Mudlavia: Where Gatsby Meets Griffith

One of the most interesting things about Mudlavia is the dynamic of bringing the luxurious city life to the rural setting of Warren County, Indiana. I like to call it a place where Gatsby meets Griffith.

When I think of The Great Gatsby, I think of millionaire Jay Gatsby and the lavish parties he hosted in his mansion. Gatsby brings to life the roaring twenties, and any Gatsby themed party would include the things of the wealthy social circles of the time; prohibition style cocktails, jazz music, flapper dresses, tuxes, lavish food, and fancy cars.

When I think of Andy Griffith, I think of a kindhearted sheriff helping people in iconic Mayberry. Andy can be found doing small town activities from breaking up family feuds, to teaching his boy Opie moral lessons, to going to town picnics, and playing the guitar on his front porch.

You would think that these two very different lifestyles could never mesh. If Gatsby came to Mayberry, Andy would greet him with, “Well hooooowdy, golly that’s a fancy car if I ever saw one, isn’t it Barn?”

Yet, Mudlavia brings these two different dynamics together.

Mudlavia was built in what Henry Kramer coined as “peaceful valley” Indiana. The hotel was made with the most luxurious materials; mahogany, marble, onyx, Tiffany glass, and oriental tapestries. It had the best modern conveniences of the nineteenth century and was famous for its Mudlavia treatment, which included healing mud baths and lithium water.

There were definite differences between the great Mudlavia Hotel and the surrounding area. Mudlavia hosted dances and balls where quartets would play waltzes, marches, and minuets. In the small town of Kramer, where the married Mudlavia employees lived, the townspeople would host country dances with fiddlers playing “The Virginia Reel” or “Fishers Hornpipe”. While the automobile became popular in the city and Mudlavia was called “autolavia” in 1910 due to the sheer amount of automobiles being driven there, they were not a mainstay in Warren County until the 1930’s.

Nowadays, some people joke that Warren County is about ten years behind the times, and I imagine that when city folk came to visit in the early 1900’s, they might have said the same thing too. It must have been a wonder that such a fancy place existed among the sycamore trees and rolling hills of the Indiana countryside.

I would have thought there would have been a definitive line between the fancy hotel and the rural surroundings, of the wealthy visitors and country workers, but I found that Mudlavia blended the two seamlessly.

I was reading a book about the Titanic and there was a quote from Edith Rosenbaum Russel who said, “There was something about the Titanic, it was so very formal, it was so very stiff. The atmosphere was stiff. The coziness- well you know, that kind of ‘get-together feeling,’ it didn’t exist.”

The cozy “get-together” feeling existed at Mudlavia. I imagine the stiffness and stuffiness that would have existed at other luxury hotels would have been undone by this special place, a place with the same warmth and friendliness as Mayberry.

When visitors first arrived and signed the hotel ledger, they were immediately welcomed as part of the Mudlavia family. A copy of Mudlavia News, a newspaper printed at the hotel, mentions a baseball game played out on the lawn with the employees and the guests. It also mentions the annual field day held on the front lawns. It says the field was "...crowded with guests and employees. Many persons from the little town of Kramer were in evidence and rooted with a good will for their respective candidates. The meet was held to decide a question of long standing as to the supremacy of the office employees and the chef and his lieutenants in the kitchen."

Even wealthy Mr. Kramer had that small town Indiana warmth. He was one of the first people to get an automobile in this part of the state and he would bring it to Attica to give anyone who wanted to a ride around the block!

There were plenty of other fancy hotels and Mudlavia was in the middle of nowhere. I believe what really made it special was the blur of lines between the social classes and the warmth of the people of “peaceful valley”.

Busy Mom Read- The Dirty Life

When someone comes up to me at market and says they don’t like tomatoes, I like to think they just haven’t found the right tomato yet. Some shoppers have never had a tomato outside of the grocery store (those rock hard, sort of red things from the grocery definitely don’t count) or they’ve never tried anything except a red tomato. Tomatoes come in all different colors, from almost white to orange to green to black, and in all sorts of flavors. We grow ones that are so sweet they’re almost like eating candy, tart tomatoes with a nice bite, and tomatoes so rich and complex, they’re like a fine wine.

