Indiana Spirit Quest #106: General & Donut Girl Traditional Cache

Pioneer Cemetery (All photos by LEAD DOG)

The Indiana Spirit Quest series of geocaches will take you to a number of historic cemeteries built by Hoosier Pioneers. In less than a year, the quest has grown to over a hundred caches hidden in ten north Indiana counties, and the hiders have grown to four cacher teams, each comprised of A Man and His Dog... PRAIRIEPARTNERS has set a record for one-day ISQ finds on 10-16-2004 at 55! 116 cacher teams have logged over 1,600 finds.

Patrick and I take you today to Mount Hope IOOF Cemetery (1877) in Huntington Indiana. This is the biggest cemetery in town, with many older tombstones, and some impressive mausoleums belonging to Pioneer Families.

We would like to turn your attention to the Monument and tombstones erected for this town's hometown Colonel who raised a regiment of soldiers for the Civil War and rose to the rank of Brevet Major General.(Located at 40 52.5949 and 85 31.015) Later we'll let you meet the Original Doughnut Girl from World War I.

born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on September 28, 1818. Educated at Newton, Pennsylvania, he moved near Muncie, Indiana, and helped his father on a farm, taught school, and studied law. He was admitted to the bar on his 22nd birthday and moved to Huntington, Indiana. Two years later he was elected county auditor, an office he held for nine years. He also served in the Indiana State Senate for seven terms. In 1854 Slack was defeated for a seat in the U.S. Congress.

After the outbreak of the Civil War Slack was appointed colonel of the 47th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, a unit of men from the 11th Congressional District organized at Anderson. For the next four years, from time to time, Slack would assume brigade leadership while maintaining command of the 47th. The regiment was active in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas but was not engaged in a major encounter until the battle at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863. There, the 47th suffered losses totalling 153 killed and wounded. Slack led the regiment on Nathaniel Bank's ill-fated Red River campaign in March-May 1864, receiving a promotion to brigadier general the following November. He commanded a brigade in the XIII Corps during the successful campaign for Mobile, Alabama, in early 1865. Slack was brevetted a major general and mustered out on January 15, 1866.

Returning to his law practice in Huntington, he was appointed to the eighth circuit court bench and was elected for two more terms in 1872 and 1878. Slack ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1880. On July 28, 1881, while in Chicago, Slack suffered a heart attack and died. He was buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Huntington.

Since 1917, when a cheerful Salvation Army lassie handed a fresh doughnut to a homesick doughboy in France, The Salvation Army doughnut has symbolized loving concern for those in the armed forces.

In 1917 young Helen Purviance, an ensign in the Salvation Army, was sent to France to work with the American First Division. Putting her Hoosier ingenuity to work, she and a fellow officer, Ensign Margaret Sheldon, patted the first dough into shape by hand, but soon employed an ordinary wine bottle as a rolling pin. Since they had no doughnut cutter, the lassies used a knife to cut the dough into strips and then twisted them into crullers.

Ensign Purviance coaxed the wood fire in the potbellied stove to keep it at an even heat for frying. Because it was back-breaking to lean over the low fire, she spent most of the time kneeling in front of the stove.

"I was literally on my knees," she recalled, "when those first doughnuts were fried, seven at a time, in a small frypan. There was also a prayer in my heart that somehow this home touch would do more for those who ate the doughnuts than satisfy a physical hunger."

Soon the tempting aroma of frying doughnuts drew a lengthy line of soldiers to the hut. Standing in mud and rain, they patiently waited their turn.

Although the girls worked late into the night, they could serve only 150 doughnuts the first day. The next day, that number was doubled. A while later, when fully equipped for the job, they fried from 2,500 to 9,000 doughnuts daily, as did other lassies along the frontline trenches.

After several soldiers asked, "Can't you make a doughnut with a hole in it?", Ensign Purviance had an elderly French blacksmith improvise a doughnut cutter by fastening the top of a condensed milk can and camphor-ice tube to a wooden block. Later, all sorts of other inventions were employed, such as the lid from a baking powder can or a lamp chimney to cut the doughnut, with the top of a coffee percolator to make the hole.

HELEN & CREW FRYING DOUGHNUTS IN FRANCE

The soldiers cheered the doughnuts and soon referred to Salvation Army lassies as "doughnut girls," even when they baked apple pies or other treats. The simple doughnut became a symbol of all that the Salvation Army was doing to ease the hardships of the frontline fighting man -- the canteens in primitive dugouts and huts, the free refreshments, religious services, concerts, and a clothes-mending service.

Today Salvation Army Red Shield Clubs and USO units offer members of the Armed Forces a variety of services, ranging from attractive recreational facilities to family counseling -- but the famous doughnut remains a perennial favorite.

The grave of Hospital Corpsman John R. Kissinger can be seen in the Gallery. He was the first volunteer for controlled experimental purposes in the fight against Yellow Fever in Cuba (Also called "Yellow Jack" and "Black Vomit"). This disease inflicted greater losses to U.S. forces in the Spanish American War than the enemy.

Kissinger was born July 25, 1877 in Ohio, his family relocating to a farm near Liberty Mills in Wabash County when he was young. John joined the Army at age nineteen but his regiment was not sent to fight in the war. In 1898 he re-enlisted, hoping to fight in the Philipines, but was not called to go. He transferred to the hospital Corps and was sent to Cuba, although the fighting there was over.

Yellow Fever was conquered, but John Kissinger suffered for the rest of his life from side-effects attributed to his experimental exposures. He died July 12 at Clearwater , Fla. (coincidently Lead Dog's home town)where he had moved to seek relief from pain in the warmer climate. His body was returned to Huntington and buried in Mt. Hope.

The cache container is a black 35mm film can. BYOP. Park with care. If you find a fallen US flag, please stick it back in the ground. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out.

Cache In - Trash Out!

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NO NIGHT CACHING ALLOWED IN INDIANA SPIRIT QUEST CEMETERIES!!