INDIANA - A Life Lived: Running bars and helping neighbors...

OFF THE WIRE
Written by
Will Higgins
http://www.indystar.com/article/20110227/LOCAL18/102270374/A-Life-Lived-Running-bars-helping-neighbors?odyssey=mod
 
Typical of charismatic multitalents, Mary Childers -- gardener, tavern boss, neighborhood activist, bookie -- had many friends, and last week several came to her house to reminisce and pore over old photographs.
There was Mrs. Childers posing with one of Porter Wagoner's sidemen. She'd booked Wagoner, the country music star, while managing the Holly Oak Club in the 1970s. "Mary always loved country," said Roberta Schmidt.
Another photo showed Mrs. Childers wearing hot pants and standing next to the giant Harley- Davidson motorcycle she rode (while wearing the hot pants) 40 years ago, back when it was uncommon for a woman to ride a motorcycle in hot pants, or at all.
And there she was smiling into the camera and holding a wad of cash. "Seventeen hundred," said June Stahl, a longtime friend. "The horses."
Mrs. Childers, an Indianapolis woman known widely as "Aunt Mary," died of breast cancer Feb. 13 at the age of 76.
At her funeral was a mix of characters: neighbors who adored her, old friends from her days as a manager of topless dancers, a numbers runner, a former politician. With her in the casket were two of her favorite things: a can of Pepsi and a likeness of Elvis Presley emblazoned on a blanket.
The service went off without incident.

"It was placid, unlike Mary's life," said Scott Keller, who represented Mrs. Childers' neighborhood on the Indianapolis City-County Council from 2003 to 2007. "I meet so many bland people, and she was the antithesis of that. What a gal."
Mary Nancy Childers was born during the Great Depression in the small Mississippi town of Booneville, to few privileges. Her parents died when she was young. She went to live with her grandparents, but by age 16 was on her own. She had an unhappy marriage. Her only child, Jimmy, died at age 8.
But like a heroine from a Loretta Lynn anthem, Mrs. Childers was resilient. She moved to Indianapolis in the 1950s, and with her Southern accent (she never lost her "y'all"), high spirits (her staple: Canadian Club and Pepsi) and smarts (she kept accounts in her head), she soon made for herself a wild yet fulfilling life.
She managed a series of bars, all of them on the city's Eastside -- the Holly Oak, the Emerson, the Hilltop Tavern, Butch's Tavern, the Ritter Inn and the Dungeon. At the Ritter she met Stanley Childers, married him and spent 10 happy years with him. He died in 1997.
Her stint at the Dungeon, which featured topless dancers, required special diplomacy because many of the dancers (there's a great photo of Mrs. Childers with several of them) were the girlfriends of members of the Outlaws motorcycle club.
The rough-hewn cyclists were frequent customers, watching their ladies dance naked alongside other men who were enjoying the same show. But there was no trouble, said Barbara Stewart, Mrs. Childers' oldest friend. (The one time Mrs. Childers was arrested for bookmaking, it was Stewart she called to bail her out.)
The Outlaws "never caused a problem for Mary," Stewart said, "because of the respect they had for her. She just had that way about her."
Mrs. Childers lived for most of the last 50 years on Bradley Avenue, on the Eastside, and was a huge factor there.
She helped neighbors down on their luck to pay their rent, and their utilities, by giving them cash. She bought a moped for a man who'd lost his driver's license. She grew vegetables, canned them and sold them cheaply. She complained to the city about shoddy trash pickup, and trash pickup improved. She took in a stray cat. She took bets on ballgames, auto races, you name it, but also hosted CrimeWatch meetings.
She hounded neighbors to plant flowers, and if they didn't, she'd come over and plant them.
"I said, 'I don't want those (flowers),' " said Schmidt, "but with Mary, you didn't have a choice."

This spring, in a vacant lot across the street from her house, Schmidt and others from the neighborhood plan to install 30 raised flower beds, plant hundreds of flowers in them and call their work the Mary Childers Memorial Gardens.
"A Life Lived" takes a look back at the notable lives of people in our coverage area. To nominate someone for this feature, please contact the reporter at (317) 444-6043 or will.higgins@indystar.com.