S2VB-"Culver Indiana and Vonnegut: a documentary" (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)

[PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC STARTS] >>ANNOUNCER: Greetings, science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. Do you read books? Do you watch films? Do you hate deodorant? Then welcome to our podcast. With Ryan Sean O'Reilly, David Wilkinson and Richard Mehl. You're listening to... No Deodorant in Outerrrr Space! >>RYAN SEAN O'REILLY: Welcome to a special bonus edition of No Deodorant in Outer Space. I'm here with a good co-host, Richard Mehl, and we're all the way out in Culver, Indiana, and this is going to be

a companion piece to our regular podcast in which we're covering Slaughterhouse-Five by, written by Kurt Vonnegut of course. And this house, I don't know if you want to say who owns the house. >>RICHARD MEHL: Yeah, this house was owned by [COUGHS] Kurt Vonnegut's uncle, Clemens Jr., who was the brother of his father obviously, and Kurt Vonnegut would romp around the lake shore lots here. He actually lived in the next-door house with his mother and father and his brothers and sisters, so this is

his old stomping grounds for a small period of time; however, it, that time was, made a lasting imprint on the trajectory of his profession and his life. >>RYAN: And, and joining us is Jeff Kenney. Welcome-- >>JEFF KENNEY: Thank you. >>RYAN: --who is the editor for the Culver Citizen, and also you're curator of the museum. >>JEFF: Culver Academy's Museum, yes, uh-huh. >>RYAN: Yes and a bit of a local historian as well, that's safe to say. >>JEFF: Fairly safe. [LAUGHS] >>RYAN: So Jeff's agreed g

raciously to join us. He's familiar with the Vonnegut history here, and he's here to give us a little background of this, kind of, unique town in the Midwest that is set next to Lake Maxinkuckee, which is a freshwater body. >>RICK: Second largest lake in Indiana. >>RYAN: Second largest lake in Indiana. >>JEFF: Second largest natural lake. [LAUGHS] >>RICK: Natural lake. Okay, there you go. >>RYAN: And he's going to tell us a little bit of background on the history of this town and how it grew up

into the point where, you know, Kurt would've been here and spent time here. [PAUSE] >>RYAN: So, Jeff, my understanding is that this was all Indian land originally. >>JEFF: Right. >>RYAN: Probably looked like most of America [LAUGHS]. >>JEFF: Yeah, as most of America, and earlier, well, depending on how far back you want to go, but, within a reasonable time proximity the Miami Indians were here, and they really ceded their land to the Potawatomi and those are the, the last Native Americans to be

here. They were forcibly removed in 1838 in, in a sort of sad moment in Midwestern history known as the Trail of Death. So, and so, really between that time and the arrival of the Vonneguts, not a, not a great deal of development happens, you can imagine kind of wilderness, really the first, you know, pointer to what was to come was built in the 1850s, it was a hotel not far from here that was put up. >>RYAN: But before that, this land when the Indians were here would've been mostly just swamp

land really? >>JEFF: Yeah, there was some swamp land, I mean the interesting thing about this lake, as you say the second largest natural lake, and it was a glacial lake, so there's some interesting typography here, there's more hilly land. We're on a really high bluff here, so there's a, this, this particular shore was always the best shore to be on, it was the East shore, and this is where one of the, there were really three chiefs, three Potawatomi chiefs on this lake, and the two most promin

ent, I mean, there was one named Qashqai who was not as influential, didn't have much land, but the most, one of the most prominent was a guy named Nees-wau-gee and he, his land was on the East shore here and it was a great land, it was the high bluffs. >>RYAN: Okay. >>JEFF: It was good hunting ground. It was, you know, they didn't grow crops but a lot of things grew here that you could eat, so it was a great place. The South shore of the lake was home to Chief Aubenaube. That extended on into,

actually the next county so pretty large attractive land, and you can still see the maps. Kurt would have probably seen the maps still from, you know, his childhood that had marked out the reservations, cuz there were reservations of course up to-- >>RYAN: There was like three main reservations? >>JEFF: There were three main ones and again Qashqai's was so small it almost gets forgotten, but Nees-wau-gee was an interesting character partly because he was chosen, and again he's living right here,

his cabin was not far from where we're sitting. He was chosen to be the spokesperson for the Potawatomi in this area against the federal government, so there was an 1836 council that was in Lake Kewanna, today it's Lake Bruce, and Nees-wau-gee is the chief orator kind of arguing for the Indians to be able to keep their land, and we know how that turned out. >>RICK: How was that situation kind of [COUGHS], brought out, from what I understand just reading Sarah Handyside's book, he had an underst

anding with the federal government for the long, for a long time. >>JEFF: Sure. >>RICK: And it sort of gave him a false sense of security? >>JEFF: Yeah, they, they, I mean they coexisted, when you get after the French and Indian War which Aubenaube actually fought in as a younger man, so he was older, not Nees-wau-gee but Aubenaube. He was older by the time we're talking about, in the 1830s. Yeah, I think as with most, the sort of sad story of Native Americans across America, there was always a

bit of a, you know, yeah, things looked better to them as things progressed than they actually ended up being. >>RYAN: Then they were moved to Missouri? >>JEFF: This group was moved to Kansas. >>RYAN: Kansas. >>JEFF: And in fact, Nees-wau-gee, he was chosen to be a spokesman for many reasons, but one of them was that he really had a way with people so he, rather than fight the fight, he actually left before the deport--, why do I call it, deportation before, before 1838. He left it by 1837, he w

as sad. We have a record, I don't know if it's entirely accurate, we have a record of his farewell speech and he was well liked by the settlers here. And I would add that the settlers interestingly are not really the French, the French fur traders, I mean yes they did some settling and they moved around here, but what really shifted the whole paradigm was a little bit more of the legacy of the English and a little bit more of the Puritan folks coming up from Southern Indiana and they just had a

different approach to things. They were a little uncomfortable with the way of dress of the Indians, they wanted them to be yeomen farmers, you know they really were not, they didn't gel the way the French Jesuits did. Not Jesuits, I'm sorry, the French fur traders did, and Jesuits. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: So I think that had a lot to do with the growing tension. So Nees-wau-gee leaves in 1837 on pretty good terms and, again I don't know how deep you want to go with this, but one of the folklori

c stories that's been recorded in national collections and so we continue to tell it here is that Chief Aubenaube on the South shore was among the, well, around this time, I think it was 1836 actually, he had an alcohol problem which was not uncommon. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: He kills his wife in a drunken rage and his eldest son who was an adult, a young adult named Pau-koo-Shuck, was assigned by tribal council, this was the standard thing to do, to kill his father in, in retribution, so he find

