Nightly Visits To My Home Town

Four nights every week have me driving to my old home town of Fort Wayne, Indiana. I thought it might be a passing phase, but so far every trip sends me down memory lane. 

I graduated high school in Fort Wayne in 1978 and moved away permanently during my law school years – I think 1983 was the last summer I went back home. Since that time I have been a visiter – often an infrequent one. But I have my roots there.

Fortunately for the purposes of these reminisces, I grew up on the northeast side of the city, while my nightly travels have me entering from the south or southwest and getting no farther than downtown, before I must turn around and return to real life. This, dear reader, is what will keep this from becoming a forty-installment series. But I still have lots of memories triggered by these drives, ,so in no particular order, here they are:

My first two sights upon leaving the interstate highway are ones that have a significant connection. On the right is the old area headquarters for General Telephone Company (GTE). My mother went to work there in the mid 1970’s. It was her taking this job that required her to drive to work rather than taking the bus as with her prior job, and therefore was instrumental in my being allowed to buy my first car – a big day for me!

Lutheran Hospital is across the street. The new Lutheran Hospital, I mean.

The old Lutheran Hospital had been on the mid-south side of Fort Wayne, and had run the nursing school that had so many graduates in my family. My mother was one of them (1954) as were both her older and younger sisters. And so was my grandma (1927), when the place probably looked a lot like the one shown in this postcard.

The new Lutheran Hospital is a whole different thing – like most modern medical facilities, it is among the most impressive structures in the city. This one was where I went to visit my father after at least one of his many serious surgeries in the last few years of his life, so that sight brings a tinge sadness. Or it would if I could actually see it, because all I can really see is the great big lighted entrance sign at the start of a huge driveway.

I have many memories of times spent with my best friend Dan. Dan’s family moved to the southwest part of the city right about the time Dan and I got our drivers licenses. The route I drive (part of it, at least) is the route I drove so many times in the 1970’s and early 1980’s on the way to or from Dan’s house. One of these memories is of a building I pass. It is a sports bar now, but was once one of the few locations of Godfather’s Pizza in our area. When we were away at college, the chain’s television advertising got to us and we drove a 100 mile round trip from Muncie to eat dinner at that Godfather’s location. The whole time Dan was petrified that his father would recognize our car in the parking lot, and he would get a lecture about what a stupid thing that was to do. Which it kind of was, of course.

I pass the old Embassy Theater, where in the 1970’s I got to attend a screening of the 1925 silent film The Phantom Of The Opera, starring Lon Chaney (Senior). The theater had once been Fort Wayne’s premiere cinema (originally called the Emboyd), and was undergoing a restoration at the time.

The big thrill was that an accomplished musician was brought in to fire up the theater’s old Wurlitzer organ, which provided accompaniment with the film’s original published musical score. To this day, it remains one of the great big-screen experiences of my life, experiencing a classic silent film in exactly the way it was intended to be experienced.

There is the Salvation Army thrift store – it is still there. Part of it, anyway. The original location is now some kind of “service center”, but what they opened as the store’s annex in the newer building behind the original one is still there. I cannot count the number of old, dusty 78 rpm records I pawed through and occasionally bought. If only there had been an internet so that I could have had a better idea of what was worth buying and what was not. Oh well.

My destination is a couple of blocks from what was then a small automotive supply warehouse where I worked for a couple of summers when I was a college student. That job was right across a side street from a commercial bread bakery, and the smell of baking bread often greeted me in the mornings. That bakery is still churning out loaves of the white stuff because I get to experience that smell again a couple of times a week. If ever you wonder what would make you want to eat an entire loaf of white bread, just get a load of that smell of the stuff being baked.

It is not, unfortunately, the other downtown bakery with the greatest sign ever – the sign for Sunbeam Bread that has been a never-ending loaf since 1957. That one is several blocks out of my way.

Much has changed, of course. The little old schoolhouse that was the site of “Annette’s Schoolhouse Antiques” along Illinois Road (S.R. 14) is long gone, replaced by a long string of car dealerships where once there was acres and acres of woods. Blogger and friend Ted Shideler has told me that the schoolhouse was moved quite a few years ago, but still exists. I don’t think I ever bought anything at the antique shop, but it was a fun place to go in for a look around. My only vivid memory of the place was visiting with my friend Dan, when the proprietor suggested to Dan that maybe his father might like a cane with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s head as a handle. Dan informed her that this was not likely as his father was no fan of FDR. “He won’t even carry dimes around” was Dan’s succinct way of quashing that potential sale.

Fort Wayne’s nickname is (or at least was) “The City of Churches” and I pass several. One is where a good friend got married, and another is where a neighbor (and mentor) had his funeral, which leads to fond thoughts of those people. I guess the thoughts of a funeral is probably the best place to stop this thread of reminisces. Like a funeral, my visits back to my home town are all about memories and not about actual experiences other than those at the postal warehouse where I deliver and take trailer-loads of mail.

I wonder if those regular visits to the postal warehouse will someday generate a new set of fond memories. The odds would be better if not for the cranky person in charge. Fortunately, there are enough good memories to outweigh the sour attitude that can prevail after one of those sessions. It is fun to be a teenager again, for just a little while.

34 thoughts on “Nightly Visits To My Home Town”

  2. Thomas Wolfe said “You Can’t Go Home Again”, but over the years, I’ve realized in some sense, you can never leave, it is always on your mind for good or for bad.

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    • You make a great observation here. I will add that the place you can never leave doesn’t necessarily exist any more, but is conjured up by the place that exists now.

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  3. A wonderful set of recollections. I have similar when traveling a certain direction, also. Such times do bring about a realization of how much has changed and happened. 

