Gernenz v. Everybody

Now we find Charles Gernenz seeking to quiet title on this 120-acre parcel:


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From the 1926 Plat Book.

Why now? Beats me. The 1908 Plat Map shows that land owned by Daniel B. Sturtevant … who isn't named in the action to quiet title. Per the 1891 Plat Book, the land was jointly owned by Henry Stelling and Albert Buchgert, also not named. The 1874 Plat Map gives the owner's name as "T. Wehrenburg," which may have some connection to the Frederick Wehrburg named in the action.


From the Hobart News of Oct. 7, 1920.

TLDR summary: Baker, Carter, Davis, Hacker, Larabee, Marston, McDonald, Melbie, Muller, Preston, Raymond, Schneewind, Smith, Summers, Toothill, Wehrburg, Wheeler, Wilcox.

Wildflowers of Ainsworth: Gray-Headed Coneflower

I can't believe I never posted this one before. It's all over the place around here. These specimens are about five feet tall.


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The leaves:


I can't come up with anything particularly interesting about this flower.

If Only …

From the steamer trunk.


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Image courtesy of E.H.

If only someone had written his name on the back …
If only I could find any information about the photographer …
If only I knew what that type of cap is called (sea captain's hat? Greek cap?) …


… then I might have something half-way intelligent to say about this photograph.

Wildflowers of Ainsworth: Winged Loosestrife

Unlike purple loosestrife, which is an invasive species introduced to this country from Eurasia, winged loosestrife is a native perennial. It is smaller and less showy. This is the first and only specimen I have ever found. And to think I almost ran over it with my lawnmower! I will have to be very careful mowing out there (beyond my back fence) in the future.


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Winged loosestrife likes to confuse the amateur flower-identifier by having mostly alternate leaves on its upper stems, and mostly opposite on its lower stem. The "winged" comes from wings of tissue that supposedly line the edges of its square stem, although I can't see any such thing on this one. I had the devil's own time trying to get a decent picture of it. I ended up putting my camera bag under it for contrast, and it's still not very clear.



If you want a better picture, look on the internet.

Charles and Minnie (Springman) Sapper

Another contribution from the DeWell family archivist: a wedding portrait of Charles and Minnie (Springman) Sapper.


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Image courtesy of the DeWell Family Archives.

They were married July 11, 1888, so that poor girl had to wear all those clothes in the middle of the Indiana summer. Let's hope the weather was being uncommonly kind.

This picture also has a connection to the rabbit-hunting tragedy, since Charles Sapper was among the hunters that day, and they all rode in his sleigh.

Charles and Carlina (Kegebein) Springman

Frances Schavey's obituary from the Gazette, which I recently posted, was even more confused than I thought, as it listed her parents as "Mr. and Mrs. Henry Springman." The DeWell family archivist has written in to correct that:

Her parents were in fact Johann Carl 'Charles' Springman and Carlina (Caroline) Kegebein. Charles was a brother to William Springman Sr., whom you have mentioned before in the blog.

Charles and Carlina were also the parents of Christ Springman who got shot in the rabbit hunting mishap you featured some time ago. The parent's tombstone in Hobart Cemetery spells the name 'Springmann', and their family accounts for quite a few of the residents of Lake and Porter Counties, as they had 16 children.

And so, here are Frances Schavey's real parents:


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Image courtesy of the DeWell Family Archives.

I don't have a date for the picture, but judging by the style of Caroline's bodice, I'd guess 1880s. Her dress looks simple enough to be homemade, and I count 14 buttons, with more, I'm sure, hidden by the bow at her neck. Buttonholes are hard to make. Whoever made those was using a treadle machine or sewing by hand.

"The Raft of Kids"

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of N.B.

As best I can read her handwriting, that is how Mildred captioned this one. Perhaps the children are pretending that raised sidewalk is a raft. This photo was probably taken behind the Lindborg house in Ainsworth.

Left to right: June Bowman, Raymond Lindborg, Esther Palm(?), unidentified, Helen Palm(?), and Norma Lindborg.

"Drowned on the Eastland"

Today is the 98th anniversary of the Eastland disaster, and I have something (allegedly) relevant from the steamer trunk.


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Images courtesy of E.H.

On the back of this charming portrait, someone has written:


Without a name, I can't even begin to verify this sad story. But I'm sure there were many such bright-eyed and smiling young women boarding the boat that morning.

