Category: Pop Culture

Creepy history, Health & Medicine, Pop Culture

Raggedy Ann and the Anti-Vaxxers.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

raggedy syringe

Original Publish date: August 16, 2015

The Tribeca Film Festival in New York City opens this weekend. Recently, news that Robert De Niro, co-founder of the festival, announced he was pulling an anti-vaxxer film came as a shocker to the medical and science community as much as it did for fans of the festival. The documentary, titled Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Conspiracy, is directed by British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield, who published a study in 1998 linking the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine to autism.
De Niro, who himself has a child with autism, first zealously defended the choice of the film for the festival. The decision to pull the film has restarted the anti-vaxxer movement in a big way. What does anti-vaxxer mean, you ask? Strictly defined, an Anti-vaxxer is any person who is opposed to vaccination, typically a parent who does not wish to vaccinate their child. Some believe, myself included, that the anti-vaxxer argument started right here in Irvington. And what’s more, that the first symbol for the anti-vaxxer movement is a beloved little doll that is as American as apple-pie: Raggedy Ann.

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Johnny Gruelle.

Everyone is familiar with the cute little rag doll known as Raggedy Ann but most don’t know the real story about her creator or his inspiration. John Barton Gruelle was born on Christmas eve 1880 in Arcola, Illinois. A the age of two, he moved with his family to Indianapolis, where his painter father, Richard Gruelle, became associated with the Hoosier Group of painters, many of whom lived in Irvington. Undoubtedly, the elder Gruelle introduced his son Johnny to Irvington at an early age and he never forgot it.
Johnny married Myrtle J. Swann on March 23, 1901 and a little over a year later, 18-year-old Myrtle gave birth to a daughter, Marcella Delight Gruelle on August 18, 1902. Gruelle was working as an illustrator for the Indianapolis People newspaper and would soon leave to join the Indianapolis News. Around 1903, the couple had saved up enough money to buy a lot at 5630 Lowell Ave (early records show the address variously as “5606” and “5696”). The family would eventually build a 3-story home on the lot.
Johnny spent long hours at the drawing board, hurrying home each night to play with baby Marcella, whom he called Muggins. Popular legend claims that Raggedy Ann was born in suburban Indianapolis (Irvington perhaps?) when Marcella brought from her grandmother’s attic a long forgotten faceless rag doll upon which her father drew a face. The myth further states that Gruelle suggested that Marcella’s grandmother sew a shoe button for a missing eye. He then suggested naming the doll Raggedy Ann by combing the names of two James Whitcomb Riley poems, “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphant Annie”. The legend is further bolstered by the the knowledge that Poet Riley had been a close friend of the Gruelle family.

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The Original Raggedy Ann Doll from 1915.

Separating fact from fiction when it comes to Raggedy Ann is made all the more difficult because Gruelle was a prankster with a puckish sense of humor who was known for initiating many of these legends himself. What is known for sure is that Johnny Gruelle received US Patent D47789 for his Raggedy Ann doll on September 7, 1915. The character was introduced to the public in the 1918 book Raggedy Ann Stories based on tales that Gruelle drew from playtime episodes and stories shared with daughter Marcella. By this time, Gruelle had left Indianapolis for good and his beloved daughter Marcella was not there to share the stories she had inspired.
The year is 1915. America is marching towards World War I and smallpox is hot on its heels. Mass inoculation was the public response. It seemed that the easiest solution to the epidemic was to inoculate all public school children against the dreaded disease. Perhaps unbelievably nowadays, obtaining consent from the parents prior to inoculation was not necessary back then. Children were routinely inoculated at school, sometimes several times for the same disease without parents even knowing it.

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Marcella Gruelle and Raggedy Ann.

