about those canals

 I have been interested in the history of the Wabash and Erie Canal for a long time.  I remember, when I was about 15, riding with my family on Highway 24, between Woodburn and New Haven and listening as my father pointed out the deep ditch beside the highway and explaining that it was all that remained of the old canal.  He then would add that it was all dug by hand.  One time my west coast brother, then a curious five-year-old, asked "Weren't they allowed to use shovels?" Yes, those mostly Irish workers were allowed to use shovels.

During one summer during my high school years I worked as a housekeeper and companion for an elderly lady.  She still lived in the farm house that she and her husband had built when they were just married and starting their farm.  She told me that many of their supplies - furniture, farm implements, seeds for crops, and food staples like flour and sugar, had all been delivered by canal boats. I think that would have been about 1890.  By that time the any boats of the canals were owned by individuals, not the state.

Among the things my spouse and I discovered during our clean up after our recent water disaster was a small book (only 56 pages) titled "Indiana's Canal Heritage" published in 1954 and distributed by the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County.  Most of it is a reprint of a book originally published in 1926.  Happily, this book was not damaged. The title was enough to make me read it.

I had no idea that canals became a very popular idea in the early 1800s and that millions of dollars were spent on digging canals across the northern part of the country (connecting variious rivers) at the same time that railroad lines were being established in the same areas.  I won't go into all the financial details but the canals were a money loosing proposition from day one.  Nevertheless, banks loaned huge amounts of money to states, Indiana included, to dig these canals.  Some of these loans got repaid as people paid to travel and ship cargo on the canals but never all of them.  You really need to read the book to appreciate all the 'creative financing' that went on. 

Here's a map that was included in the book.  You can see that the Wabash and Erie Canal extended from northwest Ohio, through Woodburn, where I grew up, to Fort Wayne and then diagonally across Indiana until it ended at Terre Haute where it emptied into the Wabash River. The map also shows railroads and paved "macadamized" roads. 

For a while the canals played a big part in the westward expansion.  It was an interesting time in the history of our country.  You can learn more by contacting the Canal Society of Indiana, https://indcanal.org.

local history

 My west coast brother, who is from Fort Wayne originally, reminded me that today, September 5, is a great day in Fort Wayne history.  On this date in 1885, the first gasoline pump, invented by Sylvanus Freelove Bowser, was delivered to a dealer in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Actually Bowser's pump was dispensing kerosene.  It could reliably measure and dispense kerosene for use in lamps.

I had actually heard this bit of history.  What I hadn't been aware of before is that this occured in 1885 before there were any automobiles driving around Fort Wayne.  The first car didn't appear in Fort Wayne until 1897. I had always assumed that the first gas pump was used to pump gas into cars.  Now I know better. 

So the first gas pump was used to dispense gas (kerosene) for lamps and appliances.  People could carry it home in cans.  That made me curious.  How else was gas distributed to homes, if at all?  

Gas for lighting was first made available in 1853 when the Fort Wayne Gas Light Company was franchised by the city to build and operate a manufacturing plant to manufacture gas and to construct gas lines and infrastructure.

In 1855 the company was officialy incorporated to supply gas for private home lighting.

In 1857 gas was first use to light some street intersections in Fort Wayne.

In the 1880s cheap natural gas replaced the older maunfactured gas systems for heating and light. 

Just a note, the majority of homes in Fort Wayne are still heated by natural gas. 

Fort Wayne has honored the memory of Mr. and Mrs. Bowser with Bowser Park and Bowser Avenue.  Sylavnus and his wife Sarah actually donated the land for the park in 1923.  An original stone marker there reads "For the comfort and pleasure of our neighbors and their children for all time to come."  Let it be so. 

It's a great day!

 Today is, according to my west coast brother and other sources, "National Lazy Mom's Day," "Eat an Extra Dessert Day," "National Wildlife Day," "National Macadamia Nut Day," "National Newspaper Carriers Day" and "National Waffle Week," all of which sound like very interesting days, worthy of celebration.  

First of all, let me make it very clear that Lazy Mom's Day has nothing to do with assuming that there is such a thing as a 'lazy mom', which is obviously an oxymoron.  Lazy Mom's Day is a day set aside to encourage other members of a family to do all the routine things that a mom typically does.  Meanwhile, if she's lucky, Mom can indulge in an extra dessert, then go to the zoo and enjoy seeing the wildlife, while munching on macadamia nuts. If she's really lucky, someone will have made her a waffle, either as breakfast or as an extra dessert.  Waffles are not just for breakfast. 

"National Newspaper Carriers Day" is a little hard to tie into the rest of these oh-so-special September 4th days.  It's obviously a day of some historical significance.  Once upon a time young lads with bags of newspapers delivered them daily to the doorsteps of subscribers and then called on those same people weekly to collect payment for the newspapers.  My first spouse had a nifty coin carrier that clipped to his belt, ready to collect coins (pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters) and make change.  My current spouse was an assistant carrier, helping his older brother.  His cuteness may have helped with the collections.

