Irvington at 150: Street Names N-R

In part four of five in our series on Irvington street names, we continue to explore the history of various avenues throughout the neighborhood. When the city annexed Irvington in 1902 officials consolidated names to reflect the nearby matching street. However, there are several unique names that began in Irvington. A California city, a constellation, a popular tree, local families, and a beloved Hoosier poet all have a home on street signs in the historic suburb.  

New York Street: Formerly called Shank Street after a prominent local family, the city of Indianapolis changed the name in 1909 to coordinate with New York Street, which originates downtown. The Shanks owned several acres at the intersection of Arlington and Washington Streets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

Norway Drive: William Alexander and Flora McDonald Ketcham, who founded the Irvington neighborhood of Pleasanton, named one of their streets "Norway." Mr. Ketcham, a Civil War veteran and leader in the Grand Army of the Republic, received front page news when he passed away suddenly in 1921. In none of his lengthy biographical profiles is there mentioned a connection to the nation of Norway. Mrs. Ketcham passed away in 1938. She also appears to have no connection to Scandinavia. Since they named the other two streets after trees, perhaps Norway refers to a spruce or maple. 

Oak Avenue: The beautiful winding street known as Oak Avenue was likely named after the majestic trees still present in the 1870s when the neighborhood was platted. Some of those specimen still exist in 2020. Generations of families have resided and played under these ancient trees. East of Arlington Avenue, the city renamed Third Street as Oak Avenue as well. 

Chuck Vogt posed with his sister, Jane, and his new bike under the giant oak tree near 5733 Oak Avenue in 1947.  Behind the siblings, you can also see the residence at  5728 Oak Avenue. (photo courtesy of Chuck and Joyce Vogt)

Ohmer Avenue: Nicholas Ohmer was a very early investor in Irvington. A resident of Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Ohmer and possibly his brother George Ohmer, built 312 Downey Avenue in 1873. The beautiful Second-Empire style, a French design, was in vogue when the brothers built the elegant brick home. Mr. Ohmer was a horticulturalist and likely became involved in the neighborhood due his connection with Sylvester Johnson, a founder of Irvington. There is little evidence that Mr. Ohmer lived in the house and if he did then it was for a brief period of time. His primary residence was located at 1350 Creighton Avenue in Dayton. Both he and his brother George also operated a series of restaurants throughout the Midwest in or near train stations including one in Union Station in Indianapolis. When Ohmer's Irvington home was restored in 1966 the residents of the neighborhood decided to interpret the house from the Benton family's tenure in the home. A nearby street was named for Mr. Ohmer and local historian, Steve Barnett, has discovered that part of Julian Avenue was also named Ohmer. Both the house in Dayton and his creation in Irvington are on the National Register of Historic places. Not many Americans can claim that honor. Furthermore, Mr. Ohmer built his own suburb around his orchard in Dayton in the 1880s and it also bears his name as Ohmer Park. 

Nicholas and Susanna Spratt Ohmer of Dayton, Ohio: Mr. Ohmer built what would become known as the Benton House at 312 South Downey Avenue in Irvington in 1873. Mrs. Ohmer's brother, Thomas B. Spratt also became an early investor in Irvington. (photo courtesy of Ohmer family via Ancestry.com)

Nicholas Ohmer built this beautiful home for his very large family at 1350 Creighton Avenue in Dayton, Ohio in 1864. He also founded the suburb of Ohmer Park in Dayton. (Screenshot of home)

Some accounts note that George Ohmer, the brother to Nicholas, helped in the investment of 312 South Downey Avenue (the Benton House). He became quite wealthy as he operated numerous restaurants around train stations in the Midwest. He is given credit for helping both Thomas Taggart, an Indiana politician, and inventor Thomas Edison early in their careers. (photo courtesy of Ohmer descendants via Ancestry.com)

Named for the Benton family who dwelled here in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the house was built by Nicholas and George Ohmer in 1873.  (photo by Wm. Gulde, spring 2020)

Orion Avenue: The Irvington Town Board reached for the stars in 1898 when they renamed Nora and Water Streets after the constellation. (Indianapolis News, November 8, 1898, 12)

Pasadena Street: At about the same time that the first residents started to build houses in Irvington in the early 1870s, a different group of Hoosiers moved to southern California and founded the city of Pasadena. They wanted to name their new home the Indiana Colony, but that name was rejected by the US Post Office so they settled on the Chippewa name that literally means "crown of the valley." Nearly fifty years later when developers east of Irvington needed a new street name, they chose "Pasadena." By the late 1920s, the Stradley, Thomas, and Goodnough families lived in charming bungalows and Tudor-Revival cottages along the new street just north of Washington Street. 

