The past presents us with many interesting characters and individuals who passed through our corporate memory. Two of those were Tubby Toms and his wife, Adeline.
I am doing a book on Nameless Creek and the Toms, and I would like to know what information you might have available. Toms and his wife initially leased and then donated the Nameless Creek Campground to the youth of Hancock County. The camp was founded in 1951.
Jerry Bell and many other interested community members recently donated much time and energy to restore the campsite to its former glory, and it is well worth a second look by each of you.
Toms was a political writer and ultimately outdoor columnist for the Indianapolis News. He lived north of Morristown on the Hancock-Shelby county line. The house is still there, and the county line runs through a room that once served as Toms’ study, in which he had drawn a dotted line to indicate its location. His nature column was called “Out in the Open.”
William Lowell “Tubby” Toms also was known as an accurate weather prophet. He once wrote, “It must be spring. Snow drops are blooming, the owl has flown into the woods to sing lullabies, and my goat is shedding its winter coat.”
Tubby was fairly eccentric with a great sense of humor, according to his great-nephew Tom Lund. Lund tells that Toms would drive his Corvair on the trails of Nameless Creek until Lund’s father called a halt because of the danger.
Adeline was a World War II pilot who flew planes to England and was a friend of Amelia Earhart.
Tubby built a cabin on the property; its chimney has 92 stones, one from each of Indiana’s 92 counties.
Now some say there were American Indian mounds at Nameless Creek. Do any of you know the location? Any information you have on Tubby, Adeline or Nameless Creek will help finish this book.
Enough. I have told you everything that I know and some things I don’t. Talk to me.
You can write to Joe Skvarenina at [email protected] or in care of the Daily Reporter at 22 W. New Road, Greenfield, Ind. 46140.
