Hoosier History Live

(November 30 2019) Long before the "Hoosier Poet" became known across the country as a spellbinding entertainer, he had a colorful life. That was so even before young James Whitcomb Riley worked as a musician and sign painter on the traveling medicine show circuit. Hoosier History Live spotlighted these and other captivating aspects of the Greenfield native's life in a show originally broadcast in November of 2014, which we are featuring now as an encore presentation.

Delving into Riley's early experiences, we explore his complicated relationship with his father, a Civil War veteran; his role in a hoax about a poem described as the long-lost work of Edgar Allen Poe; his schooling, childhood antics and sorrows; the visit of a Confederate soldier and a haystack of other aspects of the early life of the Hoosier who had written more than 1,000 poems when he died in 1916.

Nelson is joined in studio by three guests who have immersed themselves in Riley's pre-fame life. They include historic re-enactor Danny Russel, a popular entertainer/educator who periodically portrays Riley during this show as he shares some of Riley's poems, both obscure and famous.

Guests also include two Hancock County residents deeply involved with the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home in Greenfield. They are Brigette Cook Jones, president of the Hancock County Historical Society, and Gwen Betor, past president of the Riley Old Home Society. Both Brigette and Gwen have served many years as docents at the home Riley's father built on the Old National Road (now U.S. 40).

As a boy, Riley became captivated by the circus, imitated entertainers and once was given a flying squirrel that he featured in his routines - before things came to a sad end. Nelson and his guests share insights about that episode during our show, as well as facts about the series of jobs Riley attempted before he became a celebrity. They even included work as a Bible salesman and a shoe clerk.

So prepare for revelations, even if you grew up keenly aware of Riley's classic poems - such as "When the Frost Is On the Punkin' "- and his national impact.

Some of our show topics are humorous, such as Riley's desperate attempts as a boy to remove his freckles and what happened when he received his first pair of long pants.

Other topics include the end of his engagements to two women. His relationship with one fiancée ended after the loss of a newspaper job in Anderson. And that's related to the "Poe poem," which was revealed as a fraud.

"People don't realize how much he struggled before he become such a huge national celebrity," our guest Brigette Cook Jones says.

History trivia: Our guest Danny Russel portrays other historic figures with Indiana connections, including Abraham Lincoln. And Brigette Cook Jones joined us in October 2011 for a show about the real Hoosier who inspired Riley's classic poem "Little Orphant Annie."

(November 23 2019) In 1920, he was in prison while running the final of his five campaigns for U.S. president. Terre Haute native Eugene V. Debs, the leader of the Socialist Party of America, won nearly one million votes during that unusual campaign.

Hailed by many as the "champion of the American worker" - and denounced by others as an agitator - Debs (1855-1926) advocated nearly all of his life for many labor reforms, including 40-hour workweeks and anti-child labor laws, that were regarded as radical then. Today, the reforms often are taken for granted.

Before his rise to national fame for his organizational role in the Pullman Strike of 1894, Debs had formed the American Railway Union, the first industrial union in the country.

He lived in Terre Haute for most of his life, with exceptions including his stint in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. A pacifist, he was imprisoned for speaking out against American involvement in World War I. Debs was freed on Christmas Day in 1921 by Warren G. Harding, who had been one of his opponents in the 1920 presidential race.

To explore the life and impact of Debs, the son of French immigrants who quit school as a teenager to take grueling jobs on railroads, Nelson is joined by two studio guests:

• Allison Duerk, director of the Eugene V. Debs Museum Home in Terre Haute. The museum is in the Victorian-era home where Debs lived with his wife, Katherine, beginning in 1890.
• And Kim Hood Jacobs, co-producer of a new documentary by WFYI-TV/Channel 20, The Revolutionist: Eugene V. Debs, which can be viewed for free at wfyi.org. The documentary emphasizes that no social safety net existed for workers and their families when Debs began crusading on their behalf during the Industrial Age. He may be best remembered for one of his statements during his trial for violating sedition laws during World War I:

"While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Because of debates about socialism among current candidates for the presidential nomination, the life and legacy of Debs again have become the focus of national media attention, including a recent article in the New York Times. Debs' first presidential campaign - as the candidate of the Socialist Party - was in 1900.

