Commerce: Tonagel

I came across this in a 2007 Post-Tribune article:

Mary Henning of Valparaiso … attended Ainsworth School and used to walk to Tonical's (she's not sure of the spelling) grocery store where the school supply store now is located on 73rd Avenue (called Lincoln Highway in those days). There also was a place called Hoosier's Nest that dispensed goodies for the kids.

The spelling was Tonagel … or maybe it wasn't:

Sunday supper guests of Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Bennett were Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Tonagal of Ainsworth, Ind.

No, I think that 1940 tidbit of social gossip contained a misprint. Everywhere else I see this name, it's Tonagel.

We first meet Cecil R. Tonagel in 1910, when he's a boy of six living with his parents, Charles and Mary, big brother Victor and big sister Edna, in Washington Township, LaPorte County, Indiana. It's a farming, land-owning family. In 1920, he's still at home on the family farm. Ten years later, he's moved out and married Ruby A. Rosenquist, and they have a one-year-old son, Donald. Still in Washington Township, they live in a rented house and Cecil farms in a general way.

Beyond 1930, census records are not available and we have to try to keep track of the Tonagels through the newspapers. [2014 update: The 1940 Census shows Cecil and Ruby living near the intersection of 73rd Avenue and State Road 51, operating their own grocery. They have two children, Donald (11) and Carol (9). The household includes Ruby's parents, Charles and Amanda Rosenquist.]

In 1934, "Mr. and Mrs. Tonagel" advertised a Thanksgiving Dance at Walnut Gardens on Thursday, November 29. The Walnut Gardens was a dance hall on 40 acres along the Lincoln Highway, west of Valparaiso; it had gone into receivership in 1930. The Tonagels advertised it as "opening under new management" with a "new orchestra." I believe these Tonagels to be our Cecil and Ruby because a year later, an advertisement for Mobilgas named "Cecil Tonagel, Walnut Gardens, Road 30" as one of its local dealers.

In 1939 the Vidette-Messenger noted with amusement that "Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Tonagel, Ross township residents," had been chosen to sit on the same jury, and speculated that the deliberations would be "a lot of fun." No follow-up on what the verdict was.

The Tonagels had another child, Carole (or Carol Jo), who by 1941 was old enough to visit relatives in Chesterton without her parents.

I don't know what became of the Walnut Gardens venture. The next glimpse we get of the Tonagels is in a strange entry in the local directory for 1952-53:

Tonagel, Carol, Old Lincoln Hwy., Rte. 5, Ph., Office, NIPSCO.
Tonagel, Cecil R., Old Lincoln Hwy., Rte. 5, Ph., Grocery, Self Employed, HO, wife Rubie.
Tonagel, Donald, Old Lincoln Hwy., Rte. 51, Ph., Sales Dept., Blainus, Gary.

I say "strange" because Route 5 is too far east to be included in this local directory, which covers no further east than south Portage Township. If we assume that "State Road 5" is a misprint for "State Road 51" (where Donald is located), these entries make perfect sense and put Cecil, Ruby and family, as well as the grocery store, right where Mary Henning remembered them: on the northeast corner of the intersection of State Road 51 and Old Lincoln Highway.

I don't know when the grocery business closed. A Hobart city directory lists Ruby Tonagel's residence address as "RD 2," which might be Ainsworth but I don't know. No word is given of Cecil or anybody else, or the grocery store.

By the early 1990s the Tonagels had moved to Hobart. Cecil died in 1994, Ruby in 1995.

Sources:
♦ Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1910. T624, 1,178 rolls.
♦ Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Note: Enumeration Districts 819-839 on roll 323 (Chicago City) Original data: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920; (National Archives Microfilm Publication T625, 2076 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.
♦ Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, 2,667 rolls
♦ Ancestry.com. U.S. Public Records Index [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009. Original data: Merlin Data Publishing Corporation, comp. Historical Residential White Page, Directory Assistance and Other Household Database Listings. Merlin Data Publishing Corporation, 215 South Complex Drive, Kalispell, MT 59901.
♦ Ancestry.com. Social Security Death Index [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009. Original data: Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index, Master File. Social Security Administration.
♦ Burns, Bob. "Whatever happened to fender skirts and steering knobs?" Post-Tribune (Gary, Ind.) 10 Jun. 2007. NewsBank, inc. Lake County (IN) Public Library 18 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "Chesterton News Briefs." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 9 Aug. 1941. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 19 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "Chesterton News Briefs." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 1 Jul. 1942. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 19 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "Chesterton News Items of the Day." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 9 Aug. 1929. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 19 Nov. 2009 .
♦ Directory, 1952-53 Hobart-Wheeler-New Chicago-Ainsworth-Green Acres-Deep River-South Hobart Twp.-South Portage Twp. Nappanee: Advance News, 1952.
♦ "Hurlburt." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 12 Jun. 1940. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 19 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "Looking Backward." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 18 Jul 1940. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 19 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "Mobilgas advertisement." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 2 Jul. 1935. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 19 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "'Round About." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 13 Jan. 1939. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 19 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "Walnut Grove advertisement." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 27 Nov. 1934. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 19 Nov. 2009