Happy New Year!

Best wishes to all for 2016.


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The Day the Dam Broke

It really did break, but the Wood's Mill pond wasn't big enough to inspire panic.

The News' account included a story handed down over the years of an earlier break and John Wood's near-death experience.


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Hobart News 22 June 1922.

(And it was a slow season at the Hobart Speedway, I gather, if the first race of the year didn't happen until July 2.)

On the original 1908 Plat Map, someone has circled in red the village of Deep River and the mill pond, which lay on the county line south of Old Lincoln Highway.


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The Gazette noted that Tony Cullman had not been operating the mill for a couple of years (after describing himself as a miller in the 1920 Census), but nevertheless he intended to rebuild the dam.


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Hobart Gazette 23 June 1922.

In the Cullman family's history of sorrows, this event was comparatively minor.

(Below that story, a complaint about loud vehicles and constant firecracker-shooting that could have been printed during any recent summer.)

Babe Ruth, and the Chicken-Fight Referee

While Paul Emery got to see the Sultan of Swat in Chicago on June 9, 1922, back home in Hobart, Dr. L.M. Friedrich was carrying out his health-board duties, which included the usual negotiating of peace in neighborhood chicken fights, and attending to various dead animals lying around in the summer heat.


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Hobart News 15 June 1922.

One hundred people crowded into the old Deep River schoolhouse to honor Dewey and Evalene (Ols) Thomas; I wonder they had any room to dance.


(I had never heard of the Flying Rollers before. The things I am learning!)

Unidentified Group #2

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I can guess the same things about this group as I did about the one we've already seen — that it's a church group and probably Swedish.

This group likewise was photographed by August Haase.



This time the photo was taken indoors, in a photo studio, to judge by the painted backdrop.

To me the clergyman in the front row looks a bit like Pastor Moberg of the glass-plate negatives, but then again maybe it's just the eyeglasses.


UPDATE: Paula Isolampi, who is an officer and director of the Hobart Historical Society as well as a historian for Augustana Lutheran Church, points out to me that the clergyman in this photo is the Rev. J.A. Berg (and has a photo to back that ID up). From the church's 100th anniversary booklet, printed in 1962: "In 1905, Hobart and Miller became a joint parish, the Rev. J.A. Berg, pastor." The 75th anniversary booklet printed in 1937 tells us that the Rev. Berg served only a year.

Join Our Christmas Club

Here's a little Christmas-y thing for you, from the Hobart Federal Savings and Loan Association.


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There is no date on this card. It must date to 1934 or later, since it mentions the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. It's not a postcard; there is nothing on the back.

Merry Christmas to all!

Elna Hazelgreen at Twelve

For much of this blog's existence, I have managed to ignore Lake Station pretty thoroughly. Then last spring the coincidence of my buying a postcard of the Bijou resort and meeting some descendants of its one-time owners, Frank and Mary Kucaba, caused me to start paying a little attention to that area. And then this autumn I bought a collection of photographs and letters of the Hazelgreen family, who arrived in Lake Station circa 1880 and remained active and even prominent (though comparatively publicity-shy) for decades. This collection is too good not to share, and I suppose now I really have to acknowledge the existence of Lake Station.

The collection centers on the youngest daughter in the family, Elna Julia Johanna Hazelgreen. She was born October 24, 1894, in Lake Station, to Henry and Christina (Blank) Hazelgreen, delivered by Dr. Joseph C. Watson.

The earliest photographs we have of Elna are at age twelve (according to handwritten notes on the back), which would date the photos to circa 1906. A. Haase was the photographer.


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That second photo gives us some idea of how girls got those gigantic bows to stand atop their heads: by attaching them to combs. In her hand is a portrait of a woman — who, I wonder? Some random woman, or perhaps one of her older sisters?

You can compare her to the young woman I pointed out in that unidentified group photo and judge for yourself how much of a resemblance there is between them.


Sources:
♦ "Lake Station." Hobart Gazette 26 Oct. 1894.
♦ 1900 Census.

Unidentified Group #1

A recent acquisition.


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All I know about this group is that it was photographed by A. Haase of Hobart, Ind.



So that would date it between December 1902 and roughly 1912.

A couple of things I can guess by the clothing on the man in front: this is a church group, and the church is Swedish.

The young woman at the far left in the second row from the front looks to me a bit like Elna Hazelgreen of Lake Station. (I have some photos of her, which we will get to eventually.)

Other than that, this group is unidentified.


