Editor’s note: The following is information from a 1958 article about Dr. Lee H. “Bud” Pattison, a former resident of Warsaw. The article is from the Files of the Kosciusko County Historical Society. The second in a series will be posted Wednesday, Aug. 31.

WARSAW — Lee Pattison or “Bud” as he was known by his friends, was born June 6, 1888, at 119 E. Fort Wayne St., Warsaw. He was one of four boys and five girls born to Ed and Julia Pattison. Ed was employed in the Cisney grocery store as a clerk. Mr. Pattison also owned and operated a restaurant from 1893 to 1900, on East Center Street. Ed Pattison died in March 1932 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Warsaw.

Dr. Bud Pattison

Julia Pattison, Bud’s mother, lived to the advanced age of 90 before passing on in 1957 and is buried alongside her husband in the family plot in Oakwood. She was the sustaining and encouraging influence that advised and directed her physically-handicapped son to greater efforts during his childhood days and in later life. Without her influence and guidance, Bud may not have become the successful and respected citizen he was.

At the time the terrible accident occurred, the Pattisons were living in a house on the southwest corner of Washington and Porter streets.

On May 28, 1896, 8-year-old Bud, who was just completing his second-year term in grade school, and two of his young chums, Fred Trish and Flint Bash, were playing in a vacant lot east of the Trish Wagon Works, located on the north side of East Center Street.

One of the boys had brought his baseball bat to the lot. However, because none of the boys had a ball, they conceived the idea of substituting tin cans and glass bottles that were lying around on the ground for their game of “One Hole Cat.” These youngsters were unaware of the dire consequences involved in so dangerous a game, but they did realize a certain degree of danger from which they attempted to protect themselves.

Flint Bash, the catcher, had a wooden box behind which he could dodge when the batter swung at the can or bottle. Fred Trish, the pitcher, was likewise guarded by a box behind which he could dodge the cans or bottle fragments.

The batter, Bud, had no protection nor did any of the boys realize his need for such.

Fred had just pitched a bottle Bud had struck and pulverized with the bat. Bud turned his back on Fred and was commenting with Flint on how hard he had hit the bottle when he heard Fred call out, “Look out Bud, here comes another.”

Turning his head towards the pitcher again, Bud was struck instantly by the jagged portion of a broken bottle which struck him in the left eye. It happened so fast that he did not have time to swing the bat or to try to dodge the object.

Blinded by the shattered bottle, blood running down his face, Bud frantically ran the three blocks home for aid. Dr. I. D. Webber was called. He dressed the wound but could do nothing to save the sight of the eye. From that date on, the sight in Bud’s other eye became impaired and Bud knew that he soon was to become totally blind.

On July 3, 1896, about five weeks after the accident, Bud attended a dog and pony show. This was Bud’s last look at the outside world. His vision failed him completely that night on his return home. It also ended his school life, as well as ruining his chances of ever enjoying a normal life, and greatly incapacitated him in his adult life.

The news that Bud was incurably blind came as a great shock, not only to Bud and his family, but to his friends and fellow citizens. Everyone who knew and loved the plucky little fellow did their utmost to help him adjust to his condition.

Dan Netter, local well-known livestock dealer, presented Bud with a 100-pound black and white goat. The goat had been a present from Dan to his boys, Norman and Roy, and had been trained to pull a cart or to ride. The boys insisted that Bud should have him.

John Trish, wagon manufacturer and father of Fred Trish, made a wagon and gave it to the boy. ‘Speckie’ Ettinger, local harness maker, made a set of harness for him. Frank Nye, local blacksmith, made the bit for the goat bridle.

During the summer months, Bud built up quite a profitable business hauling bottles of drinking water in his goat-drawn wagon. The water was obtained from the old flowing “mineral well” on South Indiana Street near Prairie Street. Bud’s customers were from all parts of town, but the majority were from different businesses who paid him 5 cents a jug for the fresh water. He averaged about 20 jugs a day.

Bud kept Billy for several years after he quit the water-hauling business. When the goat died, following an attack of pneumonia, Bud took him to a taxidermist who preserved him. This became one of Bud’s most prized possessions.

