Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on May 6, 1961.
ART WORK
Westville authorities have attributed ‘art work’ on east side of sewage disposal plant, to ‘group of persons physically grown up but mentally about eight to nine years old.’ Cost of covering up artistic endeavor will eventually come out of taxpayers’ pocketbooks, it was noted.
(V-M Staff Photo)
Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on May 5, 1956.
Castoff Paper, Boxes Are Used To Create Varied Holiday Items
By ROLLIE BERNHART
Mrs. Hazel Russi has an affinity toward castoff foil, old paper and cardboard boxes.
To the majority, these items are relegated to the rubbish pile. But not Hazel Russi.
Under her nimble fingers and artistic talents are created a host of useful and attractive articles for many occasions.
In her workshop, on Indiana 49 near Flint Lake school, Mrs. Russi creates table favors and center pieces for every holiday event of the year.
Surrounding her as she works are perfectly balanced scaled for a baby shower, made from old cardboard, string and coat hanger wire; a fluffy, white lamb, put together from an old salt box, together from an old salt box, four pieces of paper mailing tube, wadded newspaper and cotton; and bird houses of cardboard, artfully and realistically painted so that not even a wandering bird would know it was not the real thing.
Got ‘Bug’ As Child
The former Hazel Bright, a lifelong resident of this city, says she has had the “artistic bug” since she was a youngster, when she confined her talents to copies of comic strip characters.
Her love for art humorously asserted itself when as a child attending church with her mother, she drew candid pictures of individuals sleeping during the minister’s sermon.
She began working with paper in a Sunday School class at the Baptist church, teaching children how to make useful items from cast-off headed for the furnace.
Four years ago, she began to regard her creative talent seriously, and has since dressed many an anniversary, birthday, wedding and graduation party table with her attractive layout.
Hangs From Ceiling
Her largest project and most creative work to date is a wedding center piece made from a “junked” parasol, a piece of bamboo and some expert cutting and twisting of crepe paper.
Out of an order for a baby shower creation came a ceiling hanging work of art which she calls “Lady in Waiting”, depicting an anxious mother-to-be watching a stork fly around trying to catch up with a baby on a cloud.
Her workshop is filled with a multitude of interesting items. It is a revelation to see what can be done with paper which ordinarily would be thrown away.
She has a standing order with all who know her: “Don’t throw it away, Save it for Hazel”.
Artful Creations For Many Occasions
A BABY SHOWER centerpiece is shown (top) being completed by Mrs. Hazel Russi, Flint Lake, who makes a variety of artful creations from castoff birthday reminder to a 50th wedding anniversary are shown below.
(V-M Staff Photos)
Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on May 4, 1946.
DRASTIC DIMOUT HITS CITY LIFE
Local Industry, Business, Civic Affairs Curtailed Sharply By Electric Ban
Plant Managements Struggle To Revise Work Schedules; Merchants Restricted To Short Hours; Entertainments Affected
Seriousness of the current dispute between coal mine operators and the United Mine Workers was brought home to Valparaiso and environs today with a jolting impact.
Acting on orders from the state public service commission, the Northern Indiana Public Service company late Friday distributed to local merchants and industries are effective immediately and will continue until a perilously low stockpile of coal is replenished with “normal deliveries” from the mines.
Under the order, business and manufacturing in Valparaiso comes under drastic curtailment. Local industry is ordered to use electric power no more than a total of 24 hours during any period between Monday and Friday of each week. No use of power permitted Saturdays and Sundays.
Plants Hard Hit
This meant that local plants, dependent upon electric power, now operating in some instances on a three-shift basis, will be forced to reduce schedules to one three-shift day, three days of eight hour shifts, six days of four-hour shifts, or a similar arrangement.
Management in Valparaiso industries was reported this morning to be struggling with the problem of compliance with the order which will mean layoffs for hundreds of workmen or severely reduced work weeks.
