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Wherein the destinies of the many siblings of Gene Stratton-Porter are briefly described

4/26/2015

By Curt Burnette

Gene Stratton-Porter’s parents, Mark and Mary, produced a large family of twelve children
whose births spanned more than a score of years. Gene’s oldest sister, Catherine, was 24 years older than her. At the time of Gene’s birth on August 17, 1863, her father was 50 and her
mother 46. Gene was a bit unexpected due to her parent’s ages and the previous child having
been born over five years earlier.

The names of the twelve Stratton children, in the order of their birth, are: Catherine,
Anastasia, Mary Ann, Louisa Jane, Jerome, Samira, Irvin, Florence, Leander, Lemon, Ada, and Geneva. Sadly, Mark Stratton outlived five of his offspring, and Mary outlived four, with two of them dying as children. Louisa Jane and Samira died when they were 9 and 6 respectively, one of scarlet fever and the other of whooping cough. Leander, or Laddie as he was known, drowned in the Wabash River when he was a young man of 19. The year 1872 was a bad one for the Stratton family; Mary Ann had just turned 32 when she died a few months before Leander did, as a result of injuries she had sustained in a railway accident a few years before. Anastasia died in 1883 at the age of 45 from cancer, after her mother’s death but before her father’s passing. Mark Stratton died in 1890. His wife had died 15 years before in 1875.

The other seven children outlived both of their parents. Their first-born, Catherine, married and eventually moved to California. She lived to be 88 years old and, coincidentally, died the same year as Gene, the youngest, who was killed in Los Angeles in 1924 in a streetcar and automobile collision. Jerome became a lawyer practicing in Fort Wayne and then Kansas, but he too made his way out to California to retire. Jerome died in California at the age of 82. Irvin followed in Jerome’s footsteps by becoming a lawyer in Fort Wayne, then also moving out to Kansas. He had gone to California in 1902 on business and also to consider moving there, when his buggy was hit by a Southern Pacific electric streetcar and he was killed at age 54. Railway and streetcar accidents seemed to be a curse of the Stratton family.

Although her father feared she would become an old maid, Florence married eventually and lived in Michigan for many years before moving to Fort Wayne. She died in 1940 at the age of 89. Lemon was “ornery” as a child and went from job to job as an adult. He had drinking problems (as did Jerome for a time) and was married three times. He died of a heart condition in 1916 at the age of 59. Ada married in Wabash, Indiana but eventually moved with her husband to California for a time before returning to Wabash. Like Florence she ended up in Fort Wayne where she died in 1950 at the age of 92, the last of the Stratton children to pass. From the death of the first child to the death of the last, over 99 years had passed.

Gene fictionalized and immortalized her parents, brothers, and sisters in her best-selling
autobiographical novel Laddie, A True Blue Story published in 1913. It was made into a movie
three times.

Gene Stratton-Porter’s Painter Man: C.A. Faille

4/17/2015

By Terri Gorney

Gene Stratton-Porter developed many friendships with naturalists, writers, and artists.
One such artist was that of Carl Arthur Faille (pronounced Fy). He credits Gene with
launching his career as she was the first person of note to appreciate his large paintings.
He said that Gene referred to him as “her painter man.” She noticed two of his large
landscape paintings in an Indianapolis art store in 1916. They had been left there to be
framed. She did not meet him at this time as he was painting that summer at Long’s Peak
in Colorado. It is believed that she purchased one of his large mountain scenes at this
time.

In the spring of 1916, the H. Lieber Company of Indianapolis had a painting in its gallery
of C.A. Faille, which is how he signed his name professionally. The large canvas was of
pine trees, mountain peaks and clouds.

C. A. Faille was a native of Detroit. He was born Charles Failles to French parents who
had immigrated to Canada before coming to the United States. His father was Charles
Failles (the son dropped the “s”). When he was a boy, the family moved to Indianapolis
where his father owned the Charles Failles and Son Ostrich Feather Dye Works. It was
the only one like it in the state. Carl had four sisters, two of whom remained in
Indianapolis. He moved and lived between the east and west coasts with frequent visits to
Indiana. He also roamed the Rocky Mountains to paint and be among the wildlife.
In 1919, Gene commissioned her “painter man” to create a large painting entitled “Song
of Cradle-Making” to illustrate the poem Constance Lindsay Skinner had dedicated to
Gene. Sometime in late 1919 or early 1920, he created a sketch for Gene. She must have
been pleased with it because a 32x60 canvas was created. On Sunday, March 14 1920,
Gene came with friends to Laguna Beach where Carl was living. They came to celebrate
the completion of the large painting on canvas that brought the poem “to life.” They had
a luncheon on the beach. Gene was planning her first book based in California and
collected many specimens of seaweed, shells and wild flowers to take with her.

