Sticking Around Lafayette, Indiana

She didn't plan on staying, but more than 20 years later novelist Patricia Henley embraces her adopted community

  • By Patricia Henley
  • Photographs by Tim Klein
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Lafayette Indiana
"Not gussied up or cute, Lafayette is a sturdy town, persistent in its character," says Patricia Henley. (Tim Klein)

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I grew up on a back road in a stretch of flat farmland in west-central Indiana. When school was out, the summer bookmobile was my lifeline. It would park near the railroad trestle, in a half-moon of gravel, and I would load up on novels and feel secure, knowing that when chores were done and softball games over, I had a story to read. When I was 16, my parents moved us to Maryland. We drove through the curvaceous Appalachian Mountains. Ever after I have craved hills and mountains and travel, but I have almost always made my home in small towns or on back roads near small towns. I thought I would never go back to Indiana, yet after years of nomadic life, I did return, a little over two decades ago, and I stayed. I live in a 19th-century brick house on a half-acre surrounded by fields where coyotes howl. It’s similar to my life as a child. Stories are important to me, as well as meandering walks, gardening and observing what the philosopher David Abram calls the “more-than-human world,” the coyotes and herons, fir trees and coneflowers. Still, the phrase “going to town” has an anticipatory glimmer.

When I go to town now, it’s to Lafayette, Indiana.

I arrived here on a sweltering night in August 1987 in a Honda Civic I had driven from Montana, a red kayak strapped to the roof. I spent the last few hours on back roads, tunneling through corn. The towering fields seemed architectural, as if they would last forever. Insects crusted up on the windshield; every 30 miles or so I would clear them off with an ice scraper. Purdue University had offered me a stint as the visiting writer and I figured when it was over I would skedaddle back to the Rockies. I cruised right on through West Lafayette, the enormous hilltop campus of Purdue, crossed the Wabash River and drove up South Street, another hill, and that made me happy—I would not have to give up rolling terrain after all.

I was asked to stay on, and I did. For the first seven years, I lived on the Lafayette side of the Wabash in a furnished apartment. My office mate at Purdue was an Italian-American poet, Felix Stefanile, who had arrived from New York in 1961. Felix would listen to my whining about the lack of espresso, no café life. “When I moved here,” he would admonish me, grinning, “you couldn’t find an Italian tomato in the grocery.” That made sense, sadly; my mother’s repertoire of vegetables had ranged from corn to green beans and back again. Perhaps because of my Catholic upbringing and all the rules it imposed, I rolled back into my home state expecting it to be repressed and unimaginative, but I discovered its secret underbelly. I found it in candlelit solstice ceremonies and at the Depot, a gay bar, where, beneath a sparkly disco ball, drag queens danced joyously in prom gowns that would have made a sorority sister proud. I have no idea if such alternatives persist; my life is different now.

Back then I had one foot out the door, my suitcases at the ready. I resisted being here. Tongue-in-cheek, I called it La Fiesta or Lay Flat, like many who want to leave but can’t work up what one of my friends calls escape velocity. And what escapes did I want? My desires varied from the jazz clubs of San Francisco to the desert in bloom. The conventional wisdom among some Indiana writers is that we are always trying to decide whether to go or stay. My attitude precisely for the first ten years.

Even though I work on the west side of the Wabash, on a campus that is a small town in itself, with some 40,000 students, 10 Nobel Prize winners and 22 astronauts to its name, when the teaching day ends, I gravitate to downtown Lafayette. If I stand at one end of Main Street and squint, I can imagine it 50 years ago; the buildings from the 1800s have been preserved, the stone corbels and pointed-arched windows.

Old-timers may say that downtown isn’t what it once was, before the mall and the commercial strip that stretches for miles on Route 52. Downtown, you can’t buy a pound of nails or a new pair of shoes. But here’s what you can do: sip that espresso; buy locally made stained glass, earrings and cut-velvet scarves; drink oatmeal stout brewed in a former furniture store; select handmade chocolates for your sweetheart; hear a poetry reading or the Lafayette Symphony; buy antiques for a song; pick up a 13-mile trail that leads to the Tippecanoe Battlefield in Battle Ground; or attend a musical event put on by Friends of Bob, our local nonprofit music co-op. Downtown Lafayette hosts a farmer’s market that has operated in the same vicinity for 170 years. While the downtown of yesteryear—with its five-and-dime and movie theaters, its department stores and the red neon rocking chair atop Reifer’s Furniture—may be gone, the community still thrives here.

