History of Lake, Porter, and LaPorte, 1927County history published by the Historians' Association . . . .
Source Citation:
Cannon, Thomas H., H. H. Loring, and Charles J. Robb. 1927.
History of
the Lake and Calumet Region of Indiana, Embracing the Counties of Lake,
Porter and LaPorte: An Historical Account of Its People and Its Progress
from the Earliest Times to the Present.
Volume I. Indianapolis, Indiana: Historians' Association. 840 p.
HISTORY OF THE LAKE AND CALUMET REGION OF INDIANA
CHAPTER XXII.
SOCIAL LIFE.
NATIONAL AND LOCAL ORGANIZATION -- MASONS -- KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS -- ELKS --
SOCIAL AGENCIES -- ST. JOSEPH'S HOME FOR GIRLS, EAST CHICAGO -- ST. JOSEPH'S
HOME FOR HOMELESS BOYS, HAMMOND -- THE HARRIS HOME FOR COLORED CHILDREN,
GARY -- CAMPBELL SETTLEMENT, GARY -- KATHERINE HOUSE, EAST CHICAGO.
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Graduating from the pioneer period and as the communities in the Lake Region became of some size, the formation of local organizations for various purposes naturally followed and national fraternal organizations became established. A high order of citizenship has always been taught by these fraternal orders and the principles of unity, charity, fraternity, brotherly love and loyalty to home and country have always been impressed on the members. Relieving the sick and needy and other forms of benevolence are characteristics of nearly all the fraternal orders and the good they have accomplished to their members in the communities in which they are established, language can not fittingly describe. The prominent national orders have large memberships in the Lake and Calumet Region and there are hundreds of local organizations of an educational, social, religious and charitable character. Among the many national organizations and their various divisions whose activities are most pronounced are the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Knights of Columbus, Elks, Moose, Foresters, Eagles, B’nai B’rith, Vikings, Maccabees, Woodmen of America, Ben Hur, Woman’s Club, railway and other labor organizations. Many of the above organizations maintain clubrooms with excellent appointments and equipment for the pleasure and entertainment of their members and elaborate and commodious quarters for the carrying out of the degree work of the orders and some of the organizations have buildings of the most pretentious character. Among the particularly noteworthy buildings owned by national organizations are the Masonic Temple in Gary, costing $350,000, and the new Knights of Columbus Building in Gary, costing about $1,000,000. Other prominent and costly centers of Masonic activities are the Masonic Temples in Hammond and East Chicago. The Masonic order not only has a large
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membership throughout the Lake Region, but includes a large percentage of the most prominent citizens in business and professional life.
Another prominent fraternal order which has a large membership in the Lake and Calumet Region is the Loyal Order of Moose, and the Odd Fellows also are strongly represented. Among the prominent civic organizations are the dinner clubs, so called, whose broad principles of service are reflected in activities of the most beneficial character in the various communities. Among these organizations are the American Business, Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions and Optimists clubs. The various woman's clubs are very active in promoting measures for civic welfare and have become a great power and influence especially in the larger communities.
Lack of space prevents extended reference to the activities of many of the organizations above mentioned and to hundreds of others who in many ways are promoting social and civic welfare. There are, however, a number of important social agencies in the Lake and Calumet Region to whose work of charity, benevolence and general social welfare extended reference follows:
SOCIAL AGENCIES.
ST. JOSEPH’S HOME FOR HOMELESS BOYS, HAMMOND — The second charitable institution to be established in Lake County by the Carmelite Sisters, D. C. J., which is an international order with American provincial headquarters at Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, is the St. Joseph’s Home for Homeless Boys, located at 51 Sheffield Avenue—the first institution of the sisters being the St. Joseph Home for Girls in East Chicago. St. Joseph’s Home for Homeless Boys is conducted along the lines of the St. Joseph’s Home for Girls, but is solely for boys from the age of three to fourteen years. The home is conducted by ten sisters, caring for sixty-five children, and since it was founded it has given a home and extended elementary training to 550 boys. Although the institution is conducted by Catholic sisters, no distinction whatever is made in creed or color, and the faith of many of the boys who are sheltered by the institution is other than Roman Catholic. The St. Joseph Home has the moral and financial support of organizations affiliated with other churches, who have materially aided the sisters, and it is also being supported by the Hammond Community Chest Association, and this great charitable work of the sisters is warmly appreciated by the citizens of Hammond.
THE HARRIS HOME FOR COLORED CHILDREN — This worthy institution for dependent colored children, in charge of Mrs. N. C. Harris, is located at 2661 Washington Street and at present shelters and cares for fourteen to sixteen children, in ages from one month to sixteen years old, the older children attending the city schools. Nearly all the children cared
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for are orphans and abandoned, neglected or homeless children, and are sheltered until some provision is made for their future. Many children have been taken for adoption from the home and others have been kept by charitable colored families, when owing to inadequate quarters the institution has been unable to care for them. The institution also temporarily cares for children without homes, the cost of which has been defrayed by their parents or relatives.