In 1898, Bud went to Indianapolis and attended the School for the Blind. He wanted to learn piano-tuning, but in 1903 he finished school as a broom-maker. Upon inquiry as to why he returned a broom maker instead of a piano tuner, he gave a hearty laugh and said he guessed that it was because he was blind and could not find the piano-tuning class and wandered into the broom-making class by mistake.

Around 1903, Bud bought and trained a strawberry roan riding pony which he called “Lottie.” He rode this pony all around the city, delivering meat for Gus Carteaux’s meat market.

Besides delivering meat for the market, he would often drive a delivery wagon and distribute ice cream for Len Rarick, who ran an ice cream manufacturing plant on the southwest side of Center lake. Many a trip he made all alone to Hoffman Lake, west of Atwood, and delivered pop and ice cream to Morris Miller, who operated a boat landing and a picnic grove on the west side of the lake. In making these trips he would have to go through the Tippecanoe River west of Warsaw as there was no bridge there at that time. Everyone in Warsaw expected him to drown in the river on one of these trips, especially during high water times.

Bud also worked as night man at the Polk Livery Barn and at times had as many as 53 heads of horses to feed, groom and care for. This barn was located at the corner of Lake Street and Winona Avenue.

Many an impromptu rodeo was held there at the barn after Mr. Polk went home for the evening. All the young “bronc busters” in the community would assemble there for a sneak ride on horseback, a race or other equine contests. Bud competed in these events and would ride the worst of the horses with the best of the riders.

In 1908, the Pattison family moved to Goshen where Bud’s father had obtained employment. Bud rode the strawberry roan horse to his new home. A year later, the family moved back to Warsaw to stay another year, and Bud was busy renewing friendships and familiarizing himself on the changes in the city that had occurred during his absence.

The following year, 1910, the Pattison family bade their final farewells to Warsaw and moved to South Bend. Warsaw friends who had watched Bud grow from childhood into manhood were greatly concerned for his personal safety in so large a city. Here he would encounter more difficulties such as streetcars, increased city traffic and numerous other dangers not to be found in a smaller community. Bud, however, did not let these possibilities scare him and within a comparatively short time he was getting around the large city almost as well as he did in Warsaw.

In 1912 and 1913, he had a traveling job representing the new soda drink, Coca-Cola. Warsaw was included in the district he covered and it is reasonable to assume that he was the first person to introduce this product in the county. He sold to many local stores and restaurants.

In 1914, Bud quit his job with the soft drink distributing company. He worked for some time tuning pianos for the Elbel store in South Bend. But still feeling the urge to better himself, he enrolled in the Ross School of Chiropractic at Grand Rapids, Mich. He completed the course in 1920 and was graduated as a doctor of Chiropractic.

Besides the jobs already listed, Bud worked as a salesman traveling for the Morris Tea and Coffee company; sold brooms for over 40 years for the Board for Industrial Aid of the Blind in Indianapolis; and reorganized the Axial Development company, the largest coal mine in Moffett County, Colo., and later known as the Pattison Coal company. He also reorganized the Indiana Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Elkhart, and was one of the promoters of Winona Beach.

Bud never used a cane or a seeing-eye dog to guide him around the country. He was of the personal opinion that these methods are needless and are only an added worry because, as he said, ”If I misplace my cane I can’t see to find it and if I have a dog to care for I can’t tell if he is friendly and wagging his tail or if he is angered and ruffling up his feathers at me.”

Bud had a very keen sense of direction and stated that he never became lost. He was acutely aware of changes in direction while riding in a car as well as when he was walking.

Another phenomenon was his ability to judge distance and proximity. Some inner sense seemed to warn him of the closeness of an object and cautioned him to stop or turn before colliding with an object or person.

In 1936, Bud married Agnes Shaffer, daughter of John and Nora Shaffer, of Warsaw. They were married in the Warsaw Methodist church by Rev. Dougherty.

Dr. Bud Pattison and his wife owned and resided in a nine-room house at 410 E. Monroe St., South Bend, and he practiced his profession in an adjoining seven-room house which they owned at 412 E. Monroe St.

Dr. Pattison came practically every weekend to Warsaw where he received several patients for chiropractic adjustments and where he and his wife visited their many friends. Although Bud lived the greater part of his life away from Warsaw, the old-timers never gave him up as a Warsawan and continued to proudly claim he and his wife as fellow townsmen.

– Compiled by InkFreeNews reporter Lasca Randels