Of course, I noticed how friends and family reacted to my decision to live in Indiana. Until 2006 most of the state did not cotton to daylight saving time. We were on the same time as New York in the winter and Chicago in the summer. We never changed our clocks. This was confusing to friends who would telephone from other parts of the country. I would say: “In Indiana we never change.” One time a writer at a conference in Washington State dismissed me with a wave of her hand and said, “Oh, you’re from one of those I-states”—Indiana, Illinois, Iowa. As my grandmother would have said, she ruffled my feathers, and I never forgot it. I would invite friends and relatives to visit me in Lafayette, and they might hesitate, suggesting it was too flat or lacking in diversity, not a “destination,” as one cousin put it.


I grew up on a back road in a stretch of flat farmland in west-central Indiana. When school was out, the summer bookmobile was my lifeline. It would park near the railroad trestle, in a half-moon of gravel, and I would load up on novels and feel secure, knowing that when chores were done and softball games over, I had a story to read. When I was 16, my parents moved us to Maryland. We drove through the curvaceous Appalachian Mountains. Ever after I have craved hills and mountains and travel, but I have almost always made my home in small towns or on back roads near small towns. I thought I would never go back to Indiana, yet after years of nomadic life, I did return, a little over two decades ago, and I stayed. I live in a 19th-century brick house on a half-acre surrounded by fields where coyotes howl. It’s similar to my life as a child. Stories are important to me, as well as meandering walks, gardening and observing what the philosopher David Abram calls the “more-than-human world,” the coyotes and herons, fir trees and coneflowers. Still, the phrase “going to town” has an anticipatory glimmer.

When I go to town now, it’s to Lafayette, Indiana.

I arrived here on a sweltering night in August 1987 in a Honda Civic I had driven from Montana, a red kayak strapped to the roof. I spent the last few hours on back roads, tunneling through corn. The towering fields seemed architectural, as if they would last forever. Insects crusted up on the windshield; every 30 miles or so I would clear them off with an ice scraper. Purdue University had offered me a stint as the visiting writer and I figured when it was over I would skedaddle back to the Rockies. I cruised right on through West Lafayette, the enormous hilltop campus of Purdue, crossed the Wabash River and drove up South Street, another hill, and that made me happy—I would not have to give up rolling terrain after all.

I was asked to stay on, and I did. For the first seven years, I lived on the Lafayette side of the Wabash in a furnished apartment. My office mate at Purdue was an Italian-American poet, Felix Stefanile, who had arrived from New York in 1961. Felix would listen to my whining about the lack of espresso, no café life. “When I moved here,” he would admonish me, grinning, “you couldn’t find an Italian tomato in the grocery.” That made sense, sadly; my mother’s repertoire of vegetables had ranged from corn to green beans and back again. Perhaps because of my Catholic upbringing and all the rules it imposed, I rolled back into my home state expecting it to be repressed and unimaginative, but I discovered its secret underbelly. I found it in candlelit solstice ceremonies and at the Depot, a gay bar, where, beneath a sparkly disco ball, drag queens danced joyously in prom gowns that would have made a sorority sister proud. I have no idea if such alternatives persist; my life is different now.

Back then I had one foot out the door, my suitcases at the ready. I resisted being here. Tongue-in-cheek, I called it La Fiesta or Lay Flat, like many who want to leave but can’t work up what one of my friends calls escape velocity. And what escapes did I want? My desires varied from the jazz clubs of San Francisco to the desert in bloom. The conventional wisdom among some Indiana writers is that we are always trying to decide whether to go or stay. My attitude precisely for the first ten years.

Even though I work on the west side of the Wabash, on a campus that is a small town in itself, with some 40,000 students, 10 Nobel Prize winners and 22 astronauts to its name, when the teaching day ends, I gravitate to downtown Lafayette. If I stand at one end of Main Street and squint, I can imagine it 50 years ago; the buildings from the 1800s have been preserved, the stone corbels and pointed-arched windows.

