Loucille Craig Cole, My Very First Best Friend

Growing Up with a Preacher Man

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

Loucille Craig Cole, My Very First Best Friend (1904-2000)
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

I don't know how old I was when I became aware of Loucille Cole, our nearest neighbor. She, of course, attended my dad's church, as she lived as close to it as we did. Click on photos to enlarge

Top Arrow: Loucille, Middle Arrow, Church
Bottom Arrow, Us
Courtesy of Google Maps
Proper attribution given

It may have been that my parents naturally chose her to be my sitter, whenever they wanted or needed to go out somewhere. Whatever the reason, I consider her to be my very first truly best friend.

An unexpected find from Dad's old slides!
Look at those cars in the parking lot
Loucille Cole
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

Her house has since been torn down, but I remember it vividly. Below is a crude drawing of her floor plan, but you get the idea. She had 3 rooms in her home plus a very small bathroom. 

It was in the living room where we would watch TV together. She's the one who introduced me to The Doris Day Show and told me that "Que Sera, Sera" had been one of Day's biggest hits. We watched The Brady Bunch together. That's the only two shows I can remember watching with her.

I remember that she always made her bed. And I believe she had that metal dining table that so many households had in the 1960s. Her kitchen countertop against the wall, where you could look out the window, scrolled around at the front door, turning into three small shelves. I only remember two things on those shelves. One was a small, doll-sized bathtub that I had given her, which was full of rocks I thought were pretty. I had given them to her as a gift. The other was a pair of scissors. She always said, "Those were Joe's." Joe was her late husband.

Loucille is on the right
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

Loucille Cole was born Loucille Craig 08 Mar 1904 in Quebec, Tennessee. That's more than I ever knew about her before. I don't know why she and Joe came to Monticello. Her husband was Joseph Lewis Cole, and he was born in 1882 in Tennessee. They were married in 1922. Joe was 40. Loucille was 18. As far as I know, they had no children. Joe was a laborer.

She would talk about Joe, not so much of him but of his things. Like the scissors were Joe's, or that she went to visit Joe's stone in Chalmers, Indiana. I was a child and that she was a widow had no bearing on anything I could relate with. She seemed happy; that's all that mattered.

She had four trees in her yard. She had a glorious weeping willow tree. And then she had three fruit trees: cherry, apple, and pear. She would let me pick as much fruit as I wanted, and I would take it home, and pretend to serve it in my pretend kitchen that was in my playroom in our walk-out basement. You would think that my favorite fruits are cherries, pears, and apples. Alas, they are not.

On one side of the parsonage where we lived, we had a gully where wild pokeweed grew. This might be one of the reasons I absolutely love pokeweed and upset my first husband when I planted some in our yard. I don't really know if this is Loucille's doing or not, but she would harvest our pokeweed and cook it up. This fascinated me as a child, but as an adult, I am not at all surprised that she would have been able to make a tasty treat from a so-called weed growing wild in our yard.

Pokeweed
Courtesy Pixabay

Loucille was patient, loving, kind, and compassionate, everything I Cor. 13 tells us to be. I don't remember her ever being upset with me, but she did lose patience with me once that I remember. Here's the story:

When I was in middle school - or Jr. High as it was called then in Monticello - we were required to take Physical Education (PE). I hated everything that had anything to do with PE. Firstly, we had to dress out in little blue one-piece outfits. I was overweight by this time, had a terrible opinion of myself and my body, and this little blue outfit did nothing to help my self-esteem. The worst part, though, was at the end. All of us girls had to strip down to nothing, parade in front of the PE teacher and her assistant to get to the shower, where we were all supposed to wash ourselves, parade back to the dressing area, still naked, wrapped in a towel, and get dressed in an area that felt no bigger than one square foot. It was ridiculous.

I asked about it once, because I felt it was wrong. I was told, to my consternation, that this was perfectly normal behavior between girls and women. Take that in for a second...

And so, I tried an experiment, and while Loucille was in the bathroom, I barged in. She very politely and kindly asked me to give her privacy. Such were the contradictions of my childhood. Needless to say, I haven't barged in on anyone else ever since.

