Mudlavia and IAPA: Farm to Table From Past to Present

           A couple of months ago, our family was approached at the farmer’s market to participate in the first farm to table dinner in Warren County. We are delighted to be a part of this dinner and I’m really excited for the permission to blog about the dinner, as well as for my love of gardening and writing!

           The farm to table movement is one of the biggest movements across the United States right now. People want to know where their food comes from, how it’s grown, and who grows it. One only needs to pick up popular magazines such as Family Circle and Martha Stewart’s Living to find farm to table articles and recipes. Last month Rachael Ray regrammed farmer’s market pictures, and several Food Network and PBS shows feature farm to table stories.

            Not only is it trendy, but it’s a movement based on health concerns. My husband and I jumped on the bandwagon six years ago when I was diagnosed with a carcinoid tumor the size of a golf ball, with tentacles that wrapped themselves around the lower and middle lobes of my right lung. While the doctors couldn’t give an exact cause, we had several conversations about the pesticides and herbicides used on the orchards surrounding my childhood home; the ones I breathed in and out every day as I played outside and trained for cross-country.

            As a kid, my family gardened as a hobby and as a way to feed our family of eight, but as an adult with carcinoid cancer, knowing where my food came from and how it was grown became something much more than a hobby and food trend. It became a way of life to provide healthy, chemical-free meals for my family.

            As a writer I have to find ways to connect my stories to myself and to the lives of others. In the research for my historical fiction novel about Mudlavia, I found this connection through Mudlavia’s garden and food. When the hotel was running from 1889-1920, farm to table wasn’t a movement, it was a way of life. There was no Wal-Mart or online ordering services. The 250-room hotel had guests from all over the world to feed, as well as its many employees.

            According to sources, Mudlavia had a 400-acre farm to grow the food they needed to feed the plethora of guests and employees. Not only did they provide vegetables and fruit, but they also had a poultry farm and cattle. A creamery on the hotel grounds produced the dairy products they needed from their dairy cows.

A big thanks to Denny Myers for permission to use this picture!

            Old menus from the Mudlavia hotel feature their locally produced food; fancy cuts of beef, poultry dishes, pickles, asparagus, potatoes, beets, corn on the cob, fried cabbage, sliced tomatoes, and fruit pies.

            Mudlavia never did anything “blah”, but everything was done with grandeur and elegance. One ad states, “Mudlavia! Where even a potato is made fancy!”

            At Mudlavia, a potato wasn’t just a potato, it was an ingredient they grew and appreciated, and an ingredient they would make into something beautiful and delightful for their guests.

            This summer we visited the garden at Monticello and Washington’s garden at Mount Vernon. These gardens, still preserved today, were absolutely stunning. While many people often wonder what Warren County would be like if Mudlavia was still here, I often wonder if they would still have that huge garden. Would people get to tour it and learn the history of it? Would their menu would still feature their gorgeous, locally grown food?

            It is such a cool piece of Warren County history that for a span of thirty years, the booming Mudlavia Hotel turned the produce from their 400-acre farm into an extravagant dining experience for guests from all over the world.

            This weekend the Illiana Antique Power Association is bringing a piece of that farm to table history back to Warren County. The Illiana Antique Power Association showgrounds provides a unique look at history through their steam show every summer, which features the history of farming in Indiana, and the fourth grade history day, where the fourth graders walk through the historic village and participate in fun activities.

            This year they are having a farm to table dinner for their fall fundraiser. They had to tear down their old clubhouse, and proceeds from the farm to table dinner will go to building a new assembly hall to use for meetings and events at the showgrounds.

            I love that they have sourced shrimp from Oxford, beef from local sources, and vegetables from local growers. Everything served at this meal comes from within 60 miles! I also love that they are honoring the ingredients. Local chef and Seeger Culinary Arts director, Brian Greene, has created a fancy five-course meal to celebrate the local food, from bite size appetizers featuring local tomatoes, herbs, and shrimp, to a fancy tart with a twist for dessert!

            The farm to table dinner will be held at the Illiana Antique Power Association Showgrounds at 6:00PM, Saturday, September 9^th. Tickets, which include a five-course meal, entertainment, and a gift, are $50 per person. Come celebrate our local farmers, the historical village on the grounds, and the coming together as a community to fundraise for a place that celebrates our history.

*For more info you can call or text 765-585-9555, or find them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/illianaantiquepower/

1900's Research

I was substitute teaching last week, and a student ran up to me and said, "Mrs. Austin! You've got to see this! Look how cheap these rings are!"