Pleasant Run Parkway: Noted landscape architect, George Kessler, began his tenure with the city of Indianapolis in 1907 and worked with officials through 1915. He had already designed boulevard systems in Kansas City and Cincinnati. In 1909, he presented a bold plan to the city that linked green spaces with winding boulevards that followed streams or rivers. Irvington became part of that plan when Mr. Kessler proposed Pleasant Run Parkway along the Pleasant Run stream. Although his vision was not completed until the late 1920s, boulevards like Fall Creek Parkway, Brookside Parkway, Kessler Boulevard, and Pleasant Run Parkway are some of the most beautiful in the city of Indianapolis. 

Poplar Road: When William Alexander Ketcham and his wife Flora McDonald Ketcham platted Pleasanton in 1915, they named one of the streets after a genus containing 25-30 species--Poplar. By the early 1920s, middle class families began building along the beautifully planned street. Reflecting the modern era in which the residences were built, several of the families along Poplar had a portre cochere attached to the side of their homes. 

Evelyn Schneider posed with her doll in 1925 in front of her home at 327 Poplar Road. The Schneiders were among many families who moved into new homes in the Pleasanton neighborhood of Irvington. To see more images of this street, click on the "Poplar Road" tab below. (Photo courtesy of Bill Ferling)

Rawles Avenue: Lycurgus Rawles joined Jacob Julian and several other investors in developing southern Irvington in 1873. His death at age 38 in that year ended his brief tenure in the venture. His father, John Rawles, stepped in and served as the administrator of his estate by selling off lots. More research is needed on this family, who seemed to have more connections to Lafayette than they do to Irvington. To honor the Rawles family, early developers named a street for them connecting South Arlington Avenue to Audubon Road.  In 1903, the city renamed Trislar Avenue west of Audubon Road and east of South Ritter Avenue as Rawles Avenue as well.

John Rawles, the father of Lycurgus Rawles, sold off his son's remaining real estate after Lycurgus passed away in 1873. (Ad in The Indiana Sentinel, March 22, 1876) 

Ridgeview Drive: When the Buckeye Realty Company under the leadership of John Chilcote developed the Irvington Terrace neighborhood in 1913, they originally named this street as Kensington presumably after the palace in England. Several families sought to build their own modest "palaces" along the street. R.L. Castle erected many of the residences. In October of 1916, the city of Indianapolis changed the name to the generic Ridgeview Drive. They also changed nearby Eldridge to Kenmore Road. 

An ad in the Indianapolis News, November 15, 1914, (39) for 319 North Ridgeview Drive, formerly addressed as 95 Kensington Avenue. 

Riley Avenue: Beloved Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley, would have still been alive when the Irvington Town Board honored him by naming a street Riley Avenue sometime around the turn of the century.  While the avenue today is most associated with the Emerson Heights neighborhood, it originated north of Washington Street and began life as Summit Avenue. In 1898, the Irvington Town Board considered calling it Appian Way after the famous the Roman road, but eventually Riley Avenue won the day. We do not know if Mr. Riley ever visited the stretch named for him. Further research is needed! 

James Whitcomb Riley (public domain)

Ritter Avenue: When Levi Ritter purchased over 80 acres of land in Warren Township in 1869 he had the idea of owning a Jersey cattle farm. His vision changed once he heard that Jacob Julian and Sylvester Johnson were planning to develop a suburb next to his acreage. Mr. Ritter built a large home for his family on the southwest corner of East Washington Street and what was to become "Ritter Avenue." According to a 1903 Indianapolis Journal article, old growth trees, iron weed, and "red-topped" thistle dominated the landscape around the family. On September 16, 1871, Mr. Ritter platted the first addition to the new suburb of Irvington. He kept the original plan in place with winding streets. Although it is difficult to imagine today, Mr. Ritter, Mr. Julian, and Mr. Johnson kept a fully-stocked horse stagecoach barn on the northeast corner of East Washington Street and Ritter Avenue. After Mr. Ritter's death in 1893, his widow, Caroline Ritter continued to live on the site until she sold the property to the Indianapolis Public Schools in 1903. IPS #57 has operated continuously on the Ritter land since 1904. 

