People of the Dunes (Individuals & Families)

Ogden Dunes Participants in the Great Pageant   In the October 5, 1940 issue of the Ogden Dunes Sandpiper, a periodic community newsletter, published by Ogden Dunes Realty, a short article appeared, We plan someday to retell the story of the Great Pageant of the Dunes which was presented at Waverly Beach on June 3, 1917.   In the meantime we think it worth mentioning that three of our Ogdenites were among the seven hundred plus persons taking part.  Mrs. Ethel Durfee, then of Chicago, was secretary of the Dunes Pageant Association which had general control [...]

Maurice P. Avery: Memoirs Stories of Ogden Dunes    (June 2014) Published in “The Hour Glass” Newsletter, August 2014   As I recently turned 104, I thought that this might good time to reminisce about my 44 years of living in Ogden Dunes.   My first exposure to Ogden Dunes was in the fall of 1925 when I was a junior in high school.  Our Sunday school class of City Methodist Church in Gary had a hotdog cookout at what I later came to know as Kratz’s beach.  Seven of us were passengers in a Grant [...]

Dorothy Richardson Buell: Our Neighbor and Crusader for the Indiana Dunes   Writer and Narrator: Joan Costanza Meister Readers:  Judith Stiles, John Stiles, John Wilhelm, Mary Jo Wilhelm   This Dramatic Reading on the Life of Dorothy Buell was written and narrated by Joan Costanza Meister and presented on Sunday, Memorial Day Week-end in 2016.  It was sponsored by the Historical Society and held in the Ogden Dunes Community Church’s Fellowship Hall.  A slide show accompanied the Reading.       Narrator (Joan): In 1940 Ogden Dunes was a close-knit lakeside community of 144 full-time residents with [...]

The Cash Family in Ogden Dunes (without photos) by Dick Meister (revised 28 Feb 2013) Few families have had as much of an impact on the development of Ogden Dunes as the family of Lester and Dess Mitchell Cash.  Lester, also known as A. L., was born in Marion, Illinois on November 8, 1886.  He died in Florida on March 27, 1966.  Dess Mitchell was also born in Marion, eleven months later, on October 21, 1887.   She died at 95 in April 1983. The year 1925 is an important one in the history of Ogden [...]

The Cash Family of Ogden Dunes   Part II:  Excerpts from the Autobiography of Mitchell Cash (for his children and grandchildren) Introduction: Laura Cash Mitchell, the daughter of Mitchell Cash, provided the Historical Society of Ogden Dunes with two chapters of her father’s autobiography, as well as a number of family photos.  In his autobiography, Mitchell relates his life around a set of key decisions.  These chapters/decisions deal with two periods of his life that were spent in Ogden Dunes, the decision of his parents to buy a cottage in Ogden Dunes around 1925 and he [...]

Return of the Native:  The Ken Hine Story by Dick Meister On August 19, 2014 while I was working in my overgrown front yard at 75 Ogden Road, a car with a New York license place, PU SU, drove slowly by.  It soon turned around, stopped and a white-headed gentleman, about my age, asked with some hesitation if I lived in the dunes.   Given my yard outfit, I certainly did not look like a resident.   He then introduced himself as Ken Hine who had moved to a home on Ogden Road when he was 11.    [...]

Ogden Dunes Stories Project:  Excerpts from Interviews by Ian Roseen   Over the past year, 2013-2014, Roseen, who directed the Ogden Dunes Stories Project interviewed formally nearly 50 current or former residents, as well as many others informally.   These interviews became the foundation for the two exhibits, “Life in the ‘Hour Glass’,” now showing at the POCO Museum in Valparaiso, and “Ogden Dunes Stories,” at The Hour Glass Museum.   These interviews will become ever more valuable in the future as the coming generations will be able to recover their past.   This project has [...]

Voices of Ogden Dunes: The Early Years (performed 2013) Script writer and narrator:  Dick Meister Video: John Paunicka, Ken Martin and Dick Meister Performed: August 26, 2013 at the Community Church in Ogden Dunes Voices:  Judith Stiles, Jenifer K. Wilson, Ken Martin, John Stiles, Susan Clouser, Aurelia Costanza, and Rick Collins in order of first appearance. We begin today’s program with two voices from the period prior to the founding of Ogden Dunes in 1925:  one is an artifact; the other a legend. An early description of our most famous artifact: [Judith Stiles] Perhaps boats [...]

The Newman Family: A Double Coincidence by Aurelia Duralski Costanza In May of 2008 our daughter, Madeleine, moved with her family, husband Andrew, daughter Sophia and son Thomas Henry to Vancouver, Canada.  Joe and I were invited to visit.  As an outing on a warm spring day, we visited Lighthouse Park, with its old growth pine forest.  Entering the park we chanced a meeting with a dapper elderly gentleman, looking as if he stepped out of the L. L. Bean catalogue.  We introduced ourselves and he responded that he was Murray Newman, retired director of [...]