Part 1: GROWING UP ON THE FARM

CHAPTER 1 – One Winter Sunday

Wac, the family black-and-white Collie, whined and howled all night. Occasionally, a neighboring dog would reply in the distance with a couple of barks, and maybe a distant coyote would be heard in the night. But otherwise, it was quiet. The high temperature had made it to 50 degrees that afternoon, but it would get all the way down to 20 that night—a typical winter day in southern Indiana.

Henry and Maude were awake off and on during the night because of Wac.  Something must be stirring outside, they thought. It was so unlike Wac, who had now been a part of the family for six months, to be bothered by sounds in the darkness. But whatever it was, they would deal with it in the morning.

It was almost Christmas – Sunday, December 19, 1943. It had been a relatively warm December, but the official start of winter was just a couple of days away. As always, there was work to be done – namely in the form of hogs, cattle, sheep, chickens, horses, dogs and cats in need of feed and shelter. But since today had been Sunday, they had only done the mandatory livestock feeding. Tradition for them, as for most people in the area, was no work on Sunday that could wait until Monday—and Monday’s work usually started at 4 a.m.

They had attended church at Fairview that morning, in a building they had helped rebuild just four years earlier after it burned to the ground. The original church had been built in 1906 after the Page School and Church burned just a couple of miles away. The new church was a one-story sanctuary with a piano on one side and an organ on the other, with seating for more than 100 of the community’s men, women and children, as well as room for the out-of-town visitors who seemed to always be in attendance. Fairview also included a basement for Sunday school classes and meetings that became the center of local activity. Neighbors from the close-knit community held weddings, funerals, summer Bible School and many other programs at the church. All were shocked when it was struck by lightning and burned. But that was now just a memory. It had been rebuilt in 1939. Henry and Maude normally attended both Sunday School and Church Services on Sunday morning, and they occasionally went to the Sunday night service, as they had done today. The church stood two miles from the Crecelius home place.

Half a world away in Australia, it was a misty, overcast morning. Not a great day for flying, but never bad enough to stop a war. On the flight line that morning was William Randall Crecelius, a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps, with a good ride for the day. He was the pilot of a new C-47 that had just delivered to the 22^nd Troop Carrier Squadron on November 27^th. His mission was to take a group of Australians and American military personnel, as well as a few non-military passengers, from Townsville to Rockhampton – the first leg of the journey to Sydney.

The group, headed for some well-deserved rest and rehabilitation, never made it.

CHAPTER 2 – Henry and Maude

Henry Crecelius was almost always up by 4 a.m. Even into his 90s, he still awoke early, although by that point he might occasionally go back to bed after some morning cereal. But in these days of dawn-to-dusk work, he always had a focus and a plan—and that was how it was done, regardless of the task. Normally, Henry wanted things done “NOW.” He had no tolerance for those who did not or would not work, and work hard. Henry and Maude never took anything resembling a vacation until they semi-retired to a modest home in Princeton, Indiana, on January 1, 1948.

At six-foot-three, Henry was a big man by the standards of the day. And through hard farm work from a very young age, he was extremely strong and agile—and likely considered to be a fine athlete had he been on anyone’s radar at the time. Some would say he was as strong as a bull – and just as stubborn.

Henry was born December 7, 1894, near Wheeling and Oatsville in Indiana, close to the line dividing Gibson and Pike counties, in a house that had been recently been built by his father, Isaac Richard Crecelius. The Jenkins family, on Henry’s mother’s side, had purchased the land from the government in the 1840s for $1.25 per acre. Isaac built the new house beside the old well house, where the family lived until construction was complete. It was a small frame home for the large Crecelius family.

The 11 children of Isaac and Rilda were spread out age-wise. Five of the 11 (Polly, Ora, Hassel, Elbert and Landis) died before they turned three years old, and two more didn’t survive to the age of 30. As it turned out, Henry was nine years younger than the next-oldest sibling, Pearl, and nine years older than the next youngest, Hugh. In a strange sense, Henry was an only child in a family of 11 children.

Monroe, the oldest child, was born in 1879. He died of Scarlet Fever while on a missionary trip to Japan at the age of 29 on December 20, 1907. He built a church in Dayton, Ohio, while a student at Bonebrake Theological Seminary. The church, which held its first service in 1904, still stands today. Monroe became its first pastor on July 20, 1904 and stayed in that post until August, 1905. Arthur (1883-1918), Lovia (1881-1967), Pearl (1886-1978) and Hugh (1902-1951) died later, with Henry, who passed in 1992, outliving them all. Isaac had a brother named William Monroe, names that would be used for two of Henry’s sons, William Randall and James Monroe.

Henry’s mother, Rilda, was born in 1859 and lived in that house until she moved in with Pearl in 1945. Rilda died in 1948. The home sat on a couple of acres that included a large barn and some additional outbuildings. It was surrounded by more than 200 acres of farm land that they had worked for many years. A descendant of Isaac Crecelius has always lived in that house, although it has been expanded and updated many times since its original construction.

Wheeling, Indiana had one of several covered bridges in the surrounding area. Built over the Patoka River around 1877, it stands to this day and is more than 160 feet long. It was used daily by many people who traveled north from Fairview to Wheeling, Oatsville and on to Union, Petersburg and other points north. It has been out of service since 1977. Henry remembered his grandfather Jenkins talking about taking a flatboat from Wheeling down the Patoka River to the Wabash River, then to the Ohio River and finally to the Mississippi River and ending in New Orleans. He made two such trips that Henry remembered hearing about, in which his grandfather hauled shelled corn and salt pork to sell to the shipping businesses in the south.

Henry would often talk about the extraordinary changes in his lifetime – comparing a trip down the Patoka River on a flatboat to man landing on the moon. He frequently noted that in 1900 the average worker received 22 cents per hour and there were only 150 miles of paved road in the entire United States.

