Hoosier History Live

The first Girl Scout troop in Indianapolis. The first African American woman to graduate from an Indiana college. A suffragist who became a top leader of women's groups in the state. And the founders of the first Black sorority at a predominantly white college in the country.

All of those women and girls had a deep connection to Irvington, the historic neighborhood on the eastside of Indianapolis. As Hoosier History Live salutes Women's History Month, they are among the women whom we will spotlight when Nelson is joined by Sampson Levingston, founder of Through 2 Eyes, a history storyteller who does popular "walk and talk'' tours through diverse Indianapolis neighborhoods, including Irvington.

Sampson has researched the historic women and girls whom we will describe, including Indianapolis Girl Scout Troop 1. The first Girl Scout troop in Marion County was formed in 1917, just five years after the organization had been founded nationally. The local scouts initially got together in private homes. They eventually began meeting regularly at Irvington Presbyterian Church, where an Indiana historical marker commemorates the trail-blazing troop.

A white clapboard chapel with a steeple and a historic cemetery in northern Hamilton County are the sites of cherished annual events known as "homecomings" that draw people from across the country. They come to honor the Roberts Settlement, a historic farm community founded by free Black families in the 1830s who arrived from the South to start new lives on the Indiana frontier.

After initial challenges during its pioneer era when the community was isolated, the Roberts Settlement flourished for decades, with farm families of mixed racial heritage (including several families related by marriage) building Roberts Chapel in 1858, replacing its log predecessor. A highly regarded school, School House # 5, opened in 1877. The community peaked with nearly 300 residents on 2,000 gently rolling acres.

Today, only the chapel and the community's cemetery remain, but a Legacy Walk project is underway to create outdoor exhibits near the chapel. That's where descendants of Roberts Settlement families have returned for the massive "homecomings" that began during the 1920s. The 100th homecoming is planned for June 30-July 2.

Multi-class basketball that began in the late 1990s killed attendance at games, particularly the tournaments. Girls basketball teams didn't exist at Indiana high schools before the early 1970s. And the first basketball game on Hoosier soil was played in 1894 at a YMCA in Crawfordsville.

All of those are misconceptions, a basketball historian says. So, Hoosier History Live will explore prevailing assumptions about Hoosier high school hoops as well as share tidbits about the history of the sport that has long been part of the state's cultural identity. This will include a look at unusual sites that once served as gyms such as a Studebaker factory in South Bend as well as racial obstacles that confronted a team from Michigan City, Ind., in the 1950s.

Nelson's guest will be Matt Werner, a basketball historian and author based in LaPorte County who is known for his extensive research into the sport's storied past in Indiana. In an in-depth analysis published last March in Nuvo that used data supplied by the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA), Matt challenged the assumption that the elimination in 1997 of the single-class tournament system in Indiana (immortalized in the movie Hoosiers based on the upset victory in 1954 of tiny Milan High School) killed attendance. Instead, as Matt documented, attendance at tournament games, including sectional, regional and semi-state playoffs, had been in a 25-year slump beginning in 1962, the peak year for tournament attendance. Multi-class basketball, in which Indiana high schools compete against teams of similar size, actually slowed the rate of decline, Matt has concluded.

When he arrived in the brand new city of Indianapolis in 1821, Calvin Fletcher was nearly penniless. Yet he went on to become the first attorney in the new state capital city, a banker, a state legislator and a wealthy landowner. Fletcher, who was passionately anti-slavery, also became the first major civic leader in his adopted hometown.

To top it off, Fletcher (1798-1866) wrote an astounding, nine-volume diary. Since its publication by the Indiana Historical Society, the extensive diary has become a trove for anyone seeking insights about daily life in early Indianapolis. In his diary, Fletcher described everything from the weather to events, large and small, in Indianapolis.

A native of Vermont (Fletcher was just 17 when he left his family's home), the self-made early power broker became the patriarch of a family that was prominent in the city for many generations. As his wealth increased, Calvin Fletcher moved into various houses, but for a long period he lived at Wood Lawn, a farmhouse he built on his 269-acre farm in what's now the Fletcher Place Neighborhood just south of downtown Indy. Fletcher also owned vast amounts of property elsewhere in the city and state, including large tracts of farmland in Hamilton County.

Because of a tragedy, a picturesque town with a Greek name (unusual for Indiana) has been in the national news for nearly six years. That's often obscured the colorful heritage that Delphi in northern Indiana has reclaimed in captivating ways, including cruises on a portion of the former Wabash & Erie Canal, restored historic structures and a park showcasing the waterway's heritage, that have made the city a popular destination for visitors.

Hoosier History Live will spotlight Delphi (population. 2,975), the county seat of Carroll County, where, from May through September, visitors enjoy cruises on The Delphi, a replica of a 19th century canal boat. We also will look at the history of some sites associated with the tragedy, the murders of two girls in February 2017, as well as the Canal Interpretive Center, which includes an interactive museum, and restored buildings such as the Delphi Opera House. Not only did James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet, perform at least six times at the opera house, he also visited the Delphi area to enjoy fishing and other leisure activities.

Nelson's guest will be Carroll County historian Mark A. Smith. He is a docent at the Reed Case House, a grand, Federal-style home built in the 1840s by the contractor of the region's section of the Wabash & Erie Canal, which was constructed to connect Toledo on Lake Erie with Evansville on the Ohio River. The Reed Case House eventually became an inn for travelers and canal workers.

"This is a story about a Christmas (when) I really didn't know what I was doing.''

That's what a private in the Army infantry from southern Indiana wrote in his diary about Christmas Day of 1944, when, as a POW during World War II, he was forced into a boxcar by German soldiers. Scott Thompson, who had grown up on a farm near Evansville and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, was taken to a stalag in eastern Germany where he spent the rest of the holiday season.

