Today, we bring you one of Sylvia Henricks’ “Remembrances.” You can read more of Sylvia’s columns weekly in The Franklin Township Informer, or in her book From The Ash Grove.
Mr. & Mrs. Ray D. Everson
Until a few years ago, before John and Carolyn Kanouse moved to our community and became interested in the Township Historical Society, I had not heard of Ray D. Everson and his remarkable accomplishments. But John had known Mr. and Mrs. Everson for almost his whole life, both he, as a school boy, and they being members of the East Tenth Street Methodist Church (now United Methodist).
John recently borrowed from the church and showed me a “This Is Your Life” ring-binder, prepared by a committee and presented to Mr. and Mrs. Everson on the occasion of their 50th Wedding Anniversary on Jan. 1, 1956. The binder is full of photographs, newspaper clippings, certificates, and comments by friends and colleagues. These include not only his ten-year editorship of the Indianapolis News, (during which time the newspaper received a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism), his popular Sunday School class, and his work as a layman in the Methodist Church, but the couple’s retirement to a farm near Acton, and his editing of the Everson Farm Manual, published in 1944 by the Indiana Farmers Guide in Huntington, Indiana.
Perhaps Mr. Everson’s most remarkable achievement was his organization and leader – at the request of the pastor –ship of a young married couples’ Sunday School Class at East Tenth Street Church. It began with five couples and grew over the years to more than 500 members. During that time Mr. Everson missed only one Sunday, and on that occasion sent a typed lesson to be read to the group.
(To be continued.)