MARC CHASE: Education in region grit behind some school names
August 10, 2014 12:00 am • Marc Chase marc.chase@nwi.com, (219) 662-5330
Back-to-school time in Northwest Indiana is a prime opportunity for reflection on that good old-fashioned grit which so thoroughly characterizes our region and the people who built it.
About this time last year, I challenged region parents to do a little research with their children into the history behind their kids' school names. It's a chance for family bonding and getting young minds back into the mindset of returning to studies.
It's also a way of showing youth the road map by which they may some day find their names etched into the brick and mortar of schools.
A couple of Merrillville school names I researched last week reminded me it's not always widespread fame and glory that does the trick.
Region folks whose children attend schools named Washington and Franklin have it easy on the research end. Information abounds on these Founding Fathers.
But what what about Merrillville's Clifford Pierce Middle School or Homer Iddings Elementary School? Most people residing outside of Northwest Indiana are clueless to the stories of these men. I suspect even many Merrillville residents are at a loss.
But their narratives are quintessential microcosms of what makes Northwest Indiana tick.
While some other schools are named for presidents, Founding Fathers, statesmen or famous inventors, Clifford Pierce was an unassuming bus driver and janitor for the Merrillville and Ross Township schools. His career began in 1925 and went deep into the century.
A 1949 Merrillville High School yearbook photo shows Pierce with a mop -- just above a group photo of school corporation cafeteria cooks.
His dedication to the school corporation over those years -- and the active role he played in community causes and organizations -- earned him a school moniker.
Other period photos show him fixing headstones in the historic Merrillville Cemetery after vandals struck in the late 50s. Clifford, who died in 1973, is now buried in that very cemetery on 73rd Avenue.
On that same old 1949 yearbook page is a school corporation bus driver named Fred Iddings.
Merrillville folks will recognize the Iddings name from an elementary school in town. Iddings Elementary School isn't named for bus driver Fred, though. It's named for his father, Dr. Homer Iddings.
Dr. Iddings was a prominent Lake County physician and surgeon who settled in the region in 1882, about 17 years after the end of the Civil War.
Don't let the doctor title fool you. Homer was no soft gentleman who hit the golf course between patients.
Northwest Indiana was basically still western frontier back then. Iddings lived at a time when getting to his patients meant traversing rocky, bumpy and mud-laden paths by horse and buggy.
Practicing medicine in the disease-ridden, pre-antibiotic era took salt and nerve.
We often think of Northwest Indiana as a region with a chip on its shoulder, deeply characterized by its industrial roots and blue-collar toughness.
Now we know this toughness isn't just in our geographical DNA. In some cases, it's also memorialized in the mortar of our children's schools.
Investigative Editor Marc Chase can be reached at (219) 662-5330 or marc.chase@nwi.com. The opinions are the writer's. The original article can be found here.
Back-to-school time in Northwest Indiana is a prime opportunity for reflection on that good old-fashioned grit which so thoroughly characterizes our region and the people who built it.
About this time last year, I challenged region parents to do a little research with their children into the history behind their kids' school names. It's a chance for family bonding and getting young minds back into the mindset of returning to studies.
It's also a way of showing youth the road map by which they may some day find their names etched into the brick and mortar of schools.
A couple of Merrillville school names I researched last week reminded me it's not always widespread fame and glory that does the trick.
Region folks whose children attend schools named Washington and Franklin have it easy on the research end. Information abounds on these Founding Fathers.
But what what about Merrillville's Clifford Pierce Middle School or Homer Iddings Elementary School? Most people residing outside of Northwest Indiana are clueless to the stories of these men. I suspect even many Merrillville residents are at a loss.
But their narratives are quintessential microcosms of what makes Northwest Indiana tick.
While some other schools are named for presidents, Founding Fathers, statesmen or famous inventors, Clifford Pierce was an unassuming bus driver and janitor for the Merrillville and Ross Township schools. His career began in 1925 and went deep into the century.
A 1949 Merrillville High School yearbook photo shows Pierce with a mop -- just above a group photo of school corporation cafeteria cooks.
His dedication to the school corporation over those years -- and the active role he played in community causes and organizations -- earned him a school moniker.
Other period photos show him fixing headstones in the historic Merrillville Cemetery after vandals struck in the late 50s. Clifford, who died in 1973, is now buried in that very cemetery on 73rd Avenue.
On that same old 1949 yearbook page is a school corporation bus driver named Fred Iddings.
Merrillville folks will recognize the Iddings name from an elementary school in town. Iddings Elementary School isn't named for bus driver Fred, though. It's named for his father, Dr. Homer Iddings.
Dr. Iddings was a prominent Lake County physician and surgeon who settled in the region in 1882, about 17 years after the end of the Civil War.
Don't let the doctor title fool you. Homer was no soft gentleman who hit the golf course between patients.
Northwest Indiana was basically still western frontier back then. Iddings lived at a time when getting to his patients meant traversing rocky, bumpy and mud-laden paths by horse and buggy.
Practicing medicine in the disease-ridden, pre-antibiotic era took salt and nerve.
We often think of Northwest Indiana as a region with a chip on its shoulder, deeply characterized by its industrial roots and blue-collar toughness.
Now we know this toughness isn't just in our geographical DNA. In some cases, it's also memorialized in the mortar of our children's schools.
Investigative Editor Marc Chase can be reached at (219) 662-5330 or marc.chase@nwi.com. The opinions are the writer's. The original article can be found here.