Marcella Gruelle was one of those young schoolchildren receiving a hypodermic smallpox inoculation at school. Almost immediately, she loses her appetite, becomes feverish and fatigued. Instead of notifying her parents, the school nurse administers another round of shots to little Miss Gruelle. Marcella’s health continues to decline and she quickly becomes bedridden. She loses her muscle control, “becoming listless and lifeless like a rag doll.”
Marcella dies a slow and painful death, every moment of which witnessed by her loving parents. After her death in November of 1915, seven leading physicians were called upon to opine about the cause of her death. Six of them determined that death was caused as the result of vaccine induced poisoning and call it malpractice. The seventh, being the head of the school board and a supporter of vaccination, declined to comment.
In spite of this, Marcella’s death certificate cited vascular heart disease of several years duration as the cause of death. The secondary (or contributory) cause was listed as oedema with a duration of about 90 days. Oedema is defined as a condition characterized by an excess of watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body. Nowhere on the certificate was a vaccination, or infected vaccination for that matter, listed as a cause of death. For the rest of their lives, Myrtle and Johnny Gruelle staunchly maintained that either a bad vaccination or a dirty needle had killed their daughter.

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Johnny Gruelle’s original Anti-Vaxxer letter and sketch from 1921.

Not long after his daughter’s death, the still grieving Gruelle was commissioned to create an illustration for an article in Physical Culture magazine titled “Vaccines Killed My Two Sisters.” The cartoon is a clever and effective work, reflective of Johnny’s style which is familiar to the readers of the magazine. Mr. Gruelle enclosed the following handwritten note along with his submitted illustration: “Feb. 28, 1921. Dear Mrs. Williams, Having recently lost our only daughter through Vaccination (in public school, without our consent) you may realize how terribly HUMOROUS the subject of vaccination appears to Mrs. Gruelle and myself. Of the seven physicians called in on the case, six pronounced it in emphatic terms MALPRACTICE. The seventh did not commit himself, being the head of the school board and a firm advocate of vaccination. Sincerely, Johnny Gruelle.”
The tragic vaccine-induced death of Marcella propelled Johnny to become a staunch member of the anti-vaccination movement of the time. Shortly after Marcella’s death, Johnny puts the finishing touches on a doll much different than the more popular, rigid, ceramic and composite dolls of the time. Rather than create a rigid doll that stands up straight with a healthy and happy glow, in a fitting tribute to his only daughter, he designs a soft cloth rag doll to represent her limp and dying body. Raggedy Ann is a stark contrast to the Era’s Kewpie doll’s erect posture and healthy demeanor.

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Modern day Raggedy Ann doll.

In 1920, Chicago department store giant, Marshall Field, markets the Raggedy Ann doll. It becomes an instant best seller and customers have no clue about the tragic inspiration behind it. To generations of consumers, Raggedy Ann is their colorful little friend with a candy heart. To the anti-vaxxers, Raggedy Ann symbolizes a century of childhood vaccine injuries and deaths.

Amusement Parks, animals, Pop Culture

Kings Island: Trespassers will be eaten.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Kings Island Trespassers will be eaten photoOriginal publish date: February 6, 2017

