Churchill in the Land-O’Nod
At 6:30 in the evening of November 11, 1946, George Kilmer, owner of Kilmer Car and Tractor Company just south of Muncie, Indiana in the Land-O’Nod, was finishing up his day’s work when two overwrought Englishman appeared on the horizon. The pair were frantically making their way down State Road 35 (U.S. Route 35) on foot.
Upon reaching Kilmer, they indicated that their vehicle’s left rear wheel had flown off as they were driving south. Luckily, the driver was able to keep the car under control and it was resting peacefully, though slightly inclined up the road on the shoulder.
One of the men told Kilmer that he was due to give a lecture at Earlham College at 8:15 PM. Kilmer offered to drive the speaker to Richmond, while he dispatched a tow truck to bring the car back for repair. The other man agreed to stay behind until the car was fixed.
The journey from Land-O’Nod to Richmond was a relatively short one, but it provided Kilmer and his English passenger time to chat. Kilmer noted his rider’s accent, which wasn’t unusual, but uncommonly heard in the Land-O’Nod. The two discussed post-war life in Europe.
At one point in the conversation, Kilmer, perhaps wanting to break the seriousness of the discussion with a little humor, asked his passenger “if he knew Winston Churchill.”
The rider responded straight-faced, “Well, I should know him very well. I’m his son.”
At this point, Kilmer thought this supposed son of Churchill was jesting, later telling the Muncie Evening Press that he “knew he was spoofing.” The two made small talk for the remainder of the trip and arrived in Richmond with time to change clothes at the speaker’s hotel. As Kilmer drove up to the entrance, a cluster of photographers began snapping photos of his passenger. Kilmer later told reporters that “when we got to the hotel in Richmond and the bellboys called him ‘Mr. Churchill’ and the newspaper reporters crowded into his room to ask him questions, I knew he wasn’t kidding.”
Kilmer’s passenger was indeed Randolph Churchill — World War Two British Army officer, former Conservative Member of Parliament, journalist, and son of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Randolph Churchill was on a lecture tour across the United States that fall of 1946. He spoke in several cities including Indianapolis on October 25, Detroit on October 30, St. Louis on November 1, Milwaukee on November 7, and Chicago on November 9. Churchill and his secretary Denys Rhodes (the other Englishman left behind with the busted car in Land-O’Nod) were enroute from Chicago to Richmond when their rear wheel came off on SR 35.
Churchill had been invited by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) to speak at Earlham College about his first-hand war experiences and to discuss issues raised in his syndicated “Europe Today” column. His lecture in Goddard Auditorium comprised several broad topics regarding post-war Europe including the Nuremberg Trials and the influence of Soviet Communism. At the conclusion of the presentation, Churchill and Rhodes partied at the house of Richmond’s oil baron, Harper Hale Muff.
As for George Kilmer, the historical record is silent as to whether he stayed around to hear the lecture, or just returned to the Land-O’Nod. Presumably, Kilmer’s mechanics fixed Churchill’s car and Rhodes drove to Richmond, at least in time for the Muff’s party.
You also might be wondering where the hell is the Land-O’Nod. As I understand it, the Land-O’Nod was an unincorporated hamlet of sorts on what is now U.S. 35 in Delaware County, just north of the Henry County line, and about 2.5 miles from Blountsville. There isn’t an official plat of the Land-O’Nod and I suspect it was a rural rest stop along the state road. The immediate area had a service station, the aforementioned Kilmer Car and Tractor Company (a dealership of Ford automobiles and farm equipment), the Land-O’Nod Restaurant (owned and operated by Earl and Madge Glaze), the Land-O’Nod Inn (managed by O.J. “Doc” Haymond), farms, and a few houses.
You’ve probably driven through what was once the Land-O’Nod without ever knowing it. Today, nothing much remains save a few houses, agricultural structures, and farm fields. As to the name, the Land of Nod was a place in the Book of Genesis where “Cain left the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden” after murdering Abel. The term “Land of Nod” also had come to generally mean “to go to sleep” as in nodding off, or in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson “From breakfast on through all the day, at home among my friends I say, but every night I go abroad, afar into the land of Nod.”
Originally appeared in the Muncie Star Press, January 21, 2018: https://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2018/01/21/bygone-muncie-when-churchill-stranded-land-onod/1036544001/