Laguna Beach made an impression on Gene. She said, “Laguna is one of the most
beautiful places she has ever seen and expressed a hope that the land along the front will
be preserved for a park, not only for the present, but for the future generations.”

David Buchanan, with the Indiana State Museum, produced a black and white photograph
from the museum’s collection. It is of the fireplace and mantel in Gene’s Rome City
home. A little over half of the painting was showing but it was enough to establish that it
was C.A. Faille’s painting. This confirms that Gene owned the painting and it once hung
in her home.

The writer and poet Constance Lindsay Skinner won a literary award in 1913 for the
“Song of Cradle-Making” which was about an Indian mother on the British Columbian
coast as she weaves the cradle for the child that is coming. Constance was a native of
British Columbia. Gene and Constance both had books published by Doubleday and
Page. Gene admired her poetry and the two women became friends. In Gene’s book,
“Michael O’Halloran,” she quoted a poem called “Song of the Search” by Constance.
When Gene’s secretary, Lorene Miller married Frank Wallace, Constance wrote a
“Wedding Song” for the occasion. Gene read the poem at their wedding which took place
in her home at Wildflower Woods in 1915.

Carl was an artist who shared his knowledge of painting and wildlife with others. He
taught young women to paint at a time when art was considered a “man’s profession.”
Like Gene, he was a conservationist. Gene encouraged him to give wildlife talks. He
became well known for his lectures. One was titled “The Reasoning Powers of Wild
Animals” about saving wildlife.

The artist lived a full and interesting life of travel and artistry. He died in January 1956 in
Newport Rhode Island and was buried in Wisconsin. He lived most of his life between
California and the east coast. Carl was married Joanne Mutschmann who survived him.

The painting titled “Song of Cradle-Making” was sold sometime after Gene’s death in
1924. The meaning of the painting and the connection to Gene had been lost. When the
painting was last sold it was titled simply “Indian maiden on shore.” The story behind the
painting gives one pause to look closer and deeper. It would be nice if this painting one
day made its way back to Indiana.

Writer’s Note: The first article on C.A, Faille was found on 1 Mar 2014. Seven months of
research from NY to CA followed. Article completed 25 Sep 2014.

Wherein we learn why 1912 was a good year for an ape-man, dinosaurs, and Gene Stratton-Porter

4/12/2015

By Curt Burnette

If asked to think of the year 1912 and what might have been significant about it, some folks
might recall it was the year the Titanic sank. A few parents of Brownies and other Girl Scouts
might remember it was the year the Girl Scouts were founded. It was also a good year for
literature, especially popular literature, for this was the year when (fictionally) an orphaned
boy of British nobility was raised by apes and became one of the greatest and most popular
adventurers of all time, dinosaurs were discovered (fictionally) on a lost plateau in South
America, and Gene Stratton-Porter dominated (factually) the book world.

Everyone has heard of Tarzan of the Apes, and most of us have seen at least one of the many
movies. But did you know when he made his first appearance? In the October 1912 issue of an
American pulp magazine, Tarzan made his debut. The author Edgar Rice Burrows also began his John Carter of Mars series earlier that year in the same magazine. Tarzan became enormously popular around the world and still has a strong presence today, over 100 years later.

Another fictional story known around the world appeared in 1912 when Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) published his novel The Lost World. The familiar tale of
explorers in South America, who come across a mysterious, hidden, and almost inaccessible
mountain plateau where dinosaurs have survived over the eons, continues to thrill us today. It
has influenced such books as Jurassic Park and The Lost World by the modern writer Michael
Crichton, and the movies of the same names. But it was Sir Arthur who started it all. His book
also contained a version of ape-like (although prehistoric) men. In a later adventure, Tarzan
also traveled to a lost world of dinosaurs in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, but inside the earth
instead of on a remote plateau.

By the end of 1912, a number of books had been published about the sinking of the
Titanic, which had happened earlier in the year in April. Like Tarzan and the dinosaurs of Conan Doyle’s lost world, the sinking of this “unsinkable” ship continues to reverberate today with books and movies still engaging us with the famous tragedy.