Realizing the extent of the emergency presented, NIPSCO officials were allowing a “grace” period for the readjustment, but full compliance was expected by early next week.
Commercial users, which includes virtually every merchant in town, are limited to 24 houses weekly, from Monday to Saturday and such use must be between 2:00 and 6:00 p.m. of said days. Stores dealing with food are exempted, but must use only minimum requirements of electric power.
Activity Curtailed
The order was expected to prove a staggering blow to industrial output here and to seriously curtail retail activities.
Complete elimination of power was ordered for such uses as decorative or ornamental and flood lighting, sign lighting, window and showcase lighting. Interior lighting in excess of minimum requirements was forbidden.
This meant that Valparaiso is to experience a brownout comparable to that already in effect throughout Illinois, although street lighting will be maintained as a safety measure.
The decree touches everyone in varying degrees. Every consumer of electric power, private, commercial, and public, is expected to comply with provisions of the order.
Confusion Widespread
Even those classes of consumers exempted from the more rigid provisions of the order are expected to use a minimum of current necessary to carry out their services.
The order created widespread confusion among businessmen and local groups planning evening entertainments. Under terms of the brownout, no night activities of schools, lodges, civic groups and similar organizations may be carried out if the use of electric current is necessary. If other means of lighting can be found, such programs may be carried out.
A number of services were declared exempt by the public service commission. The list of such individuals, businesses and institutions may be found in the question and answer column which appears in today’s Vidette-Messenger. In brief, the order exempts “essential” services which contribute to public health, safety and protection.
A report issued Friday that NIPSCO had the smallest supply of coal on hand of any utility in Indiana was denied by Sam Busby, secretary of the PSC. According to Busby, there are other utilities servicing central and southern parts of the state which are “worse off” than NIPSCO, whose Michigan City generating plant reportedly has sufficient coal to last it until June 7.
Both Bushy and officials of NIPSCO emphasized that “The PSC is not literally ‘closing’ anything. It has merely prescribed during which hours electricity may be used.”
Text of Order
The essential text of the PSC order read as follows:
“Northern Indiana Public Service company is hereby authorized and directed, during the effective period of the coal strike which began April 1, 1946, and for such further period as may elapse until normal deliveries of coal are resumed to curtail the use of electricity:
“(a) For all such purposes as decorative or ornamental and flood lighting, sign lighting, window and showcase lighting, comfort air conditioning, car heating, and interior lighting in excess of minimum requirements;
“(b) For industrial use except for an aggregate of 24 hours during the period Monday to Friday, inclusive; or to a use each week not to exceed 1/30th of the kilowat hours used in April, 1946, monthly billing interval; and
“(c) For commercial use except for an aggregate of 24 hours during the period Monday to Saturday, inclusive such use to be between 2 and 6 p.m. of said days.”
The order stated that NIPSCO would be empowered to “exempt from such curtailment the supply of electricity for transportation, communication, and for purposes and establishments immediately essential to public health and safety and for the protection of life and property.”
Furter, the PSC authorized the utility to enforce its decree to the extent, if necessary, of cutting to any person or firm which violates its provisions.
Anticipating a flood of questions from consumers uncertain as to exactly how they should proceed toward compliance, Walter H. Hathaway, manager of the Valparaiso NIPSCO district, said:
“Where there are borderline cases, and special questions arise, a good rule to follow is to find the answers to this question: Is the (consumption) actually necessary from the standpoint of public health and safety? The answer to that question, in 9 cases out of 10, will serve as a reliable guide.”
Public Co-operating
“The response and public cooperation in carrying out this exceedingly fine,” Hathaway said today. “We realize that it will take a time for all of our customers to thoroughly understand how this dimout affects each one of them, and arrange their schedules accordingly. From the response so far given, we do not anticipate that it will be necessary to shut off service to any of our customers because of non-compliance with the public service commission order.