I always thought I didn’t like memoirs. During my college years, I was introduced to some pretty boring ones and few that were so wordy and over-the-top that the stories became unbelievable. A couple years ago the memoir The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball came across my path. Guess what? I loved it! Turns out I just hadn’t found the right memoir yet.

I’ve been rereading The Dirty Life this September as my “busy mom read”. It’s tucked in my purse to read during the quiet moments between the craziness of life. I’m also rereading it because this October Kimball’s second memoir, Good Husbandry, comes out and tells the story of their next five years on the farm. I am counting down the days until it comes out, which is something I never thought I would say about a memoir!

In The Dirty Life, Kimball shares about her experience falling head over heels for a farmer during an interview for an article. She abandons her city life to marry him and start a farm and CSA in upstate New York. Her story is hilarious as she is thrown into the world of country living, and pulls at your heart as she describes the struggles they face throughout the first year. Most of all, I’m drawn to the way that she describes food. Reading her words makes me want to run out to the garden and grab everything I need to replicate the delicious dishes they create from the food they grow and raise on their farm. It also makes me want to get a dairy cow in the worst way!

If you love food or farming or both, then I highly recommend this book!

Mudlavia: The End

Ask any third grade teacher or one of their students in the county, and they’ll be able to tell you exactly how Mudlavia ends!

It’s a tragic end to a $250,000 hotel (that’s $250,000 back in the early 1900’s- an extravagant amount for that time) with a state-of-the-art steam whistle alarm and sprinkler system that was supposed to make the hotel unburnable… just like the Titanic was unsinkable….

Mudlavia ended with flames and fire and smoke.

Mudlavia’s glory days were cutoff right before the roaring 20’s hit, on leap day, February 29^th, 1920. Newspapers say the fire started in a linen closet on third floor of the hotel, but interestingly enough, don’t say how it started. Local lore passed down over time can only guess at how the fire started and why the perfectly tested fire system didn’t work that terrible day. The stories range from the mundane to the eccentric, and leave a lot of playroom for anyone with an imagination!

I’ve been spending a lot of time concentrating on the last few chapters of Mudlavia. One of the biggest letdowns in the world is a fantastic book with a disappointing ending. I really want mine to be perfect!

Unlike all of the other novels I have written, I know the ending. History has handed it to me, and yet, it’s been one of the trickiest for me to finish.

The thing about the timeframe is that there was a lot going on in the United States leading up to that moment. There was the end of WWI, the Spanish Influenza, women’s suffrage, the beginning of prohibition, and red summer, which had to do with a huge migration of African Americans from the southern states to the northern states due to the gruesome violence they were facing in the South. Our country was facing some pretty difficult issues and they all weave their way into my novel. Somehow I have to take all of these, combine them with the character’s lives and the burning of the hotel, and tie them all together nicely to bring it to a satisfying end.

It’s felt nearly impossible. My hubby told me to look at the last line of the 7^th Harry Potter book for inspiration. Not joking, it ends with, “All is well.” Not going to work with my book! Better turn to some tragic Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe for inspiration!

Seriously though, inspiration can come from anywhere. I was reading a popular magazine and came across an article about the devastation caused by California wildfires. Bingo. Then of all things, the next day I put down some toast in the kitchen while I was editing my novel. I started to smell something odd, but I was so engrossed with the words on the page, that I ignored the smell until it occurred to me that something was burning. My toaster caught on fire, with smoke billowing across the kitchen and through the living room. The combination of the heart wrenching article and the smoke lingering through my house played a large part in my story coming together.

I’ve gone over and over the ending, knowing it wasn’t quite right, and now when I read it, it leaves me emotionally worked up, but in the right kind of way!

Pine Village Again In Field!!!

Towns acquire history through generations who pass down its stories and legacies from one person to another. This vintage game is a way to celebrate and pass on our history, the rich history of the Pine Village football team to younger generations.

One hundred years ago, the news title above took up the front page of The Review Republican. One hundred years later, the small town of Pine Village is reviving it.

After nineteen years of game-winning success, the Pine Village football frenzy came to a startling halt in 1918 due to World War I.

In the fall of 1919, Claire Rhode, the football manager who made the team famous, announced the Pine Village team would once again be back on the gridiron. The community went crazy.