It should come as no surprise to you that I have an affinity for Disney’s Haunted Mansion. I’ve been fortunate enough to have ridden the popular theme park ride at Disneyland in California as a little kid with my mom and again as an adult with my family. Likewise, I rode the Haunted Mansion ride at Florida’s Disney World shortly after it opened with my mom and have ridden it dozens of times since with my wife and kids. It never gets old.
Over the years I have been reeled in by the master marketing of Disney imagineers and their many forms of merchandise based upon the popular ride. Somehow or other I have amassed a small collection of items ranging from art posters and statues to toys and tchotchkes of every variety. I have been gifted with relics actually used in the ride over the years ranging from doorknobs to wallpaper that once adorned the walls of this popular haunted mecca.
This past Christmas my family gave me the last in a series of art statues modeled after the characters depicted in the famous stretching portraits that greet visitors in the anteroom. Here Master Gracey invites all “foolish mortals” who dare enter his home by requesting that all visitors step into the “dead center” of the room. As the Ghost Host delivers his spiel, the room (which is actually a slow creeping elevator) begins to “stretch” vertically. The portraits on the wall elongate, revealing the grim fates of the previous residents depicted in the bucolic paintings seen only moments before. The paintings stretch into humorously macabre situations: a middle-aged bearded man holding a document is shown to be standing atop a barrel of dynamite in his boxer shorts with a candle lighting the fuse; a smiling elderly woman holding a rose is shown to be sitting on the tombstone of her late husband George, who is depicted as a stone bust with an ax in his head; and a confident-looking middle-aged man in a bowler hat is shown to be sitting on the shoulders of a frightened-looking man, while sitting upon the shoulders of a third man who is waist-deep in quicksand, an expression of terror on his face; and finally, a beautiful young girl holding a pink parasol is shown to be balancing on a fraying tightrope above the gaping jaws of a ferocious alligator.
She is one of the 999 ghosts that inhabit the Haunted Mansion and, like everything at Disney World, she has her own backstory. WDW cast members call her “Lillian Gracey” and say she was a tightrope walker who strung her rope across to Tom Sawyer’s Island from the Mansion grounds where she met her grizzly fate. She looks like she is completely oblivious to anything that is going on around her. She has no clue at all what is awaiting her below should she fall. Proud as I was, and still am, to add alligator girl to my modest collection, my daughter Jasmine shared some info with me that put a new spin on the statue.
Fresh from a New Year’s Eve trip to Disney World with her friends (they opened the park at 10:00 and stayed well after Midnight…you can only do that when you’re young) she informed me that the statue had been pulled from all sales outlets in the park. She explained how, time and time again, she and her friends listened while Disney sales staffers informed angry customers the statue was no longer being offered for sale. Jasmine asked one of the sales staff, known as “Cast Members”, why the statues had been pulled. The cast member explained it was a result of the August 2016 alligator attack on park property that had tragically killed a 2-year-old Nebraska boy. The cast member explained that people were getting angry because alligator girl was the last one they needed to complete their set.
Although the revelation was interesting , I didn’t think much more about it until I ran across an evocative amusement park relic a couple weeks later. It was a pair of souvenir salt & pepper shakers from the Kings Island amusement park near Cincinnati, Ohio. Although dating from the earliest years of the park (which opened in the Spring of 1972) the set had a distinctive Mid-Century Modern look to it that attracted me. On the front of each shaker was the image of a thick-maned lion resting in front of a wooden sign reading: “Trespassers will be eaten.” The set was a souvenir from the short lived Lion Country Safari attraction inside the park.
z lionsDon’t remember THAT part of Kings Island? Well, that may due to the fact that this “ride” came with an up charge. It required an extra 50 cent ticket to enter. Most kids didn’t go because they didn’t have the extra money or because their parents were unwilling to spring for the extra expense.
The Lion Country Safari opened on April 27, 1974, almost two years to the day from the opening of the park itself. The animal themed area featured various attractions, including multiple small animal exhibits, a restaurant (today known as the Stunt Crew Grill), a gift shop and a large monorail. In 1974, over 300 animals were housed inside the safari included 12 elephants, 25 rhinoceros, 5 giraffes, 4 hippopotamus, 20 ostriches, 20 zebras, 150 antelope, 1 cape buffalo, 75 “critters” (monkeys, swans, exotic birds, etc.) and 70 lions and assorted other big cats.
Mostly, the ride consisted of a two-mile monorail (known as Kenya Safari) that was part of the new trend of “drive-in zoos” popping up in amusement parks all over the country. The trains were fully enclosed and powered by electricity. They ran on rubber wheels and were designed to travel around six miles per hour. This allowed for a 20-25 minute ride. The park estimated the six train monorail could accommodate up to 2,000 guests per hour.

