Founders of an Ainsworth Family

The spring of 1917 saw the passing of two of Ainsworth's pioneers: Joachim and Maria Foreman. In 1875 they had settled near the village that would become Ainsworth. Their descendants have lived here ever since.

Both had been born in Germany, Joachim in 1839 and Maria in 1845, and there they were married in 1868. A week after their wedding they left for the United States. They spent their first four years in this country in Lansing, Illinois, then a couple of years in Porter County, Indiana, until at last they chose the farm that would be their home for the rest of their lives.

In the 1870 census, they were still using the German spelling of their surname, Fuhrman. In later censuses they would thoroughly Americanize their names, becoming Joseph and Mary Foreman.

They had two sons, Michael and William. They also had a daughter, but she seems to have slipped into and out of this world between censuses; she was only two years old when she died.[1] (Incidentally, Michael appears as "Helmuth" in the 1870 census and in a 1917 Hobart News notice — perhaps that was his first name and he more commonly went by his middle name.) While I've seen several items in the social columns about Michael and William, their parents scarcely register at all. Maria got a mention in 1916 when she fell from the back porch of her home and fractured her shoulder and arm. Beyond that, nothing. Apparently they were quiet people.

So in their quiet way, they reached old age. Maria died on April 27, 1917. Besides her two sons, she left six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Joachim was too ill to attend his wife's funeral, and a little more than a month later — June 9 — he followed her to the grave. They are buried side by side in Hobart Cemetery.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Maria and Joachim's grave markers, and the Foreman family monument, in Hobart Cemetery.







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[1] 3/20/2021 update — for more about the Foremans' little daughter, see this post.

Sources:
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 10 Nov. 1916.
♦ "Card of Thanks." Hobart News 14 June 1917.
♦ "Funeral of Joachim Friedrich Emil Foreman Held Tuesday." Hobart News 14 June 1917.
♦ "Mrs. Joachim Foreman, Lake County Pioneer, Passes Away Friday." Hobart News 3 May 1917.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 15 June 1917.