Who doesn't love fried chicken? And Loucille made the best. I remember one time, sharing a meal with her in her kitchen - what a gift - I asked her if I could use my hands to eat. I'm not sure if it was chicken or if it were something else, but I remember her answer loudly and clearly, and still use the phrase to this day. She replied, "There's nobody here but us chickens." <3

Loucille didn't drive, but she worked at Bryan's Manufacturing, and some kind soul picked her up and brought her home every day after her shift. Bryan's Manufacturing was a big employer in Monticello, and I have no idea what was made there. She had retired by the time we left in 1977, but I'll never shake off the guilt of all those we left behind to search for that shiny star we thought we'd find in Evansville. Not that I didn't find shiny stars, because I did, but we left so abruptly. I don't even remember saying good-bye to her.

One last memory of Loucille is that when she came to see us, which was often, she would open our back screen door ever so slightly and say "Yoo-hoo!" We practically lived in our walk-out basement, and so she knew which door to open and say "Yoo-hoo!"

Loucille later moved to Logansport, I believe, to a niece's home. But I'm not sure. I'm just trying to remember what my parents told me years ago. Loucille died in 2000 at the age of 96.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

Louisa Bowles, the Belle of French Lick, Indiana

Knights of the Golden Circle Series

Louisa Bowles, aka Eliza Carlin (1814- aft 1860)

___________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

Jonathan Lindley and his caravan were not the only people coming into Orange County, Indiana in the early 1800s. Another early settler of Paoli was William Augustus Bowles. He is not to be confused with his famous uncle of the same name, although they had much in common. They were both born in Maryland of privilege, and they both sought to form their own states that would be out of the control of the United States government or any other government.

In his lifetime, the younger Bowles would corruptly receive the rank of Colonel in the Mexican American war, in command of the Second Indiana Volunteer Regiment. Later, he would achieve the title of Major General in the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC).

Bowles Family, Maryland Branch

__________

To understand the man Bowles, one must know of the family structure into which he was born. Bowles is a part of the Maryland branch.

William Bowles’ grandfather, Thomas Bowles, emigrated from England to the United States in 1758 and settled in Frederick County, Maryland.1 Thomas was well educated and apparently wealthy or possessed the means to acquire wealth, as he purchased a large plantation in Maryland.2 Thomas Bowles was father to at least a dozen children, three of whom were notable. 

His eldest, William Augustus, was a loyalist to the crown during the Revolutionary War. Afterward, he collaborated with the Native Americans trying to form his own state that would have its own government. He aspired to be the state’s Director General. In reality, Bowles was nothing but a freeloader and a pirate: looting ships, stealing cargo, and torturing crew members.3 After forming a Seminole army to declare war on Spain in 1800, he was betrayed, arrested, and imprisoned. He died from starvation in 1805 at Castillo Morro in Cuba.4

Another son of Thomas was Evan Bowles. Evan became a surveyor for the government. He surveyed Louisiana, eventually purchased land there, and built a large sugar cane plantation. By the 1830 census, he owned 31 slaves.5 

And finally, Thomas’s son Isaac would become the father of William Augustus Bowles, the founder of French Lick, Indiana, and the subject of this work. It was this William Augustus Bowles who became the Major General in the Knights of the Golden Circle.

Introducing: William A. Bowles

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William Augustus Bowles, the nephew, was born in 1799 in Frederick County, Maryland, the eldest son of Isaac Bowles and Mary Bagford. It is likely he was named for Isaac’s brother William Augustus, who in 1799 was at the height of his legendary popularity. When his parents moved west to Indiana, Bowles came with them and settled in Fredericksburg, Washington County, Indiana. The Bowles family were Tories, loyal to the crown before and during the Revolutionary War. After the war was won by the Americans, many Tories felt safer in the newer western territories.6

We know little of Bowles in Fredericksburg except that he was a physician by this time, and he had two daughters with his first wife Louisiana Ferguson. In 1820, he was indicted for grave robbing.7 On the surface this might seem grotesque. For a doctor, however, this was one of the only ways to secure a corpse for study. In 1838, Louisiana petitioned the court for a divorce, which was granted.8 

Bowles is an enigma, a true jack-of-all-trades and perhaps master of none. He dabbled in the sale of liquor, was a medical doctor, a druggist, a politician, and even a pastor at one point. He was also in the hospitality business, having built the first French Lick, Indiana, hotel. One of his greatest accomplishments, however, may have been his marriage to his mysterious second wife. She came to Paoli as Eliza Carlin. Her real name, however, was Louisa Bowles, from Louisiana, and she was William Bowles’ first cousin.