Six years earlier, he had helped Pullman railway car employees with their strike. It involved nearly 250,000 workers, many of whom had been toiling for notoriously low wages. Although Debs had urged the Pullman workers to refrain from violence, "bloody confrontations" connected to the strike resulted in about 30 deaths, according to The Revolutionist documentary.

Arrested on conspiracy charges, Debs was represented by Clarence Darrow, one of the country's most famous defense attorneys. Despite Darrow's stirring defense, Debs served six months in prison, his first stint behind bars. During that time, he concluded that both the Republican and Democratic parties were failing American workers - and that the country needed a new, third political party to champion their cause.

(November 16, 2019) Ever hear of a hellbender? How about an orange-fringed orchid?

Both are native to the Hoosier state, but only in isolated places. And both are among the seldom seen plants and animals that we feature on this show dedicated to Indiana's botanical and zoological rarities.

Nelson is joined in studio by botanist Michael Homoya, who retired last year after a distinguished career with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and by herpetologist Nate Engbrecht, who is based in Indiana DNR's Bloomington office.

According to Nate, who specializes in the study of reptiles and amphibians, the hellbender is "a large - two feet or longer - fully aquatic salamander" that has become an endangered species in Indiana, where the only known remaining population is in the Blue River near O'Bannon Woods State Park. Nate describes hellbenders this way:

"They are generally brownish in color and have a rather grotesque appearance with loose-looking folds of skin and small, diminutive eyes. They spend much of their lives under rocks in cooler, well-oxygenated streams."

Regarding orange-fringed orchids: In Indiana, they are known to exist only in the far northern part of the state, according to Michael. One of 45 species of wild orchids that have been seen in Indiana (although a few of them are no longer present), orange-fringed orchids are visible from a trail in Fisher Oak Nature Preserve in Jasper County.

Orange-fringed orchids are more common in southern Michigan and in the southeastern United States, Michael says.

Our guests also share insights about other rare plants and animals, including

• Crawfish frogs. Like hellbenders, they are an endangered species in Indiana. According to Nate, crawfish frogs ("a big one is about the size of your fist") are "secretive," spending most of their lives in and around underground burrows created by crayfish. "They essentially depend on the crayfish to create their burrows for them," Nate says. In Indiana, the frogs primarily are found in the western part of the state, from Terre Haute to Evansville.
• Mosquito ferns. "This plant is fascinating - the world's smallest fern," Michael says. For Outdoor Indiana magazine, he wrote an article about the fern, which can be seen in Twin Swamps Nature Preserve in southwestern Indiana.
• And green salamanders. Describing them as "rare gems among southern Indiana amphibians," Nate calls attention to their "striking" green coloration and intriguing habitat. Green salamanders are seen in a small area near the Ohio River in Crawford and Perry counties.

Although this is Nate's first appearance on Hoosier History Live, Michael has been a guest several times, including on a Bicentennial-themed show about what the state's terrain looked like in 1816, the year Indiana became the 19th state.

Michael also is the co-author of a new book, Wake Up, Woods (Cardinal Publishing) that introduces children to the biodiversity of Indiana's parks and forests.

In addition to discussing orange-fringed orchids and mosquito ferns during our show, Michael also talks about a rare tree, the Eastern hemlock, which has a potentially ominous aspect associated with is presence. In Indiana, the Eastern hemlock can be seen in Turkey Run State Park and Shades State Park, often in deep ravines along creeks.

The potentially ominous aspect: In Eastern states, where the type of hemlock trees are more common, they have been invaded by an aphid-like insect. According to Michael, "It's an introduced insect pest by the name of hemlock woolly adelgid.

It's prevalent over much of the hemlock's range in the East and has caused great mortality (in the trees). We need to prevent the pest from getting here."

(November 9, 2019) As the nation readies itself for the 2020 U.S. Census, Hoosier History Live takes a close look at how records of the previous national headcounts - there have been 23 of them in all, beginning with the first in 1790 - can be used to unearth factual information and illuminate social history, as well as inform us about other aspects of our heritage.

