RESPECT MY STORY

A COLLECTION OF ORAL HISTORIES FROM

RESIDENTS OF FOUNTAIN SQUARE, INDIANA

BY VIRGINIA COOK

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Autobiographical memory may be an emerging capacity, along with the understanding of self. ~Fivush & Haden (2003)

!is book began as a tool for educational purposes, but it quickly became more than about recording oral histories for prosperity. Sure, seniors living in Fountain Square have a right to share their stories about growing up in a distressed community, even if they haved lived ordinary lives and don’t qualify as public figures with adoring fans who want to know all about their personal shortcomings. Telling these 14 seniors’ stories makes a di"erence–made a di"erence to me. Why? Because they are not only sharing history from their vantage point, they are sharing themselves–o"ering up fantastic, painful, sad and wonderful experiences that make them vulnerable to faceless others who might criticize and judge them in the process.

In creating this book, I have undergone a journey myself. I have been humbled by these seniors stories, and my faith in humanity has been rekindled. I connected with each senior one-to-one, and the overall experience left me a better gerontology student and a better person spiritually. I learned that despite the increased connectivity we have with Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceTime and Facebook, followers of today’s social media platforms still have a limited perspective on interpersonal communications. !ere is so substitute for the personal, human interaction you get in communications face-to-face, skin-to-skin. Social media followers cannot witness the facial expressions and body movements of the storyteller, and cannot hear the voice inflections when the elder storyteller is emotionally in-the-moment. Sharing oral histories face-to-face is more personal, allows more human connectivity. It’s more than one-dimensional storytelling of social media–it’s adding a second and third dimension to witnessing and relating spiritually, emotionally and intuitively to a storyteller. You feel the passion, you see the story unfold from the witness’s own lips. You experience with him what the storyteller has seen, felt, heard, and intuit for yourself whether he has reinvented his own past to make it more manageable in old age, or whether he has learned something additional about himself from sharing the experience aloud.

I cannot guarantee that these shared elder stories will be moving. But I can guarantee that I will tell them truthfully as they were related to me, and hope that they stick in your mind, providing random thoughts that make you question your own life experiences, and making you wonder if you might write them down yourself for sharing in the future.

Some of the seniors depicted have powerful stories to convey, others just a chronological account of their life from birth to present. Some participants are memorable, others less so. But despite their varied backgrounds and circumstances, all have a real story to tell. And whether you like the storyteller or not, whether you like the experiences they share or not, you have to respect their story because it is genuine. It is the story they lived, an account from their own experience about the events that make up their own personal life journey.

!ere several people I need to thank for helping me complete this project. First, a big thank you to my family and my husband, who propped me up emotionally and financially to complete this project and my degree. I also want to thank my mentors and friends at UIndy’s Center for Aging and Community–Tamara Wolske, Sharon Baggett, and Amy Magan. You all gave me valuable input that I took to heart!

I also owe a debt of gratitude to Elaine Cates of the Southeast Indy organization, and to the Fountain Square Salvation Army for allowing me to crash many of their Wednesday luncheons to get closer to the seniors in attendance. Finally, I want to thank the numerous seniors who allowed me to glimpse into their personal lives for the sake of this project. Many were not residents of Fountain Square (and are not included in this book) but they came for the better lunches o"ered on Wednesdays, and shared with me their personal stories. Regardless, all the seniors I encountered expressed a genuine interest in sharing their stories to better their community. !eir willingness to talk about their intimate family and school experiences will provide others a chance to see how life in Fountain Square, Indiana is remembered, and opens up a new dialogue with community residents today.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................... 3

History of Fountain Square........................................................................................................................................ 5

Cynthia ....................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Clara and Don Stepp .................................................................................................................................................. 9

Clara Boyd ................................................................................................................................................................ 10

John .......................................................................................................................................................................... 12

Phyllis ....................................................................................................................................................................... 16

Lester ....................................................................................................................................................................... 18

Lula ........................................................................................................................................................................... 20

Theatres from the Past ............................................................................................................................................ 23

Sue ............................................................................................................................................................................ 24

Mildred and Robert Dycus ....................................................................................................................................... 26

Mary D. ..................................................................................................................................................................... 29

Ronnie Haig .............................................................................................................................................................. 30

Katie ......................................................................................................................................................................... 31

References ............................................................................................................................................................... 32  

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History has always fascinated me. While conducting my own geneological research, I stumbled on a book by Dave Isay called !e Ties that Bind outlining the beginning of StoryCorp in 2003. StoryCorp is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to document real life experiences of people who want to honor, recognize or share personal experiences to benefit others. As of December 2013, StoryCorp had already cataloged more than 50,000 stories–many shared on NPR’s airwaves. I was intrigued by the stories I heard and read. Like Isay, I consider life stories and storytelling to be a significant way for people to share individual and community experiences. While studying for a Masters degree in gerontology at the University of Indianapolis, I researched peer-reviewed studies that support the use of reminiscence (through storytelling) to promote wellbeing––especially among our elders. Many seniors reach a stage in life called generativity when they want to give back to their families and community as a means of easing the way for future generations. !e famous psychosocial researcher Erik Erickson, in speaking about life review, coined the phrase generativity to mean “concern for establishing and guiding the next generation.”1

Gerontological researchers Phillips and Flood (2007) studied the role of creativity and its implication for aging successfully. !ey concluded, “Creative endeavors are desired by adults, and have comprehensive positive health benefits.”2

Life stories and life journaling are ways to share elder wisdom with others. !e Indiana State Museum and Storycorp, Inc. both have ongo-ing programs allowing Hoosiers to record their own stories to promote Hoosier lifestyle, folklore or community-shared events for historical and educational purposes. Many Hoosiers have already participated in these projects. Yet, many elders living in underserved communities lack a viable method to leave written or oral legacies for family or community con-sumption. My opinion, based on research from Mercken, Heinstra, and others studying elder reminiscence, is that seniors from all cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds can benefit (sometimes cognitively, emotion-ally, and/or socially) from participation in storytelling and life review.

“!e exchange of memories and stories o"ers neighborhood–residents an enjoyable activity during which age and cultural groups meet, to get to know each other and climb the steps to social cohesion.” (Mercken, 2002)

As part of my Capsone project, I encouraged seniors living in Fountain Square, Indiana to share their stories about growing up in this historical part of Indianapolis. I chose Fountain Square because the area has his-torical relevance as a vital center of commerce for Indianapolis. Fountain Square su"ered significant decline after the 60s when many businesses and residents moved away to suburbia. !ere are many underserved seniors living here that have an important story to share. Today, neighbor-hood associations working in conjunction with Indianapolis are involved in revitalization projects geared to entice residents and businesses back to Fountain Square. !is community is still reinventing itself, yet seeking to maintain its unique qualities that distinguishes it from other Indianapo-lis neighborhoods. !is collection will be shared with the neighborhood organizations, including SEND, which shares a common goal of bringing people together to create a better community. My mission was to compile a book featuring seniors who have lived significant part of their lives in Fountain Square. I visited the local Salva-tion Army senior center routinely and pursued leads from posters placed in the community. !ere were few boundaries set with regard to topics discussed during oral interviews. Seniors volunteered stories about their lives, and I sat back and listened. No senior was compensated for sharing during this project. Some seniors portrayed on these pages have tough life experiences to share. As a disclaimer, I am not an art therapist, physical therapist, occupa-tional therapist or a licensed healthcare provider. However, I am a writer who believes in the power of the spoken and the written word. I have transcribed the following interviews–however, I do not necessarily endorse the views expressed. Elders have a story to tell, and by sharing crucial life facts about their life journey, they provide educational material for those looking back at this important neighborhood’s development.

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INTRODUCTION

1Kivnick, H. & Well, C. (2013), 2 Flood, M., Phillips, K. (2007)

Looking back at the history of Fountain Square

Today Fountain Square is a culturally vibrant part of the southeast side of Indianapolis. However, this was not always the case. In 1977 the United States Department of the Interior National Park Service designated part of Virginia Avenue, South She!by Street and East Prospect Street–as well as two parts on East Prospect Street at the inter-sections of Laurel and State–as an historical district. According to the Founatin Square Public Library, the area was originally settled after Calvin Fletcher and Nicolas McCarthy bought the 264-acre farm from Dr. John H. Sanders in 1835, with the intentions of parceling out the property to new settlers. !e Fletcher family first occupied the area, coexisting with the Delaware Indians who camped until the late 1820s at the current site of Abraham Lincoln School, located at 1001 East Palmer Street. By the late 1800s, German, and Irish immigrants were settling along the Virginia Avenue corridor, hoping to take advantage of the thriving commerical district. According to the IUPUI Polis Center, neighborhood growth was so furious during 1870-73 that Fountain Square had to be replatted three times to accomodate settlers. By 1890 the area was a popu-lar place for German and Italian immigrants to locate, and was generally known as the German district.3

Fountain Square grew and prospered through the first three decades of the 20th century, attracting businesses like

1) Fountain Square State Bank (1909);

2) Havercamp and Dirk’s Grocery (1905);

3) Koehring & Son Warehouse (1900);

4) the Fountain Square branch of the Standard Grocery Company (1927);

5) the Frank E. Reeser Company (1904);

6) Wiese Wenzel Pharmacy (1905);

7) the Sommer Roempke Bakery (1909);

8) the Fountain Square Hardware Company (1912);

9) Horu" & Son Shoe Store (1911);

10) Jessie Hartman Milliners (1908);

11) the William H. and Fiora Young Redman Wallpaper and Interior Design business (1923);

12) the Charles F. Iske Furniture Store (1910);

13) !e Fountain Block Commercial Building (1902); and

14) !e G.C. Murphy Company (1929).

