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Source: NMHS Newsletter Feb 1994
Frantz and Loucks, General Contractors
by Jean Loucks Grubb-King
I'm interested in sharing a record of my grandfather's
and father's building construction activities in this
area.
Walter Loucks was my father and Noah Frantz was my
maternal grandfather. Noah was a brother of Ezra Frantz,
who established the Frantz Lumber Co. in North
Manchester. Their father was Jacob Frantz. Jacob was the
designer and builder of the North German Baptist Church
on Meridian or Packerton Road. The story is told that
the siding on that church was from one virgin poplar
tree. He also had a sawmill at his home on the farm on
State Road 14 across from Bob and Alice Frantz's home
called "Wildwood." Noah later built a home for his
parents, Esther and Jacob, one half mile east of Silver
Lake and also built a home for himself and family, a
mile east of Silver Lake. Jacob was known as a
"...veteran barn builder of Wabash and Kosciusko
Counties, and his barns stand on many and many a farm
and they stand the storms too, for they were built to
stand. He is credited with being the inventor of what is
known as the balloon type barn that took the place of
the old heavy timber barns, and that while using much
less timber has in use been found to be even more
sturdy." The quote is from a December 5, 1935 News
Journal written about his 91st birthday. His obituary in
a July 22, 1937 News Journal states, "Mr. Frantz had
been a preacher in the Dunkard Church for sixty years."
Mary Deaton and her husband hauled gravel for the
contracting firm and she lives in Jacob's former home.
Mary told me some tales about Jacob's new home east of
Silver Lake. Noah built the house and had a large
picture-type window that was not used in a school house
so it was installed in the front living room wall. This
may have been one of the first picture windows! The Old
Order Church (German Baptist) ruled that the window was
too worldly so it was replaced by two "regular" sized
windows. Jacob also installed a "dumb waiter" in the
kitchen which carried food from the basement. Water,
both well water and cistern rain water, was piped into
the kitchen. This replaced the outside pumps that were
in use at that time. There was also an inside toilet
which utilized water from a tank upstairs and was
flushed by pulling a chain attached to a wooden
receptacle on the wall above the toilet. We helped with
spring cleaning and used a rug beater to clean the
carpet. I remember visiting my great grandparents when
the families butchered. I was awakened early (not yet
daylight) and then put down on a straw-tick mattress in
the bedroom. I didn't think it was very comfortable!
When we butchered at their house, I liked mince meat and
canned pork loin. I wasn't too sure I liked things like
souse, head cheese, tongue, and the sausage in
"casings." The casings were the intestines and were
washed and scraped clean!-- I guess. I always begged the
men, "Don't kill the mama pigs!"
Stories say Jacob could size up a window or door opening
and without measuring, could fit it with sash and doors.
Noah built a fine home a mile east of Silver Lake in the
early 1900's. He used a plan similar to the Jacque home
in Silver Lake. (the Jacque home later became the home
of Jean's in-laws, the Grubbs.)
Jacob's son, Noah, moved from Silver Lake to North
Manchester about 1921 after serving as Lake Township,
Kosciusko County, trustee and becoming involved in the
contracting business. He built Seward Central, Maple
Grove and Fairview schools in Wabash and Kosciusko
counties. An April 13, 1992 Warsaw Times-Union in its
"75 Years Ago" column states, "N. M. Frantz of Silver
Lake, signed contracts for two fine school buildings to
be erected this summer," (1917). One was at Roll, North
of Hartford City and the other one was at Royerton, just
north of Muncie. He also built a cottage at Eagle Lake,
Michigan for daughter Clara and a summer cottage at
Yellow Creek Lake (which eventually became granddaughter
Jean's home for 36 years). He also built one next door
for his friend, Cash Lawrence, a plumbing supplier from
Wabash, Indiana. He built an ice house so people could
have free ice.
Noah's first home in North Manchester was the first
house east of Weimer's canning factory. In the early
30's, Orpha and Harry Weimer lived in an apartment in
that house after Harry finished his Ph.D. at Ohio State.