“Although most of our efforts have been concentrated with industrial and commercial users, residential customers should realize that this order also applies to them in that they are expected to keep consumption at a minimum. The more complete the co-operation the longer NIPSCO will be able to furnish electricity with its rapidly dwindling coal supply.”
Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on May 3, 1941.
Art Society Has Meeting
The Porter County Art Association held a May-Day meeting with Miss Edna Agar at 501 North Locust street Thursday evening. Miss Agar was the recipient of congratulations on having received recognition by the Hoosier Salon at Indianapolis for her painting “Our House” which painting has been sold through the Hoosier Salon. The evening was profitably spent in the exchange of different ideas, supported by actual experiences with the various media used by artists to portray abstract concepts or record prosaic realties. The principal points under discussion were the relative values of papers for water colors, canvas, masonite boards, etc., for oils.
Exchange Views
Many interesting experiences were exchanged in the handling of oil colors, cleaning of palettes, brushes, etc. Mr. J.H. Euston of Chesterton has contributed a worth while expedient for cleaning brushes which is a moderate size covered tin can that a short distance above the bottom has a piece of wire screen fastened to the sides below the level of either turpentine or coal oil. The screen served admirably, as the brushes are rubbed over it, to remove the paint. Mr. Amstutz had a rock-group water color. Mrs. Euston presented the members with pretty bon bon baskets in vari-colored paper trimmings.
Mrs. Ponader showed a delicate textile, with linoleum block impressions in blue color. Mrs. Hannell showed a water color study, Miss Agar a letter press study, “Life Begins at Forty”, Mr. Hannell had miniature animal figurines.
Plan Garden Party
A report was received by the committee on the formation of a Business Men’s Amateur Art Club which stated that a meeting of interested persons is to be held on Monday evening, May 5. Arrangements were made for a pot luck garden party meeting at the home of Mr. Amstutz on Chicago Road, June 5 with opportunities for outdoor sketching. The hostess, assisted by Lillian Sayers served delicious strawberry shortcake.
Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on May 1, 1956.
Rathbone Is No Mystery Book Reader
By ROLLIE BERNHART
Basil Rathbone, television’s “Sherlock Holmes”, is actually not a reader of “who-dunits”.
Famed Actor-Lecturer Is In Town
BASIL RATHBONE, noted actor, was interviewed here this noon during a press conference at Hotel lembke by a Valparaiso university student.
(V-M Staff Photo)
The noted actor, here for a workshop lecture on phases of the theater today, and a formal appearance Wednesday at 8:15 p.m., at Valparaiso university’s auditorium, said that mystery books were “simply not my cup of tea.”
Attired in a natty gray flannel suit, the debonair Rathbone told a group during an interview this noon, that although he felt that playing the role of the famous detective had almost “typed” hom professionally, he still would never grow tired of the Sir Conan Doyle role.
?Maybe I would tire of doing 16 pictures and 200 broadcasts of Hamlet, but never Sherlock Holmes,” he told the group.
No Violin Player
Rathbone clarified the fact that he does not play the violin such as portrayed in the Holmes television series.
“I actually learned to go through the motions of fingering and bowing the instrument. What little music did spring forth, dear pictures, they cut it out.”
Although the famous words “elementary, my dear Watson,” make it appear that solving mysteries are his forte, Rathbone said that he would have no desire to enter the detective profession. The Sherlock Holmes series has not as yet increased my powers of observation and deduction,” he said.
In a more serious vein, Rathbone said that not everyone can become an effective speaker. “First you must have something to say. When you have the subject, you must then have the ability to speak concisely and intelligently.”
2 Outstanding Speakers
Two prime examples in Rathbone’s estimation of outstanding speakers today are Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill. It was Churchill whom he remembers as saying “everyone should learn to speak on their feet.”
“Unlike the theater, cinema or television, public speaking is a cold turkey proposition, with no stage, no lights, no orchestra,” the noted Shakespearean player pointed out.