The Crecelius farmhouse was located on the road to one of the area’s main churches and cemeteries, Atkinson Chapel. The church dates back to the mid-1850s. When burials were held at the church and Colvin Funeral Home (which existed before 1900 but started in Princeton in 1908) was in charge of the arrangements, they came right past the Crecelius home place just before arriving at the church. This was about 15 miles from Princeton and was a very long trip by horse and hearse, taking several hours. After the burials at Atkinson Chapel, the Colvin entourage always stopped at the Crecelius home for a meal, as well as to water their horses and let them rest before the return to Princeton (Colvin started using motorized coaches in 1917). The Crecelius-Colvin family relationship has continued through the years, with Colvins making the arrangements for Randy’s return to Princeton and his burial at Warnock Cemetery on March 11, 1948, as well as for Henry, Maude and the rest of the deceased Crecelius family members. Isaac, Rilda, and six of their children are buried in the Atkinson Chapel cemetery.

It was common for youngsters in the late 1800s and early 1900s to attend a one-room school within a mile or two of their home – and Henry, his brothers and sisters did just that. They normally completed the equivalent of a sixth to eighth-grade education, the maximum schooling that rural Indiana children attained in that era. But Isaac recognized ability in Henry and sent him to a boarding school some 10 miles away, what is now Oakland City University. During Henry’s two years at the school he obtained the equivalent of a high school education – an education that was normally three years in length. Henry studied Latin, mathematics (algebra and geometry), literature, history, geography and other disciplines in both the sciences and liberal arts. Among his memories was seeing Teddy Roosevelt on a campaign train that went through Oakland City in 1912. Henry also participated and excelled at sports during this time, which were basically limited to track and field – and the new sport of basketball. Henry’s older half-brother, Elmer, was said to have purchased the first basketball ever used at the school.

After two years studying in Oakland City, Henry returned home in 1912 at the age of 18 and started farming with his father, who had been a Thresherman for most of his young adulthood but was now farming most of the Jenkins land around the main house. Henry joined his father and harvested his first crop from 20 acres he rented and farmed on his own in 1914.

Shortly after returning to the Oatsville area, Henry renewed a courtship with a local school teacher, Maude Muller Miley. Maude (born January 30, 1893 in Pike County) had also gained the necessary training to qualify as a teacher and taught in a one-room school near Oatsville from 1913 to 1916. Maude was almost two years older than Henry. Henry and the rest of the family often told the story about Maude riding a horse four miles to high school for three years and never missing a day – even during bad winter weather and on terrible roads. Maude was as strong and determined as Henry to attain whatever goal she wanted. Schools during the era were never cancelled due to bad weather, but the school year was much shorter in those days. Consequently, Henry gained about the same education in his two years at Oakland City as Maude did in three years going with a shorter schedule.

Henry and Maude were married on March 20, 1916, just after Maude completed her third year of teaching. They moved to a small house on the Crecelius property, living there until Isaac died on March 13, 1917 – just one year into their marriage and one month before World War I began. After Isaac’s death, Henry ran the family farming operations, which included about 250 acres. Since none of his brothers were involved or had any interest in farming, Henry paid two hired hands one dollar per day to help him plant and harvest the crop. Due to the importance of farming operations, Henry was exempted from World War I.

When the dust settled after the inevitable changes resulting from Isaac’s death, Henry and Maude moved away from the farm and started out on their own in November, 1917. Henry’s older sister, Lovia, and her husband, Gurney Stewart, moved into the small house that Henry and Maude had occupied before Isaac’s death. The Stewart family occupied that house until the death of their last daughter, at the age of 96 in 2007. Henry’s other older sister, Pearl, married Charles Clem. Like Henry, Charlie was a farmer and would represent the area in the Indiana State Legislature for several terms in the 1950s and 60s, serving in both the House and Senate.

Henry and Maude rented a house and some land a mile south of Wheeling, about two miles southwest of the original home place. Just a few months later, in March of 1918, they purchased a farm further from Wheeling – the place where much of the Crecelius family history would be written for the next 40-plus years. Henry was 23 years old when they moved to the farm.

It was during this first year of farming away from the old place that Henry was forced to deal with the two biggest snowfalls in the history of southern Indiana. The largest snowfall ever recorded in Princeton for a single month (32 inches) occurred in January, 1918. This immediately followed the second-largest snowfall for a single month (26 inches) in December, 1917. The two snowfalls totaled almost five feet. Henry never forgot the difficulties of that winter and often spoke of trying to harvest late corn during these trying times. As the temperature was often near zero, he wrapped feed (gunny) sacks around his and his horses’ legs to keep the snow and cold out. He would take a team of horses and a wagon to the field to shuck as much corn as possible each day. Knowing what he couldn’t get would be lost to the elements, he worked much of the winter in terrible conditions to get the corn into the crib. After the corn was harvested during this very hard winter, Henry and Maude found a place they liked and made plans to move to what became the Crecelius home place.

CHAPTER 3 – The Crecelius Home Place

It was not uncommon for people of Henry and Maude’s generation to be born and raised, and often to continue to live, in the same house or on the same farm for most, if not all, of their lives. Henry’s sister Lovia lived nearly all her life in the house Henry and Maude had earlier occupied. Lovia’s daughter Maude (another Maude) lived all her life in that house other than a few years during World War II, when she worked in a defense industry plant in Detroit.

So it was seen as quite a change when Henry and Maude moved the four miles further from the old Crecelius home place. This was before cars and telephones, so in some ways they had moved a significant distance. Horses and buggies were the transportation of the day and the roads were very difficult, especially during the winter and during the rainy seasons. Henry and Maude moved from the neighborhood where they had both grown up and purchased a 160-acre (1/4 section) farm in the far northwest corner of Center Township. This would be their home for roughly 30 years and the home of one of their sons, Jim, for an additional 15.

Part of the farm was very hilly, as was common in this part of southern Indiana. But 80 acres could be considered good crop ground – with good drainage and productive farmland. The combination offered the opportunity to raise crops on the tillable land and raise animals on the hilly pasture land. It was the type of combination that Henry would have sought, not being required to use tillable land for raising animals and the diversification of investments.