!e area became known as Indianapolis’ commerical district. Around the turn-of-the-century, African-Americans and southerners from Appa-lachia moved to Fountain Square hoping for a better life. Churches and schools were built to accomodate these new residents. During 1930-1960 the ethnically mixed neighborhood became syn-onymous with solid, working class ethics that enhanced the community’s growth. !e end of World War II brought an influx of Appalachians to Fountain Square, many seeking jobs in the thriving commerce hub. !e National Park Service writes, “Virginia Avenue’s Historic Dis-trict is a satellite commercial area that thrived because of its location on important roads and trolley lines. !e district includes some of the best examples of commercial architecture left in the city, and in particular, a fine collection of former neighborhood theater buildings.”4

Trains played an important role in the lives of some of the elders interviewed in this book. !e diagonal layout of Virginia Avenue united early roads from Shelbyville and Madison, and helped Fountain Square become a popular stopping point for travelers during the turn of the cen-tury. In 1864, the Citizen’s Street Railway extended a line down Virginia Avenue, connecting it with Union Station downtown, providing more access to the Southside. According to local folklore, Fountain Square was named for the fountain that was placed at the intersection of Shelby and Virginia in 1889-90. Merchants reportedly contributed to the fountain fund, and the first fountain had separate watering spots for both travelers and their horses. According to local newspaper reports, the first fountain was toppled when a merchant tied an advertisement to the fountain, creating undue pressure on the structure. !e fountain was replaced with the Pioneer Family sculpture in 1924 when scupltor Myra Richard Reynolds was commissioned to fashion a replacement by an Indianapolis state congressman. !at fountain remained until 1979 when it was dismantled

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for tra#c reasons and relocated to nearby Garfield Park. Today the Pioneer Family sits adjacent to its original site on Virginia and Shelby streets.

!e Indianapolis Star published an article on March 23, 1980 about Foun-tain Square’s slow reviatization e"orts.

“!e near-Southside story is not unique. !e district was strangled by suburban flight, shopping centers and interstate highway construction, as

were countless inner-city neighborhoods worldwide.” !e Star article noted the first joint revitalization e"orts between local neighborhood organizations like the United Southside Community Organization, the Fountain Square Merchants Association, the Fletcher Place Historic Preservation Association and Indianapolis, collectively vying for redevelopment funding from a

Community Development Block grant. !e initial focus was to attract merchants back to Fountain Square, using funding to improve storefront facades. !e second priority was to attract residents back to Fountain Square by o"ering improved streets and sidewalks, and by stressing closer proximity to downtown attractions. !is revitaization e"ort is ongoing today, and has received mixed reviews from local residents. SEND (Southeast Neighborhood Develop-ment), one of the city’s oldest community development corporations, has focused on attracting artists back to Fountain Square. !ey claim the area’s historic vibe creates a “synergy” between artists in the Wheeler and Murphy Building. !is book, representing stories from a mix of residents in Fountain Square is another way of adding to the community synergy to bring about new cohesion amongst its residents.

(Pioneer Family, above; current one below)

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My mother worked at Real Silk on College Avenue, that’s when she was transferred to Michigan, where I was born. (!ey made hosiery.) My dad was Wilbur Rumpke. He would deliver from house to house—cottage cheese and milk. My father had a horse and buggy. I got pictures of it. I think it was Polk’s Milk. I was looking at it yesterday. He was right in front of that horse and buggy. He delivered to Fountain Square and all over. !is was probably in the ‘40s. My mother was working at Real Silk, and she won a beauty contest at Granada !eatre–she won $1,000. She got $1,000, and my mother took the money for her family. !e Real Silk company voted for her, and it was in the newspaper. !is milk company was on the Southside. Did you work your se l f ?I worked at a root beer plant, and at IU Medical Center as a pager. I was there several years. What do you do now that you are re t i red?I come here almost every day. I lived in Fountain Square ––except when I got married—almost all my own life. I moved to Terrace (within walk-ing distance) when I got married—not far from there. My husband, from Kentucky, read maps for 28 years. He didn’t make maps, he read them. !e made wheels and di"erentials. He was alert. No kids. I didn’t work when he worked, and I stayed with my mother some.My mother and stepfather bought the home on Olive because it was near her mother and father. I went to School #18. And I went to Foun-tain Square !eatre. !ey had good movies at 2 p.m. Saturdays. And there was Granada !eatre... And Sanders in Fountain Square. Sanders was a theatre on Prospect across the street from a Hook’s Drug Store on Prospect and Shelby. I know three theatres here. People would come to Fountain Square for theatre. And they had a shoe store, and a florist and co"ee shop. But the highway took it. !ere were also several drug stores, a Michael’s and a Hook’s drug store. Has Fountain Square changed?Well, it has because this generation is making it new, like Broad Ripple. We have bowling...the area has changed in some ways. Shelby Street has changed—no parking on it now. You used to be able to pull up and park. And it’s down to two lanes now, which isn’t really a good thing.

CYNTHIACynthia Hoover, a regular at the Salva-tion Army luncheons, lives two blocks away but drives to Salvation Army weekly. She is a 75-year-old widow who lives in same house her mother lived in for 65 years. She cuts her own lawn each summer, too.Did you grow up in Fountain Square?My grandmother and grandfather lived on Pleasant Run Parkway, and my mother bought a home on Olive Street. She lived

there until she was 97 years old. She lived there 65 years—it’s the house that I’m in. My house is the oldest one, probably, on the Southside. It is over 100 years old. Several aunts lived nearby in Pleasant Run Creek area. School was over on Barth Avenue, School #18. !e Indians were there years ago. My mother said there were Indians right around our house. She thought this area along the river was an Indian settlement. Do you have any Indians in your fami ly h i s tor y ?No. My family is German and Dutch. !ey came over years ago. My grandmother and grandfather lived on Pleasant Run Boulevard, and they moved their houses up from the creek. !ey were married 55 years, and they moved their houses—there were three houses that they owned, and my mother always told the story that they moved them up from the creek to keep them on the boulevard. Do you own your home now?My mother never made a will, but I had to get an attorney and it is now in my name. My family has been there for 65 years. !ey came from Germany---my mother talked about her mother a lot. !ey came from Cincinnati, and my mother came in on a bus. !e Salvation Army was playing downtown, and back then, they played and preached. !ey were singing, and she got down on her knees, and she gave her life to Jesus on the Circle. So, that was a big moment in her life. Mother had missions, like church missions. She didn’t travel much because she had five children. !ey are all buried at Washington Cemetery on Washington Street–all my aunts and uncles.

I met Clara, 83, at the Golden Living Center in Beech Grove, IN. Clara heard from her Salvation Army friends about my posters in Fountain Square asking for volunteers to tell their story, and she telephoned me to schedule a meeting. Her son, Don, (50+) was present at the interview held in Clara’s room. He explained that his mom had diminished hear-ing, so he could help fill in any memory gaps she might have.

Clara explains in a loud voice that she has lived in Indianapolis all her life, and in Fountain Square most of her adult life prior to moving to her current as-sisted living community. She was active in community a"airs most of her life, and raised her family here. Don nods, saying that he attended Wood High School, and knows many of the elders that attend the Salvation Army senior center today.

“I used to be a neighborhood captian,” Clara says.

“What is that?” I ask. Clara explains that when neighborhood issues arose, she was the person the neighborhood turned to for more information. She dif-fused di#cult situations with troubled kids when they occurred in neighbor’s homes, and called the police when issues were larger than she could handle alone.

“I got to know my neighbors, and most are good people. I have been active in the Fountain Square Salvation Army, and was a community leader when I lived in Fountain Square. I was happy here.”

Don moved away from Indiana, but says he came back to rescue his mother from a bad marriage in Florida.

“What happened in your marriage, Clara?”

Clara was widowed for several years, but met a man she thought she could live with, so she moved to Florida to be with him. She moved down there to start a new chapter in her life, but the new husband was overbearing, and never satisfied with anything she did. !ere was no way to please him, she says.

!at’s when Don stepped in and rescued her from the marriage and the

CLARA AND DON STEPP

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spousal abuse she was enduring. He brought her back to Indianapolis, back to the Southside where she had friends and support.

“Don saved me in return for being a good mother.”

I turn to Don. “Is that right?”

Don looks at his mother. “I owed it to her,” he replies. “Tell her about my birth.” Clara replies that Don ar-

rived a little prematurely, and when she delivered him at the hospital, the sta" was concerned because he wouldn’t eat. “I tried breastfeeding, but he was my first, and I thought maybe I was doing something wrong,” Clara explains. !e sta" showed Clara how to nurture Don, but he continued to lose weight even after she took him home to Fountain Square.

“Everyone was expecting him to die, you see. !en a neighbor suggested I use banana powder to feed him.”

“Banana powder?” I ask. I have never heard of that.

“Yes,” she said. She got some from the pharmacy and miraculously, Don could keep that down. He started to gain weight and to thrive. “My neighbors were right. I was lucky I had that support from friends, or he would have died.”

“You see,” he explains, “I was lactose intolerant, but nobody knew that back then. I still can’t eat milk products today. So, she saved me, and I returned the favor by saving her from a bad marriage. Seems only right. Now she’s all I’ve got, and I’m all she’s got. We’re a team, taking care of each other. !at’s how it is, and that’s how it was meant to be.”

CLARA B.Clara Boyd, 73, is an African American lady with a good disposition and great people skills. She received an associate teaching degree from IUPUI in 1941, and taught HeadStart kids (ages 4–5) to prepare them for kindergarten.

