News Journal from Chicago, Illinois • Page 13

OP THE WORLD. WEDNESDAY. APRIL 23, 1975 Page 3 Ludington history lives in Oak Park By MARYANNE STEVENS The caretaker of a portion of the Ludington family heirlooms is a tiny, grey-haired, blue-eyed, Swiss-born woman. She is Mrs. Emily Ludington Jordan of Oak Park, and though not a Ludington herself, her home contains memorabilia of her late husband's family.

"My son is a direct descendant of Colonel Henry Ludington," she said. "I was so surprised when I read this in the paper," she referred to last Wednesday's story about Sybil Ludington. Sybil Ludington, the daughter of Colonel Henry Ludington, rode across the New York countryside on April 25,1777, to muster her father's militia regiment. Mrs. Jordan has a collection of furniture and incidentals which belonged to Col.

Ludington or to Harrison Ludington, his grandson and late 19th century governor of Wisconsin. Her sonGorman of Schiller Park is the great grandson of Harrison Ludington, and his son, who is in the navy, is named Harrison after the governor. Mrs Jordan held the wood, brass-topped cane of the type country gentlemen carried in the late 1700's. "And this is a table that belonged to him," she said, and showed the card compartments in the table drawer. "So I suppose he played cards; of course, I didn't know him, I'm not that old," she smiled.

Upstairs is the heavy cherrywood bed "some of his children were born in this bed." Two tiny chairs, once covered with reed but now needlepoint, sit in the bedroom, no longer used by the Col 's daughters to play at teatime. In another upstairs room is a slim fold-down desk which belonged to Harrison. "I could tell you a lot more about Harrison," Mrs. Jordan said. "I do wish Alice would have written some of these things down." Ludington heirloom Pointing to Colonel Henry Ludington's bed, Mrs.

Emily Ludington Jordan talks about the American Revolutionary war and her family's part in it. The Colonel's daughter, Sybil, ran a ride like Paul Revere's. Now, Mrs. Jordan is one of the family heirloom "caretakers." (Photo by Keith Swinden) Sybil Ludington is revered by poem for her own ride Sybil Ludington's ride does not go unheralded in poetry. Berton Braley, an American poet who died in 1966, wrote a poem which was published in the Milwaukee Journal in 1940.

Following is a shortened version of the 32 stanza poem. Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of a lovely feminine Paul Revere Who rode an equally famous ride Through a different part of the coun try side (.) In April, Seventeen Seventy-Seven, A smoky glow in the eastern heaven (A fiery herald of war and slaughter) Came to the eyes of the Colonel's daughter "Danbury's burning," she cried aloud The Colonel answered, "Tis but a cloud, A cloud reflecting the red, So hush you, Sybil, and go to bed The door's flung open, a voice is heard, "Danbury's burning I rode with word; Send a messenger, get your men'" His message finished, the horseman then Staggered weanly to a chair AruLfell exhausted in slumber there The Colonei muttered, "And who, my friend, Who is the messenger I can send 1 who is my messenger to be?" Said Sybil Ludington, "You have me So over the trails to the towns and farms Sybil delivered the call to arms, ''Up! up 'there, soldier! You're needed, come' The British are marching'" and (hen the drum Of her horse's feet as she rode apace To bring more men to the meeting place. Such is the legend of Sybil's nde To summon the men from the countryside, A true tale, making her title clear As a lovely feminine Paul Revere' This Paul Revere was rained out By BONNIE GROSS If on April 18, 1775 it had rained as hard as it did on April 18, 1975, we might all still be British subjects. Paul Revere's ride through downtown Oak Park was cancelled Friday after a downpoar that didn't promise to stop. Hundreds of parade-goers waited on Lake st.

along the parade route, however, when the clouds broke and the sun shone at the time appointed for the parade's start. But although the weather improved, once the parade was cancelled, it was impossible for the organizers to change their minds. The parade has been rescheduled -weather permitting --for 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 30. The same schedule, beginning at Lake st. and Oak Park will ho'd for the April 30 parade.

