'100 years late'

Over 30 years ago, author and historian Angie Klink moved into a house across the street from what she’d later learn was called the “Little House of Dreams.”

Her neighbors mentioned a famous poet and artist lived there, but it wasn’t until later that Klink became acquainted with the voice of writer and artist Evaleen Stein.

Now, a historical marker stands proudly in front of the Little House of Dreams. On Thursday, the Tippecanoe County Historical Association will host a dedication in Stein’s honor, including a reception featuring a Stein art exhibition from the private collection of Winter Bottum.

The event takes place at 708 Hitt St., Lafayette, and begins at 5:30 p.m.

Upon joining the Parlor Club in 2022, Klink presented a paper on the history of Stein, which was then published in the summer 2022 issue of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History magazine.

“And (it) sort of just kept snowballing,” she said. “Then after it was published, I thought, well nobody knows that she lived here and I think it’s pretty important.”

Klink applied for a historical marker. After her application was granted, she raised over $3,000 for the fee through the Parlor Club and outside grants, she said.

Claire Eagle, executive director of TCHA, said that while the marker had been approved before she began the position, Stein’s rich history piqued her interest.

“I think it’s really easy to vaguely know about a person or place or event, but I think when you’re connecting it to a physical location, it becomes more real,” Eagle said. “And makes the history feel more real not just for Evaleen but for other historic markers that are in the community.”

The Greater Lafayette area, as a community, is respectful of its past, she said.

“It’s been really fun getting to know the history of this community, and I think something else that’s really cool about this is (that) this is a private citizen who saw a need and pushed for it,” Eagle said.

Who was Evaleen Stein?

Stein was a writer in the golden age of Indiana literature. She wrote poems, painted watercolors and sewed. A lot of her work was inspired by Indiana’s landscape and nature.

Her father, John Stein, was a friend and of John Purdue and considered second only to Purdue as the father of the university, Klink said. After the death of her father and brother, Stein and her mother designed and built the Little House of Dreams.

“They reinvented their lives,” she said.

Stein corresponded with her contemporaries, such as George Ade and James Whitcomb Riley, with whom her letters still exist and are preserved by TCHA, Klink said. Many of works, whether her poetry books or watercolors, reside there.

Stein published about 13 children’s novels and three poetry collections, but Klink said there’s far more artwork that was lost or unsigned.

Stein died in 1923, thus why the event takes place on May 23, she said.

For more of Klink’s research on Stein, you can visit her website at https://angieklink.com/evaleen-stein-indianas-rediscovered-literary-light/.

Some of Stein’s pieces are preserved in the Ball family’s private collection, currently owned by Winter Bottum.

The collection features watercolors and a poem with illustrations inspired by her family’s fishing camp on the Kankakee River.

“That was all the rage back in the early 1900s. You could get on a train in Lafayette and go on up there and get off at the river,” Bottum said. “Evaleen and her mother were often there, and most of the paintings that I have are about the Kankakee River.”

Bottum’s father eventually sold their land after ditching efforts destroyed the river.

“If you’re ever up there, you can see the deep deep ditches are nothing like the ditches we have around Lafayette,” she said. “At any rate, when they got to the river so it was just a muddy mess. They cut down all the trees.”

Bottum said after her father’s passing, she began to look through his writings and learned more about the Stein works.

“When you live in a house that’s been there for a long time, there are all these pictures on the wall and there’s things around,” she said. “Well, they were just there but he didn’t know anything about them. They were just decoration here and only lately since I’ve been retired have I had more time to look around, and plus the fact that I inherited the house so I was going through things.”

Bottum said her favorite piece from the collection is a watercolor painting of her great-great-grandfather in a fishing boat with an oar and wearing a full suit.

“I still have the oar,” she said, laughing. “They found it when they got rid of the boat.”

Bottum’s collection will be featured during the reception Tuesday.

Why is Stein important?

Betty Nelson, former Purdue dean of students and member of Parlor Club, said she’s been interested in women’s issues and feminist history from experience.

Nelson said she met Klink while Klink was writing her book, “The Dean’s Bible.” The two women became friends discussing women’s rights. She considers herself a cheerleader for Klink in the quest to bring recognition to Stein.

“A lot of women have been through that process of not being able to get a credit card, the process of my salary not counting when we went to the bank for a loan,” Nelson said. “So the opportunity to promote a woman star when she’s been ignored strikes a note.”

She said many of Stein’s male contemporaries, like Riley, received recognition when Stein did not. This dedication will give Stein the recognition she deserved.

“(We are) 100 years late,” she said.

Looking and seeing are two different things, Nelson explained, so when we look at statues of white men on white horses that’s what our history becomes.

According to an article by Chelsea Brasted, author of Axios New Orleans, “Monuments have historically represented our values by putting concepts and people on literal pedestals, then enshrining them with protective status and decades-long upkeep.”

“We are obligated to look at and see if we have a voice to try and make a difference in that,” Nelson said.

“It’s easier in the United States to find a sculpture of a mermaid than of any American-born woman who actually is part of this world,” Brasted said.

Like the statue of personified liberty on the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, Nelson joked.

“I think on campus the buildings for women are Parker, Earhart, Meredith, Matthews and Schliemann,” she said. “So Purdue certainly helps us with numbers.”

Nelson also mentioned the fountain in Tapawingo Park Plaza dedicated to Sonya Margerum, past mayor of West Lafayette, and the Voss sculpture dedicated to Janice Voss, Purdue’s first female astronaut, among others.

“We get messages, subtle and otherwise, from who is represented in the marketplace, whom we admire,” she said. “Our values are incorporated in what we recognize publicly.”

Klink’s push to commemorate Stein will encourage others to push for more representation of marginalized voices, Nelson said, to send a message to their daughters and granddaughters.

“What you do makes a contribution to our lives,” Nelson said. “You’re not on a horse, you’re not male, and you still have value.”