What’s your be s t memor y about t eaching?My best memory is from an IMPD o#cer I see almost every year. One of my students––he’s a sheri" now, and whenever I see him at Black Expo, he says to the sheri"s there, “If it hadn’t been for this lady, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.” It made me feel real good!” He made me feel real good! He’s a sheri" here in town, with the IMPD.What would you say your l egacy i s ? What do you want peop le to remember you by?Helping children to get along with each other, and trying to make them go a straight road. !at is a real problem today. !ey stopped the spank-ings. Parents are not keeping up with their children. And the Bible says, “Don’t spare the rod.” !ey don’t want you to hit the children; they don’t want you to spank them. I disagree with that. I think we need more spanking, more supervision and more discipline.Did you have that problem when you were t eaching your c la s s room chi ldren?I didn’t have any problem with my children. You had to have them sit down, but no, they knew, you don’t mess with Miss Boyd. !ey respected me and what I did.What do you think about computer s ? Are you computer savvy? Did they have computer s a t your center ?Yes, we had a lab at our centers. Computers are bad, because children don’t know how to write on their own, they don’t know how to read on their own, they don’t know how to spell. !ey are losing their brains to computers.What do you think about cur s ive wri t ing? Have you heard about that , not t eaching cur s ive wri t ing anymore to s choo l chi ldren?Yes, I disagree with that. I know they are using their computers, but they need to be using their brains and their fingers. !ey use abbreviations for

everything in texting, so they don’t know how to spell (correctly); they don’t know how to write. !ey don’t know how to add, because they’ve got their computers. !ey don’t know their multiplication tables. Even teenagers, working at McDonalds—they cannot make change without a computer telling them what change to give.So, do you think you had a be t t er educat ion than kids today?Yes, they need to bring back reading, writing and arithmetic. !at’s all they need. Did you have a favor i t e t eacher ? Is there one you remember in par t i cu lar ?Yes, Mrs. Bailey. She was at School #4 in Blackwood (Indianapolis). What made her so memorable ?It seemed like I was always in trouble! Were you c lo s e to your fami ly, Clara?Oh, yeah.How many were in your fami ly, Clara?Well, I have three brothers, so there were four total kids. I have two brothers that passed. I never met my grandparents. How about your l egacy ? How do you want to be remembered?Well, I want people to remember me as I am––a good person, like I am. I liked to help out people. I would tell kids, “Make sure you listen to your parents, and don’t go out shooting.” !ey get in the wrong groups and stu". And don’t disrespect your parents. I hate to see a child disrespect their parents. Did your parent s t each you that ?My parents were real strict. Do you remember any bus ine s s e s here in Fountain Square?I remember the drug store…Murphy’s Drug Store. I’d meet my girl friends every Saturday. It was right where the Family Dollar store is now. My friends and I would hang out there.Was that a loca l t e enage handout?No, it wasn’t no teenage hangout. We were older. I’d sit there and we’d

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talk, and have co"ee. Are you s t i l l ac t ive soc ia l l y ?Oh, yes. I go to the casino and bingo all the time. I travel, too. My daughter lives in California, so every Christmas I go there. I go and stay about a month. When I came back this year, I had all this weather to deal with!Did you come down to the Sa lvat ion Army la s t week?Last two weeks, they were closed down (because of the cold weather.) No, I came down Tuesday, because we went to the store.Is i t hard when the Center i s c lo s ed down (due to weather) ?I just managed at home. I live by myself in my house. I am staying in my house until I have to move.

DOWNTOWN FOUNTAIN SQUARE, CIRCA 1950. (FROM THE INDIANAPOLIS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.)

INSIDE THE FOUNTAIN SQUARESMOKEHOUSE ON SHELBY

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JOHN

You are intere s t ed in gentr i f i ca t ion (o f Fountain Square) ?No, I am interested in trying to understand a pack gentrification decon-structed in Indianapolis--- ever heard of that term?No.It means you go back…you look at political, social, economics, and you unpack it––deconstruct it—it’s a post-modern term. It came out of criti-cal race studies, and you unpack stu" to see if there’s any hidden motives, and stu" like that. So, I am trying to do that in regard to gentrification in Indianapolis in particular, this area where I grew up.This u sed to be Woodmont area?Yes. I heard about that f rom books . I gue s s you had three o f four theatre s f rom what I under s tood…I mean back during the day. !ere was one when I was here. !is (Fountain Square !eatre) was where I had some of my coming of age experiences. Well , I am looking for ora l h i s tor i e s about Fountain Square , and mos t l y human intere s t s tor i e s that he lp pre s er ve the hi s tor y o f th i s area .Right. Well, the Cultural Trail is coming. Right now it is the culture for the business community since they see this (area) as a business opportuni-ty. Fountain Square Historical Society is trying to preserve the history and the culture. Now the African-American stu" is part of the culture, and we are making sure that they (Indianapolis policymakers) include them––they have a voice. So, it’s political. I was at a SEND meeting recently, and a lady—meaning well—she got up and said the arts movement will bring culture to Fountain Square. !at hit a nerve…like we didn’t have culture here already! Fountain Square has been here a long time.

!e school system I work for makes you choose between the school’s culture (that they teach) and your own culture. I teach for IPS, and I teach for Clark College, Indiana University and for other schools. I have been conducting oral histories at IPS since 1979 when I was teaching over at my old school, Wood High School. Wood closed in 1978–it was the first high school to close due to IPS losing white people moving out from Fountain Square. So, due to that––due to bussing––they had to close the high school. Wood was on the bottom of the social scale—Wood opened in 1953 and Manuel, it used to be Manuel (Manuel opened up in 1895) and was the second high school in the city, five blocks south of Wash-ington Street. Shortridge opened in 1870 something and was five blocks north of Washington Street. So, Washington Street was a dividing line between the working class and gentry. Manuel High School had blacksmithing there, and other arts and trades. Shortridge had more doctors, lawyers and teachers, and they tended to go to IU and Purdue. Manuel moved in 1953, and in that vacancy, they put Wood High School. It’s really a study in demographics. !ere were a lot of people mov-ing up from the South following WWII, the big migration looking for jobs. !ey called Indiana “Northern Kentucky.” Some people say south of Washington Street is still part of Kentucky. Why the big move?For Blacks, it was to get out of the South. Jobs, mostly. !at’s why bluegrass, Bill Monroe, started in Kentucky. His professor was in Bean Blossom, Indiana—Monroe came up to play for the steelworkers in the region. !e same thing happened after WWI, a change in demographics. !en it was immigrants coming in from Europe, as well as a migration from the South. And you had the beginning of urbanization and industri-alization. So, Manuel was moved to stay white. Schools are political things to me, as I see everything as political. Look at Park Tutor––it is up there to maintain the status of doctors and lawyers, whose children go there. !at’s what schools are there for. It’s not for enlightenment and open education! It has an economic and political basis to maintain status through their children.

John Harris Loflin is a life-long resident of Indianapolis and also a gradu-ate of the Indianapolis Public Schools (# 75, 28, 8 and Harry E. Wood High School). He studied education at Purdue, and has a graduate degree in alternative education from Indiana University. John became interested in non-traditional education in the early 70s after reading How Children Learn, Summerhill, and Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

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In 1950 integration started, and Indiana started gradual integration by grades. In 1951, Manuel had 100 blacks. In 1961, Manual still had 100 blacks. It maintained the status quo. Wood was the high school for the Southerners who came to India-napolis from Kentucky, and the Germans and the Jews––so they got that culture, black and white. In 1953, there was a resegregation for the learning disabled following Brown versus Board. Wood High School had a large special education section (for the City), and a small gifted class. So, I am arguing that special education came in vogue to continue segregation. So, Wood came in at the bottom of the school pecking order because they had all the area’s special education students. !e school called them Adapted Materials because they had to adapt the learning materials to their level—A.M. In the yearbook, they had a special section, the A.M. students. !ese adaptive materials students were called DAPs, a pejorative term that became a street term for “losers.” You don’t hear about it because nobody wanted to talk about Wood students.So what happened to the s e k id s when they go t out o f Wood? Were they sk i l l ed?I don’t know. I went to Wood. If you could get an address on the other side of the tracks, you could go to Manuel High School. Manuel was pres-tigious. I walked to Wood. So you went to Wood, and you ended up at Purdue? Well, I flunked out. My grammar was bad. Looking back, I was atypical of the neighborhood. I didn’t really know my grandparents. My parents—my father worked at National Cushion Springs down on Beecher—he made cushion springs for school busses. His grandfather worked there, my father worked there. !at’s why we moved south. I was born at She#eld in my mother’s home. We moved to 1754 Lafayette Road, and when I was nine in 1952 we moved to Fountain Square. My dad quit school in fifth grade, my mother dropped out of Wash-ington High School in ninth grade. Education wasn’t mentioned in the family, in the neighborhood. My cousin Ronnie went to college, but my dad never took us north of Washington Street. My football coach wanted me to go to college. He called me and my friend Ray. My class had 100 in my graduating class. Maybe eight or nine people went to college.

My football coach got me a job delivering groceries, and I went to Purdue Extension (my coach also got a job there.) I thought I wanted to be a science teacher, but I flunked out because I wasn’t prepared. I kept flunking German because I didn’t know grammar. I didn’t know how to congegate verbs, etc. I finally changed majors from science to social stud-ies, since I didn’t have to take a language. It took me six years to graduate. My parents over my six years loaned me $500. !ey didn’t support me, it wasn’t a big thing. !ey were proud of me, but… We had a 2-bedroom house. I slept in the kitchen on a rollaway bed until I was 19. When my sister wanted to go to college, they looked at her like she was crazy. “Don’t you want to get married, and maybe get a job?” they asked her. We walked to School # 28 for grade school, on Fletcher and Calvary. !en I went to School #8 on Virginia Avenue. !en, I went to Wood from 7-12 grade. Being around special education did have an influence on me. I was a DAP. Did that labe l in f luence your l i f e ?

In retrospect, yes. My whole family were DAPs. It gave me a reason to look into the history of special ed as a political concept. It was outside of normalcy. We codify here in Indiana. Google “Indiana Procedure.” We define normalcy by me, a white male. !at had a lot to do with me…

Only Hosbrook Street was black in Fountain Square. It was a little longer until the interstate came in (around 1970). !at was always black. I didn’t know that until I went to School #8, in fifth grade, when all the boys chased Stinky Brown (Barbara Brown) all around the school yards. She was black, and the fastest girl around. We never caught her. !at was my introduction to black folks. You didn’t see them around much in Fountain Square because in the 50s, there were still lynchings and bombings going on in Indiana. In late 1922, they (the movers and shakers in Indianapolis) built Crispus Attucks for the blacks, Shortridge in the west; and Manuel for the Southerns and the Jews. In 1927, Washington opened, Catherdral opened, Manuel opened and Butler moved from Irvington.

