Indiana is about to complete the celebration of her 200th birthday. Many stellar names are associated with our great state: Abraham Lincoln, Ernie Pyle, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cole Porter, James Dean, Benjamin Harrison, John Mellencamp and Red Skelton, to name a few … instead of naming a few hundred.
There are several forgotten Hoosiers who didn’t make it into the history books, but who have now made it into my column. They deserve better, of course, but here are my two favorites:
Eiffel Plasterer was a total bubble brain. The Huntington County resident had a passion for ordinary and not-so-ordinary soap bubbles. He fascinated children and adults with his demonstrations for almost a half century.
Plasterer was a man of both religion and science, a contradictory combination in the 1920s when he attended DePauw University. There he became especially intrigued with bubbles and began working on the perfect solution (a concoction of soap ingredients, water and glycerin) as part of a lifelong attempt to produce an almost unbreakable bubble.
Plasterer blew bubbles at schools, church meetings, conventions and banquets and on street corners. He wrote scientific articles and lectured in schools and universities, all the time blowing his own exquisite bubbles. Bubbles within bubbles, bubbles on top of bubbles, bubbles, bubbles, bubbles.
And he blew those bubbles on more TV shows than you could shake a wand at: Real People, Letterman, Tom Snyder and Dick Cavett. Plasterer also holds the record for bubble longevity, capturing a bubble inside a mason jar to protect it from air currents and keeping it intact for one day short of a year. Longer than most gerbils live.
Plasterer believed you never outgrow the joy you get by blowing bubbles, and he preached that philosophy up until he was almost 90. Eiffel Lane, named after the famous bubbleologist, now runs through Hiers Park in Huntington.
Plasterer’s words still ring loud and clear: “Our hopes and dreams are the bubbles of life we are blowing. They do not all have to break.”
Hoosier Roy Robertson got his big break while working for the Salem Creamery. In the 1940s, Audra Qualkinbush, one of the owners of the creamery and a home economics teacher, complained about the chubbiness of some of her students.
Robertson was asked by his boss to perfect a new product that had less butterfat. Skim milk had already been invented, but consumers had no choice between the 3.5 percent milk and the virtually tasteless skim, nicknamed “Blue John” by many country folks because of its watery blue tint.
Robertson worked for more than a year tinkering with how to remove the fat and then replace it with other milk solids so the taste would still please milk lovers. Robertson was never recognized nor did he profit from his invention. Since he never got a patent for his process, other dairies were soon producing his 2 percent milk.
Robertson lived in Salem, where the Stevens Museum at 307 E. Main St. chronicles this little-known story.
By the way, 1 percent milk was later invented by Robertson’s half-brother. (Just kidding.)