Yager and Severance News

The two families were linked by friendship even before George Yager, Jr. married Pearl Severance in 1915. Now it's October 1920, and George and Alberta Severance have moved from Rockford, Illinois, to Gary to help his two married sisters (Mrs. Ray Burge had been Mary M. Severance) make it a Severance kind of town.

Meanwhile, Jake Yager makes a trip over from Porter County with strawberries. I don't know whether the 64-year-old was bragging or complaining about having picked 1,500 boxes of berries. Perhaps he didn't do all the picking himself.


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From the Hobart Gazette of Oct. 1, 1920.

(Also, an update on the Melvin Guernsey family as they flee from farming.)

Maud and Edith

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


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Images courtesy of N.B.

Mildred identified these two as Maud and Edith, and the album's present owner tells me their surname was Bowman. I haven't been able to find them in the census.

Mildred added a cryptic note: "(Married now but not ______)" — the last word, or last few letters, being illegible. My best guess at the last word is "here." You can take your own best guess:



Anyway, Maud and Edith are standing in the fenced front yard of the Lindborg home in Ainsworth. Behind them is Gust Lindborg's blacksmith shop. Judging by the looks of the wheel on that wagon out front, I'd say his services were needed to fix it.

Deep in the background behind the wagon, I think we catch a glimpse of the Raschka/Shearer warehouse. And open, empty fields. That always amazes me about the landscapes in these old photos. There was so much nothing in them. Now the landscape is much more grown up and built over.

Just peeking out at the right edge of the photo is the Ainsworth general store.

Bruce McCabe

Since yesterday I mentioned someone who unexpectedly failed to show up in the 1920 census (Samuel Faulkner), today I'll just mention someone who did the opposite.

I had never heard of the surname McCabe in this area, so I was a little surprised when a Bruce McCabe popped up in the household of Herman and Minnie Harms in 1920. He was described as a "hired man," an 18-year-old orphan who did not know where his parents had been born.

Later I came across "The Harms Family of Hobart 1829-1992" and got Minnie's own explanation:

In September of 1917 we [Herman and Minnie Harms] sent for an orphan boy to live with us. He was 14 and his name was Bruce McCabe. He had a keen Irish sense of humor and lived with us until he was about 18 when he went to Detroit to work in the Ford factory for five dollars a day, the best wages in the area. He and his second wife Goldie later lived in Lafayette and came to visit our family many times throughout the years.

The 1910 census showed him living in the "children's home" in Lafayette, Indiana. (Two girls with the same surname also lived in the home.) That may have been where the Harmses "sent for" him. By Minnie's account, he left for Detroit in 1920 or '21. Sometime during the 1920s, Bruce married (his wife's identity unknown) and was widowed; in 1930 he was living in the household of his brother-in-law, William Brown, in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. That same year he married Golda Conn. A 1931 city directory shows Bruce and Golda living at 1728 N. 12th Street, Lafayette, Indiana, while Bruce worked as a driver for the Lafayette Ice & Coal Co.

♦    ♦    ♦
[9/8/13 update: The rest of this post has been corrected based on information from other family members.] In the steamer trunk were a couple of photos of Bruce McCabe.

In the photo below, Bruce is at left, taking off his cap.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of E.H.

Herman Harms is standing next to him. The two girls at left in the middle row are Betty (possibly) and Bernice Harms; the third girl is unidentified. Sitting in the grass are (left to right) Herman Harms, Jr. ("Bud"), with brother Eldon almost hidden behind him, then Minnie Rossow Harms with her niece, Marge Rolfe, in her lap, and finally Norma Harms.

Here's another photo probably taken the same day. Bruce is again in back, at left.



The other people are (left to right) Herman Jr. ("Bud"), Eldon, Rheinhart and Herman Harms.

The photos date to about 1930. The photographer may have been Minnie's sister Ella Rossow Rolfe (mother of baby Marge).

These photos were taken on the Harms farm at 8842 Ainsworth Road. In the first photo, you can see part of the house in the background — I think that's the west side, so Ainsworth Road would be off to the right, not visible through all the flowers and trees.


Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Ancestry.com. Lafayette, Indiana, City Directory, 1931.
♦ Social Security Death Index.

Marriages and Other Transitions

Two young people with Ainsworth connections; two marriages.

After the coal-gas incident in 1917, William Gernenz was lucky to have a life to pledge to his bride in September 1920.

And Mildred Blachly had grown up on a farm near Ainsworth, a descendant of local farming families. Her grandparents were (the late) Morgan and Amelia Blachly, her parents Walter and Eva (Harper) Blachly.