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Kings Island’s Lion Country Safari was completely surrounded by nine-foot high chain-link fences. The fences were hidden from view by hills, strategically planted trees and thick shrubbery designed to create the illusion that visitors were actually in Africa rather than the Miami Valley. The lion section featured additional security measures by means of a separate six-foot high fence within the larger boundary fence. In addition, the electrical current running through the monorail track itself acted as a security measure by discouraging animals from using it as an escape route.
But, without a doubt, it was the animals that were the safari’s main attraction. In particular, as the name denotes, the lions. Originally, the animals were brought in by an outside third party vendor. As the animal population began to push 300, it became very clear, very soon that changes were needed. Although the safari was secure and there is no record of a guest ever having been harmed by an animal at the park, one incident in particular brought change and infamy to Kings Island’s Lion Country Safari. On July 24, 1976, a lion mauled a 20-year-old Lion Country Safari ranger to death. Officially, he had left his protected vehicle for “unknown reasons”. However, park legend insists that he was killed when he left the safety of his jeep to relieve himself.
Which brings me back to that classy looking set of Mid-century modern salt & pepper shakers and their depiction of a lion resting under the “Trespassers will be eaten” sign. I would imagine that the reason we don’t often see this Kings Island souvenir set is that it was surely pulled from the shelves after the Bicentennial year tragedy. If not directly pulled, they were certainly never reordered. Incidentally, this unnamed Safari Ranger is rumored to haunt the area where the attraction was once located. Today, that space is used for roller coasters Flight of Fear, Firehawk and the new Banshee (where the Son of Beast once stood).
However, although sales of those sardonically unfortunate salt & pepper shakers most certainly stopped, the encounters between employee and beast continued. On May 26, 1982, a park employee was attacked by a lion while cleaning the lion’s compound. 34-year-old Terry Raitt suffered a punctured trachea and several bite wounds to the head, chest and upper torso. He managed to climb onto the roof of a building to escape the attack. There paramedics reached him and he was rushed to Bethesda North Hospital in critical condition.Thankfully, he survived. In August, the OSHA ruled that the mauling was due to human error and found no safety violations. Raitt later admitted that he had accidentally left the gate open, allowing the lion to enter the area. Because of this attack, OSHA recommended that rangers be armed with handguns, alongside the shotguns that they already carried in their jeeps.
In the 20 years it was open, more than 15 million people visited the animal preserve before it closed in 1993. The air conditioned monorail was especially popular on blazing hot summer days in the years before the Splash park opened in 1989. Ultimately, the cost of the animal upkeep, low monorail ridership, use of the land, and lack of interest spelled doom for Lion Country Safari. Roller Coasters, which unlike animals, don’t ever die, became a much more attractive option.

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The entrance to the Monorail at Kings Island’s Lion Country Safari.

There are a precious few safari traces available for urban explorers to discover. For perspective, the monorail entrance was located to the right of the current Drop Tower. The overpass that exists at the entrance to The Bat and The Banshee (now used as a park access road) was an original section of monorail track, as well as the access road rangers used to get to the animals. The monorail station was located where the Xtreme Skyflyer tow poles are now and near where the Son of Beast midway was once located.
However, should you still pine for the old Kings Island’s Lion Country Safari, you can catch a glimpse of it if you wish. The old monorail marks the entrances to Jungle Jim’s International Markets in Fairfield and near Eastgate Mall near Cincinnati. Ask anyone living east of Greenfield and they’ll tell you that you haven’t lived until you’ve been to Jungle Jim’s. Imagine a supermarket with an amusement park inside and you’ll get the idea. I suppose in today’s hyper-sensitive overly politically correct world, we can look back on things once considered innocent, humorous and inoffensive and wonder how we ever survived.

Assassinations, Pop Culture

The Kings of Ebenezer. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Family.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

