Barb

I lost a lovely friend tonight and we lost a part of our wonderful Ft. Wayne family. Her name was Barbara Shaffer and she was elegant, generous and fun. Elegant because she always seemed to know what was tasteful but not stuffy. Generous with her wit and inclusion. She entertained people who needed entertaining. Barb was fun with a beautiful smile and good natured zing. I will think of her every time I look into my Ft. Wayne grandchildren's eyes . They are so like hers. She was their grandmother too.

A little more about gardening is in order. Dad couldn't wait to get off the farm but he soon discovered the man could leave the country but the country does not leave the man. This is my brother, K. in 1942 watering dad's Victory garden and there I am waiting my turn. We followed the guide lines for a Victory garden. Dad was always going a little further. He loved watermelon but should have remembered the sun and soil requirements. We got lots of leaves - no melon's.
That summer we still rented the house on Center St. The next year we started buying 315 N. Washington St where we had an even bigger Victory garden but kept it simple. There were lots of other experiments in farming that went on later. Some were pretty funny.
I am going to post a story about life on the farm that my wonderful cousin Marge wrote. I also wrote a little about growing up on the farm when K. and I were small. All of that should wait until closer to warm weather in my thinking . Then there is the story about dad and the lawn problems before he just made it all into parking lot and shop. I wrote an entire writer's group piece that included the lawn debacle. Maybe I can find it and publish it here.

Lets do spring.

Yes! It is March 20th -the first day of spring. I'm going to give basket ball a rest for a while because I feel more like garden thinking and planning. My roots with gardening go way back. All my families were gardeners or farmers or both. Glen and I were both Master Gardeners. We took the training when Purdue just started certifying. Actual professors would show up once a week in North Webster to teach. Warsaw was not ready yet so the classes were held at the American Legion there in Webster.

For several years while we were in business as Tabatha's Garden I taught all day herbal seminars for Purdue at IPFW. They were challenging but great fun with packed classes. My favorite part was the luncheon they held often at Triangle Park.

Last friday our County Extention office called to ask if I would judge herbs at the Co. Fair again.
It is an interesting and easy way to make 50.00. The twins birthday is that day but maybe we can get together on Sunday before.

I have about 200 heritage tomato plants under lights. I hope to bring them along in time for the
Pound Store history days in mid- May. We all need to contribute something to sell.

County Tourney in my experience and beyond

Aannd- I'm back. Some of my favorite childhood and early teen memories are of the Kosciusko Co. basketball tourney time. We ate slept and lived basket ball from the ticket sales rush 'till the cutting down of the nets by the winners on Saturday night. It was cold standing outside in line to get into the old Armory building where all the Warsaw and county games were played . Both exhilarating fun and a miserable lack of comfort made it memorable. Much of the enjoyment depended on the weather and who you happened to be standing near. Ah youth.
Anyway at that particular time -late 1940s into the early '50s when there were 14 small county town basket ball teams our house on Washington St. was pit-stop central during the tourney.We would have a big pot of beef/vegie soup simmering in the deep well cooker that fit down into the top of our old electric stove. This perfumed the house from Tuesday night through Saturday afternoon tourney week. County family -cousins and Uncle Dal and the like would stop in for a quick bowl of soup and crowd relief. It was all very exciting in my "who knows what will happen next "mindset then. The fact that this way of playing basketball and in fact this very venue would fade away soon did not occur to me. The huge picture of a tiger that my dad painted on the wall of the gym would be gone. The place where my future husband was formally introduced to me and the location of so many wonderful events like school dances , proms and festivals-disappeared.
The concessions area where I sweated out the selection of a single cheerleader and got a standing O when I walked out on the floor; indicating that I had won by a vote of the entire student body. Wow ! How could that structure not always be there. It will always be there for me.

Well- enough about me and the essence of the era. Any guy will tell you that the game is the thing. I read that the Indiana High School Athletic Association began it's state tournament is 1911. Of course there were regionals and then the semi-states were played starting 1936. Part of that time Atwood (the Greyhounds) did not have a gym but I heard that back then- in the 30s-. they won the regionals after beating Culver in the sectionals. So they got to go play in the state tourney. What a thrill that must have been . I have to look up who was on that team.

Later Dan Anglin , playing for Atwood,was a stellar player in his younger days. One legendary game with Silver Lake , I was told, a ref called Dan for allegedly stepping on the line. It is still debatable but we will always believe the wrong team won because of that call.

School consolidations started in the 1950s, so just as everyone predicted, nothing was ever the same in Hi School basketball again.

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)