Indiana, PA

Jimmy's Hometown: It might have been a model for It's A Wonderful Life

Thirty years ago, Jimmy Stewart looped his arm around a 7-foot-tall rabbit, and the two ambled off into Hollywood history. The charming tale of Harvey, the giant white bunny, and his pal, Elwood P. Dowd, marked another milestone in Stewart’s career. Today, Harvey hangs around The Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, Pa., greeting visitors—and, perhaps, waiting for the return of Elwood.

“Harvey is our best-selling video here at the museum store,” says museum director Elizabeth Salome.

But Indiana’s popular museum almost didn’t come to be.

When Stewart first heard his hometown wanted to honor him with a museum, the shy actor politely said no. But after townspeople told him a museum could be a financial boon to his hometown of 14,700, Stewart agreed. True to his nature, he wanted the museum to be modest and located downtown. So it is.

A simple blue awning on the side of the Indiana Public Library identifies The Jimmy Stewart Museum. Directly across the street is where his father’s hardware store was once located. Next door is the county courthouse where a statue of Stewart stands watch over the town where he grew up.

James Maitland Stewart—named after his grandfather—was born May 20, 1908, at his parents’ home in this southwestern Pennsylvania town. His father, Alex Stewart, owned the local J.M. Stewart & Co. store, founded in 1848.

Family life almost seemed like a scene from one of Stewart’s movies. The family held hands and said grace at every meal. And they played together—the Stewart children would “fly” down the stairway of their home on an Oriental rug and present magic shows and impromptu plays in the basement.

When a customer, as payment for a debt, gave Alex Stewart an accordion at his store, young Jimmy learned to play it so it wouldn’t “go to waste.” That, and a love of performing, launched him on the long road to stardom with more than 80 feature films. The Christmas classic that has become a holiday television tradition, It’s a Wonderful Life, was Stewart’s favorite.

“Out of all his films, he picked that one,” Salome says. “In later years, he said he had a wonderful life.”

When Stewart won an Oscar in 1940 for The Philadelphia Story, his father put the Academy statue in the front window of the hardware store. It stayed there for almost 20 years.

Living in “Jimmy’s hometown” is a wonderful feeling, says Ivan McGee, who came to Indiana 24 years ago as a school superintendent. Now retired, McGee describes the town as “nice, quiet, and peaceful with a lot of community pride.”

Tree-lined streets, well-tended lawns, and stately buildings seem almost like a movie prop, says Jackie Kallal, a resident for 25 years.

Rolling hillsides and small country roads outside Indiana are sometimes dotted with Amish buggies and farmers working in their fields—including a large number of Christmas tree farms for which the area is known. And, as the home of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the town offers operas, symphonies, community theater, college sports, university theater, “and a gazillion community festivals and annual arts fairs,” Kallal says.

“I think what I love about this town is that it’s a community where culture and agriculture and history and heritage and hi-tech all work cooperatively to create an outstanding quality of life,” she says.

On Stewart’s 87th birthday in 1995, the town dedicated the museum, together with a new terminal at the Jimmy Stewart Airport. At the museum, visitors can see segments from every one of his films—from 1934 to his last picture in 1991. Stewart died July 2, 1997, at age 89.

In its tribute, the American Film Institute observed that James Stewart was an actor “so beloved by the movie-going public that they call him ‘Jimmy,’ just like a member of the family.”

“Just through his films, people thought they knew him,” Salome says.

The comforting world Stewart created through many of his movie roles, she says, “was the way we, maybe, all would like to be.”

Freelance writer Jackie Sheckler Finch lives in Bloomington, Ind.

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