Sources:  Larry Muncie, Three Windows on Irvington History, 1989; George Kessler--Paul Diebold, Greater Irvington II, 2020; Rawles--"Administrator's Sale, Indianapolis News, March 22, 1876, 2; Ridgview Drive--""Taxi Men Oppose Rate Ordinance," Indianapolis News, October 3, 1916, 11; Riley Avenue--"Call it Audubon Road," Indianapolis News, January 17, 1903, 2; Ritter Avenue--"Old Ritter Homestead: First House Built After Establishment of Irvington," Indianapolis Journal, June 28, 1903, 8.

An Oak Avenue Home--1911

Dawson C. and Ida Belle Kile moved into their brand new home at 5921 Oak Avenue in 1911. Mr. Kile, who was 34 years old at the time, had lived part of his life in a house with his parents, Oliver and Sarah Kile, under the giant oak tree (now called the Kile Oak) on Beechwood Avenue. The younger couple were able to purchase the triangular lots on Oak Avenue because they belonged to the Frys, who were related to the Kiles. The house, fashioned in the American Four Square design, was a very popular style in the U.S. in 1911.  On the back of the photo, a realtor or family member described the interior of the home. Downstairs, the Kiles could enjoy a brick fireplace in the living the room with a coal grate.  The first floor also included a library, a dining room, the kitchen, and a pantry. The lower level had beautiful hardwood floors. Four bedrooms with "large" closets and a bathroom occupied the second floor. The builder attached city water and included a coal furnace that pumped warm air into the home on cold days.

The price of the home in 1911 or perhaps in 1913 was $5000 although the seller was willing to go down to $4500.  The Kiles moved from Irvington in 1913 so it is possible that this photo was used to try to sell the house at that time. It must have worked as the Evans family moved in and remained until 1918.

Dawson C. Kile worked as a railway mail clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad for 37 years. He serviced various parts of the line from Pittsburg to St. Louis during his long tenure with the company. The couple had one biological son who survived into adulthood, John Albert Kile,  but he died at age 20 from malaria after they had moved to Ohio. The couple also adopted many foster children over the years. The Kiles left Irvington for Zanesville, Ohio after only living in this home for two years. The beautiful photo of their home shows the house before some of the later alterations occurred including a sizable rear addition. Mr. Kile's sister, Mae, continued to reside in the family home two blocks south on Beechwood until the early 1970s.  Ida Belle Kile passed away in 1948 while Dawson Kile lived until 1967.

Dawson and Ida Kile moved into this American Four Square at 5921 Oak Avenue in 1911. By 1913, they had moved to Zanesville, Ohio. Other families to reside here over the years included the Evans, Whiteman, Shirey, Kramer, Fee, Collins,  Pedigo, and Thomas families. (Photo courtesy of the Irvington Historical Society)

Most likely in 1913 when the Kiles were putting the home on the market, someone wrote all of these details about the residence on the back of the photograph.  (Photo courtesy of the Irvington Historical Society)

I wish to thank Paula Schmidt of the Irvington Historical Society for loaning me this wonderful image. 

Sources:  Information about the purchase of the lots came from the Indianapolis Star, May 23, 1905 and the Indianapolis News, March 19, 1907, 8) Other useful information came from the obituaries of Dawson, Ida Belle, and John Albert Kile.

An Irvington Childhood in the 'Forties

Editor's Note: Today's post was written by Lucia Walton Robinson, who resided at both Audubon Court and at 5840 Oak Avenue. Ms. Robinson's account spans the time period from 1937 to 1950. Her father worked as the sports director for WISH Radio and TV until 1955. He later formed the Luke Walton Advertising Agency. Ms. Robinson provides a wonderful snapshot of growing up in Irvington in the 1940s. You may read her biography at the end of the post. I have placed addresses of the families mentioned next to their names as many current residents will likely enjoy hearing stories about the people who once lived in their homes. 

