Purdue University Alumni Notes

LESTER M. HEATH, BSEE 1940, of Cincinnati, OH, passed away July
2003. He was in two honoraries, Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu. His
brothers, Parker and Winfield, of Monticello, IN, were also graduates
of Purdue. His father had attended Purdue for one year. Lester also
had a degree from the Fort Wayne Business School.

Upon graduation from Purdue, Lester worked at a Niagra Falls
electrical company. His number (158) was the first to be called for
the draft in World War Two. He used his problem-solving ability in
installing electricity in the army tents as America entered the
war. He taught weapons to the young draftees at Fort Dix. Having
attained the rank of Captain in the Army Signal Corps, Lester retired
from the military in 1945 and moved to Cincinnati with his wife
(Martha McCuaig of Monticello, IN) and children.

Mr. Heath was hired by an engineering friend he knew in the army and
became purchasing director at Liebel-Flarsheim, a pharmaceutical
supplies company. His grandfather had been a country doctor. One of
Les's favorite stories was how his grandfather, Caleb Scott, traded
produce for medicine herbs with the Indians. The lore was that the
Indians trusted Calib and left their gold on his farm in a
bog. Medicine ran in the family. His brother Parker was a Pharmacy
major and Les's son became a Neurologist.

After the war, Les helped found a small company that produced 3D
glasses. As vice president of Polacoat, Inc., he and the president, a
chemical engineer from MIT, developed a product and chemical
solution. They invented the rear view projection screen. Les had
thought about a screen where lights did not have to be turned off in
the room. The screen became a success. He was the "Father of
Lenscreen." He had a wonderful business sense and helped manufacture
and distribute the screen. It was used by students, businesses,
newsmen, and the military all over the world. It was the forerunner of
the big screen TVs of today. The company was sold to 3M and Les
managed the transition before retiring.

For more than 20 years, he and his wife enjoyed winters in Venice,
Florida where he enjoyed fishing, tennis, and bridge. Other hobbies
included golf, vegetable gardening, handiwork for friends, camping,
and travel. His community activities included serving on the Amberley
Village Planning Council, Board of Elders and Superintendent of Sunday
School at the Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian Church. He was a Pack Master
and Scout Leader with the Boy Scouts. He died at age 88 at Wellspring
Home. He had seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. He was
married 61 years.

https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECE/Alumni/AlumniNotes/alum_notes.pdf.pdf

		    A haunting tale of hidden gold

Column by The Post's David Wecker

Lester Heath, 85, spends most of his time these days in his bed at a
pricey full-care facility on the north side of town.

There's something he wants to get off his chest, he says, a family
legend he'd like to share while he still has time.

The story was handed down to him by his mother, who'd heard it from
her father, who'd heard it from his father, Caleb Scott.

Like many similarly intriguing stories, it pushes the bounds of
believability. On the other hand, the timing and the circumstances
fall within the framework of history accounts. Stranger things have
happened.

In any case, Lester is convinced the story is accurate, as far as it
goes. It's been knocking around in his head all his life. He can
recall as a boy digging for Indian gold himself under an ancient
hickory tree on his great-grandfather's Indiana farm.

A central figure in the story is Tecumseh, the great Shawnee chief who
organized a huge force of tribes that simultaneously engaged
U.S. troops from the shores of the Great Lakes to the banks of the
Mississippi, as far east as New York and south to the Gulf shores.

The other central character is Lester's great-grandfather. The
aforementioned Caleb Scott was born around 1807 in White County,
Ind. He was the father of 10 children and died in Fort Wayne at the
age of 100. Lester describes his great-grandfather this way:

''He was a pioneer doctor who studied Indian medicine, raised his own
herbs, blended his own tonics and counted among his patients a great
many members of the Shawnee nation. As such, he was considered to be a
friend to the Shawnee.''

Tecumseh's role in history is, of course, well documented. In the
1790s, he became one of the leaders of a confederacy of native
Americans dedicated to restoring and preserving traditional Indian
values. A book entitled, ''Tecumseh: A Life'' (John Sugden, Henry Holt
& Co.) draws this picture of the impact of the white settlers on the
Shawnee way of life in Chillicothe:

''Within the short space of Tecumseh's life, the Shawnees had lost
most of this land. They had been driven west from the Scioto to the
Great Miami, then north into central Ohio toward the Maumee, and now
their villages occupied scattered sites in Michigan and the Louisiana
Territories and Ohio.

''With their land had gone dreams of reunifying their broken tribe on
the Ohio, their ancient home . . . An inexhaustible tide of white
settlement was forcing upon the Shawnee simple but brutal
options. Change, and live the (settlers') way, or retreat.''

Tecumseh eventually allied himself with the British in the War of
1812, helping to ensure the survival of British Canada. He was killed
in the Battle of Thames in Ontario in 1813.

Near the end of his life, according to the story that has been handed
down in Lester's family, Tecumseh had arranged a shipment of gold,
much of it gathered from the tribes in the western regions of the
Louisiana Purchase, to Canada.

''His plan was to buy weapons from the British, which he intended to
use to prevent the settlers from taking any more Indian land,'' Lester
says.

''He had 4,000 pounds of gold in that shipment. Two hundred stone in
all, which would mean it was being transported in 20-pound bars.''

The gold, if it existed, never arrived at its destination. Some years
after Tecumseh's death in October 1813 at the Battle of Thames in
Ontario, Lester says his great-grandfather had occasion to doctor a
Shawnee.

''It was this Indian who told Caleb Scott about the gold,'' Lester
says.

''He told about how the gold had been carried north on an old Indian
trace that ran up through Indiana. Evidently, the Indians who were
transporting the gold saw a need to bury it in a hurry, perhaps to
keep it from falling into unfriendly hands.

''The way this Shawnee told it to Caleb Scott, they buried it in White
County, on or near his farm.''

Lester can still see his father and brothers digging under that old
hickory. It was an outstanding landmark, set on high ground. Wherever
there was a landmark, Lester says, his father and brothers would sink
their shovels in search of Tecumseh's gold.

''My anxiety is for some responsible party to locate that gold and see
to it that it's distributed to its rightful owners, whoever the courts
decide that may be,'' Lester says.

''It's just something that ought to happen, something I'd like to see before I die.''

You can contact David Wecker at 513-352-2791 or via e-mail at sambets@choice.net.

Publication date: 01-25-00
The Cincinnatti Post Online Edition
http://www.cincypost.com/living/2000/wecker012500.html