Rhode claimed it would be the best team yet, with the homegrown boys that everyone counted on and loved, and new players hired to complete the team. Leading up to the first game in over a year, Rhode travelled around Warren County, building up hype and selling tickets for $1 apiece.

The excitement built and Pine Village defeated South Bend 8 to 0. There was even more hype before their next game against the Rock Island Independents, where the Rock Island Argus printed a headline everyday across their sports page. My favorite headline says, “Pine Village Is Daffy About Football Team… An ex-Pine Villager wrote in that Pine Village might aptly be termed the nut house of football. Every man, woman, and child in the town old enough to take an interest in the great sport, eat, sleep, and talk football.” (Rock Island Argus, Oct. 29, 1919)

When Pine Village finally met Rock Island on the field, they battled it out to a scoreless tie.

Now, one hundred years later, Pine Village will be meeting Rock Island again, this time on home turf. Not only are we coming up on the one hundred year anniversary of the game against Rock Island, but it’s also the one hundred year anniversary of the NFL.

Both teams will be fielded by local men, and just like the good ol’ days of Pine Village football, these are men that are counted on and loved by the community. There will also be players coming in from Nashville, TN and around the Midwest. The players will be outfitted in vintage leather helmets and replica jerseys designed by Simon Herrera of Vintage American Football. The game won’t be quite as bloody and brutal as it was in the early days, as they will be playing flag football, however, they will be playing by the 1920’s rules.

Along with the game, which will be held at 5:30PM on Saturday, August 10^th at Pine Village Elementary School, there will be a parade at 2:00PM, a Model T show, a tailgate supper cooked by the Pine Village Fire Department, free rides given by the Boilermaker Express, old fashioned concessions, and a raffle for a Jeff Brohm signed football. Admission is free and everyone is invited! Bring your best lawn chairs and picnic blankets to come watch the game and take part of this wonderful community event!

Giving credit where credit is due- Information taken from Pine Village Football "The Inside Dope" by Doris Cottingham

Quest For the Pine Village Football Colors

When Simon Herrera from Vintage American Football contacted me asking about the colors of the Pine Village football team, I figured that would be pretty easy information to find. In the day of the internet,  Alexa, and Siri, can't you find the answer to any question?

What I ended up with was a month long wild goose chase!

First off, any internet searches were utterly useless. Second off, Siri only responded with the upcoming IU games and lead me to the historical society's website, which does not state the colors of Pine Village's uniform. Last, Alexa just plainly stated, "Sorry, I don't know that one."

No problem. I know how to use a book. I went back to my main resources on the Pine Village football team and combed through them, trying to find anything on the uniforms that would give me a clue to the colors. Nothing. There was information on the games, the players, the history of Pine Village, Jim Thorpe, and many other things, but not one word on the colors of the uniforms. And the pictures weren't any help either, because they’re all in black and white!

The more I researched it and failed, the more curious I was to know the answer. My next step was to talk to people from Pine Village. I talked to old farmers, a relative of one of the players, and self-proclaimed Warren County history buffs... and still no one knew the answer!

People passed the word along and asked other people on my behalf. Some people thought that since the team started at Pine Village, they wore the Pine Village school colors, which are blue and white. However, further research turned up that the Pine Village High School had their own school team (whose colors would have been blue and white), and that the Pine Village town team had different uniforms.

My favorite answer came from a farmer who said that he didn’t know the color of the material of the uniforms, but he knew there was red on the jerseys because they always had blood on them!

I was desperate to solve this mystery, so I kept investigating.  I found myself back at Mary Ann Aker's The Good Ol' Days and combed through it again. Towards the end of the publication, a small line caught my eye.

"Black and Orange Colors- Left to right, Oct 17, 1915, Home Field Picture."

Was it talking about Pine Village?

My kids went to Pine Village and it's hard to imagine any other colors to represent the town other than blue and white.

I closed the publication and stared at the cover. Mary Ann Akers may have just been giving me a clue the entire time. I had always wondered why the football publication had been combined with the Halloween publication.... and now, just maybe I had the answer... the team's colors were actually black and orange.

I wanted real hard evidence though. It was difficult to tell from The Good Ol' Days if that is what the line meant. I read through the article again, which was from an excerpt of Robert Carr's book, Grandma Had Class.

