Where Gothic meets Country

Jul21

The lancet window outline used in the Buck Creek Church logo

Over the past ten years of my life, as I attended college and graduate school, and worked as a public librarian in Ohio, I found less and less time to visit my small Indiana hometown. Now that I’m back full-time and for good, I find myself falling in love with this little place that, not so long ago, I was dying to get away from.

One reason for this unexpected love affair: early morning bike rides in the country. It is quiet here, and simple. Much as I wanted it to, the city just did not suit me. Here, surrounded by towering corn stalks, horses, and farmhouses, I feel like I can finally breathe again.

Last week, on one of my rides, I discovered a fantastic little church in rural Marion County. The pointed arch (lancet) windows place the construction of this church in the 1840-1880 Gothic Revival period. The cross bracing at the roof-wall junction further narrows it to post-1860. The building also borrows decorative brackets from the Italianate style.

Sage and purple coneflower in their mid-July glory!

Such a surprising little gem to find on an Indiana country road! Sadly, most of the windows have been boarded up. I find it odd that this building has not been more lovingly maintained. The church obviously takes pride in their historic structure – the fact that it has not been torn down is testament to that. They also use the outline of the lancet window in their logo – an indication that the history of this building is an important part of the congregation’s identity.

Next to the church is a small cemetery. When I got home, I visited this cemetery on www.findagrave.com, one of my favorite free genealogy resources. Find a Grave was founded by Jim Tipton, who actually created it as a tool for his own hobby of visiting the graves of famous people, but genealogists quickly discovered it and made it their own. The site utilizes volunteers who photograph and document graves so genealogists can see them and learn more about their ancestors without traveling to small cemeteries all over the country.

A view of the original Gothic Revival style church and the more modern addition, done in a style called “ugly.”

I have used this resource to track down several elusive ancestors. Sometimes, the information listed on a grave is a good starting point for researching someone that you can’t seem to track down anywhere else. I began using Find A Grave last year, and since then I have added memorials for some of my ancestors, and I have photographed graves for others to use in their own research.

My growing interest in genealogy coincided with an extremely tumultuous time in my life. As I spent my weekends traveling to various cemeteries in Indiana where my family is buried, the man I loved was showing increasingly disturbing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Some days, he asked me to drive him to the hospital. Other days, he attempted to cope by self-medicating. In the meantime, I found myself spending more and more time in graveyards.

It might seem strange, but it actually brought me a great deal of comfort. The cemetery became the one and only place where I could put my problems in perspective. Surrounded by the graves of those who came before me reminded me that one day, I too, would be in the ground. In this environment, it’s difficult to feel sorry for yourself, regardless of your circumstances.

Find A Grave has helped me learn more about my ancestors, and it has also given me a new way to connect with them. By visiting their final resting places, I am reminded of how many lives passed before me, how many traumas were overcome, or not, and that our time here is short, and should be well-lived.

History of a House

Jun30

This is an example of a house history I wrote for a 1948 Tudor Revival style home located on the east side of Indianapolis in the Community Heights neighborhood. The complete version is fully notated. Here, I am posting a shortened version.

Prominent, broad chimneys are a common feature of Tudor Revival style homes.

Introduction
In the late 1940’s, following World War II, Indianapolis and many other cities across the country experienced severe housing shortages as soldiers returned to the states and looked for a place to settle down. To combat this problem, the Federal Housing Administration helped finance the construction of new homes. Many middle-class Americans were able to buy these homes with financial assistance from the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (also known as the G.I. Bill of Rights). During the housing boom that resulted from this legislation, the Justus Realty Company planned and built over 1000 homes in greater Irvington. Before this time period, America had been primarily a nation of renters.

Style          
As the popularity of the bungalow finally gave way, many Americans began to build modest revival-style homes in the suburbs. Period revivals may have been popular at this time because of the comfort that could be found in familiar, traditional styles following a tumultuous period in American history.

