Monday, August 31, 2015

Carl Sonntag

From the "Local and Personal" column of the Hobart News of April 20, 1922:
Carl Sonntag, who resides on the Huffman farm southeast of Hobart, has recently purchased the Emma Shearer farm. It is his intention, we are informed to remain on the Huffman farm until the expiration of his rental lease of the place next spring, when he will take possession of his new residence.
I'm not aware of L.R. Huffman owning any land in Lake County, so Carl must have moved onto the Porter County Huffman farm — after 1920, when the census records him living on rented land in Ross Township.

At that time Carl was 34 years old, a German immigrant, married to Anna (maiden name unknown), with an infant son, Arthur. I've seen the Sonntag name around, but never with "Carl" in front of it, and yet he was related to many of the Sonntags, including Martha, who was his niece — or so I gather from his 1961 obituary:
Carl W. Sonntag, 75, of 2585 Willowdale road, a Portage resident for 33* years, died Wednesday in Gary Mercy hospital.

Born Oct. 24, 1885, he retired from the Gary sheet and Tin mill eight years ago.

Surviving are his widow, Anna; a daughter, Mrs. Marie Kuzak of Portage; a son, Arthur of East Gary; five sisters, Mrs. Bertha Moele [or Moehl], Mrs. Emma Baessler, Mrs. Minnie Maier, Mrs. Lena Judge and Mrs. Martha Luke, all of Hobart; two brothers, William of Hobart and Ernest of Fairchild, Wis.; a grandchild and a step-grandchild.

Services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday in Redeemer Lutheran church, East Gary. The Rev. Leonard Fiene will officiate, and burial will be in Calvary cemetery.
(From "Deaths," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso) 5 Jan. 1961, newspaperarchive.com.)

Well, he's got until the spring of 1923 to stay on the Huffman farm and make Ainsworth-area news.

________________
*I may have misread this number; it is not clear in the on-line copy of the newspaper.

3 comments:

mystoryandtheirs said...


His father was also named Carl. :)

Ainsworthiana said...

I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

I later found out that it was the Hoffman, not Huffman, farm that the Sonntags had been renting:
http://ainsworthindiana.blogspot.com/2016/10/various-stages-of-quitting-farming.html

Bill Bloomquist said...

Interesting article. I remember Carl and Anna Sonntag from my childhood. They drove us to church at Redeemer in my early years, and my family drove Mrs. Sonntag to church after carl passed away. As I recall, Art ran a gas station at 51 & Central Avenue in East Gary.