Teaching jobs were hard to come by due to mid-year
timing and the depression, so Noah gave him a job on the
onion and potato farm he owned west of Silver Lake in
exchange for rent. Orpha enjoyed Grandma's garden and
flowers. Harry later got a teaching position in
Bridgewater College, Virginia.
The canning factory next door hired local women during
the busy times when corn, peas, beans, tomatoes, etc.
were harvested and canned. According to the News
Journal, 250,000 cans were processed in 1929. I remember
Grandma Frantz, Martha Metzger, Mrs. Fred Flook and my
mother working at the canning factory. Martha lived
three doors east and had a rug loom in her home. I
watched her "make rugs" many times. She was a member of
the "Old Order" church and drove a "Model T" Ford.
Speaking of Fred Flook-- he had a smoke house (right
across the street) and cured our pork hams and
shoulders. Flooks also had a summer kitchen and good
things were cooked, canned, and baked there. I watched
and smelled the good food from a porch swing in the
shade of a grape arbor. Families were pretty self
sufficient. Grandpa Noah always planted cherry, peach
and apple trees wherever he lived. He fell out of a
cherry tree when he lived east of Silver Lake. I was two
or three years old and I asked him to "do it again"
because I didn't get to see him fall! Even though I
always lived in town, I experienced the rural life style
when I was with relatives.
Grandpa and Grandma Frantz took care of his father Jacob
after he had a stroke in 1936. He died in January, 1937,
at the age of 94. Great Grandma Esther had died in 1930.
Noah got the $42,000 bid for the Sidney School in July,
1922. School commenced at the usual time! Clyde Rusher,
who lived in the Sidney area, was hired as the carpenter
foreman. I remember Clyde very well. He was employed by
the contractors until ten major buildings (nine schools
and one retirement home), two houses and two potato
storages were built. Clyde always ran-- he didn't walk.
The Sidney addition provided for rooms for commercial
classes, a gym and auditorium that would seat 500
people. A crew of 18 laborers from Silver Lake worked on
most of the buildings. Wages were a lot less in those
days. I have read that carpenters earned $2 to $2.50 a
day for ten-hour days, and brick layers earned 60 cents
an hour. Grover Trick, Fred Trick, Sr.'s father, walked
from North Manchester to Sidney and back each day. He
was the brick layer. The school was completed by fall.
About 1923 Noah convinced Walter to leave his job with
the New York Central Railroad and join Noah in the
contracting business. Walter was born in 1888 and was
reared in the Wakarusa, Indiana area. Vernon Schwalm and
John Searer were two of his boyhood playmates. Vernon
later became president of Manchester College and John
was a teacher in the Chester School. He was the father
of Fern Searer Storer. Walter attended Baugo School and
Church at Wakarusa. His parents were Church of the
Brethren people. His education consisted of eight grades
(as was true of Noah). It is pretty amazing to me that
these two combined talents and were quite successful in
business and farming the rest of their lives. Walter was
one of nineteen children. There were two mothers. He
left home to find work as soon as he was old enough. He
was promoted from fireman to engineer and had a very
difficult decision to make regarding a career change. He
always had very fond memories of railroad work. He
wasn't drafted during World War I because his job was
essential.
I was born in Elkhart in 1919 and in 1923 when I was
four years old, we moved to Pierceton and lived in a
house a block north of the new school site. Grandpa and
Dad had been awarded the bid for the new high and grade
school. I have a picture of the work crew. I'm the four
year old in the middle. I could name them all at one
time including Harry Rowe and "Harry Rowe's dog." I
received some spankings for running away and going to
the building site. Van Kissinger, the grandfather of Tom
Sittler, a coach and teacher in the Manchester School,
was the plasterer. His son, Tom Kissinger, worked with
his dad. It was Tom's job to take me home so I wouldn't
get hurt and sometimes he would give me candy, but one
time he may have become disgusted with that chore and he
gave me X-lax! (Chocolate coated.) I remember my first
Halloween as a four-year-old. Daddy had a roll top desk
and when I saw the masked characters, I hid in the desk.
