Or so said Thomas Wolf, the novelist. But you can visit with the perspective of years and see what makes small towns in the Midwest a special place in many people’s lives
I just returned from my 62nd high school reunion in Rensselaer, IN. A journey of nostalgia but also discovery and learning. While I only lived there for five years, from middle school through the first 21/2 years of high school, they were formative in ways one can only see later.
At the moment two Vice Presidential candidates talk about their small-town roots. One does so with joyful remembrances of people knowing and looking after each other. An experience of community that orients one to what matters in life. The second is a somewhat darker story of the problems and poverty in rural America.
My return visit was filled with multiple conversations with people continuing to make this farming town of around 5,000 a place for understanding how community matters and its role in instilling the special American spirit of enterprise and duty.
I will share events such as the Friday Night Lights Senior recognition during half time at the Bomber’s football game vs. West Lafayette; the two visits Jesse Owens made to Rensselaer ; the grave of the first woman ordained in any part of the Methodist church in 1866; and Brigadier General Millroy who criticized the Union’s West Point Generals at the battle of Bull Run apparently in the presence of the President and the Secretary of War, Stanton.
The Worldly Education of Small-Town Life
Rich Kupke is not a name that readily comes to mind unless one recalls he was one of over 100 American hostages held for 444 days in Iran. He came back home to a hero’s welcome in Indiana. After retiring from the State Department he settled in Rensselaer where he had grown up and graduated from high school.
His return to Rensselaer is explained in this article about his post hostage life: Former Iranian Hostage Relishes Quieter Life Today
Even after his Iranian captors finally released the hostages in early 1981, Kupke continued working overseas in Thailand, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Mexico. “I was one of the first who went back overseas. The type of people I worked with, being an ex-hostage wasn’t a big topic that came up all the time,” he said. “It helped not to make it bigger than it was. I always disagreed with the psychiatrist who talked about post-traumatic stress happening five to 10 years later. I told him he was planting that in people’s minds. He got mad at me for disagreeing with him.”
If there is one lingering effect for Kupke, it’s in the way he’s often presented to new acquaintances in Rensselaer. “I’m often introduced as, ‘The former hostage in Iran.’ But most people go out of their way not to have me rehash the whole story. That’s a nice part of being in a small town.”
Divorced in 1991, Kupke has been a single father ever since to his two sons. The three of them lived together in Jamaica and Mexico, but when the boys neared high-school age, their father figured there was only one place to continue their worldly education. “I was born here and went to high school here, and I thought it would be an excellent place for my boys to go to school. Back home in Indiana,” he said.
In addition to watching over 15-year-old James and 14-year-old Bill, Kupke keeps busy as a volunteer driver for Meals on Wheels. He also works part-time six days a week at the Jasper County Animal Shelter while waiting to hear about the possibility of returning to a stockbroker position. The only connection to his State Department days is the book he started writing a few months ago — a fictionalized account of a foreign service officer who faces one dramatic situation after another while traveling from country to country, based on his own experiences.
“Rensselaer is just an outstanding place to live. I couldn’t have made a better decision,” he said. “My life is a little slower these days. I don’t need to rush. I’m taking time to smell the daisies. Or is it the roses?”
Life and Truth in It
Maybe quieter in some respects but life is no less purposeful. Rensselaer epitomizes being in a community. For it is in living with others that we find meaning and self-worth.
Thomas Wolf wrote: Telling the truth is a pretty hard thing. And in a young man’s first attempt, with the distortions of his vanity, egotism, hot passion, and lacerated pride, it is almost impossible. “Home to Our Mountains” was marred by all these faults and imperfections…[Webber] did know that it was not altogether a true book. Still, there was truth in it.
I will share some stories of individuals shaped by this small town experience. One is about the Rensselaer High School Senior in 1937 who set the school record for the 100 yard dash, which still stands at 10.2 seconds. He met with Jesse Owens in 1937. His grandson attended a Hi-Y banquet in 1959 at the First Methodist Church where Owens was the featured speaker, 22 years later. Or the obituary of the last surviving Rensselaer soldier from the civil war who volunteered at 14 in 1861 and died in 1945-a sense of duty that carries on still today.