Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 March 1939 — Page 9

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Vagabond

~ From Indiana=Ernie Pyle

y ig A Glittering City in Miniature

Work of Pious Bavarian Immigrant.

ULLMAN, Ala, March 8.—Sixty-one years ago a lad was born in Bavaria. From childhood, he was a devout Catholic. He came to America when he was 14 to help found a college here in-the- Alabama hills. He could have studied for the priesthood.

Instead, he chose the hard manual labor and the anonymity of a Brother. Brother Joseph, he became. His has been lowly work. He has been here 47 years : —the whole life of St. Bernard college. He has never traveled away from here, except once to Virginia. Forty-seven years. Today, at 61, he gets up at 4 in the morning, heaves coal into the big furnaces of the power plant, does his other chores. He is relatively unknown, and is seldom seen by an outsider. Yet he, with his own hands in his spare time, has created something that some day may become one of America’s spectacles. It is called the “Ave Maria Grotto.” The Grotto is a miniature city on a hillside. It is probably 500 feet long, and pours ba€k up the slope for the depth of an average house. fore it is a grassy terrace, and below is a rushing little river. : : The city has hundreds of little buildings in ‘it, from a foot tall to as high as your head. It reminds you of pictures of real cities in mountainous southern Italy, along the seashore, :

There is no general plan about the place, not all the subjects are religious. There is one dollhouse creation, in rough concrete, of the Fairy Castle of Hansel and Gretel. There is a relief map of Alabama. The famous Alamo of San Antonio is there. And all the old missions of California. Practically the whole Bible is illustrated in these stage settings. In this whole city of different things, there is a perfect blending of architecture and color. There are hundreds of buildings in it. Brother Joseph built every one of them. He began it only six years ago. Already it looks like the lifetime work of half a dozen men,

Just Keeps Working

All the buildings have character. They glisten and glitter, and the coloring is magnificent. There are literally millions of little pieces in them. The glistening comes from 10-cent-store beads scattered in Brother Joseph's concrete; jagged pieces of windshield, nickeled radio tubes; silver bracelets, old golden stickpins, dime-store porcelain animals—in fact, most anything. - * 1 went ups to the college powerhouse to see -! Brother Joseph. He received me in front of the furnace doors. He was clad in farmer's overalls and a

Mr. Pyle

* brown shirt without a collar.

His workshop is a little room next to the furnace. Strings of 10-cent beads hang on the wali. Pictures - of cathedrals lie about. It is nice and warm in here. An old pipe, with a bitten stem, lies on the workbench. : ! Brother Joseph has spent a lifetime in humility. He is stooped, and would barely come to my shoulder, but his face is young. He looks up at you kindly, but

I exclaimed over his work. He said nothing. “What are your plans for going on with the Grotto?” TI asked. ; “Oh, I have no plans,” he said. “I'm getting very old. T’ll just keep working.” Whether his holy village receives public recognition, Brother Josepn does not care.» Poverty and humility and faithfulness are his greater. works of art. We said goodby, and before I had reached the steps, the stooped and humble creator of “Ave Maria Grotto” was busy shoveling coal into the big fireboxes.

My Day By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt "Impressed by Lovely Natchez Homes;

Town Helped by New WPA Road.

ATCHEZ, Miss., Tuesday.—We arrived in Vicksburg, Miss., at 7:20 o'clock this morning, Knowing we would have a long drive, we breakfasted before leaving the train. The paved road has been put through with the help of WPA labor so recently that everybody -is still talking about it, One lady told us she had objected very much to having a paved road

: go through because she wanted people to linger in

Natchez. However, because they have considerably less travel by boat than they once had, and since no train passes through, I think it rather fortunate for the tourists they can now come here over a good road. At 9:30 we reached the hotel, had an hour to settle down comfortably, and then met the press and later the advisory committee of the state NYA. Later I had a short talk with the assistant director of WPA women’s and professional projects in this state. They are particularly anxious to start a restoration project, because the old houses are badly in need of repair. As we drove down this morning, I noticed soil erosion work and terracing ‘going on. I was told by some of the gentlemen who came to see me that it made a great difference in the condition of the land. Perhaps, after all, it will some day turn out that this period when we are obliged to spend great sums of public money has meant an investment which will, in the future, bring returns to the public as a whole.