Rathbone, who will appear Wednesday in a presentation of selections from the world’s great literature, including poetry, prose and drama, also made it clear that he did not look upon himself as a good speaker.
“I feel that the only reason that people listen to me at all is because they merely wish to find out what kind of a man I am.”
He was frank in stating that he preferred talking to women’s clubs as compared to male organizations. “Women at least make you welcome.”
Rathbone’s appearance here is sponsored by the Department of Speech and Drama of Valparaiso university.
Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on April 30, 1981.
Students take over
Taking over for Mayor Elden Kuehl (above) and taking the oath of office for sheriff (below) are two VHS students elected to one-day terms of office. Mayor-for-a-day Trent Albert reviews the city’s budget with Kuehl. Sheriff-for-a-day Todd Van Keppel is sworn in by Porter County Sheriff Tim McCarthy. Several VHS seniors will be serving in city and county offices today as part of Student Government Day sponsored by VHS government teachers and the Valparaiso Jaycees.
Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on April 28, 1981.
Marchers Olson: Sculpt it with cement
by Mary Henrichs
Special features writer
Backyard studio
Lynn Olson believes backyards make the best sculpture studios. Here Olson pushes a mixture of cement, water and steel wool among steel wires surrounding the figure of a woman. The cement sculpture is hollow and was formed by a casting process Olson devised. In the background is a piece of Olson’s work combining cement and stained glass. Sitting on the stump is a cement model for a free-to-turn shell sculpture.
(V-M: Jay Jarrett)
Lynn Olson of Valparaiso has written a book entitled, Sculpting with Cement, “because it needed to be written.”
No literature had ever been published on the subject and Olson, who is a sculptor, predicts that “in the next decades, cement will be the common sculpture medium ー economics demand it.”
Recalling his own days as a student at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, when he could afford only cement as his medium and when the sole instructions on its use consisted of technical engineering manuals, Olson produced the publication he would have liked to be able to read then.
Cement is the one substance most sculptors can still afford, Olson said. Materials for a 17-by-14-inch four legged animal made with cement and wire underpinning cost about $15 whereas a bronze casting would have been almost $1,000.
Working in his backyard studio, Lynn Olson burnishes a cement sculpture. The piece is built on a chicken wire base, reinforced with steel rods, fashioned from a sand-cement mixture shoved among wires and finished with a coating of fiber cement.
(V-M: Jay Jarrett)
Marble is very costly; plastics are expensive and the exhaust fans and other equipment needed to use them safely are even higher; clay and plaster are cheap but not permanent; steel scraps are inexpensive but the rates for gas used in welding them have skyrocketed.
In contrast, a studio and the materials for cement sculpture can be acquired for less than $100, Olson said.
Equipment consists of simple hand tools ー a paring knife, rubber gloves, rasps and files.
A shady backyard is the best place in which to work because diffused light coming through trees allows the sculptor to see the form of his work from various angles of illumination, Olson said.
The finished cement product will last and it can be built in sections so it will not be heavy to move.
Olson’s seven-foot stained glass and fiber cement sculpture, “St. Louie Blues,” has stood outside for 15 years and is weathering well. The artist transported it himself from Michigan to Missouri on a trailer.
Combining his training as an artist with the benefits of his engineering studies at the University of Illinois, Olson has spent about 12 years devising many kinds of cement sculpture techniques.
Above is a sculpture mounted on a pipe above base that is free to turn so protected bird bath can face north in summer and south in winter. A jet of water from a tiny orifice causes water in the basin to rise in an arc to attract birds. Copper tubing runs through a plastic tube inside the sculpture, out the bottom and connects to a hose.
(Photo by Lynn Olson)
Seeking to create a modeling material, he began combining cement, water and very fine grades of steel wool to get fiber cement.
Mixing the materials with hands protected by rubber gloves, he makes “something that feels like clay and can be pushed into shapes and forms ー stuck here and put there.”
The sculpture is reinforced with steel rods and wires.
