A Strong Marriage

(Click on images to enlarge)

This happy announcement reminded me that I had not yet mentioned the Strong family. Worse than that, I hadn't even done any research on them, though the name comes up pretty often in the social columns, and I'd gotten the impression that they'd been around here forever.

Which a little research confirms, if by "forever" you mean "since 1850," as that's the earliest I can find this branch of the Strong family in Ross Township — this branch consisting of Asa and Frances Strong and their descendants, one of whom was Thomas Strong, the father of Lulu. Thomas wasn't actually here in 1850, since he wasn't born until 1854.

Here is their farm in 1874:



(Folks, I just recently realized I've been mislabeling present-day U.S. 30 on a lot of my maps, so I only hope this is right.)

In 1842, Asa Strong married Frances Watts in Lake County. They had four children, Thomas being the youngest. At the age of 23, Thomas married the 19-year-old Phoebe Hollister in Porter County. They had five children, of whom three survived to adulthood: Arthur, Verna and Lulu.

Sometime between 1900 and 1910, Thomas and Phoebe moved with their daughters to Hobart. Thomas worked as a carpenter while they rented out their farm (to, I believe, Reinhart Doepping). In 1910, their daughter, Verna, married Melvin Guernsey. That autumn, both Verna and her brother Arthur — who had married in 1900 — returned with their spouses to southern Ross Township and the farming life, and the young Strong and Guernsey families became familiar figures in Ainsworth/Deep River social news. Lulu stayed in Hobart with her parents, working at the Thompson store and falling in love.

I don't know much about the groom's family — they don't seem to have lived in this area before 1910. David Aley was a carpenter, his wife Callie a homemaker; David's widowed mother lived with them. John was their only child.

The young couple may indeed have been building their own house, but for the present they would live with John's parents, Lulu staying at home with the mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law (God help them all) while John worked at a steel mill.


Sources:
♦ 1850 Census.
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Aley-Strong." Hobart Gazette 26 Dec. 1919.
♦ "Aley-Strong." Hobart News 25 Dec. 1919.
♦ "Finds Gas." Hobart Gazette 12 Apr. 1912.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 19 Aug. 1910; 30 Sept. 1910.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 9 Apr. 1913.