The Tudor Revival style features high-pitched, gabled roofs of medieval origin, and decorative details borrowed from Renaissance traditions. Other identifying features include:

  • Patterned brick or stucco exteriors
  • Prominent, broad chimneys with decorative flues
  • Angular house plans
  • At least one outside living space
  • Arched doorways
  • A breakfast nook or alcove in the kitchen
  • A projecting vestibule covered with a steep gable
  • Sweeping vestibule gables carried almost to the ground
  • Intersecting gables with eaves of varying height
  • Plain or decorated bargeboards
  • Clipped gables

Tudor Revivals often feature arched doorways.

Ownership
The first owner of the home, Ralph Rubush Clark, who lived there from 1949-1978, was born March 7, 1887. He served in the military during WWI, and married Hazel Fay Speedy in 1917. Hazel was born in Crawford County, Indiana, in 1898. Ralph and Hazel raised two sons, Max (1921–1985) and R. Wayne (1925–2010) on Eastern Avenue. When Max and R. Wayne were in their 20’s, Ralph and Hazel moved into their brand new Justus home.

Ralph worked as a bookkeeper for several different Indianapolis businesses throughout his life, including the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P), the former Indianapolis Public Welfare and Loan Association, and the Columbia Investment Corporation. He was also a Republican precinct committeeman. He retired in 1957.

Hazel passed away in 1969. Ralph passed away in 1978 at an Indianapolis nursing home. After his death, the house was purchased by the McKeons, who sold it to Lindsey Ross in 1999. She sold the home in 2008. In 62 years, only four different owners have occupied the home, and the shortest period of ownership so far has been 9 years.

This home emphasizes a sweeping vestibule gable that carries the roof almost to the ground.

Historic Designation
The Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana identified the Community Heights Justus Addition as a potential historic district in 1993, although at that time it was too “young” to meet the criteria for designation. Staff at Indiana Landmarks indicated that, in 2011, the 63-year-old district very likely qualifies as a historic district.


Pieces of a life, part 2

Jun29

Joe and Sara Layton with my mother, 1952

In May 1942, Joe abruptly resigned his position. In a letter to his mother, he wrote that he could have stayed at his job “indefinitely,” making good money.

“Possibly that is the only way you ever get anywhere in this world… Whether it is or not I am not ready yet, to settle down to the grind,” he wrote.

Joe decided to return home to Indiana. He was clearly disappointed in himself, at how little he had accomplished. He also seemed to think everyone would judge him for returning to Greensburg. He had gone away in December a confident young man, and he returned just six months later. Joe usually wrote eloquently, but in this letter, he rambled, trying to get a grasp on his feelings:

“If I come home this time it does not mean that I will be there forever, or does it, what I mean is if I felt I wanted to, couldn’t I at some later date try something again. Probably it is a disappointment to you to have me come back, to think I was off to something and then have me quit. I hate to come back myself in the respect that it seems like a failure or something.”

Joe thought Chicago would provide him with the opportunities he needed to become a successful man in a business suit, but he found himself lonely and dissatisfied with the day-to-day drudgery of city life. He could see himself growing wealthy, but it felt empty to him. Something was missing.

“… People here don’t seem to live, to me, they seem more like a part of one big machine,” he wrote.

Despite the excitement all around him, Joe grew sullen during his time in the city. He saw what his life would be there, and he didn’t like it. Returning home was an attempt to hold on a bit longer to his youth. He wrote that, if he stayed at his job in Chicago, he would always feel he “had missed part of the fun or pleasures” he should have had when he was young.

Underlying in his emotional letter is his complete denial of the war, of how serious his life had so suddenly become. At that time,  many Chicagoans would have been producing materials for the effort overseas. How strange that Joe would return home, ostensibly to enjoy being young, when so many boys his age had already been deployed. He went to Chicago to chase success and have a good time – why then did he have to set aside money for defense bonds? Why couldn’t he just go to the theater and flirt with the cute girl he met at the dry cleaners?

Joe would have been required to register for the draft in May 1942, right around the time he resigned. Perhaps the act of registering was the final straw for him, the last thing he did before he decided to go home. His homesickness was no doubt exacerbated by the fear that he would be called up to serve in the military. He may have felt that it was best to spend what time he had left enjoying himself with this friends and family, instead of laboring away, alone, up in Chicago. What use is all this money, he must have wondered, if I’m going to go off to war any day?