He survived the ordeal and shared his account decades later with Ron May, a World War II historian, chaplain and the author of a three-volume set of books, ''Our Service Our Stories'', that feature interviews with Hoosier military veterans. In addition to interviewing Scott Thompson, who died in 2016 at age 92 after a career as a social studies teacher, Ron talked with Loren Wright, a native of Owen County who, also as an Army infantry soldier, was aboard a transport ship crossing the English Channel on Christmas Eve of 1944 when its "sister ship", the SS Leopoldville, was sunk by a German U-boat. About half of Loren Wright's regiment were among the 802 soldiers who perished in the frigid water.

''Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have been somber for me ever since,'' Loren Wright told Ron decades later. To share some accounts of what Hoosiers endured during the holiday seasons of World War II, Ron will be Nelson's studio guest. He has been a ''Hoosier History Live'' guest on several previous shows, most recently on a program last May about children and teenagers who confronted special challenges during World War II.

Amid predictions that a recession is possible next year, Hoosier History Live will time travel to the Great Depression and explore one of the two most consequential governors in Indiana history. Paul V. McNutt, who was elected in 1932 (the same year that Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency), was even considered as a possible Democratic nominee eight years later for the nation's top office if FDR had decided not to seek an unprecedented third term.

During the early 1930s, McNutt spoke out early on in support of Jews during rise to power of Nazis in Germany, notes our guest, Justin Clark of the Indiana Historical Bureau. Not only will Justin share insights about that during our show, he also will discuss McNutt's lifelong rivalry with Hoosier Wendell Willkie (who, coincidentally, became the Republican nominee for president in 1940) as well as criticisms that McNutt filled state government jobs only with Democrats while governor and clashed with organized labor.

McNutt (1891-1955), who also served as the country's first ambassador to the Philippines after World War II, was named one of the two most consequential governors in Indiana's history by Linda Gugin and James St. Clair, authors of "The Governors of Indiana" when they were Hoosier History Live guests . We explored the life of the other "most consequential" governor, Oliver P. Morton, a Republican who held the state's top office during the Civil War, during a Hoosier History Live show in 2019. And we put the spotlight on Willkie when his grandson, David Willkie, was our guest in 2015.

Ever heard of a telephone installed in a mausoleum in case someone was buried alive and needed to call out for help? Did you know the first stewardess in the history of commercial airlines is buried in a Terre Haute cemetery? And were you aware that the historic cemetery's office was built as a waiting station for Interurban passengers?

Hoosier History Live will be exploring all of these aspects related to a landmark, Highland Lawn Cemetery, and an array of compelling people from western Indiana buried at the scenic graveyard, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. This show will follow up two of our recent programs, an exploration of the landscaping and design at historic cemeteries in which Highland Lawn was mentioned as an example of the Rural Cemetery Movement, as well as a show about notable people from Parke County and nearby areas.

Mike Lunsford, a popular author and storyteller based in Parke County, will return as Nelson's guest to share insights about Highland Lawn, where he has led tours for many civic groups; he also has written newspaper and magazine articles about people interred there. They range from prominent Hoosiers to working-class, poverty stricken and colorful characters from a broad region of western Indiana. The notables include Socialist, labor leader and presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, who died in 1926 and whose life was the focus of a Hoosier History Live show in 2019.

Ever since the 1820s, when David Buchanan arrived by covered wagon in the Indianapolis area and opened a tavern before becoming a farmer, the Flanner and Buchanan families have been intertwined with city history. Flanner and Buchanan Funeral Centers is a 142-year-old, family-owned business that began during an era when funerals and visitations typically were held in the parlors of private homes (hence, the derivation of the term funeral parlor). Before that, in the mid-1800s, undertakers often were carpenters.

As the funeral business evolved (Flanner and Buchanan opened the first crematorium in Indianapolis in 1904), so did the civic impact of members of the Flanner and Buchanan families, who were brought together by marriage in the 19th century. Frank Flanner, who began in the mortuary business in 1881, founded Flanner House (initially known as Flanner Guild House), a nonprofit to assist African Americans, including former enslaved people who had come to Indianapolis. His sister, Anna Flanner Buchanan, helped start the first YWCA in the city.

All of that and more will be explored during our show when Bruce Buchanan, the CEO of Buchanan Group Inc. (which includes Flanner and Buchanan Funeral Centers), the fourth generation owner, is Nelson's studio guest. The massive Community Life Center on the city's far eastside, a multi-purpose event space owned by Flanner and Buchanan, and adjacent Washington Park East Cemetery are on the site of David Buchanan's farmland in the 1830s. The multi-generational impact of the families on the funeral business and civic affairs is described in a lavishly illustrated book, Building Community: The Flanner and Buchanan Families of Indianapolis written by local author Julie Young.

When well-known Indianapolis-based jazz violinist Cathy Morris was growing up in Columbus, Ind., she was influenced by a woman in the same house: her mother, a multimedia artist.

Cathy, 61, has gone on to emulate her mother's multi-disciplinary approach. In addition to her performing and recording career (she plays the electric violin), Cathy is a producer and a composer. She founded Arts With A Purpose, a non-profit that connects a range of artists (from musicians and dancers to visual artists) with various Indiana communities, with a goal of inspiring social change. She has produced "Here For You", a compilation disc of music by 18 women musicians from Indiana.

As Hoosier History Live salutes Women's History Month, Cathy Morris will be Nelson's guest to explore various aspects of her life and career, which has included performances with student orchestras across the state. Last March our spotlight was on a trail-blazing novelist and mentor for aspiring writers, Barbara Shoup, the former executive director of the Indiana Writers Center.