This is number 159 in the blog series, “My Writing Life.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
SPRING FORWARD AND FALL BACK. I can tell you how important that slogan was when I moved from Indiana to Minnesota in 1976—fifty years ago!
You see, Indiana never changed to Daylight Saving Time. Officially, it stayed on Eastern Standard Time year-round. Where I grew up, that meant half the year we were on the same time as Ohio, and half the year we were on the same time as Chicago.
But that confusion wasn’t enough. Some counties stayed with Chicago year-round. Some stayed with Cincinnati year-round. And there were a few counties that were split so that some parts were in one time zone and some were in the other. It was a slightly modified form of chaos until an Indiana Republican representative to congress became the governor of Indiana. Mike Pence put Indiana on a unified Eastern Standard/Eastern Daylight schedule, pleasing no one.
Of course, Indiana still wasn’t unified. Nine Counties in the northwestern corner of Indiana and another couple in the southwestern corner, stayed on their schedule of Central Standard/Central Daylight time with Illinois. I would guess that if the National Daylight Saving Time law passes next year, Indiana will still be split between two time zones.
There was a time back in 1972, when I was a young student preacher with a new wife, serving two little United Methodist congregations in Northern Indiana. I was once asked if my congregation was dying. “No,” I answered, “but it’s definitely retired.”
It was while serving there that I heard the story of Leo Alger, a farmer who was, in name, a member of the Ijamsville United Methodist Church. He hadn’t set foot in the church in thirty years and swore he never would again, though his wife was the president of the UMW, the lay member of conference, and an absolute pillar of the church, from whom many of the members were descended.
The reason? In February of 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted year-round Daylight Saving Time, also called War Time. In Indiana it was referred to more commonly as Time Wars.
Clocks sprang forward across the nation. Except in Indiana, where it seemed every community and often individual businesses decided whether they would go on the hateful Daylight Saving Time. But to Leo, it was the law and he dutifully set his clock forward an hour. He rose an hour earlier than usual and milked the reluctant cows. He got showered and dressed. Then he and Lela went to church.
No one was there. They waited a bit, then Lela went up and started playing the piano and Leo sang a few of their favorite hymns. An hour later, people started arriving for church. Leo waited until the preacher got there and went to the pulpit before he stood to address the congregation.
“Go home! God was here an hour ago and you missed him. If a church can’t abide by the law of the land—a law that is supposed to help protect my son, fighting Japan in the Pacific—then it isn’t much of a church. It doesn’t need my money or my attendance and I’ll never darken the door of this church again.”
He stalked out. Lela stayed and one of her other children drove her home. She remained active, but Leo stayed true to his word until his funeral in that church in 1980.
I’m actually 51% in favor of year-round Daylight Saving Time. I just think it is silly to go into the winter feeling like it will never get light out again. And at our latitude in Washington State, it’s still not daylight when we end work for the day anyway.
It’s been forty-two years since that date with Lynn. But somehow the memory always comes back to me whenever I fall back, no matter what time zone it’s in.
Maybe I’ll write another time change story if and when the law passes. Then it will be nostalgia and future generations will wonder what the hell I was talking about!
Enjoy!