Willow Leaves July 12

4H Park Hosts Garden Exhibition Roses abounded this weekend as the Willow Mills 4H Park hosted its midsummer garden exhibition. Willow Mills leads the summer season with the first floral display competition in the area. Many exhibitors will continue to bring flowers to shows throughout this and neighboring counties until the county fairs wrap up the season in late August. This year’s exhibition featured more than the usual number of roses leading to much speculation on how the early heat this year has affected growing patterns. Local breeder Darrell Long won the people’s choice award with an unusual hybrid tea rose he calls Roxanne’s Delight. The flower has a yellow bud with flaming orange tips. Proceeds from the admission fee ($1), go to our local 4H’ers who will be bringing their various projects to the Wabash County Fair next week.

Annual Revival Concludes The annual revival at Holy Waters Baptist Church came to a spectacular conclusion on Sunday with three services and 18 new baptisims in the Eel River. “Brother Hollowell’s sermons were an inspiration to all of us,” said regular minister Andrew Wilson. “We have received 14 new members into our congregation and have baptized 18 adults and youth into the faith. It’s a shame that the 4th of July only comes once a year.” This year the church was newly air conditioned which some believe had an affect on attendance at the services, and on the willingness of so many people to stay in church for so long.

Holy Waters Baptist Church and
The Harmony Grits Gospel Choir

Anyone who believes Indiana is a “Northern State” has not visited Holy Waters Baptist Church, nor heard the Harmony Grits Gospel Choir.

Northerners spend a long time puzzling over that name. (In Indiana, “Northern” is north of the Lincoln Highway, U.S. Hwy 30.) The name came about a few years ago when the church hired a new choir director from Tennessee named Delbert Jones. At his first rehearsal with the choir, Del gave them his speech on what a choir is all about. But what the choir heard was not exactly what Del said.

“Music is abou’ hominy,” they heard him say. “We sang hominy. The angels in heaven sang hominy. God loves hominy. But you got to bounce you hominy. If you bounce you hominy, you have grit hominy. As you director, my job is to make you hominy grit.”

At about that time, Suze Wilson spoke up and said “I like my hominy grits with butter and pepper.”

“I’m sorry I’m not speaking clearly for you northrun ears,” Del responded. “I din’t say hominy, I said hominy. And I din’t say grit, I said grit. But if you sang grit hominy, we’ll call the choir Hominy Grits.”

And so it is to this day. The choir sings harmony. Del balances the harmony. And the harmony is great. All from Harmony Grits.

Welcome to Willow Woods Community

Lynn Powers of Powers House Realty has always been gung ho on living in Willow Mills. She got that from her father when she was just a child. That was Bill Powers of Powers House Construction. He was the first developer to look at Willow Mills as a residential Mecca for harried corporate executives in the big city of Wabash (population 21,000) just 14 miles away.

It would be an easy commute in the big luxury cars of the late 50s; and Willow Mills would be a place where corporate wives could find a friendly community with a good school and great environment for raising kids. But no matter how he worded the promotionals, people weren’t willing to trade homes four miles away from work for homes fourteen miles away. So sales were slow at first.

Then Bill’s daughter, Lynn, got in the act. In 1959, Lynn was in fifth grade and had a new teacher, Mrs. Sullivan. Mrs. Sullivan was new in town. She and her husband (who worked in Warsaw) were living down in Bourbon. It wasn’t a bad commute for Mr. Sullivan, but it was an hour each way for Mrs. Sullivan.

Lynn got word that they were looking for a new home and went straight to work selling them on Willow Woods. And, to the surprise of everyone, was successful. Bill paid his daughter the full 3% commission on the $22,000 home and she was motivated. She began reading everything she could get her hands on about real estate sales. She made flyers and distributed them on Main Street in North Manchester. She put posters up at school. She made phone calls to local businesses and to the college.

By the time Lynn finished high school, she had sold 22 houses in Willow Woods which her father built. And rather than go to college, she decided to hang her shingle on Main Street in 1968 and began selling property all over the Eel River Valley near Willow Mills.

Unfortunately, Bill’s management of the development did not match his daughter’s sales ability. He allowed people to choose their own lots and he built custom on each one. As a result, for several years Lynn was the only one who made money on the development. People cherry-picked the lots and by 1970 they couldn’t sell any of those that remained.

So now there are about 40 homes on nearly 70 lots in Willow Woods. When Bill retired in ’85 he sold the remaining lots to his daughter and she set about turning another big profit by imediately announcing a new phase of development and staking out homes on the vacant lots. Lots that the current residents had been using as extensions to their own yards.

The residents were so appaled at the thought of having “their yards” cut up for new homes that they quickly bought up the remaining lots to prevent more houses from being built.

Still the old marketing slogan stands on the sign that points into the neighborhood: “Willow Woods—If you lived here, you’d be home now.”