s his father in the log cabin tavern one day and sinks his tomahawk into his head. >>RICK: Yeah. >>RYAN: Yeah, yeah. >>JEFF: Yeah, bloody story. >>RYAN: I think I remember he had like a certain time period to do it? >>JEFF: He had to do it within a certain number of months. >>RYAN: Otherwise he couldn't do it. >>JEFF: Right, and he managed to-- >>RICK: [INAUDIBLE] refuse to do it? I mean was the retribution for him? >>JEFF: --Yeah-- >>RICK: [INAUDIBLE] >>JEFF: I don't think they, excuse me, I do

n't think they would've killed him [LAUGHS], you know, but yeah that's a good question, I don't know enough about the tribal law to know what would've happened. >>RICK: [INAUDIBLE] [LAUGHS] >>JEFF: It is really, it's a little, it's a little harsh. [LAUGHS] You know, but I don't think Kurt would've approved but--. >>RICK: [LAUGHS] >>JEFF: --he, but the interesting story about Pau-koo-shuck is he's taken away with the 859, I think it was, Potawatomi, and incidentally the other chief north of here

between here and Plymouth, Indiana, Menominee, really fought it and he was caged actually and they were marched away at gunpoint, but Pau-koo-shuck escapes about halfway through the journey, comes back to Lake Maxinkuckee, this much we know, and himself develops a drinking problem, he's a pretty sad person at this point, you know, on multiple levels, you know, for good reason, and again we have some evidence that he died in a bar fight in Pulaski County nearby. >>RICK: Hmm. >>JEFF: And the story

has always been that he was buried on Long Point here on the lake, you know, which you could see out the window behind me if you looked hard, [LAUGHS] and the story was that after he left, the settlers, the pioneers, many of them recorded seeing his ghost paddling a canoe on foggy nights up in Long Point or dancing in the shore. [TRIBAL DRUMMING AND CHANTING} >>JEFF: It has, really that story has been circulated and is, is one of the, sort of, pioneer stories of this area, so. >>RYAN: So it sou

nds like the story of the Indians here is pretty similar probably to the story of Indians in a lot of places in America. >>JEFF: Absolutely, and it's almost-- >>RICK: Carbon copy. >>JEFF: Yeah, almost a carbon copy, you know, yeah. >>RYAN: As the Indians are, you know, their time here fades away, and then, does this become more of like a pioneer town, kind of? >>JEFF: You could say that. It's funny, you know, today Lake Maxinkuckee, you know, not only is it one of the, well not only is it the se

cond largest natural lake, it's one of the cleanest in Indiana and I'm told it's the, and there's, I'm getting to a point with this there, I'm told it's the highest lakefront property value in the state and second in the whole Midwest to Lake Geneva, so it's a hot property, but at the time nobody wanted the lake land because it isn't good for farming so you have to think about what was going on after the Indians leave everything's about agriculture, everything, yeah the pioneers coming up here.

So, you know, north of here in flat areas that were more conducive to farming was the hot land, this was, this was wilderness, you know? So yeah, it, but yeah, mostly agricultural people kind of chopping their way into, into the area and settling in these little small muddy towns, and again where Kurt, where we are now is close to a little place known as the Maxinkuckee Village, and people thought it was going to be the hot place to be, not literally although maybe, but also figuratively it was

going to be the great boomtown. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: And what changed all that, we don't have to fast-forward too much but what changed all that was the railroad which doesn't come-- >>RYAN: And and-- >>JEFF: ---til 1883. >>RYAN: And where did that get-- >>RICK: Where is that in proximity to the lake? >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: The railroad? >>RICK: Uh-- >>JEFF: Well, Maxinkuckee Village? >>RICK: Yeah, Maxinkuckee Village. >>JEFF: Maxinkuckee Village. So Kurt's, you know, haven of Vonnegut propert

ies is on the East shore, and the Maxinkuckee Village is maybe a half mile from here and just off the, there's a road, 18B road today, it kind of spikes off of the East Shore and that whole village was there, so he would have gone to, as a child, little, there are little stores even when I was a child, some of them were still there and you could go get ice cream or, you know, you could get your, if you needed gasoline, your basic necessities, so in a way you could have a little self-contained co

mmunity. >>RYAN: So then what was the next progression after this Maxinkuckee Village? >>JEFF: Well I think it's worth mentioning that and, cuz this all ties into Kurt I think in a way, in the Maxinkuckee Village still standing, one of the oldest property or oldest structures in the area is an 1850s-built, it looks like a large house now but it was a hotel inn for fishermen, and again this was before the railroads, so you're only getting people who could make it here by wagon, but it was pretty

popular, and they had a bell on top and they would ring the bell every day to bring the fishermen in from, you know, but it was a, it was kind of a tourist place, an early tourist place for this lake. [SOOTHING ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC] >>JEFF: The kicker really was, in the early, well in the late 1870s a group of outdoorsmen from Plymouth, Indiana, including a really interesting character named Daniel McDonald who is a, he goes on to become a state senator, he has the Plymouth Democrat newspaper,

this is a day when you had, they still have this in some cities, you have the, well, sort of Fox News [LAUGHS] versus, you know, MSNBC. You had the Marshall County Republican and the Plymouth Democrat, well he's gonna be a Plymouth Democrat, he's an anti-death penalty advocate, he goes on to write the first piece of U.S. legislation to honor an American Indian which we can talk about, that's a little later, but he and his buddies want a hunting and fishing place much like the Vonneguts not long

after, so they petition the Pennsylvania Railroad which was going to build elsewhere, and they said we really love your railroad between Culver and Plymouth, which, it wasn't Culver yet, it was Marmon, into the town, because they liked to come down to the lake here and hunt and fish. So the railroad is built, it's finished in 1884, started in 1883, and they have a beautiful big clubhouse built on one of the high points in the North shore of the lake, called the, which eventually becomes the Lake

View Hotel-- >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: --when the railroad buys it, and so they're happy but that changes everything, it brings Kurt here, it brings Culver Military Academy here, I mean it changes the world. >>RYAN: Where, where, where did the railroad originate, I'm sorry? >>JEFF: Well it went from, all the way from Terre Haute, it didn't actually go through Indiana, cuz it went from Terre Haute at kind of an angle and it went through Peru, that's significant because that's gonna bring Cole Port

er here, the great jazz composer, I mean it goes through Logansport so there are a lot of Germans from Logansport coming up here and settling, it goes through Rochester, again it ends up here on the lake. You could jump on later from Indianapolis without too much trouble and get a connecting train and that's significant of course for the Vonneguts and others, but, what that really does begin is a boom, and I always say this, the story of history everywhere in America but certainly here in a huge

way here is technology. There's no electricity, it's hot [LAUGHS], you know? >>RYAN: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: So you want to get someplace cool, number one. Number two, how do you get there? There are, the roads are terrible, they're, they're rutted wagon, you know, dirt roads. Later in the 1800s you might be able to get something like a car but it wouldn't do you much good in those days, so what do you do, you get on the train, and that was a bit of a democratic thing because the wealthy could do it, b