A modern-day Paul Revere a 10 year old boy on a bicycle -rode down Lake st Friday spreading the word that the parade was cancelled and had been rescheduled for April 30. Parade organizer Elsie Jacobsen, unable to leave disappointed families disperse without some activity, climbed atop a bench on the mall, and without the help of a microphone, led a few dozen people in My Country Tis of Thee. One lone troop of River Forest Boy Scouts marched through the mall, waving a flag and beating a drum. But Paul Revere never showed, and Oak Park' bicentennial year started not with a bang, but a whimper Saigon student writes: 'something wrong here' "Small children keep going to school, old women keep going to their rice jQelds But still you can read horror on peoples' faces." TKis is one segment of an English composition written by a University of Ssigcn student, Tran Phuc Hai, following a reccr.t visit to his village 40 milesjiorth of Saigon. Tran Phuc Hai wrote the composition fw Sister Marion Casey, until last year a history professor at Rosary college in suburban River Forest.

Sister Casey, who teaches English composition at the University of Saigon, told Hai to write on any subject of his choice. The youth chose to write about his village, Gia Kien, an all-Catholic village 'settled by northern refugees in 1954. After he turned the Casey was so touchwHjy 'the pathos ta ftei's description of the villagers plight, she sent it to her mother in Chicago and to her friends at Rosary college. Here is what Hai had to say. It is believed that since he wrote this, the village has been overrun by the Communists: "There is something wrong here this morning.

My hometown has not been so peaceful for a long time now. This Friday morning people continue to do their daily works. Small pupils keep going to school, old women keep going to their rice fields, but still you can read horror on people's faces. You can hear fear in people's way of calling to one another. "Young girl students of the public school walk down the highway which runs through the village.

They do not study today. They form small groups here and there. The wind blows their 'ai dai (traditional dresses) up and down. How beautiful and peaceful a sight it makes, but how ironical. NEWSPAPER! "The neighbors circled me and asked me questions I did not know what I should answer.

Will the V.C. attack? Will they possess this village? What is happening in Saigon? What is happening in Hue? I don't know. Only God does but God keeps silent. "I tried my best to calm them, by telling lies, by saying that the V.C. would not attack this village, by saying that they only surround it, and fire rockets in to frighten people.

The only truth I can give them is to tell them to prepare some dry food and whenever the fight begins run into the forest. "There is still something wrong on the faces of old people. They are not weeping, but there is something more dreadful than tears in their eyes They have once run to this village, and now they are going to run away. But in the old time they were still young, and now?" "I lived with Grandma Ludington and Alice for 17 years," Mrs. Jordan said.

They were Harrison's daughters, and lived in their family home in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. One item in Mrs. Jordan's collection is a book published in 1907 by two of the grandchildren. It is entitled "Colonel Henry Ludington, A Memoir," and recounts the history of the family and tells of incidents which occurred in Henry's lifetime. Inscribed on the cover is "Compliments of Charles H.

Ludington and Lavinia E. Ludington Oct. 12th 1907." According to the book, Henry was the great great grandson of the first Ludington to come to the colonies around 1639. Grandfather William settled in the New Haven area, but when Henry married, he moved to Dutchess county in lower New York, the home of his wife's family. His wife Abigail was a cousin, and when they married, he was 21 and she was 15.

The times were unusual and women and men were tough. Ludington was aggressive and outspoken. As a boy he enlisted in the colonial levies and fought in the French and Indian war. He rose to the rank of lieutenant but resigned in protest when the Stamp acts were passed. He later accepted a captain's commission from William Tryon, British governor of New York and a later foe in battle, and held that commission until the start of the Revolution.

We can assume that as a fifth generation American, Ludington considered himself more of an American than an Englishman. At least the family history tells us that Ludington belonged to various rebel committees and was an associate of John Jay (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence). Ludington's family was involved in the rebel cause along with their father. Ludington was a highly esteemed soldier; as a colonel, he received $75 a month compared to a private's $6.66 He was a respected aide to General Washington, and ap parently a friend and associate of many illustrious patriots. Ludington was also in charge of the American secret service in New York, choosing the men, directing them and often hiding them in his house This was an enterprise which involved his two eldest daughters, Sybil and Rebecca.