The Wonien Get the Credit

After an early lunch, we left the hotel at 1 p. m. and managed to visit seven of the lovely old homes. The most beautiful gardens, it seems to me, were those of “Monteigne,” but among so much beauty it is hard to pick out any one which is particularly eutstanding. Never tell me that womén are not able in business. Natchez is being built up financially by a woman’s idea carried out by women. They have obtained good publicity and they have one great advantage, the houses displayed are really homes.: They are lived in today and frequently the mistress: of the house receives you yourself. Some of the dresses worn are genuinely old and the furniture is good of its date. In some cases it does not happen to be our most beautiful period, but the pieces are good examples of their day and the china and silver is extremely interesting. 1 saw a set of china painted by Audubon which, even though it has been divided in the family, still consists of 200 pieces. It was amusing to find some china with gold and pink decoration which is identical with a few pieces of china that came to-me from my grandmother Roosevelt, and which is almost the counterpart of a set I have long admired belonging to my cousin, Mrs. Henry Parish. | Many of the paintings were the same as those which hung in my grandfather Hall's house. He bought them in Italy when he traveled abroad at

about the same time that cotton was king in Natchez

and people here imported their furniture and their art.

| i * Day-by-Day Science By Science Service ; : OE of the important but little noted scientific serials, with new installments ever appearing, is the story of superpure metals. . Good advertising and a slogan about purity, has sold millions of cakes of soap but some of the new superpurity metals have ratings fantastically higher. Lead that is 99.9999 per cent fine is now available as metallurgists push their research outward in quest of still further decimal points. ’ As the purity of metals is increased it is interesting to note that, in general, the resistance to corrosion of the metal diminishes. Somehow there seems to be a link between contaminations in a metal and the + ease with which it suffers chemical attack. Aluminum, antimony, bismuth, cadmium; copper, iron, magnesium, nickel, silver, tin, gold, carbon and - platinum of high purity are now available in moderate ‘quantities for scientific research. ; Extreme care must be taken in the preparation of superpure metals. For tin it is common to drop the molten metal into distilled water where it forms -into “moss” or into drops that are as convenient, for many purposes, as are the usual small bars of metal. Superpure zinc offers the possibility of improving corrosion resistance of _galv. steel

Rises on Alabama Hillside, the

| launched for

e_ Indianapolis

Times

Second Section

By Leonard i. Engel

Science Service Aviation Wriler VW ASHIN GTON, March 8. —A new monument to America's still-growing transportation system is taking shape on a fill of land that juts ouf into

Baltimore. Exactly as the railroad has marked our cities with - marble decorated train sheds and .as the ocean steamer has brought our .ports elaborate ‘docks and piers, so the airplane is bringing the nation’s number two seapori a sample of the transportation center of tomorrow —the trans-Atlantic air terminal. Take a couple of two-story “houses. on wheels,” tanks of gasoline, some cases containing spare 1500-horse power. engines, steel-and-rubber cracles, a pair of railroad car trucks, machinery for making special (ools—throw them inside the vastness of the new

Pan-American’Airways hangar at the Municipal Seaplane Base.

reporting teletypewriters, a wire grille. to. separate customs cfficers

from the common herd, Mix well with busy mechenics, porters and “front office” men.

port from whica two ‘to three

months hence: the biggest things in the air, Boeing Super-Clippers,

and passengers— Europe bound! muda Clipper,

New York and’ Baltimore going on two years, and of the first Su-per-Clipper. to arrive in the East, the new terminal has been in use for more than a year. It has been undergoing preparations for the great day when the world’s first trans-Atlantic airline would even longer that. ; fa ” 8 » I an airport is much more than meets the eye of everf the experienced air traveler, think what must lie behind the home of aviation’s greatest venture. Months before any of the seaplane base . people had ahy idea’ when the Super-Clippers would begin dropping out of the skp at the end of

