A 5 and 10¢ Marriage

(Click on image to enlarge)
The Thompson 5 and 10¢ Store is at right in this circa-1920 view of Third Street.

I have spent about an hour trying to figure out what relation Henry Sievert had to John Sievert (Sr. and Jr.) and Carl Sievert, all of whom flitted in and out of Ainsworth history. My conclusion at the moment is that he had none.

The first mention I find in my notes of Henry Sievert comes in 1901, when he moved from Porter County to "Robt. Randhan's farm near Ainsworth," which I have not been able to locate. It was not just Henry who moved, but also his wife, Ida, and their little daughter Elsie. Henry and Ida would continue to farm rented land. From the 1910 and 1920 censuses, they appear to be neighbors of Charles Ols, which would place them just northwest of Ainsworth. By 1910 a little boy, Walter, had joined the family.

My attention was drawn to this little Sievert family just now by the announcement that their daughter, Elsie, 19 years old, had quietly gone to Crown Point on July 16, 1919, and come back the wife of Burt Thompson, Jr., who was 21.

Burt Thompson, father and son, operated the Thompson Co. 5 and 10¢ Store, which occupied the Friedrich building in Hobart and advertised heavily in the Hobart papers. Their business also had a Crown Point location, and Burt Jr. found himself commuting between Hobart and Crown Point nearly every day. The young couple were considering moving to Crown Point, but for the present they lived with his parents in the Joryville area.

Apparently they decided to remain in Hobart, for the 1920 census finds them there, in their own household though still near his parents. Burt is described as the manager of a "10¢ store." The census-taker, writing in January 1920, describes their daughter Lorraine as three months old.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 8 Mar. 1901.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Thompson-Sievert." Hobart Gazette 25 July 1919.
♦ "Thompson-Sievert." Hobart News 24 July 1919.