On the road that bordered the southern edge of the land was a two-story frame house, like so many Indiana farm houses of that era. Just outside the house was a cellar for storing food that needed to be cool, and a smokehouse used for curing meats. There was another out building that served later as a garage and a couple of other storage sheds. There were two large barns on the property. Henry often said that “People should put their money in things that make them money (barns) and not in things that cost them money (houses).” It was very rare to find a farm with two barns of this size and quality. Over the next few years, Henry would add another 40 acres that bordered this property.

The farmhouse had a large porch on two sides, the main porch facing south along the road, with the “formal” entrance to the house that was seldom used, and another larger porch that ran along the east side of the house that was nearest the normal entrance to the property that entered into the dining room. This was the entrance almost always used. It was the closest to the driveway when people came to visit. The only people who would have used the front/south door would have been people who stopped along the road without pulling into the driveway, something only strangers were likely to do. It was a very rare event that anyone ever knocked on the “front door.”

The house sat about 30 feet from the road. There was one bedroom downstairs (Henry and Maude) and two bedrooms upstairs. Doris, the only girl born to Henry and Maude, had her own bedroom. The boys – Randy, Jim and Bob – shared a bedroom with two beds. Randy and Jim shared the largest bed and Bob, the youngest in the family, had the day bed. There was a kitchen, living room (or sitting room as they called it) and dining room on the main level. Maude and Doris—to Doris’ great dismay—spent most of their time in the kitchen and dining room, while Henry and the boys spent most of their time outside working. The house had an attic for storage and a basement with a coal furnace that had to be tended to during the night, especially on cold nights. There was also the constant need to haul ashes from the furnace. The ashes, called cinders locally, were hauled out and put around the out buildings and served as a type of rock support on the ground.

Family members who weren’t busy at night with school or other organizational obligations almost always had evenings together in the “sitting room,” playing cards (Rook, Canasta), working puzzles, playing checkers, reading, later listening to their new radio or just visiting and talking about the day’s activities. They also had a piano and often sang songs while Doris or Maude played.

Henry and Maude decided to get Doris the piano for Christmas in 1938.  Doris, Randy, Jim and Bob were always on the go. Henry, Randy and Jim got the piano unloaded and put it in the corner of the sitting room one afternoon while Doris was out of the house. It was just a few days before Christmas and they all assumed she would see it very quickly. But Doris ran up to her room and back down through the living room several times without even noticing it. Finally, on Christmas Eve, 1938, while they were doing some last-minute gift wrapping, she noticed the piano and was very confused as to how and when it got there, and what it was for. She was very excited when she found out it was her Christmas present.

Doris couldn’t formally read music, but she became a great piano player just playing by ear. After she married and had a family of her own, she often played from old sheet music. It was one of those “hum a few bars and I will see if I can pick it up” instincts, and she could always “pick it up.”

The Crecelius family’s next-door neighbor, Mrs. Cyrus L. Dyer (Anna Bess), was an accomplished piano and organ player. She played regularly with the Purdue University choral group and had traveled extensively as a part of that organization. She was highly sought after to play at churches, funerals, weddings and other places where great music was needed. Mrs. Dyer gave Doris a few informal lessons on the new piano, but the lessons were short-lived. Like most things Doris did, she just figured it out as she went along and, through mainly her own efforts, became a good player.

The Crecelius income was based on hard work and frugality. Not withstanding the piano and other similar purchases, the family raised most of what they ate. They milked several cows twice each day and butchered cows (Angus), hogs (duroc) and a few goats. They rendered lard and made sausage, gathered eggs, and also dressed and fried the chickens. They also had berries and grape arbors and very large gardens to maintain, raising peas, beans, rhubarb, cucumbers, potatoes, sweet corn, beets, tomatoes (lots of juice and catsup), carrots, pumpkins and other products. They made their own hominy, cottage cheese, butter, cheese and cider. They ground corn meal to make flour for baking, as well as feed for the livestock. They had apple, peach and pear trees for making jelly, jams, apple butter and apple sauce. They picked gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries, grapes (grape marmalade and juice) and cherries. They sometimes made taffy or other candy like fudge, divinity and hard candy.

Maude, with some help from Henry, Jim and Bob, canned dozens, sometimes hundreds, of quarts of the various farm products (like fruit, vegetables and meat) that they could eat for the rest of the year. A diary entry from August of 1947 notes that they canned 70 quarts of tomatoes on one day. They ate very well and didn’t spend much on groceries.

Maude had a schedule for doing housework. On Monday, she washed laundry; Tuesday was ironing; Wednesday was mending and sewing; Thursday and Friday was housecleaning for any visitors (normally called “company”) that might show up over the weekend; and the list goes on.  The family had visitors about every day or night. They commonly had visitors for meals several times a week.

There were exceptions, but Maude followed a pretty set routine, which was common in most farm houses during that time. It was a process that ensured that every area was constantly maintained. She attended a church meeting (King’s Daughters) with other women from the community once each month, in addition to going to church on Sundays. She, and sometimes Henry, attended the monthly PTA (Parent Teacher Association) meetings at the Francisco School.

Maude was always using the tremendous set of cooking and baking skills she had learned over the years to keep the family fed. She made a lot of clothes (a skill Doris would perfect in the next generation) and repaired them until they were worn out. Clothes were often handed down from Randy to Jim to Bob. Bob sometimes got new garments since they were normally done by the time they reached him. They made quilts, which became the final place for a lot of otherwise worn-out garments. Maude made lap robes for the Red Cross. Henry, simply put, didn’t buy things he didn’t need.

There were annual jobs to be completed, in addition to making the garden each spring, a process that normally started in early April once the weather cooperated. There were windows to be washed, both inside and out, as well as the curtains and drapes. The floors had to be waxed, the bookshelves varnished, the registers cleaned and the walls painted – not just in the house but also in the barn and out buildings. There was roofing to maintain on the house, barn, chicken houses and smokehouse. The cellar had to be cleaned out, too. It wasn’t the most pleasant of jobs, but certainly better than maintaining the horse and cattle barns, which also required a thorough cleaning from time to time.