Old-timers may say that downtown isn’t what it once was, before the mall and the commercial strip that stretches for miles on Route 52. Downtown, you can’t buy a pound of nails or a new pair of shoes. But here’s what you can do: sip that espresso; buy locally made stained glass, earrings and cut-velvet scarves; drink oatmeal stout brewed in a former furniture store; select handmade chocolates for your sweetheart; hear a poetry reading or the Lafayette Symphony; buy antiques for a song; pick up a 13-mile trail that leads to the Tippecanoe Battlefield in Battle Ground; or attend a musical event put on by Friends of Bob, our local nonprofit music co-op. Downtown Lafayette hosts a farmer’s market that has operated in the same vicinity for 170 years. While the downtown of yesteryear—with its five-and-dime and movie theaters, its department stores and the red neon rocking chair atop Reifer’s Furniture—may be gone, the community still thrives here.

Of course, I noticed how friends and family reacted to my decision to live in Indiana. Until 2006 most of the state did not cotton to daylight saving time. We were on the same time as New York in the winter and Chicago in the summer. We never changed our clocks. This was confusing to friends who would telephone from other parts of the country. I would say: “In Indiana we never change.” One time a writer at a conference in Washington State dismissed me with a wave of her hand and said, “Oh, you’re from one of those I-states”—Indiana, Illinois, Iowa. As my grandmother would have said, she ruffled my feathers, and I never forgot it. I would invite friends and relatives to visit me in Lafayette, and they might hesitate, suggesting it was too flat or lacking in diversity, not a “destination,” as one cousin put it.

Not gussied up or cute, Lafayette is a sturdy town, persistent in its character, as I see it now, creative and practical, and it’s not true that we never change. Sleek condos branch out in the second and third floors of historic buildings downtown. A campaign is underway to clean up what unites both communities, the Wabash River. Walking and biking trails have been constructed, an annual River Fest established. A state-of-the-art homeless shelter was built by the Lafayette Urban Ministry, a coalition of 42 congregations from both sides of the river.

When it comes to diversity, Purdue has the second-highest number of inter­national students among public universities and colleges in the country; the Subaru plant draws a Japanese community. I like to take visitors to Mama Ines Mexican Bakery. You can purchase sugar horns and marranitos—spicy, brown, pig-shaped cookies—in a store reminiscent of bakeries south of the border; with an aluminum tray and tongs, you help yourself from the pastry-laden cookie sheets, Mexican pop music blasting. An annual fiddlers’ gathering is held seven miles away and members of the rock band Green Day have done production work at Sonic Iguana, a renowned punk rock studio. We have more than 16 houses of worship downtown and I defy you to sleep through the Sunday morning bells. And the Dalai Lama spoke at Purdue in 2007. That’s diversity.

After living out of state for a year, Indiana essayist Scott Russell Sanders wrote: “What I see is stitched through and through with my own past.” I get his meaning now. Every time I’m near Riehle Plaza and the train depot, what crosses my mind is the annual Hunger Hike that starts there, raising money for local food banks and pantries. My muscles recall the jog I did for seven years, up the Columbia Street hill and down Union, rain or shine or snow. And farther afield are the places that have wormed their way into my fiction: the round barns of Fulton County and the prairie gardens of Prophets­town State Park.

Is all that nostalgia? I think not. The Tippecanoe County Courthouse, the centerpiece of downtown La­fayette, was built in the 1880s because the citizenry wanted a building of permanent and durable character. Made of Indiana limestone and brick, it has 500-pound walnut doors, 100 columns and Tecumseh himself rises from one of the pediments. The feeling that what I see is stitched through with my past is not nostalgia, but continuity. Like the courthouse, it makes for a durable, or grounded, life.

Living here is a little like marriage. There are limitations and a universe of satisfactions within them. I have developed a loyalty to what is. Yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the role the Internet plays in my willingness to be content. It is the bookmobile of now. If wanderlust becomes an itch I have to scratch, it’s easy to purchase theater tickets for a week in London. I can order DVDs of Australian movies. But I walk a long gravel lane to retrieve my snail mail, the same as I did 50 years ago. When he was 3 years old, my youngest grandchild began walking with me to the mailbox. The first time we passed the row of dark blue-green conifers he said, “We’re in the woods now,” his voice hushed with awe and perhaps a little worry. The woods were still a mystery to him, just as they were to me as a girl. Some things have yet to change. Some things I hope never will.

Patricia Henley is the author of In the River Sweet, a novel set in the Midwest and Vietnam.