ut also for, you know, a dime, fifteen, twenty cents, the more meager class could get on and end up at Lake Maxinkuckee. So in it's heyday between the 1880s and 1915s, say, you've got as many as five, seven thousand people coming on a weekend-- >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: --to this little place. >>RYAN: I rmemeber reading that, Rick, you were talking about that earlier. >>JEFF: It's a remarkable thing. >>RICK: A very busy, busy place. >>JEFF: Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and yet no motor, not a lo

t of motorized stuff so, you know, you don't have the pollution, the noise and boats-- >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: --and all that but absolutely packed, and these people were not necessarily staying for the summer. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: That's a little bit different than what the Vonneguts would do which was more of a summer cottage culture, but they would come for the weekend so hotels rise up, these beautiful lavish hotels all around the lake, particularly in Culver. That's what changed the Maxi

nkuckee Village. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: In fact it became known throughout as Fizzle Town [LAUGHS] >>RICK: [LAUGHS] >>JEFF: --because it, it really didn't live up to the hope that it started with because of the railroad, the railroad didn't go through there, it went through the ittle town of Culver and that built it up, again it wasn't Culver yet. >>RYAN: Marmon. >>JEFF: Marmon, it was Marmon. >>JEFF: It wouldn't have been an unheard of thing, I mean, one of the, we talked about >>JEFF: It woul

dn't have been an unheard of thing, I mean, one of the, we talked about >>JEFF: It wouldn't have been an unheard of thing, I mean, one of the, we talked about the Lake View Club starting on the North shore. The, the Club Phenomena was really the first wave of people coming up, so they didn't necessarily, it didn't necessarily start with one person coming up and building a house. Just, just down the road here is a place that still says Hilarity Hill, it was the Hilarity Club. It had been the Indi

anapolis Club and these, this was a big trend, it wasn't just the Lake Maxinkuckee, I mean the Kankakee Wetlands which would have been called the Everglades of the North and they were big at this, so if you look at the 1880s, the 1890s, it was trendy for people with wealth to get out of the city and come and be rugged outdoorsmen for a weekend [LAUGHS], you know? >>RICK: [LAUGHS] >>JEFF: And I don't mean that to be cynical but-- >>RYAN: Weekend warriors. >>JEFF: Weekend warriors, and so it start

ed with clubs, these were hunting and fishing clubs, and so the Indianapolis, sort of elite, and not just Indianapolis, there was a Peru Club, there was a Rochester Club, there, you know, a lot of these communities, you know, would have a cadre of people who would come up and start a club-- >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: --on the lake and that really, those were some of the first structures outside of or after log cabins and that sort of thing, so, I'm guessing that the Vonneguts probably were part of

that movement and I mean, I'm certain, I'm sure they were but probably had their first exposure to the lake here. And again, it made sense, you follow the railroad line, you know, that was the best way, the most, almost the only way to get up here initially, so. >>RYAN: So the railroad was in when the Vonneguts started coming. >>JEFF: Yeah, yeah, cuz it was in by 1884. >>RYAN: Okay. >>JEFF: And I question, seriously question if they would've come here, I mean I'm not saying they never would, but

in the way that they did if the railroad hadn't preceded them, and if it had gone somewhere else, you know, they might've gone somewhere else. >>RYAN: Right, and railroads were big influences. >>JEFF: It was huge. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: And, I mean, we talk about the ice industry in Culver, it was a huge industry, I mean we shipped ice all over the Midwest, but again, why? No refrigeration. {ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC} >>JEFF: Just to kind of, again, bring all these strings a little bit together, in

1889 Henry Harrison Culver was a stove manufacturer from St. Louis, made quite a fortune in it >>RYAN: But he was doing cast iron stoves. >>RYAN: But he was doing cast iron stoves. >>RYAN: But he was doing cast iron stoves. >>JEFF: He was doing wrought iron. >>RYAN: Wrought iron. >>JEFF: It's a little different than cast iron, they hold up better under heat. >>RYAN: Although he started with cast iron I think. >>JEFF: I think he started with cast iron. >>RYAN: He was a salesman for cast iron and

he was traveling around in Springfield, and I think couple other places, then they got into the wrought iron cuz-- >>JEFF: Yes. >>RYAN: --I remember reading that, and then that was better than the stoves that they were-- >>JEFF: Exactly, exactly. >>RYAN: --previously peddling. >>JEFF: And it had to have been successful, I mean, they had, one of the interesting things is that if you look at the old Culver Military Academy yearbooks you have people, you've got students from Mexico, I mean, the cou

ntry of Mexico, and that almsost certainly had to do with his reach, they reached into Mexico, they reached into Canada. They were kind of quasi-international-- >>RICK: Yup. >>JEFF: --in a time when that was remarkable. >>RICK: That, that has to be, kind of a continuing legacy. >>JEFF: It is! >>RICK: I mean, there's a lot [LAUGHS] of Mexicans that are at the Academy today and, and then were there when I was there. >>JEFF: Absolutely. >>RYAN: Yeah, Rick's a graduate from Culver Military Academy--

>>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: --so you spent four years-- >>RICK: Right. >>RYAN: --over, right over there. >>RICK: Yeah. >>RYAN: You graduated, well we don't have to say how old Rick is. [LAUGHS] >>JEFF: Right. [LAUGHS] >>RICK: Don't worry about that. >>JEFF: Well, so Henry Harrison, and, while he's in this area, he, it's the old story, the salesman and the farmer's daughter, he meets Emily Jane Hand not far from here and they fall in love and they're married and, age, you know he's only in his 50s a

nd he becomes ill in the 1880s, and the doctor, his doctor says, look, you need to get somewhere nice, and again this kind of ties in with the Vonnegut, somewhere of natural beauty, this is a very big idea in the late 1800s, you know, somewhere where the air is fresh and the water is blue and whatever, you know, so he thinks of Lake Maxinkuckee, Henry Harrison does, and by then the railroad is a convenient way to get here so he builds a beautiful house that Kurt would've walked by. It's a neat p

lace to go today because it's unchanged, if you look at the photos from the 1880s, it looks like that today, so if you walk that little path, you're walking something that Kurt would have known and loved as a child, almost certainly, it was just down from his house, so they build an initial farmhouse and then they build a beautiful homestead house with a pier and you know, everything, and he buys a lot of land on the North shore. >>RYAN: So he was very successful with his wrought iron-- >>JEFF:

Very successful. >>RYAN: --stove business. >>JEFF: In fact he employed some one to two hundred salespeople all aorund the country and outside of it as they say and that's significant because he had to keep order with those guys and so he created what we, sort of, jokingly refer to now as wrought iron range rank, he would say, oh you're a colonel now? [LAUGHS] You know, you're a good salesman. So, you know, we see the, sort of, you know, trajectory towards what would become the school because he

had no military background. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: There was no reason for him to start a military school, they were certainly lucrative at the time, you know it was a common, the common thing to do, and the military had a whole different, you know, aura to it than it might've for the post-Vietnam generation, it was very positive, lot of military schools, and some of them were essentially reform schools for the ne'er-do-well, you know, young people. >>RYAN: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: Culver's was not. He

always intended it to be a school for leadership, a school to use the military as, you know, kind of a vehicle to build strong, capable young men, at the time it was only boys. You know, so-- >>RYAN: Like Rick, he was a ne'er-do-well. >>JEFF: [LAUGHS} >>RICK: Correct. >>JEFF: Right, yeah. [ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC} >>JEFF: When you look back the town absolutely embraced the school, it put them on the map, it, and you know, it brought a lot, and he brought a lot. Before he started the school he had

started a Chautauqua, which was, again it's interesting how all these sort of cultural things-- >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: It's based on the religious, the Methodist religious revival camps on Lake Chautauqua, New York, but they weren't just preaching and, you know, singing, they were cultural, but they still are, they're still there, the Chautauqua in New York. >>RYAN: And then when is that, that's like? >>JEFF: That's in the, I couldn't give you an exact, it's in that time, 1870s maybe it started

, maybe 1880s because he opens his Chautauqua in 1889. >>RYAN: But what is it, a Chautauqua? >>JEFF: Yeah to explain what it is, it's, it's outdoor. There's usually what they would call a tabernacle, which is sort of an outdoor amphitheater of some sort, and it wasn't just, it was preaching, it was Christian based, but they also would bring in speakers on science and speakers on history, and they'd do drama, they'd do theater, they'd do art, the latest technology, you know, this technological [I

NAUDIBLE]. >>RYAN: So it's like a cultural center where they do-- >>JEFF: It was, absolutely, it was-- >>RYAN: --live performances. >>JEFF: It was meant to bring, you know, back to technology, there's no radio, there's no movies, there's no TV, so you're bringing culture to the masses and entertainment, so it's sort of edu-tainment brought to everybody. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: And some of them were traveling and this continued well into the 1950s. Traveling Chautaquas would set up, you know, ten

t stakes in the town, but Culver, this area had two different periods that were quasi-permanent, they were meant to be permanent, and Mr. Culver started in 1889, he brought some, some preachers who were sort of the Reverend Billy Grahams of their day, they were household names, they were superstars, and he brought in something like 10,000 people. >>RYAN: Wow. >>JEFF: But he didn't make, I mean he was a businessman, he didn't make the money he wanted to make [LAUGHS], and as you say, his land, I

mean he had land close to where we are which was on, higher, and that was great, but the land that would eventually become Culver Military Academy was very swampy and, right, I mean he had to drain it, he dug canals, I mean he put great amount of effort and labor into draining the swampland as best he could and if you've been to a Culver Academy parade even today after a rainstorm you have to be careful where you drive in that field, it still gets swampy, you know-- >>RICK: It does. >>JEFF: --so

rt of despite every best effort. There's nature for you, but, you know, so, for a while he turns that land into agricultural fairgrounds. In 1894, there's some thought that his wife was a big advocate of this, he starts a school, a winter school initially, that's, you know, fall and spring school initially and he uses the old Chautauqua Hotel and Tabernacle as the, as the buildings to start with. >>RYAN: Oh he didn't use them as like dorms? >>JEFF: They were all dorms and again this, this tells

you that the ingenuity of these guys, I mean, in February of 1895 the hotel which was the dorm/classroom/dining hall, everything burns to the ground. So he says I want a fireproof building and I want it quick, and by September he's got this beautiful brick three-story barrack, main barrack, which is the, sort of epicenter of the campus and it's still there, there's been a floor added to it. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: Oldest building on the campus and, and of course then he, over time that's added t

o, but it's interesting about him, in 1897 he's only 57 years old and he dies, so, so-- >>RYAN: Young. >>JEFF: -we, we talk about Culver. Sorry, we talk about Culver as, you know, he is sort of, you know, the name behind the school, and yet he really had fairly little to do with it directly, and I, I could go on for an hour about Culver Academy, but I would just add this that in 1897 providentially he brings in a young Virginia Military Institute graduate named Leigh Gignilliat who was just a ma

ster, he was great at seeing opportunities to grow the place and seeing opportunities to promote the place, so that same year he starts the Black Horse Troop which goes on into Presidential inaugurals. >>RICK: Hmm. >>JEFF: --through much of the 20th century up til today escorting U.S. presidents. If there's an opportunity to escort a diplomat, to bring a celebrity. In 1913 for example, Gignilliat sends the cadets to the great flood in Logansport, Indiana, and rescues 1500 people. >>RICK: Uh-huh.

>>JEFF: I mean we'd never do that today with teenage boys, but you know, and I think he did it to respond to the call, it fit Culver's, kind of, mission and sensibility, but. >>RYAN: There was a, so there was a flood and it was a train ride away right? >>JEFF: Well the flood really was a whole, it was sort of the Hurricane Katrina of its day [INAUDIBLE]. >>RYAN: Yeah, the whole town was flooded out. >>JEFF: The whole Midwest was flooded. >>RYAN: The whole-- >>JEFF: I mean, think of the Rust Bel

t, it really ground industry to a halt in 1913 for a while, so Ohio, I mean if you go to Dayton today the whole dam system is based on not letting that happen again, but Logansport was particularly hit and their mayor happened to call Culver, I mean we're obviously jumping ahead in time here, but their mayor called Culver at midnight and said we really need your boys because they had, in 1902 Culver starts a summer program which is navel, it's actually tied in with the U.S. Navy and so these cut

ters, they look sort of like oversized rowboats, you might think you could get in one and row it around and have fun with it, but it, you know, it can hold thirty some people and it took strong, skilled, young, well you don't have to be young but in this case young men to successfully steer these boats and navigate these deadly flood waters, I mean these are flood waters that would slam a boat up against a wall and destroy it, so they really did a remarkable, I mean it's, it's almost Hollywood--

