens.

Your chairwoman was given this appointment a few weeks ago and thought at once if you children. Hundreds of you pass my door every school day, and you’re a credit, everyone, to your parents, and the homes you come from. Neat, and smiling always, a dandy lot of boys and girls.

I hope to be able to give each member some insignia to wearーJ.C.C.ーbadge or buttonーmaybe some group, or club of men not a thousand miles away, could help us outーor at least suggest a good plan to secure these things. Anywayーhere’s hoping.

Look for another message from me in a few days in the Vidette-Messenger.

And about the high school studentsーone unsightly picture on streets here, are the empty lots. Wouldn’t it be a splendid thing for a group or groups of high school boys and girls, to help school boys and girls, to help the grade children as emissaries of good will between the junior C.C. and owners of vacant lots? If no one wishes them for gardens and if the cost to each owner was not prohibitive wouldn’t a cleaning up and then - seeding of lawn seed on those vacant spaces make a grand change in the landscape? Or, a high school group might feel the urge to contact the owners of vacant property, west on Park avenue, say, and secure their cooperation in a weed exterminating offensive. Of course these last are mere suggestions. Goodbye for a while.

Chairman J.C.C. of Valparaiso Woman's Club

March 23, 1931: THEY WELCOME MOST TOURISTS BUT THIS TRUCK DRIVER MADE TOO MUCH OF A HIT, IT SEEMS

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 23, 1931

THEY WELCOME MOST TOURISTS BUT THIS TRUCK DRIVER MADE TOO MUCH OF A HIT, IT SEEMS

Ray and Martha Eschenbach, owners of a tourist camp on Dunes Highway, in Mineral Springs addition, northwest of Chesterton, are always anxious for patrons to stop at their place, but there are certain rules which must be observed.

When Clayton Merrill, an Illinois man, drove into the Eschenback place on March 18, at 9:30 p.m. his presence was not exactly desired, especially as Merrill failed to control his Reo speed wagon which was running at high speed, collided with a building, 20x34 feet, used by the Eschenbachs as a tourist quarters.

The building was completely wrecked, and damage in the sum of $450 was incurred. This is all set out in a complaint for damages and attachment filed today in Porter superior court by Attorney George R Williams, of Chesterton, representing the Eschenbachs.

March 6, 1976: ‘Everybody Worked For Me’

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

‘Everybody Worked For Me’

By MARY HENRICHS

“EVERYBODY IN TOWN worked for me at one time or another,” Frances (Fanny) Philley said with a warm smile as she reminisced shortly before her 85th birthday (March 5, 1975) about her 45 years of operating the Premier Candy Shop in the Premier Theatre Building on Lincolnway.

Mrs. Philley and her husband, the late Wallace Philley, who died in June, 1950, opened their soda fountain, homemade candy, and popcorn (carmel and regular salted) store in 1922 when the building was constructed. The quality of its merchandise can be judged by Gene Hart’s comment years later, “The best English toffee in the world died with Wally.”

Mrs. Philley still has records showing that during the years in which they sold popcorn, the Philleys purchased it by the tonーliterallyーwith monthly orders ranging from 200 to 300 pounds.

For many years, the store remained open until 9 p.m., furnishing popcorn and soda fountain products to theater goers. Mrs. Philley said the hours explain the large number of former employees because high school girls were hired to help after school.

“I’M ALWAYS RUNNING into people who say, ‘I used to work for you,’” she grinned.

Our employee who came to stay, however, was Miss Helene Winters who joined the Philleys in 1934 and who was still working at the store when it closed, July 1, 1967.

“We stayed open during the depressionーbarely. Then, the theater began selling its own popcorn and candy so we started offering lunches in the 1930s,” Mrs. Philley remembers.

Miss Winters did the cooking, specializing in homemade pies, with two or three flavorsーsuch as apricot, chocolate, or lemonーbeing offered each day.

The many Valparaisoans who lunched regularly at Fanny’s (through the years everyone forgot the official name and the shop was universally known as “Fanny’s”) knew each day what the featured entree would be before they entered the doorーmeat loaf on Monday; spaghetti, Tuesday; creamed chicken, Wednesday; and macaroni with tuna, Friday.

In 1975, a man stopped Mrs. Philley on the street to say, “I wish I had some of that creamed chicken on biscuit.”

MRS. PHILLEY REMEMBERS that when the shop began serving meals, a meat loaf lunch which included potatoes and cole slaw sold for 25 cents. During the last six months of its operation, the store charged 90 cents for the same meal.

“Coffee was a nickel when we started and it nearly broke my heart when we had to go to 15 cents,” she smiled.

Commenting on other changes through the years, Mrs. Philley noted that when the Premier Candy Shop closed, it was the only restaurant in the block between Washington and Lafayette on Lincolnway. When the Philleys went into the lunch business, four other restaurants operated in that blockーFarmers, American, Rainbow, and Belmont.

