Out of “bullfrog country and huckleberry marsh”, Marshall county, Indiana, was cleared and drained, leaving a great deal of good, mucky soil for onions and wheat and later spearmint and peppermint. It was the mint that made Bremen the “mint capital of the world”, processing half the world’s mint oil by the 1940s.

Farmers celebrated their good fortune with the Northern Indiana Muck Crops show each year, and in 1949, it was won by Miss Janice Schurr, who went on to marry Charles Hassel, DDS, in 1954.

Tragically, Mrs Hassel was killed in an auto accident in 1967 at the age of 34 in the Hassels’ adopted home of Indianapolis, leaving her parents–Arnold and Edith Schurr–as well as her husband and her children Jill, Michael, and Matt Hassel. The family moved to Bremen, where Charles kept a long dental practice.