Our exploration highlights various challenges faced by the once-a-decade tallying of the population - most of the 1890 Census records were destroyed in a massive fire, for example - as well as the widely disparate questions that have been asked by census takers.

"The first five enumerations listed the number of slaves in each household, and the 1930 enumeration listed whether or not there was a radio in the household," says our guest, Indianapolis-based history researcher Sharon Butsch Freeland.

Sharon regularly uses census information to delve into the history of families and old houses, as well as to investigate historical figures such as the Indianapolis-born wife of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson. In 2018, Sharon was a guest on our show about the colorful life of Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson. (Sharon's other guest gigs have included our 2017 show about her alma mater, Shortridge High School).

Noting that the census was established by the U.S. Constitution with the purpose of calculating fair representation in the House of Representatives, Sharon adds:

"I doubt the founding fathers had any idea of the many ways the census information would eventually be used."

To protect the privacy of living people, census records can't be viewed by the public until 72 years after the census date. Currently, the most recent available for viewing is the 1940 U.S. Census. In 2022, the 1950 U.S. Census will become available.

Some U.S. Census insights, courtesy of Sharon:

• "Digitized census records from 1790 to 1940 can be viewed online at ancestry.com (by subscription) or at familysearch.org for free," she reports. "Ancestry.com is available free of charge at National Archives facilities nationwide and at many public libraries."
• In Indianapolis, the 1870 U.S. Census was collected a second time, during the subsequent year. That's because city leaders had estimated the population to be more than 50,000. When the 1870 Census reported fewer than 41,000, power-brokers in Indianapolis demanded a recount. The 1871 recount was about 19 percent higher.
• In the 1960 U.S. Census, women were asked how many babies they had ever had. Employed people were asked how they got to work: railroad, subway, bus, streetcar, taxi, private auto, car pool, walking, or whether they worked from home. (In 1980, bicycle was added to the list.)

A note about the fire that destroyed most of the 1890 U.S. Census records: The inferno occurred at the U.S. Commerce Building in Washington D.C. Although fragments of information from a few states survived, all of the 1890 records from Indiana were lost in the blaze.

The 2020 U.S. Census will be the first to offer the option of responding online. That's the method the Census Bureau expects most people to use to answer the questions, although respondents also can call a phone number to provide their answers. "Those who don't respond will receive paper questionnaires in the mail," according to an Associated Press report about next year's process. "If all those methods fail, the bureau will send out 'enumerators' to knock on doors."

Our guest Sharon Butsch Freeland has a family connection to census-taking: Her maternal grandmother, Catharine Tomlinson, was an enumerator for the 1930 U.S. Census, knocking on doors in the Indianapolis neighborhood where she lived with her family.

A decade earlier, the 1920 Census had determined that more Hoosiers were living in urban areas than rural ones. The percentage of rural residents in Indiana has declined noticeably in every census since then.

(November 2, 2019) Indiana judicial history is not generally known for legal precedents that promote the cause of racial justice.

But we're drawing upon our rich archive of previously aired episodes to bring you a special encore show focusing on two landmark legal cases of racial justice in early 19th century Indiana.

The two historical incidents in our focus: a trial in which an enslaved Indiana woman successfully sued for her freedom and a milestone legal case in which a gang of white men was found guilty and executed for slaughtering nine Native Americans, an infamous incident that history has dubbed the Fall Creek Massacre.

In 1821, Mary Bateman Clark, a young African-American woman living in Vincennes, made history when her lawyer filed a lawsuit seeking her release from an "indentured servitude" contract with one of the most prominent men in the new state of Indiana. The contract required Clark to cook, clean and sew for Gen. Washington Johnston and his family for 20 years. Her only pay was housing, food and clothing.

The case, which made its way to the Indiana Supreme Court, involved determining whether such "indentured servitude" contracts violated the state's Constitution as a form of slavery. Nearly 200 years ago this month - on Nov. 16, 1821 - the state Supreme Court ruled in Clark's favor and ordered her employer to release her.