>>RYAN: Right, right. >>JEFF: I mean what you have would be a great story, rescuing all these people and they're seeing bodies float past them and, you know, all these gory things happening so, it's really, Culver likes to tell that story. There's a gate if you go to Culver Academy today, that the grateful town of Logansport gave in 1914. It, you know, it's a perfect example of what the school aspires to do. [MILITARY DRUMMING] >>JEFF: Again, it's not the reform school model, it's not military,

military, military, nothing else. There's a, there's a feel there and just even aesthetically and architecturally when Kurt, he speaks of making the loop around the lake which is about 11 miles so he was an industrious young lad. [LAUGHS] >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: So as a kid he would just walk around the whole lake. >>JEFF: He would just go around the lake, I don't know how many times he did that but he speaks of, and we're jumping ahead again, but he speaks of that being conmfortable for him, h

e was an adventurous little Marco Polo he said, because you know he always knew if he went around the lake he would always eventually find his way back, so he would have gone through the campus, and going through the campus of the academy, if you're not used to that, especially in a small Midwestern town where very little else like that exists in most of such towns, it gives you a completely different feel. >>RYAN: Sure. >>JEFF: It has a quasi-medieval feel. It has a, sort of, definitely a colle

giate feel, so you have a sense of-- >>RYAN: It brings more of an outside influence then, I'm sure. >>JEFF: It totally does. [SOFT, SLOW ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC] >>RYAN: A very unique writer and a very unique town, really. >>JEFF: Right. >>RYAN: I mean with the military academy here and how it grew up and stuff. >>JEFF: Yeah, I think maybe, and I'm not gonna say that, we could over-exaggerate the impact that it had but I think-- >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: --you see the paradoxes, these, sort of, might

look like paradoxes, the complexities of, you know, here's the military academy but here's culture and arts within it--- >>RICK: Yeah. >>JEFF: --and here's this lake. >>RICK: Sounds so, kind of right wing but the faculty there while I was going there, I mean, they were extremely open. They opened up everybody's minds there, and then you had the whole military side of it which was completely different than sitting in the classroom. It was like, you're seeing the two worlds in that school simultan

eously. In the morning you'd get up, revelry at 6 o'clock [COUGHS], inspection at 6:30. You'd line up outside, get into rank, no matter what the weather was, you'd stand out there for about 35 minutes before you'd march into the mess hall to have breakfast. You were there for about 15 minutes and then you came back to your dorm or barrack and then take your books, go to class, and then everybody, absolutely everybody was encouraged to do extracurricular after class. I mean it was, they, they rea

lly emphasized just constant activity. >>RYAN: That was, that's almost, it reminds me of the German immigrants that came in here, and Culver, I don't know, was he, I don't know if he was German. >>JEFF: No, no [INAUDBLE]. >>RYAN: No, but the Germans here, like all the Vonnegut families, they were very encouraged to be involved in their communities and do extracurricular activities, I mean, they might be encouraged to do music as a hobby but they were joining organizations, they had the Turner Cl

ubs and various things, you know, which is, sort of a similar philosophy to what Culver had over at the Academy. >>JEFF: Absolutely, it's funny that you mention that, I mean, you know, so you're incorporating a lot of these ideas that absolutely would have perfectly lined up with, don't wanna say perfectly, but very much lined up with the Vonneguts' philosophy and their outlook, and again, they didn't, for whatever reason, didn't have any direct interaction that we know of with these programs, w

ith these people but, you know, I can't think that there wasn't some, some impact, they were aware of them, they were, it was part of the air they breathed here, and it is really strange how much they kind of paralleled one another, yes. >>RYAN: Yeah, yeah. [PAUSE] >>RYAN: Who was the first Vonnegut that came to this area, was it-- >>JEFF: We, we think, yeah, there's been talk of Clemens, Sr. who is really the patriarch, I mean he's the German immigrant who gets here in 1848. >>RYAN: So yeah, he

, he was the, he came over right from Germany. >>JEFF: He did. >>RYAN: And then did he, was he, he was working in some industry and then, and then he had a friend down in Indianapolis that wanted to start a hardware business? >>JEFF: Right, right. >>RYAN: And so he went to join his friend and start this hardware business, and then his friend left to go exploring West and just never returned. >>JEFF: Never returned. >>RYAN: And, and, but and then Clemens Sr. just ended up taking over this hardwar

e business and it became very, very successful. >>JEFF: Just the Vonnegut Hardware as opposed to any other name and yeah, it was very, very successful and whether he came to Lake Maxinkuckee I think there had been thought that he had but I'm not sure that he really started that, that trend himself, but his son CLemens Jr., I mean we're sitting in his house which was built 1889, I believe-- >>RICK: I think so. >>JEFF: And, and he, actually I think at one point Mr. Culver owned this property so th

ere was a point where it went from Culver to Peoples which was another local, or not local, another family that owned the lake settling here, and then went to Clemens Vonnegut, Jr., and so the Vonneguts, but it fit, it really fit, it dovetailed nicely with their philosophy and what they were trying to do in Indianapolis. They were, you know, the German, sort of outdoors, you know, health, active exercise movement, that kind of robust-- >>RYAN: Well, and, and the Vonneguts, I guess Clemens Sr. wo

uld have been part of, what are they called, the-- >>RICK: Turners? >>RYAN: Well, the Forty-Eighters or Fifty-Eighters? >>RICK: I-- >>JEFF: Oh. >>RYAN: What is it, forty-eight or fifty-eight? >>RICK: I don't know {INAUDIBLE]. >>JEFF: I think it's Forty-Eighters. >>RYAN: Forty-eighters, and it was a revolution, it was a kind of a couple of social revolutions-- >>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: --in Germany that didn't quite take, and so--. >>RICK: Oh. Yeah. Freethinkers. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: The Freethink

ers. >>RYAN: And so there was a mass migratgion of Germans, like tens of thousands-- >>JEFF: Yeah. >>RYAN: That, and a bunch of them went, ended up in Indiana and I forget where else. >>RICK: [COUGHS] >>JEFF: It's odd that they did but yeah, I mean Indianaopis, even Logansport which is a fairly small town-- >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: --certainly, it had, it had German newspapers. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: The churches here in Culver, one of them was a German-speaking church, you know, even into the 19-te

ens and 20s. So, yeah, German, the German influence in Indiana, in this part of Indiana was huge and certainly in Indianapolis, yeah. >>RYAN: So this would have been, Clemens, Sr. would have been Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s great grandfather? >>JEFF: Great grandfather, right. >>RYAN: So he's coming over from Germany in this kind of, Freethinker movement, where a bunch of Germans are kinda coming in and settling over here... >>JEFF: Right. >>RYAN: And then they were also part of the Turners? The Turners

I think there, they were-- >>RICK: Yeah. >>RYAN: The people that felt that physical activity was important-- >>JEFF: Yes >>RYAN: --and they started, almost was, they were almost-- >>RICK: Cuz Turner Houses though, I mean-- >>RYAN: --they were almost like gymnasiums, but--. >>RICK: It wasn't like a gymnasum only though. It was, they had theaters, you know, a dance hall, and it was a cultural center. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: But what was the building in Indianapolis, the Athenaeum, if I'm correct? >

