Weekly View » Al Hunter

From Hell Gate to the Golden Gate in a Maxwell 30

Al Hunter — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 05:08:21 +0000

It’s summertime in Indiana; the kids are out of school, the days are getting longer, the weather is heating up and Hoosier thoughts turn to . . . ROAD TRIP! Let me introduce you to the woman for whom the term road trip just may have been invented for. Alice Huyler Ramsey (November 11, 1886 – September 10, 1983) was the first woman to drive across the United States from coast-to-coast. On June 9, 1909, the 22-year-old housewife and mother from New Jersey began a 3,800-mile journey from Hell’s Gate in Manhattan to San Francisco in a green Maxwell 30 automobile. On her 59-day trek she was accompanied by her two older sisters-in-law and another female friend, none of whom could drive a car, meaning that Alice was the sole driver for the entire journey. Ramsey’s route roughly paralleled the route that, four years later, Indy 500 co-founder Carl Fisher would turn into the Lincoln Highway or modern day Route 30.
A century ago, it was thought that driving a car, like voting, required manly virtues, including “sound judgment” and “thoughtful decision-making.” More than a decade before women got the right to vote, Alice Ramsey proved to the world that a woman possessed the necessary virtues.
Alice Ramsey’s first love was horseback riding, and after showing a keen interest in the “new” automobiles she witnessed traversing the streets of Hackensack, her husband presented her with a shiny new 1908 Maxwell. After taking driving lessons at the local Maxwell dealership, Alice hit the roads of New Jersey, driving thousands of miles within the Garden State that summer. When the dealership heard about Ramsey’s driving, she was asked to enter an automotive endurance test in September 1908, a grueling 200-mile drive on unpaved roads. She handled the vehicle masterfully, received a perfect score, and drew great media attention as one of only two women drivers in the event.
After this, Maxwell sales manager Cadwallader Washburn Kelsey asked Mrs. Ramsey to undertake what became the biggest publicity stunt of the year, a cross-country drive from New York City to San Francisco, in a new Maxwell. Kelsey called the 21-year-old Vassar graduate (class of 1907) “the greatest natural woman driver I’ve ever seen.” He asked Ramsey if she would like to drive the company’s new 30-horsepower, four-cylinder Maxwell cross-country to prove that the car could make it and that a female motorist could do it. This open-air touring car seated four with a top speed of 40 mph.
In a time before interstate freeways, when many of the busiest back-country roads were not yet paved or even graveled, transcontinental drives were rare and respected accomplishments. The transcontinental speed record had recently been reduced from 63 days to a mere 15 days, but no female driver had yet accomplished the feat. The Maxwell company paid all expenses, and informed its dealerships of her itinerary, instructing them to have parts and mechanics on call in case of mechanical breakdowns. She was accompanied by a Maxwell press team in a separate car trailing behind.
In the late spring of 1909, Alice left her new baby with a nursemaid and set out on a rainy day in June from New York City, north to Poughkeepsie, and then made her way west through Buffalo, Cleveland, Gary and Chicago. Alice and her passengers/navigators used maps from AAA to chart their journey — no small feat considering that only 152 of the 3,600 miles the group traveled were paved. Over the course of the drive, Ramsey changed 11 tires, routinely cleaned the spark plugs, repaired a broken brake pedal and once had to sleep in the car after it got stuck in mud.
In 1909, only 155,000 of 80 million Americans owned cars. Most of the vehicles were in the East and Midwest; the land of good roads, comfortable lodgings, conveniently located service stations and plentiful eating places. Consequently, the expedition’s first half was relatively easy, with the only impediments to the journey’s progress being the incessant promotional meet-and-greets staged by Maxwell that seemingly stopped in every little town and burg to give locals the chance to gawk at and talk to the pioneering women. Her drive was more of a spectacle than a speed competition. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Alice was easy on the eyes.
The adventurous Ramsey seemed disinterested in this part of the excursion and mostly fidgeted her way through the circus-like stopovers and interviews as she itched to get back out on the open road. On Day 2, for instance, she noted, “We drove north past the handsome estates at Hyde Park and of John Jacob Astor near Rhinebeck, N.Y. . . . and continued with little in the way of diversion.” In fact, she bypassed the press corps waiting for her at the historic 1766 Rhinebeck Hotel, a place where George Washington actually did sleep.
All was peaches and cream over the flat lands and reasonably passable roads of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois until the group crossed over the Mighty Mississippi.
Things changed dramatically once the group arrived in Iowa. Heavy rains and floods washed out roads and bridges in Iowa as Ramsey resisted suggestions to ship her Maxwell to Omaha by train. Alice recalled, “We were doing quite well until we entered Mechanicsville. . . . A sudden torrent descended upon us. We made quickly for the first shelter we could find . . . a livery stable. There were several buggies standing around, horses still hitched to them. To say the animals were astonished to be joined by a horseless carriage from which came the noise of a pulsating engine is putting it mildly!”
After two stagnant hours, the soggy party decided to brave the storm and ran to a nearby restaurant where Ramsey sat down at a vintage piano to entertain some “country lads” as she “tossed off a couple light numbers.” (This, by the way, in one of the few buildings Ramsey visited that is still standing: It’s now Bubba’s Sports Bar & Grill, 211 1st St. in Mechanicsville, in eastern Iowa.)
That wet spring of 1909 turned Iowa and Nebraska into a muddy morass, and the usually hard packed dirt cart paths turned to sticky, rutted muck. Tires went flat and the Maxwell became mired so often that the engine regularly overheated. It didn’t faze the indomitable Alice Ramsey though — she loved it. “This was the route which later became the Lincoln Highway — I almost feel as if I was the ‘Mother’ of it!” she wrote. “And believe me, the labor pangs prior to its birth were terrific!”
Wyoming, Utah and Nevada were more forgiving; the roads were rough to nonexistent, but the weather was better and the land was mostly flat. Fording rivers was an imposing challenge that led to broken axles in the 4-foot-deep gullies and creek beds. Calling upon her skills as a mechanic as well as a driver (she was founder and president of the Women’s Motoring Club of New Jersey at age 21), Ramsey coaxed her battered vehicle across desert and over mountains. Still, the crew had time to enjoy the scenery. Seeing the Devil’s Slide natural rock monument southeast of Ogden, Utah, Ramsey turned tourist: “Quite a sight! So all-by-itself, and so stupendous.”
On August 10, 1909 Alice and her weary group of intrepid travelers arrived in San Francisco, nearly two months after they started. The quartet arrived in the City by the Bay to much fanfare and hoopla, but most importantly, they were all safe and sound. Most notably for her sponsors, sales of Maxwell autos more than doubled overnight. In case you’re wondering, the Maxwell company let Ramsey keep the car.
Alice was named the “Woman Motorist of the Century” by AAA in 1960. In later years, she lived quietly in Covina, California, where in 1961 she wrote and published the story of her journey, Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron. (In 2005, the story was updated and retitled as Alice’s Drive, which can be ordered through Amazon.) Between 1909 and 1975, Ramsey drove across the country more than 30 times. She was married to New Jersey Congressman John Rathbone Ramsey, Sr. and the couple had two children. Her husband never shared his wife’s passion for automobiles. He never learned how to drive and was uncomfortable riding in cars throughout his lifetime. Alice Ramsey continued driving until a year before her death in 1983. On October 17, 2000, she became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan.
Alice’s closest moment to perfection came not in San Francisco where she was hailed as a hero and showered with roses, but as she entered California south of Lake Tahoe, heading down the Sierra slopes to Placerville. “Majestic sugar pines, Douglas firs and redwoods lined our road on both sides. What a land! What mountains! What blue skies and clear, sparkling water! Our hearts leapt within us. None of us had ever seen the like — and we loved it.” With that introduction to the state and her lifelong passion for the road, it feels appropriate that she settled in that region in the 1950s just as California was becoming the car culture capital of the world.
Perhaps Alice Huyler Ramsey voiced her own epitaph during an interview 17 years before her death when asked about her life: “I’m probably happiest,” she said, “when I’m holding a wheel.”

Al Hunter is the author of “Haunted Indianapolis” and “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide.” and the co-author of the “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Osborn H. Oldroyd: Keeper of the Lincoln Flame”, “Thursdays with Doc. Recollections on Springfield & Lincoln” and “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.

