The city court: Feig, Raab, Cavanaugh, LaCava

1921 – 1963

The bench the directories keep: Mishawaka's city court was the smallest bench in this history — one judge, elected with the other city officers, trying the city's own cases in a room at City Hall — and its succession is documented at four points. The 1921 directory names Ralph S. Feig, city judge (the directory text reaches this build through an OCR transcription, and the surname is printed as it comes down, in the Government section's caution and here). By December 1922 the press of record shows another hand on the bench: the South Bend News-Times of 20 December 1922 reports the Mishawaka city court's new severity in the bootlegging cases — "Judge Raab imposes 90-day jail sentences instead of former 30 days" — the first cases to come before Judge Raab since the police began their cleanup campaign ten days before, the court backing "Mayor Dodge's orders that bootlegging and gambling in Mishawaka must be stamped out" to the limit. The court's probation officer in the national directory of 1928 is Mrs. Rose F. Grimes — the earliest woman the sources read for this section name at a Mishawaka public desk, in an appointed court office, printed at exactly that size.

Cavanaugh and LaCava: The classified pages of 1949 name the judge: Hon. George V. Cavanaugh, court at 204 East First. In the same book's alphabetical pages another Mishawaka lawyer sits at a smaller bench: Peter M. LaCava, justice of the peace, his office at 123½ Lincolnway West — the township's judicial officer while Cavanaugh holds the city's. By the directory of 1956 the desks have consolidated in one career: "Court, Hon. Peter M. LaCava, Judge, 10 City Hall," and the 1963 directory names LaCava judge still. A justice of the peace in 1949 and the city judge of 1956 and 1963, LaCava is the court's longest documented holder, and his course — from the JP's office, the oldest judicial desk in the township system, to the city bench — is the kind of service line this section exists to catch. Between Raab in 1922 and Cavanaugh in 1949 the bench's holders are not named in the sources read; the gap is named, and its settling records are the directories of the intervening years in the public libraries' runs and the court's own minute and docket books.

The court's end, at the size the record gives: No Mishawaka city court stands in the Indiana Judicial Branch's current directory of courts and clerks. In its place the directory carries a Superior Court sitting in Mishawaka — "Superior Court (Mishawaka), Hon. Jamie Woods, Judge, 219 Lincolnway West" — the county's court keeping a Mishawaka seat where the city's own court once sat. When the city court ceased, and who its last judge was, are not in the sources reached; the settling records are the Indiana Acts that governed the court's last years and the run of the state court directories. The bench's documented life in this section is Feig to LaCava, forty-two years, with its ends open.

Sources:

1. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921), Mishawaka section — City Judge Ralph S. Feig.
2. South Bend News-Times, 20 December 1922 (Hoosier State Chronicles) — "Court inaugurates sterner policy in bootlegging cases: Judge Raab imposes 90-day jail sentences"; the cases the first before Judge Raab since the police cleanup began.
3. National Probation Association, National Directory of Probation Officers in the United States and Canada (1928) — Mishawaka City Court, probation officer Mrs. Rose F. Grimes.
4. R. L. Polk & Co., directories of 1949, 1956 and 1963 — Judge George V. Cavanaugh (1949); Peter M. LaCava, justice of the peace (1949 alphabetical) and city judge (1956, 1963).
5. Indiana Judicial Branch, Directory of Courts & Clerks in Indiana (current) — no Mishawaka City Court listed; Superior Court (Mishawaka), Hon. Jamie Woods, 219 Lincolnway West.