12/26/2015 UPDATE: Thanks to Paula Isolampi, we can identify the clergyman as the Rev. Magnus Johansson Lonner. From an undated manuscript entitled "Biographies of Pastors Related to the History of Augustana Lutheran Church of Hobart, Indiana" (no author identified), comes this short biographical sketch:

Magnus Johansson Lonner was born on April 21, 1858 at Odeberg, Dalsland, Sweden, the son of Johannes and Anna L., nee Larsdotter, Jonasson.

He emigrated to the United States in 1881. He studied at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota in 1884 and 1885. He then continued his studies at Augustana College and Seminary from 1886 to 1892. He was ordained in June 5, 1892 in Lindsborg, Kansas.

He served pastorates in the following communities: Manistique, Michigan, 1892 – 1896; Bessemer, Michigan, 1896 – 1899; Porter, Indiana, 1899 – 1906; Greeley, Nebraska, 1906 – 1910; Cleburne, Kansas, 1910 – 1922.

He was married to Alma Skogberg of Ishpeming, Michigan on August 25, 1897. They were the parents of one child. After the death of Alma in 1902, Pastor Lonner married Hedvig Nelson of Hobart, Indiana and they were the parents of one child.

Pastor Lonner died on August 22, 1931.

The late Alvar Lonner, a long-time leader in Augustana Church of Hobart, was a son of Pastor Lonner.

Assuming the photo above is a confirmation photo, then the young woman who looks like Elna Hazelgreen is not Elna (who was confirmed in 1909, when the Rev. Gustav Lundahl was pastor). But it might be a case of family resemblance. The church has records of the confirmation of four of Elna's siblings at varying ages between about 14 and 16; one I haven't found in the records is Elna's sister, Esther, born circa 1886, who could conceivably have been in Pastor Lonner's confirmation class and been photographed by August Haase.

In another church publication, Esther Hazelgreen Babcock is named as one of the church's organists — exactly when isn't clear, but it seems to have been in the first decade of the 20th century.

Caught in a Speed Trap

After passing through the "Christian utopia" of Zion City, Illinois, on June 9, 1922, Charles Chester and John C. Cavender had nothing good to say about its justice system or its roads.


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Hobart News 15 June 1922.

(You will notice in the left-hand columns of the page above the news of William Devonshire's death. A childless widower, he left everything he had to the Masons.)

The Gazette's telling of the speed-trap story did not turn out quite so well for Charles:


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Hobart Gazette 16 June 1922.

Over in the "Local Drifts" columns, we are reminded that in Hobart, at least, thievery is done in the dark of night rather than the light of day — and not nearly so methodically; and that in Merrillville, work is going forward to keep "dead man's crossing" from claiming any more victims.


Additional Source: "Oldest Mason Dies in Hobart." Hobart Gazette 16 June 1922.

Pig Pics

Speaking of pigs — as we were in our last post — perhaps the time has come for me to post all the pig pictures I have at the moment, beyond the one I've already posted.

These two come from the Lester Harms collection.


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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

On the back, someone has written: "Sow and 11 pigs. 1939." In 1939, Lester was living with his parents, John and Sophia, on their Cleveland Avenue farm. But, Reader, let us not rush to conclude that these were Harms pigs.

The next picture is unidentified. Well, yes, it's a man and 12 pigs. The man looks a bit like Lester Harms, if you ask me, but I need an eye exam.




This last one comes from Minnie Rossow Harms' steamer trunk. It was taken on the old Harms homestead on Ainsworth Road.



"Our Pigs," reads the caption. The photo was developed (per the stamp on the back) on July 16, 1934. The tile building in the background was the chicken house. It was on the north side of Ainsworth Road, between the farmhouse and the lake. There is a chicken-wire fence in front of the pigs.


That's all the pig photos I have right now. We can always hope for more.

Spring Piglets

Early in June of 1922 we find the Nolte brothers selling piglets born on April Fool's Day (or thereabouts); Mrs. Gilbert Robinson (whoever she was) selling her spring chickens; and Fremont B. Price selling a tractor and plows … maybe his insurance business was doing so well that he wasn't going to pretend to be a farmer anymore.


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Hobart News 8 June 1922.


On June 4 James and Effie (Spencer) Chester attended a Spencer family reunion.


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The guest of honor was the owner of the famous sidesaddle, and the label on that sidesaddle just saved me a lot of snooping around on Ancestry.com.