“their journeys - from «the Vest

Coast where they were built, every Panam employee began to get ready, from Col. J. Carroll Cone, Atlantic Division: manager, and Clarence Schildhsuer, operations manager of the division, down to the humblest apprentice. Out front, the anew base looks almost like any o her terminal— the same uniforms (except for the little air emblems on a few caps), the same bustle before departiires . and after arrivals. But there the resemblance ends. Two of the four Boeings testined for the Atlantic route, plus the Bermudas Clipper, can fit simultaneously into the hangar, among the largest in the coun'ry, E. W. McVitt, division engineer, says. Now the dirt floor—still too soft for the concrete which will eventually be laid—is cluttered with machinery, bul room will be made for the planes by moving the machines onto "a balcony which is yet to be built. Special equipment of all sorts is being moved in and preparad, to enable a crew of mechanics, which will eventuclly total 200, to service Clippers fast enough to enable four departures a week to Europe and two to Bermuda. Even during summer - months, when freedom from ice will enable departurés from North Beach Airport at New. York, Baltimore will be the place where planes &zre checked in and out and serviced One device Mr. McVitty and his crew have worked up is the twostory “house on wheels”—a huge, but lightweight, work platform up which service men will swarm fo go to work on engines, propellers, wings and backs of the planes, which ‘are large enough to. take about 40 people across the “hig drink” at a time, 4

Chesapeake Bay just below

Add offices, radio, clicking weather .

and homeward-hound- passengers .

That, in barest outline, is a '

At present the home of the Berwhich has been flying regularly between Bermuda, -

WEDNESDAY, MARCH §, 1939,

Trans-Atlantic Air T

Flights to Europe Promised Soon

Europe bound? : No, not yet—but PAA-17, the first of the Boeing Clippers, will be soon. Here taking off from Lake Washington, near Seattle on atest flight, the graceful bird can carry 74 passengers by day, 40 across the Atlantic. It is the biggest plane in the air.

will be taking off with cargo, mail &

. Division Radio Operator Tom Roberts, who dot and dashed his way

across the Atlantic on survey flights in 1937, works at the transmitter and receiver which will keep in touch with the skyliners all the way

‘across the ocean. i

Weather raap: are made up continuously as information comes in via teletype (in lower right corner) from Government stations, by radio from Eurepe and over the sea, to guide the great flying boats on their

24-hour journey to Europe.

They seem to have thought of.

a mass of details for these platforms, of which there are two— top platforms are staggered to make allowance for the slant of the wings, deep pockets are located just where propellers will fit in, compressed air and washing oil and water. lines are provided, ready for the mechanics to use. : ‘8 ” ” SPECIAL problem, already solved, was brought on by the fact that the ground of the fill-in is still too soft to take the weight of the 42-ton flying boats end (the. 15-ton beaching gear. So, of all things, they're laying railroad tracks now up at the airport, The tracks' will run from the lbeaching ramp to the floor of the hangar. On each track will run a four-wheeled railroad truck, which will carry the plane and its beaching gear. The rails will spread the weight sufficiently so that the whole 50-ton mass of

iron, steel and duralumin will not

sink in. The beaching gear will

‘rest atop a ball-and-socket joint,

and will be swung onto the joint as it is pulled out of the water with the Clipper. Mr. McVitty and his crew are

making many of their own tools because nobody's ever had.to service that much airplane before and the tools simply did not exist. Weeks ago, he had prepared forms

. listing all. the hundreds of items

that must be checked to insure safe operation. To illustrate the painstaking thoroughness which the aviation industry has learned

through years of experience is the _

price of safety aloft, just note the fact that the forms provide space for checking of each item by three men—the mechanic assigned to the job, the shop superintendent and the chief inspector. They even had to go into surface boat designing. Rowing out to put beaching lines aboard the plane can be pretty tough work, it was decided. But there was no motorboat—slow, broad of beam, extremely maneuverable — on the market. So Panam ° engineers have designed their own! ” » ®

PSTAIRS, above the neat and _ modern pgsenger section of the depot, are other divisions of the remarkably complex set-up required for an overocean air service. Division Radio Operator Tom Roberts, who dot and

‘ i

by Bustle at Baltimore Base :

' Entered as Sescond-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indianapolis, dnd.

Three of these make a propeller. Spare blades are on hand at every

whether it be short or long.