alberta-kingOriginal publish date:  July 11, 2014

Although the anniversary date has recently passed, my mind wanders back to a sad incident from forty years ago. I was almost 12 years old and thunderstruck by the news, and even more stunned by the fact that no-one seemed to care about it as much as I did. I suppose age and experience have help me accept the fact that the incident that was so important to me four decades ago is even less remembered today.
On Sunday, June 30th, 1974, 23-year-old Ohio State University dropout Marcus Wayne Chenault, Jr. walked into Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta Georgia and shot dead the mother of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Alberta Christine Williams King. Chenault also killed the church deacon, Edward Boykin, and injured another member of the congregation, Mrs. Jimmie Williams.
Alberta King was excited by the chance to play the church’s newly installed organ that morning during a reunion of past Ebenezer choir members. After all, Ebenezer Baptist was the church where her father, A.D. Williams, her husband, Martin Luther King Sr., and son, Martin Luther King Jr., all had served as pastors. As a pastor’s wife Alberta (called “Bunch” by her husband) followed in her mother’s footsteps as a powerful presence in Ebenezer’s affairs. She had grown up in Ebenezer and had played many significant roles at her beloved church; teacher, music director, official organizer, president of the Ebenezer Woman’s Council and church organist since 1932. As usual, Alberta was front and center that Sunday morning.
Conversely, nobody noticed as the short, chunky ex-MCL cafeteria busboy Chenault, wearing a tan suit and thick glasses, took a seat a few feet away from the organ. Later, co-workers would recall the otherwise nondescript young man they new as “Markie” telling anyone who would listen that “Someday, they would all be reading about me.” Mrs. King had just finished playing “The Lord’s Prayer” for the estimated 500 in attendance that day. Most of the congregation sat with their heads bowed and eyes closed in preparation for prayer when the shout: “I’m taking over here!” broke the silence. Chenault was standing on a pew at the front of the church with a deranged look in his eyes. He jumped down, bolted to the pulpit, faced the choir, and pulled out two guns. Chenault screamed “I’m tired of all this!” and then opened fire with both revolvers.
Chenault emptied both guns, killing Alberta King, church deacon Edward Boykin, and seriously wounding congregation member Mrs. Jimmie Mitchell. As the gunman sprinted out the side door leading to Jackson Street, the sanctuary was chaotic. Police apprehended Chenault quickly a short distance away.
downloadAfter Chenault’s arrest, police found a hit list of names in his pocket that included 10 black clergymen and strangely, Aretha Franklin. Weeks before the incident, witnesses said that Markie went through numerous personality changes. One day he was an anti-communist; the next day a Black Panther militant. One day he was a Christian, the next, a Muslim or a Jew. One week he was chasing women, the next week he claimed to be homosexual.But mostly, Markie turned lonely and withdrawn. His motivation for the dastardly crime was a mystery.
Alberta King however, she was no mystery. Beloved by all, she was often referred to by her eldest son Martin as the moral foundation of his life. Mrs. King worked hard to instill self-respect into her three children. In an essay written at Crozer Seminary, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that his mother “was behind the scenes setting forth those motherly cares, the lack of which leaves a missing link in life.” Martin Luther King Jr. was close to his mother throughout his life. Although her soft-spoken nature compelled her to avoid the publicity that accompanied her son’s international renown, she remained a constant source of strength to the King family, especially after King, Jr.’s assassination.
Chenault’s other murder victim Edward Boykin was also no mystery, having been a 39-year member of the church. At the time of his death, Boykin worked as a chauffeur for the widow of the late Clark Howell, Sr., former publisher of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. He had served the Howell family for 32 years. He and his wife Lois had no children. Mrs Jimmie Wilson, the only surviving victim, was a 66-year-old retired teacher who considered herself lucky to be alive. She was quoted as saying, “He (the gunman) was standing right over me, and I was saying to myself, ‘this is it.'” before being struck in the lower neck by one of the bullets.
Details of the crime, the crime scene and the victim’s became well known, Chenault’s motive for such a dastardly crime was never discovered. The only thing for sure is that this was a seriously disturbed young man. Raised in the bluegrass country of Winchester, Ky., Chenault’s religious beliefs appeared to be a confused amalgam largely of his own devising. When he dropped out of Ohio State University, he was a junior majoring in education. The core of his personal religious philosophy was hatred of Christianity when, coupled with his sense of inadequacy and need for attention, became a lethal combination. Only two weeks before the killings he told a friend that he would soon “be all over the newspapers.”
According to the New York Times, Chenault “told the police that his mission was to kill the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., but he shot Mrs. King instead because she was close to him”. During arraignment on murder charges, Chenault blamed his actions on a split personality, a “Hebrew” he called “Servant Jacob”. In court, Chenault was observed to be biting and licking his lips, and obsessively clasping his hands together while rocking back-and-forth. When asked about the shooting, he responded, “I’m a Hebrew and was sent here on a mission and it’s partially accomplished.” When Alberta’s widowed husband, Martin Luther King, Sr., asked Chenault why he did it, the youth replied: “Because she was a Christian and all Christians are my enemies.” He further claimed that he decided months earlier that “black ministers were a menace to black people and must be killed.”