The late Eleazar Spencer owned a lot of land. On this image from the 1926 Plat Book, I have marked in red his land as it appeared in the 1891 Plat Book (the parcel marked in green belonged to his brother cousin(?), Orsemus):


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I believe the house at 3194 County Line Road (built in 1882 according to the county records) is the Eleazar Spencer residence.

Mrs. Robert Roper had been born Jessie Spencer circa 1879 (1880 Census) and married Robert Roper in 1899 (Indiana Marriage Collection). Mrs. Duffy DeFrance had been Myrtle Belle Swanson, daughter of Helena (Spencer) Swanson, and mother of Verva (DeFrance) Johnson.

Eunice Rhodes

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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

I was hoping Eunice might be related to our plumber, George Rhodes, but if she was I haven't found evidence of it.

She was born in July 1894, and in the 1900 Census, we find her family farming in Calumet Township, neighbors of William and Antonia Rossow, as well as the George and Ellen Roper family and the Gottlieb family.

So it's natural enough that Eunice would be a friend of the Rossows, and that her photo would end up in Minnie Rossow Harms' steamer trunk.

Bad Conditions

During the "City Council Proceedings," as related by the Hobart News of June 8, 1922, Dr. Louis M. Friedrich, now on Hobart's Board of Health, reported "a considerable amount of trouble about chickens among neighbors." He also "reported having made an investigation of the Mike O'Hearn place and found it in very bad condition," but the News gave us no further details.

The same issue of the News had a story about Mike O'Hearn finding someone else in a bad condition:


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Hobart News 9 June 1922.

The Chicago road, as you may remember, was Old Ridge Road.

Two Views of the Old High School

Here's a dreamy-looking view of the old Hobart Township High School on Fourth Street, on a postcard in the 1901-1907 style. "I have marked my room," the writer says, and if you look closely you can see an X on the upper pane of the first-floor window furthest to the left.


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I can't identify this LaVerne Bailey, either in the census records or the index of Hobart-High graduates.

The postmark doesn't show a year.



I do find a Ralph Cutts in Shabbona, Illinois, in the 1910 Census. He was born in September 1898 per the 1900 Census, which recorded the family living in Willow Creek, Illinois.

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Here is a slightly later view of the High School building.



This card hasn't been used, so there's no postmark to help us date it. All I can say for sure is that the card was printed in the post-March-1907 style, and that, compared to the earlier view, the building has been enlarged.

Back in '02, When the Vincent School Burned

Here's an interesting little event that I didn't know enough to pay attention to the first time I was reading through the 1902 microfilm.


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Hobart Gazette 28 Feb. 1902.

So when Gust Lindborg "bought the old Sullivan schoolhouse" in 1912 — assuming "Sullivan" and "Vincent" are two names for the same school — it wasn't really all that old, was it? — nine or ten years.

The property records for the former Vincent schoolhouse still standing at Clay St. and Harms Rd. give a construction date of 1925. If that's correct (and assuming Sullivan = Vincent), why was the Vincent school building available for purchase in 1912? Were they building a new wooden one then? This is getting complicated.

I wish the story had identified "Miss Burge" better. In the 1900 Census, (Winfield) Scott and Mary Burge had six daughters and two sons living at home. I suppose either of the two eldest daughters, May (born circa 1881) and Bertha (born circa 1882), could have become a teacher by 1902, and maybe even the next eldest, Libbie (born ca. 1885). The census shows the Burges owning their own farm; my guess at its location is marked on this image from the 1908 Plat Map, which also shows how conveniently close for the burned-out students the Goodrich house was.


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The yellow X marks the present location of the brick house that used to be the Vincent schoolhouse. This map places the 1908 schoolhouse* on the north side of present-day E. 83rd Ave.

The Goodriches were Charles and Caroline. They had five children of their own who likely attended the Vincent school: Cora, Ida, Arthur, Clarence, and Harold. (The two youngest would later go to war, and Harold would not come home.)

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*Which would be the one that ended up as the Lindborg home on Ainsworth Road, as I currently understand it all.

Love on Wheels

When I first mentioned the Crystal Roller Rink, I never dreamed I'd someday have photographic evidence of the wedding that (people tell me) took place there.


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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.



On the back of that first photo, someone has jotted down what I think is the groom's name, Davy Smyth (pronounced with a long i).



I could not get any additional information, such as the bride's name or the date of the wedding, from the usual on-line sources.


Update: Thanks to the kindness of relatives/descendants of this happy couple, I have learned that the wedding of David Smythe and Margaret Yager took place on December 18, 1948.

