Brown County Bookshelf

~by Julia Pearson

The narrative of Brown County is written in several voices. All locals and visitors will find that having a bookshelf devoted to Brown County titles will provide many mental vacations. For books to be read aloud to the driver by passengers in the family car, Hoosiers are lucky that loved storyteller, Henry “Hank” Swain, published several books. Good for a chuckle or prompting listeners’ and readers’ own renditions, go to Hank’s Tall Tales and Harmless Exaggerations from Brown County and Beyond. For evenings around the campfire, put away the cell phones—or use them to illuminate the pages—and thumb through Leaves for the Raking, which includes many stories originally published in this magazine. Anyone who is homesick for Hank’s philosophizing and thoughtful delivery will want his books.

Daytrippers will benefit from having a copy of Tales and Trails of Brown County, Indiana in the glove compartment of their car. Lightweight and packable, this little gem has usable maps for automobiles and bicyclists wanting to nose around all 20 by 16 miles of Brown County. The tales enliven many destination points, with beckoning names like: Whipporwill Hollow, Bear Wallow, Scarce O’Fat Ridge, Shake Rag Hollow and Milk Sack Bottoms.

Through the seasons, several volumes can be rotated from the bookshelf to the coffee table. 175 Years of Brown County: the people, the life, the history, edited by Sherri Cullison, is a beautiful hardback compilation of black and white photographs, with essays written by its own citizens, and issued by the local newspaper the Brown County Democrat. Enjoyed by people who like to dream backwards and forwards in time, the timeless faces smiling up from the pages will engage readers of all ages.

The Artists of Brown County by Lyn Letsinger-Miller is a resource that covers the laps of two readers sitting next to each other on the sofa (and creating special memories for the grandparent sharing it with a grandchild). For lifelong learners wanting to expand their knowledge of the individual artists of the Brown County Art Colony, this book can be ready on a side table with a bookmark to be advanced as each biographical sketch is absorbed with the reproductions of the artworks fixed in mind.

Another favorite is the story of T.C. Steele and his wife, Selma: The House of the Singing Winds, written by Selma N. Steele, Theodore L. Steele, and Wilbur D. Peat. It’s a very human picture of this couple, their marriage, making a home from the ground-up, and their devotion to art. It describes the discipline of producing masterpieces by the painter and the open home maintained and provided by Selma.

Brown County has its own ghost town. Elkinsville, named for one of the earliest settlers, William Elkins, grew into a prosperous town in a remote part of the county. In the early 1960s, under the authorization of the Flood Control Act of 1944 and the Army Corps of Engineers, the entire town of Elkinsville was condemned, purchased, and destroyed so Lake Monroe could be built. The stories of the 19 displaced families are told in: Elkinsville, Indiana: The Town That Was, edited by Robert Cross and Oliver and Nancy Deckard.

The beginnings of many a home library is Dillon Bustin’s If You Don’t Outdie Me: The Legacy of Brown County. Bustin spent many Sunday suppers at the Nashville House when he was a child—standing on the counter to see Frank Hohenberger’s photographs up close while his family had their special meal together. Years later, he pored over archival boxes of the Hohenberger collection at Indiana University’s Lilly Library. If You Don’t Outdie Me is the fruit of his studying the photographs and diary of Hohenberger.

The inspiration for the rustic characters you see depicted on Brown County signs and in the state park lodge comes from the literary gold of Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard. Hubbard’s character, Abe Martin, first appeared in the Indianapolis News in 1904 with sayings about Brown County folks. The syndicated cartoon strips starring Abe Martin and his neighbors were compiled into 25 annual editions of Abe Martin’s Brown County Almanack, along with many other books. In 1984, David S. Hawes put together a book called The Best of Kin Hubbard with musings about Hubbard’s life and career in addition to some of Abe’s best sayings. A paperback version was published in 1995.

Written in 1938 for younger readers is Abigail, by Portia Sperry and Lois Donaldson. Frontier Indiana is experienced by a young girl named Susan Calvin along with the ragdoll made by her grandmother and named Abigail.

Bean counters, i-dotters, and t-crossers in the population will want to read the facsimile of County of Brown, Indiana: Historical and Biographical 1884, by Weston Arthur Goodspeed, which is reprinted by the Brown County Historical Society and available at the Brown County History Center.

These books can be found at the public library, bookstores, antique malls, online, estate sales, and all the various attics with other vintage treasures. Happy collecting!