Alberta_KingAlberta Williams King died at the age of 69 by the actions of little Markie Chenault. Her death was a shock to the congregation, the city, and the nation. In her honor, Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson ordered the flags on all Atlanta city buildings to be flown at half-staff. Her body came back to Ebenezer Baptist Church to lie in state for public viewing, just a few feet from where she was shot. Alberta’s funeral was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church; U.S. representative from Georgia Andrew Young, who was on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when her son was killed six years earlier, officiated at the service. Funeral attendees included members of the King family, second lady of the United States Betty Ford, and Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. She was buried in the same double mausoleum at Atlanta’s South-View cemetery that had previously held her son Martin Luther King, Jr.’s remains.
Bunch’s death was the crescendo of the often sad King family tenure at the church. Although Ebenezer remained a strong and vibrant congregation, it was never the same. Barely a year after her eldest son’s assassination in Memphis, Alberta King’s younger son, A.D., died in a mysterious accidental drowning.
A.D., like Martin Sr. & Jr., was a powerful, although much quieter, force in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1965, A.D. moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and became pastor at Zion Baptist Church. After his brother’s assassination in April 1968, there was speculation that A.D. might become the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). A.D., however, made no effort to assume his deceased brother’s role, although he did continue to be active in the Poor People’s Campaign and in other work on behalf of SCLC.
After Martin’s death, A. D. King returned to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where in September 1968 he was installed as co-pastor. But by now, A.D. was struggling with alcohol and depression. On July 21, 1969, nine days before his 39th birthday, A. D. King was found dead in the swimming pool at his home. The cause of his death was listed as an accidental drowning.
fieldsdrkingHis father said in his autobiography, “Alveda had been up the night before, she said, talking with her father and watching a television movie with him. He’d seemed unusually quiet…and not very interested in the film. But he had wanted to stay up and Alveda left him sitting in an easy chair, staring at the TV, when she went off to bed… I had questions about A.D.’s death and I still have them now. He was a good swimmer. Why did he drown? I don’t know — I don’t know that we will ever know what happened.” Naomi King, A.D.’s widow, said, “There is no doubt in my mind that the system killed my husband.”
Having lost both sons, Rev. King Sr. found the loss of his wife, especially in such a way, almost too much to bear and, not wanting “the church to decline under my leadership,” he tendered his resignation a short time after her death. By January 1975, the mighty King family was gone from Ebenezer Baptist Church. Years later Ebenezer dedicated it’s new pipe organ in their new sanctuary across the street in Alberta’s name to honor her “passion for beautiful worship music”.
Markie Chenault’s lawyers pleaded insanity stating that “the young man has repeatedly said he was on a mission to kill all Christians” but the defendant was given a death sentence for his crimes. During sentencing for the crime of capital murder, Chenault violently spat in the faces of his mother and father. The sentence was later reduced to life in prison, in part at the insistence of King family members who opposed the death penalty. His motivation remains unknown and Chenault took his secret to the grave. On August 22, 1995, he suffered a stroke in prison and died in hospital in the Atlanta suburb of Riverdale at the age of 44.
Again, through an act of violence, there ended a life that was totally nonviolent, a life that was thoroughly spiritual, a life that reflected love for all persons and unselfish service to humankind. Once more, the indomitable faith of the King family was tested, and again love prevailed amid sadness. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., struck by the violent deaths of his two sons and by the tragic death of his wife Alberta, said at his beloved Bunch’s funeral service, “I cannot hate any man.” While her death is a tragic end to a life that sacrificed so much, I can’t help but feel that at least she died singing the Lord’s praises, surrounded by friends and family in the church she grew up in, was married in and where she raised a young man that would go on to change the world.
During this summer travel season, should you find yourself passing through the Sweet Auburn area of Atlanta, by all means stop in Ebenezer Baptist Church for awhile. There, you can sit in the same pews that witnessed the King’s in all their glory and all their sadness. The National Park Service maintains the historic church, there is no admission charged and you are invited to come in for a quiet respite while audio of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.’s regular Sunday sermons are piped through the sanctuary. These are not the famous words we most associate with King, but rather his normal weekly lessons. And those sermons resonate to this day. But while there, take a moment to look up at that stage and remember Alberta Williams King. A quiet dignified servant of the Lord who cast a long shadow and left us too soon four decades ago.