It is interesting to note that William Bowles came from Frederick County, Maryland to Fredericksburg, Indiana. Also, his first wife’s name was Louisiana, and his second wife was born in Louisiana.

Introducing: Louisa Bowles (aka Eliza Carlin)

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 Franklin, Louisiana, initially established as Carlin Settlement, was named after Benjamin Franklin and located in St. Mary Parish. It became the parish seat in 1811. It was here in 1814 that Louisa Bowles was born into the elite and powerful sugarcane planter class.

Louisa’s father was Evan Bowles, the Anglo-American surveyor turned sugarcane planter and uncle of William Augustus Bowles, of Paoli, Indiana. Louisa’s mother was an American born Frenchwoman named Dorothea Carlin. Dorothea’s father was Joseph Carlin, a French-born soldier, for whom the Carlin Settlement was named.

The French were there first, but the Anglo-Americans began to arrive shortly after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Although not particularly accepting of each other, they soon realized that, politically, their two cultures must meld in order for their political power to be retained. Therefore, the two cultures began to intermarry and intermingle.9 Joining together, the Anglo-Americans and French Creoles found that they could form significant unions to make their plantations large and powerful. An example is the intermarrying of the Duffel and Landry families. By their intermarrying, they together formed a large sugar conglomerate in Ascension Parish.10 

Sugar cane was a tricky crop and cultivating it was a backbreaking job relegated to slaves. They prepared the ground each year for planting. After planting, because weeds grew quickly, the slaves weeded continually. Rats, who also loved sugar cane, had to be killed. After harvest, the cane was processed quickly, for it soon became useless. Slaves worked around the clock in 12-hour shifts. It was hot, dangerous work.11

When Louisa’s father, Evan Bowles, died in 1831, he left his plantation to his wife, Louisa’s mother, Dorothea, and to his only son, Thomas. His death also created a family emergency. Louisa needed a husband. Alexander Fields appeared seemingly out of nowhere, arriving in Franklin, Louisiana, from Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Louisa and Alexander were married.

In the 1840 census, Alexander is with Louisa and their two daughters. They had no slaves at the time of this census. Louisa’s brother, Thomas, who had no wife or children, was likely with his sister Eleanor, and her husband Simon Mathison as well as Dorothea. They had 49 slaves.

Thomas then died in 1841. He left his portion of the plantation to the sister, Eleanor, with whom he lived. The greater portion of the plantation, however, belonged to Dorothea, who was “interdicted,” meaning she was somehow impaired and unable to make legal decisions. Thomas, for some reason, left two different wills. One of the wills appointed his brother-in-law, Simon, as executor with Eleanor the sole heir. The other appointed his sister both sole heir and executrix. Alexander Fields jumped on this indiscretion in an attempt to make himself the inheritor of Thomas’ fortune. After a legal battle that left the judges incredulous, Alexander lost. In the final judgement, “…the assumption that the representative of the deceased partner can, at his pleasure, take the ownership and possession of the partnership property from the survivor, is unsustained by reason or authority.”12 At one point, Alexander even tried to go through Louisa to obtain the property. The outcome was the same: “He is there still, and cannot, by hanging to the skirts of the plaintiff, get into this court and assert his rights…” 13 In the end, the property was sold.