There was tile to fix in the fields and field drainage to maintain, ditches to clean, tiles to install and replace, fences to fix and posts to replace. Most fence posts were cut from trees (locust) right on the farm. Good posts and fences were critical to keeping the livestock on the farm. A major job, at least once a summer, was mowing the fence rows and ditch banks, hopefully without knocking down any fence posts or getting into any fence wire. Every summer they cut weeds from corn and beans. They set out roses, gladiolas, butterfly bushes and other flowers each spring.

The family sold some of their produce in Princeton. They’d take cream (after it had been machine separated from the fresh milk just out of the cow) to the Tip Top Creamery, which came to Princeton in 1922. They also sold eggs. Doris often gathered the eggs and would occasionally put her name and address on eggs, having no idea where they were going or if anyone would care. But she was intrigued by the fact that some of the Crecelius produce might actually end up many miles away.  Sometime about 1938 or 1939 Doris received a letter in the mail from a Chicago address. It was from a girl in a household that had purchased some eggs bearing Doris’ name and address. Over the next few months, letters continued between Doris and this young girl from Chicago, culminating with Doris going to Chicago for a visit. Sometime later, after the young Chicagoan was married, she and her husband made a journey to southern Indiana to visit Doris and the Crecelius family. Doris and her friend from Chicago continued their communication over the years until Doris died in 1963. This was indeed a landlocked farmer’s version of putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean – a name and address on an egg.

Bob and Jim also had their own interests and were just as active, but these incidents involving Doris are prime examples of the lifestyle they led. There was never any downtime in the Crecelius household. If something needed to be done, they simply made it happen.

There was no form of liquor in the house, with the possible exception of what might have been used for medicinal purposes. As a young man in his early teens, Henry had been with Isaac on a trip to Petersburg, a neighboring town in Pike County, to get some supplies when he encountered a man who could hardly walk. Henry had never seen a man in such shape, and he asked his dad what was wrong. Isaac explained that the man had been drinking liquor – and liquor sometimes made you act in ways you wouldn’t normally act. Henry decided right then and there that he didn’t want to touch anything that would make you act (and look) like the staggering man.

Henry and his brother-in-law, Charles (Charlie) Clem (Pearl’s husband), started the Economy Feed Company in the mid 1920s with a grain mill a couple of miles away from the Crecelius farm at Charlie’s farm. The two men operated it together for a few years until Henry sold his share of the business to Charlie, who continued the business into the 1950s. Other than this one diversion, all the Crecelius efforts were directed at creating and maintaining a productive and profitable farm.

Henry purchased his first car around 1918, when he and Maude moved to the new farm. He and a few neighboring farmers purchased a threshing machine and did custom work, just as his father had done some 25 years earlier, for farmers around the area in Gibson and Pike counties. By 1925, Henry was farming close to 350 acres and bought a “Regular” tractor, which would later be replaced by a 1020, an F-20 in the early 1930s, and an International “M” in 1939. This was equipment that most people didn’t have at the time, but it was equipment that was used to increase productivity. Even after he purchased that first tractor, he also used horses to plant the corn and beans. But later, especially through the 1930s, the Crecelius boys (Randy and Jim) would run whatever tractor was on the farm at the time around the clock in the summer months.

They, along with Henry, would run in eight-hour shifts, day and night. Someone would drive while someone else was eating or sleeping. The tractor never stopped except for fuel, to change the oil, and rain. From late April though June, they were always working (except on Sunday), and again in late September during harvest season, which often ran into December or beyond. Henry marveled at tractors and how easy they made field work. There were additional complications during the farming season since there was always the ongoing effort that had to be made on behalf of the ever-present livestock, the garden, haymaking and other responsibilities. But compared to what Henry had dealt with during the winter of 1917-18, tractors seemed like an easy way to get the work completed

Henry started contracting with other livestock producers. He also bred his own livestock but wanted to diversify as much as possible, so he would “feed out” lambs by letting other herds graze on his property and then return them to their owners – for a contract price per animal. At one time he purchased more than 600 lambs to fatten for market. At other times he would have several hundred on his property feeding out for others.

In 1939, Henry entered a national Duroc hog breeding contest with 458 contestants and won for having the “best herd record in the contest.” He raised “purebred” Durocs as he had already been doing for some 20 years at that time. A photograph was taken as part of an article included in a newspaper about the contest. It describes the litter sizes, weights, and pounds per litter. Henry was always looking for ways to improve his herds and gain a quicker, more efficient, feed to meat conversion.

CHAPTER 4 – Randy Growing Up

William Randall Crecelius, Randy to his family and friends in the Fairview and Gibson County area (although he had nicknames of Chris and Bill while in the service), was the first of five children born to Henry and Maude. (Henry had an uncle, William, who might have been the inspiration for the first name.) There was a distant relative, Randall Crecelius, who was born in 1911 and died the next year. But regardless of the source of his name, Randy entered the world on November 21, 1918, just 10 days after Armistice Day” – the original name of what we now call Veterans Day. At the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month in 1918, World War I ended.

The other children of the family (all born at home) included Doris June, their only daughter, born June 6, 1922; Jim (James Monroe) on August 17, 1923; Jack, born June 23, 1925 (died of pneumonia eight months after his birth); and Bob (Robert Allen), who was born April 10, 1927. The doctor’s charge for each of the first three births was $15. Henry said inflation had set in by the time Bob arrived, as his birth cost $25.

Randy and the rest of the children were raised with the same parenting skills that Henry had learned from his father, approaches that had been used in the Crecelius family for generations. The basic tenets involved hard work, accepting responsibility, and strict discipline. Randy learned the lessons well and never disappointed Henry, Maude, his extended family or the community. By all accounts, he was a model son, brother, worker, athlete and friend.

