The Building on Wells Street

As I was going through some of the photos I snapped from May, I remembered that I hadn't asked anyone about this building.

If you're going North on Wells, it is on the left hand side, right before you get to Jack and Johnny's.

I pulled two pictures from ACPL CONTENTdm (cropped 'em) and they're below.

The woodworking above the windows - frickin' awesome. And it's still there. I really, really hope that this isn't a building on the demolition list. Please tell me that something positive and uplifting is happening with this building :).

"Yep, This Used To Be The Place..."

Before I got distracted with Speed Buggy and ABC Wide World of Sports, I was writing about my trip to Fort Wayne and specifically - my foot excursion to the shoppes by the old Wells Street Bridge.

I showed you Richard's Bakery (both north and south approaches) and then, I also posted the south approaching side (or is that north???) of the shoppes that used to be the home of The Mouse House.

Today's picture is the front (angled) view of this strip of shoppes.

I was bummed that these people were working on the building because I wanted a really cool, clean shot of the place.

But being who I am, I decided to take advantage of the situation. I walked up to them and just started talking...

Me: Excuse me.

Guy: Yes?

Me: I used to live in this neighborhood several years ago. I haven't been back here for at least a decade. Am I crazy - did a business known as The Mouse House - used to be among these shoppes?

Guy: Yep. In fact it was right there (he pointed to the shoppe on the end - the one that now served coffee).

Me: Wow. I thought so. I peaked into the front windows. It looks a bit different - but much of the same structure is still there.

Guy: Yep. The last tenant that was here, after The Mouse House, was a bar. They made some changes, but not a whole lot.

Me: Wow! I had no idea - a bar!

Guy: Yep.

Me: Any idea why The Mouse House people left?

Guy: Nope. I just know that this used to be the place where it was.

I thanked him for his time and then I stepped back a ways, and I just took it all in. I wasn't sad. I thought about the impact that a tiny little, locally owned shoppe had on my life.

Its presence was a catalyst - it brought together my natural/naive curiosity with the patience/wisdom/history/story-telling of my grandparents.

What a great gift this place was to me. But you know what? It wasn't the only place in Fort Wayne. There were others. Some still exist. Others do not.

Me: Well grandpa, we're only in a hurry because there's so many things we have to do!

Grandpa: When you get older, you might see things differently...

And I'm older and now I get it.

We're so busy "doing things". We go through life on fast forward instead of taking the time to have moments like these. Part of that is how we - as a society - and as families - have taken advantage of modern conveniences. Part of it is, we've lost touch (I've lost touch) with simplicity and meaning.

I think for the past 20 years of my life, I have been preoccupied with things that are complicated and in the end, just don't matter much.

Maybe that's what inspires me to write this blog.

I'm reminding myself what made me most happiest - at a time when I had literally nothing (from a material perspective).

I did have though - grandparents, cousins, aunts, friends, teachers, neighbors - who cared about me.

And not because I was smart or had money or knew someone who could do something for them.

They just liked/loved/appreciated me for me.

Kind of a cool concept, isn't it?!

Cheese and Doughnuts

While I was in Fort Wayne two weekends ago, I retraced the very path that my grandparents and I used to take for cheese and doughnuts.

After crossing Third Street over to Wells Street, we would walk down the sidewalk - past 2nd Street, past 1st Street - and we would come across Richard's Bakery.

How to describe the baking smell coming from Richard's Bakery? I'm not eloquent enough - that's for sure. Let's just say - this place was in competition for best smell ever (with the bread people).

We would walk past the building (no, let's stop!) because grandpa said that glazed twisties would ruin our cheese sampling abilities.

We would round the corner and there would be the building that housed The Mouse House.

The Mouse House was the very last shop on this strip. The very last shop before you'd get ready to cross the old Wells Street Bridge.

We would walk in, and my grandparents would always be greeted by their names.

Wayne. Irene. How are you this fine spring morning?

I wasn't sure how they knew the folks who ran The Mouse House. I just know that every time we went in there, we were greeted like old friends. After sampling various cheese, we would walk out with at least one round of colby and a slab of another, unknown (to me) cheese.