>RYAN: Right. >>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: It was originally called the-- >>JEFF: Athenaeum? >>RYAN: --the Das Haus? >>JEFF: Right, right. >>RYAN: The German House. >>JEFF: The German House, yeah. >>RYAN: And then when the World Wars happened they changed the name cuz-- >>JEFF: Right. >>RYAN: --it was bad PR. >>JEFF: Frankfurters became hot dogs, yes. [LAUGHS} >>RYAN: Yeah [LAUGHS] >>RICK: [LAUGHS] >>JEFF: You know, yeah, we don't want [INAUDIBLE] German. >>RYAN: So, and then the Vonneguts were invol

ved in creating the Athenaeum. I think Clemens' son Bernard-- >>JEFF: Right. >>RYAN: --designed it. >>JEFF: Bernard, yeah, Bernard breaks away from the hardware, you know, industry and becomes the first generation of architects. [ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC} >>RYAN: So, Jeff, you were, there was like a number of families in this area that were, probably, you know, they knew each other and married each other and stuff like that. >>JEFF: Right, the four sons of Clemens Sr., one of whom was Clemens Jr.,

of course it, you know, yeah, they, they really begin this, sort of long tangle of Vonnegut relatives who, one common thread for them is their relationship to Lake Maxinkuckee so they marry a number of Schnulls, other German family in Indianapolis, and, and it looks like Mueller if you see it in print but it would've been pronounced Miller, so not M-I-L-L but M-U-E-L-L-E-R. They marry a number of those folks and they, they wind up, again this house is probably the first, well it is the first, 18

89 but soon they're, they're populating a number of cottages and it really depends on how far you want to take the geneological strain, I mean, many people say twelve, but you could extend it, you know, the, Caty Rasmussen was one of the last people, Catherine Rasmussen, one of the last, sort of descendents of that family, and whether you would count her or not she's a descendent of the Schulls and she, she died within the last, you know, seven or eight years, and again had one of the last cotta

ges but, but there was such a, you know, a number of Vonnegut relatives either under the Vonnegut name or under other names coming here and either building or buying, and really forming you know, kind of a community and you can look at it from the angle of Kurt himself which we can talk about in a moment, and you can also look at it from the angle of what, kind of impact they had culturally on the culture of the lake, of Lake Maxinkuckee and, you know, how much can you measure it overtly or visi

bly I don't know, but they definitely brought their ideals, and while they were not the only family to bring a sensibility of culture and art and, you know, in other words they didn't just come here and enjoy the water and the woods, they brought a little different sensibility to the shore and the lake. The Marmon family, for example, they built the first Indy 500 winning car, would bring, they would bring classical musicians to the lake and have, have parties, you know that sort of thing so, yo

u know, the Vonneguts definitely had an impact in that way in helping to form the culture of the lake. I think that sensibility of literature and, and culture that kind of interwove here on Lake Maxinkuckee for those families, probably the most significant thing to me and to many people who pay attention to what he says about Lake Maxinkuckee, you know, he probably started coming here as a baby but most significant is the impact it had on him as a child. Before the age of 10 he's pretty much don

e on Lake Maxinkuckee and that had everything to do with the Depression, just, just absolutely devastating of course not only his family but so many families across the U.S. but certainly in Indiana, it really shifted everything in Indiana. So, so, that, that world of Lake Maxinkuckee that he remembered is lost to him at that point, and most of those houses are sold off but what's really fascinating is his wording when he speaks about the lake. In a letter to Majie Failey who's a childhood frien

d who wrote a book fairly recently about growing up with Kurt, and a lot of it set at Lake Maxinkuckee, in one of the letters that she quotes to her he calls it his "Eden Lost" and he talks about folk society that was formed of his family, particularly the house we're in, there was a row of these four, and I'm told that the house we're sitting in right now was the only one for a long time that had a kitchen, and I can't say whether that was during Kurt's day or before but, you know, these were s

ummer cottages. These were not built, I mean you couldn't have spent a winter night [LAUGHS] in one of these houses. They were not built for that. >>RICK: Uh=huh. >>JEFF: And so, you know, you think, and they were intentionally primitive living, so a lot of the cottages didn't even have a kitchen so they would, they had a kitchen staff and they had a kitchen here, and so all the, you know, all the people in those houses, all the Vonneguts would gather in one house to eat, you know, for their mea

ls, and as, for him as a child not only was there that connection, I think the term Eden is a really interesting choice because not only is he connected to nature, when you think of the Garden of Eden-- >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: -but if you think of the symbolism of Eden it's all about being connected before, before a fall, you know, and so I think he describes that beautifully, his connection to the families there, he calls it heaven in another, one of his last, I think it might have been his las

t interview. He talks about Lake Maxinkuckee. He said, oh there were Vonneguts in the phonebook up and down you know, and it was heaven, you know he just sums it up as heaven. So he uses almost religious terminology about what a wonderful place it was. In his interview in the 1980s, maybe the 1970s in Architectural Digest, he, that's probably his most effusive, you know, set of comments on Lake Maxinkuckee, I think that he actually went to the lake and there are pictures of him in a boat with, y

ou know, with the author. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: And he speaks of, he calls it his Aegean Sea, perfect in every dimension, meaning the lake. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: And he says, you know, I made my first mental maps of the world on Lake Maxinkuckee. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: He talks about being an adventurous little Marco Polo because he could set off and go in any direction as long as he followed the lake shore he'd be home again, and again there's that sense of place, that sense of safety, tha

t sense of location, no matter where I go I can come home without being lost. Why is that significant? I think and others have argued that if you look at his literature, if you look at what he's writing there's a lot of dystopian themes and of course he's, he's very cynical, he's very, there's a lot of gallows humor but at the heart of it, he's not terribly optimistic [LAUGHS] about the state of human affairs, and what I think he would point, he wants to point towards what we can be, and I think

for him Maxinkuckee, and, on just such a gut level that he almost, I mean it's a deep, deep primordial level for him as a person, embodies what we can be. We can be community, we can be, we can treat nature as it should be, we can interact with it in a way that's, that's healthy and, you know, beautiful for us and not harmful to it. I mean, in so many ways I think he has that in him and then he goes out into the world, particularly in Dresden, Germany during the bombing of the war, the low poin

t for him of course in his life, seeing man's inhumanity to man, particularly since that wasn't even a military target he's seeing a place kind of like Maxinkuckee-- >>RICK: Right. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: ...being destroyed, a place of art and beauty for him. So I think that all the ugliness he sees just points him back to what can be and I think Maxinkuckee was a realization that it wasn't an abstract, it wasn't an abstraction for him, it was a reality that he had deep within him and he writes ab

out that. Oh I've flown over it, and, you know, the real Maxinkuckee I don't even need to go to--although he did come back a few times--because it's here within me. >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: And I, it's just a really powerful, you know, kind of testimony to what it was for him and I think there are ways in which it remains that. I mean, It's changed, everything's changed about it for sure but if you walk these roads and you go to these places where he was and many of them still have that old world

