I was saddened to learn today of the death of Jane Blaffer Owen.
My connection to Mrs. Owen came through New Harmony, the historic gem she rescued from obscurity. I spent three years of my life in Posey County, including one year in that most special of small towns, before leaving the area 24 years ago. But I will forever carry a bit of New Harmony deep in my pocket, where I can reach in and wrap fingers around memories of that place.
Fate introduced me to New Harmony. A friend nurtured my affection for the town. But taking up residence there branded the place into my consciousness.
It began like this. The summer I graduated from college, I landed a job at the Mount Vernon Democrat, then a small daily newspaper. In the short time I worked in the county, initially as a reporter and eventually as the paper’s news editor, I lived first in a modern apartment complex overlooking a cornfield on the north edge of Mount Vernon, then in a small, single-story apartment unit a block from the Ohio River, and finally, and best of all, in a tiny house on Steam Mill Street in New Harmony.
The site of two utopian communities, New Harmony’s attempts at communal living were short-lived and might have been nothing more than history-book fodder had the town faded into insignificance. Mrs. Owen wouldn’t allow that to happen.
She moved to New Harmony in the 1940s after marrying Kenneth Dale Owen, a descendant of Robert Owen, the Welsh-born industrialist and social philosopher who purchased the town in 1825, after the Rappites packed their bags and journeyed back to Pennsylvania. Robert Owen’s attempt to remake New Harmony failed the next year. Mrs. Owen’s go-round with the history of the place fared much better, not only succeeding, but doing so beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, except maybe hers.
The details of the place are easily found online. Historical accounts, however, are unlikely to talk about the flowers that grew in New Harmony. And yet, to me, those gardens were Mrs. Owen, who, in turn, was New Harmony.
When I think of New Harmony, I am walking down a residential street on a summer day. On the other side of a picket fence is a woman wearing a wide-brim hat and cotton gardening gloves. She looks up from her flowers to say good morning.
“Good morning, Mrs. Owen,” I reply.
It was the tiniest of connections. In my role as a reporter, I never had occasion to interview the woman. But as a resident of the town, I frequently saw her tending to flowers on any number of properties she owned or cared for. I knew the person on the other side of the fence was a multi-millionaire, but she worked like one of us, rolling up her shirt sleeves when needed, willing to get dirty when necessary. More importantly, she treated the people of New Harmony as the neighbors they truly were.
My ride today takes me through four towns and villages — some bigger than New Harmony, some smaller. None of those places has the historical footnotes to compare with the ones left by George Rapp and Robert Owen. And yet, New Harmony would likely be nothing more than a tired town with a single traffic light had it not been for Mrs. Owen. One woman made a difference.
The world, or at least one corner of it, is a better place because of her.
Road bike: 30.14 miles — Henry and Rush counties
