Another Case of Tuberculosis

I mentioned John Witt, Jr. earlier, when his sister, Bertha, married Daisy Chester's widower, E.D. Scroggins. Bertha and E.D. might have met while Bertha was living in her brother's household, as he rented a farm just south of Ainsworth along present-day 73rd Avenue.

John had grown up on a farm, and had farmed on his own since he left his parents' home to marry Louise Sievert in 1903. But in late 1912 he began having serious health problems, and after nearly a year of poor health (ranging from "congestion of the kidneys" to "a stroke of paralysis") he decided in September 1913 to give up farming. He held a public auction and sold off all his livestock, his farming implements, and 25 acres of corn in the shock. Then he moved his family to Hobart, to the Melin subdivision where he'd bought the house his brother August had built the previous year.

His health rallied briefly, then deteriorated again, and this time it was tuberculosis. By 1915 he was in Longcliff Hospital in Logansport, Indiana, which, though it primarily served the mentally ill, seems to have had a tuberculosis ward as well. There John probably received the standard treatment for tuberculosis — rest, fresh air and good nutrition. In December 1915 his father and brother Albert visited him and returned to Hobart with optimistic reports of his progress.

That progress proved illusory, and only temporary. By late spring 1916 John had come home — evidently Longcliff could do no more for him. His family could only provide comfort and hope against hope as over several weeks his condition worsened. He died July 2, at the age of 34, leaving his wife and three little children, aged 7, 5 and 3.

According to both Hobart newspapers, he was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, but I have not been able to find his grave marker, nor could the people who read the markers there in 1988 and 1993. So that's another mystery of Crown Hill.


Sources:
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 25 Apr. 1913; 19 Sept. 1913; 14 Nov. 1913.
♦ "Death of John Witt, Jr." Hobart Gazette 7 July 1916.
♦ "Funeral of John Witt Jr. Held Wednesday Afternoon." Hobart News 6 July 1916.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 14 Aug. 1908.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 6 Dec. 1912.
♦ Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society. Hobart Township Cemeteries. Valparaiso: Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society, 1994.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 23 Jan. 1913; 24 Apr. 1913; 23 Dec. 1915.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart Gazette 26 Sept. 1913.