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I was born in Lafayette and consider West Lafayette, where I grew up and graduated from high school, my hometown. Though my family members have all, save one, since moved away, the area still seems deeper and richer in people and connection to land than the score of other places I have lived. Your essay captures much of what makes the area unique -- I could walk the hills rising east out of the valley downtown, see the old houses and Prophetstown plain in summer, recall the musty, hushed courthouse interior. Much has also evidently changed to keep the community vibrant. Thank you for the trip.

Posted by Roger Branigin on January 31,2013 | 11:16 AM

I've lived in Lafayette/West Lafayette for 16 years. In that time I've seen countless people determined to escape and have repeatedly encouraged them to do so. I know that many will explore different parts of the world and experiment living elsewhere before coming to the conclusion that Lafayette is truly an amazing place to live. They often return. I've seen a fair bit of the outside world and am very content to call this my home. This article barely scratches the surface on Lafayette's relationship with music. Countless musicians/bands have emerged from lafayette. At times this town has been a mecca for certain genres- not a mere pitstop but a destination for bands from the other side of the globe and fans from around the midwest. A few 'big names' emerged from lafayette (Axl, Izzy, Shannon Hoon). Lafayette is the home to a couple respected independent record labels with international rosters and international recognition. A night at a local downtown nightspot will often put you in the same room with more than a handful of local musicians who have played shows in more cities and countries than most of us can hope to visit in a lifetime. Most of this rarely occurs because of shared connections- but often occurs because of some not-readily-definable 'thing' that Lafayette instills in it's locals that eventually leads to opportunities. Something in the water.

What Lafayette lacks in extremes, it makes up for with balance. The population size and location strike a perfect middle ground. The roots are deep rather than wide- and when that isn't quite enough, the branches can quickly carry you to two major metro areas.

Others can keep their impersonal and (often) plastic major metro coastal cities. I am more than happy to let them narcissistically ramble on about how great NYC or LA are while they are visiting. I am more than happy to keep this place as our little secret.

Posted by J on October 25,2011 | 10:36 AM

Looking for a man named Chet Elkins, or any surviving relatives. I am a member of an national Oldsmobile club, and remember him owning a blue 1941 Oldsmobile in the 1970's. Wondering if he would like to see it again! Thanks.
Tom Cola
Henderson, Nevada
National Antique Oldsmobile Club
1941 model year advisor

Posted by Tom Cola on September 15,2011 | 10:07 PM

Dear Ms. Henley. I enjoyed your article very much. my wife and I moved back to the area 20+ years ago. We grew up in this City.

We both work at Purdue. She is in the Athletic Department and I am the Corporate Support Manager for WBAA AM/FM Public Radio(NPR).
Thanks for sharing your story!

Brian

Posted by Brian Garrity on July 6,2010 | 01:29 PM

Just "discovered" this gem today! A bit after the publication date but no matter. Reading it brought back many memories. I no longer live in West Lafayette but spent my formative years there - including Purdue - and moved back for 6 years a few years ago. It is a gem of a place - where I made my dearest friends, and fondest memories - on both sides of the Wabash.

Posted by Rosalind Lister on June 16,2010 | 01:44 PM

A wonderful story that opened the floodgates of memory. My father worked at Eli Lilly, mom worked at Loeb's and for GTE. Later dad taught school in Dayton. He was one of the founding members of the Lafayette Coin Club that used to meet at McCord's. I remember going with him as a kid and we could pick out one of anything in the glass counter. My brother had an affinity for the "fried egg on toast". We moved away, but somehow I found my way back to attend Purdue. Been from coast to coast since, but, like geese, now my son is enrolled at Purdue. The wheel turns, and each generation touches base to be a part of the "old gold" tradition. Boiler up.

Posted by Bill Appleton on April 16,2010 | 07:10 PM

Thanks Patricia,

This article makes makes my husband and I truly homesick. We were both raised in Lafayette, IN but are now residents in Dublin, Ireland. This summer we will be returning with a our new baby and hope that she, too forms an attachment to Lafayette just as our son has, although he has spent most of his life living overseas. Now 6, he maintains that Lafayette is his hometown and monitors his language closely to sound like a Hoosier refusing to adopt an Irish accent.

We love our summer visits to Lafayette and are itching to move back to the Midwest someday soon.

Posted by Erin Britton on April 12,2010 | 07:15 AM

What a great article! I grew up in West Lafayette--my father was a professor at Purdue. I betrayed my own heart and went to IU, then moved to Virginia. I still miss West Lafayette and may yet return. It's a great place to live and grow up.

