Evelyn Tolpa Lisek of Gary celebrated her 100th birthday last week with her family and friends on March 8.
She is the longest ranking member, and still active, of WANISS, the group originally launched as the Women’s Association in Gary in 1962 to host receptions after orchestra concerts, promote music, stage charity fashion shows and luncheons, all to benefit the orchestra. In 1975, they became the Women’s Association of the Northwest Indiana Symphony Society (WANISS) and an affiliate of the Volunteer Council of the League of American Orchestras.
Evelyn is a smiling fixture at concerts and annual fundraising luncheons such as the upcoming spring WANISS 54th Annual May Wine Brunch on Wednesday, May 6, in the ballroom of The Center for Visual and Performing Arts, 1040 Ridge Road in Munster. This year features the return of the always-enticing hat contest, a competition I’ve judged several times in the past. Evelyn told me she attended the first of these spring luncheons more than half a century ago.
A trained opera star, Evelyn has performed on stages near and far, and her name is not only known on concert hall marquees but also as a bolded notable name in newspaper columns for decades, even long before appearing in my own printed prose.
A typical mention of Evelyn’s name and travels from the archives, such as the Sept. 8, 1965, South Bend Tribune society column, reads as follows: “Miss Genevieve E. Grocke, 1401 N. Johnson St., had as her guest recently Mrs. Henry Lisek of Gary, Ind., a former childhood classmate who she had not seen in 15 years. Mrs. Lisek has just returned from a singing engagement at Purdue University, Lafayette and on Sept. 18 she will give a concert at Logan Square Ballroom in Chicago. On Sept. 21, she will sing for the state senators and representatives at the Hotel Gary in Gary. (Miss Grocke was also formerly a singer and soloist who studied opera.) Mrs. Lisek was in South Bend with her husband and four children Carolyn, Darlene, Kathryn and Walter. She is the former Evelyn Tolpa of Gary.”
Evelyn was a guest soloist who performed at the annual May Wine Brunch during the event’s early decades. At the May 2018 gathering, I crowned Evelyn, then 92, and her topper among that year’s winners for the hat contest for her 80-year-old vintage wide-brimmed creation stacked with flowing ostrich plumes and anchored with a stuffed bird center perched as a focal point, adorned with rhinestones.
Rather than a spotlight on her 100 candles, Evelyn asked me to use my print space to highlight the Northwest Indiana Symphony’s long and storied history, now in its 84th season. She reminded us that the Symphony shares important key dates with the events of World War II.
It was in September 1941 when Arthur Zack, a cello teacher from Chicago, moved to Gary to organize an orchestra. He met with Gary Mayor Ernest Schaible, and Mildred Wirt, director of auditoriums for the Gary Schools, as well as M.C. Snyder, school superintendent of music. Though Zack was told the idea of a community orchestra was a long shot, he placed an ad in the Post-Tribune to draw musicians to the first rehearsal and 26 showed up. By the date of the first concert at 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, the same day as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, there were 60 members of the new orchestra. After news of the day’s tragic events, Zack changed the musical program and started the concert with “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
While wishing birthday blessings to WANISS member Evelyn, the same membership group and our entire Northwest Indiana community bid a sad goodbye to Maryanne Battistini, who died at age 96 on Sunday, March 9, in Essexville, Michigan, where she had recently retired to enjoy being near her children. Services for Maryanne Battistini will be private.
Born as “a New Year’s baby” on Dec. 31, 1929, in Terre Haute to parents William and Mary Burke, she was a 1947 graduate of Terre Haute’s Wiley High School before continuing to Indiana State University to pursue a career in education.
She married Lawrence Battistini on Dec. 26, 1952, at St. Benedict’s Church in Terre Haute. The couple moved north to Merrillville, and later to Highland, to raise their four children: Peter (Carol) of Avon, Paula of Lansing, Michigan, Patricia (Steve) of Essexville, Michigan and Patrick (Marnie) of Santa Clarita, California. She also had six grandchildren: Katie, Maggie (fiancé Brendan), Maggie (James), Stephanie, Burke and Matthew; and four great-grandchildren, Raelynn, Abby, Ellie, and Annalyssa.
Husband Larry preceded her in death in 2018.
Maryanne worked as a longtime educator, originally as an elementary school teacher and later returned to school to earn certification as a high school guidance counselor. She authored three books: “Hometown Potpourri: A Memoir” (2004 Authorhouse $14) about growing up in Terre Haute, “Lacy’s Story: A Little Tale that Wags” (2009 Authorhouse $25), and “Tales that Wag: Stories of Therapy Dogs” (2012 Author Solutions $25).
Maryanne was especially proud of her friendship with cartoonist Dale Messick, the woman who created the newspaper comic strip heroine Brenda Starr, legendary reporter with a flowing red crown of hair and signature sparkle in her eyes. Messick was born in South Bend but spent much of her life and career as a resident along the shores of Lake Michigan, including her weekend lake getaway cottage in Ogden Dunes.
As a woman working as a cartoonist in a male-dominated field, and as creator of a woman character who worked as a newspaper reporter, the latter also being a career originally only held by men, Maryanne would invite Messick to speak to her classes.
Messick said when she first began pitching her comic strip to newspaper outlets, she found little interest from management, which she attributed to her female identity being an unwelcome invitation to the men in authority. At the beginning of her cartoonist career, she used her actual name, which was Dalia.
Messick attended Hobart High School and decided to change her cartoonist byline name to “Dale” and soon found her cartoon submissions being taken seriously, because higher-ups thought she was a male cartoonist.
The cartoon’s title character’s appearance was based on the movie star Rita Hayworth, and surrounded by a varied cast of colorful co-workers to populate the fictitious Chicago newsroom where Brenda was employed. Launched in 1940, the comic ran in the Chicago Tribune as its flagship newspaper and at its height, was syndicated to more than 250 newspapers around the world until it ceased in 2011. Messick, who died at age 98 in 2005, retired from producing the strip in 1980.
Maryanne’s childhood friend was heiress Mari Hulman George, her classmate in Catholic grade school in Terre Haute and only child of Tony Hulman, the man who owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and started the Indianapolis 500 Race back in 1946. After her father Tony’s passing, it was Mari who assumed the annual duty of announcing the magic phrase: “Lady and gentleman…Start your engines!”
As Maryanne would remind me, in addition to the family’s favorite sideline distraction and investment in the racing world, Mari Hulman’s family wealth came from them owning Hulman and Company, founded in 1923 with expansive factories in Terre Haute manufacturing Clabber Girl brand baking powder, the key ingredient to some of the lightest and flakiest biscuits ever served warm with fresh butter and assorted homemade jams. Mari Hulman died at age 83 in November 2018 in Indianapolis.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a weekly radio show host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at PhilPotempa@gmail.com or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Clabber Girl Old-Fashioned Biscuits Recipe
Makes 10 biscuits
INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons Clabber Girl Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon soft butter
DIRECTIONS
In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, Clabber Girl Baking Powder and salt.
Using a pastry blender, cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add the milk all at once.
Using a fork, stir just until moistened and dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (dough will be sticky).
On a floured surface, lightly knead dough with floured hands for 30 seconds or until nearly smooth.
Lightly roll dough to 3/4-inch thickness. Cut dough with a 2 1/2-inch biscuit cutter, dipping cutter into flour between cuts.
Place biscuits close together on a lightly greased baking sheet.
Brush tops with soft margarine. Bake in a 475-degree oven for 11 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.