Mother was the "gofer" for the firm. She often made
trips to Fort Wayne or Wabash for supplies and made
arrangements at the bank for money to pay the suppliers.
It seemed that the cars in the early 20's often had flat
tires-- every trip, it seemed to me-- and Mother had an
old house dress in the car that she slipped on over her
clothes and she could patch a tire as well as any man!
The Pierceton School has had some additions and is now
an elementary school and appears attractive and in good
condition.
In the next year, 1924, we moved to Fort Wayne where
Frantz and Loucks were low bidders for the James Swart
Elementary School. This was east of downtown Fort Wayne.
We lived in a nice house on Plaza Drive. It had two
stairways (fun for a five-year-old), and Grandma made
very fine (cut fine) noodles and these were placed on
the back stairway on clean cloths to dry. I attended
kindergarten at the old school and remember being caught
in a snow storm after school (I walked to school), and a
nice lady took me in until my parents found me. I also
fell out of the car because a door became unlatched when
Mother and I made a trip to town one day (no seat belts
in those days.) The old City Market on Barr Street was a
fun place to visit. Plaza Drive was such a nice area but
now I hear weekly reports of drug raids, stabbings,
murders, etc. in that neighborhood. The James Swart
School is no longer standing.
The bid for a proposed high school and elementary school
in New Paris was $110,000. This was in the spring of
1927. We moved there until it was completed in December,
1927. We lived in Glen Whitehead's home which was the
first house south of the building site. The Whiteheads
were on summer vacation. My grandparents lived in a
house at the east edge of the small business district.
Grandma "boarded" (cooked for) the men who lived in
Silver Lake. Clyde Rusher, foreman, and family rented a
house at Waterford for six months. I attended third
grade at the old elementary school and one of my
classmates was La Veta Miller who later married Woodrow
Immel, the pastor of the North Manchester First Brethren
Church. La Veta's grandfather started the Smoker Lumber
Company in New Paris, and her father and mother were
employed there. The new school building gave impetus to
that firm and it still operates as the Smoker Craft
Company which builds boats and motor homes. When the
Whiteheads returned to New Paris in the fall, we had to
move to another home on Main Street. It had an outside
toilet and my dad had an encounter with a skunk one
night while visiting that facility and mother had a
difficult time cleaning him and his clothes! I had
pneumonia twice and this was prior to antibiotics so
Mother's tender loving care and old fashioned remedies
pulled me through. At one time the family did not expect
me to survive. I had the flu as a baby in the big flu
epidemic in 1919 and I always developed a "chest cold"
when I caught cold. I remember Mother made a chamois
skin vest for me to wear and rubbed some awful smelling
mustard plaster on my chest.
Schools in Avilla in Noble County and Coesse in Whitley
County were built sometime in this period of the late
twenties. Coesse was built in late 1926 and 1927 for
$75,000. It was replaced in 1988. Avilla was built in
1928 and is now being replaced by a 9.3 million dollar
facility.
One worker at Coesse, known for his carelessness,
dropped a square from a scaffolding onto workers below
and he was fired "on the spot." I don't have much
information on these schools. We stayed at our home at
308 N. Mill Street, North Manchester during the building
of these schools and Dad and Grandpa drove back and
forth.
Grandpa always had a nice car and he was a "fast driver"
at 60 plus miles an hour. I'm surprised my mother let me
travel with him so often! I was the only grandchild
until my baby brother arrived in 1934, so I received a
lot of attention from my grandparents and was often
treated to an ice cream cone on trips with my granddad.
