All Hallows Eve 2023

 Ceremonial groundbreaking

On the afternoon of Thursday, October 26, the Fire Department had a ceremonial groundbreaking for a new building that will be built on its training site. The building is funded by the State of Indiana.

The day was dark and rainy, making it difficult to take good pictures. I saw some on Facebook that turned out much better than mine.

Before the groundbreaking there were several speeches that thanked numerous people involved and recounted the development of fireman training, beginning with almost none forty years ago and gradually increasing until now training is being done in Rensselaer.

Before the event concluded, the Rensselaer firefighters posed for a picture.

The last farmers market of 2023

Rensselaer had its last farmers market of 2023 on Saturday morning. There were fewer vendors than a few weeks earlier. Kids coming in costume were able to get candy from the vendors.

There was a limited amount of food for sale. These butternut squash were bigger than most of the squash I was able to grow.

I had not seen Indian corn at earlier markets.

I think the parking-lot site used this year worked very well and I hope that the market continues there after the brick streets are redone.

Halloween

Kids had plenty of opportunities to collect candy this year. In addition to the City approved trick-and-treat hours on October 28, various organizations and churches had other days and hours for distributing candy. On the 29th St. Augustine had its trunk-or-treat event. It did not have as many trunks as their event last year had.

Some of the trunkers had interesting costumes. 

This t-rex costume needed a battery to keep it inflated.

I did not stay to see who won a costume contest, but this was the cutest costume that I saw. I am not sure what it was supposed to be.

There were some games inside, a way to get even more candy.

I noticed that one of the trucks offered potatoes. I do not think any of the kids were interested.

An alternative cemetery walk

In September the Jasper County Historical Society sponsored its sixth annual Weston Cemetery walk. It featured presentations about eight people with interesting stories who are buried in Weston Cemetery. There are enough interesting stories in Weston Cemetery to keep the event going for many more years. Perhaps the time will come when the event might move to other local cemeteries, such as Mount Calvary or Memory Gardens. What might such an event look like?

According to Findagrave.com there are almost 8000 graves in Weston Cemetery and about 1600 in Mount Calvary. The oldest burial in Weston is 1841 and in Mount Calvary 1867, so Mount Calvary does not offer much insight into the earliest days of Rensselaer. Most of the early Catholic settlers seem to have been farmers, with few in government or early businesses.

Here is a selection of eight candidates for a Mount Calvary Cemetery Walk, with some comments on each. I have tried to get people with a wide range of stories, few of which overlap. (If you click on the names, you should be taken to their findagrave memorial where there is more inforation.)

Frank Hendricks (1875-1892) was a Chippewa Indian boy who died at the Indian School. We know almost nothing about him but he could tell the story of the Indian School.

James Maloy (1841-1908) fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy, something that I did not expect to find in this cemetery. (Weston Cemetery has two Civil War veterans who fought for the South.)

Alfred Donnelly (1857-1928) was a pioneer in the onion business in Jasper County and who was known during his lifetime as the Onion King. Onions were once an important crop in Jasper County, growing on the muck soils.

2nd Lt Edward Schmidt (1917-1943) was killed in WWII and his body was never recovered. A cenotaph for him is in Mount Calvary. (The Weston Cemetery walk honored a person with a cenotaph several years ago, Thomas Parkison.)

Rev William Bernard Hordeman (1877-1948) There are no C.PP.S. priests buried in Mount Calvary; the many priests who served at Saint Joseph's College are buried in Ohio. However, there is a priest in the cemetery, Fr. William Hordeman, who was part of a family that was once important in the Saint Augustine parish. He served for 40 years as the pastor at Frankfort.

Conrad Kellner (1871-1959) was mayor of Rensselaer from 1938 to 1946. He worked at and owned a variety of businesses.

John Earl Worland (1893-1974) ran the Worland Funeral Home 1921-1938. Catholics buried in Mount Calvary did not play a large role in Rensselaer businesses, and he is one of the few who did.

Alfred Richard Hentschel (1916-1988) There are many people who worked at Saint Joseph's College buried at Mount Calvary who have interesting stories, but I do not think any have a life more interesting than Alfred Hentschel who served in the German army in WWII and was a prisoner of war in Russia. After the war he was a carpenter and head of grounds at SJC.

It would be easy to put together other lists of people with interesting stories. If you want to suggest a candidate with an interesting story, use the comments on the blog to suggest him or her.

(There are logistical problems for a walk at a cemetery other than Weston. Brookside Park provides parking and how parking would be handled in another location would have to be decided by whoever put on the event. Brookside Park also provides a shelter house that is used for a non-walking performance. That non-walking performance might have to be abandoned or conducted far away from the cemetery.)

Notes  

Daylight savings time ends Sunday. The sun will rise and set earlier. 

On November 1 the day lasts 10 hours 28 minutes and 33 seconds. We will lose a bit more than an hour more before the winter solstice.

Remarkably our first widespread frost did not occur until the night of October 30. The temperature dipped into the low 20s. My trees were raining leaves on the morning of October 31.