Nadine's Diary, "The Go Bell"

Thursday Oct. 4, 94.  In school.  In the evening entertained Messers Holz and Stinson.  They brought us a basket of fruit.  We plaid cards, and indulged in the fruit until the go bell rang when they had to go. 

Nadine's Diary, "Riding a Bicycle"

In school--Wednesday Oct. 3. 94.  Went with Miss Sinclair sketching out to Sagers Pond.  The Art teacher gave me his sketching stool to sit on and I up set when I went to sit down on it. They all laughed and Mr. Wright said I must not be used to riding a bicycle*.  Mr. Holz came to our table in the evening to board.

Lover's Lane on Sager's Lake, Valparaiso, Indiana 

c. 1894, from www.lib.montana.edu

*An interesting issue of The Indiana Historian magazine is devoted to the early days of bicycles, the mid to late 1890s.

Nadine's Diary, "Registered and Arranged My Studies"

Monday, Oct. 2, 94.  Registered and arranged my studies in the evening.  Miss Sinclair and I stole some butter and some sirup off the table and made taffy.

Nadine's Diary, "I Arrived at Valparaiso Indiana"

Found among William Hodges' papers was a diary with this inscription:

Miss Nadine Reynold's diary while attending Indiana Normal College, 1894.  For this diary I paid a box of candy Dec. 7--1895.  Will C. Hodges.

In her matter-of-fact tone, Nadine describes her social life and, less so, her academic career at Indiana Normal College.  Lest we ever think that college students of the late 1800s were more buttoned down than today, a reading of her diary proves that wrong (with the exception that alcohol appears to have played no role).  Students skipped class, were in the unchaperoned company of the opposite sex, and, gasp, even smoked.  Hopefully a photograph of Nadine will surface in the Goodwood Collection.   According to her, she was thought to be one of the prettiest girls at the college.

Each day I will post another of her entries.  Mr. Hodges makes his first appearance in the diary on October 18, 1894.  Where possible, I will include photographs and other pertinent information.  Another note:  Nadine did not regularly use punctuation in her entries, which are usually one run-on sentence.  For clarity, I have added punctuation.  The diary ends on December 1, 1894.

And so we begin:

I arrived at Valparaiso Ind. Sunday morning Oct. 1, 1894.  Begin running with a young lady from Tennessee.  Her name is Minnie Sinclair.  She and I took a walk in the afternoon.  In the evening two young men called, Mr. Stinson and Mr. Holz.  We went to church.  Mr. Stinson went with me.  Went to Memorial Hall.  Mr. White of Chicago spoke.

Memorial Opera House (Memorial Hall) from www.preserveindiana.com 

Interior of Memorial Hall from www.preserveindiana.com

About Indiana Normal College:

Indiana Normal College (also known as Northern Indiana Normal School) of Valparaiso, Indiana, was founded by the Methodists in 1859 as the Valparaiso Male and Female College, a pioneer in co-education.  Due to circumstances brought about by the Civil War, the college was forced to close in 1870.  In 1871, the college was revived and renamed Valparaiso College in 1900.  It was recharted in 1906 as Valparaiso University.  Lutheran University Association purchased the school in 1925 and continues to operate it to this day.  In her diary, Nadine mentions these classes:  art, type writing, short hand, elocution, debate, grammar, penmanship, Latin, and law.

Reveries of a Bachelor

"From one who seems destined to have no immediate prospect of enjoying other worries than these.  Merry X-mas 1901.  W. C. Hodges.  Tallahassee, Fla."

The above is written in Hodges' own hand and appears to have been a gift to himself (as he was wont to do from time to time).  

This collection of "musings", Reveries of a Bachelor (or A Book of the Heart), was written by Donald Grant Mitchell in 1850, but published under his pseudonym Ik Marvel. 

Under the guise of Ik Marvel, Mitchell published Reveries of a Bachelor, one of the most popular works of the day, as popular Uncle Tom's Cabin.  Today, the book has been largely forgotten.   Mitchell (1822-1908) was an agriculturalist and landscape architect as well as a writer.  