He handed me a booklet and flipped through a few pages of jewelry and watches, pointing out the prices of the items.

Boy was I glad he showed me this!

When he flipped back to the cover, it was a Sears Catalogue from 1900. I asked him if I could look through it and was fascinated to find items I'd come across in my Mudlavia research. To actually see pictures of the items, along with their prices and descriptions, was pretty amazing!

The cover

The order page

I had a chance to listen to an interview of a woman who loved to watch the women come and go from the Attica train station as a little girl. Her aunt lived across the street from the train station and when she visited, she would stare out the windows to watch the hustle and bustle of the train station. In the interview, she beautifully describes the women arriving on the train to visit to Mudlavia. She talks about their high-buttoned boots with heels, their gorgeous hats with tall plumes, women with glorious hair piled high and pulled back with tortoise shell combs. It was fascinating to see her words come to life through this old catalogue!

The high-buttoned boots with heels!

There are those fancy hats!

Princess Hair Restorer- This must be how they got all their gorgeous hair! ;)

Men's styles

There was a page of popular books people could purchase, including a favorite from my lit class in college- Uncle Tom's Cabin!

The hammocking trend that's become so cool recently, was apparently a popular trend back in the early 1900's! There was an entire page of hammocks to choose from!

This writing set was my favorite thing in the catalogue!

*Special thanks to Colton Ray and his family (Aaron and Melissa Ray) for allowing me to look through their catalogue and take pictures, and giving me their permission to share it with you!

Mudlavia- The Chapel of the King's Daughters

Out of all of the fascinating stories about Mudlavia, the story behind the Mudlavia chapel is one of my favorites.

A man named Henry (who also went by Harry) Kramer opened Mudlavia in the spring of 1891. Henry Kramer was known as a brilliant entrepreneur, and gained great success from his pharmaceutical business and the Mudlavia Hotel.

In 1892, Henry Kramer married Miss Anna S. Moore, a local girl, whose family owned property around Mudlavia.

There is a ton of information on Henry Kramer, but there is very little information to be found on his wife, Anna. Most sources state the basics; she grew up in Warren County, she married Henry Kramer, and she had two sons.

Local newspapers wrote that when Mudlavia burned on February 29, 1920, Mrs. Kramer lost $25,000 worth of jewels in the fire.
If anyone had a fairy-tale story, it was Anna Moore Kramer. When she married Henry Kramer, she married into a life of success, wealth, and luxury. She raised her family on the fourth floor of the thriving hotel, surrounded by beautiful gardens, famous people, and extravagant parties. She had everything she could ever want.

Yet, there’s one more thing that she is known for, the building of the Mudlavia chapel.

One newspaper states that Mrs. H.L. Kramer had it in her heart to build a chapel near the hotel.

For Mrs. Kramer, Mudlavia was not complete without a place for the guests to worship and hear the word of the Lord, and she set forth to have a chapel built on the grounds. The rumor is that Mr. Kramer said she could build a chapel as long as she raised all the money herself.

An article from the Attica Ledger states, “Mrs. H.L. Kramer is interested in securing the funds for the erection of a chapel in which to hold religious services. She is an energetic worker and will no doubt succeed in the accomplishment of her purpose.”

And she did! Ground was broken for the chapel in August of 1897, six years after the hotel was built and five years after Anna married Henry Kramer.

She named the chapel, “The Chapel of the King’s Daughters”. The chapel could hold up to 250 people. One source describes it as a small Victorian style, wood-shingled church, while another source states that the chapel was of Gothic and Queen Anne architecture with stained-glass windows. At the front stood an organ and it had electric lighting (which was very modern for Warren County at the time)!

(Pictured above, one of the only pictures I have seen of the Mudlavia chapel from a postcard my sweet grandpa gave to me. This is a drawing done by an artist.)

The chapel was non-sectarian (nondenominational) and offered services on Wednesdays at half past seven, Sundays at two o’clock for Sunday school, and Sundays at three for the preaching service. They also used the chapel for recitals, lectures, and concerts on the other days of the week.

This link shows a rare picture of the Mudlavia Chapel from the collection of the Williamsport Washington Township Public Library.
http://www.wwtpl.lib.in.us/HistoryRecordView.aspx?historyRecordID=3157

Local preachers took turns preaching at Mudlavia. On one postcard, the letter writer wrote about a preacher that gave an excellent sermon on the 3^rd commandment about not taking the Lord’s name in vain.