~ ®Two-story “House on Wheels.” “forms had to be built for servicing the Atlantic-type clippers. The wing

- gervicing base, but one detail of the many that go into a regular airline, -

A pair of these huge work plat-

goes over the top platform which has pockets for the propellers. Machine tools, air and oil lines and other equipment are on the platforms.

A constant check on instruments on which the airliner’s safety and

smoothness of operation depend must be made,

Atlantic air terminal in Baltimore is a complete instrument repair shop.

So, at the new trans-.

dashed his way across the Atlantic on the six pioneer survey flights in 1937, has under him not only the Morse station that

will keep touch all the way across, but a special radiotelephone with a range of 100| miles. With it, he will tell Clipper skippers what to do about landing, as given to him by others whose job it is to note conditions, |The landing launch will have a radio-telephone for the same purpose; and the Clipper will also be able to report

progress and talk back within the

same range. ; In an office next to the radio room, is another key point—

where Allan C. Clark and his aids

will chart the weather from radio ani telegraphed reports from hundreds of stations, seme American, some foreign, some their own. But the passenger will not see much of this. He'll be too busy saying goodby and thinking of the thrill of going ‘to Europe—24 hours away by air!

Side Glances

Ee ton, D. C.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—Name the strait that separates Greenland from the North American continent. 2—If a child is born to naturalized American citizens in a foreign ‘country, is he also an American citizen? 3—Name the Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court who recently retired. 4—_What is the rate of letter postage to England? 5—Name the surveyors of Mason and Dixon's line. 2 8 =» Answers

1—Davis Strait. 2—Yes. 3—Louis D. Brandeis. 4—Five cents for the first ounce and three cents for each additional ounce or fraction "thereof. : 5—Charles Mason and Jeremiah ' Dixon. ” 2 8

ASK THE TIMES

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question of fact or information to The Indianapolis Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 13th St, N. W. WashingLegal and medical ; en no

Gas

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

‘Slay

Worthmah

| long road to the status of true Vermonters.

PAGE 9

Our Town | By Anton Scherrer

' When Adelina Patti Dined at the Grand She Ignored Personal Chef To Enjoy Hotel's Regular Fare.

‘GAIN my desk is in a state, loaded with sentimental scraps of paper each recording an item which may turn out to be ex« ° actly what you have been looking for all your life. :

Ttem 1: Charles E. Kregelo, the undertaker who in his day conducted. more than 25,000 funerals in Indianapolis, was the first anywhere in the world to use carriage cards with family and relatives’ names; the first, too, to bring along his own chairs so that families didn’t have to borrow them from neighbors. Item 2: The Morning Bracer- , served at, the old Denison House Bar when it was going good consisted of a~teaspoonful of Bromo Seltzer, one jigger. of Holland or Old Tom Gin and enough syphon seltzer to fill a tall glass. It wasn’t _ a very palatable drink, says an old bartender, but it sure did trick. Mr. Scherrer Item 3: When Adelina Patti came to America in 1882, she had with her a French chef who got $10,000 a year. - It was his business to go into the kitchen of every hotel at which she stopped and prepare for her everything .she ate. On the day she arrived in Indianapolis, she walked into the dining room of the Grand Hotel, picked up the bill of fare, and noticed that turtle soup was on the card. It was her favorite dish, and right away she made up her mind to try it. Said she was game enough to try anything once. She was so. delighted with the way Charlie Lanne, the Grand/ Hotel's chef, made turtle soup that she took the entire meal from the card. ‘As a matter of fact, she liked Charlie’s cooking so well that she stayed two days after her concert, and her $10,000 chef never got to see inside of the Grand Hotel's kitchen all the time he was here. - *

Origin of Famous Song

Item 4: Reuben Glue, the 50-year-old newshoy at the corner of>*Washington and Illinois Sts. (circa 1900) used to brag that he was the original inspiration for the song “Down Went McGinty to the Bottom of the ea.” : Rube used to tell it something like his: “I was just done playin’ for 400 consecutive nights in the Bowery Theater, New York. The company I was playin’ with was bound fer Boston in one of the Fall River boats. There was an awful wind a-blowin’. Said Frank Ryan to me, sez he: ‘Yer goin’ down tonight McGinty to the bottom of the sea,” and that was the beginnin’ of the long line of McGinty songs.”