The State Board of Education, in 1927-28, granted the
Chester building one more year of commission so on
February 15, 1929, fourteen general contractors
submitted bids for a new Chester School building. Frantz
and Loucks were awarded the contract at $83,881.00 and
Huntington Heating and Plumbing received a contract at
$29,000.00 and C. E. Ruppel of North Manchester got the
wiring bid for $1,700.00. There was one bid lower than
Frantz and Loucks, but according to the North Manchester
News Journal, they "were experienced builders who have
built good buildings. They are home people, and for that
reason will in all probability employ more home labor on
the building than would an outside contractor. That of
itself will mean considerable to the community. Then,
too, they have a reputation of moving work along
rapidly, and that reputation helps in the assurance that
it will be ready for use by the time school will need to
start next fall." Everett I. Browne, Fort Wayne, was the
architect and Bevington-Williams, Inc., Indianapolis,
were consulting engineers. Bidding was complicated
because there were eight to ten alternates on each bid
and the contractor had to submit a bid for the old
building ($2,633). Bids were presented in the office of
township trustee, Charles Wright, and after lunch at the
United Brethren Church were then taken to the auditorium
of Central School building where they were opened and
listed. A June article in the News-Journal states that,
"The building will cost complete with desks and
equipment between $120,000 and $125,000 but should
answer the needs of the township for many years." The
building was 154 X 104 feet and three stories high. The
new school was located north of the old school. Seven
months later on September 23, 1929, school opened and
the News Journal stated that the builders "had made
remarkable progress."
I was ten years old and my family did not discuss
business in my presence, but I can remember the flurry
of activity before the day of a "letting" as it was
called. There were often two sets of plans so alternate
bids had to be submitted. The strength required for
walls, arrangement of steel supports, the plan for
heating and ventilating and numerous other mechanical
details were figured. The prospective builders could
tell just how many bricks would be used, size and kind
of windows, the length of every piece of pipe and every
electrical connection. Costs were added up on an old
adding machine that had levers that were pushed up to
each figure and then a pull lever was pulled to print
the big roll of paper tape. It is amazing to me now that
two men of eighth grade education could manage so
successfully a contracting business.
Dale Rusher remembers his dad telling about the need to
dismantle part of the Second Street bridge to get some
equipment across the river (I suppose from the freight
yards to the building site). One man was killed on the
job and I remember going to Huntington to the funeral
home. He had some little children. He probably worked
for the Huntington Heating and Plumbing firm. I couldn't
find any mention of it in the News Journal. I wonder if
laborers were insured!
The period from 1922 to 1930 was a very busy time. Ten
buildings were completed in that period and seven of
those were built between 1927 and 1930. The bid for
Chester was awarded in February, 1929, Laketon in March,
1929, Silver Lake in April, 1930, and Peabody Retirement
Home in May, 1930.
The 1898 Laketon School needed an addition and Frantz
and Loucks bid $55,643. On March 20, 1929, Karl Gast got
the heating bid for $25,767. The plumbing bid was $5,431
by John Flack. There were nine bids. This would be the
last building activity at Laketon until 1958. The school
was demolished in June, 1989, and a new elementary
school was built. The addition was ready to open in
September of 1929 and a dedication program was held
November 18, 1929. A gymnasium and classrooms were
located in the new addition and the original building
was remodeled. The building was needed so the school
would not lose its commission. The State School Board
must have been very influential in forcing new
facilities during this period. Bids on bond issue had to
be received too so that funds were available for the
schools. The News Journal on March 21, 1929 states,
"Frantz and Loucks have the contract for the Chester
School building, and already have some work in progress
on that house. They are experienced builders, well
equipped for good and fast work, and can work the two
buildings (Laketon and Chester) together to good
advantage." The addition was larger than the original
building. The first basketball games were played in the
new gym on November 4, 1929. Linlawn beat Laketon 29 to
12 and Laketon's second team won 12 to 11. Games before
the gym was built were played at Manchester College.
By November, 1929, the state officials said they would
not renew Silver Lake's commission so in April, 1930,
Frantz and Loucks bid on the school. They were awarded
the bid of $27,105 for the school and $32,019 for the
gym and civic offices. Each bidder had to present two
bids because that was the only way the town and township
could be bonded sufficiently. Frantz and Loucks also
received the plumbing and heating bid for $19,930.