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In spite of Anna Wesley's family being "well known people residing south of Ainsworth," I have not seen fit to mention them yet in the blog. I don't even have much on them in my notes. Let us hope this is because they lived quietly happy lives, not because I missed something juicy. It does appear that Anna's father, John, had lost his first wife (name unknown). In 1898 he married the 20-year-old Ida Sonntag, who became stepmother to John's three boys, the oldest of whom was about 13. Ida went on to bear him two daughters, Anna and Theresia. The Wesley land lay mostly at the intersection of (present-day) E. 83rd Ave. and Randolph Street — 40 acres on the northwest corner and 30 acres on the southeast corner, with another 20-acre parcel further south on Randolph. (Anna's oldest half-brother, Edward, had married Martha Sonntag's sister, Selma, in 1906.)

And so the newlywed Gernenzes settled down to farming near Ainsworth, and the young Kostbades took up residence in Valparaiso, washing their hands of both farming and Ainsworth.

♦    ♦    ♦
Another kind of transition — from life to death, or from death to life, by Frances Springman Schavey, without whom there would have been no Schavey envelope.



This obituary from the Gazette is a little confused — it was six sons and two daughters who survived her. [7/26/2013 update: more than a little confused, as it got her parents wrong too. Correction here.]

♦    ♦    ♦
Lastly, a mundane sort of transition: Amelia and May Blachly moved, yet again.


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The Gazette described Amelia's new house as "opposite the Hobart Lumber Co." (which was on the west side of Main, where the "lumber" part of Hobart Lumber is now). Two weeks early, Amelia had sold her home on Fourth Street, described as the former A.C. Thompson house, to one John Walsh.

Also note the item that mentions a couple of Dr. Clara Faulkner's relations by marriage. But Dr. Clara wasn't married anymore — not if I'm reading the 1920 census correctly. Sometime after the 1910 census, her husband, Samuel, vanished. I can't find him anywhere. I was hoping to see something in the local newspapers about the divorce (or death, if not divorce), but I haven't; either I missed it, or the incident was treated with unusual discretion.


Sources:
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Gernenz-Wesley." Hobart News 30 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Hobart Boy Marries." Hobart Gazette 1 Oct. 1920.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Kostbade-Blachly." Hobart News 30 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 16 Sept. 1920; 30 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 26 Oct. 1906; 8 Oct. 1920.
♦ "Mrs. Schavey Dies in Chicago." Hobart Gazette 1 Oct. 1920.

Evelyn's Birthday

From the Triebess scrapbook.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Going by the 1920 Census, I believe July 19, 1920 was Evelyn's 17th birthday.

The Doll and The Shed

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


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Images courtesy of N.B.

I've posted this photo before, but would you believe I only just now noticed that there is someone sitting in the rocking chair at the left of the picture? All you can see of that person is his or her foot. Anyway, as we know, "Toots" kept that doll to the end of her life, and it is now on display at the Lake County Historical Museum in the old courthouse in Crown Point.

The second photo on this page Mildred captioned simply, "The Shed," in spite of the three human beings standing in front of the shed.



Left to right, they are Mabel Larson(?), unidentified, and Mildred Lindborg.

I would expect "The Shed" to be the little shed where Gust kept twine, the one that later became the Lindborg kids' playhouse — but I'm not sure this can be the same shed that "Bud" was sitting by. One or the other may be misidentified. I don't suppose the question is worth a dissertation.

Lonesome Weather

From the steamer trunk.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of E.H.



Minnie Rossow had the blues, so she wrote to her friend, Herman Harms. I don't know how she got the card to him, since there is no stamp or postmark.

Telephone Rates, 1920

Rates effective October 1, 1920. In case you were wondering.


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From the Hobart Gazette of Sept. 24, 1920.

"Long Ago"

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


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Image courtesy of N.B.

I am not sure why Mildred captioned this photo, "Long Ago" — it wasn't actually that long ago when she was assembling the album; no longer ago than, say, 1921 or '22. I suspect it has more to do with those headbands the girls have put over their foreheads. Perhaps they are pretending to be the Potawotami children who lived here "long ago."

Left to right: Gladys Lindborg (proving that she was, indeed, capable of smiling, at least a little bit), Norma Lindborg, June Bowman.

The structure behind them may be the frame part of the Lindborg business structure. We saw it earlier in the Graduation 1922 photo.

Evelyn's 14th

From the Triebess scrapbook.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Ninety-three years ago today, at about this time, Evelyn Triebess was at a dinner party.

