January 13 Meeting of the LPCIGS
Nine members and guests were present for the regular monthly
meeting of the La Porte County (IN) Genealogical Society at the La Porte Parks
Department Building oat 250 Pine Lake Avenue in La Porte on Tuesday evening, January
13. President Dorothy Palmer called the meeting to order at 7:07 pm.
The business portion of the meeting included an announcement
that the Michigan City Public Library and the society will again sponsor a bus
trip to the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Vice-president Patricia
Gruse Harris announced that a bus has been reserved for Wednesday, April 22.
Sign-up forms will be available at the next meeting, on February 10, when a
deadline for responses will be announced. Sign-up forms will also be included
with the next issue of “The Door”, the society’s newsletter.
After a break for refreshments, members brought forward
photos and postcards of buildings and businesses in La Porte County. There was
the story of a sash and window factory which became a medical office building;
a local piano factory with a prize-winning early aviator buzzing it; a
photograph and drawing of a rural school which didn’t live up to sixty-year-old
memories; a discovery of a family connection to the Etropal Theatre; the
immigrant’s store and its neighbors in Michigan City that was as diversified as
a modern mall; a contemporary news article about a livery which boasted
rubber-tired vehicles; a pioneer floral designer in Michigan City who mentored
many women who established their own businesses; a lumber yard which dominated
a large area near the harbor at Michigan City; the story of one block on the
south side of Michigan City which had grocery stores, saloons, dry-goods
stores, and meat markets, and confectionaries – and family memories.
For more information on the society, its aims, programs,
publications and awards, visit the website at www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~inlcigs/.
