Sitting in her living room, Mrs. Charles Kaelin holds a fan that led to a lifetime of collecting artistic devices in 1973.
Daily Journal Archive Photo
News from around Johnson County as reported on July 13 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 111 years.
On this day in 1973, one of the main stories on the front page of the Daily Journal was about a local woman who gave her collection of fans to the Johnson County Museum of History.
“Ask Mrs. Charles Kaelin why she collects fans and she’ll tell you ‘because they’re beautiful,’” the story began.
The fans Kaelin were collecting were not electric steel fans that appeared “capable of producing gale warnings,” but the simple, quiet wedgelike devices of days gone by known as hand fans.
These fans, which were not practical but were often works of art, may have seen their days in the modern air-conditioned environment, but many had then found their place in a beautiful collection at the museum.
“We can’t tell you how pleased we are to have this collection,” said Rachel Henry, curator of the museum.
Kaelin, the first resident of the Methodist home in Franklin where she had lived for 16 years, collected her first fan in 1909. It was the fan she used at her graduation ceremony from Manual High School in Indianapolis.
“That fan started me off and I’ve been collecting them ever since,” Kaelin said.
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Other memorable Johnson County stories from this day
2017
Residents and local officials were surveying damage after heavy rains caused flooding in Franklin, Amity, Bargersville, New Whiteland and Whiteland that week.
2000
Trafalgar residents were mixed on how they felt about a man who fooled many into thinking he was a 15-year-old high school freshman. The man was actually 20 and was charged with false informing and deception.
1992
The hunt for bargains was attracting thousands to the former Bargersville Flea Market.