An Irvington Childhood in the 'Forties

By Lucia Walton Robinson

The Walton family moved into 5840 Oak Avenue in 1946 and remained until 1950. Pictured: (Top) Charlotte Walton, Adelaide Reeves Walton; (Bottom) Lucia Walton, and Luke Walton in 1944 (image courtesy of Nancy Ostrander) 

When I was born at the end of 1937, my parents, Luke and Adelaide Reeves Walton, were renting a house on Johnson Avenue near the Irvington Presbyterian Church while he worked as an announcer for radio station WIRE and finished the last class he needed for his B.A. degree at Butler, which he’d left in 1931. I was six months old when he left WIRE and returned to WBOW in Terre Haute, where he’d accidentally begun his career in broadcasting, I think in 1932, the year my sister Charlotte was born. Then in 1940 he signed on to WISH in Indianapolis and moved us to what is now known as “Historic Audubon Court,” where Mother’s cousins Scott and June Ham were living and I found a playmate in their youngest daughter Priscilla. Their older daughters, Winifred and Guinevere, served often as our sitters, as did Nancy Ostrander and Eva Ruth Ham, daughter and niece of our Great-aunt Guinevere Ostrander (323 N. Audubon Rd.) After retiring from the State Department, The Honorable Nancy Ostrander returned to the wonderful house on North Audubon Road, the “mother house” of our extended family.

My memories of those first few years in Irvington are scant. I recall playing with Priscilla and a boy my age called Jerry Pickard who lived across the court (we made snowmen and played Superman with dishtowels attached for capes), tagging after my sister and the older cousins, sometimes spilling over into the alley between the court and the imposing Second Empire Layman house next door—the name Eleanor Layman sticks in my memory, though not the person attached. Guinnie had a pet worm that she kept in a tiny matchbox and held a funeral when it succumbed, most likely to absence of soil. Another occasional playmate was Cousin Fritz (Fred) Gable (5924 Lowell Ave), who lived near Aunt Guin with his parents Jane Hall and George Gable; we were born within six weeks of each other. I think we both attended the Hibben School, a pleasant preschool run by two kind sisters—but I remember only a pond and ducks. Father at that time had a sports program, possibly news, and the sort of man-on-the-street program he’d had in Terre Haute. He was likely also doing play-by-play of some sports events; I was too young to notice, though I’ve often said that the first time I ever sat up was on a bleacher.

Three weeks before my fourth birthday the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It wasn’t revealed for a few months that a beloved first cousin of my mother’s, Marine Lieutenant George Ham Cannon of Detroit, died heroically in the concomitant bombing of Midway Island on December 7, 1941. Cousin “Hammy” was the first Marine awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War II—posthumously. His mother, Aunt Guinevere’s sister Estelle Ham Cannon, traveled to receive it, and later to christen a small Navy ship named for him. Then, I think all the men in the family tried to enlist, but they were mostly too old and all except Father were 4-F. He was sworn into the United States Navy on his six o’clock program—his first act of public relations for the Navy—and departed for three months of officers’ training at Dartmouth College in snowy New Hampshire, where he spent his 35^th birthday. Although most “ninety-day wonders” were posted to merchant ships (which German U-boats regularly sank), Father was sent to Great Lakes Naval Training Station where he soon became athletic public relations officer, working with the famed Bluejackets sports teams. Some old friends from Butler were there, including Tony Hinkle who coached the football team that famously beat Notre Dame, Bob Nipper (later athletic director at Shortridge High School), and attorney Harry Ice and his wife Betty. A young Irvingtonian sailor he’d inspired, who introduced himself one day, was Howard Caldwell, Jr. (81 N. Hawthorne Lane), son of a friend of Aunt Guinevere.

Mother sublet the Audubon Court apartment and we were quartered first in the Somerset Hotel in Chicago, then at a house in Lake Bluff where I was allowed into first grade at the wonderful village school, and then a large old house on the base itself. Those were good years for us children. Father was in contact with many famous athletes while being denied the sea duty he so yearned for. Finally, he received orders to go to Pearl Harbor; Japan surrendered almost immediately, and Mother returned with Charlotte and me to Audubon Court, where Charli entered high school at Howe and I third grade at school 57.

