The unique contributions of three Hoosiers to World War I and how they were changed by the war make up a new storytelling program that will premiere this month at the Indiana History Center.
Indianapolis-based historical storyteller Sharon Kirk Clifton will present the stories of three Indiana residents — a nurse, a successful businessman and a mother — who were called to duty and stepped into leadership when their country called them. The program that interweaves the stories, “Over There and Back Again,” is part of the Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories series from the Indiana Historical Society and Storytelling Arts of Indiana.
Clifton’s program, which will be presented Jan. 27 at the Indiana History Center, intertwines the stories of Robert H. Tyndall, an Indianapolis businessman and veteran from the war with Spain; Alice Moore French, a Johnson County native and Franklin College graduate and determined mom who founded American War Mothers; and Ruth Wright, a nurse from Rochester who was working at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis when she took up the call to volunteer with the Red Cross in France.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“The program is basically one theme: the effect of the war on three Hoosiers, and the effect of three Hoosiers on the war,” Clifton said. “They all experienced the war in different ways.
Letters home
Tyndall became mayor of Indianapolis after his time overseas, but first he sold his half of a tailoring firm to a business partner to re-enter military service during the war. Clifton was able to do primary research by reading through Tyndall’s letters home from Europe to his wife and children.
Some letters even included drawings of items in the French chateau where he was staying with his men. The letters give the reader insight into his children’s interests and his feelings about his family, she said.
In one letter, he told of how many people in France wanted their children to learn English because they wanted to move to America after the war. In other letters, he included pictures of household items like a French washstand and an iron. He promised his youngest child that they’d go Christmas shopping and find “the biggest Christmas tree” they could after he got home.
The letter archive also includes a letter to Carl Fisher, founder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in which he comments on the quality of the roads in France.
“You get to see these neat, original documents and hold them in your hands — you’re actually holding history,” Clifton said.
Unique kind of medicine
Wright took up the call to head to France when Eli Lilly wanted to supply a 500-bed base hospital in France and she was invited.
“She was part of a special cadre of nurses and other professionals — surgeons and technicians. She volunteered in her mid-20s. I think she was pretty courageous,” Clifton said.
Wright didn’t leave as much first-hand documentation, likely because what he saw was very difficult to write about, Clifton said. But she did find another diary written by an Indiana nurse who probably knew and worked with Wright. She was able to glean many details of what Wright’s experiences were in the hospitals.
Wright worked in what was called the “shock” wards of the military hospital. Shock is now known as PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder, which was misunderstood at the time. In her work, she convinced doctors that soldiers experiencing the syndrome needed special care — and that they were not in fact “malingerers” who were trying to avoid going back into the trenches.
In her research, Clifton discovered that it’s likely that Wright and Tyndall knew one another, since records indicate they were likely on the same ship heading to France, she said.
Move to conserve
French was 54 when she got involved in an effort to conserve food, after hearing a speech by Don Herald of the State Food Commission.
Herald had attended a meeting of the Woman’s Civic League in Indianapolis in hopes of persuading a woman to spearhead a food conservation effort in the state. French was chosen and began a letter campaign aimed at women with children in the Armed Forces. She was also inspired by her son’s enlistment in the army.
Her efforts at convincing mothers to conserve wheat, meat, fats and sugar were effective enough that Washington, D.C. authorities eventually encouraged her to organize War Mothers in both Indiana and throughout the country.
The Indiana chapter was organized first and incorporated on May 18, 1918. Interest spread to other states, and a national organization was incorporated in August 1918 with French as its first president.
After the war, the group continued its efforts to aid soldiers for many wars thereafter.
Preserving a legacy
The program comes at a time when knowledge of the first world war is in danger of being lost without the preservation of these stories, Clifton said.
“(World War I) led to World War II. They thought it would be the war to end all wars. They called it the Great War, but a few years later, they were fighting Germany again,” Clifton said. “Things were not really resolved. As you study history, you see that one generation’s actions inform the next and the next.”
Storytelling allows listeners to experience a time period many years before they were born, which also helps them make connections to important people in their own communities.
“I want them to come away and see how the war had an effect on them, and that when they heard the call to serve they were willing to serve in whatever capacity — whether it was not eating beef or doing without white bread — or whether it was binding up wounds,” she said.
Clifton, who grew up in Henry County, has produced other storytelling programs for the Indiana Historical Society, and has traced her own family history to ancestors who were involved with the Underground Railroad in Indiana. She first became interested in storytelling after visiting Connor Prairie with her children. She eventually developed a character based on Jack’s mother from “Jack and the Beanstalk” and became involved in Appalachian history and lore, researching stories and performing at many festivals and museums over the years.
She’s written two children’s novels, “Up a Rutted Road” and “The Second Cellar,” and is working on more historical fiction works based in Indiana. In 2004, she received the Frank Basile Emerging Stories Fellowship for her program, “Abigail Gray: Living Under the Drinking Gourd.”
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The Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories: “Over There and Back Again” program about Indiana leaders who served in World War I will premier at 8 p.m. Jan. 27 at the Frank and Katrina Basile Theater at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, 450 W. Ohio St., Indianapolis.
Tickets: $15 in advance and $20 at the door, available at stroytellingarts.org or by calling 317-232-1882.
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