The long tail, III: the mid-century desks, the schools' servants, the federal desk — entries 59–78

1898 – 2012 — FROM THE POLK DIRECTORIES OF 1949, 1956 AND 1963 AND THE RECORDS NAMED IN EACH ENTRY

59. Oscar Van De Putte — city clerk in 1949 and 1956, and "Clerk-Treasurer, Oscar Van De Putte" in 1963, the two fiscal offices combined in one elective office with him sitting in it, doubling in 1949 as secretary of the Board of Public Works and Safety; the 1963 book's classified page names him clerk-treasurer while its alphabetical pages list his wife Ethel alone as householder — the book's disagreement with itself, printed rather than resolved.

60. Rene DeMeyer — city treasurer in the directories of 1949 and 1956, the separate purse desk's last documented holder before the combination.

61. Richard F. Kleiser — city controller in the directory of 1949.

62. Joseph W. Snyder — Fifth District councilman in 1949 and city controller in 1956: the only council-to-controller crossing the directories document, a career ladder inside one building.

63. Herbert D. Biddle — city controller in the directory of 1963.

64. Howard Dean Bolerjack — chief of police in the directories of 1949, 1956 and 1963, with Edw. Baldoni as his assistant chief in 1949, and sheriff of St. Joseph County in the directory of 1971, resident in Mishawaka: the city's own chief become the county's sheriff, documented at both ends by the directories' plain listings.

65. Thomas H. Pressler — chief of the fire department in 1949 and 1956, headquarters at Central Station, 212 North Church, his house at 701 Studebaker with his wife Mary A., sitting on the Board of Public Safety beside the mayor and the police chief; the 1949 government page gives his middle initial as A against the classified and alphabetical H, two listings to one, printed with the variant noted.

66. DeCaussemaker — chief of the fire department in the directory of 1963, named by surname alone: the same book's alphabetical pages give Alphonse DeCaussemaker, a controller at a clothing store, and Andrew E. DeCaussemaker, and tag neither as chief, so the chief's given name is not in the record reached and the surname stands with the gap named.

67. John J. Young — superintendent of the School City in the directories of 1949, 1956 and 1963, at 519 Clay in the alphabetical pages of 1956, planning a fourteen-classroom high school addition with the board in the 1963 yearbook, his assistant superintendent Lowell Yaw beside him; John Young Middle School carries the surname, its naming record a named gap.

68. Ida L. Betts — named with the superintendent's office in the schools pages of 1921, "Secretary to the Board of Education" in the yearbook of 1937, and the board's clerk in 1949: twenty-eight years between books at the schools' paper desk.

69. Fred J. Hums — the school board's treasurer in 1949 and its president in 1956 and 1963; Hums Elementary, opened 1970, carries the surname under the same naming-record caution as the other school namesakes. Around him the books give Vivian Garlit, the board's secretary in 1956 and treasurer in 1963 — a woman holding the board's fiscal offices in the 1950s, printed at that size — and Charles H. Beutter, treasurer in 1956, his surname shared with a mayor of the next generation and the kinship unstated.

70. P. C. Emmons — the great superintendent: come in 1921 from ten years as superintendent at Kendallville, "firmly established" in the yearbook of 1924, nine years of service counted in 1930, his portrait still in the office in 1937, "largely responsible for the high rating of the Mishawaka schools," and the former of the committee that chose the 1924 high school; Emmons Elementary, opened 1958, bears the surname under the naming-record caution.

71. John F. Nuner — superintendent on the federal Bureau of Education's directory of 1912, appointed August 1903 on a term running to 31 July 1913 at $2,100 a year, who in 1910 called the high school's 282 alumni together and reorganised the alumni association. The system's first superintendent stands behind him at line size: Mr. Butts, employed in 1848 when Institute No. 1 opened, with Jacob Merrifield, Jefferson Merrifield and Miss Skinner as his assistants.

72. Joseph M. Bowen — postmaster in the classified pages of 1949, 1956 and 1963, the office at 120 South Church: fourteen years at least at the federal desk; the 1956 alphabetical entry "Jos. F. (Teckla) Bowen, postmaster PO, h319 Edgewater Dr." stands against the classified Joseph M. Bowen of three directories, printed as the conflict it is.

73. William E. Butterworth — a native son born 17 October 1860, a druggist from 1880 to 1892, who became deputy postmaster in 1898, "first under Mr. Gaylor and later under Mr. Shaw, the present postmaster" — Howard's biography of 1907, which gives two postmasters in one sentence (a Mr. Gaylor, postmaster at the century's turn, his given name not in the source and not borrowed from the later mayor of the surname, and a Mr. Shaw, postmaster in 1907) and calls the deputy "systematic and careful in the discharge of his duties, courteous to all."

74. Earl P. Aldrich — Penn Township trustee in 1949, "Penn Township Poor Relief, E. F. Aldrich, Trustee, 221 Lincolnway W" in the classified pages (the initials as the directory prints them against the alphabetical Earl P.), at the head of a working welfare office with investigators and clerks; the township assessor A. E. Groff stands inside his entry, at 117¼ Lincolnway East. The line's other documented end is Doris Portolese, Penn Township Trustee in 2026, on the Women's History record; the seventy-seven years between are a named gap.

75. The Rev. John H. Meengs — president of the public library board in 1949, its secretary in 1956, and on the board in 1963: fourteen years at least across three directories at the library's government.

76. Dorothy Fox — librarian of the public library in the directory of 1949.

77. Harley O. Spencer — librarian in 1956 and chief librarian still in 1963, with Mrs. Donna E. Blair in the board's offices in the later book.

78. Robert Oscar Fitzsimmons — a former sandlot ballplayer who "rose to the rank of chief of police in the town," undated anywhere in the sources read, in the Society for American Baseball Research's biography of his son Freddie, the knuckleball pitcher born in Mishawaka on 26 July 1901 and raised here while his father held the office at some point in the boy's youth; the chief's own years are the settling gap, the directories of 1900–1925 and the Board of Public Safety minutes named to close it. Behind this entry stand two statehouse lines at line size, carried in the Public Servants fragment: Craig R. Fry, Democrat, who held Indiana House District 5 from 9 November 1988 to 7 November 2012, and his successor Dale DeVon, Republican, seated 7 November 2012 — DeVon printed there at boundary size, Granger's man holding the seat whose largest city is Mishawaka.

The count: The three long-tail articles carry seventy-eight numbered entries — seventy-eight named second-rank persons (with a small number of later holders of the same desk carried inside a numbered entry, each named, where the roster carries the desk in one line). Sixty was the floor set; the count is seventy-eight, and no entry stands on a record that does not name its person.

Sources:

1. The Public Servants fragment of this build — the clerk, purse, Bolerjack, fire-chiefs, machinery, schools, township-county, postmasters and lines-out articles whole, from the Polk directories of 1921, 1949, 1956, 1963 and 1971, Howard (1907), the Bureau of Education directory of 1912, the Miskodeed yearbooks of 1924–1963, and the Society for American Baseball Research's Fitzsimmons biography.