Father returned to us in November 1945 with shell necklaces, leis, a minuscule grass skirt for me, and a coconut whose shell no implement would crack—not a hammer, axe, nor hatchet. Finally, it was dropped from a third-floor window, whereupon the sidewalk beneath was cracked but not, alas, the coconut. He returned to work at WISH and in the summer bought the house at 5840 Oak Avenue in south Irvington. It has been changed a great deal but was then a charming Dutch colonial with a screened porch looking out on the side yard with its birdbath surrounded by phlox and back-corner fish pond, which had a lovely brick back wall with copper insert and a number of large gold and speckled fish, one at least a foot long. A doghouse joined them when we retrieved our Cocker spaniel Tony (named for Hinkle) from my grandmother’s, where he stayed while we were in Audubon Court. Father was greatly annoyed every day-after-Halloween when he had to search the neighborhood for the roof of the doghouse. Behind 5840 was a paved area fronting a large brick wall with fireplace where my friends and I roasted marshmallows and hotdogs on occasion and I was tasked to burn the trash--never my favorite chore.

5840 Oak Avenue in the winter of 1946 (photo courtesy of Lucia Walton Robinson)

We’d had extended family close by in Audubon Court, and other connections followed. On my first excursion forth a woman on a nearby porch called to me, asked if I were my mother’s child, and brought out a photograph of my mother at about age three with a little red chair we still had. She was Mildred Rose, a friend of Aunt Guinevere, who lived with her mother Mrs. Emma Kuhn (5808 Oak Avenue) a few houses away. I found other children farther up the block and later met Mrs. George Gill (5908 University Ave.), living with her husband, sons, and Boston bulldog in an arts-and-crafts house next to a small wood on the opposite corner of Oak and University Avenue. Urith Dailey Gill, later an important figure in the Disciples of Christ, was a girlhood friend of Aunt Guinevere. I often had cambric tea with her and the dog and never told her how her younger son George, a few years older than I, tormented me on the way to and from school 85. (George eventually became editor and then publisher of the Louisville Courier Journal and asked the question to which President Nixon famously answered, “I’m not a crook.”) Every Christmas Mr. Gill would bring us a Yule log from his wood, we “Oak Avenue Acorns” would go a-caroling, and Father would take me with him to Clifton Wheeler’s (5317 Lowell Ave.) house to choose a lovely landscape for Mother. A little farther up University Avenue lived the maternal grandmother and great-aunt of my cousin Fritz 

Gable, now accompanied by younger brother Bruce, with an enormous cat that was said to be 21 years old and possessed of false teeth. When the boys visited, we played outside, as Mrs. Caroline Hall (5850 University Ave.) and “Aunt TT” (Temple Tompkins) were rather formidable and averse to noise and activity.

Emma Kuhn and her daughter, Mildred Rose, lived at 5808 Oak Avenue in 1946

Mrs. Kuhn and her sister were featured on their birthday in the Indianapolis Star in 1948. (Image courtesy of the Indianapolis Star, May 24, 1948)

Urith Gill participated in an oral history project for the Brown Library in Irvington in 1982.  The Gill family resided at 5908 University Avenue for many decades. One of the Gill sons, George, went on to become the editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. (Image courtesy of the Indiana Memory via the Indiana State Library)

Charlotte Walton sat upon a large boulder in front of 5840 Oak Avenue c1946. The boulder sits in the same exact spot in 2018. (image courtesy of Lucia Walton Robinson)

The author, Lucia Walton, with her Louisville Slugger in the side yard at 5840 Oak Avenue c1947. You will note that the home used to have an open side porch. It was later enclosed. (image courtesy of Lucia Walton Robinson) 

Our block was populated mostly by boys; thus, sports played a big part in my life outside school, and not only at home. Fortunately, there was always a girl near my age in the house that had the large side yard where we all played baseball after supper in good weather, and Jane Vogt ( 5733 Oak Ave.) lived with her brother Charles across the street; about once a month the three of us would board a bus for downtown to hear the children’s symphony at Cadle Tabernacle, scowled into silence by Maestro Fabian Sevitzky. Should anyone make a noise, the music would instantly stop and a terrifying frown search out the culprit. Afterward, we had to cross the street to catch the bus home and would visit the fascinating City Market, where I always bought a bunch of sweet peas and a bag of caramels. Next to the Vogts lived the Edward Heckers (5729 Oak Ave.). Eddie was a few years older and David I think a year younger than I; I heard years later that Eddie was with NASA but have no corroboration. Mr. Hecker was a printer, a kind man who wept at the funeral of their elderly cat. He himself died suddenly shortly before we left the neighborhood, as had the father of John Wright (5718 Oak Ave.), by several years the youngest of four who lived on our side of the street across from the Eberts (5715 Oak Ave.). Having four sons within a range of eight years or so, the Eberts gave over their back yard entirely to youthful pursuits; we even rode bikes there, pretending to be 500 drivers. I can still hear Mrs. Ebert calling “Bobby Dicky Billy DAAAveee!” Billy was the one my age. Young Davy was allowed in our confirmation class at Irvington Presbyterian Church because it was the last for Dr. John Ferguson, who had confirmed his older brothers. I remember Dr. Ferguson coming into the sanctuary when we were rehearsing, I looking up and up and up into the benevolent face of a very large man whom Dr. Ferguson introduced as his successor Dr. Howard Stone, telling us we would like him. It was not so much a remark as a command, but we found the order had been unnecessary.

