A pioneer in history

"Four one-room red brick schools, Union Township, Shelby County, 1914-21."\nThat's the first line of Donald Carmony's résumé, right under the subtitle "Education."\nThe 95-year-old IU professor emeritus, known to many as "Mr. Indiana History," died Monday, but he will live forever in the house he helped build -- the halls of Indiana's history.\nIU history professor James Madison, a longtime and close colleague of the historian, said no one in the field matched Carmony.\n"He was the man for Indiana history, and was it for a long, long time," Madison said.\nCarmony's father taught him each of his first eight grades in those one-room red brick schools. He graduated high school at 15 and became the first college graduate in his family four years later. He began teaching at Indiana Central College, now the University of Indianapolis, at 19.\nThe beginning of Carmony's academic life most resembled the pioneer age. He was born on a farm near Shelbyville, Ind., and at one time lived in a log cabin.\n"There wasn't electric power on the farm," said his son Duane, a retired Purdue University professor from West Lafayette. "The work they did was really like the pioneer period. It's amazing this person that lived in the 21st century really almost lived in the pioneer period."\nCarmony graduated from IU with a master's degree in 1931 and a doctorate in 1940. His work at the University began in 1939 at what is now IU-Purdue University at Fort Wayne. He was the director of the Lilly Program in History in 1961 and chaired the IU Committee on Historic Preservation for more than 20 years beginning in 1967. \nHis awards ran the honorable gamut from two Sagamores of the Wabash -- the highest honor bestowed on Indiana citizens by Indiana's governor -- to the endowment of IU's history chair in his name. He was the editor of the Indiana Magazine of History for 20 years and a trustee of the University of Indianapolis for 40.\nThe professor finished his final book, "Indiana, 1816-1850: The Pioneer Era," in 1998. But Carmony's granddaughter Diane Carmony, an IU alumna, said her grandfather was proudest of his students. His love of history, she said, came from an affinity for educating people.\n"He was very much a story teller," she said. \nCarmony was certainly considered one of the foremost authorities of Indiana around, as evidenced by his four books and dozens of articles published. But Madison said the historian balanced his knowledge with a good dose of humanity.\n"He was an honorable gentleman, a straight shooter," Madison said. "He was very courtly and kind and yet he was also a Hoosier farm boy."\nCarmony's wife Mary Carmony, 98, said her late husband would leave a "legacy of pioneerism" and was just as much a learner as a teacher.\n"He made a great contribution to Indiana, and Indiana made a great contribution to him," she said. "And he was always a student."\nPublic services for Carmony will be held on an undetermined date at Meadowood Retirement Community, 2455 Tamarack Trail.\n-- Contact Senior Writer Rick Newkirk at renewkir@indiana.edu.