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Oral L. Wildermuth
It was dark outside, but the lights were
bright on the Christmas tree. Everything was waiting. Then we heard
the sleigh bells. Dick and I ran to the door to let in Uncle O and
Aunt Cordie. Now the magic of Christmas Eve could begin." That is
the way Dorothy (Wildermuth) Vekasi remembers her uncle, Ora L
WILDERMUTH. He was a good deal older than her father and not a daily
part of her life, but holidays always brought the families together.
Uncle O, with his sense of history, was wont to save things of the
past-like the sleigh bells-so they could be a part of the future.
Ora Wildermuth's past harkened back to an era that was hard for his
niece to imagine. Born in 1882 he attended a deestrict school in
VanBuren Township, Pulaski County, Indiana. It was a one room school
and the teachers often had no more than an eighth grade education.
In class the students were drilled in the fundamentals, and, as they
hiked through the forest from their farm homes to school, running
their traps on the way, they learned firsthand about woodsmanship
and the ways of nature.
Continuing an education past eighth
grade proved a challenge, but Ora seemed to thrive on challenge. He
had to travel to Star City for high school, where, by his fourth
year, he was the only student and the trustee refused to hire a
teacher for one student. Undaunted, Ora boarded in Winamac, and
completed high school there. He credited his farm upbringing and the
education he received in Pulaski County, both in and out of the
classroom, with giving him the breadth of background upon which he
drew the rest of his life. After high school Ora taught school for a
season, then enrolled in Indiana University. For the next four years
he divided his time between studying and earning money to continue.
In 1906 he was one of six to received a LL.B. from Indiana
University Law School. Ora was admitted to the bar, and moved to
northern Lake County where a new town was being carved out of the
sand dunes. For someone who liked challenges, the embryotic town of
Gary was the place to be. He arrived in August 1906, when there was
little besides a mill under construction and few people other than
the construction workers. He worked for a couple of months laying
concrete for the first blast furnace. With families beginning to
arrive it became evident that there was a need for a school.
A three-man school board was chosen with
A.F. Knotts president and Ora was named teacher. Recalling those
days when he and Knotts were rooming together at the old Fitz Hotel,
Ora jokingly commented, "...the teacher had no difficulty in
reaching his board, and the board was in comparatively frequent
touch with the teacher, at least physically, for we slept in the
same bed and he who slept in the back had to get in first for there
was not room to walk around the bed." The schoolhouse was located
just north of what was to become 4th Ave. and the west side of
Broadway. Its space for 36 students was not adequate for the number
of youngsters and the story goes that, when the seats were filled,
the door was closed. If you wanted an education, you couldn't tarry
on the way to school. The need for books was quickly apparent and a
committee of women suggested holding an oyster supper in the
schoolhouse. They wondered about attendance, but word was sent to
the construction camps and on the appointed night the schoolhouse
was jammed. Enough money was raised for 75 books. Thirty years later
Ora was quoted, "I took charge of the collection [of books], though
I didn't know a thing on earth about handling a library. The
youngsters found some cardboard somewhere and cutup cards. I'm sure
our system wouldn't pass muster now." Before winter-across Broadway
from the schoolhouse-Ora constructed a tar-paper covered shack in
which he lived and had his first law office. Because on cold nights
tramps were wont to break into the schoolhouse and use the books to
fuel a fire, the books were moved to Ora's office.
Thus, within a few months, Ora
Wildermuth had become Gary's first resident lawyer, first
schoolteacher, and first librarian. All of his life Ora maintained a
law practice in Gary with offices at 690 Broadway. He was the first
president of the Gary Bar Association and chairman of the committee
on admissions to the bar from 1916 to 1925. He belonged to Bar
Associations in the District and State as well as the American Bar
Association. He was Gary's first city judge serving from 1910-1914.
He is credited in a 1943 American Library Association Bulletin with
rewriting Indiana's library laws and by Charles Roll in "Indiana 150
Years of American Development" with being identified with much of
the important litigation that came before the courts during his
years of practice. At a gathering of Gary pioneers in the mid
1950's, Judge Wildermuth was asked about the stories that circulated
about his ridiculously low fees. He responded that those stories
were greatly exaggerated and added, "First they said I defended a
fellow charged with petty larceny and charged him $10. The next time
around the charge was grand larceny and my fee was $5. Finally they
said the charge was first degree murder and my fee was $2." Interest
in education became a lifetime commitment for Judge Wildermuth. In
1929 he was elected to Indiana University's Board of Trustees and
continued on the board until he retired in 1951, serving as
president for nearly thirteen years. At retirement he was named
President Emeritus for life. He was one of the incorporators of the
Indiana University Foundation and a member and officer of its board.
He also served as a trustee of the Waterman Institute for Scientific
Research.
