‘Fair Reminds Me Of Gum Wrappers’

Pointing out one of her techniques on an out-size acrylic she is working on is Harriet Rex Smith, well-known local artist who will be one of 120 exhibitors this year at the Chesterton Art Fair. Also involved in the Association of Artists and Craftsmen of Porter County project since its actual inception during the Chesterton Centennial are Evelyn Finnstrom, center, and Hazel Hannell, standing, both of Chesterton.

This story by Dorothy Eagen originally appeared in The Vidette-Messenger on July 26, 1973.

"I remember the days years ago, when we held the first art fair at the Porter County Fairgrounds, Mrs. V.M.S. Hannell conversationally noted, in reminiscing about the annual Chesterton Art Fair. “I also recall the large tent fair that we held two years later at Railroad Park in Chesterton, when the doors were locked on the facilities, when the hardest working committee was the clean-up group, who spent a day picking up bubblegum wrappers and kleenex out of the bushes,” quipped Ms. Harriet Rex Smith, who along with Ms. Hannell and Ms. Evelyn Finnstrom, local artists have been exhibiting and involved in the event ever since its inception.

Today, they are busily preparing for the 15th such affair, to be held Aug. 4 and 5 at St. Patrick's School in Chesterton, where it has been held since 1964.

The fair has been held beneath shade trees in the school yard, complemented by meals prepared and served by women of St. Patrick's School and has been attended by thousands of spectators and art buffs who travel each year to the two-way event from over a four-state area.

A popular and much respected fair where artists of all media and craft congregate once a year, all entries are juried and have been since 1963. Individual booths casually scattered about the grounds house each individual artists' exhibit. Tables are usually laden with sculpture, craft items and often are flanked with large art articles.

Another appeal is its dauber's booth, its pony rides for children, its casual grouping of exhibits and generally relaxed browsing atmosphere. It's a family affair where often the entire day is spent.

The fair has been sponsored by the Association of Artists and Craftsmen of Porter County, whose beginnings date back to the late ‘30s.

Twenty years later, they organized calling themselves the Porter County Art Association co-sponsored by the Chesterton Retail Merchants. By 1958 they had their constitution written and were on their way to being the current organization which today operates Gilbert Gallery on Fourth Street in Chesterton.

Proceeds from the fair are used to maintain the gallery and to help further provide the community with an art center boasting classes and area for exhibit.

Three of the most notable local artists who have been exhibiting a at the fair and instrumental in its progress to date as past officers, committee chairmen, publicity heads, and general coordinators are Harriet Rex Smith, County Road 700 N; Hazell Hannell and Evelyn Finnstrom, both of Chesterton.

Multiple-Award Winner Smith is a teacher, affiliated with several art centers; is an affiliate of four galleries both in the midwest and on the east coast, who earned her art degrees at Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame.

She has held numerous one-man shows around the area and in Chicago, Gary, Hammond, and Michiana Shores and most recently won the Best of Show in the Northern Indiana Art Salon, Hammond; First painting with Southern Shores Art Exhibition, Gary; First Prize at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

She has presented numerous lectures on art and technology, portrait demonstration. Divorced, she has seven children with one son a student at Valparaiso University.

Formerly of Illinois, Mrs. Hannell and her late husband moved to Indiana in 1930 and to a studio they built on five acres of Duneland property.

Born in LaGrange, she studied at the Chicago Art Institute, Church School of Art, and American Academy. Her husband, the late V.M.S. Hannell also an artist and sculptor of note, later erected a pottery where they both worked making informal tableware and decorative accessories which have had national distribution in leading shops. Adjoining the pottery, they maintained an art gallery open to the public where they exhibited their paintings, pottery, and sculpture.

In 1952, during the Chesterton Centennial, they helped promote the first tent show art exhibit. Later they were active in organizing the AACPC and were host to many of the meetings. Both were at times chairmen of the outdoor fair. Since his death in 1964, she has continued operation of the pottery and gallery, still paints and exhibits in local and national shows.

Aside from her vocation as an artist, Evelyn Finnstrom pens The Vidette-Messenger's "Cultural Corner” and is employed in the Voter Registration Office at the Porter County Courthouse.

While serving for 10 years as treasurer of AACPC, she has held one-man shows at several galleries, has exhibits at the courthouse, new county jail building, and the Chesterton License Bureau.

She has exhibited at Minas Galleries in Hammond; Indiana University Northwest, Lowell; Valparaiso, Michigan City, Dunes, St. Joe, Michigan City Dunes Art Fair, and Chesterton Art Fair, then known as the Tent Show back in the Railroad Park.

