The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1918-07-23

rows, their wagons to be retired, theil
horses to be shod. Under the tickling o.
tho immigrants ploushs the prairie sol
} laughed into bountiful harvests.
|, The farmers p-ospered; soon the youn.
German blacksmith had to hire helper
before long he had several. He under
stood the farmers and spoke their Ian.
lgusse: they brought their troubles to him
. Agricultural implements in that day were
crude and trifling affairs compared with
the tools with which the modern farmer
works.
\ 1t was easy for farmers to grow thei,
grain, but hard for them to thresh and
winnow the huge crops, by the slow, old.
fashioned processes in use. II they only
had an efficient machine for this purpose
Winter nights as he smoked his long
stemmed, china bowlcd pips Meinrad
Rumely was planning ways to sclve this
vexing problem OF his farming neishbors.
Finally he built a crude machine. Next
harvest he tried it, and it worked. The
farmers saw it aad liked it and asked
him to build more Of them. In another
two or three years the village blacksmith
shop had developed into a manufacturing
plant where tho Rumely grain scparators
were being turned out.
business Grows and Prospers.
| The business grew and prospered. So
did Meinrad Rumely's family, for he had
taken unto himself a wife of the blood
and the soil OF HIS native land. BY and
BY the sign reading M. Rum.ly" came
down and new one went up. 1t read,
M. Rumely & Sons" The village of
Laporte grew, too, and with its growth
the family fortune Of NJ. Rumely & Sons
increased, for he had bought land in the
early days, and his sons had bought, and
now that land was In demand for factories
and for homes for people who worked in
the factories. And NJ. Rume!y & Sons
added other agricultural implements to
their line and were the biggest factory Of
all in Laporte. In 1887 the business was
incorporated Us the NJ. Rumely Company.
The names of RumeIy and of Laporte
almost meant the same thing they almost
mean the same thing to-day. The visitor
to Laportc steps off the Lake Shore train
into the railroad station that lies in the
midst OF u great group Of manufacturing
plants. every one Of them bearing the
Rumely name. He drives up to Main
street, which has lately changed its name
to Lincoln Highway, past more factory
buildings carrying the Kurncly name, and
he registers at the Rurncly Hotel.
That is the background. the setting AMI
the tradition into which Edward Aloysius
Kumcly was born at Laporte. on Zebra
airy s, 1882. Ills father was Joseph j
Ttnmely, oldest son of Mcinrad Rumcly
his mother, the daughter of another pio-
neer German settler, was Margaret Tim
norman. From his earliest infancy the
child was regarded by his admiring family
as a prodigy.
Learned to Talk German Early.
lie learned to talk both in German and
In English much earlier than children
usually learn even one language; in Ger
man, for even after tkirty-fivc years in
America German was still the language
Of tho home circle in Mcinrad Rumcly's
family. The sentimental attachment 70
the Fatherland, which was shared until
lately by the majority Of the German
born citizens of tho United States, and
which tho Kaiser fatuously believed he
could capitalize and manipulate to serve
his own ends in America, was nowhere
found more deeply rooted than here in
Laporte.
Edward A. Rumely grew up in Laportc
amid an ever widening circle of friends
and acquaintance, who marvelled at his
ready mastery of books and proclaimed
him a genius. Few boys in this or any
other country ever displayed the precocity
and facility for absorbing information and
knowledge on every conceivable subject
that young Rumcly showed.
Everything interested him-everythins
interests him still. lie read every book
he could lay his hands on, from Agricul-
tural Department Reports to the latest
exposition of the canons of Fart Nouveau,
Such brilliancy and versatility in the
eyes of his family destined him for a pro-
fessional career. Devout Catholics, they
determined that he should become a
priest; doubtless they had mental visions
of their son in the red hat Of Cardinal
Of Rome-who knows?
They sent him to the great Catholic |
College, the University of Notre Dame, at
Notre Dame, Ind
The more young Rumely contemplated |
the idea of becoming a priest the less it |
appealed to him. He did not complete his |
course ut Notre Dame. but persuaded his |
parents to let him 20 abroad; he wanted
taste of Europe, he wanted to see what
great universities Of foreign lands could |
offer him. So in 1900 lie started for |
Europe.
lie was still boy in his teens when !
he matriculatcd at Oxford. Somewhere
in America, perhaps, he had picked UP
the germ Of socialism; perhaps it was
through the associations he formed at
Oxford that he became inoculated with |
the socialistic virus. for he lived while
ut Oxford in Ruskin House, the centre