Sharing insights about the social history of the era and the landmark case, Nelson is joined in studio by one of Clark's descendants, Indianapolis resident Eunice Trotter. Eunice, a veteran journalist, and her sister Ethel McCane have used their research about their ancestor to do "living history performances" for schools and civic groups across the state.

Eunice and Ethel also crusaded for a historic marker in honor of Mary Bateman Clark, which was dedicated at the Knox County Courthouse in 2009. The sisters are Mary Bateman Clark's great-great-great granddaughters.

Nelson and his guest also discuss a similar case involving another young woman, Polly Strong, who also lived in Vincennes in the 1820s and sued to obtain her freedom. She had been enslaved by Col. Hyacinth LaSalle, a prominent Vincennes resident, before Indiana became a state in 1816. LaSalle challenged the new state Constitution, unsuccessfully arguing that it could not be applied retroactively.

Re-enactments of the Polly Strong case have been performed across Indiana under the direction of Corydon historic preservationist Maxine Brown, who has been a guest on Hoosier History Live for a show about her historic restoration of a segregated school in Corydon, as well as a show discussing DNA testing and family ancestry. The restored school, now known as the Leora Brown School, has been the setting for re-enactments of the court cases of Mary Bateman Clark and Polly Strong.

Just three years after the Mary Bateman Clark trial, another milestone Indiana legal case set a precedent for racial justice in the United States.

When a group of white men were found guilty by a jury and executed for the slaughter of nine Native Americans in March 1824, it was the first time that the murders of Indians by whites had been subject to capital punishment under American law.

To explore all aspects of the brutal crimes in the swampy woods of Madison County - where the Native Americans (including three women and four children) were gruesomely murdered - Nelson is joined in studio by David Thomas Murphy, author of the book, Murder in Their Hearts: The Fall Creek Massacre (Indiana Historical Society Press).

A professor of history at Anderson University, David spent four years researching the massacre, trial and subsequent developments, including the social history of pioneer Hoosiers (Indiana only had been a state for about seven years at the time of the massacre) and of the Native Americans in the region.

"The slaughter in the soggy Indiana creek bottoms created a short-lived but serious national security crisis," David has written, referring to concerns across the country that warfare would erupt across newly developing states.

In researching the tragedy, David explored why the federal government devoted great efforts and resources to prosecuting the perpetrators. David's research required that he reconcile conflicting accounts of the events (the tribal origins of some of the victims remain unclear) as well as the motivations involved in the cold-blooded crimes, which involved shooting some of the Native Americans in their backs and mutilating several of the corpses.

(October 19, 2019 ) In many ways, our White River history show in July offered depth and context about the heritage of the waterway. In other ways, though, we barely skimmed the surface, particularly because the White River has been in the news so much during the last three months.

The attention has included a periodic series on the front pages of The Indianapolis Star that emphasized ongoing concerns. As The Star reported, "Even after the improvements to the sanitary sewer system are finished in 2025, Indianapolis will still dump huge amounts of pollution into the White River."

So Hoosier History Live once again plunges into all aspects of the river, from its use by flatboat crews who moved trade goods on the waterway during the early 1800s to the return of significantly larger numbers of some fish species, including bass, and other wildlife, thanks to progress achieved since the early 1980s in cleaning up the river.

Not only does Kevin Hardie, executive director of the Friends of the White River, return as a studio guest, we keep the phone lines open throughout the entire show for listeners who want to comment or ask questions about any aspect of the river's heritage. The phone number for the WICR-FM (88.7) studio is (317) 788-3314.

The Star series describes a 1982 survey that found only 35 species of fish in the West Fork of the White River; in contrast, 57 species were documented in 2011.

Referring to fish life during the mid-19th century, Kevin Hardie says:

"'Trout' were supposedly speared from what were then crystal clear waters that did not carry the amounts of today's agricultural and developmental run-off that hold so much sediment. Actually, these fish probably were sauger, which are similar in shape to trout and related to walleye. I'm pleased to report that improving water quality over the years has allowed for them to reappear."

Earlier this year, civic leaders in Marion and Hamilton counties unveiled the White River Vision Plan, a guide to decision-making for the next 30 years. The plan calls for increased recreational opportunities on 58 miles of the river in the two counties.