Fountain Square was Appalachian in the 1950s. I grew up making fun of educated people. Appalachians didn’t want to have class. !ey didn’t want to play violins—they played fiddles. !ey didn’t want to assimilate. !ey didn’t want to talk proper.

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I didn’t have respect for educated people. We distrusted them. !e mes-sage from school was that you had to give up your culture to assimilate, and we didn’t want to do that. When given that choice, my friends took pride in not giving in to school.

So, s choo l s weren’t to educate , they were to perpe tuate inequal i t y ?

Right now, when that Fountain Square Library goes away in a couple years, there’ll be no reason for my homeys to come here. !ey come here now to use the library’s computers. It will be all gone, this will all be gentry. !ey (my homeys) won’t come here to eat. !ere used to be a bus from Hosbrook Street, and you ate at Pepe’s Grill. But they won’t come here to eat now.

Tel l me more about your per sonal h i s tor y.

I was born in 1940. !is was mainly Appalachian––especially with coun-try music bars. !ere were a couple of go-go bars, and co"ee bars around. But mainly Fountain Square was for the working class white.

A book came out last summer, called A Month of Saturdays. An anthropol-ogist from IU wrote it. !e Jews and the blacks went to Manuel together, and they had cultural exchanges on Saturdays. !ey (the authors) tried the same idea in Fountain Square, but it never happened.

I want to collect the history of Hosbrook Street, since no one knows it. Now that gentrification is here…that’s my focus. Hosbrook is still here, but the interstate came through and shortened it. It is basically Shelby to Fletcher to McCarty to Virginia Avenue. Hosbrook is on the west side. It’s now called North Square. It has been gentrified.

!ey don’t see themselves as having a culture. !ey are in a survival mode most of the time ‘cause that’s how it has always been. I see Fountain Square as being taken over—being gentrified. !ey need young profes-sionals to repopulate the area. !ey need housing, schools and transporta-tion. !ey (young professionals) won’t send their kids to IPS because they will have to learn how to fight (for survival).

Like Chicago, our issue here is transportation. Our bussing here is like a small town’s. I think the issue I am trying to make is that Fountain Square was for everyone, intellectuals and working class. Now, it’s all for the gentry.

What do you s ee a s the cu l ture here in Fountain Square?

Survival. !e Germans moved south after WWII. Now the area is Irish, black, and Appalachian. Gentrification will move to Shelby Street. When Eli Lilly came last summer to clean the Fall Creek area as a service proj-ect, the fear of neighbors was that they (white employees from Lilly) were there getting emotionally attached to the area, to take it over. If they really wanted to help our area, why didn’t they hire us to clean the area our-selves? You know, to share the pot?

See, I am telling you my experience. I was never accepted by middle class fathers. I embraced my culture.

Part of it was me playing country music. I worked with students, and it was a time when country music was “redneck.” In the 80s when I finished my masters, I started playing country music with them. We used to have six country music bars here in Fountain Square. I embraced my working class culture.

I am asking you to respect my story---my language never changed. I can write properly, but I could never speak properly--I never fit into the middle class. Being raised here was pride in having a job, and coming home and talking shop. You had a culture that became influenced by TV, then Rock and Roll, and the 50s stu". We got along with everyone, we were the DAPs. We never knew about the racial tensions in the South.

I must have been a wild child. When we arrived here, I was amazed by the tra#c, busses, people. I met a man who talked to himself. !ere was a guy who rode a bike, and we were afraid of him because we thought he lived in a cave in Garfield Park. Old man Johnson’s house—he lived there with nothing. He burned coal in his bathtub, and his house was all run down. !ere were lots of characters here. It was never boring. We played games in the alleys—Red Rover, and Kick the Can. Shows (movies) here was a quarter.

We have a chance to inspire the folks on Hosbrook Street to save the neighborhood, before it is considered to be in the way (of progress).

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(IMAGES OF SHORTRIDGE HIGH SCHOOL FROM THE INDIANAPOLIS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.)

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PHYLLISI’ve been here since 1976. I had five sisters, and two brothers. My parents had 10 kids.Did you have any rea l l i f e ro l e mode l s a s a chi ld?Not really. I just wanted to be like my mom and dad. What was your mom–was she a homemaker?Yes, and she babysat for my sister who had 10 children living. My dad was in the railroads. He workedon State Street. State Street Yards

was what it was. His territory was from Decatur, IL to Ohio. My grand-father, my father and one of my brothers–all three retired from B&O Railroad. My dad worked 30+ years, and my brother worked 30+ years. I don’t know remember my grandfather. It was with B&O. Was he (dad) a conductor ?No, he was the track foreman. My grandfather worked on the tracks, too. And my brother did, and then he became a crane operator.I saw some pictures about train derailings in Indianapolis. Were there ever any train accidents?Oh, yes! I remember some of them. !e one, I remember because—it was in the early 70s, they decided they wasn’t gonna hire anyone who wasn’t a college grad. My dad was already working here, and so was my brother. So, they hired some college grad, and he was working in the o#ce. And my dad, he was on 24-hour call. And when something went wrong, they used to call him, and he’d get out of bed and come fix it. He’d have to go check it and see what could be done, and if he could do it himself, he done it. And if not, he had to go back and call the men in. But, it was one Sunday afternoon, and somebody turned in for a bro-ken switch—they had a broken switch. And this guy in the o#ce—this new college kid—he’s taking care of it without calling my Daddy. And he went out and he supposedly “fixed” it, and they had a great big train derailment. !ere was property damage and a little bit of everything, but no one died.

So, what happened to the co l l ege graduate ?Well, they called my Dad in because he was supposed to have done it. And my Dad, be filled out some forms and timesheets, and he filled them out every day. And he’d write down everything, like if he had to put a track in–he had to be down to the decimal.So, he had to keep ever y thing documented?Oh, yes! And my Dad only went to the 4th grade. Was that hard for h im to do thi s job?No. No, he learned how to do it. He was smart on his math. !ey tried to blame him, but my Dad took his timesheet when they called him on the red carpet. And my Dad said, “I do not have a timesheet for that day.” And, they sat there, and they was talking. And of course that college grad was there, and he said, “Oh, that was probably the day I fixed that switch.” !ey told him, “Well, you want to learn how to fix the switches, right?” And the college guy said, “I thought I fixed it okay.” And Dad said, “Definitely you didn’t!” And so the next morning, the college kid was told to report to Claude–that was my dad’s name. !ey said, “Claude will teach you how to fix a switch.” So, the next day, the college guy went to work dressed in his suit and all. Oh, he was gonna stand back and watch. My Daddy, said, “Wait a minute! You was told you was to come to work with me. If you want to work in that suit, fine. If not, you have one hour to go home and change.” So what did he do?Well, he went and changed, and he come back. !ey was putting ties in that day. When it come noon, he left and he didn’t come back.Sue: They done made him mad!Yeah, because he would get dirty and all. !ere was a big separation be-tween labor and management. Yeah. It was a lot di"erent. Do you f ee l your Dad got some ju s t i c e in the whole ordea l ?He got justice when they found out that college grads couldn’t do hard labor. I was born on Trowbridge, right next to the railroad. !e railroad’s yard o#ce was across the street from us. !ey brought a couple of college grads over there. And my mom had a big lilac bush that had been in the

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yard for years, and these guys thought they could sit inside that yard o#ce and look down the tracks instead of going out to see the train. !ey got to where they could look from inside the o#ce down the tracks. And my Dad, he ripped them up one side and down the other! !ey said my Dad needed to tear that bush down so they could see down the tracks. Do, one day we went away on a trip, and when we come home, someone had sprayed it. !ey sprayed that lilac bush real good, and it died! My mother was real mad!Was the B&O Rai l road a good employer ?Oh, yeah. What about your l i f e ?I was born on Trowbridge in the house my Mom and Dad had, and I lived there until I got married, and then I moved across the street. I was there 48 years before I moved o" of it. I got married at 20 years old. Did you want to l ive in the same ne ighborhood a s your mom and dad?I was close to Mom and Dad, and I was with them everyday. My husband was more like a son than he was a son-in-law. I was their caregiver. My mother went blind six years before she died, and I was married seven and a half years before I had my first child. My mother went blind in November before I had my first child in December. And, of course, the baby was named after one of sisters who is younger than me, but dead. Did your Mom ge t to ho ld her and take care o f her ?Well, she didn’t get to take care of her. She lost her eyesight to cataracts and glaucoma. !is was in 1975–my mom died in 1975. And then my Dad died two years and 15 days later. I took care of both of them. Mom for six years, and Dad for two years. Mom died when she was 71. She mostly willed herself to die. She lost her eyesight and she gave up. I’ve always enjoyed being around older people all my life.Are there barr i er s here in Fountain Square for you a s you age ?No. We all ride the city bus, and can get around the city. !e routes are very hour. Prospect is every hour. Minnesota is every two hours. Shelby bus doesn’t run on Sunday. !ere’s a lot of busses that don’t run on Sun-day. If you want to go to church, you have somebody pick you up.

(IMAGES OBTAINED FROM THE INDIANAPOLIS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.)