Item 5: And in case you've forgotten, Reuben Glue was the newsboy who sold his wares from a cart whose wheels had 13 spokes. He wouldn't tell why.

Item 6: Once upon a time when Edwin Booth and Helen Mod jeska played “Macbeth” in Indianapolis, an overzealous property man served the banquet and put a dozen real bananas in a fruit dish in the center of the table. : . Item 7: When Madamq Wong Kai Kah. wife of the Chinese Commissioner to the St. Louis World's Fair (1904) set up housekeeping in Indianapolis, she arrived with 188 trunks containing 400 silk dresses worth anywhere from $400 to $700 apiece. Anyway, it’s a matter of record, that it took 20 moving vans to bring Madame Wong’s elaborate wardrobe from the Daion Station to 1520 Broadway, her Indianapolis ome. Item 8: Dye St., beginning at 600 W. 30th St. runs right into amd-ends at Crown Hill.

Jane Jordan— Fears Friend Gossips About Her; Girl Told<to Be Discreet in Talk.

EAR JANE JORDAN—I have a problem which worries me quite a bit. I have a very dear friend but she has a habit of talking about all her friends, saying things that I really can't believe are true. 8 Could you advise me of some way in which I could find out if she talks about me and my family as she does others? a PUZZLED.

Answer—The safest plan is to tell your friend

‘| nothing that you do not want repeated. Then, if she

talks, ‘she will. have nothing to talk about except trivialities unless she makes'it up. re

If the woman talks about all her other friends, the chances are that she talks about you and your family, too. You'd be wise simply to accept this fact: and not {ry to catch her in something, thereby making an enemy for life. . If she has no redeeming features, I should advise you to cross her \off your list. But either way, avoid an ugly scene if possible. : . 2 2 = : EAR JANE JORDAN—I have heard from several of my Iriends that you are a fake person who did not answer the problems as they came in, but that you pick the ohe you can answer best, or the one who put the most money in the letter. I am going to inclose a cne doilar bill in this letter, and maybe I can get an answer. > we, Iama grass fiidow in my 30s. Over a year ago I met a very good friend. He used to meet me after I got off from work and we had some very good times together. About three months ago I got in some trouble and I-blamed him for it. He tried to show me that he had nothing to do with it. | :

Then just beiore Christmas, he stopped seeing me. Now I have found out that he was not to blame for what happened. How can I gain his friendship again? H.

Answer—I have never been offered money for answering letters. Had you inclosed a dollar, which you did not, I should have returned it. Your question has come in several times but has not been answered be~

| cause it is not clear. When I have no knowledge of | the circumstances surrounding a quarrel, I can suge ‘| gest nothing as 3 remedy. :

Perhaps there is nothing you can do to make mat< ters right. It depends upon how deeply you offended your friend. If one apology does not straighten mat-

| ters out, you will have to accept the fact that you

have lost a friend and let it go at that. j " JANE JORDAN,

Put your problems in a letter fo Jane Jordan who w answer your questions in this column daily. :

New Books Today Public Library Presents—

OYOUSLY reiterating WE'RE STILL IN THE

stows a title on his sequel to “A Home in the Country,” in which chronicle, with many a quiet chuckle, we aided the author and his wife to find and establish their domicile on. a New England hillside. Now we discover this happily exiled New York family occupy= ing themselves by “dikging in,” a step on a generation And what a clear-cut picture of these real Americans and of their little state emerges! : tl 2 Into this humorously philosophical record is wriften the story of the round of the seasons as they passed over the square, white house set sweetly in its rolling acres of thrifty soil. And here is played out the drama of the year from March to Christmas: The fight against mud and weather—worthy foes in

"| these parts, gardening, bee-keeping. Fishing, writ=

ing, tramping with beloved dogs, are all mixed up with a lot of good plain loving of the land. Into thi

+| volume the author puts his heart and soul wi

nthusiasm, this book

COUNTRY (Day) Frederic Van de Water thus be- - ;