In Marion County, the massive Dig Indy project is expected to be completed in 2025. Dig Indy is an underground tunnel system designed to stop the sanitary sewer system from overflowing into the river, as it has done during rainfalls for more than 100 years.

Our guest Kevin Hardie, who has been involved with Friends of the White River since its inception in 1985, frequently conducts on-water tours of the river.

Kevin is joined on the show by Mark Kesling, one of the original founders of Reconnecting to Our Waterways (ROW); he is involved with Partners for the White River.

Mark also is the founder and CEO of The daVinci Pursuit, a non-profit that uses art to engage the community in science education. In addition, he is the co-host, with Jill Ditmire, of She Says Art, He Says Science, the program that follows Hoosier History Live on WICR-FM at 1 pm on Saturdays.

(October 12, 2019 ) The first African-American police officer to be named a detective in Indianapolis was born into slavery in Virginia. After Benjamin Thornton became a detective in 1886 in what today is called the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD), he earned acclaim across the country for his skills in tracking criminals.

In 1918, fourteen policewomen were appointed for the first time to work outside headquarters, on the streets of the Hoosier capital. (In the 1890s, the department had established a position of "police matron" whose duties focused on counseling teenage girls.) The policewomen in 1918 were needed because of a scarcity of male officers during World War I.

The trail-blazing women included Clara Burnside, the first captain in what was then the Indianapolis Police Department, and Emma Christy Baker, an African-American who confronted various challenges in her new position. For example, Baker was surrounded and taunted by a group of downtown pedestrians when she attempted to interrogate a suspect. Initially, none of the policewomen were allowed to carry weapons or billy clubs.

To explore these and other aspects of the history of the police department, Nelson is joined by:

• Deputy Chief Mike Spears, a veteran of more than 36 years on IMPD. He served as the city's police chief for five years beginning in 2005.
• Patrick Pearsey, the archivist for IMPD. A civilian member of the department since 1980, Patrick is the author of several books about various aspects of police history, including a biography of Benjamin Thornton.
• And Jo Ann Moore, a retired IMPD office and archivist. For most of her 32 years on the police force, she was a street supervisor. Her husband also is a retired police officer; their son, IMPD officer David Moore, was killed in the line of duty in 2011.

Our guests have been working with the Indianapolis Public Library to put together a digital collection about the police department's history. The collection, which recently launched on the library's Digital Indy website, includes more than 1,500 mugshots, historic personnel records and crime scene information, but it is not all-inclusive.

The beginnings of IMPD can be traced to 1821 when civic leader Hervey Bates became the first Marion County sheriff. (In 2005, the Indianapolis Police Department merged with the Marion County Sheriff's Department, becoming IMPD.) Bates eventually became the owner of the Bates House Hotel, the most prestigious guest lodgings in Indianapolis during the 19th century.

In 1876, ten years before Benjamin Thornton was promoted and served as the first African-American detective on the police force, he was among a group of six men who became the first black police officers in the city.

Thornton, who was born in 1849, had fled a plantation in Virginia where he had been enslaved. After the Civil War, Thornton taught himself to read and write. He lived in several cities before settling in Indianapolis, where his early jobs included carpentry, according to research by our guest Patrick Pearsey.

During our show, Patrick also shares insights about another aspect of law enforcement history that he has researched: The response by the police to the Flood of 1913, the worst in state history. The Flood of 1913 was the focus of a Hoosier History Live show in 2013.

Other significant episodes that we explore include two strikes: a streetcar strike in 1892 in which several police officers were assaulted, and a massive protest by officers in 1977 when the city administration proposed ending the practice of allowing squad cars to be taken home. Hundreds of off-duty officers parked their cars - with their sirens blaring and red lights on - in front of police headquarters, making national news.

Because we have devoted previous Hoosier History Live shows to many of the most notorious crimes investigated by the Indianapolis police, we take a different approach during this program and focus on some of the most unusual cases.