The girls knew a code of signals which would let the spies into the house, where they would be fed and lodged. Sybil and Rebecca seem to have been involved in many of their father's enterprises. Ludington was not looked kindly upon by the British or many of his Tory neighbors, and often narrowly escaped being killed by marksmen hidden in the woods. His daughters were the sentinels at his home when his regular detachment wasn't there. The memoir describes the scene' "These children would sit for hours.armcd with heavy muskets, at the upper windows, behind casks on the piazza, or in a neighboring cornfield, watching for the approach of suspicious or openly hostile characters and ready to give their father warning." One night the girls spied men surrounding the house.

They woke their father, and he ordered everyone in the house to grab a musket and a lighteJ candle, in hopes that the Tories outside would think soldiers were in the house and hesitate to attack. It worked, although the Tories "yelled and hooted" in the woods'until daybreak. Another occasion when one of Ludington's daughters aided the rebel cause was when Sybil tore through the countryside on her horse to alert the militia of Danbury's burning The chronicler again sets the scene: "At four o'clock Danbury was fired. At eight or nine o'clock that evening a jaded horseman reached Colonel Ludington's home with the news We may imagine the fire that flashed through the veteran's veins at the report of the dastardly act of his former chief (Tyron) "But what to do 9 His regiment was disbanded, its members scattered at their homes, many at considerable distances. He must stay there, to muster all who came in The messenger from Dan bury could ride no more, and there was no neighbor within call.

"In this emergency he turned to his daughter Sibyl, who, a few days before, had passed her sixteenth birthday, and bade her to take a horse, ride for the men, and tell them to be at his house by daybreak. One who even now (1907) rides from Carmel to Cold Spring will find rugged and danger ous roads, with lonely stretches. "Imagination can only picture what it was a century and a quarter ago, on a dark night, with reckless bands of 'Cowboys' and 'Skinners' abroad in the land. But the child performed her task, clinging to a man's saddle, and guiding her steed with only a hempen halter, as she rode through the night, bearing the news of the sack of Danbury." Nearly all of Ludington's regiment was assembled by daybreak, and marched to join Generals Arnold, Wooster and Silliman that night. The next morning they met the British and "harassed the British sorely" with sharpshooter fire, and routed them to their ships on the coast.

Sybyl married Henry Ogden and lived in Unadilla, New York, and had four sons and two daughters. Henry led an active life after the war. He was a deputy sheriff and held other posts, including justice of the peace. Not an educated man, he presumably was respected for his common sense. A friend once advised him, according to the history, that he ought to pay more attention to judicial technicalities.

Henry studied up, and on the first case he applied his newfound knowledge, the case was appealed and his decision overturned. "He indignantly declared that it was all because of the new-fangled methods of procedure which his friend had persuaded him to adopt." He died of "consumption" in 1817 when he was 78 years old After closing the book and resting the story between its covers, it takes some time to re-orient yourself in the 20th century. Surrounded by the Colo nel's furniture, you touch things as though you could catch a glimpse of their original owner through the wood The feeling of kinship becomes strong, as though some essence of himself was trapped in his belongings but it is evasive The soft-spoken Mrs Jordan says, "These things don't really belong to me, they belong to the people doesn't finish, and I'm not sure whether she means the Ludington descendants her son and grandchildren -or perhaps she means the Colonel or Harrison, the people who to whom these things were the fabric of their lives. Oak Park's newest the Senior Citizens Housing Center, will soon be ready to be occupied by many long-time residents of the village The tall building stands as a monument to the efforts of many dedicated people who recognized the need to solve a housing problem for older citizens whose fixed incomes made conventional housing unaffordable The WORLD has always been Oak Park's primary source for news of the Senior Housing Center The WORLD invests more editorial staff time and news space to report on news of the Sensor Housing Center because we're Bullish on Oak Park. NOW THE WORLD IS DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR TWICE EVERY WEEK WEDNESDAY SATURDAY When you want to know what's happening at the Senior Housing Center or other news of housing or real estate in Oak Park, you'll always find more news more often in the WORLD than in any newspaper in Oak Park That's how we prove that WE'RE RILLISH OX OAK PARK.