Hotel & Event Center
Across from the Brown County Music Center
New Restaurant, Bar, Patio
Balcony Rooms
Conference facility – up to 500
560 State Road 46 East, Nashville, IN 812-988-2284 • SeasonsLodge. com
58 Our Brown County • Nov./ Dec. 2024
NEEDMORE continued from 57“ Certainly wasn’ t in line with me,” Loftman said.
“ And so we left.”
Loftman said he still views his time in Needmore as an“ important declaration of alienation and withdrawal.”
Outside of Needmore, he said, he continued to pursue the ideals espoused by the community. He has served on the NAACP board for 25 years and is active in the Unitarian Universalist church board.
Loftman went to law school at IU and practiced law in Bloomington until his retirement. Barnes said he left primarily for economic reasons. The couple moved to Bloomington with their daughter, Julia, and later had a son, Matt. Barnes said he never ran out of work again. He operated Plum Creek Cabinets for 40 years before retiring. His wife, Janet, an elementary art teacher, died in February. The couple were married 53 years.
Looking back on their time in Needmore, Barnes said he is grateful for the experience.
Land said he left Needmore in 1984, a terrible year in which he lost both his parents and got divorced. It was a good marriage in many ways, he said, and the couple had four daughters, including three who were homesteaders during part of their lives.
Land said he loved the experience of living in Needmore.
Life at Needmore also appealed to his academic interests, which included sociology and the study of small groups, he said.
“ It allowed me, almost, as a scientist, to live in my lab,” he said.
Roehm said she left the community after she took a trip with the Canadas and others to Colorado for a meditation retreat. She moved to Bloomington in 1972 with other people who were practicing meditation. She later moved into an ashram where she lived for more than a decade.
Roehm said she is enormously grateful to the Canadas.
“ They did so much to help all of us … to expand our mind. It was spreading love and light,” she said.
As the ideals live on, so does the community itself. According to Brown County property records, the church still owns nearly 315 acres on 15 parcels. •