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LESTER

I live in a house. One reason, is…when I growed up, I watched several people I know throw their parents in the nursing home and never went out and seen them.Real l y ? They were ju s t forgot t en?!ey didn’t care. And I told my kids, if they ever threw me in a nursing home, I don’t want them to come and see me! I won’t go to a nursing home! I told them, “You better leave me alone. I will live in my house until I cannot walk, talk, and speak. And they have done that.”How many kids do you have?Let me put it this way…I have two boys. One, I have never seen since he was born. Well, I have been married three times. And, ah, I haven’t seen him since he was born, and I don’t know what he looks like.Does he l ive around here ?I am sorry, I don’t know and I don’t care. I am sorry, but I …well, see, I lived here in Indiana all my life. I was born here, downtown somewhere, but I was raised up on the southwest side of Indianapolis. And, my par-ents were mean to me, especially my mother and my step-dad. When I turned 16, I told my parents to go to hell, and I was gone.Were you the only kid they had? How many siblings did you have?!ere were seven of us. I moved out when I was 16, and I never went back home.So, where did you go a t 16?I moved here to Fountain Square. Well, I started out on the West side, but I didn’t like the West side. I had several jobs over there. I didn’t like the jobs there either, so I moved around.What kind o f job s d id you do?Well, I did restaurant jobs, factory jobs. I went to school until I had to drop out. I only got a fifth-grade education because they just sent me

through the school. I didn’t have the money to go to college.Your t eacher s ju s t kept promot ing you?Yep. !ey promoted me just to get rid of me. But I learned most of my education on the job and everything. So, I learnt the hard way. But I wouldn’t trade it.Would you say you went to the s choo l o f hard knocks ?Hard knocks. (Chuckles.) I went to School #35, then they transferred me to School #12 that was over on West Street. !en I went to Wood High School, until I was a sophomore, and I wanted to go on…but I didn’t have the money to finish school, so I dropped out. I went to the school of hard knocks and learned my education.How did you survive ?I just had to learn the hard way. What I learned, I learned to survive.When you got to Fountain Square , where did you s tay?I was 18. I lived in a sleeping room down on Prospect and St. Peter’s streets for two years, and I worked at Quality Steel Treating for about five years. And then the supervisor and I got into it. Cause, see, when I hired in, I hired in at $1.65, and I didn’t know anything about getting raises.When was that ?Back in ‘65…see I quit school in ’64, and I had to work in ’65 and the minimum wage was, I guess, $1.75/hour or $1.76/hour, somewhere around there. It was cheap. Minimum wage was about $1.55/hour. I worked two years straight for minimum wage. And they hired these guys in paying them more, doing the same job. And they was bossing me around. And my boss said, “You’re (already) at the top.” And I said, “No, I’m not.” We were doing the same job, and you are paying them more than I am?How did you f ind out ?!is one guy told me, hey, I’m making more than you are and I’ve only been here six weeks. And I said, “How much are you making?” $2.10 an hour. So, you l e f t ?No, I asked the boss about it. And he said, what? He looked at me. I said,

Lester is a white, retired blue-collar worker I met at the Fountain Square Salvation Army. He was missing-in-action for a couple of weeks because he had carpal tunnel surgery on his left hand. He left home at age 16 and admits he attended the school of hard knocks.

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“I do the same job, and you give them more overtime than me? I don’t say anything, and you give these guys more than me? I decided this job at for me, buddy, so I walked out and got me another job.I didn’t want to be treated dirty my whole life. So I moved around. !e last job I had, I was making $10/hr. I worked at Davis Lumber Company, and that’s as high as I got. When did you re t i re ?’92. Cause of physical problems. I could have gone back to work, but be-cause of physical problems, I went ahead and retired. What would you say about l i f e in Fountain Square?Oh, I enjoy it. When I was a teenager, when I was young, when you walked Fountain Square, if you ever threw paper on the sidewalk, trash, you better pick it up.

Why?You was made to clean it up. !e citizens of Fountain Square made you clean it up. Life here needs to go back to the way it used to be. It ain’t what it used to be. When I grew up, everything was clean. Sidewalks were clean.

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LULALula, 90, was born in 1924 in Kentucky. She has lived in Fountain Square since 1954. She is legally blind, yet still quilts, cooks, and does ceramics. She comes every week to the Salvation Army for meals. !e Salvation Army bus picks her up in front of her house, and her friend, Phyllis (profiled in this book) cares for her. I learned Lula was blind after she baked banana bread and o"ered me a slice one afternoon. She has not let her blindness impede her zest for living!

I could write a book. I started out writing my own story.

What s topped you?

I got sidetracked, and never did. I had two sisters and four brothers. I have outlived all of them. My mother’s family lived long. My dad’s did not.

How o ld was the o lde s t re la t ive in your fami ly ?

Me. I turn 90 this year. My mother was 82 when she passed. She didn’t know anything about going to the doctor. None of her children did either.

Did you grow up in rura l Kentucky?

Yes. If anything happened in the family, we rang the dinner bell for every-body to come. We had a travelling doctor. I had a doctor that came to the house for birthing, but he didn’t help me–they all sat in the kitchen and waited. It was warmer in the kitchen.

Well , t e l l me about de l iver ing babie s your se l f .

Well, the doctor was sick, he had to sit on a rubber thing. I guess he had hemhorroids. He was an old doctor. He wasn’t in there when the baby was born. He said, “I got to go in there ‘cause she’s in trouble,” but I had already done had her. I was pulling on my husband, and the doctor wasn’t in there. But she came. She weighed 9 pounds. !is was my third baby.

!e first one weighed 8 pounds, and the second one died–he weighed 6 pounds. Well, I lost one. I didn’t have no blood. He was born alive, but

we used all the blood between the naval cord and delivery, so he didn’t have enough blood to live. He passed out. If I had been in a hospital they could have saved him. I never seen a doctor with none of them.

No prenata l care ? Is that how your mom had her k id s , too, a t home?

She had all her 8 children at home. My mother – her mother died and left 12 of them, of my mother’s family. !ree boys and nine girls. People had bigger families then. My grandpa was a soldier in the first war—the Civil War.

The f i r s t world war or the Civi l War?

Well, they came down through Kentucky–his namesakes. His name was John C. Howard. He was born in Kentucky, but I don’t know what side he fought on. I never asked my mother about it, but I did get his dis-charge papers. I had a friend here that took it, took the discharge papers, and had it recorded somewhere because it hadn’t been recorded. !ey fought down through the coon Kentucky--Calhoun Kentucky.

What i s that ?

Calhoun County, Kentucky. I gave it (discharge papers) to my sister’s daughter-in-law, and she put it up with pictures. She was the family historian.

But mother’s mother give her $200. We could buy ground then, and Mother bought 17 acres of ground. Her brother was looking after her money. He said, “I know you are young. If you don’t like the land, then I have to pay it back.” It was her inheritance.

You know, back then, acres didn’t cost nothing. Mother bought 17 acres of land in Butler County. So, her brother came out and built her a home. And she had all of her children there. We were all raised there.

Her brother (my uncle) and my dad built the house. My dad got killed in 1926, and there was no Social Security then. My mother was 40-some-thing, and she didn’t know nobody in town. So, they had a factory there that would send Mother stu" to sew that was already cut out, so we could go to school.

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like to dance. It was square dancing, and spin-the-bottle, all that stu". (Laughs). We would just meet at people’s houses. He just showed up one day with another boy or two. He went home, and he said, “Mama, I seen the prettiest girl I ever looked at.” So, he was 17 when we married. His name was Henry !realkel.

Did you mother approve o f ge t t ing marr ied that young?

She didn’t have any problem with it because she liked him. He was 17.

Tel l me more about Fountain Square .

I came to Fountain Square in 1954. I brought one basket of clothes from Kentucky. I was married in Kentucky, but when I got here, I wasn’t with my first husband. I come with two kids. !ey grew up and attended School #39 and Tech High School here.

What brought a l l the Appalachian peop le f rom Kentucky to Indiana?

We didn’t have the work down there. We came for jobs. My second hus-band would come up here and work at Standard Warehouse–it was also Standard Grocery. He worked for 28 years. !at was my second husband. He had two kids, and I had two kids by age 17. His mother–Ed’s mother got drowned, so he come up here after. She was weird and everything. ‘Cause I knowed him, but I wasn’t married to him then. We didn’t get together until 1954 when I come up here.

What did you think o f Fountain Square when you moved here ? Was i t l ike home?

Well, I never did move outside of Fountain Square. I never lived anywhere else. We lived on Woodlawn for seven years. Ed said, “When we buy us a home, that’s the last move we’re gonna make.” And it was.

Was i t l ike your home in Kentucky?

Well, it was di"erent, but I still raised a garden. I canned. I’d get o" work and we would break beans—we had 2-3 bushels of beans, and I canned them. I had a garden out on Post Road–a big garden at his sister’s. And I had a small garden here. I ‘d grow tomatos and onions, peppers, and radishes.

My mother worked hard. I have worked hard my whole life. !ey only give us $9 a month for all the children–7 of us kids to live on.

You a l l go t by on $9 a month during the Depre s s ion?

Yes, my mother did wash for 50 cents a load. We’d walk about two miles to do that. She took in wash and delivered it. We went to school whole days, and we’d come home to wash our clothes out for the next day.

So, you attended whole days at school—they didn’t count half days. We went early in the morning until 4 o’clock or 6 o’clock in the evening. Our school was in “hollerin’ distance” from the house. All we had—we had three or four teachers. We have Virginia Kelly, we had Gib Coombs, we had …

Who was your favor i t e t eacher ?

I guess Miss Virginia. She taught eighth grade.

Did you go to h igh s choo l ?

No, Mother wasn’t able to send us. One day I fell out of a tree—I was in the apple orchard after school, and I fell and broke my arm. And, we didn’t have the money to go to the doctor.

We finally went, and I told him, “I don’t have no money right now, but I will have my crop in, and I’ll pay you.” And he said, “Have you got any corn? You bring me 10 bushes of corn for that arm.”

And when mother had to go to town to get a tooth pulled or go to the doctor, she’d take a hen with her. And that would be 50 cents. And she say, “I don’t have no money to deaden the tooth, so I’ll hold the chicken.” And that’s what she did.

Wow. They don’t make women l ike that anymore !

No. She’d have a lot of stars. And I thank her every day for not separating us, for keeping us together.

Did the author i t i e s come out and t r y to sp l i t up the fami ly ?

No.

And then you got marr ied at 14?

And then I got married in 1938 at 14. I met him at a dancing party. I

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At 14, I married into a family of 11, and I had to get up early to keep up. She was pregnant with a baby—my mother-in-law– and I was pregnant with a baby. Her baby was born in April, and mine was born in May. My daughter called her uncle, Uncle Ployd. I bet they are all passed away now.

What was l i f e l ike then?

We lived with my inlaws for a while in Kentucky. I’d get up around 4 a.m. and get started on the mule. I’d go out in the back pasture and bring all the cows to the barn to milk them.

I’d milk the cows—three or four of them, and go down and get the milk out of the spring (to cool), and bring it up and take it to the road so the milkman could pick it up.

