Frederick Doepping

Frederick Doepping was an "aged Ainsworth citizen" when he died in March 1922.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 23 March 1922.

Per my own imaginative reading of the 1920 Census, I'm guessing Frederick and Mary occupied one of those little houses on the west side of Grand Blvd./S.R. 51 just north of the Canadian National tracks, either of which is old enough to accommodate them. But that's just a guess.

I am a bit confused about the Doepping family. According to the obituary, Frederick had no daughters (if a daughter had died before him, you'd still expect her to be mentioned). And yet the 1900 Census shows Frederick and Mary sheltering under their roof a schoolboy of 13 named Henry Kastner, described as their grandson. With only two sons, how did they get a grandson with a different surname? Or is that just a mistake by the census enumerator?

You may have noticed some mention in this blog of a Reinhart Doepping, most notably in connection with tree-related crime. I'm beginning to suspect that "Reinhart" was the newspaper's mistake for "Rheinholdt." It appears that the enumerator of the 1900 Census made the same mistake, while the 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940 Census got the name more or less right.

Rheinholdt/Reinhart had a son named Richard Doepping (and I've encountered more than one reference in the newspapers to "R. Doepping," which isn't illuminating). In January 1919, Richard Doepping bought a farm belonging to Chester Guernsey — exact location unknown, but my guess is that it was somewhere close to the Ross-Winfield Township line and the Lake-Porter County line. ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 23 Jan. 1919.)

The other son, Emil, is elusive. He may be the Emil Doepping born Dec. 24, 1880, who married a woman named Bertha between 1910 and 1920 (though I can't find the record of their marriage). But in that case, the official records would seem to place him in Chicago, not south of Ainsworth.

This is where I stop trying to figure out the Doeppings.

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Moving on to the items in the "Local and Personal" column, Mrs. Mike Foreman was married to a man who liked to confuse historians by going by Michael, Mike, or Helmuth, as his fancy took him. She had been born Mary Mau (Indiana Marriage Collection).

James Jeffrey had indeed bought some Guernsey land, but I wouldn't describe it as being near the old Deepriver schoolhouse.

Elizabeth Fredrick was my favorite census enumerator; Sadie Baker helped her husband, William, run their general store in Deep River. I have no idea who Mrs. Carl Harper was. Mrs. Lulu Crisman was married to Thomas, who was a son of John and Elizabeth (Small) Crisman of Porter County … which would, I think, make him a brother of John Crisman of Deep River.

And, of course, we all know the Raschkas and the Shearers.