Her colleague, Mrs. Smith, was one of her instructors, as well as Frances Milam Jensen, Ethel Crouch, Brown Bergstrom Templeton, the Chicago Art Institute Summer School of Painting.

These three artists will join more than 120 other juried artists this year in the 15th Chesterton Art Fair.

Rollie Bernhart Recalls the 1926 Academy of Music Block Fire

This story by Rollie Bernhart (1908-1974) originally appeared in Bernhart’s About Somebody, Or Something column on page 4 of The Vidette-Messenger on January 15, 1972.

Spectators gathered in Valparaiso on Lincolnway at Washington Street to watch the Academy of Music Block fire in February 1926.

A fire which struck Valparaiso 45 years ago was of such colossal proportions it was dubbed “one of the greatest conflagrations to ever visit the city.“

I recall it, but not as vividly as destruction of the Academy of Music and Kaufman Bargain Store buildings as described in a six-column, front-page story in the February 19, 1926, issue of the Valparaiso Daily Vidette sent in to this columnist by Dr. A. F. Scribner, 2008 Linden.

Two firemen were killed, and four others were injured in fighting the blaze, which struck the half-block of business buildings at Lincolnway and Washington shortly after 6 a.m., causing a half-million dollars in damage.

One of the dead was a firefighter from the Gary Fire Department, which responded to calls for help. The other was Robert Bartholomew, an employee of the Northwestern Indiana Telephone Company, in Valparaiso. He apparently died from drowning when a collapsing wall buried him in a lake of water in the basement of the burning structures.

Injured in collapse of the walls were two Valparaiso volunteer firemen, Claus Helmick, painting contractor and decorator, and Lloyd “Mud” Miller, employed at Wittenberg and Son. Also on the injured list was an officer from Gary Fire Department’s Engine Company No. 2.

It was a biting cold, wintry day. It was so cold that water pressure was drastically cut down in the hoses before it reached the end of the nozzle. By daylight, hoses lay snakelike in the street, completely frozen, under thick layers of ice.

There was school as usual that day, but quite a gang of errant pupils (including me) chose to play hooky. After all, it isn’t every day one gets to view the greatest conflagration ever to visit the old hometown.

Coverage of the fire is excellently detailed and described. Space won’t permit all of it, but that portion covering collapse of the walls is worth repeating:

“The two men who were killed, and the four injured were on the second floor of the Kauffman building. They had invaded the structure with a hose to seek a vantage point whereby they might pour water into the Academy of Music building.

“Then something happened. A roar like a mighty blast at bay went forth. The whole end of the Academy of Music wall on the south, towering majestically above the Kauffman structure, gave way. In a brief space of time, before they were aware of it, six men went tumbling down into the vortex created by the enormous mass of brick and stone, crushing the Kaufman building like an eggshell.

“Into the flame, smoke, and broken pieces of the building the men were cast. While this gruesome tragedy was being enacted, others on top of the Farmer’s Restaurant building had narrow escapes from injury. They were Sheriff William Forney, American Legion Commander Charles Gilliland, Harvey Varner, Fred Hughes, and Porter County Surveyor William Morthland.

“With the crash of the walls, they were peppered with bricks from the doomed building. Harvey Varner narrowly escaped falling over the ledge, but was pulled back by comrades. Morthland, struck on the head by a brick, was saved by pals when he tried to walk off the roof while in a dazed condition. Gilliland, on the hose, was pulled back by Forney, just as the pressure of the water was about to carry him over into the Kaufman pit.”

There’s much more to this fine fire coverage story, but the wrap-up of damages to the music building, constructed in 1864, plus other business buildings, is equally complete:

“The flames got at the Academy of Music block until only a charred mass remains; they raked their way through the Kaufman Bargain Store and practically destroyed that building; water and smoke pouring through Farmer’s Restaurant and the American Cafe buildings caused untold damage, making both structures untenable and unfit for business until extensive repairs are made.”

Anyone recall it now?

City's 2 Junior High Schools Named By Board

Central Junior High School changed names to Benjamin Franklin Junior High School in January 1961. This post-1938 image with an unknown man shows a glimpse of the school’s facade.

This article originally appeared on the front page of The Vidette-Messenger on January 13, 1961.

By Rollie Bernhart

Thomas Jefferson Junior High School will be the name of Valparaiso Community School’s new educational facility to be constructed in the northeast part of the city at Glendale and Roosevelt Road.

Name of the third President of the United States was officially approved by members of the school board at its monthly business meeting Thursday evening (January 12, 1961), on basis of final preference submitted by a citizen’s sub-committee.

At the same time, the board also approved changing the name of the present junior high school from Central to Benjamin Franklin Junior High School.