The Real Story of “The Natural”

Al Hunter — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 05:08:41 +0000

But did you ever stop to think, is Robert Redford’s character in The Natural based on a real life player? Well, the answer is yes — and no.
It would be more accurate to say that the film is based on an event, rather than an individual player. On June 14, 1949 Philadelphia Phillies “Whiz Kids” (and former Chicago Cub) first baseman Eddie Waitkus was shot by an obsessed fan named Ruth Ann Steinhagen in a Chicago hotel room. The comparison between Waitkus and the movie character pretty much ends there. But it is a helluva story.
Just a few years into the start of what seemed a very promising career, Waitkus was shot in the chest at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. A 19-year-old typist at the time of the incident, shooter Steinhagen became infatuated with Eddie when he was a Cub and seeing him play every day fed her obsession. However, once he was traded to the Phillies, Ruth Ann’s sanity snapped when she realized that her “crush” would only be in Chicago 11 games that season.
Born two days before Christmas in 1929, Ruth was the daughter of immigrant parents from Berlin, Germany. Born Ruth Catherine Steinhagen, she adopted the middle name Ann at some point in her youth. While she never actually met Waitkus before she shot him, she created a ‘shrine’ to him inside her bedroom with hundreds of photographs and newspaper clippings — sometimes spreading them out and looking at them for hours, according to her mother. She would often set an empty place across from her at the dinner table reserved for Waitkus.
In 1948, Steinhagen’s family sent her to a psychiatrist, but her obsession didn’t diminish, even after Waitkus was traded to Philadelphia. After the shooting, police found extensive clippings in her suitcase and even pictures papering the ceiling of her bedroom at home. On June 14, 1949, the Phillies came to Chicago for a game against the Cubs. After the game, which she attended, Steinhagen sent Waitkus a handwritten note through a bellboy, inviting him to visit her in her 12th floor room in the Edgewater Beach Hotel where they were both registered.
Claiming to be Ruth Anne Burns, the note began: “Mr. Waitkus–It’s extremely important that I see you as soon as possible. We’re not acquainted, but I have something of importance to speak to you about. I think it would be to your advantage to let me explain to you.” After insisting that she was leaving the hotel the next day and stressing the urgency of the request, she concluded: “I realize this is a little out of the ordinary, but as I said, it’s rather important. Please, come soon. I won’t take up much of your time, I promise.”
According to Waitkus’ friend and roommate, Russ Meyer, Waitkus received the note, which was attached to the door of their 9th floor room after returning from dinner with Meyer’s family and fiancé past 11 p.m. Waitkus called the room but the woman would not discuss the details over the phone. The Sunday Gazette Mail said Waitkus knew some people named Burns. Waitkus’s son later speculated that his father may have “thought he had a hot honey on the line.” For whatever reason, he went to meet her in the room.
The details of what happened in the room are a little sketchy. According to the Associated Press report the day after the shooting, Steinhagen told police that as Waitkus entered the room, she greeted him by saying, “I have a surprise for you,” after which she retrieved a .22 rifle from the closet and shot him in the chest. Meyer said that Waitkus told him that when he entered the room, the woman claimed to be “Mary Brown.” He said that Waitkus claimed Steinhagen’s words after retrieving the gun from the closet were “If I can’t have you, nobody else can.” Another account claimed that Steinhagen said, “You’re not going to bother me anymore.” Waitkus, who later said he believed the woman was joking, stood his ground and was shot. He said he asked her, as she knelt beside his prone body with her hand on his, “Oh baby, what did you do that for?”
Steinhagen later told police that she had originally planned to stab Eddie, and use the gun to shoot herself, but changed her plans when Waitkus walked into the room and sat down. Steinhagen still intended to shoot herself, but evidently could not find another bullet. While Waitkus was lying on the floor bleeding from the chest, Steinhagen called down to the front desk of the hotel and told them “I just shot a man….” After the shooting, she went to wait for the authorities on the benches near the elevator, although she later claimed that she stayed with the wounded man and held his head in her lap until help arrived. The phone call, which brought quick medical attention as well as police, saved Waitkus’ life.
Steinhagen was arrested and then arraigned on June 30, 1949. Questioned about the shooting, she told police she did not know why she had done it, explaining that she wanted “to do something exciting in my life.” Strangely, when taken to Waitkus’ hospital room the day after the shooting, she told Eddie that she didn’t know for sure why she had done it. She told a psychiatrist before she went to court that “I didn’t want to be nervous all my life,” and explained to reporters that “the tension had been building up within me, and I thought killing someone would relieve it.” She said she had first seen Waitkus three years before, and that he reminded her “of everybody, especially my father.”
Steinhagen’s counsel presented a petition to the court saying that their client was “unable to cooperate with counsel in the defense of her cause” and did not “understand the nature of the charge against her.” The petition requested a sanity hearing. At the ensuing sanity hearing (which also occurred on June 30, 1949), Dr. William Haines, a court-appointed psychiatrist, testified that Steinhagen was suffering from “schizophrenia in an immature individual” and was insane. Chief Judge James McDermott of the Criminal Court of Cook County then directed the jury to find her insane, and ordered her committed to Kankakee State Hospital. The judge also struck “with leave to reinstate” the grand jury’s indictment of Steinhagen on a charge of assault with intent to commit murder, meaning that prosecutors could refile the charge if Steinhagen recovered her sanity.
Steinhagen never stood trial, but instead was confined to a mental institution until 1952, when she was declared cured and released. Waitkus did not press charges against Steinhagen after she was released, telling an assistant state’s attorney that he wanted to forget the incident. After her release, Steinhagen moved back home to live with her parents and her younger sister in her parents’ small apartment on Chicago’s north side. She shunned publicity in the ensuing decades, and remained a recluse for the rest of her life. In 1970, she and her family purchased a home in a crowded, racially mixed neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side. She lived in the home with her parents and sister and, after their parents died in the early 1990s, continued to live there even after her sister died in 2007. She employed full-time caregivers in her final years.
She lived a quiet and secluded life, steadfastly maintaining her privacy, avoiding reporters, and refusing to comment publicly on her shooting of Waitkus. She never married and worked an office job for 35 years, and her neighbors and coworkers never knew of her place in infamy. Court records and routine background checks reveal no information about her career. On December 29, 2012, Steinhagen died in a Chicago hospital of a subdural hematoma that she suffered as a result of an accidental fall in her home. She was 83 years and six days old, and left no immediate survivors.
The bullet that struck Waitkus lodged in a lung, barely missed his heart, required four surgeries and prevented his return to baseball for the rest of that 1949 season. Eddie nearly died several times on the operating table before the bullet was successfully removed. The incident profoundly influenced Waitkus’ career and personal life as well; he was never the same player after the shooting. Eddie developed somewhat of a phobia worrying that others might not understand why he had visited Steinhagen’s room. He also, according to roommate Meyer, developed a drinking problem after the incident.
On August 19, 1949, the Phillies held “Eddie Waitkus Night” at Shibe Park and showered their wounded first baseman with gifts. Waitkus appeared at the stadium in uniform for the first time since he was shot in Chicago. Although the shooting left Waitkus knocking on death’s door, he was back in the Phillies’ Opening Day lineup the next year, going 3-for-5. After the 1950 season, Waitkus was named the Associated Press Comeback Player of the Year.
The Waitkus shooting is regarded as the inspiration for Bernard Malamud’s 1952 baseball book The Natural, which was made into a film by Barry Levinson in 1984. Other than the shooting, it’s hard to make a comparison between Eddie Waitkus and Roy Hobbs, the character played by Robert Redford in the film. In The Natural, Hobbs was shot as a teenage phenom before ever reaching the majors and the shooting kept him from reaching the big leagues until the age of 34, at which point he immediately started hitting like Babe Ruth with his miracle bat “Wonder Boy.” When shot, Waitkus was a 29-year-old veteran of both World War II and 448 major league games.
Miraculous comeback aside, Waitkus, who died in 1972, was no Hobbs at the bat. Though he was enjoying his finest season when he was shot, he had just one home run in 246 plate appearances, and when he retired in 1955 at age 35, he had just 24 home runs in 4,681 at bats. Waitkus hit for respectable averages (.304 in 1946, .306 in 1949 before the shooting, .285 for his career), but they were empty. He hit for little power and drew only an average number of walks. He did make a pair of All-Star teams and drew some low-ballot MVP votes in two seasons, but was by no means a Hall of Fame candidate.
Whether it was the seasons lost to World War II, his advancing age or the shooting, Eddie Waitkus never really lived up to the Roy Hobbs hype. Turns out that author Malamud built his iconic character around what was by far the most interesting thing about Waitkus’s career; the shooting. The similarities between fact and fiction end with the echo of that gunshot.