They include a sensational episode in 1954 that has become known as the Battle of Elder Avenue. A man with a history of mental illness barricaded himself into a near-Westside house and shot his wife and nine police officers. More than 200 other police officers arrived on the scene and were held at bay for nearly three hours while thousands of spectators watched. All of the shooting victims survived, including our guest Patrick Pearsey's grandfather, who was the first police officer to be shot.

On a much lighter note - and with a nod to the Halloween season – we also explore a 1962 case in which the police were summoned several times to investigate reports of a poltergeist.

(September 28, 2019 ) As is clear from the popularity of the PBS show Finding Your Roots, and from the high volume of visitors to the website ancestry.com, many Americans are interested in learning about their family history. And with the advent of personal DNA analysis from services such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA, more and more individuals are learning about the admixture of ethnicities in their genetic heritage, as well as discovering possible matches for unknown blood relatives who have undergone DNA testing themselves.

But these tests have raised thorny questions. What does our genetic information tell us about ourselves? If we use online sleuthing to contact relatives revealed by the DNA tests, should we consider them family? What if they would rather not have heard from us? And what if we learn that the race or ethnicity revealed by our DNA is different than the one we had always identified with? Does the newly available genetic information outweigh culture, tradition and family lore in our sense of who we are?

In this Hoosier History Live show originally broadcast in 2017, we examine what personal DNA testing reveals about ourselves and our shared history. Guest host and associate producer Mick Armbruster interviews three Hoosier women who have recently conducted a personal DNA analysis that yielded surprising results. Mick's guests in studio are:

• Joan Hostetler, a photo historian and founding director of The Indiana Album. She had her DNA analyzed in 2015 and learned some surprising things about the ancestry of her mother, who had been adopted as an infant in 1927. Joan's mother knew only that she had been born in Fort Wayne, Ind., and that her birth mother, Joan's biological grandmother, had identified herself as a musician and requested that the baby she was giving up eventually be given piano lessons.

  Despite years of searching, Joan and her mother were unable to learn the names of Joan's maternal biological grandparents before Joan's mother passed away in 2005.

• Becky Hostetter, a vegetarian chef and co-owner of Duos Indy. Her genetic testing connected her to a long-lost half sibling; as Becky had known for years, her mother had gotten pregnant while serving in the Women's Army Corps during WWII at Camp Ritchie, Md., and had given the baby up for adoption.

In the 1970s Becky and her mother attempted to find the adopted sibling, but to no avail. What little information they had about the person could be summed up on a 3x5 index card: Female, weighed less than 6 lbs. at birth, reddish hair and born May 30, 1946, in a military hospital in New Hempstead, N.Y.

Becky's 2015 DNA test eventually led to locating this long-lost sister and a joyful reunion (including Becky's three other sisters) in 2017. But that wasn't the only surprise: Becky's DNA testing exposed other family secrets about her biological parentage and ethnic heritage.

(September 21, 2019) Here's another "Ask Nelson..." show, which we've featured regularly over the eleven years Hoosier History Live has been on the air. As usual, our host, author and historian Nelson Price, is joined by a co-host, this time one who is familiar to long-time TV viewers across Central Indiana. Reid Duffy, a popular personality for nearly 30 years on WRTV-Channel 6 in Indianapolis, joins Nelson; the two interview each other in between phone calls from listeners.

Reid is undoubtedly best known for his Duffy's Diner feature about Indiana restaurants, which appeared on WRTV from 1978 to 1995, as well as his humorous and human-interest pieces on a range of topics. Now retired, Reid has been inducted into the Indiana Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame.

Although the topics covered in the show depend on listeners' call-in questions, Nelson does have an agenda. For starters, he provides historical context about a controversial public figure who is back in the news more than 85 years after he was killed.

Bank robber John Dillinger (1903-1934) - known as "Public Enemy No. 1" during the Great Depression - has been the focus of national media attention in response to requests by some of his surviving family members to have his body exhumed. They were encouraged by The History Channel, which originally hoped to put together a documentary on the exhumation but then pulled out of the project. Some family members objected to tampering with Dillinger's burial site, located in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.

