Visiting Indiana

The wedding was over, Tony and Leiya were headed for their mini-moon and now was the time to put into action the second part of our trip.

Since we were in Michigan...  well, how about a trip to a little town of Columbia City, Indiana?  And why would we bother going to Indiana?  My Japanese grandparents had settled in Columbia City and my mother had lived there until she went to college.  I had wonderful memories of visiting Indiana every summer and staying at my grandparents' country home!  Tetsu was completely gung-ho about the idea.

"We need to find your grandparents' grave and tell them about their great-granddaughter's wedding."

That is so much a Japanese way of thinking...  Visiting graves, making important announcements.

I approached Marcy and Keion about the idea and Marcy at least was thrilled at the prospect of a family trip to see her children's (if not hers) roots.  And so the plans were made.

One small problem.  We had no idea where anything was.  There are no relatives, there were no addresses or names or whatever left for me to explore.  The only possible lead was a lady who had made contact with me about 10 years ago when she was doing research for the community historical society about my grandparents (she found me through my blog!)  In recent years we'd lost contact but Leiya somehow tracked the lady down again through Facebook for me.

At any rate, the day after the wedding we said good-bye to Takumi and Julieta who were going off on their own to explore Detroit and with my brother's family in a large rented van and Tetsu and me in Leiya's borrowed car, we drove three and a half hours to Indiana. 

We had made reservations at an Airbnb near a lake and settled in to make plans about looking for roots.

Beautiful lake!

And a nice little cottage to enjoy but it rained a lot during our two days at the lake and it was cold!  I borrowed my brother's jacket.

Where to start?  How about Google Maps.  I zoomed in on Columbia City.  What did I remember?  My grandparents had a summer home next to a golf course.  I zoomed in on a few golf courses.  Hmm...  There was also a lake just below the summer house.  And a pond...  And a long road through a forest that ended in a circular driveway.  Zooming in and out of Google Maps I found a golf course with a nearby building that looked like it had familiar surroundings.

"Keion.  Do you remember the name of the golf course next to Jiichan's (grandfather's) farm?"

He didn't.  But together we looked at Google Maps and both of us spotted a familiar house. That must be it!  Now...  How to go about contacting the owners about visiting the grounds?  I would tackle that problem the next day.  For now, the family was hungry and we wanted to go find a supermarket.  We all piled in the van and went looking for downtown.

A few miles down the road I said,

"Wait a minute.  This looks familiar.  Is there a golf course nearby?"

And there was!  We made a U-turn and found a road leading into a forest.  Is this the place?

"This is it!  This is the road that leads to the farm!"

We drove a few minutes through the forest that broke into a clearing and the farmhouse that my brother and I remembered...  We'd found our childhood summer home!  And then we chickened out.

"We can't just barge in.  We're trespassing.  We'd better try to make contact by phone."

That night I contacted the historical society lady and made arrangements to have lunch with her the next day.  She also gave me directions on how to find my grandparents' gravestone at the cemetery and the name of the farmhouse owners.  No telephone number though.

The next morning we headed to the Columbia City cemetery and went wandering in all directions looking for the gravestone.  And found it!

My grandparents had always loved flowers.  My grandfather had called himself the church's self-appointed flower arranger because he brought in flowers from his garden every week when they were in season.

The grave looks pretty unkempt and I guess so because for over 50 years no one has every really visited it!  Leiya did make a short trip when she was in high school (from Ohio) but my mother never returned after her father's funeral and this was the first visit for me.  Well, granddaughter (me) and great-granddaughter (Kiana) got there!

After the cemetery visit we tried the county courthouse trying to get a phone number for the country house owners (no luck), and we located the small town house where my mother had grown up (now abandoned).  

And then it was time for lunch with Pat, the former historical society acquaintance and she had presents for me!!!

Pictures of my grandparents!  They are the center two people.  I don't know who they were with...

 My mother, probably before she got married.

Pat also gave me bottles that had been manufactured by my grandfather's soy sauce factory that she'd gotten at a town auction!  Soy sauce still in this one!

These two bottles both have "Oriental Show You" embossed on the bottles and the larger one was the original bottle that had been cork topped.  Such treasures for my family!!!

So many things that I had wanted to do in Indiana crossed off my list.  As for the farm house, Pat suggested going back to the golf course and asking for a telephone number there as the farm house owners had previously owned the golf course too... 

And so that's where we headed next...