Posts Tagged ‘history’

Jean Craighead George Was a Kentucky Colonel

April 13, 2024

One of the artifacts Craighead House holds is a framed certificate complete with official seal and ribbon from then governor of Kentucky, John Y. Brown Jr., commissioning Jean Craighead George as a Kentucky Colonel. It was dated 9 September 1983, the 92nd year of the Commonwealth. Like Pennsylvania, Kentucky is also a commonwealth, whatever that means.

Research into Indiana’s Sagamore of the Wabash honorific found that the Bluegrass State’s Kentucky Colonel program had existed long before Indiana’s. Kentucky’s goes all the way back to its first governor, Isaac Shelby, who put his son-in-law, Charles Todd, on his staff with the title of Colonel, and not to the Civil War as many suspect. Shelby, who had fought in battles against the Indians in colonial times and against the British during the Revolutionary War, as governor raised a force of 3,500 volunteers and led them in the Battle of Thames during the War of 1812 against the British. After the war, he commissioned all who had enlisted in his regiment as Colonels. Later on, other governors commissioned Colonels to act as their protectors. They even wore uniforms and were present at most official functions.

In 1932, the chief counsel of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Charles Pettijohn, convinced then Governor Ruby Laffoon to found The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. He then appointed Pettijohn  as the National Commanding General of the Order, a position that was responsible for the finances of the Order. Anna Bell Ward was appointed Secretary and was given the task of organizing the Order. Later on it was made a charitable organization.

The Governor and Lieutenant Governor serve as the unpaid Commander-in-Chief and Deputy Commander-in-Chief, respectively. The Order continues to this day. Commissions are for the recipients’ lifetimes but membership in the Order requires annual donations to the Good Works Program. The Order also sells memorabilia to raise money and holds a major event over the Kentucky Derby weekend each year. Active members are also expected to help out during the Annual Day of Service.

Numerous famous people, including movie actors, Presidents, and star athletes. Winston Churchill was a Kentucky Colonel. The most unusual commissioning was that of John Glenn while he was orbiting the earth in a Mercury capsule.

Someone must have considered Jean’s works important enough to nominate her commission.

Below is what was mounted on the backside of her commission.

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Sagamore of the Wabash

April 10, 2024

Last week the wife of one of my grad school professors called to tell me that he had died. I won’t dwell here on the tremendous loss his demise is to me but will explore something new I learned. This Indiana University professor was a leader in his field for decades and received many honors, one of which may sound unusual. He was made a Sagamore of the Wabash, the state’s highest civilian honor, by the Governor of Indiana. Unfamiliar with this name, I looked up its meaning. As defined by Merriam-Webster, a sagamore is a subordinate Algonquin chief or sachem. In practice, a sagamore was a person the head chief relied on for advice due to his experience and wisdom. My old professor definitely was a source of wisdom and he didn’t hold a high political office. The Wabash part is self-explanatory to anyone familiar with the geography of Indiana or is aware of songs about that river, including the popular song recorded by The Mills Brothers among others, “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away,” which was established as the Indiana State Song by the Indiana Code in 1913. But how did this honorific come into being?

Indiana Governor Ralph Gates (1945-1949) was about to attend a tri-state conference with officials of Ohio and Kentucky in Cincinnati when he was informed that the governor of Kentucky was planning on naming him a Kentucky Colonel, the Bluegrass State’s highest honor. Something had to be done because Indiana had no such honor. The Life and Times of Little Turtle, First Sagamore of the Wabash provided more details on the honorific’s conception: “In 1946 Indiana governor Ralph F. Gates created the Council of the Sagamores of the Wabash in response to a suggestion made by Samuel R. Harrell, who had been named a Kentucky Colonel and felt that Indiana needed a similar reciprocal honorary organization. Kurt Pantzer joined with Harrell in devising the details.”  Business executive (and World War I pilot) Samuel R. Harrell and attorney Kurt Pantzer were both good Hoosiers, Wabash College alums, and friends of Governor Gates. Harrell suggested “Honorary Citizen of Indiana” for the name of the award. Attorney General James Emmert proposed “Hoosier Schoolmaster.” Patzer’s idea “‘Sagamore of the Wabash’ was deemed to be more deeply steeped in the history of Indiana.”

Governor Gates made Simeon S. Willis, Governor of Kentucky, the first Sagamore of the Wabash and Ohio Senator Robert Taft the second. Kentucky wags suggested that Willis’s naming the Indiana governor a “Kentucky Colonel” as “a long step forward toward getting Indiana cooks to stop putting sugar in cornbread.”

After reading up on this topic I recalled that Jean Craighead George had been named a “Kentucky Colonel.” More on that next time.

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Hunka Tin

March 14, 2024

A scene in the 1927 Motion Picture Academy Best Picture Winner Wings brought something to mind that James McGrath Morris wrote in or about (I forget which) The Ambulance Drivers, a book about how writers Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos became friends while driving ambulances in WWI. What caught my eye several years ago was Morris’s assertion that ambulance drivers had to be from economically advantaged families because poor people wouldn’t know how to drive. That conflicted with what my father had said about growing up poor on a farm at that time.

Dad was too young to go to war but he recalled having some sort of car or truck on the farm even though they didn’t own any land. Used Model T Fords, which were released almost a decade before America’s entrance into WWI, were always on the market at heavily depreciated prices. I remember taking Dad and his older brother to an auction in 1976. The deceased farmer had been a tinkerer who attached Model T drive trains to horse-drawn implements to create useful machines before they were available from major manufacturers. Also at the sale were some complete Model Ts that hadn’t been adapted for other use. My uncle said, “I can remember when that car could be bought for ten dollars.” Dad piped in, “If it ran.”

The point to this is that even poor people had access to automobiles before WWI, although they weren’t Duesenbergs or Packards. Generally, they were Fords because the Model T was the least expensive automobile and it accounted for half of the automobile market at the time.

Clara Bow’s character saw an advertisement for volunteers, with the stipulation that they must be able to drive Fords. To the unfamiliar, that might sound odd. The reasons for it were that Ford built 5,745 ambulances for the Allied Powers and 107 for the Red Cross during WWI. These vehicles used the same Model T drivetrain that was used in passenger cars so many people owned. Other companies also supplied ambulances but Fords were the most common. But why did she need experience driving Fords?

Model T Fords drive like no other automobile. They have no accelerator pedal. Instead they have a throttle level attached to the steering column. Ts employ the handbrake as part of the gear shifting mechanism along with the three pedals on the floor. And they have no clutch pedal. Considerable practice is required to master driving a Model T. The Red Cross probably didn’t have the time for volunteers to learn how to drive the ambulances and couldn’t afford the damage that was sure to result while they were learning.

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