Back in Indiana, Joe readjusted to the life he left behind. About a year later, after being classified 1-A – available for military service – he made the trip to Fort Benjamin in Indianapolis for his physical exam. Shortly thereafter, he received notice that he had been rejected for service. I have still been unable to definitively answer the question of why he was rejected, but national and state archivists have indicated that he was probably disqualified for a medical condition such as flat feet or a heart murmur.

After his military rejection, there is no indication in his records that Joe considered moving back to Chicago. Instead, he left his dreams of the big city behind him. His files contain letters from a few girls he dated as well as several letters from friends who were serving overseas. In October 1944, a V-Mail arrived from Leonard Welage, a 1942 Greensburg graduate who was in New Guinea “undergoing quite a few bombings.” In 1945, Joe received a V-Mail from a classmate, who wrote from Germany:

“…Am living in a German home right now. Had my second bath since I have been over here yesterday. In a bath tub too. Boy, it was like heaven. Layed in it and only my nose was out of water…. Have slept in everything from fox holes, to hay lofts to nice homes since I have been here. What a hell of a life!! We have running water in this home, but no electricity, using candles and home made lights…. The people who lived in this house were real Nazi’s. Pictures of Der Fuhrer and all. That kind of shit. Boy, Joe, I have no sympathy for these people at all. But they’ll learn I guess.”

With news of the Nazis coming in the mail, Joe’s easygoing adolescence was long gone. By 1946, a letter from his friend Josephine indicates that he had “settled down to one gal.” On December 10, 1947, he married Sara Kathryn Buell, and in November 1951, my mother was born.

Joe spent the rest of his life in Indiana. He passed away in 2007. He only spent six months in Chicago, but the fact that he held on to so many mementos from that time period leads me to believe that it was quite meaningful to him. I’m grateful that, by leaving behind these keepsakes, he allowed me a tiny glimpse into his life long before I knew him. They paint a vivid picture of growing abruptly into adulthood during a war that redefined our world.

Pieces of a life, part 1

Jun21

Joe Layton

I began my adventures in genealogy eager to trace my family tree all the way back to its European roots. So, in the early stages, I raced through generations, searching for evidence of where we began. But then something struck me: I suddenly knew more about distant long-lost relatives than I knew about my own grandparents.

Genealogy allows us to learn the stories of our ancestors, but it can also be a way to help us know those we have struggled to understand in our own lifetimes.

I knew my grandfather, Joe Layton, as a quiet, private man, always well dressed and immaculately groomed. He was emotionally distant, and usually wore a sad, serious expression. I grew up incredibly intimidated by him. On the few rare occasions when I saw him, we barely spoke, but sometimes we would write to each other, sharing bits and pieces of our lives. He also sent birthday and Christmas cards every year, and he always signed them, “Love, Grandma and Grandpa,” even though my grandmother had been in a coma since I was seven years old.

Sara (Buell) Layton was even more of a mystery than my grandfather. Unfortunately, she left almost nothing behind that might help her family understand her better. My grandfather, however, left a collection of letters, postcards, photographs, and memorabilia from the 1940’s that has helped me piece together a small part of his life that I knew nothing about before he passed away.

The story that unfolded led me to discover a common thread tying many generations and branches of my family tree together: failed attempts to leave home. There is certainly a history of this in many families, often fueled by the appeal of reinventing oneself somewhere new. Sometimes, though, the simplicity and familiarity of home can be difficult to leave behind – especially when the new life we build for ourselves doesn’t turn out to be as rosy as we’d hoped.

After graduating from high school, Joe worked with his father at a farm implement store in Greensburg, Indiana, but he quickly grew restless. On the morning of December 7, 1941 – just hours before news broke of the attack on Pearl Harbor – he set off for a new life in Chicago. Over the next few months, he wrote several letters home.

