Soup Bone Holler, Indiana: From Hunger to a Future and a Hope

By Violet Jean Anderson Gerber with Lisa Danka

This is the amazing story of Violet Jean Anderson Gerber (known as Jean), which begins in the Great Depression and follows her life as a mother, missionary, and unwitting friend of infamous mother and son serial killers, Sante and Kenny Kimes.

Born and raised in Soup Bone Holler, a poor section of Clinton, Indiana, Jean was the eighth of nine children in a poverty-stricken family. After studying for many years to earn a degree in Spanish from the University of Arizona, Jean raised a family, became a social worker, and suffered the pain of divorce. She became a soldier in the Salvation Army in her 50s, serving as a missionary in the Bahamas, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Mexico.

It was in the Bahamas where Jean met and became friends with Ken and Sante Kimes and their young son, Kenny. Jean's story follows the family as Sante and Kenny descended from wealth and privilege into a life of lies, thievery, and the murder of at least three people. Jean herself was unsuccessfully used as a pawn in what was called "the crime of the decade" in the 1990s, the disappearance and murder of New York socialite Irene Silverman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638442219

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Soup Bone Holler, Indiana

From Hunger to a Future and a Hope

Violet Jean Anderson Gerber with Lisa Danka

Copyright © 2021 by Violet Jean Anderson Gerber with Lisa Danka

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Great Depression and the Greatest Generation

The War Years

My Frugal Little Boy

The Main Thing

So Much for So Little

The Adventure Begins

From Nassau to Mexico City

The Depraved and the Deprived

For my mother, Ruth Anderson.

Prologue

Dear Mom,

Today is Mother’s Day 2020. It sure doesn’t seem like it has been thirty-nine years since you went to be with the Lord. I’ve been thinking of you so much lately, Mom, and remembering how hard you worked, cooking and caring for our large family of eleven in Soup Bone Holler.

I still remember your voice as you sang hymns, usually The Old Rugged Cross, and recited endless poetry from memory (The Village Blacksmith was my favorite) as you labored in our flour-dusted kitchen. You nearly always enjoyed a cup of strong black coffee and never complained about your lot in life.

I’m so proud of you, Mom, and of my Soup Bone Holler roots. You helped each one of us overcome the deprivations of many difficult years. And equally important, you nurtured within us a vital, much-needed robust sense of humor.

But I reckon most of all, I miss the childhood tastes and smells. So much so, in fact, that I’m trying to put together recipes for some of your baked and cooked goodies. But I am faced with several modern-day challenges. I am much, much older now (recently turned ninety), and my greatly diminished energy and mobility require that I keep things as simple as possible.

I was the eighth of your nine children and was too young to actually help with baking chores. So I did not develop the essential know-how and experience required for the from-scratch sponge-rising method, and I personally have never owned or cooked on a coal stove. Therefore, I’m trying some of today’s supermom tactics. I smartly bypass all that messy, preliminary hard work, and I just buy prepared basic mixes. Then I tweak them with old-timey flavors and ingredients to try to recapture those memorable sensations.

During the 1970s, I worked in New Zealand at a cookie factory assembly line (think I Love Lucy). I had never seen or tasted a scone before, and I became addicted to them! I recently discovered scone mixes, and I love how they make life deliciously simple.

It is a whole new world out there these days, Mom. With our computers and credit cards, we can order worldwide nearly any food item or ingredient imaginable. And it is magically delivered to our doorstep within a day or two!

From the perspective of nine decades of living, I thank you for the strong faith and many life lessons you gave me. As a result, I have received many blessings and rewards, the two greatest of which are my children, Karl and Lisa. Years ago, when I was serving overseas with the Salvation Army (the SA), Karl telephoned me and said, I’m proud of what you are doing with your life, Mom. I was also able to help Lisa earn her MBA. Ever since, she has showered me with concern and generosity. I call her my number 1 Sherpa because she is my gofer and ever-present help in time of need.

Karl, Lisa, Kenny, and your granddaughter, Jody, have all encouraged and supported me in writing this memoir, which I dedicate to you, Mom. I still miss you. Please leave the light on for me.