The most famous Hoosier you’ve never heard of

Al Hunter — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 05:08:41 +0000

Today he is virtually unknown to all but a few dogged devotees, students of 20th century history, readers of obscure books, and researchers into the paranormal and bizarre. William Dudley Pelley, a truly fascinating fellow, was one of our countries’ best known public figures during the Great Depression. Now, he is largely forgotten and rests in peaceful anonymity in a quiet Noblesville cemetery, an ironic outcome when you consider how he lived. If you happen to encounter anyone who knows anything at all about Pelley, you are likely be told that he was a “fascist,” “Nazi,” “new age crank,” “occultist,” “racist cult leader,” or just plain “nut.” All true, to be sure, but William Dudley Pelley was viewed as a genuine threat back in his day, and the Roosevelt administration took notice.
Pelley’s political ideology essentially consisted of anti-Communism, racism, extreme patriotism and isolationism. He was perhaps the most vocal opponent of FDR’s New Deal program. His activities angered Roosevelt and his supporters so much that federal charges were drawn up against the Silver Shirts in 1940. His Asheville headquarters was raided by federal marshals, his followers there arrested, and his property seized. Pelley was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Ironically a decade later Senator Joe McCarthy would use this same committee to root out Communists from the U.S. Government and Hollywood.
Pelley’s Silver Legion was unique in that, although there were permanent barracks for Silver Shirt training and local units in every region of the U.S., there was no central headquarters building. Instead, the Chief, as he was known to his followers, ran the Legion from his Ford touring car. Never staying in any place for more than a couple of weeks, constantly traveling from one headquarters to another, he staged outdoor rallies and mass meetings along the way. Reportedly, he went through several cars per year, traveling a then astounding 20,000 miles annually. This constant traveling served several purposes; it tied the various headquarters closely together, gave Pelley an intimate understanding of Americans at all levels, from all regions and exposed millions of people to his wicked ideology. His grassroots plan resulted in his name being placed on the presidential ballot, but he too got lost in the 1936 landslide re-election of Roosevelt.
According to Pelley, FDR’s re-election brought closer the “conflict between the Light and Dark forces on earth” and he accurately predicted the coming war against the Third Reich in his first national radio speech. His failed election bid increased Silver Legion membership threefold. Soon Pelley was winning praise and support from important figures like aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr. and Walt Disney — both of whom attended Silver Legion rallies and shared the podium with the Chief. Not only did Pelley and his group openly support the Nazis and Adolph Hitler, Pelley himself announced that he considered Japan to be the only true power in Asia and the only hope of blunting the Soviet attempt at total domination in the region.
Soon, the government charged Pelley with tax evasion and although he eventually beat the rap, the great expense, in both time and money, required to defend himself ruined his chances of entering the 1940 Presidential campaign. By now, Pelley was furious with the government and his Silver Shirts joined up with the American-German Bund, the Ku Klux Klan and numerous other “uber” patriotic organizations to keep America out of war. Pelley’s effort became so popular that national polls taken a week before Pearl Harbor showed more than three quarters of Americans were against war with the Axis powers. That is, unless the United States was physically attacked. As you can imagine, everything changed on December 7th, 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Soon afterward, German atrocities in the concentration camps of Europe were revealed and Pelley and his Silver Shirts were banished from the American scene forever.
Pelley had married a Hoosier girl named Helen back in 1935, but spent little time with his new wife, by whom he had a daughter. After his fall, Pelley joined them in Noblesville, where he attempted to forget the world he had tried to save. Pelley being Pelley, he could not resist the urge to criticize FDR and his war time policies in print as he continued to publish radical newsletters and minor magazines, but he never again rose to his level of pre-war prominence.
However, Pelley just could not keep his big mouth shut. Just weeks after Pearl Harbor, he published an un-proofed article charging President Roosevelt with understating the damage caused at Pearl and claiming, contrary to FDR’s reports, that the U.S. Navy was destroyed in the attack. Pelley rushed into print with an article titled: “Japanese bombers made Pearl Harbor look like an abandoned W.P.A. project in Keokuk!” The special edition hit the streets like a bombshell, and when FDR saw it, he exploded, demanding Pelley’s arrest on April 4th. The charge: high treason!
Pelley was charged with twelve felony counts of violating the Alien and Sedition Act — an obscure ancient set of laws originally designed to deport troublesome foreigners during the American Revolution. The Sedition Act provided for fines or imprisonment for individuals who criticized the government, Congress, or president in speech or print.
The highly publicized trial for treason of William Dudley Pelley was broadcast nationwide. National hero Charles Lindbergh personally testified as a character witness on the defendant’s behalf, to no avail as Pelley was sentenced to 15 years in a maximum security federal prison. The trial ruined Pelley in many ways, leaving him penniless and unable to mount an appeal. Lindbergh stayed true to the end, telling a Chicago Tribune reporter that Pelley was “no traitor, but a true patriot who was obviously being persecuted for saying publicly what a growing number of Americans were discussing privately.”
Pelley remained unrepentant throughout, saying: “Some day, we Americans will see in true perspective what an alien horde of four million Jews did to us, and why we have been so stupid to suffer it.“ In 1952, with FDR dead, World War II over and McCarthy in full “Red Scare” stride, Pelley was paroled on the condition that he participate in no “political activities of any nature,” a flagrantly unconstitutional requirement I must point out. Frail and sickly, his daughter and her husband nursed him back to health at the family home in Noblesville, Indiana.
William Dudley Pelley died peacefully in his sleep on July 1, 1965, at the age of 75. During his private viewing and funeral, someone burned a cross on the front lawn of the funeral parlor. It was never determined if the fiery cross had been set there by friend or foe. Blinded by racial hatred and intolerance, he ended up a forgotten historical footnote in a lonely Noblesville graveyard called Crownland.

Parenting Skills, Part 2

Al Hunter — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 05:08:28 +0000

Last week, I pondered the parenting skills of our sixteenth President Abraham Lincoln. I came to the conclusion that I probably wouldn’t want to sit next to Abe and Mary’s kids on an airplane. Witnesses, acquaintances and close friends often remarked, sometimes frankly, other times temperately, that the Lincoln boys were “active.” I ended Part 1 with a great quote from First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy about parenting: “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.”
Like many a late stage baby-boomer, I realize that I have a fascination with historical celebrity nurtured by mass media that began at a young age. Part of that fascination revolves around the children of famous or noteworthy people, especially when it goes bad. I suppose there is comfort in knowing that rain also falls on the child of privilege as equally as it falls in our own lives. Regardless, there is a morbid fascination with parenting gone bad.
As a kid in Indianapolis, the Vietnam war was very real to me. I had neighbors, family members and school chums touched by the rigors brought on during that useless Southeast Asia debacle. Of course there were the outlandish rumors that passed through the school halls (Leave it to Beaver star Jerry Mathers dying in Vietnam prominent among them) but one rumor I can vividly recall was that Sean Flynn was missing. The son of famous swashbuckling actor and legendary playboy, Erroll Flynn, Sean was an actor turned freelance photojournalist who disappeared on April 16, 1970 while on assignment for Time magazine in Vietnam.
Sean Leslie Flynn, born May 31, 1941, made some forgettable films during his short movie career including the regrettable remake of his father’s classic Captain Blood featuring the predictable title Son of Captain Blood. When he “retired” from acting, Flynn signed a contract with Time magazine. In a search for unique images, he attached himself to Special Forces units and even irregulars operating in remote areas.
On April 6, 1970, while traveling by motorcycle in Cambodia, Flynn and Dana Stone (Stone was with CBS News) were captured by communist guerrillas at a roadblock on Highway One. They were never seen again and their bodies have never been found. Although it is known that they were captured by Vietnamese Communist forces, it is believed that they died in the hands of rogue “hostile” forces. Citing various government sources, the current consensus is that he (or they) were held captive for over a year before they were killed by Khmer Rouge in June 1971.
Sean Flynn’s plight has often been cited as the inspiration for the “Russian Roulette” sequences in the 1978 film, The Deer Hunter with Christopher Walken winning an Oscar for portraying the character based on Flynn. Flynn’s mother, actress Lili Damita, spent an enormous amount of money searching for her son, with no success. In 1984 she had him declared legally dead. By this time, Sean’s dad, Erroll Flynn, had been dead for 25 years. Erroll Flynn’s life was the stuff of legend and his son’s mysterious disappearance brought the war home to young men all over the country in a way that olive-clad casualty statistics just couldn’t convey.
One other disappearance that I wasn’t around to hear about firsthand, but do remember hearing about for years afterward, was the strange case of Michael Rockefeller. The youngest son of New York Governor, U.S. Vice-President and multi-time Republican Presidential candidate Nelson Rockefeller, Michael Clark Rockefeller, was a fourth generation member of the Rockefeller family who had only recently graduated from college. After attending The Buckley School in New York, Rockefeller graduated from Harvard University cum laude in 1960, served for six months as a private in the U.S. Army, then went on an expedition for Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology to study the Dani tribe of western New Guinea.
The expedition produced Dead Birds, a documentary film, 3,500 photographs, and many anthropological artifacts that are now part of the Michael C. Rockefeller collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The Peabody Museum exhibits the pictures taken by Rockefeller during that first New Guinea expedition. After returning home with the Peabody expedition, Rockefeller returned to New Guinea to study the Asmat tribe and collect primitive art. “It’s the desire to do something adventurous,” he explained, “at a time when frontiers, in the real sense of the word, are disappearing.” There was one tiny detail that Michael should have taken into consideration though. The Asmats were known headhunters.
On November 17, 1961, Rockefeller and Dutch anthropologist René Wassing were in a 40-foot dugout canoe about three miles from shore when their double pontoon boat was swamped and overturned into the Arafura Sea. Their two local guides swam for help and told the Anglos to stay put, for obvious reasons. After drifting for some time in the rolling waters off the coast of New Guinea, Rockefeller said to Wassing “I think I can make it.” Michael estimated that the catamaran boat was five miles from the shore. The current was against him, and he risked a confrontation with a shark or crocodile, but perhaps because he was a Rockefeller, the fabled family of industrialists, philanthropists and politicians, he decided to swim for it. Later it was determined that the capsized boat was closer to twelve miles off shore when Michael pushed off.
Wassing, a poor swimmer, had decided to stay with the overturned boat, and he tried to persuade the stubborn Rockefeller against his plan. Rockefeller jerry-rigged a life preserver by lashing together two empty gas cans. He stripped down to his underwear and tied his eyeglasses to his head with twine. He took a few deep breaths before paddling toward the forbidding mangrove swamps that lined the southwest coast of the world’s second-largest island. Wassing watched the swimming figure slowly disappear into the watery horizon. The Dutchman was rescued just nine hours later.
Michael Rockefeller was never seen or heard from again. The news that the great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Co., was big news around the world. Upon hearing the news, Governor Rockefeller and Michael’s twin sister Mary rushed to New Guinea followed closely by a horde of over 100 journalists. They searched frantically for 10 days at what the press called “the end of the earth, where Stone Age cultures had survived.” Finally, Nelson Rockefeller held a press conference to say that he had reached the conclusion that his son had died at sea before reaching shore.
In time, news of the disappearance of the youngest Rockefeller faded from the newspaper headlines and Michael joined the pantheon of missing persons that included Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa and D.B. Cooper. As with each of the other lost luminaries, various theories about Michael Rockefeller’s fate have surfaced over the years. Did he die from exposure, exhaustion or drowning? Did he decide to go native and lose himself in the jungles of New Guinea? Was he eaten by a shark or a saltwater crocodile? Or, in the most sensational speculative twist, was he a pale human trophy for New Guinean headhunters?
Headhunting and cannibalism were still present in some areas of Asmat in 1961. The Asmats MOA included stripping their trophy heads to the bone, bleaching them in the sun, and covering the skulls with painted depictions of the battle at which the victim fell. The size and climate of the huge island, slightly larger than Texas, did not aid Michael’s rescue efforts. A tropical rain forest, it has relentless heat and humidity and swarming insects. The coast is lined with swamps that are nearly impossible to navigate, and the interior jungles are dark and largely impassable. The island, due north of Australia and known as Dutch New Guinea, got its name from a Spanish explorer who saw a resemblance between the natives there and those of the Guinea, West Africa.
To support the death by cannibalism theory, researchers note that several leaders of Otsjanep village, where Rockefeller likely would have arrived had he made it to shore, were killed by a Dutch patrol in 1958, and thus would have been seeking revenge against someone from the “white tribe.” Cannibalism and headhunting in Asmat culture was viewed as an eye-for-an-eye revenge cycle, and it is possible that Rockefeller found himself the unlucky victim of such a cycle started by the Dutch patrol. The Rockefeller family believes that Michael either drowned or was attacked by a shark or crocodile. Rockefeller’s body was never found. He was declared legally dead in 1964.
Regardless, the Michael Rockefeller and Sean Flynn sagas are just a couple examples of the many tragic aspects of parenting that all parents must consider at the end of the day. The Internet is full of accounts of missing children and adults. The news of these tragedies often gets lost in the headlines of the day. The best that we can hope for is to never be visited by such an unanswerable parental dilemma in our lifetimes. But for most of us, stories like this are always in the back of our minds — regardless of our level of parental aptitude.