In the early letters, even though the United States was suddenly enmeshed in a world war, he remained optimistic and excited about his future. But, as the months wore on, the letters began to suggest a growing disillusionment with his new life. In one letter, he wrote, “What am I doing here?”; in another, “I miss you all a lot but think I would be better off here. not sure.”

Joe Layton, the morning he left for Chicago, Dec. 7, 1941

Despite his uneasiness, he stuck it out, and in March, he received a promotion. He held onto a company newsletter announcing his new position to the rest of the staff, which read: “Boys be careful how you talk to Joe. He hails from Indiana where they call a spade a spade, where a man’s a man and the ladies like it.”

Clearly pleased with himself, he signed one of his letters, “J.D. Layton, Executive.”

By April, tales of his exciting job and trips to the theater were replaced with news of a citywide air raid test, and a story about a friend who received a phone call from her boyfriend stationed in San Diego. “I don’t think she has fully recovered as yet,” he wrote.

Signs of the war appear in his work files, as well. A letter from his employer, written “at the request of the United States Treasury Department,” advised him to set aside monthly contributions for the purchase of Defense Savings Bonds. In a company newsletter, the push continued, urging employees to do their “patriot’s duty.”

In May, he tried to ignore the war, enjoying his “luxurious” apartment and attending the horse races at Lincoln Fields. He tried to find happiness in his new life. But, he was surprised to find that it felt so lonely to him. After his quick rise to “Executive,” he signed an April letter, “J.D. Layton or to you – Joe.”

His homesickness is palpable.

a sensible wedding frock

May21

Unidentified bride and groom, Cincinnati, late 1800's

I recently discovered this interesting wedding photograph in a box of family keepsakes. Unfortunately, the bride and groom are not identified, so I have no idea who they are.

The photo is actually a “cabinet card” – a thin 4½ x 6½ inch photo mounted on cardboard. Cabinet cards were popular in the late 1800’s, but they quickly went out of style with the introduction of the affordable, easy-to-use Kodak “Brownie” camera in 1900.

The nice thing about cabinet cards is that they usually identify the photographer on the back, which can help us place the photo historically in a time and place. The back of this cabinet card identifies the photographer as “Zutterling,” located at 503 Vine Street in Cincinnati.

I began researching this photo by searching for “Zutterling Cincinnati” on Google Books, and I got extremely lucky – the photographer, Peter Zutterling, was included in Diane VanSkiver Gagel’s book, Ohio Photographers: 1839-1900. The listing for Peter Zutterling specifies that he operated the 503 Vine Street studio from 1873-1894.

Now that I have placed this photo in a fairly narrow time period, I will be looking for a wedding that took place during those years in or near Cincinnati as I continue my family research.

Zutterling Cabinet Card - back

Once I figured out the time period, I moved on to researching the dark wedding dress. I thought the white wedding dress tradition started after Queen Victoria wore white to marry Prince Albert in 1840. So, I was surprised that this late-1800’s bride was not wearing white. Didn’t she get the memo?

As it turns out, most 19th century brides did not wear a white wedding dress. A dark dress was more practical, because she could wear it again for other special occasions. Even Queen Victoria had her white wedding gown re-styled for another use. After all, what reasonable woman buys a dress that she knows she will only wear once?

Of course, when it comes to weddings in the 21st century, practicality and reason are usually in short supply. These days, some brides spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on extravagant white gowns that are worn for only a few hours, and a bride will go to great lengths to walk down the aisle in her “dream dress,” even if it is obscenely out of her budget.

However, back in the 1800’s, before credit cards, brides had to live within their means. So even though she may have wanted a white dress à la Queen Victoria, she settled for a sensible frock in a dark shade. Only the wealthiest brides were able to pull off a white gown. A wealthy bride might also drag a long, expensive piece of fabric around behind her on the floor.

Those who were not part of the elite continued wearing dresses, sometimes even suits, of various colors. My grandmother, Sara Layton, wore a black velvet skirt and satin jacket when she married my grandfather in 1947. Not long after that, the white dress became standard. Less than ten years after my grandmother got married in her sensible black velvet skirt, my mother was playing dress-up in a white wedding gown when she was only five years old.

My mom, age 5.