Bidding must have been complicated because there were
alternative bids for various types of materials. The
architect, Browne, was the same for Laketon, Chester and
Silver Lake so the general plan was similar. The
cornerstone was laid July 24, 1930. Ceremonies were
conducted by the Masonic order. One thousand persons
attended. Noah Frantz's picture is in the cornerstone.
School started September 15, 1930.
One month after the bidding for the Silver Lake School,
the letting took place for the Peabody Retirement Home
(May 19, 1930). What is known as the South House now was
completed November 30, 1930. The News Journal stated
that bids were considered on May 19, 1930 by members of
the building committee, Architect Weatherhogg, and Tom
Peabody. Bids had been filed the week before in the Fort
Wayne architect's office. No information was made public
regarding the bids. The general impression was that the
total amount was somewhat above the amount first set
aside for the building. Three local contractors bid on
various parts of the work: Frantz and Loucks on the
general contract, C. E. Ruppel and Son on the wiring and
Manchester Heating and Plumbing on the heating and
plumbing. Local workmen were employed. Clyde Rusher was
given primary responsibility at the site because of
activity at other sites. Work and material had to be of
the best quality. Later information put an estimate of
$120,000 for the building and grounds. An employee of
H.H.R. Heineke, chimney builder of Indianapolis, fell to
his death on October 23, 1930. He was on the job for his
first day and was to put the iron top on the stack and
remove the scaffolding. He was a 32-year-old black man.
The stack was eighty feet high. Walter Loucks and Clyde
Rusher found him on the floor inside the chimney. There
were eighty rooms in the building, fifty of those for
individual use. Clyde noticed some mortar on a brick and
flicked it off with a trowel and some union brick layers
walked off the job.
I wasn't very knowledgeable about business matters as a
youngster and one day Fred Trick who was in my class at
school asked me if I knew Frantz and Loucks was listed
in Dunn and Bradstreet. I didn't know what he was
talking about!
During their years in the contracting business, Grandpa
and Daddy acquired farms in Wabash, Marshall and
Kosciusko Counties. They raised potatoes in the muck
soil in Marshall and Kosciusko farms and built two
potato storages. Management and actual work occupied
their time after the contracting business subsided. They
still worked ten-hour days! They were always very
physically active in business ventures.
We moved to the J. J. Wolfe home at the corner of Wayne
and Third Streets in 1935. Mr. Wolfe had been an
executive at Peabody Seating Company and wanted to move
permanently to Florida where he had invested in orange
groves at Howey-in-the-Hills.
My grandparents moved three houses east of their first
home on West Main Street in 1937.
Many people have asked me if they were contractors for
Thomas Marshall School which was built in 1929. They did
bid on it but Charles Urschel of Bippus had the low bid
on January 31, 1929. There were fifteen bidders! Two
bids had to be submitted by each contractor with twelve
alternatives on each. It is my guess the family was
relieved to lose the job! It would have been a
tremendous task to have four or five building crews at
the same time.
College students were hired in summer months. Dr. Gene
Cook told me a story about his experiences as a summer
worker. Dad needed some surveying instruments and asked
Gene if he could procure them. It is my assumption that
he "borrowed" them at the College. When they were
returned, Dad gave him $25.00 and Gene said that was the
most money he ever had at one time! It was depression
years.
Walter Loucks developed the Oak Park addition in his
"spare" time. Lots were laid out and sold as need
developed. The Wood-Craft business was established on a
lot bordering Elm and Fourth Streets.
Walter also helped with the construction of the
parsonage for the local First Brethren Church in 1946.
He was a trustee of the Church when the first addition
was added to the church.
The Brake Band factory on West Main Street was purchased
by the family in 1936.
Grandfather, Noah Frantz, died in 1946 at age 76, and
father, Walter Loucks, died in 1955 at age 66. They led
active lives up to that time.
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