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Uncle Ike: Isaac William King

Farmer, Carpenter, Well Driller, Horseshoe Champion, and All-Around Troublemaker (1915–2002)

The Outhouse on the Barn

"Humor is the good-natured side of truth." —Mark Twain

One Halloween morning, everyone staying at Grandpa King’s farm woke up and looked out toward the barn. There, sitting on the peak of the roof, was our outhouse. Not somebody else’s outhouse tipped over in a ditch like every other Halloween prank in Noble County—ours, on top of our barn. Which meant, of course, that nobody had a toilet until the situation was resolved.

Nobody had to ask who did it. It had all the hallmarks of Isaac King. Ike never admitted a thing, of course, but he got the outhouse down and put it back over the hole without complaint, which was as close to a confession as you were ever going to get from him. The real question—the one nobody ever answered to anyone’s satisfaction—was how he got it up there by himself. That was Ike. The act itself was only half the show. The mystery of how he pulled it off was the other half.

The Baby of the Family

"In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony." —Friedrich Nietzsche

Isaac William King was born on December 14, 1915, in Whitley County, Indiana, the youngest of Volney William King and Bertha Lena McConnell King’s surviving children. He was named for his grandfather, Isaac William King, the Civil War veteran who had marched with the 88th Indiana Infantry through Chickamauga and Sherman’s March to the Sea. Whether he inherited his grandfather’s toughness or just his name is an open question, but he certainly inherited his own brand of stubbornness.

He was the baby of the family by a good margin. My mother, Lucille, was the eldest surviving child, born in 1902—thirteen years before Ike arrived. In between came Evelyn in 1905, Louisa in 1910, Clayton in 1912, and Mary in 1914. By the time Ike was old enough to cause trouble, his older sisters were already grown or nearly so, which meant the farm was his playground and Grandpa and Grandma were the only authorities he had to answer to.

He graduated from Ligonier High School in 1937, which made him one of the more educated members of the family—Grandpa Volney had only finished eighth grade. But school was never what defined Ike. Work defined him, and mischief defined whatever was left over.

An Act of War

"The memories we make with our family are everything." —Candace Cameron Bure

When I was a boy living on Grandpa’s farm, Ike took over the farming chores after Grandpa left for the Veterans Home in Marion. He was quite an uncle, to say the least.

He took particular delight in picking on my cousin Jim Biddle and me. Ike was a real artist when it came to torment. He would go out of his way to throw a rotten egg at us, and you did not need to be hit to suffer—the smell was punishment enough. But his true specialty was corncobs dipped in fresh cow manure, hurled at whoever had their back turned. This was an act of war. He would laugh himself silly watching us boil, knowing full well we would be plotting our revenge.

The day of reckoning came when Jim and I had a stroke of near genius. We balanced a milk bucket, half full of water, over the milking parlor door, held in place by binder twine with a trigger attached to the door handle. Ike came through the door after finishing milking chores and got the whole thing—bucket, water, and all. He was soaked. He was furious. Jim said the bucket hit Ike on the way down too, so it was no wonder he came out swinging for revenge.

Grandma had her own way of dispatching a chicken when she needed a couple for dinner—the inverted log and hatchet. Ike had his own method. He would grab the chicken by the neck and spin the bird underhand like a windmill until the neck and body parted company and both went airborne. Needless to say, this incensed Grandma, and she always scolded Ike for his behavior. He never changed his ways.

Pearl and Patty

"Grief is the price we pay for love." —Queen Elizabeth II

On December 27, 1936, Ike married Minnie Pearl Harshbarger—Aunt Pearl to everyone—in Noble County. Their daughter, Patricia Ann, was born on August 2, 1937, in Ligonier. Patty was my age, almost exactly—we were kids together in that brief window when childhood felt permanent.

Then Patty got a popcorn hull lodged in her lung. It turned into pneumonia, and on January 30, 1944, she died in Albion. She was six years old.

It broke something in Ike and Pearl. They pulled away from the family for a long time after that—years, really—and were pretty well removed from family social affairs. The loss of their only child was not something either of them ever fully came back from, though they eventually found their way to a different kind of life.

A Man of Many Trades

"The dignity of work is in the doing of it." —Ralph Waldo Emerson

If there was a job that required strong hands and a willingness to work, Ike did it. He farmed Grandpa’s land after Grandpa left for the VA home. He drilled water wells. He built swimming pools. He worked as a carpenter alongside Jake Hunter—my mother’s second husband. He managed two gas stations in Ligonier. He spent so many years on his knees troweling cement that both knees eventually gave out and had to be replaced. After the operations, he said he should have had the replacements much earlier, since he had suffered so much pain for so long.

Ike also had a daughter, Marcia, from a relationship outside his marriage. That was part of who he was too—a complicated man who didn’t always stay inside the lines.

Horseshoes, Basketball, and Boisterous Enthusiasm

"The only way to win is to give everything." —Vince Lombardi

Ike loved pitching horseshoes, and he was very good at it. He was a runner-up in the state of Indiana one year. It didn’t matter where he went—the horseshoes and stakes went with him. If there was flat ground and daylight, Ike was pitching.

He played basketball in high school, and as an adult he was a rabid fan who went to just about every game at Ligonier High School. He also had the distinction of being the adult spectator who got thrown out of a game and told never to come back because of his boisterous enthusiasm. That was Ike’s version of cheering—loud enough to get banned from the gymnasium.

Faith and Devotion

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." —Martin Luther King Jr.

Later in life, Ike mellowed considerably. He became a tireless worker for the Christian Church in Ligonier, helping restore the old building and putting his woodworking skills to use making the altar tables and the pulpit. After the church building was sold, he continued his faith by driving to the Kendallville Church of Christ, where he became a devoted member.

He was devoted to Pearl, too. As her health declined and she needed kidney dialysis, Ike drove her to her treatments wherever they were. Pearl died on May 29, 1998, and Ike carried on alone after that.

The Scooter Years

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." —Nelson Mandela

In his last years, the brash young man who had put outhouses on barns and spun chickens through the air became a quieter presence in Ligonier—but he didn’t sit still. He rode a motor scooter around town, picking up trash and keeping things in order, a self-appointed caretaker of the streets he’d known his whole life. The mischief was gone, but the energy wasn’t. Ike always had to be doing something.

Isaac William King died on December 7, 2002, at Oak Leaf Village Nursing Center in Ligonier, one week shy of his eighty-seventh birthday. The cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried at Oak Park Cemetery in Ligonier, with services at the Orr Funeral Home and Rev. Arvil Brown officiating. Memorials were directed to the Kendallville Church of Christ.

He was survived by one sister, Evelyn Rimmell of Niles, Michigan, and ten nieces and nephews. His parents, his wife Pearl, his daughter Patty, his brother Clayton, and his sisters Lucille, Louisa, and Mary had all gone before him.

What I Remember

"Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things." —Cicero

When I think about Uncle Ike, I think about a man who lived large and loud and never apologized for it. He threw rotten eggs and corncobs. He put an outhouse on a barn. He got thrown out of a basketball game for cheering too hard. He lost his only daughter and somehow kept going. He drilled wells, built pools, farmed, carpentered, managed gas stations, and wore out both his knees on concrete. He restored a church and built its pulpit with his own hands. And at the end, he rode around Ligonier on a scooter, picking up what other people had dropped.

He was brash and tender, infuriating and generous, a man who could make you furious one minute and laugh the next. He was, in every sense of the word, quite an uncle.

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Isaac William King (1915–2002) was the youngest surviving child of Volney William King and Bertha Lena McConnell King, born in Whitley County, Indiana. Named for his grandfather, the Civil War veteran Isaac William King of the 88th Indiana Infantry, he married Pearl Harshbarger in 1936 and spent his life in and around Ligonier, Noble County, working as a farmer, carpenter, well driller, pool builder, and gas station manager. He is buried at Oak Park Cemetery, Ligonier.