Benjamin Franklin was selected as name for the present junior high school by a committee from the school’s student council. Chairman Laurie Lingberg submitted a report to the board naming Franklin, James Whitcomb Riley, and John Dewey, with preference in favor of the famous scientist and statesman of early American history.

Superintendent G. Warren Phillips was authorized to proceed with installing newly-selected identification on front of the present junior high school building.

Extending Thanks

Board members also voted to send letters of thanks to committees responsible for eventual selection of approved school names.

Members of citizens name study group, who spent many months considering a suitable name for the new junior high school, were Melvin G. Meyers, chairman; Vince Anderson, Charles Anderson, Michael Doshan, Mrs. Eugene Myers, and Principal James Trost.

In explaining reasons for final consideration of two names selected, Trost today submitted thumbnail biographical sketches which influenced the two committees:

Jefferson, third president of the United States, was the writer of the Declaration of Independence and Father of American Democracy. He founded the University of Virginia, first public university in America. He was thus credited with actually being the founder of the nation’s public school system.

Jefferson had a varied public career, but was a strict adherent to principles of religious freedom and freedom of the press. He believed that laws should be made by the people who have to obey them.

To the masses today, Jefferson is known for the Louisiana Purchase during his tenure as President from 1801-1809, which doubled the size of the country; the Lewis-Clark expedition, and trial of Aaron Burr.

2 Franklin Reasons

Author, architect, educator, farmer, Jefferson and George Washington were two Americans of the era most widely known and respected throughout the world, it was noted.

The name of Benjamin Franklin was selected by the student council for two reasons: he was a great American educator, scientist, and statesman; secondly, the locale of the school on North Franklin Street.

Franklin is credited with being American’s first community planner. He was also a scientist of note, and his experimentations with electricity are still a part of our scientific knowledge today.

The first American to become famous in Europe, Franklin also was a founder of the academy, a forerunner of our secondary schools. He did some significant experimenting in curriculum by deviating from such general courses as Latin and English, to practical courses for boys and girls in science and homemaking.

CHRISTMAS IN VALPARAISO 1945

O. P. Kretzmann, President, Valparaiso University. 1945.

This story was originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on December 24, 1945.

Tonight at dusk snow was falling on Valparaiso….Driven almost horizontally by a wind from the north, it whirled through the cone of light thrown by the lamp across the street, from darkness to darkness….On the edge of town, where the road crosses the railroad tracks, the shocks of corn which I had seen brown in October were now white on the side toward the wind….At this hour every day as night falls over Valparaiso, the air is alive with the moan of out mainline trains rushing towards New York…. These are the last romantic sounds of our clattering age, the only sounds which still remind us of time and distance….All day Valparaiso has gone about its work...Later it will sleep….Just now, in this hour between day and night, it is joined for a moment to the city eight hundred miles toward the rising sun and beyond it to Europe, where soon it will be drawn, to the world beyond the end of the rails and the beginning of the sea, where men do not like snow this year, because there is no coal and no warmth anywhere….But here now the wind and the trains make a solemn concert, and the hills are reverent in silence. If I stand close to this tree and raise my collar against the wind, I can think for a while about Christmas….

The Christmas of childhood….I remember that we were very happy then because, for all we know, there was nothing in the world but happiness…. There was kindness everywhere, as far as we could see, and the snow and the lighted trees and the bright ribbons and the piles of oranges and candies in the shop windows were the natural accompaniment of our joy―We had a crib under the Christmas tree, and there, every year, forever young, forever fair, the Child lay in the manager, the shepherds knelt adoring, and the kings were coming over the canvas hill from the east….It was natural that they should come every year….We knew as only children can know that they had never been far away…. They were very real, these shepherds and kings in clay, far more real than the strange, mad world which began to loom before us in the headlines we were beginning to read….We did not know that beyond the carols, the lights, and the snow there were many to whom these things meant only a new loneliness―the loneliness of being shut out from a brightly lighted house…. We did not know that the full measure of the world’s unhappiness can be seen clearly only in the light of Christmas….Bethlehem, the manger, the mother, the Child under our tree!....Bedlam, hate, fear, hunger under the stars!....Year by year the world stood more solidly against the light of Christmas and cast deeper shadows….