Abe Lincoln, Creepy history, Pop Culture

Abraham Lincoln Parenting Skills. Part II.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

ln0106_family_i52457_0946dfb2a7Original publish date:  June 10, 2013

Last week, I pondered the parenting skills of our sixteenth President Abraham Lincoln. Coming 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 one 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.
316310_506868396047614_471481590_nSean Leslie Flynn, born May 31, 1971, 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 exceptional 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 (on assignment for Time magazine and CBS News respectively) 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 sited 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 & 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.
untitled-9On 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 hoard 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.

Ghosts, Irvington Ghost Tours, Pop Culture

Ghosts of the Vinton House. Cambridge City, Indiana

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Vinton HouseOriginal publish date:  September 2, 2013

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend and want to get out of town for the day, I have a suggestion for you. Pack up the spouse, the kids, friend or significant other and head out to Cambridge City, 45 minutes east of Indy, for Canal Days festivities on the Historic National Road. Canal Days is a street festival in an old canal town that features some of the best antiquing and specialty shopping in the state. I’ll even take you on a ghost tour if you wish (there are 2 different tours this Saturday night) where you can visit one of Indiana’s most haunted antique malls, the Vinton House.
Canal Days is always held on the first weekend after Labor Day and I’ve led ghost tours in this community for nearly a decade. Similar to the Irvington ghost walk, Cambridge City tours begin at 6:00 PM for the west side of town and then again at 8:30 for the east side of town. The east side tour concludes near midnight in the abandoned Capitol Hill cemetery. The old cemetery, whose last burial took place in 1931, is the beneficiary of the tour with 100% of the proceeds going to it’s preservation. The one element that the tours have in common, along with the Lincoln Ghost train of course, is the Vinton House.
The Vinton House was the oldest continuously operating Hotel in Indiana until it closed in 1981. During it’s lifetime, aside from being a prominent landmark on the National Road, the hotel saw it’s fair share of famous guests including Henry Clay, Governor Oliver P. Morton and Irvington’s own George Washington Julian. One longtime rumor claims that Abraham Lincoln himself stayed at the Inn while traveling through Indiana in the 1840s campaigning for fellow Whig Party candidates. This legend, although unsubstantiated, is so persistent that one of the guest rooms was actually named “The Lincoln Room” by the hotel’s last owner.
For over a decade the Vinton House, located at 20 West Main Street in Cambridge, has been re-energized as an antique mall. Over those 10 years, the Vinton House has gained a strong reputation for carrying one of the best selections of country antiques and primitives in the Midwest. Add to that mix the town’s other fine established shops and malls like Building 125, the National Road Antique Mall and the Hole-in-the-wall, to name only a few, and you have some of the finest antiquing in the state all within a 2-block stretch known as “Antique Alley”.
The Vinton House was saved from demolition in the 1990s by members of Cambridge City’s historic preservation group (known as Western Wayne Heritage, Inc.) when the group purchased the famous old hotel and began renovations that continue to this day. Built in the 1840s at the intersection of the newly opened Whitewater Canal and the National Road, Aaron Reisor opened the opulent three-story hotel alongside the Canal bank. Although the Canal is long gone, it’s route can be easily traced by looking at the building’s west side.
The Vinton House is named for longtime owner Elbridge Vinton, who ran it from Antebellum times to Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Era. After Elbridge’s death in 1908, his daughters ran the hotel until the Great Depression. During that near three-quarter century, the old hotel has seen innumerable comings-and-goings. It seems that many of those old guests, along with Elbridge himself, have never left the building. Contrary to what you may think, the ghosts of the Vinton House are not a modern day phenomenon. The wayward spirits of residents past date back as far as the World War II Era while the building was still an active hotel.
