Benjamin Bodamer

Everyone and everything with even the most remote connection to my own little three-acre parcel is a person or thing of earth-shattering importance. So I have to mention Benjamin Bodamer. The new year, 1917, was only three days old when Benjamin passed away, and since I suspect he was a younger brother of the George Bodamer who first separated my parcel from the old Chester homestead in 1921, I can't let the poor man rest in peace.

Here you go:


(Click on image to enlarge)
(No, I don't know what became of Ida.)

If I'm doing the math correctly, he was born February 28, 1865, on a farm east of Ainsworth, somewhere near the Lake-Porter County line — probably in Porter County, since the old Bodamer homestead doesn't show up on the plat maps I've got. On April 27, 1898 he married Bertha Mueller (or Miller, as the family sometimes Americanized it). The two of them also owned some Ross Township land that apparently was sold at a sheriff's sale in 1906. They must have run into money troubles. But that was 11 years ago, and it's all water under the bridge now.

He was survived by his wife and three sons, Harry, Ralph and Carlton, the oldest of whom was only 17. The boys were probably students of the Ainsworth school, as the school contributed flowers to the funeral.

If I've got these family connections straight, he was an uncle of Alvah and Vernon Bodamer. (And keeping these family connections straight is not easy, believe you me.)

Got all that? OK. Now we can leave Benjamin to his rest.


Sources:
♦ "Benjamin Bodamer Passes Away at His Home Last Evening." Hobart News 4 Jan. 1917.
♦ "Card of Thanks." Hobart News 11 Jan. 1917.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 5 Jan. 1917.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 12 Jan. 1917.
♦ "Sheriff's Sale." Hobart Gazette 22 June 1906.