feel that he remembers, you know, some of the buildings stand, some of the trails stand. >>RYAN: I guess from Kurt's perspective this was really a community within a community. >>JEFF: Right. >>RYAN: Because, you know you have the larger, sort of Culver community with all of it's influences coming in from the Academy and all that, and then he's got his relatives coming in, and they were their own community. I mean, we talked about Clemens Sr. who started this hardware business and he had the fo

ur sons and all four of them owned land-- >>JEFF: Yup. >>RYAN: --like right here. >>JEFF: Yup. >>RYAN: And so they were, like you said, running back and forth and hanging out, and they're marrying into people in the area which are all, which are also connected, so that must have been, you know, quite an experience especially when you're a little kid being around all these relatives on vacation and hanging out and-- >>JEFF: Yeah. >>RYAN: --doing little adventures and stuff. >>JEFF: And I think yo

u're on it that it, my sense is that while they were aware of and sort of rubbed elbows a little bit with, with a broader community, I mean, in one, in some letter he says, maybe, I think it was actually to Professor Hippenhammer he says, well, you know, we knew there was a town but we didn't really know there was a town, you know. >>RYAN: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: I mean, they were so self contained that, you know while I think they did have some interactions, yeah they formed, they really did form a lit

tle community within a community. [GUITAR MUSIC} >>JEFF: Yeah, you see some of the early photos and there was just this huge conglomerate of Vonnegut children running around, you know, and you're right, I mean their children, I mean they had multiple children, they marry and not all of them ended up here. There have been some Vonneguts that have sort of come back and, and lived, and go on to continue to have a connection. [MUSIC CONTINUES] >>Jeff: You know for the most part, that real community

that we're describing really died out, you know, with the Depression. [CIRCUS/VAUDEVILLE MUSIC] >>RYAN: Clemens Sr. started his hardware business and then he had his four sons-- >>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: --and they all ended up working at this hardware business in Indianapolis. >>JEFF: Sure. >>RYAN: And I think we were talking about this. The one son, Bernard, was a little different than the other four sons in that he, he hated working there-- >>RICK: [LAUGHS] >>RYAN: --even though this is a very

successful family business. >>RICK: Well yeah. >>RYAN: And I think we read, was it, I don't know if it was Majie's book that he had a bit of a breakdown. >>RICK: I think it was, they were like taking inventory or somthing. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>RICK: Kind of mundane, making sure all the brooms were in the right place, and he just starts crying because he's bored by it. He's got an artistic mind. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>RICK: And I think the, the amazing thing is, is that [COUGHS] his father who is so successf

ul in the hardware business hears him out and he compromises with him. >>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RICK: He doesn't only compromise with him, he encourages him to continue with, you know, this direction, and he not only sends him to a, you know, a school here in the Midwest but he sends him to school in Europe, and then when he comes back he's ready to go to New York and he, he lives with a successful architect in designing a lot of commercial buildings there. >>RYAN: I think he worked for a famous archit

ect in New York, under Post I think was the guy's name and he designed a bunch of famous buildings in New York. >>RICK: Right. >>RYAN: But that would have been Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s grandfather. >>RICK: Kurt, Kurt Vonnegut's. >>RYAN: Bernard. >>RICK: Yes, his grandfather Bernard. >>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: Okay. >>RICK: Yes. >>RYAN: So, so he goes off and gets a degree and becomes an architect. >>RICK: He, yes. >>RYAN: And then, if I remember correctly, then the family, he was, I think he was enjoyi

ng himself out in New York and then Sr. said, well you've gotta come back. >>JEFF: Yeah. >>RYAN: And they made him come back to Indianapolis so he could marry a nice German girl. >>RICK: Yeah, he got into, he got into theater in Europe. Who knows what kind of time he had, I'm sure he had a great time. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>RICK: But being industrial, you know, what the family was, they probably preferred him to come back eventually and try and make something of himself later on. He started small with

that direction, I mean, they called a local mason to see if, if Bernard can work with him and the mason asked CLemens if he could have some drawings from Bernard and he was amazed. So the mason got him started with, like, designing tombstones or something like that, but-- >>RYAN: And that's how, I think maybe partially how his father got, Clemens Sr. had convinced to send him off to get some schooling in that. >>RICK: Right. >>RYAN: But then they eventually bring him back in, and he starts an ar

chitectural firm with his, with a partner, and they design as we talked about, the, what is it-- >>RICK: [COUGHS] >>RYAN: --the Athenaeum, I can't remember that. >>JEFF: Athenaeum, Athenaeum [INAUDIBLE]. >>RYAN: Athenaeum, yeah, the building, and other buildings and so he's a pretty successful architect, and then he has his own kids and Kurt Sr. is one of them. >>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: And Kurt Sr. goes on to become an architect as well, but then that's, I think, when the Depression hits. >>JEFF:

Yes. >>RYAN: And so then, people are not building houses anymore. >>RICK: Yeah. >>JEFF: And in fact, Kurt's mother, Kurt, Jr.'s mother, you know, Kurt, Sr.'s wife-- >>RYAN: Yes, Edith. >>JEFF: --commits, conmmits suicide. Yeah, yeah. >>RYAN: Yeah. I think there was some debate about whether it was su--, but she overdosed on pills. >>JEFF: [INAUDIBLE] She was, she was certainly unhappy. She was very, yeah. >>RICK: The official word, the official word from the family was that she couldn't control

some of the pills that she took-- >>JEFF: Right. >>RICK: --and it was an accident but Kurt was pretty, pretty sure that she just did it-- >>JEFF: She did [INAUDIBLE] >>RICK: --[INAUDIBLE] >>RYAN: Because she, she had come from money, right? >>JEFF: Right. >>RYAN: So her father was a successful brewer? If I'm not confusing the family history. >>JEFF: I think you're right. >>RYAN: But she had come from money, and, and Sr., his father had started this architectural firm which was very successful,

and then he took it over, and then things start going downhill, and they end up having to close that architectural firm-- >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: --and lay off like, I think a bunch of employees, and then he started, didn't really work as a regular architect for years and years and years and years, just I think occasionally taking small projects. >>RICK: Yeah so he withdrawn. He had withdrawn from, kind of, the family almost and-- >>RYAN: And his wife was-- >>RICK: --you know, his mother, was ha

rd to, you know, witness, [COUGHS] kind of like her denial and the fact that she didn't have much anymore. >>RYAN: --cuz they were used to I think having servants-- >>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: --and people to take care of them-- >>RICK: Right. >>RYAN: --and this kind of more lavish lifestyle, And I think it's, from what I read the mother was constantly trying to get back to that. >>RICK: Yes. >>RYAN: And they really wanted to get back to living in that, kind of, in the upper crust of society. >>RICK

