Culver History Archives

Betty Jane Smith: A Culver Tragedy

by Anita Boetsma | Feb 20, 2026 | Culver, Visitor Stories & Oral Histories

Feature Image. From left: Betty Jane Smith; Mildred Isom, Betty Jane Smith, and Eleanor Turner (photo courtesy Mildred Isom)

By: By Mildred Isom, Edited by Jeff Kenney and Anita Boetsma

In July 2007, Mildred Isom, originally of Culver, sent an essay about her recollections of her friendship with — and subsequent grief at the death of — Betty Jane Smith, one of the four African American children drowned in the 1947 tragedy. Betty Jane was buried in Mildred’s band uniform, a fact which Mildred blocked from memory.

Betty Jane Smith was a member of our exclusive quartet of friends at Culver High School. She was an orphan who came from Chicago to live with her grandparents in our little farm town of Culver, IN, in the early 1940’s. The four of us were immediately drawn together into the same activities with the same goals. Marching Band, softball and other sports were our first choices but we soon we all joined Chapel Choir and the orchestra. Our band and sports teams went out of town each year to compete in contests statewide.

Betty Jane Smith.

Betty’s bubbly personality kept us all cheerful, and her long black sausage curls were natural. Never before and never after have I been a part of such a fun loving, loyal and hardworking group. Before long Betty’s cousins, Eleanor, Winston and Paul, arrived to live with the grandparents. Their parents were professionals in Chicago, a dentist, doctor and podiatrist. I did not even know what a podiatrist was at that time. Betty’s grandmother’s name was Augusta, but we all called her Ga Ga because the little ones could not pronounce her name. The grandfather was Lloyd Smith, a rotund, jolly white-haired gentleman who kidded us for our attempts at cooking but never failed to consume it. This family was one of the only two black families in our town and were not related. In Plymouth, a mere 10 miles north, blacks were not allowed in town after 6:00 pm. This was a mystery to us in our teenage years in the mid-1940s.*

More time was spent at Betty Jane’s house than mine. I was always invited for Friday night sleepovers, Sunday dinners and holidays. My mother had passed away many years before, my older sister was married, and my father worked long hours and was seldom home. Betty Jane, although much loved and always cheerful, still I think, felt like an orphan and basically so did I at the time. We were a comfort to each other and felt like sisters. During the summers one or more of the quartet joined us in swimming, fishing, bike riding and any kind of sports, music and babysitting.

On Friday nights during the summer, we usually rode our bikes around the north side of Lake Maxinkuckee to attend the free movies offered by the Culver Military Academy. During the winters we walked directly across the lake which was frozen over three months of the year. One Friday night I had the flu and did not go with them. About 8:30 p.m. my father came home and told me that he and two friends had pulled Betty Jane, Winston and Paul from the lake. They had fallen through a thin spot in the ice. Betty Jane’s cousin, Eleanor Turner, was the only survivor. Eleanor said that her brother, Winston Turner, had lifted and pushed her up onto solid ice before he succumbed. She was able to retrace her steps back to the starting point. Although my father was gentle in telling me, I doubt if he really ever knew how it affected me. My only real confidant at that time was Betty Jane’s grandmother. I remember visiting her once right after the event. We experienced tears, hugs and holding each other. As far as I remember, I never went back. I could never bear to again step into the house. This occurred when we were in the 8th grade.

Life went on, of course. Eleanor continued high school with us but we did not become any closer as she was the studious one and being chubby all her life, she did not care for sports. She did continue to be in the marching band. At our class reunion in 2001, she wrote saying she was married, living in New York and regretted she would not be able to attend the reunion.

After the reunion banquet, three of us left in the quartet met at Helen Sikora Zalas’ house, my longtime girlfriend’s, in South Bend, to carry on with our own reunion. After rehashing and chuckling about a lot of past incidents, Betty Jane’s name was brought up. Helen turned to me and said, “That was really nice of you to let them use your band uniform for Betty to be buried in.” I said something like “huh?” Then the other two girls told me the Band Director had asked if I would donate my uniform and I had said yes, so they transferred my medals onto a maroon cardigan sweater. Helen asked if I remembered going to the services. I had to say “no.” I was told we all marched fully uniformed down Main Street to the Evangelical Church for services and further to the cemetery. One of the girls said that the band director accumulated enough funds to purchase a new uniform jacket for me about a year later. I had no recollection of these events at the time and still do not.

As the years go by I still think of Betty Jane, and the way we were a long time ago.

*Editor’s Note: According to the Encyclopedia Britannica and other online resources, ”Sundown Towns” excluded people of color from being in town after sunset. This practice existed across the U.S. during the 20th Century.

The Museum is home to many stories like this one. Information about the history of Black communities in Culver is available as well. The Museum is open from 10 until 4 from Tuesday through Saturday at 123 N. Michigan St., Plymouth. For more information, call 574-936-2306.

Culver’s African American History

by Anita Boetsma | Jan 31, 2025 | Clubs & Organizations, Culver

Above: fascinating photo of Culver’s “Cafe Society” pictured in the 1940s. The group was an African American social club which gathered in various homes. Pictured, from left: (seated) Thelma Hodges, LaVeda Pierce, Elsie Byrd and Adelaide Weaver, and standing, unidentified couple, Morsell (Bob) Hodges, Smoke Pierce from Michigan, Charlie Weaver, Ace Byrd, Roy Scott, and Roy Lear. The youth is unidentified. Photo courtesy Thelma Moorehead.

Culver’s history includes a rather unique presence and influence from its African American populace. A glance at early 20th century Culver High School yearbooks reveals a black populace integrated into Culver’s public schools and a part of the community of Culver, a somewhat unusual set of circumstances for a small Indiana town at that time.

Culver’s African American community had its roots in the origins of the Culver Academy, founded by H.H. Culver in 1894. When the only moderately successful school boosted its attendance by merging with students from a St. Louis military school that burned to the ground, there followed a contingency of black employees to Culver from the same St. Louis school. Being the era that it was, African Americans were primarily employed in service roles: domestics, waiters, custodians and the like, and Culver was no exception.

The heyday of Culver’s African American community was primarily between the 1920s and 1960s, after which older residents — retiring and with no reasonable jobs to replace the fading domestic and service jobs that had attracted black workers for decades — remained or were moved away by grown children who had found employment elsewhere. According to many residents of the day, Culver’s African American populace, which tended to be more middle class and educated, were fairly integrated into the community at large.

The Culver Military Academy, nearly from its outset, employed black help on its grounds. Perhaps most visible was its ongoing group of African American waiters. Today’s Academy students are accustomed to a cafeteria-style buffet dining experience, but until the late 1950s, meals were served to cadets by African American waiters, the leaders of whom became well known and beloved to many students and faculty over the years.

Some of these individuals become iconic members of the community, particularly the Academy community. Roy “Sheep” Scott held court at Culver Academy for decades in a number of roles, including overseeing the janitorial staff. He also became an unofficial “counselor” to students, many of whom adopted him as a beloved confidant and sounding board for any number of personal and academic problems. Scott, as was true of many of the long-term African American staff at CMA, was a resident of Culver for years, living on the south end of town. His daughter Thelma returned from a teaching career with her husband Bob Hodges and became one of Culver’s more prominent citizens until her death in 1990.

Thelma, an antiques collector, became manager of Country Cousins Antiques on the west side of Main Street in downtown Culver and taught antiques classes at Ancilla College. She was also active in local politics and real estate, and was a member of Wesley United Methodist Church, where her funeral was held in 1990.