How Hubert and Daisy Made Money

(Click on image to enlarge)
Daisy Bullock, with her son, mother and grandfather.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

If you were wandering around downtown Hobart during the Independence Day celebration on July 3, 1915, you might have come across a tent pitched along Main Street just north of the Nickel Plate tracks, with a little crowd of merrymakers in its shade, and the air around it filled with savory smells. Under that tent, Mrs. Daisy Bullock and Mrs. Jennie McClaran hurried about, preparing and serving food to hungry celebrants. They had taken care to advertise well ahead of time that they would be serving dinner and short-order lunch from 11:00 a.m. onward throughout the day.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Jennie McClaran and her husband, William, in front of the Nickel Plate depot, date unknown. (William served as the railroad agent for some 30 years.) Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

It may have been a convenient way to make some money, but Daisy may have wanted, as well, to demonstrate the quality of her cooking, for she had bigger plans. Her next announcement came not two weeks later: "Mrs. Daisy Bullock has leased both of the flats in the Norton building on South Main street and will conduct a boarding and rooming house."

Did the family need her income? It's not clear to me when, or why, Hubert ceased to operate an auto repair shop in Hobart; I suppose his business might have failed. We don't hear of him until October 1915, when he came to visit his family from Nappanee, Indiana, where he was employed by a road contracting firm, operating a steam roller and "liking his work very much." He continued steamrolling until late November, when the weather put an end to road work for that year. By late December, he had found a job closer to home: he joined a construction gang building a steel mill in Gary.


Sources:
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 8 Oct. 1915.
♦ "Notice to the Public." Hobart Gazette 25 June 1915.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 15 July 1915; 31 Dec. 1915.