In 1912 Gene Stratton-Porter made it to the top of the book world. Her novel, The
Harvester, was published in August of 1911, and had made its way up to number five on the
best-seller list by the end of that year. Sales continued strongly throughout the next year. By
the end of 1912, Gene’s tale of David Langston, the harvester of medicinal plants, had become
the number one fiction book sold in America. The story of the Harvester and his Dream Girl was Gene’s first Top Ten book, with five more to follow: Laddie, Michael O’Halloran, A Daughter of the Land, Her Father’s Daughter, and Keeper of the Bees.

American Bittern and the Limberlosst swamp

4/5/2015

American Bittern by Alexandra Forsythe

If you ever have any doubt about the importance of restoring the Limberlost Swamp and others like it, take a walk through the area, pause, close your eyes, and listen. Listen carefully to all that you hear. If you are quite still, you might hear something that sounds like a water pump. That is the sound of conservation success: the return of an endangered but amazing bird. That is the sound of an American Bittern.

Despite its size (23” – 33” inches in length with a wingspan of 36”), this member of the heron family can be quite difficult to see. It is a master of camouflage! With the American Bittern’s thick neck and bill, yellow eyes, and stripes of brown, tan and white, it blends perfectly in the tall reeds. American Bitterns are usually solitary birds and they move slowly and fluidly through the vegetation imitating the movement of the plants (watch a video here). Even when they are actively searching for food, they do so in low light and usually use a “stand and wait” approach to hunting.

When alarmed, the American Bittern will not fly away as other herons do. Instead, it will hold perfectly still with its beak straight up in the air in an attempt to become indistinguishable from the plants surrounding it. Professor Walter Barrows was impressed with the Bittern’s ability to blend so perfectly with the swaying cattails and described his observations in “Life History of Marsh Birds”: “As we stood admiring the bird and his sublime confidence in his invisibility, a light breeze ruffled the surface of the previously calm water and set the cattail flags rustling. Instantly the bittern began to sway gently from side to side with an undulating motion which was most pronounced in the neck but was participated in by the body and even the legs. So obvious was the motion that it was impossible to overlook it, yet when the breeze subsided and the flags became motionless the bird stood as rigid as before and left us wondering whether after all our eyes might not have deceived us.”

The American Bittern has a unique, gulping “oong-ka-choonk” call that has been described as sounding like a water pump. Nutall described it as “the interrupted bellowing of a bull, but hollower and louder, and is heard at a mile’s distance, as if issued from some formidable being that resided at the bottom of the waters.” In “Summer”, Henry David Thoreau joked that the Bittern was able to make that watery call by thrusting its bill deep into the ground until it found water: “I went to the place, but could see no water, which makes me doubt if water is necessary to it in making the sound. Perhaps it thrusts its bill so deep as to reach water where it is dry on the surface. It does not sound loud near at hand, and it is remarkable that it should be heard so far. Perhaps it is pitched on a favorable key.” In fact, a specialized esophagus allows the American Bittern to make that distinctive call.

It is believed that American Bitterns migrate individually or in small groups of two or three at night. They overwinter in southern coastal areas and Central America, returning to Indiana in the spring.

Sadly, the American Bittern is endangered in Indiana due to habitat loss. Studies have found that American Bitterns require at least 6 acres of wetlands in which to nest, but such wetlands are now difficult to find in Indiana. Limberlost is a rare jewel! Indiana is fourth in the nation in percentage of wetlands lost: 87% since the 1780’s. The vast majority of the loss has been due to drainage for agriculture. Fortunately, there are programs in place to restore wetlands. For example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the USDA (NRCS) have programs that will reimburse landowners up to 100% of the expenses incurred for the restoration of wetlands, and the Indiana Heritage Trust has acquired thousands of acres through the environmental license plate program. There are also conservation organizations like ACRES Land Trust that preserve important habitats. Of course, there are ongoing conservation efforts at Limberlost that could use your support, as well. With such programs and organizations in place, the American Bittern may one day become more common in Indiana and be removed from our state’s “State Endangered” list.

Wherein the destinies of the many siblings of Gene Stratton-Porter are briefly described

Gene Stratton-Porter’s Painter Man: C.A. Faille

Wherein we learn why 1912 was a good year for an ape-man, dinosaurs, and Gene Stratton-Porter

American Bittern and the Limberlosst swamp

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