Olson also learned that instead of water, he could add latex to cement, thus increasing the bonding faculties and making the sculptures more flexible and weather resistant.
For some pieces, a cement, sand and water mixture is used as the finished product or as the substance over which fiber cement is laid.
Olson has made sculptures ranging in size from fishing lures to six-foot human figures.
He has also done cement casting of portrait busts and has set stained glass into cement, making the ribs extend beyond the glass, thus producing two designs ー the linear form and the glass color.
For a fishing lure, wore is shaped with a loop at one end for the split ring and another loop at the other end for the leader. The plug is shaped with rasps and files to give it curvatures that will make it wiggle attractively when being pulled through water, and is painted with bright colors in acrylic or oil.
(Photo by Lynn Olson)
Steel reinforced fiber cement sets up in about 30 minutes and reaches a final set in about 10 hours, Olson said.
In 24 hours the material is firm enough to be whittled with a paring knife; in 48 hours it can be cut with a rasp, a file and abrasive paper; in three days it’s too hard to cut. Continued aging making cement even firmer.
After two weeks the artist can burnish his fiber cement work with the flat of a knife and apply paste wax to polish it. Olson said many people have tried to work with cement sculpture but, because of the engineering as well as artistic knowledge needed, they haven’t known how to use the materials.
The only person who had successfully done direct cement sculpture was the late Simon Rodia, an Italian immigrant with little education who built seven open wed towers ー one of the 99½ feet tall ー in Watts, Cal., between 1921 and 1954.
“With no training in engineering, he intuitively constructed strong and durable designs that survived the 1932 earthquakes and that reveal the essential connection between structural efficiency and esthetic beauty,” Olson wrote in Sculpting with Cement.
A resident of Porter County for about 15 years, Olson works at his home at 4607 Claussen Lane near Flint Lake.
Small designs, such as the decorative pendant above, can be sculpted by combining fiber-cement with small gauge wire to shape small forms on which details can be carved before burnishing or painting to finish.
(Photos of Lynn Olson)
Sculpting with Cement, which went on the market in March, was published under the name of his own company ー Steelstone Press.
Olson did all of the sculpture with which the book is illustrated, took the photographs and wrote the text.
Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on April 27, 1981.
Marchers protest, support Bailly
By Steve Dinnen
Hundreds of colorful helium-filled balloons make their way out over Lake and Porter counties Saturday following their release as part of an anti-nuclear demonstration outside the gates leading into Northern Indiana Public Service Co.’s Bailly Nuclear 1 plant site. The path of the balloons is meant to represent the path of nuclear material in the event of an accident at Bailly. Persons finding the balloons, which have return addresses inside them, will be asked to mail cards to various groups that supported the rally.
(V-M: Martin Gehring)
BURNS HARBOR ー Placards and pennants said it all for 500 anti-nuclear demonstrators as they gathered outside the gates of the Bailly Nuclear 1 site Saturday to protest any resumption of construction at the unfinished north county power station.
“Radiate truth, not people,” “Say NO to NIPSCO” and “No more Three Mile Islands” signs bobbed over protestors’ heads as they reaffirmed their opposition to Northern Indiana Public Service Co.’s plans to finish the plant, which is only one percent complete.
Jointly sponsored by the Bailly Alliance, Porter County Citizens Concerned About Bailly and Citizens Against Nuclear Power, the rally was pulled off with few hitches as demonstrators began to assemble Saturday morning a mile away from the Bailly entrance. By noon sufficient forces were marshalled to begin a march alongside roads and then onto U.S. 12, where they halted at the east gate of Bethlehem Steel Corp., which also serves as the entrance to Bailly.
Under the watchful eye of county and local police, the band chanted “No nukes” as various union and political leaders stepped up to the microphone and pledged their opposition to Bailly. Speaking to whom he called “residents of the fallout zone,” Mike Olszanski, a committeeman with United Steelworkers of America local 1010, said ratepayers must say no to NIPSCO’s rate increases and the hauling of radioactive wastes from Bailly when and if it is completed.
