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Call it local but disorganized history.
Boxes and boxes of the late Russell Frehse’s collection of historic records, more than 300 unidentified photographs, hand-written timelines on legal pad paper, notebooks and specific collections on churches, cemeteries, U.S. 6, the Levin House, Kendallville Public Library and other Kendallville sites, newspaper clippings, yearbooks and personal diaries are being catalogued at the Kendallville Public Library.
Volunteer archivist Judy Richter has been working since early March examining, sorting and attempting to identify the thousands of items stored in 54 boxes. She is nearly completed.
I have some idea of the challenge facing her.
Frehse, who died 2005, at age 95, spent more than 30 years of his life in Kendallville accumulating city history. Following his retirement, he spent most of his time in libraries researching Kendallville and Noble County history and wandering through the area’s cemeteries taking meticulous notes on legal-size notebook paper in his flowing long-hand script.
He showed up at garage sales and scoured flea markets for discarded city and county records, school yearbooks.
When word spread about this local history buff, people started giving him unwanted old photographs, historical documents and records.
He found the original letter John Mitchell wrote in 1865 deeding land for Lake View Cemetery in a shopping bag of old papers someone left on his front porch.
I got to know Russell very well, and visited him in his small, one-story home. Stacks of files of newspaper clippings, his hand-written notes, city and county documents, old ledgers filed the rooms and hallway. He often fretted what would happen to this collection after he passed away.
In 1999 Russell told Mayor Larry McGahen he wanted to donate the collection to the city, and City Council established a committee to examine the artifacts. City Hall was being remodeled at the time, and city officials considered setting up a permanent display of some of Frehse’s collection. The Kendallville Area Chamber of Commerce also expressed interest in the collection.
At the time directors at the Kendallville Public Library and Noble County Library indicated to Frehse they had no space for the collection.
City officials did not pursue the collection for the remodeled City Hall, and when Frehse died in 2005, the Chamber of Commerce agreed to store the collection.
When the new Kendallville Public Library opened in 2007, the genealogy room was named for Frehse, and the library accepted his collection for examination and cataloguing. Tuesday night library director Jenny Draper gave library trustees a partial list of items identified so far.
Items on the list included: original plat book for Noble County, original history of Angling Road, an original booklet History of the Regulators of Northern Indiana 1859, an original deed Nathaniel John to Jehu Foster 1839, an 1899 commencement program for Patoka Township Public School, a history of KHS listing students from 1879 to 1966, a 1914 photo of a wigwam at Rome City, clippings and books on the Strater, Iddings and Dingman families, First National Bank abstract from 1858 and a Mitchell family timeline from 1807 to 1909.
Some of the items may be put on display in the library, but most will be catalogued, preserved and placed in the Russell Frehse genealogy room.
Farewell board members
The Kendallville Public Library Board of Trustees said farewell to two friends this week, board members Randy Sexton and Fred Inniger. Sexton had been on the board for four four-year terms, the maximum allowed, and was instrumental in guiding to completion the new Limberlost Public Library building in 1997 and the Kendallville Public Library building in 2007. Inniger joined the board in 2004, and resigned because he is moving from the district. The retired East Noble teacher, guidance counselor and coach brought loads of enthusiasm, energy and outside support to the library system. “You will be missed,” board president Betty Allen told them at their last board meeting this week.
dennis nartker is a reporter for The News Sun. He can be reached at
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