“People had a good time in the store. There was always lots of courting and matchmaking going on there. Neal and Dorothy Fry met in  our place. So did Claude and Charlotte Sweeny,” Mrs. Philley grinned.

A locally famous “dice game” which provided many happy memories also went on in that store at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. every week day, including 9 a.m. Thursdays was when the store was closed to the public.

March 22, 1961: Hebron Club Looking For Site For Park

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 22, 1961.

Hebron Club Looking For Site For Park

VIEW HEBRON PARK SITE ー Hebron Junior Women’s club park committee inspect seven acre site, just south of Hebron city limits on Ind. 53, for possible establishment of a park for the town of Hebron. Members of committee at site, from left: Mrs. Herbert Wilson, chairman; Mrs. William Mullins and Mrs. Robert Thompson. Project plans include town’s first public swimming pool.

HEBRONーMembers of the Hebron Junior Woman’s club have been considering and viewing several sites for establishment of a public park.

Mrs. Herbert Wilson, chairman of the club’s park committee with Mrs. William Mullins and Mrs, Robert Thompson, inspected a seven-acre tract, just south of the Hebron city limits, on Ind. 53, Tuesday.

The club plans to purchase a site and aid the town in developing the tract as a swimming, recreational and picnic area.

Want Pool

“We have always wanted a swimming pool,” said Mrs. Wilson, “and this is the only way we are going to get one.”

Members of the committee indicated that drainage of the seven-acre-site will have to be tested. They also expressed anxiety over a ditch which splits the site.

Mrs. Wilson said it is the hope of the committee to secure financial aid for the project from other Hebron organizations and interested citizens.

A tentative promotional plan includes sale of “One-Inch Square Plots” to buyers.

Hebron currently has a small town park near the Methodist church.

March 22, 1951: Hysteria of 1919-20

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 22, 1951.

Hysteria of 1919-20

Are we ridden by hysteria over suspected communist plots? There are some signs of it, and a few unscrupulous officeholders and commentators have done their best to whip it up. On the whole most Americans are willing to leave spy work to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and do not try to do it themselves or through untrained lawmakers.

Certainly today’s uneasiness does not begin to compare with the hysteria that followed World War I. President Wilson was lying crippled by his stroke, and the government was virtually without a head. Attorney-General A. Mitchell Palmer thought this a good time to proclaim a Bolshevik plot that threatened the government. Partly through the FBI and partly through his own special agents he staged a series of raids on supposed communist headquarters. Arrests totaled 2,000 in 56 cities on the single day of Jan. 2, 1920, and may have reached 5,000 altogether.

Nothing came of it. Some unnaturalized persons were departed, and some local labor leaders were beaten up; that could conceivably have been part of the purpose of the raids. Such cases as came to court did not stand up. And Palmer, though strongly supported, failed to get the democratic presidential nomination later in 1920, which went instead to Gov. James M. Cox of Ohio.

There were a few discreditable local supplements, notably in New York, where five duly elected socialist (not communist, but socialist) representatives were barred from the state legislature, despite the protests of the future chief justice, Charles E. Hughes.

Beware of communism, but beware also of self-seekers trying to capitalize the fear of communism.

March 21, 1931: HARRY OSBORN ON RAMPAGE HURLS ROCKS THRU CITY HALL GLASS BEFORE OVERPOWERED

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 21, 1931.

HARRY OSBORN ON RAMPAGE HURLS ROCKS THRU CITY HALL GLASS BEFORE OVERPOWERED

Howard Osborn, residing near the Nickel Plate depot, went on a rampage this morning in front of city hall station, and before being overpowered by Policeman Gordon Reynolds and Fireman Wilbur Cowdrey, threw large pieces of concrete through the glass door leading to the city council chamber stairway, and the windshield of the old police car.

One of the hunks of concrete, taken from broken parts in the street curbing, was aimed at Chief of Police Robert L. Felton. The latter had just entered the door leading to the stairway and reached the fourth step when the concrete came hurling through the glass and struck near his feet.

Osborn had a piece of concrete in his hand when Policeman Reynolds rushed down from the station above. He threatened to throw it at the officer if he came any closer, but Reynolds was not intimidated. He grappled with Osborn, and Cowdrey came to his assistance.

Osborn was placed in a padded cell at the county jail. All the time he raved against the police for some fancied wring that had been done him. A search of his clothes revealed $453 in bills, mainly of $20 denomination.

March 20, 1976: Lineman on U.S. 30

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 20, 1976.

Crewmen for Northern Indiana Public Service Co. had to row their way to work site in sunken area on U.S. 30 west of County Road 500W. Normally Don Labadie (top), journeyman lineman, and Steve Dommer, apprentice lineman, would have used a truck boom to reach roadside area, but adequate footing was not available for vehicle to be useful in tying in new cable.

(V-M: Ken Dowdell)