“If the politicians won’t listen, we’ll get new ones,” Olszanski said of his pleas.
Bailly 1 protesters
U.S. 12 turned into a pedestrian concourse Saturday afternoon as 500 anti-nuclear demonstrators used it to march to the gates of the proposed Bailly 1 nuclear demonstrators used it to march to the gates of the proposed Bailly 1 nuclear generating station. Heavy union support of the rally can be seen from the placards carried at the protest, which included groups from the Bailly Alliance, Porter County Citizens Concerned About Bailly and Citizens Against Nuclear Power.
(V-M: Martin Gehring)
Porter Town Board member Tom Esgate next said that the protestors had gathered to “jar some sense into NIPSCO’s corporate head.” Esgate, whose community is practically within earshot of the Bailly site, said he felt NIPSCO had failed to adequately discuss evacuation or emergency plans with neighboring towns, an act he said was appalling and possibly criminal.
“NIPSCO seems to have forgotten that it was at one time a public service company,” Esgate said. He added that the company, and not the protestors, was the radical in the dispute and that the firm had become a “vigilante industry.”
Chicagoan Bill Steyert pretty well sums up his sentiments on nuclear power as he waves his flag high to show protest against NIPSCO’s Bailly 1 nuclear plant. Behind him sits a substation on the Bailly site that presently provides power to adjacent Bethlehem Steel Corp.
Next to the rostrum was James Balanoff who, as director of District 31 of the USWA, oversees about 100,000 northwest Indiana and Midwest steelworkers. Balanoff claimed Hoosiers are being ripped off by NIPSCO, and that ratepayers don’t want to pay for a nuclear plant that would, in his opinion, be expensive, obsolete and a possib;e health hazard.
The Bailly plant owner also came under fire from its own employees, who were represented by U.S.W.A. Local 12775 president Fred Hershberger. He said the NIPSCO’s sole concern is with profits, and he claimed the utility’s management is incompetent and “has no business running a nuclear plant.”
Following the speeches demonstrators released several hundred colorful helium-filled balloons. As they rose and scattered toward the southwest in the 50 degree air, the festive atmosphere of the rally was heightened as a choir sang in the background.
Most of the protestors appeared to be in their mid to late 30’s, but every age group ー from toddlers to senior citizens ー was represented. The demonstrators were well behaved, and instructions to them beforehand included information on how to string out their procession to make it appear larger to television cameras.
Walter Rast, professor of theology at Valparaiso University, delivered the convocation for about 500 anti-nuclear demonstrators as they gathered outside the gates leading into the bailly site for an early afternoon rally.
Police on the scene served as little more than traffic cops, as initial fears of a confrontation fizzled when a pro-nuclear group left the gates shortly before the larger band arrived.
The Lake-Porter County Leadership Council mustered about 70 people who marched to the Bailly gate around noon to voice their support for nuclear energy and construction at the plant. Joseph Morris, chairman of the citizens’ action group, said afterward that he was pleased with the results of the march.
“We had made a serious attempt to evaluate the situation, and concluded that nuclear energy is safe, efficient and needed,” Morris said.
Martin Henrichs, president of the council, said his group adopted its stand after determining that coal fired power stations are obsolete and sources of pollution. He said the platform also was adopted because charges for electricity generated from fossil fuels is escalating beyond the means of many American.
A spokesman for NIPSCO said today that his company would have no comment on the Saturday demonstrations. He also said no decision has yet been made on whether to proceed with Bailly, which reportedly has cost NIPSCO $180 million to date.
Nuclear power supporters
Persons in favor of nuclear energy had their day in the streets to, as a stalwart band of 70 marched to the bailly site and staged a rally to show their support for the nuclear industry in general and Bailly specifically. The pro nuclear demonstration was organized by the Lake-Porter leadership Council.