Ora's interest in educational
institutions expanded and, in 1939, he was elected president of the
Association of Governing Boards of State Universities and Allied
Institutions. In a tribute from this organization, Ora was described
as a "gentle, wise, scholarly man" with a "youthful spirit" who had
a "lasting influence on the future of public education and of higher
education." Indiana University awarded him an honorary LL.D. in
1952, and in 1971, named its Intramural Center in his honor. Ora
also had a lifelong dedication to library development. In 1908 in
Gary he and William Wirt, the founder of the Gary public school
system, felt Gary needed a full-fledged library. Ora researched the
legalities of setting up a library board and found that the law
required five year of residency for board members. Because Gary had
not existed that long, it was a requirement that needed
circumventing. Believing in the autonomy of a library board, the two
men devised a method of establishing a library under the school
board but run by a library board which merely reported its actions
to the school board. Although awkward in the beginning, this system
allowed the library board to be in existence from the start and,
once the law allowed, totally independent. On March 30, 1908, the
library was officially begun with the first board consisting of
Msgr. Thomas Jansen as president and William A. Wirt, Mrs. John E.
Sears, and Ora L. Wildermuth as members. Even though they had yet to
get a stick of furniture or a book, the board hired a librarian,
Louis J. Bailey. Later Ora commented with a chuckle, "Smartest thing
we ever did." In the fall, when the library opened, it had 936
books, a traveling library of 250 books and 75 magazines. Ora
remained a member of the library board for 50 years serving as
president for 35 of those years. The Branch Library in Miller is
named for him. As with education, Ora Wildermuth's interest in
libraries expanded and he served as president of the combined
Gary-Lake County Library Board from 1940-1948. He became president
of the Indiana Library Trustees Association and held various offices
in the Trustees Section of the American Library Association which,
in 1943, awarded him its Citation of Merit for his work as a
trustee. In an address to that organization honoring Judge
Wildermuth and recounting his role in establishing the Gary Library,
Laurance J. Harwood said, "There was not [even] the oft- mentioned
blade of grass from which to make two grow. He planted the first
blade." In a 1946 letter to I.U. Alumni Secretary, George F.
Heighway, Wildermuth commented on his joy in working with the
University and the Gary Library, but noted that it left little time
for his law practice. He concluded, "Paradoxical as it may seem, one
may enjoy living so much that he starves himself to death." Despite
these tugs on his time, his interests were not limited to law,
education, and libraries. In the early days of Gary, he was part of
a group that gathered in the only place they could find-above a
saloon- to organize an interdenominational church. Later he assisted
in the organization of Gary's First Congregational Church and was a
member of its board of trustees from its inception. During World War
I he was a "Four-Minute Man" receiving a certificate of honor signed
by Woodrow Wilson, and during the depression he was Chairman of the
Governor's Committee of Unemployment Relief. Judge Wildermuth was a
democrat, and, when young, he was active in politics. He was a
member of the old Commercial Club in Gary and was the sixth
President of the Chamber of Commerce for a year.
He was an active advocate and patron of
the YMCA, where his favorite sport was volleyball. For a time he was
a director of the Indiana State YMCA. He was one of the original
organizers and officers of Turkey Creek Country Club. Judge
Wildermuth showed leadership in commercial ventures serving as
President of Gary and Southern Railroad Co. from 1918 until it was
sold in 1928 and President of Gary and Hobart Traction Co. from 1916
to 1924. For a time he was Vice President and Director of Barnes Ice
and Coal Co. in Gary, Secretary and Director of Lake City Ice and
Coal Co. of Michigan City, and a Director of Glen Park State Bank.
Cordelia Wilds, daughter or John and Sophia (Kelley) Wilds, and Ora
Wildermuth were married in Peru, Indiana, on September 3, 1907.
Their daughter, Maxine, graduated from Emerson High School in 1927.
She married John Tula who died in 1962. (Maxine died in Lake County
on June 27, 1996 at the age of 87).. After a long illness, Cordelia
died April 23, 1941. The following year Ora married Mae R. (Arnold)
London, who had been Porter County Clerk for a number of years. Ora
was widowed again in 1951 and four years later he married Mildred
(Polak) Frolik, a long time teacher at Horace Mann High School. For
many years Ora resided at 626 Pierce Street in Gary in a large
formal house surrounded by ample grounds enclosed in a wrought iron
fence.
A tunnel connected the garage to the
basement where Ora had set up a small woodworking shop. Ora loved
wood and would seek out some special piece that had meaning for a
retiring president of a governing board and would then fashion it
into a gavel as a gift. Ora also built an informal home at 7432 Lake
Shore Dr. Later in life, after a serious illness, he wintered in
Naples, Florida, where he maintained a residence as well as one at
5251 E. 6th Place in Gary. While in Naples, he served on the Collier
County Library Board of Trustees and was a member of the Florida
Library Trustees Association. Ora Wildermuth died in Gary on
November 16, 1964. Funeral services were held at the City Methodist
Church with Herman Wells, President of Indiana University, giving
the principal eulogy. He is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery. He will, of
course, be remembered for his many accomplishments. He will also be
remembered as a man in touch with his roots, yet ever interested in
the present and how he might best serve it. He was a the consummate
storyteller - always including a sprinkling of humor.
Source: Submitted by: Dorothy Wildermuth
Vekasi - dvekasi@aol.com NOTE: In 1995 Ora L Wildermuth was placed
in the Steel City Hall of Fame.
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