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Joe Holiday

(Nov. 6, 1927-June 30, 1990). Joe Holiday was born in Chicago, Illinois, the seventh of eight children of Joseph and Gussie Hunt Holiday. Holiday’s father died when he was two years old, after which the family moved to Indianapolis where Holiday resided until his death. Holiday may have heard stories about his father’s creativity that would inspire his artistry much later in life. As a cabinet maker, Holiday’s father fashioned ornate designs in wood and painted glass. As an adult, the younger Holdiay would go on to create frames for… Read More »Joe Holiday

La Voz de Indiana

La Voz de Indiana started business in September 1999. Liliana Hamnik conceived of the idea to start a newspaper for the Spanish-speaking community of Indiana to educate and inform the growing Latin-American community. La Voz is published in Spanish and English, and the organization is a registered WMBE—women-owned or minority-owned business enterprise. With close to 500,000 Latinos in Indiana, one-fifth of those in Indianapolis, La Voz works to improve and increase the accessibility of its content to its community. La Voz creates content in both Spanish and English. Bilingual content… Read More »La Voz de Indiana

Lillian Haydon Childress Hall

(Feb. 24, 1889–Apr. 23, 1958). Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to George and Elizabeth Wintersmith Haydon, Lillian Childress Hall became Indiana’s first African American to receive an education in library science. In 1905, Hall attended Fisk University, a historically Black university, where she studied to become a teacher in its Normal School Division and took voice lessons. There she met Nashville, Tennessee, native William Hobbs Childress, who graduated from Fisk with a BA in chemistry. In 1910, they were married. When William took a job as an assistant chemist for the… Read More »Lillian Haydon Childress Hall

Marjorie Main

(Feb. 24, 1890–Apr. 10, 1975). Born near Acton, Indiana, Marjorie Main was a film and stage actress with over 80 film credits to her name. As a prolific character actress, she often played the role of mother, housekeeper, landlady, widow, cook, maid, town gossip, or nosy neighbor. Main is most well-known and loved, however, for her role as Phoebe “Ma” Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle films. Main was the daughter of Reverend Samuel Joseph Tomlinson, a Christian minister, and Jennie Tomlinson, née McGaughey. The family moved several times… Read More »Marjorie Main

Religion And Healthcare

For most of the 19th century, no hospital existed in Indianapolis. The city’s residents associated hospitals with facilities where people with long-term illnesses went to die. The medical profession was built around private practices. Only when epidemics seemed poised to ravage the city did interest arise in a permanent health care facility. Indeed, Indianapolis did not see the need for medical facilities until after the Civil War. City Hospital (which eventually became Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital) came out of fear of a smallpox outbreak in 1855 but over the… Read More »Religion And Healthcare

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