Test your knowledge of Cass County. For each of the people below, decide if they are from Cassopolis or Dowagiac (answers are at the bottom)
1. Iven Kincheloe
Iven Kincheloe was a test pilot and aviation pioneer.
In the Korea war he flew F-80s on 30 missions and F-86s on 101 missions. Before returning to the U.S. in May 1952, he downed five MiG-15s, becoming our nation's 10th jet ace.
In 1955 Kincheloe became a test pilot and went to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. On Sept. 7, 1956, he piloted the Bell X-2 rocket-powered research airplane, reaching more than 2,000 mph and 126,200 feet -- the highest altitude to which anyone had ever flown.
His stellar career was cut short when he was killed while taking off in an F-104 jet in 1958.
Did he graduate from Cassopolis or Dowagiac high school?
2. Edward Lowe
Edward Lowe was born in 1920, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His family then moved to Michigan. He had four children and six grandchildren. He served in the US Navy in World War II.
One day in January 1947, Mrs. Draper, Edward Lowe's neighbor asked him for some sand to use as cat litter. Her sand pile was frozen so she had been using ashes but they tracked all over her house. Instead of sand, Lowe gave her some clay called Fuller's Earth, a set of clay minerals capable of absorbing their weight in water. She found it worked far better than sand or ashes.
Did he attend high school in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
3. Ruth Alice Armstrong
Ruth Alice Armstrong was an American social activist involved in the temperance movement.
She served as the national superintendent of heredity for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
She wrote leaflets and letters of instruction for the organization, and lectured on "Heredity" and "Motherhood".
She was born on April 30, 1850 in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
4. Dickinson Bishop
Dickinson H. Bishop was an American businessman who traveled on board the ill-fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic while on his honeymoon with bride Helen, née Walton.
They both survived the sinking of the Titanic on 15 April 1912.
Bishop was born on March 24, 1887 in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
5. William Alden Smith
William Alden Smith was a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan.
After the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, Smith chaired the Senate hearings into the disaster. His report led to major reforms in maritime safety.
Was he born in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
6. Caleb Murphy
Caleb Murphy is an American football linebacker for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League (NFL).
He played college football at Grand Valley State before transferring to Ferris State.
Did Caleb Murphy go to high school in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
7. Wilbert Anthony Gordon Jr. / Billi Gordon
Wilbert Anthony Gordon Jr, better known as Billi Gordon, was an American author, television writer, neuroscientist, actor and model.
Gordon is the author of three works of non-fiction: Billi Gordon's You've Had Worse Things in Your Mouth Cookbook, which the Saturday Review described as "the humor classic of 1985", Eat This Book: The Last Diet Book, and Your Moon Is in Aquarius but Your Head Is in Uranus.
Gordon was a television and film actor whose work included Coming to America, Married With Children, and Women in Prison.
Was Billi Gordon born in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
8. Kevin Allen Loder
Kevin Allen Loder is an American former professional basketball player who was selected by the Kansas City Kings in the first round (17th pick overall) of the 1981 NBA draft.
A 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) swingman, Loder played in three NBA seasons from 1981 to 1984.
In his NBA career, Loder played in 148 games and scored a total of 875 points. His best year as a professional came during his rookie year for the Kings, appearing in 71 games and averaging 6.9 points per game.
He played for the Kings and San Diego Clippers.
Was he born in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
9. Michigan’s only diamond
Around 1890, a diamond weighing 10.875 carats was discovered in a gravel pit in Cass County.
It was the only diamond ever found in Michigan.
The gravels were related to a kettle moraine.
Was this diamond found in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
10. Frank Lake and Leon Lyle motor company
In 1909, Frank Lake and Leon Lyle founded an auto company that was producing both cars and trucks; the largest truck was capable of carrying over a ton.
Unfortunately, the owners were killed in an accident and their deaths spelled the end of the motor company.
Was the motor company in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
11. Henry Walton
Henry Walton was an American painter that was born in New York.
He produced both portraits and landscape. In 1840, during his stay in Ithaca, he was involved in a dispute over a portrait of William Henry Harrison, which political opponents claimed was actually a portrait of Andrew Jackson over which Walton had written the name Harrison.
In 1851 he joined the California Gold Rush, arriving in San Francisco on the steamer Oregon. In California he continued producing artistic works.
In 1857 he moved to Michigan, where he later died.
Did he die in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
12. Lieutenant Kenneth Lee Porter
Lieutenant Kenneth Lee Porter was an engineering graduate from the University of Michigan who joined the U.S. Army Air Service in August 1917.
He became a World War I flying ace credited with five aerial victories.
He received the Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre.
Was he born in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
13. Adolph Otto Niedner
Adolph Otto Niedner was born in Philadelphia to German immigrants Carl Heinrich Niedner and Augusta W. (Trapp) Niedner.
He enlisted in the United States Army in 1880 and fought against the Apache uprisings led by Victorio and Geronimo. He was discharged in 1883 with a scar from a scalp wound. (Years before his hair turned white from old age, he had a silver streak across his scalp where an Apache bullet creased his head.)
He served on the Milwaukee, Wisconsin police force until moving to Malden, Massachusetts in 1899 to work as a weaver in his father's business manufacturing linen socks.
Niedner opened a gunsmith shop in Massachusetts in 1906. But moved to Cass County in 1920 to establish the Niedner Rifle Company.
