|
Joe and Madeleine Wildermuth
In the upstairs back bedroom of the
family's farm house in Pulaski County, Indiana, Joe Henry Wildermuth
was born on July 6, 1897. Named for his two grandfathers, Henry
Wildermuth and Joseph Herrick, he was the fourth--and last--son of
Elias and Olive Wildermuth. In 1907 he moved with his parents to the
fledgling town of Gary, Indiana. Ten-year-old Joe became Gary's
first newsboy, selling Chicago papers like hot cakes to the
construction workers returning home from work on the steel mill. He
also had the only agency in Gary for the Saturday Evening Post and
sold the first Gary Tribune. When his father hired an architect to
design a commercial building he planned to have built, Joe was
intrigued. It was the beginning of Joe's commitment to a career as
an architect.
When only thirteen, he worked for a
summer in an architect's office and, while a student at Emerson High
School, he prepared plans for a schoolhouse addition for the Board
of Education. In 1920 he graduated from the School of Architecture
at the University of Illinois and returned to Gary to become its
first hometown graduate architect. During these years, he enjoyed
summer sports. He became the tennis champion of Gary at one time and
had a golf trophy for his efforts on the links. About this time
Madeleine Havens moved to Gary with her parents, Lola and Daniel
(known as "Doc") Havens. After graduating from Emerson High School,
Madeleine entered Northwestern University. Her mother died in the
spring of 1922 and the following fall, Madeleine did not return to
college. On January 10, 1923, she married Joe Wildermuth at the home
of her aunt and uncle, Gertrude and Frank O. Hodson. The young
couple moved to 755 Arthur St. It was a friendly neighborhood with
Fourth of July block parties, and with baseball games in the middle
of the street. Their two children, Richard and Dorothy attended
nearby Horace Mann School. Madeleine became active in the social
life of Gary and was a member of the Beta Gamma sorority.
Their home was frequently the scene of
social gatherings as well as always serving as a focal place for
their children and the neighborhood. The children were allowed to
use the living room for their self-produced plays which included
rigging up sheets for the stage curtains, arranging chairs for the
audience and selling homemade candy at the door. By the time Joe
arrived home in the evening, however, everything was back in place.
Joe became Gary's school architect. In addition to schools, he
designed for Gary many libraries, several churches, the Court House
and Jail and, when only thirty years old, he was the architect for
Gary's Memorial Auditorium. The Auditorium's cornerstone was laid at
an exciting time in Gary's history. The headlines of the Gary
Post-Tribune screamed "VISITORS MARVEL AS STEEL CITY MARKS ADVANCE
WITH CEREMONIES." The brand new Gary Hotel housed the out-of-town
dignitaries who had come to witness Gary's "Discovery Days." It was
a tight schedule with an inspection of the new Post-Tribune building
at 2:30, the laying of the cornerstone for the City Hall at 3, the
ceremony for the Memorial Auditorium at 4 and the formal opening of
the Commercial Club at 5. Because the auditorium was designed to be
used for many school activities, the ceremony at that site featured
students with Joe the only adult speaker. Wanting to make the proper
impression, 30-year-old Joe had rehearsed his speech at home. When
the city fathers saw the series of events falling behind schedule,
they asked Joe to shorten his speech, which, of course, he did.
Family members were all present, but their memories of the events
were overshadowed by a small boy.
As Joe delivered the abridged version of
the speech his three-year-old son, sitting on his uncle's shoulders
to witness the ceremonies, shouted, "Daddy, you forgot something!"
Joe and Madeleine's world was shaken, when Dick, barely six, was hit
by a car and suffered a fractured skull. The following year, while
coming home from school, he was seriously injured when struck by a
speeding truck. He seemed to be recovering from these injuries when
a serious infection left him with an illness that required bedside
teachers for a good part of each school year. This was reversed
after 1937 when Madeleine took the children to Florida for an entire
winter. During the depression, Joe's architectural office stood
empty while Joe worked as Assistant Manager and Chief Appraiser for
the United States Home Owners Loan Corporation for Northern Indiana.
Because the architectural work had required frequent evening
meetings with school boards, etc., Joe's evenings had been
frequently interrupted. Madeleine commented that the depression was
the only period when the household was on a predictable schedule.
