| The Indianapolis News Tuesday Evening, July 15, 1941
Quiet
Village of Kansas is Resigned to Loss of Homes for New Army Camp near
Columbus KANSAS, Ind. July 15 Stoop-shouldered Val Ulery the village blacksmith is getting ready to move for the first time in more than eighty years. He hasn't packed his duds yet, nor has he said farewell to scenes of which he has been a part since 1860. But he has seen survey crews go past his him time and time again in recent weeks, and he's sure the army will soon be establishing a huge camp site in Bartholomew and Johnson counties shortly. And that means the tiny settlement of Kansas and its few residents will have to go. "If I knowed where I'd light I wouldn't mind jumpin'," Ulery said. "But I don't know." "I was born at Dupont on the Madison Road eighty-four years ago, and I've lived here since I was three. Ran a blacksmith shop from 1878 until my eyes gave out. "I guess pretty soon I won't have no more home than a rabbit. No sir. No more home than a rabbit. And if I moved into the road they'd declare me a public nuisance. That's right. But there's n use in getting mad about it. That won't do you any good. "You know, it's just like a doctor giving you medicine. You may not like it, but you take it. Ulery lives alone in a small house next to his blacksmith shop. A narrow gravel road runs in front of his home and another at the side. "You know where I live ?", he asked. "I'll tell you. I live at the corner of Main and Walnut Streets. My house is on lot No. 6. That's the way the town was laid out many years ago, but it quit growin' early." He was correct in this observation, because Kansas is scarcely a cross-road. There are five houses, the blacksmith shop, a general store-filling station, two churches and a school. But nobody wants to leave - least of all Ulery. He has been a Mason fifty-eight years. "Nineveh Lodge No. 317, F. and A. M.", he said. "Do you attend meetings?, he was asked. "You bet. Walk to Nineveh on the lodge nights once a month." "Walk ?" "Sure, it's only five miles, and it doesn't seem far after you're almost there." Ulrey has held off offices on the lodge, but now he is content to let younger men do the work. His son, Dillard Ulery, also lives in Kansas and the elderly man boards there. He has lost the sight of one eye, and can't read a newspaper with the other unless he holds it "just right". In contrast to Ulery's long residence in the community, the Dinn family has a different type of complaint. Mrs. Frank Dinn was interviewed at the general store and filling station the family operates. "We have only been here a year," she said. "We were on a farm but sold everything and bought this place. And I tell you we have been doing fine. On Saturday nights the store's so crowed you can hardly get in." "My garden is coming along just grand, too, and I have a swell strawberry patch. Even thought it's not final, everybody around here takes it for granted that the camp will be set up. I guess they'll take what's offered to 'em, and fo some place else. Mrs. Dinn's son, John, has been working on a survey crew tramping over the area helping Uncle Sam get his bearings. Four daughters, tow of them red-headed twins, also live at home, and there are four others who are married and living elsewhere's. The Dinn property had been appraised, but the family not told for how much. Actually the town of Kansas - if it may be called a town - is only a minor stumbling block in the path of national defense. It could be obliterated in a few hours. It's residents are not bitter, nor do they plan a great hullabaloo of protest against the proposed camp. They're just sorry it had to strike here. Villages, Churches and Homes to Give Way The Dinns' next door neighbor is Val Ulrey, who blacksmithed in Kansas 55 of his 84 years and has lived in the village since he was 3. Mr. Ulrey's red-painted shop is between his small cottage and the Dinn Service Station. The Dinns and Mr. Ulrey are viewing the whole matter philosophically . If Uncle Sam needs the ground, why then Uncle Sam gets the ground, of course. And no questions asked. The war is on and Uncle Sam has to win the war. If giving up their ground and heir homes will help then that's fine too. Rental Library Goes Too. As for Mr. Ulrey, he will go to the Masonic Home in Franklin perhaps. "And," his blue eyes twinkled behind thick spectacles, "If I don't like it there, why there's a big farm down south." The big farm is the Bartholomew County Infirmary. "After all, I own part of it. I've been paying taxes." But his friends wanted it made clear that Mr. Ulrey wasn't serious about the Infirmary. He has to have his little joke. As for the Dinns, they will try to keep right on living as much same way they live in Kansas as possible. Mr. Dinn is particularly proud of the fact that they operate a rental library as a part of their services. Wherever the new service station is, it probably will include a rental library. As for Mr. Ping who spent today curing fodder, has already bought some new ground outside the camp area. As for Mr. Waltz and his bedridden wife, they don't know yet what they'll do. Mrs. Clarence Pritchard, who lives two and one-half miles east of Nineveh, said she doesn't know where her family will move. Both Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard have lived all their lives in the Nineveh neighborhood. Can't Believe It "We can hardly believe it yet, said Mrs. Pritchard. "But we've known for months