Archive for July, 2023

News About Lone Star Dietz

July 28, 2023

Because the various newspaper archives sites constantly add papers to their files, I periodically run searches for topics and periods that have holes. One such period is the early 1900s for Lone Star Dietz. I still don’t know why he was referred to as “famous” when he surfaced at Macalester College or where he was in 1906 and 1907 before appearing at Carlisle. This particular search didn’t fill any of the time holes but it did provide a little information about what Dietz did at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

A wire article that discussed work done by the Chilocco Indian School Domestic Science Department in preparing a special dinner for dignitaries present at the World’s Fair. No, Dietz didn’t cook the meal. That is one thing this Renaissance man isn’t know for. He decorated the menu cards with ink drawings. Illustrations were in his wheelhouse. The menus weren’t shown in the article so we don’t know much about those drawings. The article does place him as being at the Indian School exhibit in early September of 1904. That reinforces existing thoughts about his whereabouts rather than extending our knowledge about his travels.

Mystery Man Identified?

July 24, 2023

On June 1, 2020 I posted a photograph taken at Union Station in St. Louis in 1908. Five Carlisle Indian School football players posed in a Thomas automobile used as a prop by a photographer who operated in the train station. Cecilia Balenti-Moddelmog, grandaughter of Carlisle star quarterback Mike Balenti, identified four of the five young men in the photo but could not identify the person on the far right.

The others are l-to-r Little Boy (Scott Porter), Wauseka (Emil Hauser), Mike Balenti and Fritz Hendricks.

Now Dennis Parrish has identified the player on the far right as John Balenti, Mike’s brother. In the team photo below, he is in the back row fourth person from the left. At least that is what the Pittsburgh Press said.

Why Mike’s granddaughter didn’t recognize her great uncle is a reasonable question. However, I had an uncle I never met even though he was alive decades into my adult life. I am so bad at picking people from old photos that I’m little help sorting out this one.