Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 180, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 October 1935 — Page 4

PAGE 4

PHOTOS TELL THE STORY OF RILEY'S LIFE AND WORK

“I crave, dear Lord, no boundless hoard . . . nor lands, nor kine . . . Let but a little hut be mine,” said Riley in his “Ike Walton's Prayer” and, his last days were spent with his books, a city's children, and his friends in an arm-chair at his Indianapolis home > on Lockcrbic-st. Yearly the home is a shrine for children and grown-ups on h's birthday.

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# Tiom beat on the church roof ... The crowd icas slim ... Jvst seven persons ... Jim Riley was lecturing at the Universalist church, Logansport, Oct. 31, 1882, and the weather inspired the above verse and cartoon. The penciled drawing and. words arc the property of Mrs. Lee Nussbaum, Marion, Ind. The “Benjamin F. Johnson” signature a pseudonym.

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An the Raggedy Man. he knows most rhymes. . . . An' tchs cm ri I he good, sometimes . . .” and perhaps Mr. Riley phyed Raggedy Man" shortly before this photo teas taken 01 he and his nephew. Edmund H. Eitel, by an Indianapolis photographer. Mr. Eitel, one of poet's heirs, now lives in Chicago.

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“ Good-by , Jim; Take keer of yourse’f!” reeve the strains of the above poem and Mr. Riley after penciling the above original lines changed, the title, as the photograph shows, to “The Old Man and Jim.” The title stuck even with the publishers. The manuscript shown here is on display in the Indianapolis Public Library.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY Born, Greenfield, Ind., Oct. 7, 1849. Died, Indianapolis, June 22, 1916.

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'‘Le's go a-visitin'’ . . . Back where the latch-string’s ahangin’ from the door . . .” and sec a sketch of Riley’s birthplace in Greenfield. The home’s site gave way to a more modern residence.

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The “Old Swimmin * Hole” on Brandywine Creek in Greenfield is too shallow for diving and the Hoosier Bard, if he lived would have had to watch modernity's children dive from a spring-board into anew concrete pool.

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The, Madison Square Garden that resounded to the smack of fistic blows also v'as softened, in past years by the recitations of the Hoosier Poet as this personal letter relates.

“You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachurs fond an * dear. An' churish them ’at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear . . . Er the Gobble-uns ’ll git you Es you Don’t Watch Out;” So perhaps in this photo of Riley he's recited that poem or mayhap the children visiting him at his Lockerbiest home are smiling as he quips about his pet poodle-dog — Lockerbie.

ffCT. 7, 1935