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  4. I had to look up where Fort Wayne is, my Indiana geography knowledge being limited to South Bend and driving through Indianapolis in the middle of the night on my way to Missouri.

    Looks like a pretty straightforward run, and I love that bread sign!

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    • Isn’t that the greatest bread sign ever? I was transfixed by it whenever we would drive by when I was a kid.

      When you came to Auburn all these years ago, you didn’t realize how close you were to Fort Wayne. It is the second largest city in the state, but there are those in northwest Indiana who will point out that they have a lot more population. But that bigger population is spread out among many smaller cities and towns, where Fort Wayne packs everyone into one place in the middle of miles and miles of cornfields in every direction.

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  5. My hometown is only about 45 minutes from where I now live, and my mother still lives there. I visit her quite often. I feel as though much of the town now only exists in my memories…over the years, much has changed. The two biggest car dealers are in the same place, but the former Pontiac-AMC dealer building now serves as an administration building for the town’s government. My former elementary school is now about twice its size, due to the school district closing and consolidating several elementary schools. And housing developments keep sprouting up on the periphery of the town.

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    • You mention schools, and remind me of how the big central high school in Fort Wayne (that had been called Central High School, appropriately enough) was the site of my high school driver’s ed program. That building still exists as a “career center” for the school system, and is right across the street from my nightly destination. I have vivid memories of a week or two spent getting up close and personal with a certain yellow 1975 Mercury Marquis that was my driver’s ed car.

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    • I did not recognize any of these sites, other than the view of the downtown skyline, which showed the Lincoln Bank Tower – that was a beautiful building that was built in the late 20’s (I think) and was the main office of the bank my family used.

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    • I remember as a cub scout getting to go into the old city hall building that was still serving as the police station at the time, probably about 1969 or so. I think that building was eventually razed, though I cannot recall just when. It was a prosperous city, largely built by people of German stock.

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    • Some of those scenes are still there – like the water filtration plant. That was another place I got a tour of as a cub scout. It is right at the place where three rivers come together. And I definitely remember the International Harvester factory – that was the place where heavy trucks were built, and where all the Scouts came from. It was closed in the early 80’s, which was a big blow to the city. The Lakeside Rose Gardens are still there, and they are beautiful when in bloom.

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  10. Would it surprise you to know I never made the 90-mile trek to Fort Wayne from South Bend, during my college years at Notre Dame (1980-1985)? As nostalgic as your post sounds, I don’t see anything to attract a college student. Of course, I could say the same about South Bend, where ND’s campus itself may still be the only reason for an out-of-towner to visit 🙂

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    • I bear you no ill will. 🙂

      Really, I don’t think Fort Wayne would have been much of a draw – unless you were an ice hockey fan, then you could have gone there to watch the Ft. Wayne Komets play in the Memorial Coliseum. It was a very German, middle-class place that took care of business but didn’t really go in for showy attractions. But it was a good place to grow up.

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  11. I once got to tour one of GTE’s big switches in Fort Wayne. I worked for a company where they were a customer. When I say switch, I mean “big windowless building,” as a switch is huge.

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    • Now you have me curious where that switching building was located. I am going to guess that it was not at the HQ building, which was all offices.

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    • Very true! Or sweet memories that turned sour, like the time I ordered the “King Size Chocolate Soda” at a local ice cream shop. It was served in a container the size of a flower vase. It was delicious. I ate the whole thing. Then went home, felt sick as could be, and urped it all up after awhile. That memory took quite awhile to sweeten up again, but it is probably there now. 🙂

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      • Ha, I have had some experiences like that. My Uncle Jim absolutely loved blueberry pie and once ate a whole blueberry pie as a young man. He never ate another blueberry the rest of his life.

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  13. I love this post. I call Fort Wayne my hometown, even though I was born -sigh- in Anderson. Lived in the Fort until my parents divorced, and I still had reason to frequent the city until Aunt Connie died. I haven’t been back since, and I wonder if next time I’ll go through the same nostalgia you did.

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    • You probably will. An alternate route takes me across S. Calhoun Street near Bishop Lures High School, that I think wasn’t too far from where your Aunt Connie lived when I was young. I always think of her when I drive that route, and her big gold 1972 Ford Galaxie 500 2 door.

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  14. Nostalgia is always sweet and especially when it involves food memories. I have read how smelling something can return you to a happier time, in just a fraction of a second, like the smell of baking bread. We had a similar whiff of baking bread when going to Downtown Detroit as the Wonder Bread factory occupied a large piece of real estate for many years and the smell was wonderful. In those days we didn’t know that whole grain bread was better for you than the Wonder bread (“helps build strong bodies 12 ways.) Now the Wonder Bread factory is gone, but in its stead is the Motor City Casino. [I hope you were not driving in any of that severe weather in Indiana on Thursday night.]

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    • I avoided the severe weather, which went through about 4-6 hours before I was in the area.

      You know exactly what I mean by that smell of white bread being baked! A little internet searching reminds me that it was once the Holsum Bakery, maker of Holsum Sof-Twist Bread. That was the kind my mother always bought when I was a kid, in an orangey-yellow wrapper. I think it operates under another name now.

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      • That’s good you beat the severe weather JP- whew for that! I was thinking the phrase “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” may not apply to the mail-hauling aspect of the job.

        Oh yes, the bread smell was out of this world. I cannot resist fresh bread. My late neighbor Marge’s son got her a bread-making machine for Christmas one year. Her and her husband who was newly retired, were making a fresh loaf every morning for breakfast and soon ate themselves into the next size, so they packed it up and put it away. I wonder if the orangey-yellow wrapper is Sunbeam Bread now. 🙂

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    • That was great! Have never seen this. I remember the singing television commercial for Sheray’s Furniture that ended with its address of 612 South Calhoun.

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