I’d look up towards the house, and the baby would be out coming towards me in the barn with one shoe missing! I’ve had it hard. But it didn’t break me. It made me stronger!

So you are u sed to hard work…

Hard work? (laughs). I’ll tell you about hard work. We had to cook for work hands in the field, and the kids...

Workhands?

Workers in the field. We’d hang about four chickens on the clothesline and dress them, and fix them for the workhands. We had to have theirs ready first so they could go back to the field. I’ve been cooking all my life.

I also stayed with people to make money. I’d stay for 75 cents (a week) and I’d give her (Mother) 25 cents. I would give her enough to buy a bucket of lard or a sack of meal.

So you hired your se l f out ?

Not all the time. Not all night. After school I’d go to this lady’s house and bring in wood for her, and maybe feed her rabbits or something–get every-thing ready. Her daughter was staying there with her, and I’d get everything in for them, and then I would go back home. I had to pass a graveyard, and I didn’t like that.

Did you ge t s cared?

I didn’t like it—I was worried something would fly out of that graveyard!

What age were you then?

About 10. I had to work. And then I stayed with another old lady, and I got 50 cents a week. I’d go after school, and I saved up part. I would take 10 cents, get me some yard goods, and this girl would make me a dress for 25 cents. Cloth costs 10 cents a yard back then. I learned how to sew when I come up here because I had to.

I worked here at National Standard grocery in raw foods for 28 years. When I retired in 1971, I went home to piece quilts and sell them. I like to do ceramics and quilt now. Yesterday I got more goods to make a baby quilt.

You can s ew with l i t t l e eye s ight ?

I can put it on the bed, and sew it.

How do you manage in s ide your home with no v i s ion?

I’ve lived there so long, I know where everything is.

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THEATRES FROM THE PAST (IMAGES FROM THE INDIANAPOLIS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.)

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SUESue is a very outgoing lady who has been coming for over five years to the Salvation Army for luncheons and crafts. She has lived in Fletcher area for 40 years.

Did you know your generat ion was ca l l ed the Greate s t Generat ion by TV news anchor Tom Brokaw?Well, no. Greatest generation? I never knew that. I am a Boomer—I was born in 1950. !at was my mom. She was Rosie Mae Baldwin but her maiden name was Tow. My grandmother was Cherokee

Indian. She came from Tennessee. My grandmom married my grandpa and moved to Indiana. Mommy was her first-born. I had an Aunt Deenie, a Uncle named Lee, and Louise. Grandma was Cherokee Indian, and she believed in things like a coal stove. !ey had coal stoves back then. And growing up, we had Good Morning stoves—that was the name of it––and it sat in the living room. You opened the front. It was a coal stove, not a wood stove. We had slots at the side of the house, and they would dump the coal here. We’d go down in the basement and get it and bring it up, and we had a bin we would put it in. !e stove didn’t run all the time. It warmed the house. It ran in the morning and before bedtime. It

was really cool. You’d be amazed at the heat that it had! We stayed in our room, everybody was warmed by the stove. Daddy worked at the Ice House—Polar Ice—he made ice. He was there 48 years. Polar Ice, located o" of 16th Street. You’d me amazed how much they made things stretch.

Did you use i c e in l i eu o f a re f r igerator ?No, we had a refrigerator. Daddy made ice, he worked at the ice plant. He made the ice, he bagged the ice and they sold it there to all these compa-nies and restaurants.

Mommy–she worked at Frisch’s Big Boy restaurant out in Speedway. I worked there one time, my brother worked there. Mommy was a chef, made pies. My brother was a chef. My sister waited on tables, and I waited on tables. How o ld were you then?My daughter is 45….(thinking). I was probably about 16. Was that your f i r s t job?!at was my first job. I was pregnant then. And then I worked—when you bag up potatoes and put them on a truck and sell them, that was my second job. I did two jobs then before I got married—I bagged potatoes and onions and worked at Frisch’s Big Boy. But I had a good childhood, to a certain extent. Daddy made sure we all had shoes and stu". We got shoes once a year—that’s the time school started. We never had no prob-lems with nothing because there was lots of love in the house. But you know what, there’s no love in many homes today.Why do you think that i s ?I think because the generation got to where the kids do what they want and the parents just don’t care. Back in our days they cared, and they made things right.How do we ge t back to that ?My main thing is that the parents need to sit down with their kids, and talk with them, listen to them. !ey don’t do that now. I have got grand-kids, younger ones, that—the only one I mingle with is my 5-year-old granddaughter, my 22-yr-old granddaughter, my 21-yr-old grandson, and a grandson that is 30 years old. But, I’ve got 17 grandkids. !is is all the grandkids I get to see.Why i s that ?Because I don’t give them money. !ey don’t come around because of that. I have a fixed income, and I can’t do it, so I am sorry. So, they don’t want to be par t o f your l i f e because o f that ?No, and they don’t like my husband. My husband is a Kentuckian. He don’t like aggrevation, noise. He don’t like a thief or a liar, and he says in our neighborhood, that’s all you’ve got—thugs. But them thugs won’t come around that yard! My dogs, mainly—they are afraid of the dogs.

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!ey are Pomeranians, but they are called ankle-biters. !ey bark…they get on the fence. And one can move their feet, and the dogs try to get to them. It’s kinda good---I don’t have an alarm system. !em dogs is it. !ey (thugs) can walk down the street and them dogs will let you know it. !at’s how good they are.So, how many were in your fami ly ?I was the oldest of eight. !ere’s me, my sister Minnie. My brother Jim-my. My brother Mike; my sister Bessie. !en Darryl, David and Donnie. !ere was eight of us—five boys and three girls. I was the oldest.How big a house d id you have?We had a three-bedroom. !e girls was on one side of the room, the boys on the other. Mom had a bedroom, and Daddy had a bedroom. She raised eight kids there. We went to Wood High School—School #16 was our regular school on Harding, and then we went to Wood High School. I went there until I was in the 11th grade and dropped out.Do you regre t that ?Sometimes I do. But my kids are smarter than I am, and that helps. You know, my daughter was pregnant with my grandson from a rape, and we kept the baby. But she got to 9th grade, and she’s pretty smart. She’s rais-ing three kids. It was pretty good. !e only thing I could say that is bad about the area now is that there’s a lot of selfish people…You mean in Fountain Square?Yeah, that are higher-than-!ou, they are not. We are all made the same. Black people don’t act that way. It really bothers me that some people act that way.Is there a ne ighborhood a s soc ia t ion someplace where you can go and addre s s problems l ike that ?Well, there’s Elaine (Cates). She’s the coordinator down there (901 Shelby Senior Center), but it’s hard to say things sometimes because she takes it to a di"erent level—a di"erent extreme—so I try not to say nothing like that because I would be the one she jumps on, not the rest.You could ask the churches---like the Salvation Army. !ey all try to work with the problems—and they are really good at it. !is place is special, and it has brought a lot of seniors together. Problems, they are really good

at it. It is the only senior place to go. It’s the only one I know of. All the other centers, I say “no.” But this one, they really care about their seniors. !ey really do, and I believe that’s a good thing. !ere’s a lot of the neigh-bors and stu", their children and stu". You don’t know until they tell you they were in the service. Like my husband, he was in Korea. I didn’t know him then. When we met, he was just out of the service.When were you born?I was born in 1950.When and how did you meet your husband? I met him when I had my last child. I had been married once before for eight and a half years. !en when I got divorced, I met him, and we lived together for 15 years. We have been married this Dec. 8th for 15 years. We’ve been together a long time. Just not had no kids together. He was in Korea. His father was in the war before that–WWII. I used to ask him, did you know that they used to take their cats and dogs and deep-fry cook them in Korea? I did not know that. No cats and dogs running around because they eat them!I like it here (at the Salvation Army). We are going to do candles here tomorrow. !ere’s Eric and five young ladies from UIndy. It’s really nice and I love it. Phyl l i s : !ey don’t care about us like they used to.Sue : But they do here!

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MILDRED AND ROBERT DYCUS

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Mildred and Rober t ar e an Af ro -Amer ican coupl e that ha s l ived the major i t y o f the i r l ive s in Founta in Square , on Hos-brook S t r e e t . The s t r e e t wa s con s id e rably l onge r be for e the 1970 s when the con s t ruc t ion of the in t e r s ta t e cu t the i r ne igh-borhood in ha l f . De spi t e many ne ighbor s r e l oca t ing t o d i f f e r -ent communit i e s , the Dycu s family ha s r emained in Founta in Square on Hosbrook S t r e e t .

How l ong have you l ived he r e ?Mildred : Actually, I came here in 1953–I was three. I was born in Mississippi orginally. He’s been here all his life, and they actually were the first family we met, the Dycus family. Our families were ---my maiden name was Nelson—and we grew up next door to each other. Hosbrook was a street that everybody knew everybody. It was two blocks long before the interstate. Elm and Hosbrook were two blocks long.

Has Hosbrook S t r e e t be en he r e s ince the y p l a t t ed the ar ea ?I don’t know. He was born in 1947, and I was born in 1950. When we got here in ‘53 it was there, and they had already been there. Primarily, we went to Calvin Fletcher School, and we feeded in from Calvin Fletcher to Wood. Wood was a seventh grade back then. Junior high and then high school. We mainly stayed on Hosbrook. !e only place we did go was the movie theatre right here, and Murphy’s. !at’s really all there was!

You to ld me you were ca l l ed the yard g i r l s . Why?!at’s exactly what we were! We lived next door to him but our father–there were three girls, I have two sisters. We didn’t have to worry about being in late because we weren’t allowed to leave the yard. My father was the sweetest man, but her was very protective.

Why wa s he prot e c t ive ? Was he wor r i ed about the ar ea?No, no, it wasn’t like that! We were girls, and we could go out and play, but he wanted to know where we were all the time. So, we didn’t spend the night with anybody. His sister was my best friend. So, we lived next door, so we didn’t have very far to go. Fletcher Place was where we went.