In the summer, it was common for the Mudlavia preachers to host baptisms at Pine Creek after church. Sometimes Mrs. Kramer hosted ice cream socials after the Sunday service and they often held church picnics after the service.

One secondary source stated that Mrs. Kramer decided to no longer open up church services to the locals due to their behavior, however, the next week they made amends and services were opened back up to the public (non-paying guests) again. So, not only was the chapel for the wealthy guests that stayed there, but she wanted everyone, even the locals, to have a place to worship.

Mudlavia was a place where people were healed through a special mud treatment. It was a place of breath-taking beauty. It was a place where people could come and find peace and relaxation from the rigors of life, and yet, Anna Kramer, who had all the worldly luxuries a girl could ever want, realized this wasn’t enough.

Mrs. Kramer knew there was more to life than riches, fame, success, and extravagance. She created a place where her guests could hear preaching twice a week and attend Sunday school, where they could get baptized, and where they could not just find healing for their bodily ailments, but healing for their souls through the chapel. She wanted this so badly, that she raised all the money to have it built herself.

I can picture her, standing in her lavish apartment on the fourth floor, reasoning with her husband as she stares out at the gorgeous grounds of Mudlavia and explaining why she wants a chapel so badly. “If we don’t have a chapel, we don’t have anything.”

An anonymous quote says, “I am a daughter of the King, who is not moved by the world. For my God is with me and goes before me. I do not fear because I am His.”

What an apt quote for Anna Kramer. She did not just settle into a life of luxury and was not moved by the wealth and success of the world around her, but worked hard to build a chapel to bring peace and healing to every guest who came to stay at Mudlavia.

While I have never known great wealth, her legacy speaks to me. Her legacy shows that wealth and fame aren’t everything. Her legacy shows that community is of great importance, that all people (whether wealthy guests or poor locals) should have the chance to worship in the church, and that while healing can come from various medicine and natural remedies, true healing comes from knowing the word of the Lord.

*Credit- The newspaper articles on the chapel came from the Warren County Historical Society. One article was partially ripped and the other very faded, so I am still trying to track down the newspapers and dates that the articles were written. Special thanks to Terri Wargo, who is in charge of the Warren County Historical Society. Special thanks to Chris Brown, the librarian of the Williamsport-Washington Public Library, who has given me permission to link the picture of the chapel to my blog.

The Pieces of Mudlavia

I’ve had a lot of people ask me if I dropped off the face of the earth, and if I was still working on the Mudlavia book. The truth is, I’ve chased a rabbit down the rabbit hole. One trail leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another. I am fine-tuning the details of my Mudlavia novel, and while writing the initial story was easy, researching it has been quite a challenging adventure.

If Mudlavia was a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, it’s like someone stood in the middle of Indiana, and tossed the pieces into a windstorm, scattering them across the entire state. I’ve disappeared from social media to chase down all those pieces to hopefully put together a well-researched work of historical fiction.

Trying to track down the facts to get a picture of what Mudlavia was like in the 1900’s has been hard. One historian I worked with explained that there have been several people in the past who have talked about writing a book about Mudlavia, but no one has ever completed one. That’s because there are a lot of gaps in the research, there’s a lot of conflicting details from sources, and you really have to travel all over Indiana to find the information you are looking for. It seems like every person I talk to has a different piece of the puzzle. I always learn something new and I always walk away with more questions than what I started with.

The key to the missing answers?

I spent three hours reading the backs of old Mudlavia postcards to see if I could find any clues from the guests themselves.

The postcards, written so long ago, unveil a time when life was full of handsome fellows, picnicking, buggy rides, evening dances, and playing cards on the front porch.

Such beautiful handwriting on the postcards!

I read many accounts of guests who enjoyed the mud baths, two accounts of people who did not like being covered in mud at all, and one account of someone who was absolutely ecstatic because the dark mud made them look “just like real Africans”. The same words show up on many different postcards, describing Mudlavia as “a fine place”, “grand”, “beautiful”, and “especially delightful”, showcasing that this hotel was truly a place to behold.

I have not set out to write a nonfiction book about the Mudlavia Hotel, but a historical fiction. There’s a part of my brain that wants to find every little detail and fill in every little gap I’m missing. I still have a zillion questions about the hotel that can’t be answered unless I happen to fall into the right rabbit hole, but the other part of my brain is thankful for the missing pieces, because those are the parts I get to dream up and create to make the story come alive.

I am looking forward to sharing the information I’ve learned with you… missing pieces and all!