The Baroness of North Meridian...

“Honey, I Shrunk the Tudor.”

Last month, in the official launch of my “5 a.m. Stories,” I mentioned the bonus feature that came with our new home in Indianapolis: a genuine Baroness, who lived and died here long before I was even born. Not surprisingly, readers asked for more information about her.

“Give us less Bob, and more Baroness,” they all demanded, in unison.

So. Back in the 1890s, when theater troupes trod the boards from town to town to entertain the common people, who after all had no television or movies or “5 a.m. Stories” to pass the time, there was a noted young actress named Rachel Deane. She toured the States and Europe, and was especially admired for her Queen Gertrude, in “Hamlet.”

Rachel Deane was a stage name. The actress was born Anna Louise Campbell, in 1869. The daughter of Irish immigrants, she grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana. Around the turn of the century, she married a Dutch Baron named Jean Theodore Fransen van Gestel, and became Baroness Anna Louise Fransen van Gestel. The Baron had worked on the construction of the Suez Canal. He also witnessed the famed 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, in Indonesia, but I guess that’s getting just a little too far into the weeds.

In the summer of 2020, my wife, Barbara, and I sold our home in Santa Fe, bought a house in Indianapolis, and moved cross-country with our two dogs and three cats in the midst of a raging pandemic. We had never even seen our new house in person. I believe the clinical term for doing something of this sort is “just plain nuts.”

Our house is in the city’s North Meridian Street Historic District. The plaque that officially marks that District is almost directly in front of our place. North Meridian bristles with stately and storied Tudor Revival homes. Ours isn’t grand, though. It’s a tiny Tudor. It’s like, “Honey, I Shrunk the Tudor.”

Don’t misunderstand me, our place oozes charm from every wood beam and leaded glass window, it just isn’t a mansion. When the National Register of Historic Places folks created the two-mile-long Historic District in 1986, they were kind enough to include our home, instead of burning it to the ground.

Meridian Street goes on for miles and miles – it has been called the “Main Stem” of Indianapolis. But the historic portion of it really blossomed from roughly 1920 to 1940. It was home to the author Booth Tarkington and two Governors’ Mansions, including the current one.

It was also home to a whole crop of robber barons who made way too much money for their own good. They all competed to have the finest home on Meridian. There have been more Decorators’ Show Houses on our street than you can shake a diamond-encrusted walking stick at.

How much money was floating around North Meridian in those razzle-dazzle years? Kassie Ritman’s cheeky book, “Meridian Whispers: Meridian Street Mansions of Indianapolis,” talks about one night in 1952 when five friends were playing cards in a house two blocks from where we now live.

Robbers armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a pistol forced their way in, made people lie on the floor, and got away with $28,000 in cash and belongings – that would be about $300,000 today. It was one of the largest robberies in the city’s history. Just another Saturday night get-together on Meridian.

Anna Louise and her son were the first occupants of the home when it was built, in the late 1920s. She was a widow by that time. Perhaps as a nod to her former profession, the house was designed with a small Juliet balcony - as in “Romeo and Juliet” - off the living room.

Kassie’s book says the locals called our place the “Juliet House.” Maybe the locals called it that, back in the day, but my wife does not think we should ever use the phrase in public, viewing it as pretentious.

When we ordered some nice terrycloth robes for guests to use when they stay with us, I wanted to have Juliet House embroidered on them in an Olde English font, but she said no. Nor would she let me order highball glasses with Juliet House etched on them. The tiara I bought her for our first Christmas here? It’s still in the box! Can you believe that?

As Queen Gertrude herself says, in “Hamlet,” “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Barbara saw the back-story on our new home as a mere historical footnote with nothing to do with us, and I saw it as way beyond cool. Rarely have we experienced such polar opposite views on the same subject.

(The Baroness and family, circa 1902, courtesy of Indiana Horistorical Society)

I mean, a Baroness and a Shakespearean actress? I shifted into high gear, vacuuming up information. At the Indiana Historical Society, I hit the motherlode. It turned out they have a file on the Baroness. They even have two photos of her – one of Anna and the Baron with their infant child, and another which is a photo of a full-length portrait, circa 1890, early in her acting career.

That last picture stopped me in my tracks. Actress Rachel Deane, in an elegant, dark taffeta dress with a tight bodice and sweeping skirt. It appears that a veil topped with a bow and flower sits atop her head and cascades down her back.

I bought a stunning high-resolution copy of the photo, framed it and put it on an antique desk in our living room, right next to the Juliet balcony. Immediately and without fanfare, it was relocated upstairs to my underwear drawer. I think we can all guess who did that.

(The Baroness, circa 1890, courtesy Indiana Historical Society)

Anna Louise acted for about 12 years, apparently calling it quits when she got married. If you search for information on Rachel Deane, you will find dozens of references to the actress in stage productions all over the country.

“Miss Rachel Deane is more than pleasing; she shows a depth of feeling and artistic merit that promise great things,” “The Boston Globe” fairly gushed, on April 26, 1892.

Early in the morning on a spring day in 1934, the Baroness died here, following a severe bout of influenza complicated by cirrhosis. Her son fell on hard times in those Great Depression days, and he practically gave the place away.

The next occupants lived here for 50 years, and I tracked down their  granddaughters, who spent many happy hours in our place. I have a photo of one of them as a young girl on the Juliet balcony. The two of them came over for drinks and wandered with us from room to room, pointing out what has changed and what is still the same. How often do you get to do something like that?

About an hour into that evening, the granddaughters produced a mysterious package containing a framed etching of our home. They hadn’t given it to us immediately on arrival, just in case they didn’t like us. They said it had been in the family forever, but they felt it belonged in the house. They were right. It’s never leaving here again.

Everyone seems very interested in the Baroness’s after-life, and they want details about sharing our house with a ghost. They wish to know more about her penchant for Braunschweiger sandwiches, Barry Manilow records and bad knock-knock jokes.

"Knock-knock, Bob."

"Okay, who's there, Baroness?"

"Tudor."

"Tudor who?"

"Me, in my Tudor sedan! Get it? Two-door sedan?"

"Yes, Baroness, I get it. have you ever thought about taking your act on the road?"