I got my hands on a copy of the book, and immediately turned to the chapter on the Pine Village Football team and started reading.

Finally, beside a picture of the Pine Village football team, it said in bold print, "Black and Orange Colors” with a list and description of all the Pine Village players beneath it.

If you are from Warren County and you are surprised, believe me, I was surprised too!

When you come to the vintage football festival on Saturday, August 10th, Pine Village will once again take the field, dressed in black and orange.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due- Special thanks to Matt Akers and Teri Morris for sharing publications of The Good Ol' Days with me, and special thanks to Simon Herrera for designing the vintage jerseys. You can visit Simon's etsy site  here

Facing Rejection

Earlier this school year, my seventh grader jumped in the car after practice and saw my jumbled piles of rewritten query letters and lists of agents. She looked at me and asked if I would cry if I got rejected by an agent. She’s thirteen, and to a young teen, rejection is THE.WORST. THING. EVER.

But guess what? Rejection is inevitable. They say that the average writer receives anywhere between fifty and one hundred rejection letters. I’m about ready to send out my query and that means when I open my inbox throughout the next few months, I’m more likely to receive e-mails starting with… “I’m sorry, but…” or “It’s not the right fit,” or “No thanks,” than I am to see, “Love it! Send me your manuscript!” Sounds like an exciting spring for me, right?!

I could curl up in a ball and hide under my bed until next fall, or cry, or tape my rejection letters to the wall and throw darts at them.

I thought about all this as I pulled out of the school parking lot. Someday my daughter will face rejection. I want her to know that rejection doesn’t mean that life is over. I want her to know that you can face rejection and grow from it, you can use it to make yourself better, it can make you stronger, and it can lead to other opportunities.

I told her a few stories of my own rejections, disappointments, and doors that had closed, only to find that God had been faithful and used those rejections to do something greater. I explained that I’ve spent a lot of time not only praying about my book and my writing, but also about the process of finding an agent, and that faith is trusting that God would open the right doors and close the wrong doors.

The querying process comes with a mixture of hope and excitement and, if I’m honest, a little fear, but I keep these words by Shauna Niequest taped to my desk, which are a good reminder of the attitude I want to have.

She says, “I’m practicing believing that God knows more than I know, that he sees what I can’t, that he’s weaving a future that I can’t even imagine from where I sit this morning

Unlocking A Novel- Pine Village Football

When I first started researching Mudlavia, I researched everything that happened in Warren County during 1918 and 1919. My research led me to the Pine Village football team and included reading The Good Ol’ Day’s “Game In Progress” and Doris Cottingham’s book, Pine Village Football The Inside Dope.

I wanted to tell the story of Mudlavia because of my grandpa, but while I was working on it, I discovered so many other fascinating stories about Warren County’s history, and the idea of telling the story of the Pine Village football team took root. There was a line in The Good Ol’ Day’s “Game In Progress” that caught my attention. It said, “The story of this man is a most interesting one and I sincerely hope that someday it will be told in full.” (The man they are referring to is Claire Rhode, the Pine Village football team’s manager.)

For two years now that sentence has been haunting me, and the facts, stories, and headlines about Pine Village’s football team have been rattling around in my head. The problem was that I could not figure out how to put that information together to create a compelling work of historical fiction.

I knew it would be hard to focus on a single player on the team (as well as Claire Rhode), because I don’t have a lot of individual information on the players and didn’t want to make a bunch of things up. There was also the fact that the team ran from 1898 until 1927, which is a huge span of time. Should I start at the beginning? Should I focus on the glory years? Should I try to fit all of it in?

For two years every idea I came up with felt wrong.

This past year I partnered with Simon Herrera from Vintage American Football to try and bring a vintage football game to Pine Village. I presented this idea to various people in our community and we formed a committee to make this game a possibility. Recently we were sitting in a meeting talking through ideas and someone mentioned something we could do and the meeting continued on.

I’ve had all this information in my head, all these ideas, all these facts, and suddenly her words unlocked them. I needed to be in the right place at the right time. A few simple words blew the whole thing wide open, and as I drove home, the storyline came to me.

If you are writing and you are stuck, keep researching and taking notes and writing. Be patient. As all that information gets filed in your head, at some point you’ll hear something or read something or experience something that will unlock your story and turn it into something magical!