Parenting Skills, Part 1

Al Hunter — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 05:08:17 +0000

Effective parenting is defined as a matter of strengthening the bond between the parent and child, and building positive parenting skills. I just returned from a two-day getaway to the Springfield, Illinois home of President Abraham Lincoln. I love to go and visit his house on Seventh Street in the early morning hours before the National Park Service employees, buses full of schoolchildren and tourists arrive. During these early morning hours you can really feel a connection with the old house.
My eyes are always drawn towards the second-floor balcony and its wrought iron gate. Upon closer examination, one notices that there is a small piece of the ornate iron fencing that is broken. The balcony railing has been maintained in a state of “arrested decay” to honor Lincoln’s rambunctious boys, Willie and Tad allegedly broke off a piece of the ornamentation while playing on the balcony. While I have a deep affinity for Abraham Lincoln the man, I don’t think I’d aspire to adopt the parenting qualities of Abraham Lincoln, the father.
Marriages were often arranged for practical purposes: a father might marry his daughter off to a neighbor’s son to combine their parcels of land, for example. Romantic love between spouses was the exception, not the rule. Children were viewed as products of original sin that needed to have their wicked wills broken in order to become upright and productive citizens. All that was changing around the time that young Abe Lincoln rode in to Springfield. As urban, middle-class professional men started working in offices separate from their homes, the family was increasingly bound together by ties of affection rather than economy. Men and women started marrying for love, limiting the size of their families and investing additional care and affection in their children. Childhood then, as today, was seen as a time of innocence and natural goodness that parents sought to indulge and enjoy.
Consider the difference between Lincoln’s experience and that of his children. Lincoln was born on a farm and expected to work for the family’s benefit until he legally came of age at 21. He later recalled that at age 8 he “had an ax put into his hands at once; and from that till within his twenty-third year, he was almost constantly handling the most useful instrument — less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons.” Lincoln left home at his earliest opportunity and his relationship with his father was so cool that he opted not to visit him on his deathbed.
Lincoln’s own children, however, spent their days playing with their toys in their carpeted sitting room or attending school — luxuries not available to young Abe Lincoln. While Abe grew up in poverty, Mary came from a prominent, wealthy Kentucky family — the Todds. Although she grew up in considerable luxury, her childhood was affected by the loss of her mother, emotional alienation from her father and disenfranchisement from her stepmother. Mary’s unhappy childhood caused her to dote on her children as equally as her husband but for vastly different reasons. In short, most people would consider the Lincoln children to be perfect “brats.” Mary Lincoln later recalled that Lincoln “was very — exceedingly indulgent to his children… He always said it is my pleasure that my children are free, happy and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents.”
Examples of Lincoln’s indulgence towards his children can be found in every volume that mentions his family life. Some of the accounts are romantic and flowery in their descriptions, while other, more contemporary accounts offer a more frank, unvarnished view. Lincoln’s law partner and biographer William Herndon described the Lincoln boys thusly: “Had (his children) sh-t in his hat, and rub it on his boots, Lincoln would have laughed and thought it smart.” Willie and his younger brother Tad were considered “notorious hellions” during the period they lived in Springfield. They were recorded by Herndon for turning their law office upside down; the boys regularly discarded orange peels and other trash on the office floor, jumped from desk to desk and pulled books off the shelves, while Lincoln appeared oblivious to their behavior.
The Lincolns had four sons. Undoubtedly, Mary would have liked to have had a little girl to dress up and fuss over, but she loved her boys deeply. The Lincoln boys had extremely varied personalities; Robert was serious and dour, Eddie and Tad bubbly, curious and energetic while Willie was precocious and much more contemplative. Only two of the children survived their father and only one lived to maturity. Eddie was the first to die and we do not know as much about him as the other boys. He died at an early age, before the Lincolns were well known. From all accounts it was a tragedy from which their parents never recovered, especially his mother.
By all accounts, the Lincolns were permissive parents. On one train trip the other passengers were appalled by the behavior of the boys who Lincoln referred to as the “little codgers.” They were racing down the aisles disturbing the other passengers. The Lincoln home was a child-centered home. Every year, Mary would hold birthday parties for her boys during an era when such events were very out of the ordinary. Mary would dress up for roles in Robert’s many theatrical performances. The Lincolns encouraged the boys to recite poetry (usually Burns and Shakespeare). In short the Lincoln boys did as they pleased and attempts at discipline in the Springfield household were rare.
The permissive approach continued in the White House. The two middle boys entered the White House together with their parents while Robert was initially away at school and later serving in the Union Army. The roof of the White House was converted to a play area for Willie and Tad. But make no mistake about it, the entire White House was domain to the devilish pranksters as they ran wild throughout the White House. Their antics amused a nation immersed in the tragedy of the Civil War. Visitors, employees, and Cabinet members became so used to the sight of Willie and Tad sliding down the banisters that they quickly ignored it. Sometimes the President himself could be seen romping about the White House with them. Both boys delighted in their father carrying them on his shoulders. Lincoln was of course very tall and the boys could often reach the rafters in the ceiling which delighted them.
They were the two most famous presidential boys and they left a trail of destruction and mayhem in their wake. The President for the most part saw it as great fun. Tad was impulsive, unrestrained, and did not attend school. Some historians have described Tad as being “slow,” or worse, as mentally challenged. Willie, however, was a deep thinker who regularly memorized railroad timetables and chided his brother for breaking White House property because it didn’t belong to the family, it belonged to the American people. Lincoln’s personal secretary, Hoosier John Hay, wrote that Tad’s numerous tutors in the White House usually quit in frustration. While Willie read, Tad had free run of the White House. Tad collected animals, charged visitors to see his father, and once sentenced a pet rat to death by hanging. His father quickly pardoned the rat and set it free.
It is a little-known fact that Abraham Lincoln issued more presidential pardons than any president before. It is understandable as so many of them were for deserters in the Civil War. For much of history, deserting your post has been punishable by death. Harsh perhaps, but when your actions (falling asleep at your post, etc.) can get your fellow soldiers killed, it was an effective way to maintain discipline. Lincoln recognized that war is awful and felt that if, in his own words, “God gave a man cowardly legs” then perhaps some lenience when they “run away with him” was appropriate. Lincoln once heard about a 16-year-old soldier who was scheduled to be executed for desertion. He telegraphed the general in charge to pardon the young man and asked that they institute a policy of not executing anyone under the age of 18.
Although remembered as angelic in nature, Willie was not immune to the military atmosphere in which he was surrounded. When one of Tad’s soldier dolls “fell asleep at its post,” Willie sentenced the doll to death. Tad brought the issue to his father knowing that he was the only one that could help. In the midst of dealing with the pressures and physical hardships brought on by the Civil War, Abe still took the time to address the situation by issuing an official pardon on presidential stationery signed, “A. Lincoln”. Weeks later, in 1862, when 11-year-old Willie died of fever in the White House, the entire nation grieved. Less than 100 years after the Lincolns inhabited the White House, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy told a reporter, “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.”