Many years later, Henry would talk about the difficulty of raising children. He especially worried about them doing something they’d always regret. He was aware of problems that other children and young adults had encountered, problems that marred their reputations and lives and followed them until their deaths. Some of them, he said, were caused by just a momentary slip of judgment. Henry was always vigilant for any sign that any of the Crecelius children hadn’t been trained properly. He didn’t want them to have to “think” about doing the right thing. He simply wanted it to be an automatic reaction. This isn’t to say the children were perfect all the time, but Henry focused on the type of training he hoped would give them the best opportunity to avoid any slipups that might otherwise occur.

When Randy was about 10 years old, he and Doris, who would have been about six at the time, were out in a field near a shallow pond. They were fishing with a pole and worms, but they mainly were just playing in the mud. A thunderstorm formed quickly, as often happens during the hot days of July and August in southern Indiana, and a hard rain with lightning and thunder began. Randy yelled for Doris to head for the barn, and he took off running for the barn a couple of hundred yards away. Doris didn’t move toward the barn. Instead, she started crying and stayed near the pond.

Just a few years earlier, on March 18, 1925, an F5 tornado with winds possibly exceeding 300 miles per hour moved through the tri-state area of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, killing 695 people – 234 them in Murphysboro, Illinois – the largest single-town death toll ever recorded. Of the 500 people in Parrish, Illinois, only three escaped injury. Not a single structure was left standing in Griffin, Indiana, where there were 52 deaths. In Indiana it killed 103 people, including 17 in Owensville and 24 in Princeton. It traveled at 65 miles per hour for more than 220 miles from southeast Missouri across southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana before the funnel dissipated in late afternoon in Pike County, just a few miles northeast of the original Crecelius home place.

At times it was a mile wide but not really visible because of the boiling clouds and blowing dirt. There were no warnings in those days, and people in the twister’s path had no way to know it was coming. It damaged a lot of farms and buildings, with numerous injuries reported, and it passed within a mile of the Crecelius farm in the Fairview area. People were well aware of the significant power of these storms, and any time the potential for another storm increased, a number of internal alarms went off for everyone in the area, as they certainly did for Henry on this day in 1928.

When Randy arrived at the barn with the thunder and lightning, Henry happened to be there. He asked Randy why he had been out in the rain. Randy said he and Doris had been down in the field, and that Doris was still down there. Henry was quite angry, but the immediate concern was for Doris. He told Randy to wait in the barn, and he ran back down in the pouring rain to get Doris. Henry carried Doris home, took her inside to get cleaned up and dried off, and then he went back to the barn with Randy. They had a serious discussion that day about responsibility, commitment and taking care of those who depend on you. From that day on, Randy never missed an opportunity to assist someone in need, especially anyone for whom he was, or thought he was, responsible for protecting. He would never disappoint Henry again.

Randy’s later trend toward leadership was also based on several dynamics, each of which converged to put him in a unique position in that area at that time. The major factors included:

-- Randy was the first born into a family of talented, hard working and proud people. He was the major focus of Henry and Maude’s efforts until Doris came along four years later, and then Jim and Bob. Randy grew up faster and started farm work earlier than most of his peers because he was needed for farm chores. The die had been cast in Randy, and he would only know the expectations that came from being the oldest child in his family.

-- A generational change was taking place in the Fairview neighborhood. Henry and Maude were part of a new generation that was taking over the area’s farms. They were part of the leadership of the community, and it only followed that their oldest son would also have many leadership opportunities. Henry would later serve on the Gibson County Council, and he was a member of the Farm Co-operative and well-known in the community.

-- Randy was the oldest, or one of the oldest members of his neighborhood peer group. He became one of the default leaders because of his age, and also because he could do so many things that were important to his friends and neighbors at that time. People would say that wherever the group was and whatever they were doing, Randy was normally out front leading.

-- Other adults in the area considered Randy to be a good influence on their children. He was considered to be a “fine, upstanding young man.” He set the bar at a high level for others to work toward.

-- Randy’s place on the farm ensured that he gain, at an early age, the knowledge, skills and abilities that were required to meet the expectations of farm life. Areas like animal husbandry, management, land management, soil erosion, mechanics, crop rotation, marketing, bookkeeping and a number of other topics were stressed to Randy as skills required for success in any farming enterprise. Of course, the most important trait would be a work ethic that ensured that the right things were done in the right way—and at the right time.

-- Randy’s social connections through the contacts he made at church and school, as well as the other groups he joined, gave him the opportunity to have a very large group of friends and acquaintances. It’s somewhat ironic that people in small communities usually know many more people than do people in large cities. This is based on the fact that when the same people are seen over and over, even distant acquaintances become somewhat aware of you, and you of them. People in Francisco could legitimately say they “know everyone in town.” That isn’t to say they were all close friends, but they knew who each other were when they met on the street.

Randy, and people like him from similar communities all over the country, were often able to travel up one road and down the other for miles around – knowing who lived in almost every house along the way. And in many cases, they’d know details about them—their jobs, their children’s names and ages, their religion, and even their cars. They worked at home or outside on their property and spent time out in the community. They saw others also working outside, often on a daily basis, and they had an opportunity to stop and visit and continually meet new people from the area. They and their neighbors always waved upon approaching someone in a car or truck—they just assumed it was someone they knew. And it was often surprising when, in a rare instance, they encountered someone that they didn’t know, especially on the rural roads in the area.

They also followed the rural tradition of pulling to the side of the road to show respect when meeting a funeral procession. Even if they had not attended the funeral, they often knew of the deceased. This practice is still carried on today in southern Indiana and in many other rural areas around the country.

The Crecelius family’s circle of acquaintances and friends came from their Fairview area neighbors, Francisco and Gibson County schools, and the area’s businesses, and from Wheeling and Oatsville. Their connections to Princeton were through their location to Dyers, Caruthers and others who lived within a mile or so but went to Princeton to school. Other friends came through 4H and Rural Youth. Each one, Randy, Doris, Jim and Bob, all knew the friends of the others, and each one had their own expansive list of friends. And most of those people knew the Crecelius family – and especially Randy.

