Janet Wright, wife of Indiana Masonic Home chaplain Cleon Wright, poses for a photo in 2000 after recently discovering more than 100 family Bibles that belonged to deceased residents.
Daily Journal Archive Photo
News from around Johnson County as reported on Jan. 5 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 111 years.
On this day in 2000, the main story in the Daily Journal was about how Indiana Masonic Home staff uncovered a cache of ex-residents’ Bibles.
Cleon Wright, the chaplain of Indiana Masonic Home — now Compass Park — and his wife, Janet, had found a new way to help others rediscover the word of God. Janet had recently found more than 100 family Bibles inside her husband’s office at the Masonic Home in Franklin.
The Bibles belonged to past residents of the Masonic Home and, for some reason, never made it to the residents’ families with other personal effects after the residents died.
“Usually, when a person goes to a medical center, their personal items go with them,” she said. “But somehow or other these have slipped through the cracks. Why, I don’t know. Nobody knows why they are in his office.”
Some of the bibles dated back to the late 1800s. Later, Janet Wright alphabetized the collection and printed a list of all the names written in the Bibles in the Indiana FreeMason newsletter.
The appeal was well received. Some family members were later able to reclaim their loved ones’ bibles, Wright said.
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Other memorable Johnson County stories from this day
2008
The city of Greenwood was preparing to take its first step in rebuilding and widening Worthsville Road from U.S. 31 to County Road 250 East.
1983
Johnson County small towns were preparing to have their first municipal elections since the 1960s following a change in state law. Prior to 1983, elections were only required in towns with a population of less than 3,000 if two or more candidates filed for the same seat.
1944
An attempt to steal $500 worth of hogs from a Clark Township farm was stopped by an alert tenant on the farm the night prior. County, state and defense police spent several hours searching across the county for the attempted thieves.