This was not the end of Alexander Fields and his seemingly unhappy marriage to Louisa Bowles, however. By 1843, less than two years after her brother, Thomas’ death, Louisa was married to William August Bowles in Paoli, Indiana, under the name of Eliza Carlin. On the plantation, Louisa would have had no say whatsoever in her future. With her father and only brother now deceased, her fate was in the hands of her uncles and husband. It may be that her uncle Honoré Carlin, her mother’s brother, paid a dowry to the only unmarried relative that would be willing to marry her and take her away. Indeed, Paoli, Indiana, was well over 900 miles from Franklin, Louisiana. At any rate, Louisa Bowles, now Eliza Carlin, would live out her life with William Augustus Bowles, until she divorced him right before her death.

Because sugar was in high demand, good sugarcane planters in Louisiana became quite wealthy. One such planter was Louisa Bowles’ first husband, Alexander Fields. By 1850, after he had divorced Louise, he had 27 slaves, was listed on the census as a planter, and had an overseer. He also owned $20,000 in real estate. He was married to his second wife now, with whom he lived, along with his two daughters from Louisa. Louisa’s mother, Dorothea was also in the household with Alexander. On the 1850 census, she was marked as “insane,” a blanket term used to describe many different sorts of maladies. It is quite possible that Honoré also cut some deal with Alexander for the care of his sister, Dorothea, and for the exile of his niece to Paoli.

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1. Kroger, Carol. “Thomas Bowles - Children Moved from VA to OH, IN, IL.” Genealogy.com,

2002, www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/bowles/1803/.  Accessed 16 Oct 2020.

2. Farquhar, Thomas M. The History of the Bowles Family. Philadelphia, 1907, p. 142. Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/historyofbowlesf00farq/ Accessed 17 Oct 2020

3. Pickett, Albert James. History of Alabama. Sheffield Alabama: R.C. Randolph, 1896, p. 412. Google
eBook.

4. Farquhar, p. 172.

5. LaPorte, Tom. “Evan Bowles of St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana.” Evan Bowles of St. Mary’s Parish, Louisiana, 2018, www.bowlesfamilyhistory.ca/evan_bowles_of_st__marys_parish_louisiana.htm.

6. Morgan, Robert. Boone: A Biography. Algonquin Books: 2008, p. 283. Kindle download.

7. Goodspeed Brothers. History of Lawrence, Orange, and Washington Counties, Indiana: Higginson Book Company, 1884, p. 740. Google eBook.

8. Ibid, p. 748.

9. Russell, Sarah. “Intermarriage and Intermingling: Constructing the Planter Class in Louisiana's Sugar Parishes, 1803-1850.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 46, no. 4, 2005, p. 415. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4234137. Accessed 23 Oct. 2020.

10. Ibid, p. 419.

11. “Enslaved People's Work on Sugar Plantations.” The Saint Lauretia Project, University of Glasgow, runaways.gla.ac.uk/minecraft/index.php/slaves-work-on-sugar-plantations/. Accessed 26 Oct 2020.

12. Robinson, Merritt. Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Louisiana. E. Johns & Co., 1843, -p. 42. Google eBook.

13. Ibid., p. 42.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

My First Piano Teacher, Betty Jane McMillan Kovatch (1922-2008)

Growing Up with a Preacher Man 

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

My First Piano Teacher, Betty Jane McMillan Kovatch (1922-2008)
___________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

My piano teacher growing up was Betty Kovatch. This woman had a profound influence on me, and it wasn't always good. But... it wasn't always bad, either.

My mother enrolled me in piano lessons when I was 5 years old. I don't know why, and I don't know how I came to be taught by Betty Kovatch. My mother always felt that signing me up for lessons was one of her greatest accomplishments. For me, the lessons have been both a blessing and a curse. I have been a professional musician for most of my adult life. Sometimes I wish instead, though, that I had didn't know how to play the piano. I love telling stories, history, and writing more than anything. I have no regrets in the end.