Next Week: Part 2 of “Parenting Skills”

Andrew Jackson’s Hair

Al Hunter — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:08:20 +0000

As many of you know, I collect stuff. In particular, historical stuff. Especially slightly creepy historical stuff. For years, whenever my kids saw a $20 bill, they would delightfully squeal out the phrase “That Glorious Mane” and giggle devilishly between themselves. While I always understood the reference to Andrew Jackson’s famous head of hair. I never really understood the origin of their inside joke. It was like reading a New Yorker magazine cartoon; sure, I can read it and smile, but I don’t always get it. And try as I might, I still have not found the source for the “Glorious Mane” quote. So, when I ran across a genuine lock of Andrew Jackson’s hair at several years ago, I had to have it.
The lock of hair is held in place by an ornate wax seal affixed to a descriptive card of provenance and has been professionally framed for posterity. The card reads: “Hair of Andrew Jackson, a portion of lot 96 of the personal relics of President Andrew Jackson consigned and guaranteed genuine by Andrew Jackson the fourth.” The item came from the collection of Forest H. Sweet of Battle Creek Michigan, one of the most famous autograph manuscript and relic collectors of his day. Sweet specialized in Abraham Lincoln, so much so that during the years around World War II, he compiled a comprehensive book of Lincoln collectors and their collections that is still prized by collectors today. So, the provenance of the Andrew Jackson lock of hair was beyond reproach.
The thick lock of reddish grey hair is about 1.5 inches in length and looks to contain somewhere between 25 and 50 strands of hair. The blue wax seal features an “S” initial that was undoubtedly applied by Forest H. Sweet himself. I could hardly wait to reveal the relic to my children. Sadly, the unveiling was less than I expected. “That’s nice daddy” was the general consensus.
Okay, so my kids weren’t excited, but I was. Macabre as it seems, bestowing locks of hair on friends, family members, and admirers was common practice in the 19th century. Locks of hair from many renowned historical figures can be found in the collections of museums all over the world. I must admit, this is not the first lock of celebrity hair that has found it’s way into my collection. I once owned well documented strands of hair from George Washington, Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln. But this Andrew Jackson blood relic is a full robust lock, a good ole’ hank, a veritable pinch of hair right off the head of Old Hickory himself!
I simply could not resist researching (my wife might say obsessing over) my cherished new relic. Much to my surprise, while searching the Net I actually found a Web site and active blog devoted to That Glorious Mane. The Web site, called “American Lion,” is associated with Andrew Jackson’s hair in name only. But it does touch on the macabre hobby and, more importantly, vindicates my strange purchase by discussing famous locks of hair that have sold recently at auction. In December of 2011, 12 strands of Michael Jackson’s hair, reportedly fished out of a shower drain at New York’s Carlyle Hotel after Jackson stayed there for a charity event during the 1980s, sold at auction in London for around $1,900 to an online gaming casino. The casino plans to use the hair in the construction of a special roulette ball (I don‘t understand it either).
The King of Pop apparently can’t hold a candle to the King of Rock-N-Roll though. For the day after Jackson’s hair was sold, a Chicago auction house sold clumps of Elvis Presley’s hair (cut and saved after Elvis’ 1958 Army induction) in Illinois, selling for $15,000.
Okay, if you’re still creeped out by the thought of collecting hair, which truthfully, I can’t blame you for, keep in mind that the hobby was once considered to be the height of cool. The Victorians LOVED designing and wearing hair jewelry, often weaving strands into intricate designs which they incorporated into necklaces, earrings, and pins — to say nothing about picture frames, paperweights and other household decorations. Queen Victoria is credited with starting the trend. When her beloved Prince Albert died, the distraught monarch had several rings made out of his hair, which she wore daily. Famous Victorian writers like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sir Walter Scott, and John Keats often referenced locks of hair in their works.
The Victorians did not only collect hair from dead people, though. Most often it was the living that handed out their hair to be woven into special keepsakes, as a reminder of life’s fleeting beauty. Remember, hair changes color and falls out in time, so young lovers and fans might ask for a few locks to be woven into watch chains and jewelry so they might think of their idol daily. And in fairness, most locks of the rich and famous were asked for while the subject was still very alive, just like you might ask for an autograph. Hair collecting has been traced all the way back to the 16th century Swedes, who are believed to have started the practice out of sheer boredom during endless Nordic nights.
Nowadays, with the introduction of DNA to the daily lexicon of society, collecting hair takes on a whole new meaning. In the case of “The General” (Jackson’s personally preferred title), a lock of hair could conceivably unlock the mystery of the man himself. It is hard to deny that Andrew Jackson was an interesting man. You either loved him or you hated him. Jackson was long and lean, standing at 6 feet, 1 inch tall, and weighing between 130 and 140 pounds. He had penetrating deep blue eyes and was known for his unruly shock of red hair, which had turned completely gray by the time he became president at age 61. Jackson was one of our more sickly presidents, suffering from chronic headaches, abdominal pains, and a hacking cough caused by a musket ball in his lung that he carried for most of his life. Jackson had a few bullets in his body, the results of at least two known duels, both of which he won. The lead bullet often caused the General to cough up blood and sometimes made his whole body shake.
In addition, Jackson suffered from dysentery and malaria contracted during his military campaigns. He was known to have an addiction to coffee, enjoyed a drink or two on occasion, and incessantly chewed tobacco to the extent that brass spittoons were everywhere in the White House. Despite doctor’s orders, Jackson refused to give up these three vices, regardless of the fact that they gave him migraines. The afore mentioned bullets undoubtedly caused the General to suffer from lead poisoning, quite literally. Luckily, 19 years after that 1832 duel, the bullet causing the most damage was extracted in the White House without anesthesia. Afterwards, Jackson’s health improved tremendously.
The first recorded attack on a sitting President was against Andrew Jackson. On May 6, 1833 while in Fredericksburg, Virginia dedicating a monument to the mother of George Washington, a disgruntled sailor named Robert B. Randolph jumped from the crowd and struck the President with his fist. Randolph fled, pursued by Jackson’s retinue, including the famous writer (and Irvington namesake) Washington Irving. Jackson did not press charges.
On January 30, 1835, the first attempt to kill a sitting U.S. President occurred just outside the United States Capitol, again against Andrew Jackson. As Jackson exited the East Portico after a funeral, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed housepainter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence quickly pulled a second pistol, which also misfired. Legend claims that Jackson then beat Lawrence senseless with his cane. The President’s friend, frontiersman Davy Crockett, restrained and disarmed Lawrence, undoubtedly saving the would-be assassin’s life. Lawrence, who claimed to be England’s King Richard III (dead since 1485) blamed Jackson for the loss of his job. Lawrence was judged insane and institutionalized. Ironically, afterward the pistols were test fired again and again and each time they performed perfectly.
For years, Jackson treated his aches and pains by self-medicating with salts of mercury (often used as a diuretic and purgative in the mid 19th century), as well as ingesting sugar of lead (a lead acetate-used as a food sweetener). Historians have long believed that Andrew Jackson slowly died of mercury and lead poisoning from two bullets in his body and those medications he took for intestinal problems. As proof, historians believe that his symptoms, including excessive salivation, rapid tooth loss, colic, diarrhea, hand tremors, irritability, mood swings and paranoia, were consistent with mercury and lead poisoning. One of Jackson’s doctors liked to give the lead laden sugar to both Andrew and his wife Rachel. They not only ingested it, but used it to bathe their skin and eyes. Jackson’s well-documented, unpredictable behavior were textbook signs of mercury poisoning. Historians described these signs as “thundering and haranguing,” “pacing and ranting” and “at one moment in a towering rage, in the next moment laughing about the outburst. “
In an effort to settle the case once and for all, in 1999, two strands of the General’s hair were acquired from the Hermitage for testing. Tony Guzzi, assistant curator at The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s home in Nashville, Tennessee said, “We have several samples of Jackson’s hair. Admirers often requested a lock, and he would just cut one off and send it to them.” An account left by one person who visited the retired statesman at his home in 1844 relates, “we were each given a lock of Jackson’s hair, which we received with eagerness, and it will be kept as a rich legacy by each of us.” Over the years, some of the locks of hair were returned to The Hermitage by descendants of the original recipients.
The submitted strands were taken nearly a quarter century apart for better comparison to check for elevated levels of the heavy metals. The first sample was from 1815, the year of Jackson’s victory at the Battle of New Orleans, the second was from 1839, toward the end of Jackson’s life. According to the American Medical Association, while the mercury and lead levels found in the hair samples were “significantly elevated” in both samples, they were not toxic, said Dr. Ludwag M. Deppisch, a pathologist with Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine and Forum Health. Officially, Andrew Jackson died at The Hermitage on June 8, 1845, at the age of 78, of chronic tuberculosis, dropsy, heart disease and kidney failure. In other words, the General died a natural death after leaving an extraordinarily unnatural life.
So, you see, a scientific argument might be made for my acquisition of a lock of Andrew Jackson’s hair. But the hobby is not as strange as it may sound, or, as you may think. A quick search of the net will turn up locks of hair belonging to Poet John Keats and our first President George Washington in New York City’s Morgan Library, Thomas Jefferson in the Library of Congress and from Frankenstein author Mary Shelley in the New York Public Library. Collecting hair may have fallen out of favor nowadays, but it must be noted that hair is one of the few body parts to survive well after the death of the original owner. For the bereaved and the beloved, it presents a direct link of faded youth and lives lost in an intensely personal way that no picture or video could ever achieve. As for my part, I just think its cool.

