Submitter’s note: This is the second and final part of “Brown County Memories,” in the words of Leatha Elizabeth Seitz-Walker and published in “Brown County Remembers.”
The Taggart General Store, I remember, was on the southwest corner of Main and Van Buren opposite the Star Store. The store sold everything including clothes. The Taggart store was later owned by Martin Hopper who married Mr. Taggart’s daughter. The store became Miller Drug Store and is now the HobNob.
In those early days, Richard “Dick” Coffey was the village undertaker. William “Bill” Pittman ran the hotel on the southeast corner of Main and Van Buren, which was converted into the first Nashville House before it burned. Iv King was the hotel operator before Bill Pittman. Iv King had a livery stable just south of the hotel on Van Buren.
In the 1920s, tourists to Nashville were inclined to make fun of the native Brown County people. They called them “hillbillies” and they often tried to take advantage of the townspeople. I am glad to say this has changed considerably.
In 1921, one passenger train a day came from Indianapolis and went to Bloomington from the Helmsburg station. When there was deep mud, it took four horses to pull the hack from the Helmsburg station to Nashville.
I married Lawrence Leslie Walker in 1921 and moved to Nashville. Leslie had bought the Rustic Parlor, one of the town restaurants in Nashville. It stood just east of the Pittman hotel on East Main Street. The tables were covered with white oilcloth, and the table legs still had bark on them. I helped Leslie run the place. We served sandwiches, soup, ice cream and pie.
Some of the artists displayed their paintings on restaurant walls in order to sell them.
I taught school in Brown County for 20 years, first in my old school, Clark, then at North Salem and Junction. My last teaching was in the Nashville grade school where I taught for 11 years.
My husband, Leslie, after selling the restaurant, joined the state highway department. He was with the department for 26 years. His starting pay was 40 cents an hour! Leslie engineered and supervised the construction of State Road 135 from Nashville to Bean Blossom in 1933 and 1934. There was no contractor; my husband had the whole responsibility. I always thought of those five miles as a memorial to Leslie.
Leslie was still employed by the highway commission when he retired in 1963.
When we were young and first lived in Nashville, we used to ride horseback along the old dirt road to Bean Blossom. At that time, Jefferson Street was the road that went north out of Nashville. It was more of a trail than a road. Grass grew between the clay ruts and there was ankle-deep mud in wet weather. A car could, with great difficulty, get up the hill, out the ridge and through the covered bridge to Bean Blossom.
I have lived in my present home for 60 years, near the corner of Johnson and West Main streets. The logs in the house are well over a hundred years old. John McGee, who was a Nashville banker, added on the original house, and other families lived in it before we bought the house and modernized it. The “Hereshome” sign was given to us by my mother-in-law, Mrs. (Marietta Slevins Walker) Ralston Scott Moser.
Just a little family history about the family of Charles Henry Seitz, father of Leatha Elizabeth Seitz Walker: Charlie Seitz, as he was known, was born Jan 11, 1870, the 10th child of Henry Bernhardt Seitz and Catherine Burkhart Seitz. Henry was born Aug. 20, 1827, in Bavaria, Germany, and came to America by way of New York, where he married Catherine Burkhart, also from Bavaria, Germany, then on to Cincinnati, Ohio, and on to Columbus, Indiana, before settling five miles east of Nashville, Brown County, Indiana, about 1859.
In 1898, Charles married Miss Nettie Viola Stull, and in 1900, he built the spacious farmhouse five miles east of Nashville on State Road 46, where he died on June 6, 1962. The Seitz farmhouse is now a bed and breakfast.
Submitted by Pauline Hoover, Brown County Historical Society