I first met Betty Kovatch in or around 1966. She lived at 301 Bluff Street in my childhood hometown of Monticello, Indiana. I still remember what the entirety of her house looked like. A huge rectangular living room with the "idiot box," as she called it, in one corner and a spinet piano in the opposite corner. In a cabinet, she kept her John Thompson method books, and my mother bought from her "Teaching Little Fingers to Play." I remember coming home from that first lesson and asking what my assignment was. Well, there was no assignment, and I was so disappointed. Click on photos to enlarge

301 Bluff Street
Courtesy Google Maps
proper attribution given

Mrs. Kovatch, as I will refer to her in this story, was a chain smoker and had 2 Siamese cats who would hide whenever I was there, except for the one time I spent the night. She would smoke half a cigarette between lessons, always back in her kitchen. And sometimes she would bring back the most amazing looking coffee drinks with her to sip on while she taught. I was always so jealous that she had a drink, and I didn't.

A couch partitioned off the teaching area of her home, and students would walk in at their appointed time without knocking. I was always a little early - story of my life - and so I would wait on that same couch. Socially, I was awkward, and one time, I heard Mrs. Kovatch laughing with another student, and so I laughed as well, because I thought I was just being part of the group. Mrs. Kovatch didn't say anything to me at that time, but she called my mother later to tell her I had laughed at a student. I got into so much trouble and the next week, I was forced to apologize to Mrs. Kovatch. It was really hard for me to do that, and it was so embarrassing. No one told me what I had done wrong or even what I was apologizing for. Besides, shouldn't the apology have been given to the other girl I supposedly laughed at? I would have never done this to any of my piano students. It's hard enough being a child as it is.

 I owe the musician I am today to Dr. Douglas Reed, who was my organ professor while studying at the University of Evansville. When I first reached Ball State University in 1979 - with a full scholarship - I didn't even know what a chord was. I didn't even know fully what staccato meant! My students learn about intervals in their very first book; indeed, it is how I teach children to read music. Staccato/legato is one of the first technics they learn, and granted, I might not tell them that staccato means half the value of the note, I will certainly let them know later when they become more advanced. And the same with chords. And it's not because I'm a great teacher - which I would like to think that after over 40 years, I am pretty good at teaching - it's the method books that I use. It's in the method books where all these things are introduced. The method books guide the teacher to teach correctly and in order. The John Thompson series of method books, unfortunately, were not great. They did not guide the student or the teacher through anything. It was merely one song after the other and hopefully you were able to play it by the next lesson. More often than not, I couldn't, and it was, Mrs. Kovatch said, because I didn't practice enough. She was correct.

When I finally reached the University of Evansville, I remember vividly my first lesson with Dr. Douglas Reed.  In that first lesson, I badly bungled a run. And I thought, "Oh no, here we go. He's going to accuse me of not practicing when really I had practiced quite a bit to prepare for that lesson. But after I finished playing, he looked at me thoughtfully and said, "Let's look at the fingering on that run." Mind blown.

One more comparison between my two most important teachers - I still to this day, at the age of 60, cannot bring myself to call Douglas Reed "Doug." He will always be "Dr. Reed" to me, even though my colleagues call him "Doug." Mrs. Kovatch, however, in my adult years, I called her "Betty." 

Soon after I started lessons, I participated in my first recital. It was held at the Presbyterian church in Monticello, and I was the youngest student to perform. I forgot what piece I played  because I at first had a different piece. Always anxious about things at hand, I practiced a ridiculous amount of time and learned my recital piece in one week. And so, Mrs. Kovatch gave me another, more difficult piece to learn. I was asked to curtsy after playing my piece, and I didn't know how, and that laughter that people do when a child is doing something cute or, more likely, awkward, I felt like everyone was laughing at me. I felt stupid.

One thing that Mrs. Kovatch was great at was arranging field trips and preparing students for contest. I think we did two contests per year, and they were a lot of fun, actually. I was popular with the other piano students, even though at school, I was unpopular and bullied. She would pair me with older girls to play duets for contest and for recitals, and those older girls would talk to me at school. Sometimes they would even invite me over for sleepovers under the guise of "practicing our duet together." What I mean by them talking to me at school - I had a very good friend that went to my dad's church, who was a little older than I. Although I considered her my best friend, because we did all the church things together, she wouldn't talk to me at school.

The contests were different. Many times, we would all ride together or in a caravan to wherever the contest was. And they were at really cool places, like one was at Northwestern University. I didn't understand at that time what a big deal that really was. I always performed well in the contests. But what was more fun than anything was the fellowship with the other students.

