Remembering P.E. MacAllister, friend of Indy's Garfield Park

For me, it's always sad when it takes the reading of an obituary to learn something interesting and fascinating about a person you've known about for years ... but didn't really know personally.

Such is the case of businessman and philanthropist P.E. MacAllister, who died Wednesday in Indianapolis, where he grew and for many years operated MacAllister Machinery Co. from headquarters on the Eastside of the city. He was 101.

I know of MacAllister because of his generosity to Garfield Park, a Southside of Indy landmark near where I lived for 35+ years until 2017. One of MacAllister's many acts of philanthropy went toward a much-needed renovation of Garfield Park's amphitheater, and after that work was completed in 1997 as part of a major park improvement project, the city renamed the amphitheater in his honor.

It was at MacAllister Amphitheater that the Garfield Shakespeare Company community theater troupe has performed its summer/fall productions each year since 2008. Those of you who follow this blog know that I did the archival photography for all 13 of GSC's producutions from fall 2010 to summer 2016, so I spent a lot of time at the amphitheater doing just that work.

I saw P.E. MacAllister himself on several occasions at the amphitheater. He was a regular speaker at the annual "America, We Remember" observances. Those events initially were held in conjunction with the Fourth of July holiday, but in later years they were moved to the Labor Day holiday weekend. I took the photograph you see of him in this post during his remarks at the 2006 observance of "America, We Remember." That was back in the days when the observance was held in conjunction with the Fourth of July.

One of the things I learned about MacAllister while reading the lengthy obituary at his business' website was that he was born in Oconto, Wis., and attended and graduated Carroll College in Waukesha, Wis. I am not a Wisconsin native, but I was raised in that state -- in a suburb of Milwaukee, which is not too far from Waukesha. I think if I'd known about his Wisconsin roots, I might have been motivated to introduce myself to him at one of the "America, We Remember" events and chat him up about common Wisconsin roots.

I also learned that the P.E. in his name stood for Pershing Edwin, and he was named "Pershing" in honor of World War I General John J. Pershing. The obit says that as a young boy, MacAllister did not like the name Pershing, so he eventually went by "Persh," "Mac" or P.E., which is what I'd always seen his name displayed as.

After seeing him at the "America, We Remember" events, I surmised that he was up in years. I didn't realize he was that close to becoming a centenarian, though. I hope the park decides to do something to remember him by sometime next year. I think if I were still living in my home near the park, I'd attend.