Today, the term “white wedding” is used to sum up the entire Western Christian wedding tradition that most of us take for granted. Within this tradition, some people have chosen to label the white dress as a symbol of a bride’s “purity,” a sign that she has saved herself for her groom, who, by the way, typically does not wear white. Women are expected to be perfect, angelic virgins on their wedding day, and men are expected to… show up.

Back in simpler times, before I earned my bitter feminist worldview, I had my own wedding dress picked out of an issue of Bride Magazine years before I had my first kiss. I spent hours studying the way the gown fell in flawless, clean lines around the bride’s perfect shape. I dreamed that one day, I would look so perfect. In these bridal fantasies, I looked a lot like the bride in the magazine picture, who was standing alone, in a field. Because the fantasy wasn’t about the actual marriage or the commitment that it entails. I really just wanted that dress. Which isn’t surprising since every Disney movie I watched and loved as a child seemed to end with a princess in a white gown walking down the aisle to her fairy tale happy ending. As a young girl, I didn’t doubt that my own life would have a similar outcome.

Now that I am a little older, and a little wiser, I would prefer it if weddings looked a little more like my cabinet card. The unidentified bride-in-dark-dress looks like she knows what she’s in for. She has no fairy tale illusions. Nothing about her is perfect. Her dress is wrinkled at the waist and elbows. After all, this is just her wedding day. This is just the man she has chosen to build a life with. Her face says it all: Hopefully I’ll get along with this guy until one of us dies, but I really don’t expect any more from this union than a nice dress that, with any luck, I will wear again.

a fascinating discovery…

May16

I have never really known where my ancestors came from. In grad school, I took a course called Multicultural Children’s Literature, and the instructors emphasized the importance of knowing your own family’s culture so you can appreciate and respect the cultures of others. We talked about “white culture” in America – about how, for many of us, being white is really all the culture we know. What does that mean? I knew my ancestors probably came from various European countries, but I was entirely uncertain about the details. Some of them were definitely from Germany. There was some Scotch-Irish on my paternal grandmother’s side. When I asked family members about our heritage, I received a variety of answers, including: “We are European mutts,” “I don’t know,” and “We’re from Kentucky.”

It wasn’t until I took this class, at the age of 25, that I realized how desperate I was to know my own story. Still, the task of conducting a thorough genealogy seemed too daunting at the time as I was completing grad school and working an assortment of part-time jobs. It wasn’t until the summer of 2010 that I really had a chance to get serious about my research. A few months later, I made a fascinating discovery: I am a little bit French!

I grew up with a French flag in my bedroom. I was excited to start high school because I could finally sign up for French classes. My fascination with France began around the time I turned ten, when my mom gave me a little book called Linnea in Monet’s Garden by Christina Bjork. This book introduced me to many things I would grow to love: travel, art, gardening, and history. I studied Lena Anderson’s illustrations daily, and read the book many times over. I wanted to ride the train to Monet’s pink house at Giverny! I wanted to picnic with a baguette and cheese! I wanted a cat to follow me around while I photographed flowers!

In the summer of 1998, I got to go to France for the first time with the French department at my high school. The group met for months beforehand to discuss what we wanted to do when we got there.

“Notre Dame!” someone suggested.

“The Champs Elysees!” another traveler said.

“Versailles!” someone else called out.

Reluctantly, I raised my hand.

“Giverny?” I asked.

Sadly, Giverny was actually kindof out of the way, and no one else really wanted to go there. Still, in addition to Notre Dame, the Champs Elysees, and Versailles, we also visited Jim Morrison’s grave, the Paris Opera House, and of course, the Eiffel Tower. It was an amazing experience to have as a 16-year-old, and one of my best memories.

Now, I wonder what that trip would have been like if I had known then that some of my own ancestors came from France. I want to make sure that, if I ever have children, they will know where they came from. So, for the past year, I have been researching and documenting my family’s story. As I continue to discover more about who I am and how I got here, I will share what I learn at www.alittlebitfrench.com. I hope my stories will encourage others to embark on their own adventures in genealogy. Thank you for reading!