Even as teenagers...Yes, they had basketball, dances, and as we got mar-ried and had kids, they had daycare at Fletcher Place. So, our kids went to daycare there. We used the Fletcher Place Community Center as well as the Calvin Fletcher church at the corner, so we did activities there. But, a lot of people would come to Hosbrook Street. !ey always had these big basketball games on the weekends, that it was covered with young men playing ball.

Your ne ighborhood sound s l ike the one cove r ed in the book Neighborhood of Saturday s .Are you talking about Concord? Yes, we called that Southwest. We were Southeast, and they were Southwest. We’d say we were going over Southwest. We had relatives there, and he had relatives there near Illinois Street, and we could venture out there sometimes. !ey used to have the Southside picnic at Bethel, and one on Michael Street.

Looking out f r om the l ibrar y , Mildred point s t o the Mexican r e s taurant . Mildred : !at used to be a shoe store…the Mexican restaurant. Yes. !e Bud’s grocery store (on Shelby Street) was a Marsh, and one of those buildings further down was the A&P, where the Salvation Army building is now.

So, you bas i ca l l y had ever y thing you needed? Yes, we could go downtown, we could ride the bus, we could walk…

Was there a t ro l l ey there in the 50s ?I don’t remember the trolley. Do you remember the trolley?

Rober t : You had to use the tokens. We saw the rails but I don’t remem-ber the trolley.

Mildred: I don’t remember the trolley. !e buses came around then. !e fountain was there, but that one (pointing) is a new fountain. I loved the old fountain better. !ey switched that out. !ey just built this one last year. I liked the older one a lot better than that one now. !e other was more grayish. I don’t like the green. It doesn’t look like it used to.

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Mildred: !e only bar we had was the !underbird. !ey just opened it back. We had a great life here. My father was from a close knit family. His family had 13 people, and he was the oldest. !ey are all still here in Indianapolis.

I was born in Mississippi, and I am a Southerner at heart. Our family was my immediate sisters and my parents. Our aunt and uncle, they are gone. We have one other cousin. !at’s my immediate family here.

So i s the r e a s en se o f communit y he r e , l ike the whol e s t r e e t ?All Fountain Square had a sense of community. We walked Fountain Square, and we rode the buses. We did venture out, but not too far.

John L . t o ld me that he g r ew up her e . He sa id that when the highway came (in the 50 s), the ne ighborhood t ook a hard hi t , and the ne ighborhood changed .Yeah, they took some houses and neighbors had to move away. Our street got cut in half.

How did that a f f e c t you?Mildred: Some of the ones who lived in the 900 block just moved down to the 1000 block. A lot of them stayed, but a lot of them moved away. Actually, a lot moved to the near Northside at 20th and Penn. We never moved. Most people rented so they left or relocated. When my parents moved down the street, they bought the house. As children, we didn’t know about gentrifica-tion. Our parents didn’t share with us if there was a problem, not like kids today. We didn’t know. We got up, we ate, we went to school…life was good. It was just that generation. When our two kids came along, they wanted to know everything. What do you pay for this? What do you pay for that? Now with our children and grandchildren, especially the young men, they get together about once a month. !ey call this the Hosbrook Boys, and they go to breakfast at least once a month. !ere’s about 10-15 total. It’s my nephews, and my son, and their friends. I have three granddaughters, two grandsons and two great granddaughters. !ey’ll call him (indicating Robert) some-times. It’s a way to keep connected.

Are the r e o the r s t r e e t s in Founta in Square that got bi s e c t ed ?Well, Elm is only two blocks. It was two and now it’s down to one. Lexington

goes across State Street, so that’s why we are hard to find. Taxi cabs didn’t know where they were going, so we’d have to tell them how to get to Hos-brook Street.

!ere’s lot of churches here. We went to the Olivet Missionary Baptist Church, it was on the corner, but it moved. Our church is the second oldest in the area. We moved buildings to 4141 N. High School Road. It’s a really nice facility. But there was Bethel, South Calvery. Finding a church was not a problem here.

How many genera t ion s o f your family have l ived he r e in Founta in Square or Indiana?Rober t : I don’t know what brought them here.Mildred : He’s got a few that came from Tennessee. His family is so big we are still meeting his family! We try to trace genealogy but there’s just so many of us! !ey are doing it this year at their reunion. Our son is one who wants to know our history–every Dycus or Nelson. His sister is totally the opposite. Our son does that. He is into that. Me, I just love everybody. I got so many people calling me Grandma, so it doesn’t really matter to me.

What k ind of l e gac y do you want t o l eave your k id s and g randkid s ?Mildred : You can do anything. We have taught our kids that. We would have worked 10 jobs to help our kids do what they wanted to do. Our son chose the military. Our daughter wanted to work. Our oldest granddaughter is in law school. I guess as far as our legacy, we are just working people. We are family focused. We are Christians, and spiritual. Probably that.

How about you , Rober t ?Rober t : Same thing. Mildred : We have been together 43 years, 44 years in September.

Congratu la t ion s ! Have thing s changed f rom when you g r ew up t o now?Mildred : Now, we are not used to all this tra#c. !e interstate was okay, but now when we come home we may not have a place to park on the street. So, that’s good for the area since Fountain Square has grown, but that’s a problem.

!ere are di"erent colored houses, and new shaped houses, all the di"erent eating places and entertainment. I think the revitalization is good for the area. It’s trying to look like Broad Ripple, but Broad Ripple is also changing with all the big buildings out there. We are smaller. We are artsy. To see people walking out here at 11 p.m., it just takes some getting used to. But it’s good for the area.

Now, have we eaten at any of these restaurants? No. He doesn’t like to go out. He likes steaks and such, but he is very picky. He says, I’ll go sit with you while you eat, but he likes my food better. At Murphys they used to have the counter, and we’d go there and eat.

Rober t : !e food was good there.Mildred: It was, it was! He’d just rather me cook. I used to cook Sunday dinner for everybody. Now, I do it about once a month. When the family gets bigger, it gets to be more work.

How wa s i t ra i s ing your k id s ?!ey played in the neighborhood. !ey were not the yard kids! We gave them bikes, and they knew the boundaries. Our son sent me an article about children growing up back then. !ey never had cell phones, they never carried carried around hand sanitizer. !ey knew what time to be home. We didn’t have to go out in the neighborhood to look for them. When it was time to eat, they knew it was time to eat.

Was i t a d i f f e r ence in parent ing ?No, it just was a di"erence. Daddy was strict, and we tried to be less strict. It was just a di"erence in generations. !ere were consequences. When they wanted to learn how to drive, they had to find a job to pay for insurance. It was teaching them good work ethics.

Did you work out s id e the family ?Always! I worked downtown at Ayres. I worked in the credit o#ce there be-cause my father worked there. When I started having grandkids, I didn’t want anyone else to keep them, so I stopped working. !en I realized I wasn’t get-ting any money! I was about 40 then. A friend of mine worked at Catherine’s, so I got a part-time job with her. I did that at Catherines, and then I went to RCI. !at’s where I work now part-time. It a"orded me time to keep my kids in the daytime, and I work at night. I have kept all seven of them. He helps pick them up, drop them o", whatever we need him to do.

My father worked at Ayres as a porter. My mother babysat so she wouldn’t be too far from us. !ere would always be somebody there to watch us. My father passed in 1986, my mother after. !ey had a good life. I didn’t have grandparents here. !ey were in Mississippi. His were here. His grandmother, great grandmother.

Did you both work?

Rober t : I had some many jobs. I retired last year. I worked for Wilhelm Construction, Target, Casper Furniture when it used to be here. I used to work for Sperling Trucking Company, Goldsmith Company, too.

Mildred: Yeah, I forgot about that. John Koch Furniture, too.

Did e i the r o f you go t o co l l e ge ?Mildred: No. I graduated when I was 16. I had to wait until I was 17 to work–I was too young to work. I was going to summer school when I wanted, but now they only let you go to summer school if you need to go. I had the option to finish early.

Rober t : I used to work for $1.35 an hour.

Mildred: My first paycheck was $49 for a week. !at was take home pay. It went as far as you made it. !en there was a store on the corner where the interstate is– the Dundee Building–and it was apartments, a restaurant, a laundry mat, and then Jim Goody on Virginia. !ose buildings were torn down before the interstate. School #8 was lost with the interstate. !ey rebuilt School #39.

!e original families that lived on Hosbrook, there’s only three families here now. !ere were families all the way down, about 20 families. Many rented.

Rober t : My grandmother used to own the house. !e family with 13 kids lived there on Hosbrook. I lost 2 brothers and one sister already.

Mildred: We used to go to Barrington to see his aunt and uncle. We used to have the history of our church, but somebody borrowed it and they never brought it back. Now, it is lost. Our church’s history is lost.

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MILDRED AND ROBERT

MARY D.Although she lived on Stevens Street with her parents, Mary attended parochial school at St. Patrick Catholic Church, 950 Prospect Street, from first grade through eighth grade.