Was the Niedner Rifle Company in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
14. Judith Ivey
Judith Lee Ivey is an American actress and theatre director. She twice won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.
Ivey made her big screen debut playing the female lead role in the 1984 romantic comedy film, The Lonely Guy. She later appeared in the comedy films The Woman in Red, Compromising Positions, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Sister, Sister, and the drama films The Devil's Advocate and Women Talking. She also played Bonnie Jean "BJ" Poteet during the final season of CBS sitcom Designing Women.
Ivey was born in 1951 in El Paso, Texas but attended high school in Cass County.
Did she go to high school in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
15. Emery Valentine
Emery Valentine was born in Cass County in 1858. He traveled to Colorado around the age of 10 and became a miner, until he was injured in an accident and lost his leg. He then learned to be a goldsmith and became an apprentice to a jeweler.
Valentine came to own a number of stores throughout Colorado and Montana, from 1876 to 1886, when he left the states and settled in Juneau in May 1886. There, he bought a plot of land from Joe Juneau and began his own jewelry store, E. Valentine Jeweler. Emery Valentine built a number of notable buildings in Juneau, including the Valentine Building (now on the National Register of Historic Places) and the Seward Building
Valentine organized the Juneau Volunteer Fire Department. At first, the establishment implemented a horse-drawn cart and a hand pump. Usually, volunteers would form bucket brigades to transport water as well. Valentine served as a member of the city council for a single term in 1902. Followed by six terms as mayor.
Emery Valentine was also married at least three times:
Was Emery Valentine born in Cassopolis or Dowagiac?
Answers
1. Iven Kincheloe - Kincheloe grew up on a farm at Cassopolis. Kincheloe was a member of the Dowagiac High School Class of 1945. He graduated from Dowagiac High School and attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
2. Edward Lowe - Edward Lowe’s family moved from Saint Paul, Minnesota to Cassopolis, Michigan, where he attended high school at Cassopolis High School.
3. Ruth Alice Armstrong was born Ruth Alice Jones near Cassopolis, Michigan
4. Dickinson Bishop was born in Dowagiac, Michigan. He was 24 when he married Mary Beckwith Lee, an heiress who died in 1910 thirteen days after giving birth to a daughter; the infant died minutes after being born. Bishop then married his second wife, Helen Walton, in November 1911. Their four-month honeymoon was to Europe and North Africa, arranging the return on the Titanic. During their trip, Helen became pregnant, and they acquired a dog named Freu Freu while traveling in Italy.
5. William Alden Smith was born in Dowagiac, Michigan to George Richardson and Leah Margaret (Allen) Smith and attended the common schools. He moved with his parents to Grand Rapids in 1872, where he attended school, sold popcorn, and was a newsboy and messenger boy.
6. Caleb Murphy grew up in Dowagiac, Michigan and attended Dowagiac Union High School, where he was a member of the football, basketball, wrestling, baseball, and track and field teams.
7. Wilbert Anthony Gordon Jr. / Billi Gordon was born in 1954 in Dowagiac, Michigan. He graduated from Dowagiac Union High School. After high school, in 1972, Gordon entered the Roman Catholic Crosier Seminary in Onamia, Minnesota, but left during his freshman year to attend the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In his junior year, he withdrew from the university and moved to Los Angeles. In the mid-1990s Gordon returned to the University of Michigan and finished his degree in 1997. He went on to receive a Ph.D. in neuroscience and did his post-doctoral training in functional neuroimaging and brain research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Gordon investigated the pathophysiology of stress as antecedent to obesity-related diseases at the UCLA Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for the Neurobiology of Stress for the Ingestive Behaviors and Obesity Program.
8. Kevin Allen Loder was born in Cassopolis, Michigan on March 15, 1959 and attended Ross Beatty High School
9. Michigan’s Only Diamond - The 11 carat diamond was found by Isaac Wells around 1888 in a gravel pit near Cook Lake in Dowagiac. Wells was supplying sand to Round Oak when he came across the diamond. He took it to his friend, Niles jeweler Frank Blackmond, who had it examined by Tiffany of New York. Blackmond bought the diamond for $100.
10. Frank Lake and Leon Lyle Motor Company was in Dowagiac. The shown picture of six happy men riding in the "Famous Dowagiac Truck" is made all the more tragic by the rest of the story. It was taken in LaPorte, Ind., in 1909 - the day before a collision with an interurban killed four of them, including Dowagiac Motor Car Co. co-owners Frank Lake and Leon Lyle. The two survivors had taken the train home.
11. Henry Walton - in 1857 he moved to Michigan, where he died in Cassopolis in 1865
12. Lieutenant Kenneth Lee Porter was born on December 6, 1896 in Dowagiac, Michigan.
13. Adolph Otto Niedner - Niedner Rifle Company was established in Dowagiac. Adolph Otto Niedner is remembered for his pioneering work with cartridges including the .22 Long Rifle (.22 LR) - one of the most popular calibers ever invented and .25-06 Remington. Adolph Otto Niedner was also elected mayor of Dowagiac in 1926
14. Judith Ivey attended Union High School through tenth grade in Dowagiac, Michigan.
15. Emery Valentine was born in Dowagiac, Michigan
If you know of any additional people that should be added to this list, please email martyh@casscoa.org
