Monday, November 23, 2015

The Prochno Farm

This is the Prochno farm — probably the one on Colorado Street, near the Lester Harms farm.

Prochno farm, undated.
(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.


You can see the mailbox in front, which would be used by the mail carrier working a Crown Point rural delivery route.

The back of the photo was stamped with blanks to be filled in by hand:

Verso of Prochno farm photo

I'm not sure what the purpose of all this was — documentation for insurance purposes? Or perhaps the proud homeowners were ordering a tinted enlargement of this photo to hang on their wall? Anyway, I like the little color details: house white, with green trim and shutters; barn red, with white trim.

There is no date on this.

William Prochno was born in 1880 to Ferdinand and Bertha Prochno, German immigrants. The earliest I can find the family is in 1900, when they farmed rented land in southeast Ross Township. In 1902 William married Louisa Saager. Now, in 1908 the farm that would eventually be the Prochno farm was owned by August Saager, but I don't know what relationship he might have had to Louisa.

The young Prochnos were farming rented land in Eagle Creek Township in 1910. In 1920 they were back in Ross Township, farming what may have been the Saager/Prochno farm (to judge by their neighbors), but the enumerator did not know whether they owned it. They did own it by 1926.

William and Louisa had lost one child in the early years of their marriage. Only their daughter, Mathilda, born circa 1911, survived to maturity. As we know, she married Noland White and then Lester Harms, but neither marriage produced children.


Sources:
1900 Census.
1908 Plat Map.
1910 Census.
1920 Census.
1926 Plat Book.
1930 Census.
1940 Census.
Indiana Marriage Collection.

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