Now te l l me about growing up in Fountain Square . . .Well, I grew up on Steven Street in Holy Rosary parish but I went to school at St. Patrick’s from first through eighth grade. My mother was from Holy Rosary. When I grew up there was the school, and Frisch’s Big Boy right where the Subway is now, and there was a diner in G.C. Murphy—a counter diner. And Skip’s Grocery store was at the corner, and that was were we went after school—kind of like the 7-11 stores today. And there was a Tony’s Pizza place right on the main street (Shelby and Virginia). We had no lunches at school, so you had to either bring yours or you went out for lunch. Most of us who had working parents (mothers)–actually, all thekids who had working mothers, which weren’t very many–all of us went out to eat together every day. !ere were also huge families attending the grade school, so those huge families, all those same families would go out to lunch.Would you go home to eat or…No, we would walk to Frisch’s or Skip’s or G.C. Murphy’s or Tony’s. Nobody went home. You either brought your lunch of went out to eat. I can’t remem-ber how much time we had–maybe it was an hour or 40 minutes–but we would run in, order, and eat and run back. You didn’t have any time to mess around.I a s sume a l l the loca l s knew that you had l imited t ime for lunch?Yes, they knew all the kids and how much time each had, and who ran out without paying the same places every week. !e nuns would find out, and they would punish the kids by making them stand in the corner. It was a lot of fun.How many kids were in your c la s s , or in your s choo l ?I don’t know. Probably about 35-40 kids in each class. !is was in the 60s. Father Fields was the priest at St. Pat’s while I was there, and after that was Father Burkart. We met all the kids here in Fountain Square who didn’t go to parochial school. !ere were no competitions between public and parochial schools. !e Catholic schools only played against Catholic schools then. !e public schools would compete against public schools, so you didn’t get to know the kids that way. You just got to know them because they lived next

door or down the street. It was like the Catholic kids versus the public kids. !ere wasn’t any animosity, but because it was near downtown, it was pretty rough. A lot of kids didn’t have the money and they didn’t have a lot of ameni-ties at home, so they grew up in a di"erent environment than we did. A lot of kids didn’t have very good roles models that were conducive to staying in school.Was there gentr i f i ca t ion here ?You’d have to ask Mom about that. I was probably too young to know about that. When I went to high school I was 12 or 13. I lived on the east side of Fountain Square, and all the Italians lived on the east side– mostly Italian and some Irish. I am half-Italian and half-Slovanian. !ere were no Slovanians here. !ey all live on the west side of Indianapolis. !ere’s a pocket justlike Holy Rosary. It’s called Holy Trinity on the west side of downtown and they were all the Serbians and the Croations.Was your mom the f i r s t generat ion here ?Her parents were the first generation, first-born generation here. So was my father. His parents immigrated from Yugoslavia. And my mother’s parents were from Sicily.How’d they meet ?At the Indiana Ballroom. But lots of Slovanians are married to Italians, be-cause they all attended the same weddings, and they all met each other because they all were in the Catholic school system.

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RONNIE HAIG

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I first heard about rock-n-roll legend Ronnie Haig from B.J., owner of B.J. Guitars, formerly located on Madison Avenue. (!ey have since relocated to Meridian and Hanna Avenue.) Ronnie dropped in to see B.J. and to have his guitar restrung. B.J. introduced the aging music icon to his guitar student. Ronnie graciously showed the student a few of his favorite ri"s, and before long, they were in deep discussion, Ronnie sharing his favorite stories about performing on the road in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Before Ronnie left, he gave the student his phone number. Call me

anytime, he said. “I love you man!” he yelled to B.J.

!at day was transformative for B.J.’s student. He decided to change his college major from business to music, despite the overwhelming odds that he wouldn’t hit it big like Ronnie. He was following his dreams, chasing a career in a profession he loved. !at student was my youngest son. I can only thank Ronnie for sharing his passion with both my son and my husband. Ronnie, I love you, man!

“I was born Ronald D. Hege March 21, 1939. !e son of Frank and Ida Hege, with one older brother, Jack A. Hege, on Olive St. in a very small house. !is lasted only a short time because a family of four needed more than a cottage to call home. We then moved to Woodlawn Avenue in the early 40s, which is the same street I live on today–although at three di"erent locations.

“I attended William McKinley Elementary School #39 located at Lex-ington and State. It has since been torn down, and a new one built at Spann Avenue and State. Some of the teachers were Mrs. Gladys Tyndall, Mrs. Hendricks, Mrs. Tamney, Mrs. Green, Mrs. Long (the librarian), Mr. Maxwell (shop teacher), Wayne Fairburn (gym teacher), and Principals Mrs. Swope and later Mr Blueall. !ey all did a fine job of getting us ready for Arsenal Techni-cal High School, which is still located at 1500 E. Michigan Street. I graduated from Tech in 1957.”

What was "Fountain Square" l ike back then?

“To me it was my whole world. On occasions we would grab a bus and go to

yet another world–a scary place called "downtown," whew! Some would say it (Fountain Square) was the coming together of Shelby Street, Prospect Street, and Virginia Avenue, all at one point; and I guess that is correct. !e area was and is about one mile square, and filled with all types of businesses and public buildings. To me, that has NEVER been the real Fountain Square.

“To me, Fountain Square was "the people" who made it up. Italians, Germans, English, Irish, Blacks, and yes, even Gypsies. Everything we did was done in and around Fountain Square. All living together in harmony and lov-ing and helping each other. Me, I'm German and American Indian.

“!ere weren't many places to park, because everyone walked to get there. You see, the merchants walked to work and opened their shops; the shop-pers walked to the merchants and some even worked there for the merchants. !ere were doctors, lawyers, ministers, teachers, factory workers, ice delivery-men, coal deliverymen, and milkmen. It was a complete community. Pet shop, fruit and veggie markets, cleaners, barbershops, beauty shops, dance halls like "!e Eagles," "!e Elks," and theaters. To my knowledge there were only a total of three theaters–the Fountain Square !eater, the Granada !eater, and !e Sanders !eater.

“We had a post o#ce, restaurants, Louie Salvagio's Pool Hall–which was right next to our FireHouse #3; three hardware stores which were scattered around the area. Koehring & Son took care of our heating stoves etc. Later on, our furnaces also. (!ey're still doing it today.

“Oh, did I mention the largest–the Murphy's Department Store was located on Virginia Avenue where many residents worked and everyone shopped. On Fridays and Saturdays, Virginia Ave., Shelby Street and Pros-pect Street would be standing room only! !ere were balloon peddlers, blind broom salesmen, an organ grinder with a real monkey selling small bags of hot roasted peanuts, (you paid the monkey), and on Saturday night the Salvation Army Band would do a concert in full dress.

“Oh! Did I mention that on the weekends no one would venture up to the business area at Fountain Square without wearing their best? It was “see and be seen time,” like the Easter Parade, you know. Hair fixed just right, shoes shined, and if blue jeans were all you had–at least they were clean and pressed! Most women wore dresses and high heels (even gloves).

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Gus Kasper (a local furniture and appliance store located across the street from Murphy's, knowing that few residents actually owned their own TV set), sat a television on a table in his window so that folks could watch Milton Burle, boxing, or just the news. Kasper even installed speakers outside so the com-munity could hear it. Night after night people would bring pop corn and have a seat. He sold a lot of TVs that way. We bought one in 1955.

“Fountain Square has been labeled today as an historic art neighborhood. I lived in Fountain Square till I left to go serve in the Army in 1961. Mom and Dad continued to live there till 1969. Although I was gone for several years, I stayed in touch and still shopped here for some reason. I don't have any memory of it being an artist hangout, even though I studied art in school.

“!ere were a lot of self taught musicians, and those who trained at Arthur's Music Store on Shelby (where it still stands). Men had trades like painting houses, cement workers, carpenters, but not artists. If artists were here, they were well hidden. !ey mostly were located on Talbot Street, Mass. Ave., or Woodru" Place.

“I knew of one artist, Bob Loman,(now deceased)–a painter and sculptur-ist who lived at Olive and Pleasant Street. He was known worldwide for his work.

“My wife and I moved back to Fountain Square in 2003–again on Wood-lawn Avenue. We purchased the old John Fehr home. Just can't get enough of the "hood," so to speak. Yes, we've watched it go through many many chang-es, and still it survives.

“Today we are known as a district of places to eat and drink alcohol. I think there are 21 such places, which some feel is an asset to our neighbor-hood. If you go there on Friday or Saturday night you will find very few Fountain Square people– mostly outsiders, looking for a place to have a good time.

“So today, we are the playground for outsiders who come and spend their money at the local establishments. Some try to compare Fountain Square to Broad Ripple. I certainly hope not! I prefer to remember the real Fountain Square, with the nicest people in the world. It is a great place to grow up!”

Katie D., age 78, was born in Indianapolis. She is white, widowed, and eager to chat with others. She is now living in Fountain Square. Katie married young, at age 18. She lived with her husband in Germany for 14 months (military service). They returned to Indianapolis and opened an upholstery shop together, which later folded. Her husband of 30 years died years ago. She has two children–her son lives in Danville, her daughter in Indianapolis. She likes to recruit seniors to the Senior Cen-ter, and is good friends with Clara Stepp. Some of her favorite activities include bowling, bingo and attending casinos. Although she has arthritis in her hips, she takes pain pills to cope. Katie, like her peers, prefers to age in place. She appears to have many friends among those present at the Salvation Army.

I remember going back to my first grade teacher at School #69, and she remembered me! Well, my brother took me on my first day in school, and everything was real quiet. He stayed with me. Everything was real quiet, and all at once, the teacher said she heard, “Dickey, I have to pee.”And that was you?

Uh, huh. !at was me. She remembered that all these years. How o ld was your brother Dickey?He was about four years older than me. !at was just the kind of family we had.

How about you? Was your fami ly a t ight -kni t fami ly ?We lived at the corner of Keystone and Brightwood for my first 11 years with my brother, mother and grandmother. I lived in Indianapolis most of my life. I attended School #69, and then Shortridge High School. My family is of German descent.

KATIE

REFERENCESFlood, M., Phillips, K. (2007). Creativity in older adults: A plethora of possibilities. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 28, 389-411. Retrieved at http://

works.bepress.com/kenneth_phillips/7.

Haber, D. (2006). Life review: Implementation, theory, research and therapy. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 63(2), 153-171.

Hyatt, S. (2010). !e Neighborhood of Saturdays: Memories of a Multi-Ethnic Community on Indianapolis’ South Side. Dog Ear Publishing, Indianapolis, IN. doi:10.1037e680692011-001

Kivnick, H. & Wells, C. (2013). Untapped Richness in Erik Erikson’s Rootstock. !e Gerontologist Vol. 54, No. 1, 40-50. doi:10.1093/geront/gnt123

(n.d.). Retrieved from Fountain Square: A Timeline of faith and community. !e Polis Center. (2014, June). !e Polis Center Resources. (S. Kandris, Ed.) Retrieved June 2014, from LISC Sustainable Communities Initiative Neighborhood Quality Monitoring Report: Southeast Neighborhood Indianapolis, IN: http://www.savi.org/savi/documents/LISC_FINAL/SEND.pdf