The sound of the wind in the telephone wires rises to a higher note….Now, as dusk falls over Valparaiso, I know that we must look into the uncertain year with courage and hope….I have no room and no sympathy for easy optimism now at Christmas…. We were and are alone, children of the dust, visitors in time and strangers in eternity…. Yet we are also the children of hope…. If this were not true, there would have been no need for a first Christmas or 1,900 since then…. There were soldiers then and wars we have forgotten and fear and pain…. The world was what it is, men were what we are, and it was for a world like this and men like us that Christ was born in Bethlehem…. So, as night comes down, the darkness drives away the years, and Bethlehem and the twentieth century become parts of the same divine plan, point and counterpoint, strophe and antistrophe….One momentary, the other eternal….Our lighted trees will be out bonfires in the dark, the answer of our loneliness and our faith to the star that came and stood over the place where the young Child lay….A prayer for the night to the Child on Christmas eve:

Be close. Be with me. Hush the day’s last cries

That echo in my ear.

Put out the light that glitters in my eyes;

The night is here.

Quiet my hands, restless and quivering,

Quench the last tear I weep,

Dismiss my voice, blow out my breath, and sing

My heart to sleep.

―O.P. Kretzmann, President, Valparaiso Univ.

The aftermath of snow on the old campus at Valparaiso University. 1945.

Memories Stirred By Decorations On Tree

First Yule • First Christmas of Todd Alan Ruoff, 6-month-old son of Mr. and Mrs. John Ruoff, Chesterton, includes unique tree at home of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Ruoff. Tree is decorated with 100 lights and 2,000 ornaments, each of which has some significance in the lives of the Ruoff family. Stuffed Santa Claus doll with Todd was bought by the Ruoffs when their sons, John and William, were children. This image appeared on page 1 of The Vidette-Messenger on December 24, 1971.

This story was originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on December 24, 1971.

CHESTERTON ー The Christmas tree at the Edward Ruoff home on Wilson Avenue is more than a traditionally decorated tree. From it come whispers of memories of days gone by, especially from the childhoods of their two sons, John and William.

It takes days ー four, to be more or less precise ー for the Ruoffs to decorate their tree.

It is adorned with more than 100 lights and at least 2,000 ornaments of a variety of colors, shapes and sizes, and each stirring memories in the lives of the Ruoffs.

The Ruoffs with their uniquely decorated tree are carrying on a tradition that Mrs. Ruoff’s parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. William T. Johnson, began. Mrs. Ruoff’s father was the owner of Porter Beach.

The Ruoffs had thought not to put up their tree this year, but since this is their newest grandchild’s first Christmas they decided once more to display all of their ornaments, as they have done through the years, adding and saving decorations, some of which date even earlier than their sons’ childhoods.

Some of the ornaments were those of Mrs. Ruoff’s mother and are estimated to be about 80 years old.

Other decorations have been given to them by friends, some of whom purchased ornaments in Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, Venezuela and Russia to give to the Ruoffs.

Among the many ornaments are 100 small reindeer which are about 45 years old. The manger scene beneath the the tree is 30 years old.

The task of strengthening the branches with wire to support all the ornaments falls to Mrs. Ruoff’s husband, who said he used 100 feet of wire this year. Mrs. Ruoff is The Vidette-Messenger’s Chesterton correspondent.

A church scene and ice skating scene are also beneath the tree and sitting near the tree is a large stuffed Santa Claus doll bought when John and William were children.

Among the branches of the tree may also be found decorations the two sons made in school and now that Ruoffs are grandparents, decorations their grandchildren have made are being added to the collection.

They have four grandchildren, Kurt, 12, Scott, 10, Kristin, 7, and Todd Alan, 6 months, the children of John and his wife, Marilyn. William is an Indiana University student.

Their youngest grandchild, Todd, may be too young to understand what Christmas is all about and may not be able to grasp the meaning of his grandparents’ tree, but to the rest of the Ruoff family it has become a family tradition, symbolizing much of what makes up Christmas.

To those who view it, the tree, sparkling and twinkling, offers a gay message ー Merry Christmas.

Chautauqua Desks on Christmas

A Chautauqua desk from the Lewis E. Myers Company in the PoCo Muse Collection. Image credit to Albert Photographic.

This article was originally published as part of Rollie Bernhart’s Special Weekly Feature in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on December 22, 1971.

Memories grow dim and oft times fade completely away from people reaching their 90th milestone. But not so the mind of James O. Cox, well-known resident of Valparaiso who came here from Ohio in 1916 to take a district managership with the old Lewis E. Myers Co., manufacturers of the Chautauqua educational desk.

Cox observed his 90th birthday Sept. 30 at the family home at 302 Madison where he had been under the care of his daughter, Mrs. Miriam Carter.

He celebrated the occasion by vividly recalling an incident which concerned delivery of 300 desks to Winnipeg, Canada, in time to make 300 kids happy for Christmas. Cox refers to these memories as “reliving the Chautauquas.”

Cox said that the event occurred during Christmas week of 1918. World War I had not only taken most of his salesmen, but also a major portion of his production personnel from the factory which was located in buildings now occupied by Valparaiso Technical Institute.