The Vogt Family resided at 5733 Oak Avenue. In this photo, Jane and Chuck Vogt posed next to a new bike in 1948. (image courtesy of Chuck and Joyce Vogt) 

The Wright family lived at 5718 Oak Avenue. 

The Ebert family lived at 5715 Oak Avenue.

Luke Walton frequently participated and narrated a Christmas service for the Irvington Presbyterian Church. Mr. Walton was well-known in the city of Indianapolis as an announcer for both the Indianapolis Indians and for the Indianapolis 500. (image courtesy of Lucia Walton Robinson)

I was taken to the 500-mile race at age eight, to the first race after the war, and would continue to attend through my college years, so I could tell the other children whatever I could learn from a pretty low vantage point. The race took all day in those years; Father would have to get downtown  quickly afterward to make his six o’clock sports program, so he’d follow the police car that was transporting the movie star brought in to kiss the winner. I can remember watching him across the track eating box lunch with Loretta Young, her large white pumps parked on the wall of the pit area, and wondering what my mother was thinking beside me in the paddock. In the late ‘40s Father conceived the idea of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network; he shared it with Wilbur Shaw, Wilbur talked Tony Hulman into it, and the 500 went on the air, with announcers stationed at various points around the track and a coordinator in the Pagoda. The broadcast went only to military bases overseas and other places at a distance because Mr. Hulman feared local coverage would lessen attendance, as he did for a long while with television. When I was at Duke in 1960 I drove halfway to Raleigh to be able to hear the race.

Father’s chosen spot for the 500 was at the start and in the front pit, and in opening the first broadcast he christened it the “greatest spectacle in racing,” a phrase reporters are still using. After Shaw was killed in 1954, Tony Hulman, a shy man, had to be persuaded to open the race, and he did so on condition that Father would rehearse him and be with him at the start. Every year they rehearsed “Gentlemen (later, “Lady and Gentlemen”), start your engines,” and after Anton Hulman died Mrs. Hulman rehearsed with Father and held his hand for support while she started the race. Father kept the start and the front pit until at some point in his late 70s he almost didn’t get over the wall in time when a car came rolling in and his colleagues insisted he give it up.

Not long after the war Father began broadcasting the Indianapolis Indians’ baseball games, and baseball became a big part of our lives from spring training until late fall. Being small, I was far from a champ in the neighborhood, usually relegated to boring left field, so Father taught me to pitch a curve ball, which I did with sufficient skill to become a real part of neighborhood games. Still, I spent many evenings and Sunday afternoons in the press box at the old Victory Field, learning to score and fetching the hot dogs that tasted better than any before or since. I remember Donie Bush and Al Lopez and a time when Johnny Mize and Billy Martin, who’d been sent down from the Yankees to beef up—was it Kansas City?--for a short time were in town; they had been on the Great Lakes team (I have a baseball Mize hit a home run with there); they all visited in Mr. Bush’s office after the games, and we drove them to Union Station when they left. Mother and I enjoyed going to Florida for spring training, when Father would tape interviews with the players.

 Luke Walton at Luke Walton Appreciation Night at Victory Field in 1952 (image courtesy of Lucia Walton Robinson)

WISH radio station men gathered c1949. Pictured (left to right) Unidentified, Al Lopez, the manager of the Indianapolis Indians; Frank McKinney, the owner of WISH; and Luke Walton, sports commentator (image courtesy of Lucia Walton Robinson)

Irvington Presbyterian church, where Aunt Guin was a “lady elder” and which my parents joined when Charlotte wanted to be confirmed, began to play a significant part in our lives—mostly mine at first, as my parents were pretty much Christmas and Easter Christians then, while I attended Sunday school, church, vacation Bible school, and later Westminster Fellowship. At some point Father was drafted to narrate the Christmas Eve services, which he continued to do for decades; Mother was a star of the Irvington Dramatic Club, which met at the church. Father’s first baseball sponsor was Sterling Beer, and Dr. Ferguson went to see him about it. “Luke, you don’t drink alcohol, do you?” Father didn’t. Dr. Ferguson pointed out that large numbers of boys and young men were listening to those baseball broadcasts and asked him if beer was really what he wanted to be pitching to them. Father hadn’t thought about that; he spoke with the station managers, and subsequently his sponsor became Stokely-Van Camp, so a lot of “tall cans of corn” were hit and balls batted into “Stokely’s pea patch.”

