More than one family

Sometimes I forget and think all Anglin all of the time. I guess it is where I am most comfortable.
However there are other families to consider and some of those memories are harder to dredge up.
This does not mean I am finished with b ball. The independent teams of the past are intriguing also my niece's grandfather was a popular semi-pro player and later hi school coach-so more of that later

My son Chris Long and I went to Burket the other day to see my Aunt Count ( Ina Mae Rapp Kiefer). She said the Anglin boys were like brothers to her. Her biological brothers named her Count (short for Countess), because they thought she acted too snooty when she was a little girl. She gave me some pictures of her grandfather Rapp who was a Nappanee business man until the great depression.
My kids get a big kick out of my cousin Jim Rapp who is Count's brother's son. He could be in Florida right now and does not take his computer with him,so I may write what I want about him. He told me he will be driving the Corvette down . With the two dogs luggage and Linda that should be fun.
Anyway our great grandpa Rapp had a REO auto dealership before the crash of 29 . Count said once he went to Michigan and brought home a bright red REO and it was not a fire truck. It never dawned on me that REO Speedwagon was named for the truck in this line until Chris mentioned it.

Here is Jack's post script : " Don Stephenson , a wonderful man, helped shape the lives of many young men. I know because when I was overseas during WWII I would receive letters from him and it was reported to me that he wrote letters to 100 service men over seas- End".

March Madness family style ect.

The other day while it was still almost 40 degrees above zero and just before the whole lake was socked in with dense fog, 2 beautiful big swans flew in and walked around on the ice. They made their way over to the open water close to the park. I guess there was a reason for them to be there and soon they were gone. The fog erased the girl scout cabin, a stones throw away, wafting in and out all morning.

Our primary source, Uncle Jack, was so generous taking the time to write a short article about how the Anglins were involved with basketball. He named it "Anglin Brothers Basket Ball" ( By John H. Jack Anglin). Anything in parentheses was plugged in by me.
" In the early 1930s Atwood, Indiana had a good Independent basket ball team. They were good enough to play exhibition games against Semi-Pro teams such as The New York Rens, the Ft. Wayne Incas and the Lafayette Lambs. In the spring of 1931 or '32 they entered the Independent
State Tourney at Tipton, In. advancing to the Semi-finals, losing by a narrow margin.
There were four Anglin brothers on that team, -Monk,Suze, Dal and Wop.
In the spring of 1934 a sixth brother, Wendell, graduated from high school.
The Anglin Brothers basket ball team was formed by Dale, Monk, Suze, Dal, Wop and Wendy.
Their father, Wash, acted as coach.
Their first public appearance as a team was an independent tourney at Bourbon on wednsday nite Feb. 7-1934. They were defeated by Etna Green 15 to 12. Through the remainder of the Spring of 1934 ,-then in the fall of 1934 and spring of 1935 the brothers played in several benefit and fund raiser games, including 1/2 a game against the Harlem Globe trotters who had been booked by the Bourbon school as a fundraiser. The faculty of the school played the other half of the game. The brothers team then retired because all were married and had families except Wendell.
In the spring of 1939 the youngest of the Anglin family, Jack, graduated from Atwood High
School and IHSAA restrictions. Brother Bill had graduated in 1937 and was already playing independent ball At that time Plymouth had a sporting goods store operated by Don Stephenson called "Don's Parlor". It was a hang-out for all young sports minded youth.
Don had become acquainted with Jack through summer soft ball games which had been played at both Bourbon and Plymouth. Don was a promotor of sports and sponsored a basketball tourney in the spring of 1939. Don called Jack to see if he could get enough of his brothers together to play in the tourney as a drawing attraction of interest. So Jack, Bill, Wendell, Dal and a couple of Anglin cousins from Leesburg forming an Anglin team for Don Stephenson's tourney.
We lost the first game but the mission had been accomplished and the era of the Anglin brothers basketball had come to an end."
(Uncle Jack has more to say about this great guy- Don Stephenson next post)

Thinkin' Lincoln

My Grandson Nick had his 19th birthday yesterday and I remembered last night that in Lincoln' 19th year he got a job taking livestock down the river on a barge. I think it was summer. That trip seemed to have a big influence on the rest of his life.

I was lucky enough to have been on several "history trips " with Nick when he was younger. I hope they will be useful to Nick in the years to come.