CAMPBELL SETTLEMENT, GARY, INDIANA — The Campbell Settlement was organized in 1914 under the auspices of Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Northwest Indiana Conference. Mrs. Myron Campbell of South Bend, for thirty-seven years treasurer of the missionary society, was the leader in this work and for whom the institution was named. A few years later the women of the North Indiana Conference came to the aid of the women who were already engaged in the work and the women of the two conferences carried it on until 1920, when the institution was taken over by the National Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. During the early days of the settlement attention was given principally to the children of the neighborhood. Classes and clubs, playground activities, Sunday school, vespers, etc., were carried on each week. Classes in English were organized and foreigners were aided in securing their citizenship papers. A visiting nurse was maintained who cared for mothers in the homes and assisted doctors in conducting clinics. Typical settlement activities were carried on for the benefit of the whole community. In 1921 a portable gymnasium was erected just south of the original building and some rooms were added to the house for the use of the clinics. Dental and medical clinics have been carried on each year and the institution aids greatly in the physical welfare of the people who are in need. In the spring of 1921 a new branch of work was opened in the form of Goodwill Industries. Here opportunities are given to the aged and handicapped. Goods are repaired and sold to needy people at a small cost. This is a great form of relief work, for it is not charity, but a chance, and it is for service, not profit. The Campbell Settlement is a friend to all people at all times, day or night, and seeks to serve in every possible way. The institution is in charge of Rev. Buel E. Horn, superintendent.
CARMELITE ORPHANAGE, EAST CHICAGO — One winter day in 1914 two nuns walked into the office of Col. Walter J. Riley and told him they were from the Mother House at Milwaukee and had been told that there were many working mothers in East Chicago who had no place to leave their little ones during the employment hours, and on investigation had found there was a field for their work here and expressed a desire to start a day nursery. The sisters explained to Colonel Riley that they had no funds
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and no backing, and how to start a home without either was a problem, and asked him to think over the matter and advise them later. In looking around the city they found a vacant cottage on Grasseli Avenue which was owned by Colonel Riley, and he gladly agreed to let them use the place rent free for the home. Colonel Riley chanced to visit the place in a few days and found a half dozen little ones under the care of the sisters, who were busy fashioning furniture out of old soap boxes and donated lumber. Starting as a day nursery, the sisters soon found their home to be a haven for orphans and forsaken and homeless children. A sobbing mother brought her little one, saying the husband and father had died, leaving her destitute. Probation and police officers began sending children whose parents had died or abandoned them. Still others came at the request of clergymen and kindly disposed persons. More than once the sisters opened the door to find a basket containing a little mite swaddled in blankets. Such was the beginning of the Carmelite Orphanage, and through the kindness of charitably disposed people a large house was acquired, and then another, and finally a two-story brick building was erected. With an irregular income, most of it the gift of kindly disposed persons, the sisters continued making progress in rendering great service. Although the work of the institution became known and appreciated, it was years before there was a settled income which, since 1924, has lightened the burden of the sisters through the orphanage being made a beneficiary member of the Community Chest Association. The orphanage knows neither race, creed nor color and now houses eighty-five homeless children, some of them without one parent and many of them without both. Frequently one parent may be dead and the other in a public institution. Some children have been left there by the mothers, who for various reasons were unable to support them. Words can not express the value of the orphanage and the work of the sisters in bringing into the lives of these homeless children the sunshine of happiness and preparing them at a tender age to become worthy members of society.
While generally spoken of as the Carmelite Orphanage, the official name of the institution is St. Joseph’s Home for Girls and it is conducted by twelve Sisters of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart who have also charge of St. Joseph Home for Homeless Boys in Hammond. Since its origin more than 650 children have Been sheltered in the Home and all have received a domestic and elementary training according to their age.
THE KATHERINE HOUSE, EAST CHICAGO — In 1920 some leading citizens in East Chicago realized that the prosperous and rapidly growing city of East Chicago greatly needed an institution where its people, especially the foreign born, could find help, friends, guidance, worthwhile recreation and education in American ideals and character. These leading citizens
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joined the State Baptist Board and the Woman’s Baptist Home Missionary Society in erecting the Katherine House, and through the Community Chest they still guide and support it. It is a religious institution but cooperates with other pastors and is in no sense antagonistic to any other religious creed. The spirit of the institution and of its director, Rev. A. C. Brokaw, and his staff, is to instill the principles of love, faith, service and sacrifice and to render such service as to make life better and brighter in every possible way for those who seek the assistance of the institution. The Katherine House maintains an employment bureau, has its own clinics, gives Boy Scout training and renders every effort to the development of character. Its value as a social agency to the community is shown by nearly 100,000 cases of service rendered during the past year, and its usefulness will be developed and broadened as soon as larger quarters and a larger staff can be obtained.
NAVIGATION OF
HISTORY OF THE LAKE AND CALUMET REGION OF INDIANA
FOREWARD
AN APPRECIATION
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I - Geology and Topography
CHAPTER II - The Mound Builders
CHAPTER III - Days of Indian Occupancy
CHAPTER IV - Early Explorations
CHAPTER V - Border Warfare
CHAPTER VI - Lake and Calumet Region Becomes Part of United States
CHAPTER VII - After Wayne and Greenville - Tecumseh and the Prophet
CHAPTER VIII - Indian Peace
CHAPTER IX - Early Settlements and Pioneers - County Organization
CHAPTER X - Townships - Towns - Villages
CHAPTER XI - Pioneer Life
CHAPTER XII - The Lake Michigan Marshes
CHAPTER XIII - Agriculture and Livestock
CHAPTER XIV - Military Annals
CHAPTER XV - The Lake and Calumet Region in the World War
CHAPTER XVI - The Newspapers
CHAPTER XVII - The Medical Profession
CHAPTER XVIII - The Bench and Bar in the Lake and Calumet Region
CHAPTER XIX - Churches
CHAPTER XX - Schools
CHAPTER XXI - Libraries
CHAPTER XXII - Social Life
CHAPTER XXIII - The Dunes of Northwestern Indiana
CHAPTER XXIV - Banks and Banking
CHAPTER XXV - Transportation and Waterways
CHAPTER XXVI - Cities
CHAPTER XXVII - Industrial Development
CHAPTER XXVIII - Chambers of Commerce
Transcribed by Steven R. Shook, December 2022