Saturday, January 17, 2015

January 2015 Meeting


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/.