Liberty Township High School - Moraine Yearbook (Chesterton, IN)

Page 15 text:

Prophecy of E WENT to the Porter County Fair today, and 1 Just happened to loiter along the midway. A glaring sign in front of a fortune- teller’s tent attracted my attention. In a few moments I was inside of the tent. Why I happened to go in there. I can not explain, but I just did. I must have hid a premonition that I was going to hear something of vital interest to me. The fortune-teller asked me what I wished to learn concerning tin future. I told her that I wanted to know the fate of the graduating class of nineteen twenty-five, ten years hence. She consulted her crystal, and the first image she saw was an attrac- tive young woman, dressed in the latest style. She was blonde and slender. Her business suit was the creation of one of the most fashionable designers. As the fortune-teller watched her movements in the crystal glolK . she saw her enter a modest, orderly apartment in Chicago. I wondered what sort of an apartment she was entering, but soon my curiosity was satisfied I thought at first that it might be a living apartment, hut it turned out to Ik a beauty parlor and manicurist shop. The modest, young woman, who was in charge, was none other than my former classmate. Miss iolet Sanders. The next time the fortune-teller gazed into her crystal, she saw’ an image of a stately young man. He looked to Ik in the prime of life. His wife and two young sons were with him. According to the fortune-tellers description, the young wife resembled a former sweetheart of the young man. and I was rather inclined to Itelleve it was none other than my cousin. After the fortune-teller had given me this information. I was anxious to know what profession the young man was following. It turned out that Mr. Oakley D. Lutes was a well-known road contractor, in Wilkes-Barre. Pennsylvania. His aim was to make all of the mountain roads level, or nearly so, in order that he might l»e able to drive his Dodge coach with more speed and comfort. Since Providence had dealt so kindly with these two classmates, I could not help but wonder what was to Ik the fate of the other two members of the class, and also of myself. The next vision in the crystal showed a stout, well-built, young man, with a dark moustache and a Van Dyke beard. A pair of eye-glasses dangled diiiimi Class of ’25 on a ribbon, which was fastened In his left coat lapel. He carried a walking stick, as he loitered along one of the best avenues of Crocker, Indiana. His pretentious home was on this avenue. This young man was Mr. Arthur Schmidt, the wealthy meat-packer, who followed in his father's footsteps, by first buying and selling cattle, and then, later, starting his packing house at Crocker. This packing house is one of the most modern and fully equipped packing houses in any of the larger cities of the United States. The next person, who appeared in the crystal of the mystic was clothed in the black, flowing robes of a minister. He was preaching a sermon at the new Baptist church, at Woodville, Indiana» This was his first year of preaching, because he had worked five or six years, after graduation from High School, before Anally deciding to take up the sacred ordination to the ministry. The members of the congregation had Just built a fine, new parsonage for the minister and his family. This vision brought to my mind the Bible Study, which we had while we were Seniors at Liberty Center. Leonard bad vowed at that time that he would never become a minister, but the Baptist minister turned out to be Mr. Leonard Dillingham, after all. Last of all, the crystal was to reveal my fate in this wide and wonder- ful world. I hoped, before the mystic turned the crystal, that Providence might deal as kindly with me as with my classmates. In a few moments, my hopes were realized. During the ten years, between nineteen twenty-five and nineteen thirty-five. I had spent most of my time teaching or studying for the teaching profession. The first year after graduation, I studied at Valparaiso University. 1 taught for two years at Linderman School, In Liberty Township, and then went to Indiana University, at Bloomington, where I received my Master's Degree in Kducatlon. After I received my Master’s Degree. I started teaching High School at Liberty Center, and was still an old-maid school teacher in nineteen thirty-five. That such wonderful things could happen seemed hardly believable. I stopped and pondered a moment or two. and then handed the fortune-teller my quarter. GERTRUDE C. HOCKELBERG. 25. Seven