Letters from Elma's Mama

Eathel Westbay was born May 25, 1888, to Leander and Jerusha Westbay of Lake County, Indiana. On January 7, 1907, she married Forrest Gradle, an 18-year-old railroad section hand. The May 1910 census found them living in Porter Township, Porter County. By then Eathel had borne two children, but only one survived — their daughter, Elma.

I would never have heard of any of them, I suppose, had I not happened to buy a couple of letters Eathel wrote in the winter of 1910-11, to her own mother. In them, she tells little stories about the two-and-a-half-year-old Elma, on whom she clearly dotes, and on her now 21-year-old husband, Forrest. The letters were mailed from Merrillville, so I suppose the Gradle family had moved there sometime after May 1910.

The first letter was postmarked December 10, 1910.

Gradle letter 12-10-1910 by AinsworthIN

The fourth page of the above PDF is just the reverse of the third page of Eathel's letter, on which someone has scribbled the address of Eathel's sister, Alice. (The 1910 census, taken in April, showed Alice in Meridian, Mississippi, teaching in a "mission school"; evidently she had moved on to Alabama by December.) I think Alice is the "Auntie Awus" whom little Elma points out in the picture. Goodwin and Philenus are Eathel's brothers. I have not been able to identify the "Uncle Goodwin" whose death Eathel asks about.

The second letter was dated January 5, 1911.

Gradle letter 1-5-1911 by AinsworthIN

Eathel died November 22, 1956. Here is her obituary from The Vidette-Messenger of November 23.

Wildflowers of Ainsworth: Buffalo Bur

All of a sudden I find this stuff growing in my front yard.


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It's a member of the nightshade family. Even more thorny than horse nettle. Jack Sanders says it's a good thing this plant is so prickly; otherwise animals might eat it, and the leaves are "very toxic."

The fruits (seed pods) are said to be prickly as well. I'm not sure this specimen has any fruit yet, unless this little prickle-studded bulb is a baby fruit:

Big and Little

From the steamer trunk.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of E.H.

There is no identification or date on the original. The photographer was August Haase, which suggests it was taken sometime between 1902 and 1912 or so.

I've been wondering if these might be two of the three Rossow sisters. Minnie was born in 1897, Ella in 1899 and Louise about 1903. I would judge the girls in the photo to be more than two or three years apart, so I don't think we've got Minnie and Ella here. We might possibly have Minnie and Louise, except the older girl doesn't look that much like Minnie, and why on earth would the Rossows leave out their middle daughter from such a well planned, formal portrait? (Let's call that the fallacy of the excluded middle.) A similar question arises if we assume these are Ella and Louise. So I think I have to abandon the Rossow-sisters hypothesis, and considered these girls unidentified.

Enforcing Solidarity

Harve Carey had been actively involved with the area milk shippers' union back when the new tuberculin-testing requirements threatened heavy costs to dairymen. Now it appears that he and his son, Lee, were being viewed as scabs by some.

The union's tri-state marketing arm, which began operating in February 1919, was intended to work for the benefit of the dairymen; however, not everyone was completely satisfied with its prices and terms. First Harve, and then Lee when he took over the family farm, made private arrangements with milk dealers, outside the union marketing cooperative, on terms that suited them better.

In September 1920 some union members confronted Lee about what they saw as his benefiting himself to the union's detriment.


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From the Hobart Gazette of Sept. 24, 1920.

I don't know the exactly meaning of that last comment (about Uncle Sam's view of boycotts) except that it's an example of how the Gazette seems to me to be getting more authoritarian in its views, especially since the World War.

Greetings from Guess Who

From the steamer trunk.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of E.H.



A pretty good guess is Herman Harms, playing coy with his friend. While the year in the postmark is not clear, to me it looks like 1912 — at which time, according to Minnie's account many decades later, they weren't "going steady" yet.

I don't think the picture on the front is intended to represent the Hobart mill. It's just a generic picturesque scene, on a generic "Greetings From" card on which the manufacturer stamps the town according to the order — in this case, "Hobart, Ind."

Ugly Mushrooms of Ainsworth(Random Pointless Photos)

Found these mushrooms growing next to my house. They don't look like anything in my mushroom book, so I don't know what they are, other than ugly.


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They are low-growing, about an inch in diameter, covered with a light grayish-brown purple-tinged veil that ruptures to reveal a slimy white blob.





I will watch to see if they turn into anything recognizable as they mature.

Toots and Norma

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of N.B.