I do remember once all of us eating together in a restaurant and for some reason, I ordered a coffee. I don't understand this, because I didn't become a coffee drinker until much later in my life. Mrs. Kovatch loudly proclaimed that I was too young for coffee and again - stupid me. But one of the girls took me aside later and said, "You should've been able to have coffee."

We lived near Purdue University, and we would attend musicals and plays there. Or we would travel to Valparaiso for concerts. My piano teacher was very well connected and knew loads of people, and she was super outgoing. We were always treated with great care everywhere we went with her.

Mrs. Kovatch loved everything Hispanic and Native American. She claimed to speak fluent Spanish. She adored priests and monks and said that her delicious bread recipe was given to her by a monk at St. Meinrad. I asked her several times for the recipe, but she wouldn't give it to me. Her kitchen cabinets were overflowing with fiestaware, and her jewelry, for the most part, was Native American.

Fiestaware
Courtesy Pixabay

Mrs. Kovatch was always looking to find money. I'm not sure why, because she had a really good base of students, and she most likely worked at a church somewhere. She loved fancy clothes, though, so maybe that is part of it. And she loved to travel. She had a yard sale annually. She would collect items all year long and have a huge sale. In later years, I took part in these sales with her. It was a nice way of making a little extra cash, and I enjoyed having Mrs. Kovatch as my friend.

She continually berated her husband, however, so much so that I was afraid of him. He was always nice to me whenever I was there, but I still really worried about being in his presence. It turned out - studying for this blog - that her husband had been a famous professional football player for the Washington Redskins and Green Bay Packers. In Monticello, he worked for the RCA factory. It turns out, he was a good guy!

John Kovatch

She also continually berated her son. I think it might be that he turned on her, but I'm not sure. For some reason, Mrs. Kovatch latched onto my mother, cornering her when she would pick me up for lesson or by calling her on the phone. So, I heard a lot more gossip from her than maybe other students. It was the decade of the 1960s, though. She stated that her son had become a sun worshipper in Seattle. I was unsuccessful in finding much out about Paul for this blog.

The musical disconnect, I believe, is that I wasn't interested - at that time - in classical piano. I wanted to play the top hits, and I loved Karen Carpenter, because she had a low voice like mine, and I could sing her songs while I played. I wanted to play Disney songs. I wanted to play Henry Mancini, Elton John, and Neil Diamond. She wouldn't have any of it, insisting that only the classics were worthy of being played. Sometimes I look at our current modern society and think of all the musicians working behind the scenes in popular music. That could have been me. Instead, everyone pushed me to go the classical route. It's all fine, though. In the end, my life is good, fun, and happy. And as my friend Lynn said, when addressing a piano teacher's group that I'm in, she congratulated us for picking such a noble profession and lifted us up by acknowledging the many lives we have touched as teachers. That's the best legacy anyone could hope for.

Mrs. Kovatch visited us one time in my current hometown of Evansville, Indiana. She stayed at The Executive Inn, and Mom and I went to her hotel room to visit her. I was working full-time at Schuttler Music as a teacher by then, and I asked her what she thought of the Bastian method book series. Mrs. Kovatch treated me like a child and refused to talk with me about teaching piano. Unfortunately, her behavior toward me that night made me upset, and I only had one more interaction with her after that.

In her later years, Mrs. Kovatch and her husband parted ways. She went to Arizona. I don't know if he stayed in Monticello or not. The last time I talked with her was right before she died. She called on the phone and asked me if I would buy her stamp collection for $500. I told her that I wasn't interested, and it hurt both our feelings badly. Mine, because I hated to see her beg, but money was tight for me at that time, now having a child of my own. Hers, because I wouldn't give in and send her money.

Mrs. Kovatch had big shoes to fill, though. Not only does her husband have a famous rating on Find-A-Grave, her father, Vernon McMillan also has one. Mr. McMillan is famous for having a sporting goods store in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he designed the first football helmet.

Betty died 11 Mar 2008 in Tucson, Arizona. She is buried in Lafayette, Indiana.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC