The Fields and Sagebiels Evacuate
Thursday, January 21, 1937
JEFFERSONVILLE, INDIANA — It was doubtful that Chic Field slept on Wednesday night. Or if he did, it was only for a short time. At 12:30 a.m. Chic again dialed the Sagebiels across the street. (He had called at 11 p.m. on Wednesday night, or 90 minutes earlier.) Again, his mother-in-law answered the phone.
“It was still raining hard, and the backwater had risen almost 18 inches,” Chic wrote in his diary. “They said the water was at the edge of the front door sill and agreed it was time to move.”
An evacuation plan took shape. Water entering houses on East Market Street had been inevitable for hours.
Chic made another phone call. He dialed Evelyn’s brother-in-law, Dr. Ralph Bruner, who lived with his wife, Ruth Sagebiel Bruner, and three children at 804 East Court Avenue. The Bruner home was five blocks northeast of the Fields, a short walk under normal circumstances.
“Eventually he came down,” Chic wrote about Dr. Bruner, who was accustomed to phone calls at all hours of the day and night.
Those who knew Chic might have detected impatience. He always seemed to be in a hurry, and he always seemed to be in motion.
“Uncle Chic was a real organizer, a go-getter,” Ralph Sagebiel remembered.
The water in the Fields’ backyard was nearly a foot deep. The Sagebiel men across the street — Adolph and his sons, Jim and Bill — decided to stay in the house until daylight.
“I got Ralph [Bruner’s] other car and parked it on Watt Street in case we needed it later,” Chic wrote. “By this time, the water was up around the porch steps and running in the basement windows.”
Evelyn rose at 5:30 a.m. and cooked breakfast. After they ate, Chic lifted Evelyn in his arms and “carried her across the lawn to dry ground.” The Fields set out for Chic’s mother’s house and arrived “after a long round-about walk.”
Chic wrote, “As we went down Front Street, I noticed the river had risen a foot during the night and was [rising] more [rapidly].”
Sometime after daybreak the Sagebiels filed out of the rental house at 521 East Market Street where Adolph, Sallie and their children had lived since at least 1920.
Nine-year-old Ralph, Chic’s nephew and the eldest son of Jim and Edna Sagebiel, recalled his family’s exit through the rear of the house. The long, narrow backyard was covered with knee-deep water as they opened the back gate and entered the alley. They turned left and went a half block to Watt Street. A hundred feet north on Watt, where the water ended, Dr. Bruner waited in his automobile to ferry the family to safety.
“He walked through water and carried each one of us out,” Ralph later said about his father, who slipped into hip boots before they left the house. Ralph’s brother, Bruce, seven weeks old, was first. “He carried him out,” Ralph said, “and he carried my mom out, and then he carried me out.”
Their destination was less than a mile away, but it was dry.
“We got in the car,” Ralph continued, “We drove to the eastern part of town where my Uncle Ralph lived, and he had a two-story house. We went into the house.”
The Bruner home was built in 1908. An enclosed porch spanned the front and right side of the house. Inside were three bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a large kitchen at the back of the house.
This was a second home for Ralph. He was a companion for his cousin Ruth Ann and included in many Bruner family activities by his Uncle Ralph and Aunt Ruth.
* * *
One of 11 children, Ralph Waldo Emerson Bruner was born in 1890 in Van Buren, Arkansas. Ralph’s father was a doctor, and he followed him into the profession. He married and had two sons, Ralph Jr. and John. But the marriage ended in divorce when his wife was institutionalized with mental illness. The exact nature of her illness is unknown.
Ruth Ann, who was 6 in January 1937, was the only child from Ralph Bruner’s marriage to Ruth Sagebiel Bruner.
“He looked a lot like FDR,” Ralph Sagebiel recalled about his uncle, “but he hated FDR.”
Dr. Bruner was a Republican, and President Roosevelt’s New Deal agenda conflicted with his conservatism. He wasn’t alone. Despite FDR’s widespread popularity, a Republican minority thought his policies were a disaster.
Politics aside, young Ralph saw up close a man who deeply cared about people.
The boy observed, in a word, benevolence: a family doctor who looked and acted calm while always bending to the pressures of his professional oath and commitment to the people of Jeffersonville.
The phone rang constantly, including at suppertime, as Ralph would witness on many occasions in the Bruner home. As he remembered, many of the calls related to a pregnancy, such as a mother going into labor. Dr. Bruner would rise from the table and leave the house without a ripple in his demeanor.
“He was on call seven days a week,” Ralph later said.
In later years, Ralph would sometimes be invited to go along on house calls. He got to ride in his uncle’s fancy cars, such as a “big Packard” or a “Chrysler New Yorker.” It was a special treat.
Through it all, Dr. Bruner possessed a quiet confidence. Ralph never recalled seeing his uncle angry. Instead, he was composed and pleasant. The example made an impression on Ralph that lasted a lifetime.
“It showed me a concern for people.”
Dr. Bruner served a segregated city. He treated everybody, white and black, including those who could not pay for his services, or who paid with something other than money, such as a chicken.
“I don’t think he ever refused anyone treatment,” Ralph said.
His uncle treated more than physical illnesses. People came to him to talk about their problems and seek his counsel. He was trustworthy, “a straight arrow.”
When Dr. Bruner died in 1968, a long line of white and black people in Jeffersonville shuffled past him at a public viewing, many of whom cried beside his casket.
Ralph added, “I don’t know any man in Jeffersonville that was more respected than my uncle.”
* * *
With Evelyn safe at his mother’s house, Chic began to consider their possessions at 510 East Market Street. Their small house by the levee was defenseless as it took on water. Chic returned to the neighborhood and borrowed Dr. Bruner’s extra car parked on Watt Street.
He wrote, “[I] drove around in Ralph’s car looking things over and finally decided to try to get some storage company to get my things.”
Chic called the Fire Proof Storage Company, but the flooded streets prevented them from getting to his house. Up to 20 intersections were now impassable.
“[I] decided to do the next best thing and put my furniture up on trussels.”
With water pouring into his basement, Chic assessed the project. Then he ordered five-foot trussels and adequate lumber to build a 10-by-15-foot platform. The lumber company delivered the supplies to the neighborhood, but not all the way to the Fields’ house surrounded by backwater.
As Chic wrote, “[I] had to float the material the rest of the way with a boat.”
He recruited brother-in-law Bill Sagebiel to help with the project. The two men constructed the platform, on which they stacked as much of the Fields’ furniture as humanly possible. The mission accomplished, Chic and Bill departed.
“[We packed] as much as we could carry and left about 6:30 p.m. for my mother’s. As we went around the levee, we could see the water would be over it before morning.”
Chic told Jim Gorsuch about the river. Owner of Gorsuch Foundry on East Market Street, Jim was married to Chic’s half-sister, Letitia. Jim headed downtown to look for Public Works Administration men who could stack more sandbags on the levee.
Back at his mother’s house, Chic moved furniture to the second floor and attic at the end of a long day. And he entered the final words of this day’s entry in his diary.
“After listening to the radio about river predictions, I went to bed.”
Thank you for reading. If you liked this installment, please click the 🤍. Access the archives for the full chronology of The 1937 Flood Journal.
My Family in the Story
Charles “Chic” Field, great uncle
Evelyn Sagebiel Field, great aunt
Jim Sagebiel, grandfather
Edna Eich Sagebiel, grandmother
Ralph Sagebiel, father
Bruce Sagebiel, uncle
Theodore Adolph Sagebiel, great grandfather
Sarah Danley Sagebiel, great grandmother
Dr. Ralph Bruner, great uncle
William “Bill” Sagebiel, great uncle
Wow, what incredible men!
Fascinating history. Thank you!