Gladys "Toots" Lindborg, with her arms draped over little sister Norma's shoulders. No date on the photo, but Norma looks about seven years old here, which would put it in the vicinity of 1923.

They are on the front steps of the Lindborg home in Ainsworth. The camera's operator is facing west-northwest and standing inside the fence that encloses the little front yard. The barn in the background is no longer standing.

Each girl wears her characteristic expression — Gladys looking serious, even grim; Norma smiling sweetly. Two sisters, night and day.

Kansas City, Here We Come

… or there we went, anyway. The Chesters are just back from yet another road trip. This was one of the lesser voyages of these seasoned travelers, at a little more than 1,000 miles, round-trip — but that's calculated by modern highways; the roads of 1920 may well have made the distance actually longer, as well as seemingly longer.


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, Sept. 24, 1920.

Also, a little item confirms that I had indeed found the right people in the 1920 census: Burgess and Helen Wells have moved to Colorado.

Another item, about the Nickel Plate's Main Street crossing, has forced me to get edumacated — I did not know what the heck a "wig-wag safety signal" was, so I had to go look it up.

♦    ♦    ♦
Speaking of road trips — the "Local and Personal" column of the Hobart News (Sept. 23, 1920) included this item: "A two-ton truck belonging to Thos. Crisman of Deep River was stolen last Saturday night and was seen to pass through Hobart that night about midnight."

Baby On Pillow

From the steamer trunk.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of E.H.

This solemn-looking baby is completely unidentified. Not even a photographer's mark.

They have taken Baby outside where the light is better, and perched him or her atop a shawl-covered pillow on a rocking chair … and I think what Baby is looking at, off-camera, is Mama holding up her hands and saying, "Don't move! Don't move!" And Baby is really trying to understand her.

4 July 1914

(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Handwritten notes on the back of the original identify this as the "Shearer Float 4 July 1914."

Could the man on the left be Howard Shearer? — compare his photo taken about 50 years later.

Nice house behind them, isn't it? Looking at the steep pitch of its roof, as well as what appear to be rails in the street behind the float, I'm wondering if we're at the corner of Third and East Streets, and that's the house still standing today on the northeast corner? Once the holiday is over and it's possible to move freely about the streets, I shall have to go take a better look at that house.

My Little Cousins

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of N.B.

Mildred did not give names to her "little cousins," but it's a good guess that these are the children of Peter and Hulda Palm of Hobart, probably at home on the farm east of Hobart. If so, then I'd guess that we're looking at (left to right) Esther, Elmer and Helen. Elmer was born around 1922, and here he looks about one year old, which would put us around 1923. Maybe even Labor Day.

Hello, I Must Be Going

I didn't even know these guys existed until they announced, in September 1920, that they were leaving.


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The Bayor farm lay in Ross Township, on the northeast corner of 69th and Colorado, with the Grand Trunk Railroad crossing its southern acres. I can't even find Charles Szikora in any census earlier than 1930 (and that may not be the same Charles), and I do not know if he was related to John Szikora.

The only Deppe farm I can find is on the southern border of Hobart Township and is ascribed to Catherine, not Frank, Deppe. The 1920 census enumerator who recorded Michael Malz and his neighbors noted that they lived on the "South West Road out of Hobart Past Green House." The Malz household consisted of Michael, 55 years old, his 54-year-old wife Magdalen, and a five-year-old grandson — only those, to take care of 400 chickens and all those cattle!

♦    ♦    ♦
Across Colorado Street from the Bayor farm lay the Price farm. I mention that only because I just recently came across pictures of Fremont and Carrie Price (while babysitting the Merrillville museum). They are undated, and while to me they look earlier than 1920, I'm not going to try to guess at a date.

Fremont Benjamin Price

(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

Carrie Belle Cunningham Price


And here's a totally random fact I just learned about F.B. Price — he had a grocery-store-running brother in Ludington, Michigan.


(Click on image to enlarge)


Sources:
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 23 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart News 23 Sept. 1920.

Aunt Lid and Helen

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of N.B.

"Aunt Lid" was likely what the Lindborg kids called Lydia Nelson Lindborg, wife of their Uncle Emil, so I suppose we can identify the woman at left. But as for Helen, I don't know who she was, and Mildred's caption did not include a surname.

Behind them, we see the west side of the Lindborg house in Ainsworth.

While there is no date for this photo, the fact that these two are dressed just as they were in one of the dated photos, and they have the same dog, I'm afraid there's no getting around it — what we've got here is another Labor Day 1923 picture.