The winter of 1920 was a sickly one, the prevailing complaint being flu — but no report called it Spanish influenza. The last News of January noted that although doctors around Hobart were being "kept on the go day and night," no one in town had yet died from the flu. After that hopeful remark came a list of out-of-town fatalities with local connections — a middle-aged dairy farmer, prominent in the business; Mrs. Louis Randolph, the former Ella Merrill, brought home to Merrillville for burial from South Chicago; in Miller, a 35-year-old husband and father, and two women who left husbands and children; a 35-year-old bachelor at Crown Point.
During the first week of February alone, 50 cases of flu were reported to Dr. Clara Faulkner, Hobart's health officer.
The "South of Deepriver" social column in early February was a sick list: Dorothea Crisman, a high-school student; the Deep River miller, Tony Cullman, and his two youngest children; Zelda and Thelma Huffman, 9-year-old twins; a 17-year-old farm boy, Richard Fisher, whose mother cut short a vacation in Missouri to return to his bedside — all ill with flu or its complications.
In Hobart, illness kept many children out of school, though the schools remained open. In the Calvin Scholler home, the two school-aged children came down with flu, and so did Calvin himself. His wife, the former Lillie Rose, nursed them through the worst of it; just as her patients began to recover, Lillie fell ill, and died on February 1 at the age of 29 — Hobart's first flu fatality that year. On the 7th, Carolina Ahrens, age 67, became another fatality. On February 11, flu took the life of George and Susan Schnabel's 9-month-old son, Robert.
Richard Fisher was taken from his parents' farmhouse to the hospital in Gary, where he died in spite of all the doctors could do. At her home in Deep River, Mrs. Frank Shoup — née Alice Baker — died of flu at the age of 33 years.
Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Funeral of Mrs. Frank Shoup Held in Deep River, Wednesday." Hobart News 12 Feb. 1920
♦ "Funeral of Mrs. John Ahrens Held at Lutheran Church Tuesday." Hobart News 12 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 29 Jan. 1920; 12 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 6 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Mrs. Calvin Scholler Laid at Rest in Hobart Cemetery Wednesday." Hobart News 5 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Mrs. Calvin Scholler Passes Away." Hobart Gazette 6 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Much Sickness and Many Deaths In and About Hobart." Hobart News 29 Jan. 1920.
♦ "South of Deepriver." Hobart News 5 Feb. 1920.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
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This epidemic was so virulent it is hard to imagine the devastation...everyone was affected in some way...little Robert Schnabel was my dad's brother. The other members of the household at that time were their parents, George Sr. and Susan, Susan's mother, and sister Jessie. They were all ill, but Robert's was the only death. His body was taken to A. Wild's funeral home and supposedly kept on ice until everyone recovered. The funeral was held February 28. My dad was 6 years old.
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