Back in the early 1960s I got to visit Lincoln's " birth site" when my sorority, Delta Theta Tau, was having a convention in Louisville. I was a little underwhelmed when the Park Ranger explained that this was a " representation " of the log cabin in the location where they think he was born. Anyway, there was good food, music and friends and a cruise down the mighty Ohio river on "The Bell Of Louisville" sternwheeler.

Still discussing the big snow of 1927-8 the horses used to pull the bobsled were the probably replaced by a tractor before I was born, but I remember the bobsled. It was pretty rickity by the time I experienced it's use. They would hook the tractor on to it and for some reason a bunch of us would attach our sleds to the back of the bobsled and it was a sledathon. I usually got tired of that not too far from the barn.
Anyway back to when they used the horses; they used two according to Uncle Jack,. Names? He said he remembered one was named Topsy and we could just use the name Frank until the other name came to him.
On the way home from church I was telling the kids, and Harley (Sebastian Long) said his name should be Turvy.
Lets play name the mystery horse. Whats your name?

explanation

My machine kinda messed the most recent blog up so it is in 2 parts.
One is titled "Bobsled rescue edit" and then "continued. They are in the list on the side. Better luck next time I hope.

continued

Bill was in third grade and Jack was in first. I can imagine their mother’s relief when the rig pulled out of the farm drive on to the road. I hope she had a cup of tea.

When they approached the school there was a little horizontal snow, but nothing unusual for that time of the year.

As the day progressed the wind picked up and the snow went from inches to feet. By mid afternoon everyone knew they would have a lot of trouble getting home and people who had lived through this kind of weather before declared that it would take several days to dig out of what was coming. The kids who did not live in town would have to stay with families close by. I suppose they used sleds to pull the little kids over the snow through the blizzard.

The smallest Anglin boys were taken to the only restaurant in town. It was run by Harold and Ethel Grossman. Harold was one of their mom’s nephews The Grossmans lived over the store and the little boys got to

sleep in a nice warm bed. There was plenty of food because they owned a restaurant. The older boys got to go home with friends.

Every one had to stay put as the storm took several days to subside. The storm started on a Wednsday but it was Saturday when, finally, Daddy Wash was able to hitch the horses to the big bobsled filled with hay or straw. The youngest boy, my uncle Jack, said he remembered being put down into the hay to keep them warm on the way home. It was good that the older boys had strong legs because they had to walk beside the bobsled to stay warm. Jack had been feeling a little

feverish for a day or so and Mrs. Grossman discovered that he had Chicken Pox ; so, once again, a little surprise for mother (Grandma Grace).

Bobsled rescue edit

This is the real story as edited by Uncle Jack. Kids see if you can tell the difference.

Bobsled Rescue from Atwood School, part 1

This little docudrama was set in the small town of Atwood, Indiana at the time of the big snow of 1927-8.

Early on most of the schools in the county (Kosciusko) were small with names like Frog Palace, Lick Skillet, Buzzard’s Glory and Bloody Corner. Atwood school was fairly new and larger. The first graduating Atwood Hi class was the class of 1912 the same year that Washington I. Anglin, aka Daddy Wash, started driving the school bus. These conveyances were called hacks at that time. They were motorized in 1916. The driver who was usually a farmer bought the flat bed truck that a bus body structure was mounted on at the beginning of the school year. This body was removed at the end of the school year so that the farmer could use the truck for farm work. One had to go to Bluffton In. to get this done.

The morning of the big snow showed no signs of a huge blizzard. This was before REMC but even if radios had been available to them then, the radio did not have elaborate weather predicting capabilities and the announcer most likely said “it looks like snow” at the end of the news.

Up early, Daddy Wash was starting up the school hack to drive through the few inches of snow about 5 miles to Atwood. Most of the kids in the early stages of the pick up came streaming out of his own house because they were his kids.

There was Dal ( Dallas), a sophomore in high school, Wop (my dad who’s real name was Don as you know) was a freshman, Wendy (Wendell) was in sixth grade, -----go to the next blog above.

We are so fortunate to have a primary source available to us in my uncle Jack. He is a witness to most of the family history I need to know about. He gives me the ideas. I work up a story then he corrects (edits) and I try to get it on the blog with as few mistakes as possible.

The Writers Group I belong to loved the bobsled rescue story I presented but I knew that some of the facts did not add up. Uncle Jack agreed to edit so the museum edition will follow on this blog. J.