Monday we drove from Ann Arbor to Franklin Indiana which is just south of Indianapolis. For the last three days we have been digging through old marriage and death records at the library and historical society. Our camping location is south of Franklin at the Johnson County Park which is on what once was Camp Atterbury. This camp was a huge army base build shortly before the start of WWII and used in various degrees since. About a third had been turned over by the army for other uses and the county built a fairly nice RV park there. The park is quiet and at $16 a night for water/electric it’s a good value. It is really interesting to bike around the area and see where all the old army buildings were located. At its peek the base had something like 1500 buildings. There was also a POW camp located nearby for German and Italian prisoners. Many of the Italians were skilled craftsmen who worked on the base. In 1942 they received permission to build a small chapel in their camp. The chapel was restored in 1988.
Tomorrow we will go about 40 miles south to Seymour.
POW Chapel
We visited Warren PA where Jim's father was born and had fun digging out information about his family. I think it's a great way to spend time and see the area - tracking down where they lived and worked.
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