Love,

Vi

Preface

My immediate family and I are Hoosiers, a word with several humorous definitions. Here’s the one I like the best:

An unsophisticated person with no class or couth. Dresses unfashionably and doesn’t know how to act in public. Sometimes there is the implication of being from the country and/or a poorer part of town. (OnlineSlangDictionary.com)

As the saying goes, You’ve come a long way, baby, and so I have. My latter years have brought me to the realization that I am who I am and what I am—a proud down-home Hoosier. I make no apologies for my writing style or my stories. I am just thankful that the Lord woke me up this morning so I can write this book.

This small offering will introduce to you my mother, a remarkable woman named Ruth Anderson, and the influence that her teachings had on my life. These pages will speak of the challenges and struggles that our family endured when we lived in Soup Bone Hollow (we say Holler), Indiana, during the Great Depression and the Second World War. These pages will also recount some of the greatest and shocking adventures of my life.

My goal is to document to the world why folks like us are referred to as the greatest generation. I hope my story will give readers a glimpse of a childhood environment that influenced lifelong actions and reactions. Our poverty-stricken youth demanded that we develop a hard work ethic, often resulting in some leaving home at an early age.

My own working days started at age fourteen after school and weekends at a café on Main Street in Clinton, Indiana, earning ten cents an hour. I continued working through age eighty-three as a certified teacher for Dave Thomas Education Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There I taught hundreds of homeless people on subjects required for them to earn their GED diploma. Presently I have fun teaching Spanish to neighbors at my senior residential campus in Phoenix, Arizona.

Over the years, I have kept journals, cards, letters, pictures, and detailed notes on many of my experiences and incidents of daily life. I have relied heavily on this material in writing this memoir. Because of the age difference between me and my older siblings, there were many incidents that I personally was unaware of. However, my sister Hazel’s daughter, my niece Jolynne, whom we call Jody, was born and lived in Soup Bone Holler for many years after I moved away.

We now live close to each other in Arizona, and Jody has shared with me many family memories included in this book. Also, my recently deceased brother, Kenny, who passed in November 2020, shared with me many humorous and profound incidents from the past. With Kenny’s passing, I am the last of my brothers and sisters and our family history is slowly fading. For the benefit of those who come after me, the appendix to this book includes The Tribe of Ruth, a biblically themed account of the begats of each of my siblings. I wrote this in honor of my mother and hope it will help keep the family alive for future generations.

The Great Depression and the Greatest Generation

And nobody tried to steal my beans!

—Violet Jean Anderson, age nine

I was born in 1930 when the average annual income was $1,973; gold was worth $20.67 per ounce and silver, $1.09 per ounce. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 237. Herbert Hoover was the President of the United States, and Charles Curtis was the Vice President. Life expectancy was only 59.7 years.¹ I was the eighth of nine children; and now, at ninety-one years old, I am the last one living.

We grew up in utter poverty during the Great Depression in Soup Bone Hollow (or Holler, according to us Hoosiers), a down-and-out section of Clinton, Indiana. Soup Bone Holler was a low-lying area near Feather Creek, north of the railroad.² Clinton was Vermilion County’s largest town, with Italians making up more than half of the population.

In 1878, an Italian miner from Northern Italy entered the Vermillion County Courthouse and declared himself ready to be an American citizen. He was the first in a steady influx of Northern Italians to Vermillion County over a seventy-five-year period. This heritage still runs strong, as evidenced by Clinton’s annual Little Italy Festival, a permanent display of flags of local ethnic groups, and a statue of an immigrant by an Italian sculptor in the town’s Immigrant Plaza.³

Most everyone we knew was dirt-poor throughout my girlhood in the 1930s. The government issued free commodity foods, like dried milk, dried eggs, beans, rice, and processed cheese. We kids were also given free school clothes every September. My sister Helen and I shared a single pair of button-up shoes, which one of us wore to school on alternate days while the other stayed home. We walked about a mile to and from school, and our knees would crack and bleed during the winter months. We also put cardboard inside our shoes as needed to cover any holes in the soles.

The author’s childhood home in Soup Bone Holler

My mother was an amazing woman who took life in stride and did what needed to be done during those years. I have memories of her scrounging for ingredients and cooking our family meal. She would dig, clean, and cook dandelion greens and cut bark from sassafras trees for tea and for flavoring baked items. I watched her