CHAPTER 5 – Fairview and Francisco

The Fairview community was an interesting place from the 1920s to the 1960s. During that time there was an incredible feeling of stability throughout the area. Farmers like Henry and Maude were putting down roots for a life that would be a constant, not only for them but for their neighbors, and often the next generation, for the next 40 to 50 years. Names like Dyers, Whiting, Caruthers, McEllhineys—Ross, Joe, Henry, John McEllhiney, Lehmans (brothers Joe and Paul), Legiers, Morrows, McConnells (several families), Mehans, Moores, Dunnings, Lynches, Clems (brothers Charlie and Herb), Harbisons, Kirks, Townsends, Massy, Rembe, Crosses, Litherlands, Pages, Seifers. All were about the same age as Henry and Maude. Many were just moving into the area or taking over the family farmstead and beginning to raise a family. This was very fitting with what Henry and Maude expected and later helped make the Crecelius homestead one of the major gathering places for activities (for both young and old) during those rare times when farm people from the era could relax.

On occasions that called for sharing and support, neighbors would always band together to put out, or harvest, the crops of someone else who had suffered a tragedy or illness. Other helpful deeds were always done, but on some occasions it took on the feeling of a mission bigger than any individual or community. It really became a movement to accomplish a task. These were always very difficult times for the community, but it was also a glorious time as an example of mankind showing support for others and their willingness to do what was needed to help a neighbor and fellow human being through difficulty.

One of the earliest such events in the Fairview area was recorded in two pictures showing a long line of horses, mules and plows that came together to help John Utley after a farm accident. The only thing that changed over the years when tragedy occurred was the type of equipment that showed up to do the work. The work was always completed on time.

The next (Randy) generation in the Fairview area included Bill Dyer. The Dyers were the nearest neighbors west of the Crecelius home, and Bill and Randy became best friends. Bill took over the family farm after World War II, as did Henry’s son Jim, so the next generations of those families continued to be neighbors. In the 1960s that long history finally came to an end, but by that time the older (Henry & Maude) generation had started moving out of the area, and the next generation started moving in. The stability that Fairview had known for 40 to 50 years started to come to an end. The main reason for the shift was based on the incredible technological advances in farming. When Henry moved to the farm in 1920, a 300-acre farm was more than most people could maintain. In the 1960s it wasn’t uncommon for farmers to maintain 500 to 1,000 acres, and during the next few decades it would become commonplace for farmers, even those in the Fairview area, to farm 2,000 to 3,000 acres. As a result, most of the people who lived in the area after 1965 needed to have jobs outside of farming. And it wasn’t the same as it had been for the previous decades.

Randy attended the Page School for two years. It was a one-room school about a mile from the Crecelius home. In 1926 these one-room schools were all consolidated into the one “Center Township” school at Francisco, as were most of the other schools in Gibson County and throughout the state of Indiana. Randy would have started at this new school in the third grade. The trend was toward “consolidation,” and by the late 1920s there would be 10 schools in Gibson County replacing the myriad of one-room schools that had been in place just a few years earlier.

The new Francisco school contained the grade school, junior high and four-year high school from which Randy, Doris, Jim and Bob, as well as many other relatives, would graduate. Francisco was a town of about 600 people at that time. It became a significant trading center in the mid-1800s following the construction of the Wabash and Erie Canal, which went right on the edge of town. The area had been a major coal mining location for many years and the Francisco mine explosion on December 9, 1926, was felt in every house in town. It killed 37 men from the Francisco area, in some instances more than one man from the same family, leaving a permanent scar on the town even into the 21^st century.

The Francisco school burned in 1976. There are few records that survived about Randy’s academic ability, but based on his later military training and associated classes, it seems reasonable to assume that he could have been a very good student had he applied himself. Since Maude had been a teacher before marrying Henry, Randy might have been expected to excel, but there is no evidence that school work had any higher priority than farm work. And although academic pursuits would have been emphasized in many cases, they would always take a back seat to the type of citizenship Henry demanded.

Henry said on many occasions, “Educate a man, you have an educated man. Educate a woman and you have an educated family.” He understood the need for education, and Maude surely helped direct the educational efforts made by the Crecelius children. Doris had the opportunity to attend Evansville College (now the University of Evansville) for a time during the academic year after her graduation from high school in 1940.

In 1937, the year after Randy graduated from high school, he became a charter member of the Indiana Rural Youth’s local chapter in Princeton. This charter meeting was in June of 1937 at the First Presbyterian Church in Princeton. Where Fairview and Francisco were normal centers of Randy’s universe during his younger school years, the Gibson County Rural Youth Club allowed him to expand his horizons to the county at large. The Rural Youth movement had been started a few years before in Blackford County, Indiana (located between Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne), in 1934 to give “isolated” (normally meaning farm) youngsters the opportunity and wherewithal to meet people from other county locations.

Through his neighbors, Bill Dyer and Joe Carithers among others, Randy had already met and become friends with many of Princeton students.  Monthly Rural Youth meetings expanded his circle of friends to include people from the various Gibson County areas and towns including, in addition to Francisco and Princeton, Mt. Olympus, Hazleton, Patoka, Oakland City, Fort Branch, Owensville, Haubstadt, Mackey, and, during some annual gatherings, people from Evansville, Vincennes and Indianapolis. It was a great opportunity for a young man like Randy to meet people and gain friendships with a larger number of people than he might have otherwise.

It was during these Rural Youth meetings that he met a young lady who would have most likely become Mrs. William Randall Crecelius had he survived the war. Her name was Mary Christmas (b. September 14, 1919). She worked in the Gibson County Soil Conservation office in Princeton, so that was also a contact point, but the Rural Youth Club was the major connecting point. Later in life she would receive some 30 fan letters each year around Christmas time from several states, simply based on people hearing about her and her name. She was from Poseyville, Indiana, located about 20 miles from the Crecelius place northeast of Princeton. Mary and Randy were a couple who spent as much time together as possible, which was normally limited to Saturday nights—after the farm work was completed—and then again on Sunday afternoon, in addition to holidays and other special events.

