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DAZE WORK: Chewing Gum Lady part of small-town fabric, mural wall
Somewhere Edith Browning is smiling that impish little grin of hers, looking down from heaven where she’s probably still passing out sticks of Juicy Fruit gum to kids shorter than her 4-foot, 11-inch frame.
Smiling no doubt at her second act on earth as part of the Mt. Rushmore of Greencastle, the new mural on the Dick’s Barber Shop wall, the “Chewing Gum Lady” joins other community legends like Eli Lilly and Percy Julian and icons like East College and IBM. A giant in life at such a small stature, it’s ironic to see her likeness portrayed in such enormous fashion on that brick wall.
If you’re 35 or younger, you may never have heard of the famed Greencastle Chewing Gum Lady who routinely gave out about 100 sticks of gum each week to three generations of children -- even during World War II when the Wrigley Gum people made sure she had a supply despite the ingredient chicle being needed in the war effort.
Edith died July 1, 1997 at the age of 91. Born in New Market in Montgomery County in 1906, she graduated from DePauw University in 1927 and the following year after a stint at business school joined Central National Bank as a secretary from which she retired in 1967.
To those of a certain generation, she may be the most obvious depiction on the wall, while to those of a more recent vintage, she remains a mystery woman judging by my interactions with folks around town who wondered if the lady on the wall was one of two longtime educators, Martha Ridpath or Mary Emma Jones.
As the mural was being completed last week, I had several people ask me who the woman was on the north end of it. When it was sketched out, I was absolutely certain it was Edith, even forwarding a photo to two of her biggest fans, my daughters, saying as much. But then I was less sure as the picture was filled in and it depicted a younger version of the feisty little woman I came to know when she was in her late 70s.
But I also had people say they were appalled that John Dillinger’s likeness was picked for the mural, suggesting that 1870s Eli Lilly next to Edith was actually Depression Era gangster Dillinger. That would have been interesting since Edith was working in the bank that fall afternoon in 1933 when Dillinger and his gang made an infamous withdrawal. She watched from the bank mezzanine as Public Enemy No. 1 leaped over the counter that Monday afternoon to help himself to the proceeds of a lucrative Old Gold Weekend at DePauw.
Edith didn’t like to talk about it, but being inexorably linked to Dillinger she relented and chatted about it a few times with me and most notably with former Banner Graphic Publisher Larry Gibbs, himself a Dillinger aficionado, who wrote a definitive 50-year retrospective on the heist, the most lucrative of Dillinger’s career.
Miss Browning never actually encountered Dillinger face to face on Oct. 23, 1933 at the old Central National Bank at the southwest corner of the courthouse square. For if she had, Dillinger just might have met her steely resolve and put back that $75,000 in cash and negotiable bonds his gang took that fateful fall day.
But Edith was more than rubbing elbows with Dillinger and passing out sticks of gum. She was my original go-to gal for all things Greencastle long before that mantle shifted to the head of Jinsie Bingham. Be it the Webber’s Toy Store, the Owl Drugstore or the Voncastle Theatre, she always had a story to share that proved far more interesting than the question itself.
She was blunt with her opinions, not failing to assure me she didn’t care for the new picture that adorned my column or admonishing me for using the word “hell” in print one time.
Yet apparently she thought enough of me to have me included as one of her pallbearers that hot July day we took her to the Masonic Cemetery North at Crawfordsville.
The woman herself remained so popular throughout the years that even in an era where sending Christmas cards was fading as fast as aluminum Christmas trees she routinely received more than 100 cards each year, many from her “chewing gum kids.” Alan Small and I used to bet on how many cards she’d get and I was always on the short end.
My family got to know Edith Browning because she wanted to meet the little redhead, my daughter Nicole, she spotted in a stroller one morning at Joanie Taylor’s old Taylor’s Patio restaurant on the south side of the square. Oldest daughter Kara was in preschool at the time and her mother would kill time downtown with Nicole while Kara was in class. Miss Browning thought Nicole looked like an old photo of her as redheaded young Edith in a blue frock. She ultimately had the photo passed on to Nicole, who cherishes it to this day.
For someone who was never married and never had kids of her own, Edith was like an extra grandma to her little pals, often buying them gifts like pencils with their names embossed on them, something that could easily be acquired over the internet today but in the 1980s took some laboring of love to get. Special friends always got a stick of gum in their birthday cards and a full pack of Juicy Fruit and a shiny, new quarter for Halloween.
So, would Edith have enjoyed her latest burst of fame? I don’t think she would have. She wasn’t one for creating a fuss or having the attention turned onto her. She’d probably have had several suggestions for the mural other than herself.
All I have to do to prove that is think about that mid-1980s visit by the ABC newsmagazine “20/20,” which was doing a story on the unusual things that have been read into The Congressional Record and found that Congressman John Myers had a feature story on the Chewing Gum Lady read into The Record back in the early 1980s.
At the end of the segment, which was actually designed as a negative piece on the waste of time and money The Record had become but turned into a charming visit with an octogenarian and her little friends, the ABC interviewer asked Edith what she thought about it all.
She looked straight into the camera and smiled, telling a prime-time national TV audience, “I’m just a little, old lady sitting here rocking.”
And now she’s rocking the new mural wall. Hundreds of chewing gum kids couldn’t be happier.