Posted by NITA on April 3,2010 | 11:42 PM

I'm a WL native, graduated from Hanover College ('69) and taught in Morocco IN for a couple of years before moving to WI and then CA. Although my body has declared the Bay Area its home, I miss the MidWest and WL in particular. WLHS delivered the best teachers/teaching I've experienced (through 2 masters degrees), a spirit of community that has been hard to duplicate, people and their families I still feel close to, a graduating class that loves to reune, and so much more.

I'm proud to be a Hoosier and a Lay-Flat-ian, at home in Berkeley but far from "home" too.

Posted by Susan Straley on April 3,2010 | 09:33 PM

I once heard a story/myth about the Wabash river near Lafayette. Though I don't recall the details, it advised that the 'spirit of the Wabash would capture certain souls/hearts and prevent them from straying too far or for too long.'
I am a happy victim of that myth! During Easter of 1973 I was on a trip with my parents looking at prospective colleges. We stopped to stay with my sister and her family for the holiday in W.Lafayette. Little did I know I would return to work here in 1984 and have become totally 'midwesternized' I am often asked WHY I would move my life of ocean and sand from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to the soy and cornfields of Lafayette. This article written by Ms. Hensley articulates just that.
Thank you, Patricia!

Posted by trish on March 28,2010 | 11:19 PM

This is such a lovely ode to our town.

I grew up here and fantasized about leaving through my adolesence, but thanks to a certain turn of events I ended up attending Purdue (where Ms. Henley was one of my instructors) and have made Lafayette my permanent home. I have real pride for the Lafayette area, and Indiana in general, for our beautiful seasons, the cultural enrichment of the university and its students and faculty, and the immeasurable quality of life that we are able to enjoy here.

Thank you, too, for the shout-out to Mama Ines' Bakery. It is one of the many culinary gems in our community.

Posted by Lauren Bruce on March 28,2010 | 04:44 PM

I would be interested to know the full list of 10 Nobel Prize winners from Purdue. Wikipedia only lists five.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation

Someone needs to get this updated!

Posted by Mike Morehouse on March 27,2010 | 02:56 PM

I love this article. And although it is unlikely I will ever live in Lafayette again, I was born and grew up there and I have great fondness and respect for such a fine community.

A good story: I work in the Willis (Sears) Tower in Chicago. I'm a princess, so I drive the two miles to work and park in the building. I walked into the Franklin Street lobby from the parking garage two days ago and there stood over 50 German Baptists. They all looked confused, and security looked panicked.

I found the security guy I know and asked if I could help. He said, I don't know, I don't believe they are a security risk, but I don't know how to help them. (You may remember that the Sears Tower was on the "high impact" list for Al Queda on Sep 11).

I said, are they looking for the Skydeck, and he said I don't know.

So, I walked over to the closest and oldest man I could find and said, "I can help you, how can I help you?"

He said, we want to go to the top (yes, that's the Skydeck), but we have to have our own elevator and nobody understands.

So, I made that happen. I escorted them to the elevator. I asked them where they are from. As the doors closed, they said, "Lafayette, Indiana." I don't think they heard me say, "I am, too."

Posted by Wendi Taylor Nations on March 26,2010 | 02:42 AM

What a wonderful tribute to Lafayette, Indiana! I also grew up in Lafayette on a dairy farm about 3 miles south of the city. My grandparents and parents were farmers who worked the land which my husband and I live on today. Although most of the farm was sold in the early 70's, we cherish the 3 acres of land which our home rests upon today. I can still walk along the pasture where my parents' dairy cattle roamed although the landscape has changed. I can also take leisurely walks along the roads where my dad's farm implements once traveled. I was elated to leave the farm back when I married in 1967, but now I am just as elated to live on a small portion of it. I can't imagine leaving Lafayette or Tippecanoe County where I graduated from high school and Purdue University. My mother and I often shopped downtown at the Fashion and Loebs and always enjoyed a wonderful lunch down at the restuarant in Loebs. Now that I recently retired from Dayton Elementary after 40 years of teaching, I also think that the small communities around Lafayette are what makes it special. A great article to read, Ms.Henley, and a great place to live!

Posted by Julia Klaiber Adams on March 22,2010 | 12:22 AM




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