After Randy joined the Army Air Corps, Mary joined the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), but her service and dates and associated information is unknown. She also taught business courses at Wabash Community College in Mt. Carmel, Illinois during the mid 1960s.  After Randy’s death in late 1943, she continued to periodically visit Henry and Maude both in the country and after they moved to the house in Princeton. The meetings most likely would have been difficult ones for Henry and Maude, as well as Mary, knowing that they both reminded each other of Randy—and how hard it was not to have him in their lives. She never married and died of Hodgkin’s disease on June 11, 1975.

CHAPTER 6 – Crecelius Home Life

In his later years, Randy’s last remaining brother, Jim, would sometimes talk about the things Randy could do, and how they led others to try things. Many of these things it seemed only Randy could do. It’s unclear where Randy learned to master these feats, although there was no shortage of great athletes in those days, even though few were part of any “organized” group or team.

Both Randy and Jim, as well as Bill Dyer and a number of others in the area, would often walk around on their hands. They would just flop over and take off—upstairs, downstairs, over rocks, grass and plowed dirt… It simply didn’t matter. It took great strength and balance, but they did it like it was a natural way to walk. They could also do pushups while standing on their hands. Just straight up and down, and they could even casually talk while doing them. One of Randy’s cousins often told of Randy being able to jump into and out of a 50-gallon barrel. Several were said to have injured themselves trying to match this feat, especially if they only got one leg in the barrel. It was an impressive stunt to see completed successfully.

At just under 6 feet, Randy wasn’t as tall as Henry, but he was exceptionally strong. He had worked hard, not just in the long hours on the farm, but in hard physical work—putting up hay, shoveling corn, walking behind a horse and plow in his early years, digging ditches, fixing roofs, helping with the threshing, shearing sheep, ringing, vaccinating and castrating hogs… doing a myriad of demanding physical tasks that he was expected to complete each day. He was the only significant help Henry had available for several years, and he’d been pushed into service at a very young age, as were both Jim and Bob a few years later.

As a display of some of his strength, he was a regular boxer at Seminole Lake (later Camp Carson), just a couple of miles from the Crecelius farm and a couple of miles from Princeton. His friends would attend his matches to show their support. (It’s unclear if Maude ever knew anything about him boxing at Seminole Lake.) He also did weightlifting via working with feed sacks (normally 80 to 100 pounds each), and he took pride in his ability to handle more bags faster and longer than anyone else. He was able to toss hay bales, normally 80 pounds each depending on the moisture content, higher onto the wagon than anyone else. This was important, as the height of a hay load is measured by the distance the hay bales can be raised for the “tie” at the top of the wagon. “Four high and a tie” does not carry as many bales per trip as five (or six) high and a tie. But someone has to be able to get the tie on top of the load, and Randy was one who could get it on top of the stack.

Randy was also an outstanding table and lawn tennis player. Henry and Randy built a tennis court just west of the main house in the early 1930s. It was mowed perfectly, with Bermuda grass. The linings looked professional, and the net and rackets were the best available. The court was a major drawing for the community in the summer. Everyone wanted to go over to the Crecelius homeplace and play tennis—and maybe get a chance to beat Randy, which few ever did. (The pictures included here were taken on Mother’s Day, 1939, and with an obviously staged picture of Randy taking a tennis stroke in his suit and tie, not normal playing attire.)

There was often a crowd waiting outside the Crecelius house almost every Sunday, at least during good weather about any time of the year, for the family to finish eating their noon Sunday meal—a special meal for most families, both farming and otherwise during those years. Once the table had been cleared, Randy and (later) Jim and Bob were able to go out and play with their visitors, who were ready to start one activity or another but never did so until the family came out to say it was okay to play. In addition to spending the day playing games of one type or another, they frequently went horseback riding down through the bottoms, or took a trail ride through some of the neighboring hill country. There were often hayrides and wiener roasts. In the winter they might go “coasting” down one of the snow-covered hills in the area on a sheet of tin. When the snow was packed, they could “coast” or slide for a half-mile or more. Of course, it was always a long walk back up the hill pulling whatever they used as a slide. Ice skating and sleighing were also options when there was enough cold to freeze some of the area ponds and lakes.

It was very common for the youth of the day to go swimming in ponds and lakes. Most of the ponds were less than an acre, and the lakes were just a few acres, but they were almost always lined with trees, providing ample opportunity to swing out for fancy dives. Some people had poles or piers built close by for high diving. Often it was just diving or jumping off a bridge down Bulldog Ave by Frog Alley or someplace else that crossed the river. Almost all the youth in the area were accomplished swimmers and divers, having been self taught or, in rare cases, instructed through a Rural Youth, 4-H, Boy Scout or some other program. They often went frog hunting in these same ponds for a mess of frog legs, a delicacy then as now.

CHAPTER 7 – Indiana in the 1930s

After Randy graduated from Francisco High School in 1936, earning the annual Good Citizenship award in the process, he formally joined Henry in the family farming operations. Henry had expanded his farm holdings to include another 100 acres when he purchased a farm in the mid-1930s. This farm was a couple of miles from the home place, and Randy could often be found on those 100 acres working to improve the property. By the late 1930s, it seemed destined that Randy and Mary would take over this farm at some point.

The winter of 1935-36 was the second-coldest winter ever across the nation. St. Louis went for nearly three weeks without a temperature reading above zero. It was that way all across the nation. But the summer of 1936 was the hottest on record, with 15 states setting their all-time high temperatures that summer. And in southern Indiana it was also very dry. From May to September, there were some 75 days with the temperature above 90 degrees. It topped 95 more than 40 days, and exceeded 100 degrees on 38 days during June, July and August. And during those same three months, it soared to over 105 for 14 days. It was 102 on July 4th of that year, and it didn’t return to a double-digit high until July 17—and that was for a sweltering string of high 90s, with some additional 100-degree temperatures later in the month.

