Willow Leaves November 1

Time Change Trick or Treat If you “fell back” Sunday morning and set your clock back, you were probably late for church, and the trick is on you. Willow Mills, like most of Indiana, does not go on fast time in the spring, so we don't have to slow down in the fall. To all those in Ohio who have been racing ahead all summer, we welcome you back to real time. However, having everyone change sides of the time zone always creates some confusion, so a recap is advisable. Ohio and points east are now back on Eastern Standard Time, so they are the same time as us. Illinois, and points west to the mountains are now on Central Standard time so they are an hour behind us instead of on the same time. If you have relatives in the Rockies, they are now two hours behind and the West Coast is three hours behind. that is all except Emma Jones’ cousin in Tukwilla, Washington where they are exactly ten years and three hours behind. There is one other exception: We are still two hours ahead of Arizona, just as we were last week, Arizona being the only other state in the Union that sensibly doesn't try to speed up the clock in summer. However, having spent a summer in Phoenix, if there were a way to actually speed up that time, they would be well-advised to use it!

Summit Chapel and Cemetery

It was 1942. The nation was embroiled in the Second World War and Hayden Fergusson was sending home missives on his climb to Captaincy in the US Army. Sixteen other youth from Willow Mills had been or soon would be called up to serve. All but one would return unscathed.

But a different kind of war was brewing in Indiana. One that would be fought for nearly three decades and end in an uneasy truce between Gary, Indiana and the rest of the State: Time Wars.

The United States Government passed the War Time Act in February 1942. The entire nation would go on Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on February 9. The purpose was to move more daylight hours late in the day so that people took greater advantage of natural light in the evening and cut their use of oil and electricity. They would go to bed sooner after sundown.

There had been many skirmishes in the State over time zones ever since the railroad started dividing the State up in 1883. In the years from 1884 through the first World War, the time zone boundary kept being moved from one side of the state to the other as people fought over whether they should be on the same time as the financial and stock markets in New York, or the industrial and agricultural markets in Chicago. Counties began passing laws themselves as to which zone they would follow, and cities in the counties sometimes moved to have a different time than the rest of the county.

But Daylight Saving Time was the shot heard ’round the State. Some businesses dutifully turned forward their clocks while others defiantly stayed on “real time.” Brother turned against brother and mother against daughter as Time Wars raged.

In Willow Mills, the battleground was Summit Chapel.

And so it was that before retiring in the evening of February 8, 1942, Milo Stoneburner dutifully set his clock ahead one hour, painfully begrudging the lost hour of sleep, but determined to do his part for the war effort in which his son was enlisted.

In the morning he rose at 5:00, and set about the task of convincing the cows that it was indeed milking time. He finished the milking, fed the pigs, collected the eggs, and went in to shower and dress for church. He and his wife, Agnes, walked up to Summit Chapel a mile and a half away in the still-dark morning to save on gas rations and arrived right on time at 10:00. Milo was surprised to find no one in the church. He and Agnes sat alone in the chapel. Eventually she played a hymn on the piano and Milo sang along. She played two or three more and he sang, but his heart wasn’t in it.

A few minutes before 11:00 people started to come in. They were surprised to find Agnes and Milo singing at the piano, and some joined in. But their surprise was complete when Milo laid a hand on Agnes' shoulder at exactly 11:00 and she stopped playing.

Now, many people would have shrugged it off, or even laughed about not knowing what time the church was meeting. But Milo was a man of strong convictions. He strode to the center of the chancel and motioned the Minister to just sit down and listen for a minute.

Then he began to speak.

He reminded his fellows that the legislature had passed a law decreeing war time. That the law was to turn their clocks ahead one hour on February 9th. He reminded them that it was no harder on any other farmer than it was on Milo, and that he had been up at 4:00 real time to do his milking and chores. He even managed to weave the quote of Jesus to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” into his case for obeying Daylight Saving Time. Then he concluded by stating that if the church could not obey the laws of the land that his son was fighting to preserve, then it had no need of his attendance, his membership and his money, and that he would never darken the doors of this chapel again.

He finished by telling everyone to go home. God had been there at 10:00 and they missed him.

That, unfortunately was the beginning of the end at Summit Chapel. The congregation had a close vote after Milo left to stay on Real Time no matter what the law said—a bold act of civil disobedience. The next Sunday there were only about half the number of usual attendees as a sheepish half of the congregation joined Milo at the Methodist Church or the Lutheran Church in town.

Those who were left couldn’t pay their minister’s salary after about a month or two and he joined up in the army as a chaplain. With no preacher, there was not much reason to attend the church, and attendance died down even further. The next winter, the pipes froze in the church because there was no heat turned on. They turned the water off up there.

It looked like it would be a derelict of a happier time until Art Fergusson who was one of the last members took matters into his own hands and arranged to have the chapel donated to the town in 1951. He included an additional three acres adjoining the church yard as a town cemetery. Now Summit Chapel is a Funeral Chapel only, and when Milo died about 10 years ago, he was the last person buried in the old part of the cemetery. It was the first time the chapel had seen his shadow in 40 years.

By the way, to this day 77 counties in Indiana stay on Eastern Standard Time year round. A county near Cincinnati, Ohio, and one across from Louisville, Kentucky go on Eastern Daylight Saving Time when Ohio and Kentucky do. The counties around Gary and Evansville are on Central Standard Time in the winter and Central Daylight Saving Time in the Summer. Instead of a state where time stands still, it’s one in which time moves all over the place.