September 16, 2001     St. Louis Church     Batesville Indiana

The drive down I-74 was a pleasant one, and the cornfields told us that harvest time was not far away. It seems like only a short while ago when the plants stood in long, green rows just after breaking out of their seed shell. 

This is about as far as we drive for chicken dinner, but is not far from the Sunman exit and only a few miles from Morris IN where we went to dinner on Labor Day at St. Anthony. 

I turned at the Batesville exit and headed straight into town. At the end of this main street stands St. Louis church. Its size is impressive for rural Indiana, but Batesville has significant industry and gives some indication of a prosperous community. We arrived just about when the dinner started, 11:30 EST. The $6.50 price was indeed a bargain.

The line moved quickly and we soon entered the hall. I picked up my desert from long tables lined with cake and pie selections. Edith took spice cake (she can't resist anything with nuts) and I took cherry pie (it's my choice 3 out of 4 times.)

Up until this year, dinners took place in a couple of different locations at the church. This was the first year it was held in the new gym, and it's quite a building. It seemed 2 or 3 times as big as the average church dinner hall. The helpers were very attentive and the dinner was well organized. There were more adult workers than are found at the average dinner.

Mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, string beans, slaw, rolls, tomatoes, chicken and drinks were served country style. Our table had a dish of sliced pickles and my chief detective, Edith, discovered pickled beets on some of the other tables. I'm a sucker for bread dressing and had my fair share and then some. I had only a little chicken but enjoyed the veggies and feasted on the fresh tomatoes as their season comes to an end. The slaw looked different in that the cabbage was darker, almost like kraut. But, it was very good.

A young man and his mother sat across from us. They live in Cincinnati in the Bridgetown area. They go to many of the chicken dinners in the summer and had seen the article written by Chuck Martin in the Enquirer a few weeks ago. He had wondered if he would meet the "chicken man" at one of the dinners and I had wondered if anyone would ever recognize me. Well, we met each other in Batesville this Sunday and will wonder no more.

He had read some of the additional information on my Web page and shared my story on Corryville with his mother. I turns out that she also lived there as a youngster and resided at Scioto and Daniels only two blocks from my home. They were very nice people.

We found the restrooms in the school. A young boy, likely in the sixth grade was filling a water gun that he probably won at the fishpond. I bet some little girl was about to get squirted in the schoolyard. Edith, my teacher friend, stopped to look over the classrooms. The rooms were neatly arranged and surprisingly clean, at least the ones we examined. The walls were made of large tile bricks, light brown in color, and they reminded me of the lunchroom and gym at my grade school, St. George.

There were large tents in the parking lot with many games, crafts, food and plants. The bingo tent was also large. It was an impressive setup. We stopped at the cemetery a few blocks away and saw graves of the Hillenbrand and Romweber families, major business founders of early Batesville.

I headed for home on Route 46 for a few miles in order to pass a couple of  produce stands, hoping to get some fresh tomatoes (I sprayed mine with rabbit repellant this year and just about killed them.) There were none to be had. The kids had planned to go with us but cancelled at the last minute. My sister also wanted to go with us one of these weekends. The season is growing short and there are only a few remaining dinners.