We would walk back to Richard's Bakery and again - I would be greeted with that heavenly - please never leave me smell.

Again, my grandparents would be greeted by their first names. While I would stick my nose against the see through glass display mmmmm - doughnuts...mmmmm - pastries..... they would chit chat about everything and anything.

My grandpa would get his cake doughnut. I always got the glazed twisties. My grandma would get something with a filling in it.

The walk home always seemed longer than the walk there. Just cause I wanted to eat my doughnut - right there!

To distract myself, I chatted. (Chatting = forgetting the glaze part of the twistie - but only momentarily).

Me: How come we always walk down to the bakery and the cheese shop to get doughnuts and cheese? It's easier if we just pick up this stuff when we shop at the grocery store.

Grandma: Well because Krissie. These are honest folks, trying to make a living for themselves and their families. They put their heart into what they sell and I know that they wouldn't sell us anything that they wouldn't want their own families to have.

Me: So the grocery store sells rotten food?

Grandpa: Not exactly. I think what your grandma is trying to say is that we think it is important to patronize local establishments - family owned businesses. Many years ago, before you were born, that used to be the way of life. Bakeries, and cheese shops, and drug stores, and shoe stores...they all used to be owned and run by the families who lived in the community. Back then, everybody knew everybody and that's the way it was. When we moved to this neighborhood and we saw that there were some of these places close by, we made sure to visit them and give them our business.

Me: How come not more of these places exist?

Grandpa: Everybody is in a hurry these days. They want everything now, without waiting. These shopping centers popped up with national chains and people drive out to get what they want. Most family businesses don't stock up what you'd find in K-Mart and Murphy's.

Me: Well grandpa, we're only in a hurry because there's so many things we have to do!

Grandpa: When you get older, you might see things differently...

The Myth: Colby Cheese Makes You Fart

Picture: Me and my cousin Wendy, at the house on 615 W. Third Street (1986).

We're doing dishes and my mom is pestering us to turn around for a picture.

************

There was once a time when I didn't like cheese. Now mind you, I liked macaroni and cheese (as in Kraft), and I liked cheese as a garnish. But a hunka chunka cheese by itself?

Yeahhh - not so much.

Until I started spending time with my grandpa.

At his house on Third Street, there would always be a hunk of cheese. Sometimes a half moon, sometimes an entire round wheel. That was his snack. He'd go into the kitchen, unwrap it, cut off of a slab, and sit down in his overstuffed chair, watching the news.

Me: Grandpa. Isn't that gross?

Grandpa: Nope. Best colby cheese in the world.

Me: Don't you need to have some macaroni or a hamburger with that?

Grandpa: Nope. All of that stuff would ruin the taste.

Me: Doesn't it make you have the farts? Grandma says cheese makes you fart.

Grandpa: Your Grandma doesn't know what she's talking about. She thinks everything produces gas.

One day, as he was cuttin' himself off a slab, he cut me one too.

Me: What am I supposed to do with this?

Grandpa: I thought you were the smart one in this family.

So I ate it.

Colby cheese. It had a slightly sourish, but creamy taste to it (remember - my cheese experience to this point had been KRAFT). Interesting. Not a total turnoff. But I didn't say that to him. Nope. It would have been like he was right and I was wrong. I'm not admittin' that.

A couple more times, he would bring me slabs. I ate. Said nothing. Ditto for him.

Then somehow, I was the one fetching the slabs for both of us.

Grandma: Krissie, don't eat too much of that. It'll give you horrendous gas like your Grandpa.

Grandpa: Irene... don't be tellin' the girl that. You're just makin' up stories. In a whisper to me Your Grandma just doesn't have appreciation for cheese. She was born in Ohio - what does she know?!

Me: Giggle. Roll my eyes.

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Next up - it was time for him to introduce me to the place where he purchased his cheese - The Mouse House.

And that's when me, him, and Grandma, would take our walk "down to the bridge" to get some cheese and doughnuts.

