Two Hoosier Guys

Linda Burton posting from Indianapolis, Indiana – An unopened letter under glass. A hat and cane on the bed. These lonely mementos are remnants of the lives of two men whose words have touched virtually every school child and avid reader of the last hundred years. I’m talking about James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922-2007), both with inextricable ties to Indianapolis. Riley was an American writer known as the Hoosier Poet. His work tended to be humorous or sentimental and most of the thousand poems he published were in dialect, like Little Orphant Annie (1885). Vonnegut was an American writer known for his unique blend of satire and science fiction. His black comic voice became his trademark in novels such as Slaughterhouse Five (1969). The James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home and the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library sit only blocks apart in downtown Indianapolis. I visited both today, looking for more personal glimpses of the men and hoping to better understand what led them down their chosen paths. I never thought of them as anything alike, but before the day was over, I found that I was wrong; they had a great deal in common. Though born in different centuries, they grew up on Indiana time; little boys raised with Indiana values. As with most of us, they were greatly influenced by their families. James was the third of the six children of Reuben and Elizabeth Riley; Kurt Jr was the youngest of three children born to Kurt and Edith Vonnegut. Both families suffered a traumatic change of circumstances that reflected forever in the writings, and behaviors, of these two men. » read more