Friend Family 4-H Junior Leader Scholarship Endowment

John and Hannah Friend Family

Year Founded
2010

Purpose of Fund
The endowment will provide financial assistance to outstanding 4-H “Junior Leaders” as they continue their education.

History of Fund
John George Friend was a native son of Putnam County, Indiana, born in Greencastle on November 25, 1868 to German immigrant parents, Joseph Edward and Ernestine Friend (Americanized from ‘Freund’).  The family home was located across the Monon tracks on North Madison Street, and in his eagerness to get there John often resorted to scrambling over trains stopped at the station and blocking the street.  One day as he was climbing impatiently over a train, it began to move and John held on for dear life all the way to Bainbridge.  Afterwards all someone had to say was, ‘Toot-toot to Bainbridge!’ and John’s temper would flare.

John and Hannah Margaret Arthur were married on August 17, 1897.  They lived in a small house on Indiana Street (where the DePauw University gym is now located) with their two sons, who were born exactly ten years apart.  John Arthur (Johnny) was born on November 9, 1898 and George Edward was born on November 9, 1908.

Much information for this history came from Julia Margaret (Judy) Friend Albin Johnson, the eldest of John’s three grandchildren.  The daughter of John Arthur (Johnny) and Maude Friend, Judy was born on December 4, 1925.  After her grandparents moved from Indiana Street to the country, Judy recalls riding her bicycle from her home on West Hannah Street to their farm on the Manhattan Road.   There were so few houses along the road in those days that the post office did not deliver mail.  Instead it was left in two large boxes at Hammond’s several miles down the road, where residents picked it up.  Judy remembers playing with her father’s old toys in her grandparents’ unfinished attic until she discovered snakes hiding there.

Judy has fond memories of her grandmother Hannah, who died when Judy was sixteen.  “Grandma made her own dresses, wore her hair wrapped around in back, and took care of the house.  The three grandchildren – Joe, Dick and I – loved to go there for meals.  All three of us wanted the chicken drumsticks, and it was years before I realized a chicken didn’t have three legs because Grandma always fixed three.”

John’s son George used draft horses to till the small field where they raised corn for the chickens.  John and Hannah always put in a prolific garden and Judy helped with the canning.  She remembers picking blackberries to make jam.

John and Hannah’s youngest grandchild, Joseph Edward (Joe) Friend, the son of George Edward and Esther Katherine Whitaker Friend, was born on February 18, 1939.  Joe does not remember his grandmother Hannah, but vividly recalls wandering through the wooded area that became Camp Friend with his grampa and older brother George Richard (Dick) – 12/7/1935 to 7/15/1999. 

Joe shared memories: “It was in exploring the land that became Camp Friend that Grampa instilled in Dick and me a love for the outdoors, nature and the environment. We knew those woods so well that we darn near had all the trees named.   Many of our 4-H projects were carried out there, including tree identification, tree ring growth studies and estimating the number of board feet of timber available for harvest.  In large part these experiences led Dick to study forestry at Purdue and me to pursue a career in geology at DePauw.  I still have some geodes and fossils that we collected in the stream beds.”