This is a birds-eye view of the area.

Walking "down to the bridge" was about walking to the shops that were located close to the Old Wells Street Bridge.

We wouldn't have to walk across it for this particular trip - but that's how they referred to our walking excursion to Richard's Bakery and The Mouse House.

"Let's Take A Walk to The Bridge"

<-This is a picture of my Grandma, standing on the porch of 615 W. Third Street.

My grandpa was a security guard at St. Joe Hospital and his work week wasn't the typical 8 to 5, Monday thru Friday.

In the beginning, he worked second shift and his schedule was like four days on and three days off and then five days on and two days off. Never the same days either!

I never kept up with his schedule. I just knew that when I woke up, if he was sitting in his big, overstuffed chair, that meant it was his work day (he watched his television in that chair).

If he was wandering the house and the yard, it was a day off.

On his days off, he and Grandma used to like to walk together to various places around the neighborhood.

Usually, they'd come find me and say, "Let's Take a Walk to the Bridge".

I knew what bridge they were talking about and I knew what the trip was about. We were going to walk down Wells Street, and pick up some things from The Mouse House and Richard's Bakery.

As you can see from the map, it was a bit of a walk, but I never minded it.

There were sidewalks which were very walkable and crossing over from Third Street to Wells Street was never a big deal.

Wells and Third Street - Then & Before Then

PTC Bus Stop

Corner of Wells Street and Third Street

Fort Wayne, Indiana 46808

My Grandparents (my mother's parents) lived in Fort Wayne almost their entire life (with the exception of a few years where they lived in Jackson, Michigan).

My Grandpa was born and raised in Fort Wayne. He always lived in the downtown area - Main Street, Clay Street, DeWald, Union Street.

The last house that my Grandparents lived in (before Grandpa died) was on Third Street. They picked it because it was a duplex, it had a huge yard, and it was within walking distance of everything that they cared about.

I've mentioned before that my Grandparents didn't drive. Ever. They always got around on foot or - sometimes - we took the bus. When they lived on Third Street, this is the bus stop we used to stand next to in order to catch the PTC bus.

As you can see from this picture, it almost looks "park" like. It has two nice benches and beautiful shade trees. I remember when those shade trees weren't tall enough to shade anything. And one day, while waiting on the bus to pick us up, I mentioned to Grandpa that they should have planted bigger trees so we had some shade during the hot weather.

That's when he told me about why these trees were so brand new.

It turns out, that just a few years before, a Firehouse - specifically Firehouse #6 - used to occupy the space that we were standing on.

A Firehouse?! Neat!

Me: But what happened to the firehouse? Did it not have enough fires to put out?

Grandpa: The city needed to put that firehouse out on Coliseum Boulevard. People moved out of the inner parts of our city to the suburbs and in case there are fires out in the new parts of the city, they've got a fire house close by.

Me: How come there can't be both (fire stations)?

Grandpa: Sometimes, when you only have one pot of money to pull from, you have to make a decision - one or the other.

He told me that it was built in the late 1800's and that before there were shiny trucks - there were horses which used to take the firemen and their equipment to whatever establishment needed them.

Me: Wow! Horses used to walk on these streets?!

You can tell, I was easily fascinated as a child :).

As I drove by this spot this weekend, I stopped and took the picture you see at the beginning of this blog entry. I sat on one of the bench's and I thought about the time that I spent in this area as a child. You never think - in the moment - how much time you spend "waiting" for something (and back then - it was a bus) and how those moments are great pockets of opportunities that should never go to waste.

In my case, I was such an inquisitive child and I often wonder - if handheld games and other modern things were around then - would I have turned them off and had these types of conversations with my Grandparents (especially as we walked downtown or waited for the bus)?

Sadly - probaby not. So I guess I'm thankful that my Grandparents didn't drive. I'm thankful that the PTC bus program operated during that time, and I'm thankful that my parents let me spend oodles of time with my mom's parents.

1401 Wells Street - Firehouse No. 6 - 1920

1401 Wells Street - Firehouse No. 6 - 1975