Elma and Al

If you’re following along you’ll notice that Elma and Al have been apart for a month now. Elma mentions a lot of people–remember she was crammed into that 80 yr old farmhouse with her parents, Nick and Sophie, Nick’s sister’s–Kate and Phine (Josephine)(Cecelia did not live with them), brothers Ray and Harold, and sister, Marie. That’s eight people in a house that only had two proper bedrooms and no AC. It was crowded.

Grandma mentioned going to Meser’s and they came over to the Bassemier’s house. Remember that Christina Meser just died about a month ago. I am certain the family and the neighbors mourned her for a long time. Grandma also mentioned Oscar and Marie, who would be married a year after Elma and Al. At this time Marie was only 20. Harold and Ray were 19 and 16, respectively.

Well, it’s a cold day in northern Indiana. It looks like that rain in southern Indiana was snow in northern Indiana. Even today that is the case. It’s a Sunday so grandpa went to mass. I wonder if he misses Saint Boniface and going to church with his family in Evansville. Very likely.

Elma responds to Al’s previous letter, not the one from March 6, but the previous letter. Elma talks about a couple of things worth noting – the weather, the fact that she had a cold, remembering that Al had a cold, reflecting on Al’s installation of phones at KKK headquarters in Kokomo, and recommending that Al sees someone–maybe a chiropractor–for his cold. Well, it was March in Indiana so of course, it was rainy. The other thing to note was that it was a Friday, and Elma went to church. They were members of Saint Boniface, and I can imagine that going to church during the week was the way of connecting with other members of the community. As always, their love is palpable.

Well, this letter is a doozy! I will let you read then I will comment.

Well, here we are again, Al missing Elma. It is March in northern Indiana so the weather is a bit unpredictable. I think that the real news here is that grandpa installed phones at the KKK headquarters in Kokomo Indiana. So of course I did some research. Grandpa had the name a little bit wrong. The name is Mafalfa Park. I found more information at the digital civil rights museum at Ball State University. Here is what they had to say: “On July 4, 1923, approximately 200,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) met at Malfalfa Park in rural Kokomo, Indiana [1]. The crowd gathered to celebrate the state’s transition from a KKK Province to a Realm and to inaugurate a new Indiana Grand Dragon [2]. As the great number of attendees suggests, the Klan was well established in Indiana by the 1920s. The KKK originated in the South after the Civil War, but quickly spread to other states, where members pursued their mission to intimidate people that diverged from their profile of an ideal American. Their targets included African Americans, Jews, immigrants, and Catholics.”

There is a lot more at the digital civil rights museum page above, but suffice to say that Indiana had one of the largest Klan memberships with Klaverns as they were called in every county and the governor and US senators were controlled by the KKK. Embarrassing and disgusting. And there was grandpa in the middle of all of it. Above I cited that the KKK was against Catholics. In my ignorance I did not realize this but grandpa probably knew and that’s why he expressed such trepidation at entering the building.

I am so glad that times are at least a little bit different now, but it is a good reminder that we’re not that far off from that time.

Mafalfa Park is now Camp Tycony, a YMCA camp just west of Kokomo on 52 acres.

I know it’s been a while and finally I am making the time to get back to the blog. I got some help scanning in the letters and doing transcriptions so hopefully I’ll be able to load at least once a week if not twice. I’m starting back where I left off so with the letter from Elma on March 4.

Well, this letter is not too interesting, but we are once again reminded of how much Elma loved Al. My grandparents were married for 60 years and they lived apart a variety of times. But the one thing I remember is their constant, loving presence. Their lives were hard, but they always had each other.