: Yeah. >>RYAN: And I remember there was a quote from Kurt. There, there had been some little change and they had got some money and-- >>RICK: Yeah. >>RYAN: --had rejoined some fancy country club. >>RICK: They took, they took total risks and like networking and-- >>RYAN: Yeah. >>RICK: --you know, they would join fancy clubs and, and they would try and-- >>RYAN: Yeah and Kurt-- >>RICK: --generate some momentum that way. >>RYAN: Yeah, and Kurt said that his mom said something to him like, well now

we're in this club and you're gonna be around your own people again, or something like that-- >>RICK: Yeah. >>RYAN: --and Kurt said, well I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. >>JEFF: [LAUGHS] >>RICK: [LAUGHS] Yeah! >>RYAN: But so then, so then their family as you said fall on hard times and that must have been when a lot of these cottages then started getting, I don't know if they got sold off or-- >>JEFF: Yeah I think for the most part they got sold off-- >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF:

--and, and, whether they were able to keep them, they probably wouldn't have been making the trips. You know, the whole culture of this lake, not just for the Vonneguts but everybody was typically in the spring Ma, the whole family comes up, opens it up, lets it air out. Dad goes back to work, comes up on the weekends maybe [INAUDIBLE]-- >>RYAN: Mom stays here with the kids. >>JEFF: --Mom and the kids stay up and just have a great time and the dads would come as they could throughout the summer

and-- >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: --you know, maybe peak times, but, you know, that was expensive and, and laborious, and so you know, yeah, I think most of them were sold off though. >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: Yeah, in fact, and that's an interesting thing because when Kurt gets married the first time he wants to have his honeymoon at Lake Maxinkuckee, and we have photos of him with, with his first wife at their honeymoon. He was able to talk the current owner at the time and it would've been that house,

as you say just north of this one. >>RYAN: So this, so this house was owned by Clemens, Jr. and the house next door would've been owned by, I think by Barnard? Bernard-- >>JEFF: Bernard. >>RYAN: --and somebody-- >>RICK: Kurt Vonnegut, Sr. >>RYAN: --and, and someone else actually, and I don't know if Sr. ever owned it, it wasn't clear to me. >>RICK: Oh. [LAUGHS] >>JEFF: You, you get fuzzy on all the-- >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: --the technical ownership, because, you know. >>RYAN: But Kurt, Kurt Vonne

gut Jr. never owned any property, he would've been a kid-- >>JEFF: Right, correct. >>RYAN: --just growing up, but he, that would've been his grandfather's cottage that he would've been staying at and then, you know, coming over here and visting the other cottages as well. >>JEFF: Sure, absolutely. >>RYAN: And so that cottage next door is where he went with his first wife on their honeymoon. >>JEFF: First wife for their honeymoon and again, just kind of, this was a return to what was home base fo

r him and--- >>RYAN: That says a lot though when you talk about how places have an impact on people's lives and form, you know, who they are especially when you're younger, is, when he's an adult and he gets, he gets married which is, you know, a big change in someone's life, a big commitment-- >>JEFF: Uh-huh. >>RYAN: --and then they come back here. >>JEFF: Right. >>RYAN: --as opposed to, you know, any place. >>JEFF: Anywhere. >>RYAN: Yeah, cuz he wasn't, well he didn't live here. He lived-- >>R

ICK: What year was it that he got married? Did he-- >>RICK: What year was it that he got married? Did he-- >>RICK: What year was it that he got married? Did he-- >>RYAN: Uhh... >>RICK: At that point did he have the resources to [INAUDIBLE]? >>JEFF: This was post-war so, yeah, I think you're right, he didn't, at that point it isn't like he was living in New York as a literary-- >>RICK: Yeah, right [INAUDIBLE] >>JEFF: --cultural icon, you know, yeah I mean, he probably had limited resources, but y

ou're right, I mean he could've gone anywhere nonetheless. >>RICK: Right. >>RYAN: It wasn't, it wouldn't have been a simple thing for him to come here, it wasn't in the family anymore. >>JEFF: No it wasn't in the family, it's not like it's a hotel, I mean it was-- >>RYAN: He had to convince the current owner to let them stay-- >>JEFF: Yeah he clearly went way out of his way to, to get back here for his honeymoon. >>RICK: Yeah, he did the same thing in Indianapolis, he would stop at the original

house that his dad had designed with the beautiful stained glass and, you know, he would just politely ask the owners if he could just take a walk around, so, there's something about home with, with Kurt. [PAUSE] >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: And, and I think, that's a really, because if you flip through any of his books-- >>RICK: Yeah. >>JEFF: --I mean, it isn't, he, he mentions Maxinkuckee in some but even when he doesn't I was always struck from the very first time I ever read one of his books, becau

se you read, you know, you're reading a book in high school for example that's assigned to you, you don't expect to hear about Indianaopolis [LAUGHS], you know? >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: And, and he, so he, and particularly, I mean, many authors if they, sort of, or whatever, or maybe they're actors or artists or musicians, they sort of overcome their Midwestern roots, they may not reference them overtly and repeatedly in their art, you know because well now I'm in New York, so, I mean, I always t

hought that it was really striking that Kurt constantly referenced Indiana and he did it really well because he found the humor, he found the funny bits. You know I would see, I just saw him refer to James Whitcomb Riley as an unmarried lush [LAUGHS], you know, so he finds these ways to make a joke out of some of the, and not necessarily a mean-spirited joke but, instead of just, let's steer clear of this cuz my audience may not recognize the reference, he makes it universal, he makes them funny

, he makes them relevant and, yeah, I mean in slapstick for example, and we were talking about this earlier, slapstick, he has the king of America set up his castle in the Riding Hall at Culver Military Academy, you know, just this one specific Culver reference, but, but you know, Indiana is throughout his books-- >>RICK: Uh-huh. >>JEFF: --and occasionally Maxinkuckee as well-- >>RYAN: Yeah. >>JEFF: --and I just have to add, since I am the editor of the Culver Citizen that in Timequake, his nove

l, I don't know if it actually was his last novel, it came out in '97, it was billed as his last novel, he talks about, he has this master plan to start out writing for the Culver Citizen and then work his way up to the big city, Kokomo, Indiana. [LAUGHS] >>RICK: [LAUGHS] >>JEFF: Eventually he ends up writing for the Indianapolis Times but, which I think all that was fictional, but, you know it's funny that, that Culver ended up in that book. It obviously has a personal connection for me but. [L

AUGHS] >>RICK: That was his last work of fiction, Timequake? >>JEFF: You know, that, as I say at the time it came out that was the, the tagline, you know, and then I know there were other works. >>RYAN: Kind of like the Rolling Stones saying this is our last world tour? >>JEFF: Yes. [LAUGHS] >>RICK: Yeah. >>JEFF: It's the last one, you know, everybody dies. [LAUGHS] >>RYAN: Well, I don't really have anything else to add or do you have anything else? >>RICK: I think that's it for me too. >>RYAN:

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