This meditation brought to you by my puzzlement over the fact that two Ainsworth people I've come to know died from that same cause within a few months of each other: Cyrus Smith in 1915, and now Gilbert Bullock in March 1916. In both cases the patient had for some time been suffering indigestion or "stomach trouble," but death came more or less rapidly and unexpectedly.
Gilbert — known to family and friends as "Gib" — had been up and about all day on Monday, March 6, 1916, attending to the real-estate business he'd been running in Hobart since his retirement from farming over a decade earlier. From the early hours of Tuesday morning, a bad attack of indigestion kept him confined to bed, but he'd been subject to such attacks for years, so no one was seriously concerned until that afternoon, when his doctor began to notice signs that his heart was weakening. Gib died about 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 8.
His wife and all his children were present; they all lived in or near Hobart, and although Hubert was on a business trip to Indianapolis, a telephone call or telegram had brought him hurrying back on Tuesday evening. Gib's brother Simeon still lived in Hobart as well. His sister Ruth and her husband came down from Chicago for the funeral, which was held in the Unitarian Church. Burial took place in Crown Hill Cemetery.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Grave marker of Alice (who went by her middle name, Estella) and Gilbert Bullock in Crown Hill Cemetery.
The owner and editor of the Hobart News, O.L. Pattee, added a personal eulogy to the paper's report of Gilbert's death and funeral:
It has been a pleasure for the editor of The Hobart News to know Mr. Bullock, as he was one of the men we dealt with in the purchase of The News when coming to Hobart, and found him to be a man of his word in every way, a wise and conservative counselor, and considered him not only a friend of The News, but a personal friend as well.Estella Bullock was appointed administratrix of her husband's estate. As her attorney she hired a long-time family friend, Miss Alta Halsted — Hobart's first female attorney. Alta had been admitted to the Lake County bar just a month earlier. She had gained day-to-day knowledge of legal work through her six years' employment as a stenographer in the office of Hobart attorney R.R. Peddicord; during the last three of those years she had been studying law; and now she was qualified to practice in her own right, one of only four women so qualified at the time (the other three being in Crown Point). The Bullock estate would be the first such matter she would handle in her career as a lawyer.
About a month after his father's death, Hubert and Daisy visited Nappanee, Indiana. Hubert had done road-construction work there the previous year, in the employ of a former Lake County Auditor named Charles Johnson. Hubert decided to go back to work for Charles immediately, while Daisy and the children stayed in Hobart until the end of the school year.
Late in April about a hundred friends threw a surprise farewell party for Daisy. The following month, Daisy closed up her Hobart boarding-house, and with Elmer and Cecil went to join Hubert at their new home in Nappanee.
Sources:
♦ "'Gib' Bullock Passes Away Suddenly." Hobart News 9 Mar. 1916.
♦ "Honored Citizen Passes Away." Hobart Gazette 10 Mar. 1916.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 14 Apr. 1916; 5 May 1916.
♦ "Miss Alta Halsted Admitted to the Practice of Law." Hobart News 10 Feb. 1916.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 9 Mar. 1916; 16 Mar. 1916; 25 May 1916.
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