Clark Gable at the Indianapolis 500

Al Hunter — Thu, 21 May 2026 05:08:34 +0000

I originally wrote this article back in May of 2010 and in the years since, I have been informed by a longtime friend (and Irvingtonian) Bruce Gable that there is an Irvington connection, so I figured I’d update it and run it again. For the most part, here it is as it ran back then with a few appropriate updates.
The “King of Hollywood,” Clark Gable, died in November 1960. They called him the king for good reason. Women swooned at his masculine screen presence and men viewed him as the ultimate man’s man. Best remembered as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, most film critics agree that without Gable, GWTW would have blown away quietly. Yet, most Hoosiers don’t realize that Gable has several ties to our fair state.
It is a little known fact that Gable was a devoted race fan who regularly attended races including the Indianapolis 500. In 1950 Gable starred in the movie To Please a Lady, filmed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Although not critically acclaimed, the movie is considered to be a motorsports classic. Most of the scenes were shot over a three-week period at the Speedway. To make the racing scenes as authentic as possible, director Clarence Brown used a good deal of actual professional racing footage. Gable did some of his own driving for close-ups, while a stunt driver took the wheel for the more dangerous shots. The film’s climax was shot at the 1950 Indianapolis 500 won by Johnnie Parsons in a rain shortened race.
In the film Gable stars as Mike Brannan, a thrill-seeking race car driver whose ruthless tactics cause a crash that results in another driver’s death. Barbara Stanwyck plays Regina Forbes, an influential newspaper columnist who is determined to get him permanently banned from the professional racing circuit. Gable’s Brannan character has a bad reputation and Stanwyck’s columnist Forbes character tries to interview him, but he refuses. Regina’s column suggests that Brannan caused the fatal accident deliberately, which leads to him lose his ride. Brannan begins driving in a stunt show, eventually earning enough money to buy a car of his own and enter the Indy 500 himself. The pair engages in an explosive battle of wills while fighting off an attraction to each other that threatens to spin out of control.
The film was director Clarence Brown’s eighth and final film with Clark Gable, who was also his good friend. Brown managed to pull off some of the most thrilling racing sequences ever filmed, capturing the raw excitement of the Speedway by throwing viewers right into the middle of the action. Fans experienced the energy of the pit crew in action, the zooming car engines, and the roar of the crowd. Cinematographer Hal Rosson used up to six camera crews at a time to capture action from actual races. The location shooting paid off in the film’s nail-biting climax where car speeds averaged 100 miles an hour.
Gable and Stanwyck are well matched as a romantic on-screen duo whose character’s intense chemistry is undeniable. This was the couple’s second film together. Their first, Night Nurse, was made nearly 20 years earlier at Warner Bros. In that movie Gable, not yet a major movie star, played a small role as a nasty chauffeur who viciously slaps Barbara Stanwyck across the face. The moment was replicated in the Speedway film when Stanwyck took another smack across the kisser from Gable.
Ironically, To Please a Lady was not a major box office success due in part to the surge in household television sales, which by 1950 was rapidly taking business away from movie theaters. However, the film did win plenty of critical praise. The New York Times said of the film: “You can bet that Indianapolis never experienced a contest as hotly run as the race that Mr. Brown has staged.” Variety proclaimed that the movie “has excitement, thrills, with some of the greatest racing footage ever put on celluloid — It firmly returns Gable to the rugged lover, rugged character status.”
The film’s legacy among race fans is the chance to see authentic open-wheel midget and Indy-car racing footage from an often neglected time in auto racing. The montage featuring a racing engine being machined and assembled along with some nice race car close-ups and pit stop action make it a must-see flick for gear heads. The film also captures a couple of minutes of authentic footage of Joie Chitwood’s famous stunt car show, a rare treat for vintage race fans.
Being in Indianapolis was difficult for Clark Gable personally. Married five times, Gable’s most glittering union was with Hoosier actress Carole Lombard. The city was the final stop of a 1942 war bond tour headlined by Lombard, before flying back home to Los Angeles. Tragically, Lombard’s plane never made it, crashing in Nevada, killing everyone on board. Gable and Lombard honeymooned at Lake Barbee near Warsaw, Indiana. Their three-year marriage had been the ideal Tinseltown union, and Lombard’s death was a loss from which Gable never recovered.
At the time of To Please a Lady Gable had finally remarried, this time to Douglas Fairbanks’ widow, Lady Sylvia Ashley. During filming he seemed happier and healthier than he had been in years according to friends. Even so, Gable remembered his beloved late wife while in Indianapolis. He quietly made a point to visit the downtown locations where Lombard had made her final public appearances before her tragic death.
When Gable left Indianapolis, he had one last surprise waiting for him. Lady Sylvia’s teenage nephew, Timothy Bleck showed up on set with a group of friends and took over several rooms at the Marriott Hotel, where the Gables were staying, charging their bill to the Gable’s account. Many who knew Bleck felt that the youngster had developed a “crush” on Gable. For his part, Gable often complained to his new wife that Bleck and his friends were “eating me out of house and home and always pestering me for money.”
Lady Sylvia was a British national famous for her temper tantrums. Later that same year, she demanded a spacious dressing room for her personal use during Clark’s next movie being filmed in Durango, Mexico, The Wide Missouri. (Gable’s first Technicolor film since Gone with the Wind.) It was an exclusive luxury granted only to mega-movie stars like Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis. The couple divorced within the year.
Gable’s list of film pairings includes many of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. Joan Crawford teamed with Gable eight times, more than any other actress. Jean Harlow starred with Gable in six films in a union that would have undoubtedly continued if not for her untimely death. Lana Turner shared the credits with him four times. Gable worked twice each with Loretta Young and Claudette Colbert. In his final film, The Misfits at almost 60 years old, Gable starred opposite 34-year-old Marilyn Monroe. Gable had been her childhood idol. The film also starred the tragically flawed fallen film idol Montgomery Clift.
The Misfits would take on a macabre life of its own, fostering whispers of a curse, when Gable suffered a heart attack two days after filming ended, He died ten days later. Monroe and Clift attended the premiere in New York in February 1961 while Monroe was on pass from a psychiatric hospital; she later said that she hated the film and could not watch herself in it. Within a year and a half, she was dead of an alleged drug overdose. The Misfits was the last completed film for both Monroe and Gable.
Montgomery Clift, previously known for his classic profile, had been badly injured in a 1956 car crash requiring reconstructive surgery on his face, evident in his close-ups for The Misfits. He died six years after the filming. The Misfits was on television on the night Clift died. His live-in personal secretary asked Clift if he wanted to watch it. “Absolutely not,” was Clift’s reply, the last words that he spoke to anyone. He was found dead the next morning, having suffered a heart attack during the night.
Many feel that Clark Gable danced a tango with death and morbid curiosity throughout his career. Gable’s perceived death wish circled around the many dangerous, often violent, themed films he starred in, his early death and the unexpected deaths of his co-stars, capped off with the tragic early demise of his wife Carole Lombard. Another eerie connection to Indiana by Clark Gable can be found in the last movie Hoosier outlaw John Dillinger ever saw. Moments before he was gunned down in an alley outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre, Public Enemy #1 was watching an MGM film called Manhattan Melodrama starring . . . you guessed it, Clark Gable.
Update: Irvingtonians Bruce and Fred Gable have shared stories with me about their famous relative. Turns out, Clark Gable was a distant cousin. The Gable home was located at 5850 University Avenue across from the Guardian Home. Bruce and Fred researched the Gable family connection and discovered that their great-grandfather and Clark Gable’s grandfather were 1st cousins. “They were wildcatters who migrated to Indiana from Pennsylvania in search of oil back in the 1880s,” Bruce stated, “All they found was natural gas though and neither made any money on that.”
The Gable family lived for a time in the Audubon Court Apartments and they can remember stories about the elder Gable visiting his cousin/their grandfather in Irvington. Gable’s great-grandfather owned the Thompkins drugstore on South Audubon Road. The brothers recall a time when telling neighborhood kids that they were related to Clark Gable was a big deal. “Later, when my kids told their friends that, no one knows who they’re talking about.” said Bruce. As for that I’ll quote Rhett Butler by saying, “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn” because I’m just glad to hear that Irvington has a connection to one of the most admired leading men in Hollywood history.

