In June, courtesy of PURA's Trips and Tours Committee, several Purdue retirees and their guests followed the paths of slaves escaping to freedom via the Underground Railroad.

Many hundreds of people in southern Indiana and Ohio facilitated the journey, even though assisting fleeing slaves was a violation of the law of the land, the Fugitive Slave Act. "Conductors" led refugees to the next safe house on the journey to freedom in Canada.

Secrecy was necessary and continued long after the Emancipation Proclamation. However, Levi Coffin, a Quaker, wrote a memoir titled "Reminiscences of Levi Coffin," in part about his experiences assisting slaves. His "station" in Fountain City, Ind., sheltered over 2,000 slaves who were fed, hidden and given needed attention. One refugee was the real Eliza of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Ripley, Ohio, was the home of two remarkable men named John. John Rankin was a Presbyterian minister and abolitionist who in 1826 published an anti-slavery book. His home and family of 13 children were often threatened, so he built his brick home on the highest point in town where no one could arrive unwelcomed. The house faced the Ohio River with steps leading down. The fugitives called them the 100 steps to freedom.

John Parker, a former slave, was sold on the auction block three times, chiefly because he frequently ran away. He became an exceptional ironworker, who through hard work managed to buy his freedom. In Ripley he started a successful foundry that shipped intricate iron pieces all over the eastern United States.

At night he would float a flatboat across the Ohio to pick up fleeing slaves. Although his activities were known by slave owners and catchers, he managed to live a good life, amass a fortune and put his four children through college.

The retiree trip ended with a stop at the magnificent Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, which boasts a piece of the Berlin Wall.