William Prochno's Death Notice

One thing I know about this blog is that it's never going to reach 1958 by its usual agonizingly slow weekly progression. So I'll just post this now — from the Gary Post-Tribune of June 2, 1958:


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I do not know if "his home" at the time was still the farm. Perhaps someday I will try to find a 1957-58 Crown Point directory at the library.

Oklahoma!

Just out of high school, Leona Raschka dashed off to spend June 1922 in Oklahoma, of all places. According to a brief genealogy at findagrave.com, Grace Short was the daughter of Leona's father's sister, but I have no clue who the "relatives and friends" in Oklahoma were.


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Hobart News 8 June 1922.

I wonder whence the strawberries would come for the social in the Ainsworth school — from Jake Yager, perhaps, or the Carlson brothers?

The item about little Elmer Palm's christening is interesting to me because this could well be the celebration memorialized in the photo in Mildred Lindborg's album.

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On the morning of June 7, 1922, Hazard Halsted performed an immortalized haircut, and that afternoon Louis Kramer and Myrtle Scharbach were married.


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Hobart Gazette 9 June 1922.


The front page of that issue mentioned Lee & Rhodes' "fine new delivery car" with no further details, alas, and yet another dance at the old Deep River schoolhouse, but it also had some interesting stories about nobody we know, such as a false report of a mass drowning, and a pastor ejected from a church for assault and battery:


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Hobart Gazette 9 June 1922.

Another Bijou Update

I have thrown a largely incomprehensible notice from 1902 onto the Bijou heap.

A Big Tent

When last we met the Amlong family — Ossie,* Lottie, and their daughter, Martha — they were living on Lake Street in Hobart, in a rented house. That was the autumn of 1921. Now it's the spring of 1922, and the Amlongs, unable to find a house they like, have decided to leave behind the summer heat and fragrances of town to camp out in a country setting.


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"Local and Personal," Hobart News 1 June 1922.

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Meanwhile, more mundanely, Charles and Amelia Goldman are selling potatoes in Ainsworth, at what I suppose was a good price for 1922.


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 2 June 1922.

At the moment I'm guessing that Everett Newman went by the nickname "Mickey." It would be nice if someone could confirm that for me.

And yet another party at the Fasel home on East 10th Street.

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*I've just learned his given name was Osceola: small wonder that he chose "O. Amlong" as his public name.

Electric Railway Line and Racetrack Updates

To my earlier post about the Logansport, Hammond & Chicago Traction Co. buying right-of-way from the McAuliffes, I have added a couple of 1903 news items.

An unrelated item in the "Local Drifts" Hobart Gazette of June 12, 1903, caught my eye: "Those desiring stand or other privileges in the grove near the race track for the Fourth, should apply at once to B.W. Strattan." Doesn't that sound as if the racetrack is in or near Hobart? — that would mean that Hobart had a horse racetrack long before it had a motorcycle racetrack. I seem to remember an even earlier story that suggested likewise, but I can't lay my hands on the cite at the moment.

What God Hath Joined Together …

This magnificent marriage certificate comes from the Hobart Historical Society museum. We know the bride and groom well: Edward Sauter and Augusta Schumacher.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The first witness listed, Johann Schumacher, may have been Augusta's father, or her 17-year-old brother. I don't know who Louise Schumacher was. (Augusta's mother's name was Johanna; she went by "Annie" in the 1880 Census, but if she ever went by "Louise" I haven't heard about it.)

Herman Tabbert was then about 17. I believe he was the H.C. Tabbert who ran a shoe store in Hobart. He married Emma Wettengel in 1891 (Indiana Marriage Collection).

Among the scripture and verses scattered around the certificate, we find the German equivalent of that familiar injunction: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." But, as we know, these two did put themselves asunder.

It Really Should Have Been Named After Him

While snooping around in the May 1889 Lake County Star, trying to find out what Herman Tabbert was accused of doing that led to his name appearing in the "Record of Recognizance Bonds" where I first met Sidney Ainsworth … I came across Mr. Ainsworth's obituary. I have added it to my earlier post about him.

Camp 133

Here's a little map from the Gazette of June 2, 1922, showing where Camp 133 was.


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So, where present-day Liverpool Road crosses the Deep River, Camp 133 was on the west side of the road and the north side of the river.



A Calumet Region Historical Guide compiled as a WPA project and printed in 1939 devotes one short paragraph to Camp 133, explaining that it was "so named because 133 was the number of the local theatrical employee's union whose members established the camp in 1913."