Break on Through to the Other Side

Al Hunter — Thu, 14 May 2026 05:08:11 +0000

Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist of The Doors, died in Rosenheim, Germany after a long fight with cancer on May 20, 2013.
His death came 42 years, literally a lifetime, after the death of Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison. (Assuming of course that you don’t cast your lot with the conspiratorialists that believe Mr. Mojo Rising is alive and well, drinking whiskey sours on some deserted Caribbean Island.) The Doors were one of the most influential bands in the history of rock-n-roll, owing, in large part, to the innovative keyboard riffs of Ray Manzarek. It was the marriage of Manzarek’s sonic banshee keyboard style to Morrison’s haunting vocals that made the band so unique. But because Morrison died so young, the picture of The Doors I have tattooed on my mind is that of youth and Ray’s passing just doesn’t jive with that image.
Raymond Daniel Manczarek, Jr., born February 12, 1939, was an American musician, singer, producer, film director, writer, and co-founder of The Doors from 1965 to 1973. Manzarek died of complications related to bile duct cancer. Manzarek was a gritty Polish kid, born and raised on the south side of Chicago. Growing up, he took private piano lessons but his real love was basketball. Young Ray only wanted to play power forward or center and at 6 feet 1 inch tall, that was going to be a challenge. At the age of 16 his coach insisted that he play guard, or not at all. So Ray quit the team. Manzarek said later if it was not for that ultimatum, he might never have been with The Doors. He attended St. Rita High School in Chicago and graduated from DePaul University with a degree in Economics and played keyboards in many shows at the school.
In 1962–1965, he studied in the Department of Cinematography at UCLA, where he met film student Jim Morrison. Forty days after finishing film school, thinking they had gone their separate ways, Manzarek and Morrison met by chance on Venice Beach in California. Morrison said he had written some songs, and Manzarek expressed an interest in hearing them, whereupon Morrison sang a rough version of “Moonlight Drive.” Manzarek liked the songs and co-founded The Doors with Morrison at that moment.
Outwardly the two were an odd match. Morrison, strikingly tall, dark and handsome, looked the part of rock star. Manzarek, with glasses and comparatively close-cropped blonde hair, looked more like a college professor. Later, Manzarek met drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger at a Transcendental Meditation lecture. Krieger’s Spanish-influenced guitar and Densmore’s subtle, jazz-infused drumming cemented the band’s signature sound.
In January 1966, The Doors became the house band at The London Fog on L.A.’s Sunset Strip. According to Manzarek, “Nobody ever came in the place…an occasional sailor or two on leave, a few drunks. All in all it was a very depressing experience, but it gave us time to really get the music together.” The same day The Doors were fired from The London Fog, they were hired to be the house band of the legendary Whisky a Go Go. Their first performance at the Whisky was with the Van Morrison’s group “Them” (Remember G-L-O-R-I-A…Gloria?).
The Doors’ first recording contract was with Columbia Records. After a few months of inactivity, they learned they were on Columbia’s drop list. At that point, they asked to be released from their contract. After a few months of live gigs, the band was “rediscovered” and The Doors were signed by Elektra Records.
The band took their name from a line in Aldous Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception: “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The line comes originally from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Together, The Doors recorded numerous multi-platinum albums and had hits with “L.A. Woman,” “Break On Through to the Other Side,” “The End” and Ray Manzarek’s masterpiece, “Light My Fire.” The Doors has sold more than 100 million albums and their music has been re-released and repackaged multiple times over the years, been featured prominently in movies and holds a lofty perch in rock history.
The Doors lacked a bassist, so Manzarek usually played the bass parts on a Fender Rhodes piano. His signature sound was the Vox Continental combo organ. Known for its bright, thin, breathy sound, the “Connie” was used by many other psychedelic rock bands of the era. If you’re not a devotee of The Doors, you’ve heard the “Connie” featured prominently on hit songs like “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals, “96 Tears” by Question Mark and the Mysterians, and “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly. But nobody played the Connie as well and as often as Ray Manzarek. Later Ray switched to a Gibson G-101 Kalamazoo combo organ because the Connie’s plastic keys frequently broke during Manzarek’s frenetic playing.
Manzarek occasionally sang for The Doors, including the live recordings of “Close To You” and on the B-side of “Love Her Madly,” and “You Need Meat (Don’t Go No Further).” He also sang on the last two Doors albums, recorded after Morrison’s death, Other Voices and Full Circle. Additionally, he provided one of several guitar parts on the song “Been Down So Long.”
For fans and musicians alike, The Doors’ brooding and sometimes dark sound crystallized the experimental rock music emanating from Los Angeles. The “L.A. Sound” stood in stark contrast to the lighter, soaring sound coming out of the San Francisco Bay Area typified by the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. To me, what made The Doors sound so musically different was that Ray Manzarek’s keyboard was the lead instrument. I’d never heard that before. Most bands led with a guitar, some with the drums, but The Doors led with a keyboard. I’m sure it had been done before, but it was a new sound to me. And, after all these years, it’s the sound I can remember. If you doubt it, Google “Riders on the Storm” and get back to me.
In an interview with National Public Radio in 2000, Manzarek described the band’s sound this way: “We were aware of Muddy Waters. We were aware of Howlin’ Wolf and John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Plus, Jan and Dean and The Beach Boys and the surf sound. Robby Krieger brings in some flamenco guitar. I bring a little bit of classical music along with the blues and jazz, and certainly John Densmore was heavy into jazz. And Jim brings in beatnik poetry and French symbolist poetry, and that’s the blend of The Doors as the sun is setting into the Pacific Ocean at the end, the terminus of Western civilization. That’s the end of it. Western civilization ends here in California at Venice Beach, so we stood there inventing a new world on psychedelics.”
Ray Manzarek was iconic, brilliant, eccentric and way ahead of his time. From all accounts, Manzarek loved life. We should all be so lucky as to find something that makes us as happy as pounding keyboards made Ray Manzarek. The fact that he helped change the face of music while doing it, well, that’s just a bonus. Manzarek himself explained it thusly: “The only thing that ultimately matters is to eat an ice-cream cone, play a slide trombone, plant a small tree, good God, now you’re free.” In that case, make mine a triple scoop.

The Ghosts of Kings Island

Al Hunter — Thu, 07 May 2026 05:08:59 +0000

Kings Island amusement park is a one tank trip that most Hoosiers have taken in their lifetime. But most visitors don’t realize that the park is haunted. More still have no idea that upon pulling into the north end of the Kings Island parking lot off Columbia Road, you’re within a stone’s throw of an 1840s pioneer cemetery within the boundaries of the amusement park. What’s more, fewer still realize that the park’s property includes the site of a horrific gunpowder explosion that claimed the lives of 11 men, women and children in July of 1890.
Within sight of the Kings Island roller coasters along the Little Miami River, just down the hill from Kings Mills, the old Peters Cartridge factory loomed ominously. After decades of decay, the factory has been converted to luxury apartments — a stark contrast to when the bustling factory was one of the most prolific and innovative makers of ammunition in the world. It employed hundreds of people along the scenic river.
The complex, built in the 1880s, has a colorful history based on revenge. Joseph Warren King and his nephew Ahimaaz King owned a large portion of the Miami Powder Co., near Xenia. The Kings were forced out of the company after an out-of-state powder maker wrested control of the business from them in 1872 in what we call today a hostile takeover. Undeterred, the crafty, vengeful Kings hatched a plan to buy 832,000 pounds of surplus Civil War gunpowder from an armory in St. Louis. J.W. King intended to drive his nemesis out of business with cheap powder at a time when a flooded post-war market made the explosive stuff inexpensive already.
In 1878, the Kings created the Great Western Powder Co. and chose the spot for their factory in a deep valley of the Little Miami River 30 miles south of Xenia at Gainesborough, where Kings Island stands today. The choice of this site was no accident. In the early days of explosives manufacturing, the willow tree played a prominent part in the manufacture of gunpowder. The manufacture of gunpowder required saltpeter, soda ash and charcoal. The banks of most every stream in the area abounded with willow trees. These trees could be used to produce the special high grade of charcoal necessary to manufacture explosives.
They would soon build Kings Mills, a company town for their workers, and rename the operation the King Powder Co. J.W. King’s son-in-law, a Baptist preacher named Gershom Moore Peters, founded the Peters Cartridge Co. in 1887. Peters invented a revolutionary machine that automatically loaded shotgun shells, capable of packing and loading shells at a rate of 60 per minute. The Peters Cartridge Co. became the first to commercially produce automatic machine-loaded cartridges for the marketplace and the King Powder Co. was the parent company.
The massive factory occupied both sides of the river. Safety was the watchword at the twin factories, where at least 20 known explosions killed dozens of people. Workhorses wore brass horseshoes, for fear of deadly sparks. Something as simple as a nail in a worn shoe heel coming in contact with a nail in the floor might cause a spark to touch off an explosion powerful enough to blow a man to smithereens. Explosions were so routine that most structures were built for “quick post-explosion reconstruction.”
The most noteworthy event commenced at 3:50 p.m. on July 15, 1890 when people 6 miles away in Lebanon, Ohio were startled by a loud boom. A freight train halted at Kings Mills to pick up a couple of cars loaded with giant blasting powder. The engineer “cut” his train and proceeded to draw the cars from the switch alongside the mills and place them in his “string.” He made what, in railroad parlance, is known as a “running switch,” having located a new brakeman to operate the brakes. For some unknown reason, the brakes on the cars did not hold and the wayward train cars slipped their moorings. The runaway train gained speed as it hurtled down the slope, striking the stationary cars loaded with 1,600 kegs of powder and cartridges with disastrous results. Instantly there was an explosion that burst the eardrums of every one in the immediate vicinity followed by a second concussion and later a third, more deafening report.
The explosion killed 11 people, including three children. The resulting fires burned for five hours and destroyed an office building, two three-story buildings, a large warehouse and almost 12 company homes. Luckily, a warehouse containing 25,000 kegs of gun powder was left untouched — not a spark had reached it. A Cincinnati reporter said of the blast, “Everything … took fire and burnt like powder, not a piece of timber of any kind (and all the buildings) was left standing by six o’clock.”
One newspaper account said of the explosion: “Employees at the powder mills had been on duty almost three hours when, without an instant’s warning, and as swiftly as lightning strikes from the sky, there was a roar as though the earth itself had been split asunder. Wherever they were standing, whether at the grinding machines, in the storage houses or even idling along the streets, men felt the earth give beneath their feet and then, seemingly, to rise as though in the throes of a violent earthquake. Some were thrown against nearby obstacles; others were swept from their feet and hurled to the ground.”
Debris rained from the sky; splintered wood, pieces of metal, shingles and bricks came down on the single street in the settlement, and showered the roofs of the company-owned cottages. Several large shade trees near the building were literally torn up by the roots, while others nearby were broken or twisted off near their base; still others, some fully 50 yards away, were stripped of their branches by the force of the explosion. One side of the bridge across the Little Miami river, nearly a mile away, collapsed and tumbled into the water below. Immediately following the explosion a cloud of thick, dark smoke hung over the little valley. For a full half-hour the cloud blacked out the sky.
The work of checking over the list of employees started as soon as the numbed and frightened populace could recover from the shock. As names were called the men lined up, most of them nursing bruises or cuts received from the flying debris. When the roll had been completed three vacancies were noted in their ranks. But there was not even the tiniest fragment of clothing of any one of the missing three to indicate that they were actual victims of the tragedy. They had literally been blown to atoms. A careful search was started in the afternoon, and small fragments of the bodies of the explosion victims were found, mostly at a distance of 200 yards from the scene of the catastrophe. Not a trace of the brakeman could be found following the explosion and the freight cars on which he was riding had disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened up and swallowed them whole. Among the names of the 11 that perished: brakeman William Franey, Albert Williams, a cartridge maker; Samuel Stevenson and Harry Reynolds, teamsters; Mrs. James Moss and her 3-year old child; Mrs. Frederick Kelly, wife of the foreman of the plant, and her 4-year old son; a Mrs. Collins and child; the infant of a Mrs. Eliston, and a rag-picker, whose identity is known only to God.
Kings Mills buried its dead, then mutely turned its face to the scene of destruction to fix and repair the factory. The plant continued to make ammunition for soldiers during World War I. Peters Cartridge Co. was sold to Remington Arms in 1934. Roll a Remington Arms brass ammunition round in your hand and read the “R-P.” The “P” stands for Peters Cartridge Co. Remington continued to operate the plant into World War II, producing an estimated 50 million rounds per month. Many of the King Powder Co. buildings were burned to the ground after the company’s closing due to the dangerously explosive residue.
So the next time you visit Kings Island, know that you’re straying into the world of Peters and King. In fact, one of the company’s powder lines was located a mere stone’s throw from the park’s Eiffel Tower centerpiece. Just be careful when you enter the dark corners of the Kings Island amusement park. You may just find that you are not alone.