Joe authored a treatise, "Real Estate Valuation" in 1934 and the
following year one on schoolhouse design. For a brief period, Joe
took an interest in politics, and at one time was elected as a
representative to the Democratic state convention. When the economy
improved and Joe returned to his architectural career, he resumed
his work with Gary schools and libraries. He also designed buildings
throughout Indiana including the Indiana State Board of Health
Building, a hospital at the Soldiers and Sailors Children's home in
Knightstown, and many buildings at Indiana University. Joe was on
the Indiana State Architects Board for thirteen years serving as
Chairman for several of those years. In 1935 Joe helped organize the
Gary Federal Savings and Loan Association and he served on its board
from the beginning. For a time, after retiring from his
architectural work, he served the bank as Vice President, then
President, retiring in 1962.
In 1939 the family moved to 8605 Lake
Shore Dr., which immediately became the summer gathering spot for
the Horace Mann High School friends of their children. Even in the
winter, when the tennis court in front of the house was flooded for
ice skating or there was snow for tobogganing at Marquette Park,
their home would fill with young people. During World War II Dick
served in the Army Air Corps; but summertime continued to find the
girls--and any boys home on furlough--at the Wildermuth's beach
home. Madeleine helped out at the Gary Service Men's Center, and
regularly invited sailors from the Great Lakes Station to join the
young people in the fun at her home. Back when the children were
young, a regular Sunday afternoon activity for the Wildermuths was
to drive out into the countryside and look at farm land. Although
Joe's family moved off the farm when he was quite young, he always
insisted that he was a farm boy at heart. Eventually, he purchased
some land southeast of Crown Point near Leroy. With little
architectural work available during the war, Joe determined to learn
everything about modern farming, He was in contact with the
Agricultural School at Purdue and all but haunted the Lake County
Farm Agent. Under Joe's direction, the farm transformed from a place
of questionable buildings and land production, to a thriving,
profitable farm with showplace barns and home. Joe personally went
to Texas to purchase cattle and was perhaps his happiest when
checking the conditions on his farm astride his Texas cow pony.
Shortly after the war, they sold the
lake house and moved to the farm. They also maintained an apartment
in Gary at the Vesta Court apartment building (1619 W. 5th Avenue),
which Joe had designed early in his career and later owned. Joe
tended to become totally engrossed in what he was doing and cared
little for conforming to convention. This combination often caused
his actions to appear bizarre to others and the family had a whole
repertoire of what they called "Joe Stories." One such time, Joe
happened by a farm auction and stopped in. He soon began to
participate and ended up the high bidder on a large sow. To
transport his purchase, he just put down the top of his convertible,
placed the hog in the passenger's seat and drove down the
highway--unconcerned about the astonished stares. Throughout the
years the Wildermuths held membership in City Methodist Church where
Madeleine participated in the West Side Division, where their
teenage children were active in the Epworth League, and where their
daughter was married. In 1947--within two weeks of each other--each
of their children was married. Richard married Helen Cole, daughter
of Amos N. and Lillian (MacAdoo) Cole. A graduate of the University
of Michigan Architectural School, Dick practiced architecture in
northern Indiana for most of his career and is responsible for many
of its public buildings.
After rearing their two children, Helen
began a movement to clean up Gary's appearance garnering help from
industry yet keeping a grass roots appeal. She served as Gary's
commissioner for beautification under Mayor Richard Hatcher. In
1972, they moved to New England. After graduating from the
University of Wisconsin, Dorothy married Michael E. Vekasi, son of
Michael and Elizabeth (Bazin) Vekasi. They moved to Michigan where
they reared their three sons. By 1953 Joe had retired from his
architectural business in Indiana and built a home in the Florida
Keys, where he practiced architecture on a limited basis. Each
summer, however, they returned to their Indiana farm residence.
Their children and five grandchildren were frequent visitors to
their homes on the farm and in Florida. In later years they summered
with their daughter in Kent County, Michigan and, when Joe died at
the close of 1972, he was buried there. Madeleine survived him by
six years.
Source:Sumbitted by: Dorothy Wildermuth
Vekasi - dvekasi@aol.com
|