These wayward spirits were first brought to my attention by April Riggle, a dear friend and the previous manager of the antique mall. April, who unexpectedly passed away at age 43 in 2009, was very sensitive to the old inn’s spectral visitors and had many encounters during her many years at the Vinton House. The ghosts would most often manifest by the sounds of furniture scooting across the floor in the second floor “Lincoln Room” directly above the checkout counter. These sounds were heard when April was alone in the locked building after all guests and fellow employees had left for the day.
In time, these scratching and scooting sounds were being picked up on the security cameras within the building. When April, or other witnesses, would ascend the stairs to investigate the strange sounds, they could find nothing there. However, customers in the mall often asked the staff who the people dressed in period clothes were and remark about the strong smell of cigar smoke or alcohol that would accompany these sightings upstairs. Of course, upon closer examination, there was never anyone there to account for them.
This year, after we were kindly asked to resurrect the ghost tours after a 3-year hiatus, I visited the Vinton House to get reacquainted with the old building. Danny and Tammy Hall now manage the mall and, with an assist from daughter Lacy, work tirelessly to keep it’s shelves and cases full of high quality antiques and collectibles. “We get people in here all the time asking us about the ghosts and the tours” says Tammy. “But I’ve been in here at all hours of the night and day and have yet to experience anything.”
Danny, one of the area’s most experienced and seasoned pickers, echoes his wife’s sentiment. “I’ve been working in old buildings, barns and houses since I was a little kid and although I’ve found myself in the pitch dark going nose-to-nose with angry possum’s and raccoon’s, I’ve never seen a ghost.”
The couple walked me around the old building showing me the many improvements that have been made since my last visit. I asked Tammy if she shared the same passion for antiques as her husband does and she quickly answered yes. Danny, who I have personally run into on several occasions over the years at area antique shows lit only by the light of a flashlight before the show actually opens (an old pickers trick), has one of the keenest eyes in the region. “I get my biggest thrill cleaning and presenting the items he brings home to place around the mall” says Tammy. “But I’m ready to go at 2:30 AM if need be.”
Tammy has repainted nearly every square inch of the antique mall. Her attention to detail and sharp decorator’s eye can be witnessed in every room. Western Wayne has established a fine museum on the third floor that tells the story of the town, hotel and canal in meticulous detail. But, unlike many antique malls, the sales floor of the Vinton House “Ain’t No Museum.” Although many of the pieces in the mall are museum quality, the prices are affordable and the selection is widely varied. I have personally watched as a friend bought an old 19th century horse buggy and a casket (it was empty, don’t worry) on a single visit from Danny. A testament to the fact that you never know what you’re going to find there.
Cambridge City ghost tours always start in the cellar of the Vinton House, a long abandoned brick-lined space that was originally at Canal level. Segregated from the upper class guest rooms of the hotel, it’s history involved drinking, gambling and nefarious ventures during it’s century-and-a-half lifetime. The room is off limits to the public (except for ghost tour night) and always kept locked. This day was no exception. We entered the space for a quick survey in preparation for this Saturday night’s tours.
As we walked and talked, I explained what might be expected on tour night and told a couple of the cellar’s ghost stories to the couple (they had never heard them before). As we prepared to exit the cellar, this “Para-normally Challenged” couple stopped and shined a flashlight on a curious formation in the dirt at our feet. “That’s new. That wasn’t here the last time,” Danny said. Tammy agreed as we examined an area on the dirt floor where the sandy soil had been piled up carefully, by purposeful hands, with a central brick acting as a prominent fortress atop the mound complete with a small 8-to-10 inch tree twig flagpole rising from the center hole. The spooky looking little formation was not created by accident. “Leave that there, untouched.” I said, “I think people are gonna want to see that Saturday Night.”
See for yourself this Saturday September 7th (2013). Come spend the day at Cambridge City’s Canal Days celebration and stay for the ghost tours. First tour departs at 6:00 and the last tour at 8:30. It promises to be a ghostly good time.