I have no idea if there are still newspaper carriers anywhere.  People I know (myself included) read news on line, get some from TV news shows or have actual newspapers mailed to them. If there are still some newspaper carriers around they definitely deserve an extra dessert.

Something old, something new....

 One of the casualties of our recently discovered water damage (see Tuesday's blog) was my wedding album from my first marriage.  

Note: I've been blessed twice with wonder spouses.

The album was covered with mold and damaged beyond repair but the individual pictures, which had all been encased in plastic, survived pretty much intact.  So I have reconstructed a very simplistic album using a white three ring binder and plastic sleeves for the pictures.

This is what the new wedding album cover looks like. I used this picture because it had been damaged around the edges.

I am including this part of one picture because it features, on the far right, my west coast brother, then age 13, who features so often in these blogs.

Sweet memories!

dashing through the raindrops....

 Yesterday we had some fairly heavy rain here in Allen County and my spouse and I grumbled a little about dashing through the rain, sometimes heavy, to get to our morning appointments.  It wasn't a cold rain (it's summertime after all) and it did ease up after a while.  Our clothing quickly dried when we got into the buildings we were going to, so, at most, the rain was a minor inconvenience.  

Today, when I heard from my west coast brother, I realized how lucky we are.  He was rejoicing because it was raining in his area of Washington state for the first time in two months.   They have been suffering the effects of wild fires, not threatening their home, but close enough to them to make the air hard to breathe.  He told me that today's rain cleared the air, at least temporarily.  However some fires are still burning and won't be put out until it snows.

According to the weather report, our local area will be having rain again this Friday and Saturday.  I know that is the beginning of the long Labor Day weekend and you may have outdoor plans.  But remember, if you have to move the party indoors, it's still so much better than wild fires.

The best laid plans...

 Today started out quite pleasantly.  My spouse and I each had an appointment with a doctor, but no shots or pain involved.  After those appointments we went to brunch at Joanna's, very tasty, then on to Schumachers produce farm to buy tomatoes, potatoes, and corn on the cob. 

 After which we proceeded home, looking forward to a relaxing afternoon.  We might even work on our current jigsaw puzzle for a little while. 

Unfortunately, although it was necessary, soon after we got home, I flushed the toilet in our upstairs hall bathroom.  We did not know, until that flush, that the ring seal under that toilet had become old and brittle and had been leaking slowly for some time.  The reason we didn't notice this was because the leaking water was trickling down into a book case in the family room.  If it had been leaking through a ceiling onto the floor we would have seen it long ago, but, as it was, it just leaked quietly into a bookcase to be absorbed by books, albums and other paper materials.  And there was no bad smell.

Today however my spouse just happened to hear a soft little dripping sound as he sat down to relax for a bit in our family room recliner, and looked to see water dripping down into the bookcase.  He knew, by the position, that it had to be coming from a toilet and immediately called a plumber, who came right away with his assistant.  They figured out the problem and fixed the leak quickly, leaving us to clean up a mess that we had never known existed.  Happily, all of the damage was limited to one set of shelves, floor to ceiling and about five feet wide.  

Needless to say that size book case holds a lot of stuff.  We found picture albums, wedding albums, books of all sorts, including an old hymnal, a family Bible (happily very little damage), plastic cases of CDs and DVDs, (we're not great about throwing things away) and lots of loose paper stuff.  Much of what we found was moldy and had to be discarded.  Just so you can appreciate how serious it was, my wonder spouse even had to throw away his Boy Scout book of knots.  

It was not the relaxing afternoon we had intended but it is good to know that it's all clean and taken care of, except for all the 'must save' pictures drying out on towels on our dining room table.  These include the pictures of my first wedding and many baby pictures of my spouse's children and grands.  The albums were ruined but we were able to save most of the pictures.  I'm sure we can find new albums at Michaels or on Amazon.  

So, one more project, but that one we will do lovingly. 

eating dirt???

 Today is "National Diatomaceous Earth Day" and also "Eat Outside Day."  This seems appropriate since diatomaceous earth is basically edible earth.  Obviously, as soon as my west coast brother sent me this information I had to look up 'diatomaceous' as it's not a word that I hear or use frequently.

Food grade diatomaceous earth is a one hundred percent natural chemical-free powder made from fossillized freshwater algae with no additives or fillers.  It kills pests like ants, fleas, and roaches by basically coating their exoskeletons and drying them out.  It can be used as a dry powder around baseboards, windows and in gardens to manage crawling insects.  It's also used as an anti-caking agent in livestock and pet food.  It's available by the bag at Walmart, Home Depot and other similar stores, or Amazon will deliver - no surprise there.  

I had never heard of this until today but now I'm wondering if it would have worked on the Japanese beetles that decimated our roses last summer.  We have since replaced them with other sturdier flowering plants so I guess we'll never know.