LATER TEEN AGE AND EARLY TWENTIES - Part 4 -Back to Indianapolis

Alfred is preparing for his future married life. It seems that each major change involves Alfred going back to Indianapolis.  Once again he is on the move. Here is the continuation of Alfred Moehlmann's memior "As I Was":

"So in the summer of 1916 I sold my horse and buggy and had a neat little sum of 350⁰⁰ and with that I went to Indianapolis with Baker Letterman and started in at Central Business College to learn to be a bookkeeper.  I don’t know how much Baker had but I think he had less money than I had.  We had to pay 90⁰⁰ tuition fees to start.
The school helped us out by finding a Funeral Director (Kirby & Dince) who furnished a room for sleeping purposes for three.  We picked up another chap by the name of Wilson.  We had to answer telephone calls in the office from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at which time the office was closed and then we would have to take any calls after that time and switch them to Mr. Kirby.  I did all the office tending to 7 p.m. for Letterman & Wilson had a job at a restaurant waiting on tables for their board.  They would always slip something in their pockets for me so my board bill wasn’t too high.  A few incidents while I was trying hard to absorb the art of bookkeeping.

Central Business College ad from the Indianapolis News

 The annual Teachers Convention in the fall brought Russell Pope & Bill Hart to Indianapolis and since they had no place to stay they bunked up with us.  We went to a show one night and had a seat next to a ramp that lead from the stage to the center aisle of the theatre.  A comedian was out on the ramp telling a joke; it struck me and Russ as funny and we let out with a big “guffaw” and seemingly it didn’t strike the audience as funny for there were no other laughs.   The comedian came over and shook hands with Russ and me with the remark, “Hi Jake.”  I don’t know if it was our embarrassment or the joke that “sunk in” but there was a lot of loud laughter.  I mention this because Russ was going with Grace and when we greeted each other it was “Hi Jake.”  It was a long time befor the girls knew why we used this salutation. 

Indianapolis News, October 25, 1916, pg 23

I guess one of the dirtiest tricks I was ever in on, took place at the funeral home.  Wilson was quite an athlete and didn’t spend any time at the office but always went to the Y.M.C.A. and would get in late at night.  Mr. Dinse who was single, would occasionally sleep in the bed with Wilson.  They had a corpse in the morgue and Baker and I decided to put it in bed with Wilson.  We wheeled the corpse in, carefully laid it in bed and got in our bed.  Around about mid-night Wilson came in and was very quiet so as not to disturb us.  It seemed like ages but Wilson finally touched the ice cold body and jumped out of bed and said, “Wake up fellows, Dince is dead.”  We tried to assure him differently but he turned on the light and saw what we had done.  He wouldn’t help us remove the body, demanded that we sit up with him the rest of the night, which we wouldn’t do.  So we went back to bed, he sat up alone the rest of the night and as soon as the owners came in the morning he told the happening to them.  Well it turned out that Baker and I stayed, Wilson left but the bosses asked us not to play that kind of a trick anymore.  We didn’t. 

Ad from the Indianapolis Star for Kirby & Dinn Funeral Home

Address on inside cover of Alfred'd book is the funeral home.

This was election year 1916 and would be the first time for Baker and me to vote.  We didn’t expect to get this first thrill, wrote the folks back home that we didn’t have the money to spare to pay train fare.  Our plight got to some good Samaritan and a round trip ticket was mailed to us.  I will never forget the bedlam in Indianapolis that election night when we got back.  You could hardly get through the down town section.  From all reports it looked like Hughes had won over Pres. Wilson and we went to bed with that conviction.  However the next morning the outcome was in doubt.  It depended on California.  While in class about 10:30 am some one brought in a newspaper with Box Car Headline – “Wilson is Re-elected.”

  

A little history about the election.  Hughes was a Supreme Court Justice running on the Republican ticket. His campaign criticized Wilson for a lack of preparedness and mobilization in the face of the European war. Wilson, running for a second term, based his campaign on the slogan, "He Kept Us Out of War." It required 266 electoral votes to win and Wilson received 277.  Wilson won the 13 electoral votes from the state of California by winning the popular vote there by less than 4,000 votes. The popular vote nationwide was more than three million higher than in 1912, partially due to many states, including California, passing laws allowing women to vote, prior to the 1920 amendment legalizing it.