In 1949, professional basketball came to Indianapolis in the form of the Indianapolis Olympians, with a nucleus of former Kentucky Wildcats whose exciting fast-break basketball lured me to sit behind Father as he broadcast their games in the Butler Fieldhouse. Most of them had nice wives who sat next to us, and I thought I might marry the lone bachelor when I grew up. Father wrote a book about them, Basketball’s Fabulous Five, but sadly some dishonest actions on the part of two of the players while in college came to light after a few years; Father withdrew the book, and the remarkable team was no more. I went on to Shortridge and cheered the Blue Devils in the high school tournaments with friends, no longer sitting with Father.

A few years ago my daughter and I visited our Irvington cousins at Halloween, and I was delighted to see that the old celebration, which in my childhood comprised painting pictures on storefront windows and an evening parade, has not only continued but grown to a full-scale festival. I remembered parading with John Wright as Tom Sawyer (me) and Aunt Polly (John, augmented with pillows and a wig), and reflected that that was far from the only time John wore skirts, as he was spirited away to St. Meinrad’s Seminary after eighth grade, eventually to become a Catholic priest. Finding his obituary online, I learned that he served as a Navy chaplain for thirty years and retired in San Diego with “Monsignor” before his name. Years ago I heard that three of the Ebert boys had also become ministers, another reflection of the influence of John Ferguson and Howard Stone.

Shortly before my friend John left for seminary, our family left Irvington for the north side, where Father was closer to his golf club and Charlotte to Butler, and I found lifelong friends at school 70 and Shortridge High School. I began my journey into Episcopalianism at that time though Dr. Stone persuaded Father to teach the high school class at Irvington Presbyterian, where he became a deacon and then an elder of the church and where all our family weddings, baptisms, and funerals have been held as well as Luke and Addie’s 50^th wedding anniversary party. Of the extended family, Cousins Nancy Ostrander and Bruce and Carol Gable remain in Irvington, and Cousin Fred has returned. Much has changed in the nearly seventy years since we left Oak Avenue, but it is good to see that many of Irvington’s unique qualities and landmarks survive.

The Walton family lived at 5840 Oak Avenue from 1946 until 1950. Five years after their departure, the home appeared in the Indianapolis Star as for sale. Note the lovely stone walkway, the boulder, and the shady lot. (Image courtesy of the Indianapolis Star, July 3, 1955)

One change I was sad to see in Irvington was the absence of the Hilton U. Brown house (5087 East Washington St.) on what used to be Brown’s Hill. Among the first books I ever read was my sister’s copy of his daughter Jean Brown Wagoner’s Louisa May Alcott: Girl of Old Boston in Bobbs-Merrill’s Childhood of Famous Americans series, followed by her Jane Addams. When we returned to Irvington after the war, Mrs. Wagoner, another friend of Aunt Guinevere, had her Martha Washington in galleys and asked if I’d read it, see how I liked it and whether it lagged anywhere. That was my introduction to publishing. Father wrote Basketball’s Fabulous Five about the Indianapolis Olympians later, and I proofread that. I edited the literary magazine and a few professors’ books in college, decided on a career in publishing, and had my first job with Bobbs-Merrill’s incipient college division. My inscribed copies of Mrs. Wagoner’s books are now with the Irvington Historical Society.

Biographical note: Holding degrees from Butler and Duke Universities, Lucia Walton Robinson has edited books in Indianapolis and Manhattan, raised two highly literate people, and taught literature and writing in a Gulf Coast college. Now retired near the Carolina coast and her daughter, also an editor and poet, she has returned to writing and editing. Her work has appeared in The Penwood Review, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Kakalak, Split Rock Review, Indiana Voice Journal, Spirit Fire Review, and other publications.