Greetings!

I have a few things that have come up recently so I though I’d pass them along before the February 10th meeting.

I have a change of officers to announce. When Mary and I first started the society Hugh Martz worked with us on the organization and incorporation of the society. The first thing we needed was officers. We met David and Kathy James at the Porter County Historical Ball. We explained our needs and David and Kathy generously agreed to take two of the positions as interim officers. Now that we have progressed to the point of having a growing membership they have informed me that they now wish to withdraw as officers, but will remain as members. I sincerely appreciate what they have done for our organization and also understand their need to return to the needs of their family now. Thank you David and Kathy. Our new interim officers are Bev Overmyer as VP and Gary Overmyer as Treasurer. I want to thank Bev and Gary for taking the positions. Hopefully, Bev won’t have to perform her duties as vice-president from an “undisclosed, secure location.”

I’m very pleased to announce that Mary has completed and sent in our 501 (c) (3) application. I’m not sure if many of you are aware how much work is involved in filling it out, but Mary has spent many, many hours burning the midnight oil to complete it. She really deserves a hand for completing all the paperwork needed by the IRS for our 501 status. Thanks hon!

I received a call from an Ira Fry a few weeks ago. His father was one of the guide’s along the river during the hunting hay days. This is one reason that Ira is so interested in the history of the Kankakee River. He now resides in La Crosse. Mary and I drove out and spent a couple of hours with him, his granddaughter and her husband. Ira was born in 1906 and his memory is as solid as a rock and he was able to give us further information about the “old lodge” and the surrounding area. Ira is now our newest, oldest, member and plans on making the February meeting. Ira also plans on donating some books, photos and other items to the society. I’m including a pic of one of the items he plans on donating. He said he and a friend saw this jaw bone in one of the dredge’s buckets while it was digging out the river east of La Crosse many years ago. This is half of the bone and he’s working on getting back the other half for us. The tops of the molars are larger than my fist. I sure wouldn’t want that at the other end of MY line!

While surfing the Internet a couple of weeks ago looking for further historical items on the river I stumbled on an article published by the Lowell Tribune about the lodges at Baum’s Bridge. It was written by a local historian named Richard Schmal. I was able to contact Dick and have had quit a few correspondences since then. Dick has written a monthly article on the history of Northwest Indiana for more than twenty years and most of them can be found through the Lowell library website: http://www.lowellpl.lib.in.us/histassn.htm There are around twenty articles on the Kankakee River alone. Dick is with a few local historical societies and is also part of the “Covered Wagon” demonstrators. They travel around the state and explain and teach state history and do it in historically accurate costume. I can go on and on with all of Dick’s accomplishments and he is going to try to make our February meeting and I know I for one would appreciate his help and insight on our projects.

Another one of my personal interests is genealogy. I can’t say that Larry Clark’s talk on genealogy at one of last years’ KVHS meetings initiated my interest, but it sure pushed it along. I have subscribed to two genealogy websites and have found their databases very, very helpful. One of the www.genealogy.com databases is the 1900 census. I was able to find the census page for the Baum’s Bridge area and then went page by page to all the households in the vicinity. It lists all the people in the area and occupations amongst other information. I then went to Kouts itself and found many of the founding families of Kouts including the Kosanke family. Joan Kosanke is one our KVHS members. Very interesting and it is another tool to be used to learn the history of the area.

In today’s mail I received a packet from a Nicholas L. Clark. He is the President of The National Center for Great Lakes Native American Culture, Inc. www.ncginas.org Historic Landmarks Foundation’s South Bend office (Dana Groves I presume) gave him my name and felt that our organizations may have mutual benefits to offer each other. I have been trying to somehow get more Native American involvement in our search for the history of the Kankakee River Valley. The NCGLNAC is working toward establishing an educational center somewhere in north central or northwestern Indiana that would eventually grow to a one hundred-acre campus. These kinds of partnerships can be very beneficial for two groups with similar enough goals. The packet was professional and included their incorporation docs, 501 and recent newsletters. This will be another bit of business discussed at our February 10th meeting.

Another matter that Dick Schmal and I discussed is one area that we are now fast approaching and that is grant writing. I have looked over some of the material that Pete Visclosky sent me on grants and it takes the expertise that a professional can offer in order to succeed in being awarded the grant dollars. I look at our members, and those interested that I include in our e-mail list and I’m impressed by the professionals included. I’m asking all of you to give some input on people that you think might be able to help us or at least steer us in the right direction in finding someone to assist us with the grant applications. This area is critical for us to accomplish our goals of education and preservation. Please, give this some thought.

If you’ve been following the more recent KVHS newsletters, you can see there is a lot on our February meeting plate. This year’s schedule of events and goals, some needed committees to be formed (will keep them as minimal as possible), plan of attack for the restoration of the lodge building, the NCGLAS proposal and any other issues that should be discussed. I will work to move the meeting along, but we DO need some member input to make sure the right decisions are reached. This brings me back to our need to have people attend this meeting. Please, try to make this meeting and invite a friend.