Ever since Dillinger was shot and killed by federal agents and Chicago-area police officers, rumors have circulated that the corpse was not that of the outlaw. In Nelson's book Indiana Legends: Famous Hoosiers from Johnny Appleseed to David Letterman (Hawthorne Publishing), he describes how Dillinger took steps to alter his appearance while in hiding.

In addition to darkening his hair with black dye, Dillinger had his facial features altered at the East Chicago, Ind., home of a plastic surgeon. He also asked the surgeon to scar his fingerprints with acid in an attempt to prevent identification.

Born in the Brightwood neighborhood of Indianapolis, Dillinger lived as a teenager and young adult on his family's farm in Mooresville.

During our show, Nelson also shares insights about the 50th anniversary of one of the most tragic episodes in Indiana history. In September 1969, two aircraft collided near Shelbyville, resulting in the state's worst aviation disaster.

All of the 78 passengers and four crew members aboard an Allegheny Airlines flight traveling from Cincinnati to Indianapolis were killed when the DC-9 jet crashed into a soybean field. It plummeted to the ground after colliding with a much smaller plane, a single-engine Piper Cherokee; the pilot of that plane was also killed.

A memorial was dedicated on the site of the tragedy, which also is the focus of a commemorative website.

Lighter aspects of the state's heritage also are explored during our show. Reid Duffy, an avid baseball fan, discusses minor league baseball teams and their ballparks in Indiana.

They include the popular Fort Wayne TinCaps, a Class A minor league team that's affiliated with the San Diego Padres. Reid has attended games of the TinCaps in their home stadium, Parkview Field, which opened in downtown Fort Wayne in 2009. The TinCaps name is a salute to folk hero Johnny Appleseed (real name: John Chapman), whose fictionalized depiction in a Disney cartoon featured the character wearing a cooking pot on his head. Most historians emphasize that Chapman, who died in the Fort Wayne area in 1845, did not wear a cooking pot as a hat.

Reid also describes the Gary SouthShore RailCats, a minor league team in northwest Indiana. Its name is an homage to the area's history of freight lines and the South Shore commuter train. The train is visible from the RailCats' ballpark, which is named the U.S. Steel Yard in another tip of the hat to the area's industrial heritage.

Listener calls during our show are not restricted to these topics or to history topics that have been in the news recently. Nelson and Reid welcome questions, comments and insights about any slice of our state's heritage.

(September 14, 2019) "Sometimes an old lady deserves a few wrinkles," Billy VantWoud says, referring to historic houses.

Billy is an Indianapolis-based general contractor who has restored older homes in Woodruff Place, Cottage Home, Fountain Square, St Clair Place and other Indy neighborhoods dating back to the late nineteenth century. "If you can't tolerate a few imperfections, maybe a historic home is not for you."

Billy joins Tim Harmon, co-owner of Tim and Julie's Another Fine Mess architectural salvage and vintage wares shop, as Nelson's studio guests to share advice for potential buyers of historic homes as well as tips for maintaining and restoring them.

Beginning in the early 1970s, when many historic neighborhoods in Indy were in decline, Tim Harmon began working as a contractor, specializing in restoring houses that he calls "ultimate survivors."

During the 1990s, Billy and Tim were partners in a restoration services business. Both of them have done restoration or renovation work on houses built before the Civil War.

The craftsmanship and character of such houses entices potential buyers. "But most people, even with a historic house, want a modern kitchen and modern bathroom," Tim notes.

Our guests urge potential buyers to research how much of a historic home is the original structure as well as the type of renovations and the extent of repair work that have been undertaken in subsequent decades.

Some tidbits about our topic and guests:

• Billy, who grew up in the town of Culver in northern Indiana, lives in a Woodruff Place house built in 1901. He restored the historic house, which had been carved up to create 10 rental units.
• Tim was the Roadtripper correspondent on our Aug. 31 show, reporting on an offbeat storefront museum he operates next to his architectural salvage shop. Indy's Teeny Statue of Liberty Museum has more than 500 pieces of memorabilia depicting Lady Liberty.
• Tim offers this tip for potential home buyers who want to assess the extent that a floor has settled in a historic home: "Take a marble or ball bearing with you when you visit. Don't roll it. Just set it down on the floor, and see where it goes."