The Lincoln Funeral Train 161 Years Later

Al Hunter — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 05:08:29 +0000

Anyone familiar with my writings and ramblings knows that I have one special “obsession” when it comes to ghost stories; The Lincoln Ghost train. I’ve written countless articles, papers and literary works on the life and death of Abraham Lincoln over the past 15 years or so.
When the train came through Indiana, the official Travel Log of the train notes that it arrived in Greenfield at 5:48 a.m., Philadelphia at 5:57 a.m., Cumberland at 6:30 a.m., the “Engine House” (identified as “Thorne” in Irvington) at 6:45 a.m. before finally arriving in Indianapolis at 7:00 a.m. The previous day’s rain had stopped just after midnight as the train approached the Indiana border, revealing a beautiful starlit sky as a backdrop for the sad processional and lifting the hopes of the trackside witnesses. However, the telltale slap/pop sound of hard raindrops hitting roofs and roads began again in the predawn hours and by 6 a.m., and rain blanketed the Hoosier countryside. Although it was dark and rainy, the area along the tracks was well lit by torches and bonfires tended by loyal Lincolnites as the train crept towards Indianapolis at less than 10 miles per hour.
In Greenfield, the depot was choked with people wishing to gaze upon the face of the departed leader one last time. The train was not officially scheduled to stop in Greenfield, but the mood among the citizens was that perhaps the engineer might be persuaded to stop when he witnessed the tremendous outpouring of trackside emotion at the Greenfield depot. The local newspaper described among those expectant gatherers “a knot of three boys, hands in pockets chattering back and forth with each other while pacing up and down the railroad tracks. Two older fellows were standing together, each arm around the other, probably soldiers remembering what it means to be a comrade.” The depot porch was filled to overflowing with women in their long dresses, old soldiers in their Union uniforms and a sea of men dressed entirely in black. The telegraph operator in Charlottesville wired that the train had just passed and was heading towards the neighboring town.
A sentinel was perched atop the station to alert the citizens below of the train’s approach. In a few moments, a cloud of silver phosphorescent smoke appeared above the tree tops that parallels the exact route of the present day Pennsy trail. “Here it Comes” was the cry from above and immediately the crowd below hushed and gazed eastward expectantly. For several moments, the only sound that could be heard on the platform was the muffled weeping of the gathered mourners. The crowd asked Captain Reuben Riley to read aloud excerpts from Lincoln’s second Inaugural address as the train slowly approached. As if in response to the impromptu ceremony, the train paused briefly at the station and the engineer removed his cap in respect to reverent gathering.
Reverend Manners stepped from the crowd and led the group in a prayer that began with “Thank God for the life of Abraham Lincoln.” The people now openly wept as the 10 car train departed westward towards Indianapolis. Unfortunately, there are no witness accounts from the train’s sojourn through Irvington. Other towns and cities along the route were bedecked in black mourning cloth, lit by trackside bonfires and oil lamps with platforms choked with adoring masses.
The train came to it’s final west bound destination under cover of a sheltered structure at Union Station in the Hoosier Capitol City. As the train arrived, guns were fired every minute, every city bell chimed continuously, and the Indianapolis city band played dirges at trackside. The train slowed to a stop as the smokestack puffed and hissed under the massive hipped roof of the old station, enveloping the platform and gathered dignitaries in a ghostly fog. As the final slow hiss of boiler steam escaped form the bowels of the Lincoln funeral train, the President of Chicago & Indiana Central Railway, D.E. Smith issued the following telegraph, “The funeral train arrived here precisely on time. There was a perfect torchlite along the along the whole route. Every farm house had its bonfire in order to see the train. Urbana, Piqua, Greenville and Richmond turned out their entire population. Nearly every town had arches built over the track.”
Extensive preparations had been made for receiving the President’s remains that Governor Oliver P. Morton decreed were to be “Consistent with the dignity and reputation of the state.” While Morton planned the festivities meticulously, he could not control the weather. As the daybreak rains poured forth, the bunting and other mourning signs and decorations were soaked and in most places sadly dragging on the ground. However, the rains did not deter the sorrowful pilgrimage of mourners packing the streets from Union Station to the Statehouse. The military guard was drawn up in a solid blue line on both sides of the street, posed with bayonets forward for five blocks from Illinois up Washington Street to the Statehouse doors. The heavy rain forced the cancellation of a much larger, planned official processional. Lincoln’s body was transferred by a guard of honor from the train into an hearse topped by a silver-gilt eagle, drawn by six white horses with black velvet covers, each bearing black and white plumes.
The body was escorted by Governor Morton and General “Fighting Joe” Hooker to the Indiana State House. Legend claims that we owe the title affixed to present day “ladies of the evening” to Gen. Hooker, an avowed ladies man. As proof of his attraction to the opposite sex, when the coffin was opened in preparation for public viewing, Hooker observed eight rosebuds clinging to the dead President’s body inside. He carefully plucked the flowers, believed to have been placed there while the body was in New York, and distributed them personally among several ladies present for the ceremonies. These women prized the memory of the encounter as well as the flowers for decades after the event.
News traveled slowly in those days and Indianapolis was the first major city to hear the news that the President’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, had been captured and killed and the news buzzed through the excited crowd as they waited outside in the rain. The doors were opened at 9 a.m. as an estimated 120,000 people passed by Lincoln in less than 13 hours of public viewing. Roughly 155 people per minute (or 9,300 Hoosiers an hour) passed by the open casket as it rested in the old Capitol Building. By the time Mr. Lincoln’s body arrived in Indianapolis, his face was almost black from decomposition. A local newspaper reporter wrote that Lincoln looked, “…a good deal discolored and emaciated — wearing a haggard and careworn look, but otherwise rather natural.”
Perhaps the most noteworthy visitors that day were the “Colored Masons” who formed a respectable procession lead by a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and carrying banners reading “Colored Men, always loyal” and “Slavery is dead.” By 9 p.m., the crowds diminished, allowing those remaining mourners the luxury of having a long look at the remains. The doors of the State House were ordered closed at 10 p.m. and once again the soldiers were assembled and posted along the return route to Union Station. At 11:50 p.m. the Lincoln train left Indianapolis bound for Chicago. During the night the train passed through Augusta at 12:30 a.m., Zionsville at 12:47 a.m., Whitestown at 1:07 a.m., Lebanon at 1:30 a.m., Thorntown at 2:10 a.m., Lafayette at 3:35 a.m. and Battle Ground at 3:55 a.m. In Michigan City at 7:40 a.m., an impromptu funeral was held and Mr. Lincoln’s coffin was opened one last time in the Hoosier State as mourners filed through the Lincoln train car to view the dead President.
The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel reported in the May 1, 1865 edition of the newspaper that the ceremonies of the previous day, “All in all the multitude presented the most grotesque and ridiculous appearance we have ever witnessed. Wet, tired, cold and famished, beduabed with mud and filth, they presented a sorry sight indeed. No more inclement and uncharitable day could have been, and no more enthusiastic mass of sightseers could have been collected together.” Ironically, while the crowds waited in the rain soaked muddy streets for a last glimpse of Lincoln, pickpockets worked the crowds. It wasn’t all chivalry and solemnity, folks.