The town team: the Walkerton Lions and the House of David, 1948

4 MARCH 1948 · the high school gym; the story by Walter LaFeber

this section's centerpiece is a Thursday-night game in the high school gym, told by the town's paper: the Walkerton Independent of 4 March 1948, page 4, reports the Walkerton Lions — the town's independent basketball team — beaten 77–46 by Studebaker Local No. 5, the South Bend factory union's team, in the Walkerton high school gym. Walkerton's Bellinger was the home high scorer with 16. The Lions' next home game, the paper announced, was against the House of David — the famous barnstorming team of the Michigan religious colony, beards and all — on 26 March 1948, in the local gym. And the game story itself is bylined "(By Walter LaFeber)" — the high school boy who would become Cornell's great diplomatic historian, covering the town team for the town paper three years before his own 35-point sectional game (People carries the life; the byline is Sports'). The article is the era in one column: industrial-league basketball as the small town's spectator sport, a union team from the Studebaker plants as the visiting power, a barnstorming curiosity as the next attraction, and the gym — the school's gym — as the town's arena for all of it.

Sources:

1. Walkerton Independent, 4 March 1948, p. 4 (Lions 46, Studebaker Local No. 5 77; Bellinger 16; the House of David game announced for 26 March 1948; the LaFeber byline) — the paper of record, at Hoosier State Chronicles strength.
2. The People leg of this build (LaFeber verified: b. 30 August 1933, Walkerton; WHS class of 1951).