A glimpse into the past

After returning to their lake house near Rochester, Ind., for the Fourth of July holiday, Indianapolis resident Kate Hinman and her husband, Martin, checked the mailbox for their copy of the Peru (Ind.) Tribune. While riding in the car, Kate Hinman thumbed through the sections of the newspaper until a name caught her eye and made her do a double take. They pulled the car over in shock and a minute later they were both staring at the name of Hinman's uncle who had died more than a decade ago.\n"I glance over and see 'Emerson Keller Elkins'," she said. "And I said, 'That's Uncle Emerson!'"\nThe Hinmans never would've guessed that their relative was posthumously making headlines all over the state for something he did almost seven decades ago.\nOn the morning of Jan. 15, 1939, Emerson Keller Elkins was working as a page in the Indiana Memorial Union hotel. Probably bored, he decided to leave a letter and various items in the wall of the IMU. There it remained untouched until the morning of June 22 this year, when workers discovered his time capsule in a wall they were tearing down for renovations.\nA few minutes after reading the article, Hinman was on her cell phone making calls to Bloomington to find out more information. The next day, she heard from Loren Rullman, executive director of the IMU, and soon had a copy of her uncle's letter and a list of items they found in the wall.\n"It was just startling, very startling," she said. "(My first reaction to the letter was) 'That sounds exactly like Emerson!' ... Especially the part about 'Gone with the Wind' (and how he didn't think it'd do very well) ... He was a cynical man. He was an attorney; he got his law degree from IU and worked for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C."\nHinman said that even though Elkins lived a few states away, he maintained a relationship with his family. She has childhood memories of him visiting, specifically of riding towards the Kokomo, Ind., Howard Johnson in a convertible with the top rolled down. She also remembers a time when she was about 12 or 13 years old that Elkins, who had served in the Air Force, took her and her mother for a ride in a Cessna 172 airplane.\n"She white-knuckled it, and I loved it. My husband's a pilot so I love to fly," she said. "Those are really some of my earliest memories."\nThough Elkins loved his job and received awards from the Nixon administration, he was ready to retire when he moved back to the family home in Peru, Hinman said. After that, he bought a mobile home he named "Castle" and traveled between Indiana, Florida and California visiting family. He died August 27, 1993 at his nephew's home in Covina, Calif.\nElkins was married only briefly when he was younger and had no children, so his cremated remains were sent to Hinman's mother and she buried them at a cemetery north of Peru, Hinman said.\nSince learning of her uncle's time capsule, Hinman said she has begun the "journey" of looking into family history. She said she feels like Elkins' letter has given her a new connection to him.\n"It's neat because ... it brings out a little bit of his humanity," she said. "I mean, he was just a guy who was bored before going to work writing a letter like, 'Oh it'd be cool if I stashed some stuff in the wall.' And having been a bored student I could see him doing that."\nIn turn, Rullman said having Hinman visit IU and tell stories about her uncle has helped personalize the time capsule and letter.\n"We learned a little bit from what Mr. Elkins put in the wall but then she called and was able to round out some of the story and provide a personal, real-life connection to the story," he said. "It's just history in some ways but if you have somebody who can augment that history and bring a real-life perspective to it, it's so great because she makes it more real."\nBut Hinman brought more than just stories. She donated family photos of Elkins and some of his belongings to IU, including some of his awards from the Nixon administration. She said she wanted IU to have them because she doesn't have many close relatives and she said Elkins "felt a great affinity for IU." Right now it's undecided where the items will be housed.\nRullman said that the IMU staff and Union Board have decided to make their own time capsule. He said a Union Board member and a student who works as a hotel page will write letters to include in their capsule. They're still trying to decide what to put with the letters, but right now they're thinking they'll include a copy of the Indiana Daily Student, a list of current wages, some statistics about IMU employees, a list of Union Board programs and perhaps a hotel key and other IU memorabilia. They plan to put their time capsule into the wall sometime in August since construction on the area will resume at the end of the month. The project will be completed by late October or early November, Rullman said.\nHinman is excited students and staff are creating a new time capsule and wants to be present when they put it into the wall.\n"Time capsules are neat," she said. "That's what makes us human is documenting what is going on, whether it's painting on a cave wall, making a time capsule or writing a letter. We as human beings like to document our history, so I think that (would) be really cool."\nHinman is also enjoying the impact her uncle's piece of history is having on everyone. While the University is obviously excited about the capsule, she has found her friends and coworkers have shared in the enthusiasm of this unique occurrence. Hinman, who works as a medical social worker at St. Vincent's Hospital in Indianapolis, said her boss and coworkers are fascinated by what's happening.\n"It's touching more and more people, it's really neat," she said. "I think he'd be pleased"