The Silver Bell Club of Northwest Indiana has a special milestone anniversary celebration early next month.
It was in 1925 when 26 young men of Polish and Slovak origin had the idea to band together to create an athletic club. The primary goal was to have an organization to participate in various competitive sporting events, such as baseball, basketball and boxing.
It was decided the athletic club would be called the Silver Bell Club. The name was chosen because “silver” represents “faith and purity,” while the “bell” designation is a reference to the draw of the club, such as the signal that comes from “the soft, clear tones of a silver bell.”
A century later, the group is still active and well-regarded in Northwest Indiana, though the sporting event connection has faded, with today’s emphasis more focused on honoring and preserving the heritage and culture of the original Polish and Slovak founders.
Next month’s banquet hosted by the Silver Bell Club and Polish National Alliance Lodge #2365 is on Sunday, Sept. 7, beginning with cocktail hour at 1 p.m. and dinner at 2 p.m. in the great room at Innsbrook Country Club, 6701 Taft St. in Merrillville. Reservations are $60 a person and due by Sept. 1 by calling 219-322-1271 or visiting https://silverbellclub.com/. The main entrée is the choice of either chicken marsala or beef filet.
The organization has always drawn newspaper headlines and media attention with its hosted dinner events and award honors. In 1974, Silver Bell Club initiated the first “Sports Awards Banquet” and two champion members were honored, Tony Zale, former world middle-weight boxing champ, and Hank Stram, former head coach of the Super Bowl champions the Kansas City Chiefs. More than 900 attendees packed the event and in succeeding years, other national sports figures were honored, as well as graduating high school students of Polish-Slovak descent from Lake and Porter high schools.
Luminaries attending and guest speakers for the event in past decades included Mike Ditka, Terry Bradshaw, Paul Hornung and Bob Knight. U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky commemorated the Stram and Zale sports award banquet in Congressional speeches he delivered in 1998 and 1999.
The Silver Bell Club purchased a 50-acre site and hall at 10310 Grand Blvd. in Crown Point in 1997. This hall was home to all Silver Bell Club meetings and was rented out to members. However, a devastating fire destroyed the 5,000-square-foot hall on Christmas Eve in 2004. Today, all monthly meetings are held at the Gary Sportsman’s Club in Crown Point, Indiana.
Tony Zale remains a legendary figure even after his death on March 20, 1997, at age 83. He was born and raised in Gary and was a world middleweight boxing champion and received the Presidential Citizens Medal from George H.W. Bush in 1990. His “Man of Steel” dubbing by the media had nothing to do with Superman and was instead a reference to his early youth working in the steel mills of Gary, as well as his resilience in the boxing ring.
Zale was best known for the infamous trio of matches against Rocky Graziano for the middleweight championship. It was Zale who bested Graziano in the first bout at Yankee Stadium in New York in 1946, including his bashings in the first five rounds and then a return that led him to knock out Graziano in the sixth round. Their second fight in 1947 in Chicago was similar to the first, yet it was Graziano who came back from a hard first five rounds to take Zale to the mat in the sixth round to become champion. The final fight in New Jersey in 1948 is remembered for Zale striking Graziano with a left hand to finish the match and the rivalry.
Graziano retired from boxing and found new fame as the escort of funny gal Martha Raye, appearing on her television show from 1954 to 1956. He said in interviews that even a decade later he would “wake up at night in a cold sweat after facing a recurring nightmare of being in the ring with Zale.”
When I attended the funeral of boxing legend Tony Zale in March 1997, I remember being especially moved by the eulogy, which I later wrote about from notes I jotted down. From these words, it’s easy to see why Zale was a natural to be honored by the Silver Bell Club.
“There was another place besides the ring where the fighting champ was a familiar fixture,” the Rev. Louis Madejczyk told more than 300 people who gathered that Wednesday at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Merrillville to bid farewell to Zale.
“Every Sunday he’d be sitting in the second pew from the altar for Mass. He might have some patches over the cuts on his face and colored glasses over his eyes, but he’d always be there no matter what had happened the night before. He would be there to thank God for his life no matter what the outcome was after his latest fight.”
Zale died just a couple months shy of his 84th birthday and had been a resident at Fountain View Nursing Home in Portage while battling Parkinson’s disease. In later years, Zale’s public appearances were managed by his second wife, Philomena, whom he married in 1970 and who died in 1992. She, too, had her own notoriety since from 1943 to 1947, Philomena “Frisco” Gianfranciso played in the All-American Girls Baseball League, as detailed in the hit 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”
While his future wife was playing baseball, Zale was doing his part by joining the Navy and leaving his middleweight title “frozen” until his return in 1946. At the time, he was married to first wife Adeline Richwalski, after the pair wed in March 1942.
A favorite post-war dessert recipe from the late great Martha Raye, who died at age 78 in 1994, was first published in newspapers in March 1949 for her delicious “Martha’s Pineapple Cream Pie.”
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a radio host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at [email protected] or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Martha Raye’s Pineapple Cream Pie
Makes 10 slices
Filling:
1 cup drained crushed pineapple, juice reserved
1 cup pineapple juice and water combined
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1 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup scaled milk
1 tablespoon butter
Grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon
Meringue:
3 egg whites
6 tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
Shell:
1 baked 9-inch pie shell or prepared graham cracker crumb shell
Directions:
Drain canned pineapple, measure juice and add more water if necessary to make 1 cup liquid.
Combine flour, cornstarch and sugar and slowly add the scaled milk and stir vigorously.
Place in the top of a double boiler, cook and stir and while cooking, add the pineapple liquid.
Cook for 10 minutes longer.
Beat egg yolks and add to a little of the hot mixture, then add to the remainder of the hot mixture in the double boiler and cook 3 minutes longer.
Remove from heat and add butter, salt, lemon juice and rind and the 1 cup well-drained pineapple.
Blend well and chill.
Turn into baked pie shell and whisk meringue ingredients until light and fluffy and top pie with meringue.
Brown meringue in a slow oven and chill before serving.