"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.

With the Indiana Legislature in full swing, it's ideal timing to spotlight the Indiana State Capitol, including history stories from its top (the dome) to its bottom (the cavernous basement, which once held everything from cannon balls to bathtubs for legislators and secret staircases). We also will time travel to an era before the current Statehouse, built of limestone, opened in 1888.

Before that, state lawmakers met in an earlier Statehouse built in 1835 that unwisely involved the extensive use of stucco on the exterior. Suffice it to say that the "stucco Statehouse" did not hold up well during Indiana winters. After the ceiling came crashing down in 1867 in the room where the House of Representatives met (fortunately, the legislature was not in session during the collapse), state leaders realized the stucco structure desperately needed to be demolished and initiated plans to construct the current State Capitol building. But there were controversies from the start with the so-called "People's House", including squabbles among prospective architects and cost-cutting moves that impacted the design of the dome, as our guest has written about.

Our guide for Statehouse stories will be a retired lawyer and lobbyist, Libby Cierzniak, who now writes a blog about Indianapolis city history, indypolitan.com. Her most recent blog post, titled "What lies beneath: Secrets of the Statehouse basement", describes an astounding range of creepy, colorful or just plain unexpected items and uses for the subterranean level.

Getting a jump on Women's History Month, Hoosier History Live will spotlight the trail-blazing woman who wrote the first cookbook published in Indiana. Also on the menu: We will explore food fashions of the mid-18th century era when the cookbook came out.

The author was Angelina Collins (1805-1885), who was living in New Albany, Ind., when her popular cookbook was published in 1851. Titled "Mrs. Collins' Table Receipts" (and retitled "The Great Western Cookbook" when it was reprinted in New York later during the 1850s), the cookbook "is an excellent reflection of the dishes served in middle class homes in mid-century Indiana", our guest says. (The word "receipts", as in the title of the book, was often used during the era to refer to recipes.)

Our guest will be Indianapolis-based food historian Sheryl Vanderstel, an expert on foodways of late 18th century America through the pre-Civil War era. With more than 20 years of experience as a historic consultant to museums and historical societies in researching and developing programs, Sheryl helped launch the hearthside dinners at Conner Prairie Interactive History Park. 

Buckle up to time travel to World War II and the post-war era as Hoosier History Live explores Indiana connections to the acclaimed Tuskegee Airmen. There even are Indiana/Tuskegee links; such as MOAA, to the aerial competition that eventually became known as "Top Gun", the inspiration for blockbuster movies.

This show follows up a program in 2017 that delved into the lives of several Hoosiers who were fighter pilots in the trailblazing squadron, which drew its name from the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. This time, as Hoosier History Live salutes Black History Month, we will spotlight an aviator and educator from Angola, Ind., who became the director for the first two phases of flight training for the Tuskegee Airmen. Not only that, four of the Tuskegee pilots trained by Dr. Lewis Jackson (1912-1994) went to win the championship trophy in the first U.S. Air Force competition that came to be called "Top Gun". Those pilots in that initial competition (officially called the Air Force Fighter Gunnery Meet) were flying an aircraft made in Evansville, a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.

Our guide for all of this and other Tuskegee/Indiana connections will be Reginald DuValle, an Indianapolis native who graduated in 1979 from the U.S. Air Force Academy. Known as "Reg", he is the past president of the Indianapolis chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Inc, a nonprofit that honors members of the all-black Army air squadron who served during an era when the military was segregated.

One persistent myth about Strawtown is that the village in Hamilton County near the White River came close to being designated the new state capital of Indiana more than 200 years ago.

Other myths involve Chief Straw, the supposed namesake of the village who has been described as an early Native American leader in central Indiana. Even though a 10-foot monument to Chief Straw was built in the 1920s in his honor, historians now doubt that he ever existed. The monument to Chief Straw, who was said to be a leader of the Lenape (or Delaware) tribe during the 1780s, is now on private property.

To sift myths from facts about Strawtown, Hamilton County historian David Heighway will be Nelson's guest on this encore broadcast of a show originally broadcast on July 17, 2021.

David has been a guest on several other Hoosier History Live shows, including a program in 2017 about the violent early era of Fishers. David's popular presentations about the rough-and-tumble chapter in Fishers history of the 1870s continually surprise those who regard the suburban city as a sleepy farm town before its explosive growth in recent decades.

Excuse the creepy topics, but isn't it Halloween season? Appropriate, then, to time-travel to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when, as our guest puts it, "the city of Indianapolis had all the makings of a perfect horror movie set, the largest saw factory in the world, acres of stockyards and slaughterhouses, and the specter of ceilings dripping with something that appeared to be blood but on closer inspection would turn out to be catsup."

With the multiple slaughterhouses and pork-packing businesses, the king of the heap for about 100 years was unquestionably Kingan & Co., which had a five-story plant as part of a massive operation that encompassed 27 acres spanning both sides of the White River west of downtown Indy. Ironically, thousands of hogs once were slaughtered daily at the enterprise not far from the site today of the Indianapolis Zoo.