The city's own shelf: Mishawaka writing Mishawaka

1976–2023 · THE BOOKS ABOUT THE PLACE, BY THE PLACE

The centennial history. Janice Bridges, Indiana's Princess City: The History of Mishawaka, 1832–1932 (1976), is the first book-length history of the city by one of its own, and for a generation it was the shelf. Its century closes at the centennial it was named for, and its standing in the record is double: Peter De Kever, who succeeded her as the city's historian, calls it in print "a more comprehensive history of Mishawaka's first hundred years" than anything before it — and, in the same breath, names its silence: it never mentions Freddie Fitzsimmons, by 1933 already "the first and, then, only" major leaguer from Mishawaka. The praise and the omission both stand in this record, because the next historian printed them. Bridges herself is quoted throughout the commissioned history that followed hers — on Pemberton's lathe as the area's first manufacturing enterprise, on the disfavor that fell on certain officeholders — a predecessor cited as an authority inside her successor's text.

The sesquicentennial mosaic. A Mishawaka Mosaic (Friends of the Mishawaka Library, 1983), edited by Dave Eisen, the library's director, was made for the city's sesquicentennial — a book of history essays, its subject, in the city's own bibliography line, the diverse ethnic groups of Mishawaka. It is the anniversary shelf's middle volume: less a narrative than a gathering, the Belgian, Italian, German and Polish city written by the community's own hand in its anniversary year. Fitzsimmons received two and a half lines in it — De Kever prints the count, and prints his own share of the same neglect before he repaired it.

The commissioned history. Ninety years after Brunner's manuscript, the City of Mishawaka commissioned the book Brunner could not publish: Mishawaka: A History by Peter J. De Kever, "a history of Mishawaka from its origins to the present day," written with the stated intent "to safeguard Mishawaka's unique identity and to educate its citizens about their collective past." The city posted the book on its own website in 2023, free to any reader — the only one of the city's histories published by the city itself and given away. Its author is entered whole in the next article; the book is this record's spine source, and its method — Merrifield and Brunner and Bridges cited by name inside it, claim by claim — is the method of the shelf it completes.

Sources:

1. Indiana State Library, county history holdings guide, St. Joseph County — Bridges, Indiana's princess city: The history of Mishawaka, 1832-1932 (1976), held at IND REF.
2. Peter J. De Kever, introduction to Freddie Fitzsimmons: A Baseball Life (AuthorHouse, 2013), read first-hand — the judgment of Bridges ("a more comprehensive history," the Fitzsimmons silence named) and of the Mosaic ("a book of history essays created for the city's sesquicentennial in 1983"; Fitzsimmons's two and a half lines).
3. Wikipedia, "Mishawaka, Indiana," further-reading list, read November 2026 — Eisen, D., ed., A Mishawaka Mosaic (Mishawaka: Friends of the Mishawaka Library, 1983), "on diverse ethnic groups."
4. City of Mishawaka — Mishawaka: A History by Peter J. De Kever, posted at mishawaka.in.gov (uploaded January 2023), the commission and intent stated in its introduction, read first-hand.