it was coming. It's not news to us any more." That seemed to be typical. Everybody in the whole vast area has known for several months that the camp would come sooner or later. But now that the time is about here they still can't exactly believe it. But everybody seemed willing to co-operate with Uncle Sam. "The Camp" was discussed by old and young in J. D. Oliver's little grocery in Nineveh. Nineveh isn't in the camp site. Planners scooped out a hole in the west side of the camp so that Nineveh will not be disturbed. Nineveh and its church and its cemetery and its big brick township school. Nineveh Weighs Effects R. T. Prosser, who lives just east of Nineveh, said he didn't think many of the folk were prepared to move. Part of MR. Prosser's ground is in the camp sie. Part of it is outside. Around the stove in Mr. Oliver's store the talk was mostly about what the camp would do to Nineveh. Advantages were weighed against disadvantages. "Business," said Mr. Oliver, "is bound to pick up at least for a while. But after that I don't now." Mr. Oliver clerked in the store for 25 years and now is the owner and proprietor. Effect on the Nineveh Township School also was a matter that was in for serious discussion at the stove-side council. It will take a great many children out of the school district. The stove-side council members didn't know exactly how many, but several. "And," put in Miss Muriel Richeson, granddaughter of store owner Oliver, "we just built a new gym about three years ago." She is a student there. |
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Date unknown Daily Journal - Franklin IN by Jeff Madsen Reunion Stirs Memories of Atterbury Elbert Waltz and Leo Dinn leaned back against the wooden fence and glanced at the group of former Atterbury residents sitting and eating. "Look at old Fred. He can hardly get around anymore," Waltz said turning in the direction of his old acquaintance. The man walked by showing a slumped posture brought on by the years. "That's the first time I've seen him since last year," Dinn said of the shared acquaintance. The men have known each other since 1942, a time when Fred's walk was spry and Camp Atterbury was farm land, homes, churches and schools. Waltz and Dinn were among the many former Atterbury residents who met Sunday in the Johnson County Park to share food and reminisce about a time before the Army took away theior homes. In 1941 the federal government chose southern Johnson County as the site of its new U. S. Army post. By the fall of 1942, the government had bought up about 44,500 acres of land and displaced the inhabitants. No one at Sunday's reunion could remember how many people were forced to move, but former residents of the area said it was probably more than 1,000. "Most of them stayed around as close as they could," Waltz said. "But some of them had to go away." Waltz was 28 in the fall of 1941 when he left his place on Katherine's Creek Road in what is now the southern portion of the camp. He moved to Hope, where he still lives. Some of the people were bitter about having to pull up stakes and move out of their homes, John Ott said. The Columbus resident was 26 when he moved fro his place on the south end of the camp. "People didn't have much choice in the matter," he said. Some of the people tried to fight for their land, but their efforts were useless. "Some of them wouldn't sell," Carl Knapp said, "So the government took them to court and condemned it." The whole process didn't take very long because there was a war going on, Knapp said. The Columbus resident was 19 and studying engineering at Miami University in Ohio when his father, Clark, sold the farm the family had lived on since 1929. The government gave his father $800 for the 40-acre farm and two houses, Knapp said. "None of them got the money they should have," Waltz said. "The government took everything ... when they said move, you moved." But all-in-all the former Atterbury residents didn't seem bitter about the past. Now Waltz only sees some of the former residents during the annual reunion. Sunday was the seventh year in a row the former Atterbury residents gathered together. The people shared some food, passed around pictures and traded memories. United States Army Sgt. Jim Hinds said the area's location was the prime reason it was chosen by the government for an Army post. Hinds works at Camp Atterbury and has studied its history as a military post. "At that time this was within about 700 miles of about two-thirds of the population of the United States," Hinds said. "So demographically it was a centralized area." The Army turned the area into a training post. Between 1942 and 1946, 275,000 men from four different divisions trained at Atterbury, Hinds said. Following World War II, more than a half-million men were discharged through Atterbury. The camp was inactive from December 1946 until May 1950 when it was reactivated because of the Korean War, Hinds said. The federal government turned over the southern three-fourths of the camp to the National Guard and Army Reserve units January 1, 1969. The remaining part of the camp, north of Hospital Road, now houses the Johnson County Park and the Hoosier Horse Park as well as land used by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources division of fish and wildlife. |
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Page last revised
12/04/2012 |
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