In the Loan files

In 1920 the census counted 14,009 people in LaGrange County.

That is the figure printed against Lagrange in the census volume's own table of counties, on page 103. Ten years earlier there had been 15,148.

The same year Ira Ford's county history came out, and it gave the war money a section of its own. Between October 1917 and May 1, 1919, the county's Red Cross chapters raised $12,848.82 and paid out $12,471.44, which left $377.38 on hand. The county bought $220,000 in War Savings Stamps, and subscribed $2,000,000 in government war bonds.

This makes a showing of more than two and a quarter million dollars.

That is volume 1, page 109. Ford gives the bonds as one round figure. He does not say which campaigns it covers or who counted it.

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Two years later the Indiana Historical Commission published The War Purse of Indiana, Walter Greenough's account of the five Liberty Loans in the state. It breaks the campaigns apart, and for three of them it names the woman who chaired the women's work in each county.

The Third Loan. On page 187 the volume introduces a table from "a printed report prepared by Mrs. McCulloch", listing the women who acted as county chairmen, the quotas for each county, and "the total amount of bonds sold by the women's committees." The Lagrange row is on page 188. The chairman was Mrs. Clyde A. Walb. The quota was $78,750. The subscription was $175,550.

The Fourth Liberty Loan. Mrs. Clyde A. Walb again, on page 192, with 82 women workers, a county quota of $600,000, and $361,250 in subscriptions credited. That last figure is not what 82 women sold. LaGrange is in the list of counties on the Voluntary Subscription Plan or the Allotment Plan, and the text set directly above the table gives the rule for those counties:

The following counties adopted one of the above plans, and the Woman's Committee was credited with 50 per cent of the entire amount sold:

Under either plan the subscriptions were divided equally between the men's organization and the women's. The $361,250 is that half share. It is a bookkeeping convention. The table does not say how much of it the women themselves took in.

The Victory Loan. The fifth and last campaign has no table. It has a list of the women's county chairmen for the northern sixty-eight counties, written out as running text from the foot of page 195 to page 197. On page 196:

Lagrange County, Mrs. Herman Norris;

There is no figure beside her name. The volume explains why in a footnote to the list's opening line, footnote 20 on page 195, citing a manuscript report by Mrs. William M. Herschell, Work of the Women's Committee in Liberty Loan Campaigns:

No quotas or total sales by women in the northern counties could be found in the Loan files. In general, women in the northern counties were given credit for having sold one-half the bonds distributed in Indiana during this last Loan campaign.

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The county kept its own record.

A magnificent typewritten record-book of all the proceedings of the Red Cross work in LaGrange County, during this late war, was made up, handsomely bound and illustrated with portraits of many of the workers, and then kindly presented to the LaGrange Public Library by the efficient president of the LaGrange County Chapter of the American Red Cross—Miss Jane Porter Williams, of the Village of Howe. Miss Williams is also the county historian for the society.

Ford printed that in 1920, on the same page as the bonds. On that page he says no more about it.

The LaGrange County Public Library's catalogue today lists one volume under the chapter's name: The war history, LaGrange County Chapter, American Red Cross, LaGrange, Indiana. It is shelved with the genealogy collection at the main library in LaGrange, call number GEN I 940.4771 AME. The record gives no date, no page count and no maker. It does not say whether this is the book Miss Williams gave.