The Cornerstone Building
Dukie
My earliest memory of
him was a man in his seventies, small in stature, his thin face, although lined
with age, still retaining an almost boyish look. His white hair was always neatly parted for
which he carried a small silver comb in his vest pocket. When he walked, he usually had his hands
clasped behind his back and he smoked a pipe filled with Prince Albert
tobacco. To this day that scent reminds
me of him. In my mind I always picture
him sitting in a rocking chair looking out the long windows in our den,
watching the traffic along East Jackson Street.
As soon as the weather warmed he would move to our screened-in front
porch where he relaxed in a wooden rocker that sat alongside the comfortable old
glider. He became a fixture in the
neighborhood the last ten years of his life, rocking, puffing on his pipe and
raising his arm in a friendly salute to anyone passing. Everyone called him “Dukie.” My Dad had given him the nickname upon marrying
my Mom. Dad thought that Grandpa was
always pushed back into a corner by my grandmother’s noisy Irish family, and he
wanted to give him a place of importance in the family pecking order.
Originally Dad called him the “Duke.”
Affectionately shortened to Dukie, the nickname stuck the rest of his
life. The two men were very close, both
as drinking buddies and card players.
Dad had lost his own father in the early 1920s and Grandpa had lost his
only son during the same period. The two
of them enjoyed making home brew in our basement during the Prohibition years
which would be bottled and ready for the
weekend card game with other male
members of the family. A new supply of
brew had to be made after each session.
Dukie was such a
fixture in our household throughout my growing up years that I never questioned
what his life had been like as a young man.
It wasn’t until years after his death at ninety when I discovered an
article about him in the newspaper and realized what an interesting life he had
led. A reporter for the Muncie Star,
doing a story on the labor movement in Muncie around the turn of the century,
interviewed Dukie as the oldest member of the bricklayers union. I found out that this humble man had lost his
mother when he was two and his father at fourteen. He left home at 16 when his father’s second
wife attempted to take the father’s small estate from Grandpa and his two sisters. He became a brick layer’s apprentice to learn a trade. Armed with only a fourth grade education,
Grandpa taught himself to read, write, figure and use correct grammar. He never lost his desire to learn and would
stand over my brother and me as we did our homework, always seeking to fill in
the gaps in his own education.
From the article I
learned that Grandpa, his apprenticeship finished by age eighteen, came to
Muncie in 1878 to find work. He heard
that James Boyce was having trouble finishing the smokestack on his flax mill
because no bricklayer was willing to work so high in the air. Upon being told that Grandpa had built the 100
foot smokestack for the Connersville Furniture Factory, using a series of pulleys
pulled by horses to get the bricks and mortar up so high, Boyce hired him on the spot. Grandpa cheerfully told the reporter that he
climbed up to the top of the stack, already 55 feet in the air and realized
that his trowel was down on the ground.
Since no one was willing to bring it up to him, he had to climb down,
retrieve the trowel and climb back up to finish the job. It took him four days to complete the job and
he was proud of the fact that beside the regular wage of 35 cents an hour for
31 hours work, Boyce gave him 2 gold pieces, each worth $20.00 as a bonus.
Mike continued his
occupation as a bricklayer, working on such jobs as the Masonic Temple on Main
Street and the State Office Building in Indianapolis. During this time he helped organize the local
bricklayers’ union, serving as its first president. His name was also first on the list of a
notice signed in August, 1887, announcing that “members of this union will not
work for less than 40 cents an hour,” a courageous stand at the time for
working men to take.
Mike Landers and
others like him made their own contribution to the growth of our city, as they
built the buildings and produced the products which supported the efforts of
the business community. They gave an
honest day’s work and took pride in the quality of that work.
Michael Frank
Landers/Grandpa/Dukie was a man of integrity who mastered a skill and used it
to better his life. He was also a kind
and gentle family man who especially loved his grandchildren. Many an afternoon
he would let my brother and I accompany him three blocks over to the Big Four
railroad track just to watch the afternoon train pass. As
children, this was the highlight of our day.
He was my grandfather and this is my tribute
to him.
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