Ik Marvel, AKA Donald Grant Mitchell

Centennial of the Death of General Lafayette

From the Goodwood Library:  The last chapter of this book is entitled, "Centennial of the Death of General Lafayette".  Excerpts follow:

Sunday, May 20th, 1934, was the one hundredth anniversary of the death of General Lafayette.  Appropriate services were held in the national capitol in Washington commemorating this event, being attended by President Roosevelt, members of congress, and other public officials and foreign diplomats.

On the afternoon of the same day, at five o'clock, a memorial service was held in the city park in Tallahassee, in honor of the great French soldier and statesman, who was also Leon county's largest landowner, by reason of the township which was selected for him under congressional grant in 1825 being situated in Leon County.  Memorial exercises, sponsored by the Tallahassee Historical Society, were arranged by a committee representing the Tallahassee Historical Society, Masons, Daughters of American Revolution, American Legion, Woman's Auxiliary, Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and Tallahassee Garden Clubs.  Chief Justice Fred H. Davis, of the Supreme Court of the State of Florida, a resident of Tallahassee since earliest childhood, was the principal speaker, and the following program was rendered:

America

Capital City Band, Mr. J. P. Koscielny, Director

Invocation

Reverend Jeffery Alfriend, Chaplain Claude L. Sauls Post, American Legion

La Marseillaise

Capital City Band, Mrs. J. P. Koscielny, Director

Introduction of the Speaker by Dr. W. E. Lewis, Chairman of the meeting

Address

Chief Justice Fred H. Davis, of the Supreme Court of Florida

Presentation of Lafayette Memorial Park

Hon. Jack W. Simmons, Member of Tallahassee City Commission

Benediction

Reverend Jeffery Alfriend

The Star Spangled Banner

Capital City Band, Mr. J. P. Koscielny, Director

Prior to the Exercises the Capital City Band rendered a program of military music at the Band Stand, Corner Park Avenue and Monroe Street, where the ceremonies were held, and presented arms (the usual military salute) during the playing of the American and the French national anthems. 

The resolution of the City Commission of Tallahassee, giving the name "Lafayette Memorial Park" to the twelve acre park in the northeastern part of the city, and which lies within the boundaries of the Lafayette Grant, was spread upon the Congressional Record of May 29th, 1934, upon motion of Senator Duncan U. Fletcher, of Florida, and a copy sent by Senator Fletcher to the Ambassador of the French Republic at Washington, was answered by an appreciative letter from the Ambassador.

The Lafayette Grant contains the thirty six square miles of land known officially as "Township One North of Range One East," on the Florida land maps.  The monument marking the intersection of the Tallahassee meridian and base line for Florida surveys, which is located about one and one-half miles north of Lafayette Memorial Park, carries a tablet showing that it marks also the southwest corner of the Lafayette Grant.

Chief Justice Fred H. Davis
www.floridasupremecourt.org
Supreme Court Portrait Gallery

Justice Davis concluded his address with John Quincy Adams' eulogy on Lafayette delivered in Congress in December, 1834:

Lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of morals.  He invented nothing in science.  He disclosed no new phenomenon in the laws of nature.  Born and educated in the highest order in possession of an affluent fortune, and master of  himself and of all his capabilities, at the moment of attaining manhood, the principle of Republican justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by inspiration from above.  He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of liberty.  He came to another hemisphere to defend her.  He became one of the most effective champions of our independence; but, that once achieved; he returned to his own country, and thence forward took no part in the controversies which have divided us.  In the events of our revolution, and in the forms of policy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetuation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form of government.  He wished to add nothing to it.  He would gladly have abstracted nothing from it.  Instead of the imaginary republic of Plato, or the Utopia of Sir Thomas Moore, he took a practical existing model, in actual operation here, and never attempted or wished more than to apply it faithfully to his own country. 

Maud Schwalmeyer

From the Goodwood Library:

Maud Schwalmeyer; detail from:
http://floridamemory.com/items/show/117926

We have a little volume entitled Tallahassee of Yesterday, by Sallie E. Blake and published in 1924 in Tallahassee by T. J. Appleyard.  Our copy is inscribed "Maud Schwalmeyer, State College, Tallahassee, March, 1925". Miss Schwalmeyer and Arthur Williams are credited with establishing the FSCW school of education.

Senator Hodges and Maud Schwalmeyer are both mentioned in the January-February, 1922 issue of the magazine "Bird-Lore", which was the "official organ of the Audubon Societies":