It wasn’t unusual during this period to find the boss, L.E. Myers himself, and his district manager pitching in on the production line in order to get the desks ready for Christmas deliveries. Cox had met his boss in college, and it was inevitable that Cox would rise to an executive position with the company where he had worked during summer vacations starting in 1906.

He recalled that about 5 o’clock on Christmas Eve of 1918 that the boss called him into the office and handed him a telegram from a distributor at Winnipeg requesting a rush order of 300 desks for Christmas delivery. It remained for Cox to be Santa Claus… to figure out how to get the desks to their destination and prevent a void in the lives of 300 Canadian children on Christmas Day.

Armed with $20 given him by the boss as tips for any help he could get, plus the telegram, he ran to the railroad depot only to discover the only train due was eastbound at midnight.

Cox recalled he was able to influence the stationmaster for part of the boss’ $20, to flag down the eastbound train which he rode to Plymouth. There he was fortunate to board a train westbound for Chicago, which was not scheduled to stop at Valparaiso. In the baggage car, where he had gone because no passenger seats were available, a five-dollar bill convinced the man in charge of the baggage car to make a hurried unscheduled stop at Valparaiso. He was instructed to jump off and begin loading as soon as the train neared the station. He also had to assure the baggageman that he would ride into Chicago and get the desks transferred to a Canada-bound rail line.

At Valparaiso, the boss was waiting at the station with the desks, which were loaded into the unlighted baggage car almost before the train had been brought to a halt. “In those days,” said Cox, “I could handle 10 or 11 of them at a time.”

Needless to say, Cox was able to get the help necessary to get the desks off the train in Chicago and onto another headed for Winnipeg. “I waved the telegram and acted like a big boss,” he recalled in getting men to help get the desks started on the last leg of their journey, and thus assure 300 children they would have a happy Christmas. And of course, he still had some of the boss’ money left. Twenty bucks went a long way in those days, he noted.

This was but one of many such incidents. “It was all a part of my life,” Cox said wistfully, “my Chautauqua life.”

NEW THEATRE IS DEDICATED

This article originally appeared in The Evening Messenger of Valparaiso, Indiana, on November 25, 1921.

The event the theatre goers of Valparaiso and Porter County have been waiting for, the opening of the new Shauer Premier Theatre, took place Wednesday night and Thursday, and was a huge success from every point of view.

The doors of the new play house were thrown open on time Wednesday evening for the first time, and a large line stood in the street to purchase tickets for the show, and to get a glimpse of the new interior of the new theatre.

The beauties of the place began to be seen in the nicely apportioned lobby, but as one went inside, the soft lights brought out the handsomely blended colors of the decorations to perfection. The theatre was a place of beauty, and on every side one could hear expressions of appreciation and surprise.

Prior to the beginning of the dedicatory exercises, the orchestra played a national air, while the large audience rose, and a pretty American flag was unfurled.

The setting of the pipe organ had not been completed and it could not be used, which was the only hitch in the program, but in its place the management had a high class orchestra, which rendered good music.

The dedicatory service was opening by Atty. T. P. Galvin, who in a few brief remarks introduced Mayor-Elect E. W. Agar, who officially opened, and dedicated the Premier Theatre in his dedicatory remarks. Mr. Agar dwelt on the part a theatre showing only the best, played in the development, education, and moral uplift of a community, and among other things be stated that he was dedicating this play house to the people of this community and that they had it in their hands, to make it a real good to the entire community.

The show given proved to the throngs, who crowded in for both shows, that the Premier management has secured for this theatre only the best that could be had. The pictures were screened in a clear, non flickering manner, that brought forth delight, and the surprise of the evening came when the curtain rose, displaying a beautifully apportioned stage, with fine settings, when the Premier Specialty, of vaudeville, was put on.

One feature of the show, was a news reel, showing the burial of America’s unknown dead in Washington on Armistice Day. President Harding was shown placing a wreath on the casket, and leading the procession. That Valparaiso is like the rest of the country, was brought out, when the film showed ex-president Wilson in his carriage, taking part in the exercises. When Mr. Wilson came into view, the audience burst forth with loud applause, the only applause that was made during the showing of this picture.

At the dedicatory services, Mr. Shauer and sons, had as their invited guests, the clergy of the city, the press of Valparaiso, all city and county officials.

The Messenger will not attempt to go into detail in describing this theatre, as that would be useless, since nearly everyone has seen it for themselves, but we join the public in extending hearty congratulations to the Shauers, for the construction of such a beautiful theatre, and to wish them success in their progressive undertaking.