On the Road

March 19, 2010

Despite the flurry of activity around the opening of the Indiana Experience, some of us are keeping busy with our usual jobs. For me, this means being on the road, most recently, picking up a traveling exhibit.

Jeannette Rooney and I trekked up to neighborly Middlebury way north in Elkhart County to pick up the Local Treasures: Indiana’s WPA Post Office Murals exhibit from the Middlebury Community Historical Museum. For the last month, the folks in Middlebury shared the story of their 1930s post office and its mural, in the context of the 35 other murals commissioned in Indiana for the WPA.

I was particularly impressed with how they adapted their peg board exhibit materials to display some of the mural reproductions along with artifacts from their collection. They also had one particularly neat collections item the first letter mailed from the WPA-era post office, saved by the son of the postmaster.

One of the joys of being on the road is sampling the local cuisine. We had a great lunch with MCHM directors Richard Smith and Don Smucker at the Das Dutchman Essenhaus Amish Style Restaurant. The freshly baked yeast rolls were mouthwatering, but left room for chicken and noodles and mashed potatoes. (Note: It?s taken me the eight years I?ve lived in Indiana to get used to the Hoosier proclivity for multiple starches in a dish.) And I never thought that I liked pie crust until I had a slice of their chocolate-raspberry cream pie.

Next month, I?ll be traveling to Zionsville, Lebanon, Rensselaer, Vincennes, Lexington, Monticello, Anderson, Vevay, Versailles, Pendleton, Westchester, Merrillville and Lafayette.

Let me know if you have any great local eateries to recommend!

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Stacy Klingler is assistant director of Local History Services at IHS. Along with the other LHS team members, she travels the state assisting local history organizations. She loves her job because itÕs never the same thing twice, unless she has to make a U-turn at Main Street.

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