To make matters worse for farmers, there was very little rain that summer. Only three inches fell in June. July and August each saw just more than an inch. But that all changed with the rain starting in January and February of 1937, which led to the massive flooding that covered half of Evansville, Indiana, and many other towns along the Ohio and other Midwest rivers.

About 10 acres of the ground at the south end of the new property was heavily wooded, and one of Randy’s first major jobs after graduation was to clear it. He cut trees, dynamited stumps, and burned brush off and on for almost two years starting in the hot summer of ’36. During farming operations later in the ‘40s through the ‘60s this 10-acre field Randy had cleared was always referred to as the “New Ground.”

Being engaged full-time in the farming operation meant studying the latest farming methods. Henry was a great student of farming and he expected no less of Randy and Jim. Henry was the leader in several farming techniques—some of which were discussed earlier. But others included: no longer checking corn fields; buying feeder stock to pasture on his land on contract and getting paid for his labor without making any investment; cleaning planting seeds for better plant germination; using larger amounts of fertilizer than was traditionally thought proper; using hay bailers and front-end loaders on tractors and pulling wagons behind bailers; having wagons waiting in the field for harvested crops; raising purebred hogs for better feed-to-meat conversion; etc. Henry was on the cutting edge of farming technology for southern Indiana from the 1920s well into the 1940s.

All of the Crecelius kids were not only active in Rural Youth but also 4-H.  4-H was a movement that started in the early 1900s. Both organizations worked together and were created by the land-grant universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a way of introducing new technology to rural communities. Purdue University was then, and continues to this day, the primary leader in the agriculture area in Indiana and has long been the leader in both 4-H and Rural Youth programs. The Crecelius family’s next-door neighbors, the Dyers, had a long association with Purdue and served as a good source of the latest farming news and information. Henry was always looking for a way to become more efficient and used a lot of the Purdue recommendations in his farming techniques. Others in the area were also progressive in their techniques and remain so into the 21^st century.

The 4-H program is based around participants—usually between the ages of eight or nine to 16-18 years old, and normally concentrating on one or more agricultural-related topics each year. The topics most often selected by the Crecelius kids, with the support of Henry and Maude, were raising hogs or cows, vegetable garden specialties, sewing (Doris), foods (Doris), land management, animal care, forestry, entomology, or another of a large selection of topics offered by the program. This activity normally started in the early spring and progressed through “harvest time,” culminating with the displaying of the results of their efforts (exhibits) at the Gibson County Fair, normally held in late July in Princeton. Local success could mean competing at the Indiana State Fair, the ultimate showplace, in Indianapolis.

A participant would “log” or keep records of all their project-related activities during the spring, summer and fall. The project normally culminated by “showing” a hog or cow (or dress or strawberry pie). The county fair was a tradition dating back to the 1850s and was the highlight of the year for most farm families, not only in Indiana but in all rural areas throughout the Midwest and other areas of the country. The Gibson County Fair is still the largest event held in the area each year. Henry had actually made a few trips to the Indiana State Fair as a youngster with his father, which would have been a very significant trip in the very early 1900s. Trips of that distance were normally made by train in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Gibson County was, during the 1930s through the 1970s, a major hog producer, with several families raising pure breeds of one type or another. In addition, this area was a major source of crops, including corn, soybeans, wheat and sometimes barley. The most famous product(s) from Gibson County actually bear the name of another county: Posey County watermelons and cantaloupes. All of these items were shown at the fair in competitive formats to see which product, animal or craft was judged the best in the show. Winners would be invited to take whatever project they had to Indianapolis to compete with other county winners from Indiana’s 91 counties. It was close to routine for the Crecelius kids to win a “Premium” (championship was normally a purple ribbon) award of one type or another at the county fair and to win at least a Blue Ribbon (a first-place rating) at the state fair in Indianapolis. (The Indiana State Fair was cancelled during the war years of 1942 - 1945.)

Between the ongoing programs of 4-H and Rural Youth, which had its own state and national organizations and activities, the Crecelius family worked hard to produce the best quality of every product related to farm life. And they weren’t afraid to compete at a high level to find out exactly how their efforts stacked up against others from around the county—and the entire state of Indiana.

This was the basis of the life that Randy had been groomed to understand, and lead. He was easily settling into his role as the primary second-generation Crecelius farmer. Jim was five years younger and still in high school, and Bob was almost 10 years younger. They would be helped also when their time came, but for now it was about getting Randy started—and Randy was more than prepared to be on his own.

CHAPTER 8 – Going to the Army Air Corps

Current events and politics were frequent topics of discussion in the Crecelius household. The crystal radio set and later the Silvertone radio brought them news from the outside world. Electricity didn’t come to the farm until 1941. They read a collection of books, newspapers and magazines, Saturday Evening Post, Life and Reader’s Digest being the most common ones of that era.

The family was in constant communication with neighbors and friends from not only the immediate Fairview and Francisco area, but also around Gibson County and the state of Indiana, people they had met through the 4-H and Rural Youth programs and through various school activities. They were in touch with people attending the two major state universities, Indiana University (which became Bob’s alma mater in 1951) and Purdue University, the main Land Grant institution in Indiana and Jim’s alma mater in the mid-1960s. They worked hard to stay current on both local and national issues of the day.

It was in this light that Randy joined the United States Army Air Corps on Sept 26, 1940. There seems to have been no specific reason for this decision, but many people thought that eventually the U.S. would become involved in the war that had already been rumbling for some time in Europe. Maybe Randy thought an early start might allow for more choices in selecting a specific area of training rather than waiting until later. There’s no evidence that anyone suggested to Randy that he join the Army. Henry took him to Evansville to enlist.

Randy had decided to leave the farm—temporarily. He would return, at some point, to resume his farm lifestyle. He would probably move to the New Ground, where he had spent so much time clearing the land. It was likely he’d marry Mary Christmas, and they would become one of the very first of the second-generation farmers in the Fairview area. It was all laid out, and pretty simple, really. But first he was going to the Army Air Corps.