The Knights of Pythias: Mishawaka Lodge No. 453, its Uniform Rank, and Sunlight Temple

In Howard's roster, 1907 · the order's record carries Mishawaka to 1947

The lodge: The Knights of Pythias — the order Justus Rathbone founded in Washington in 1864 on the friendship of Damon and Pythias — kept Mishawaka Lodge No. 453, with William Garman as Chancellor Commander and Frank P. Christoph as Keeper of Records and Seals in Howard's roster of 1907. Beside the lodge stood its military arm, a Uniform Rank company under Walter C. Herzog as captain and William Drumhiller as recorder — Herzog being the name the government record of this history carries into the mayor's office in the following decade, so that the lodge's uniform company was drilled by a future mayor of the town it paraded in. The lodge's hall stood at 115 Lincoln Way West in 1921, in the hall geography the Private Clubs section maps. The lodge's institution date has not been reached in the order's published record consulted for this section; the Grand Lodge of Indiana's historical roster of lodges, with institution dates, is the settling source, and the lodge is documented from 1907.

The course in the order's own proceedings: Where the clubs record stops, the order's state record carries the lodge on, and it is printed here at the strength of that record. The Grand Lodge of Indiana's proceedings for 1913 — the order's forty-fifth annual convention — carry Mishawaka Lodge No. 453 on the rolls of the domain, and carry a Mishawaka Pythian, Ralph W. Gaylor of No. 453, on the Grand Lodge's Pythian Home Committee — Gaylor being, again, a name the town's government record carries as mayor from 1916, so that the order's state business and the town's were done by the same small class of men in both rooms. The proceedings of the sixty-second annual convention, in 1930, still name Mishawaka Lodge No. 453 of Mishawaka in the domain's record. The women's order carries the line furthest: the Grand Temple of the Pythian Sisters, in its 1947 proceedings, assesses "Mishawaka — Sunlight Temple No. 286" for the Indiana Pythian Home — a Mishawaka Pythian Sisters temple, Sunlight Temple No. 286, on the state temple's rolls in 1947 — and the same proceedings seat a Mishawaka woman, Jessie Lotte, among the Grand Temple's officers as Grand Guard. No record reached carries the Mishawaka lodge or its temple past 1947, and none is claimed; the Grand Lodge's consolidation records are the settling source for the lodge's end, and the Pythian Sisters' temple is the last Mishawaka Pythian body in print.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. I (1907), p. 345 — Mishawaka Lodge No. 453 and the Uniform Rank company, with officers; read first-hand.
2. Official Record of Proceedings of the Grand Lodge, Knights of Pythias, of the Domain of Indiana — the forty-fifth annual convention (Indianapolis, 1913): Mishawaka Lodge No. 453 on the rolls; Ralph W. Gaylor, No. 453, Mishawaka, on the Pythian Home Committee; read first-hand. The sixty-second annual convention (1930): Mishawaka Lodge No. 453 named in the domain's record.
3. Proceedings of the Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias of Indiana (1947), the Grand Temple's Pythian Home assessments — "Mishawaka — Sunlight Temple No. 286"; the Grand Temple's officers — Jessie Lotte of Mishawaka, Grand Guard.
4. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory, 1921 — the Knights of Pythias Hall, 115 Lincoln Way W., as carried in the Private Clubs section.