Mary McAuliffe and Dr. A.G. Miller

Or: When Posts Collide.

I was trying to think of what to write about, when I remembered that I had just posted about Mary McAuliffe … and not so very long ago, about Dr. A.G. Miller … and I have them both together in a few documents from the early 1940s.

Dr. Miller sent this bill to Mary at the old McAuliffe farm on Cleveland Avenue.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Jocelyn Hahn Johnson.

She (or perhaps her adopted son, Edward Hahn) paid it in full.



A couple months later, Dr. Miller sent a bill to Mary at 1123 Devonshire.



My 1947 directory lists Edward Hahn at that address.

A Burgling Spree

As clocks in Hobart ticked into the last day of January 1923, houses in Hobart were being burgled.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 1 Feb. 1923.

The story in the next column about the accident on the Pennsy Railroad still calls the Wisconsin Street crossing "the Rossow crossing" even though the farm next to it was no longer the Rossow farm.

Updated Ledger Index

I finally finished indexing the Hobart Trustee Account ledger, 1892-1895, and it only took me four months! So I have updated the draft index over there on the index page.

Elna at Twenty-One

(Click on images to enlarge)

Handwritten notes on the originals identify this young woman as Elna Hazelgreen at the age of 21. Since Elna was born in 1894, the photographs must have been taken in 1915. The photographer's imprint shows they were taken at the Koch Studio in LaPorte, Indiana (operated, I suppose, by Henry E. Koch).



I know that Elna's sister, Esther Hazelgreen Babcock Anderson, was living in LaPorte at the time of the 1920 Census. Perhaps she had already moved there by 1915, and Elna came for a visit, and during the visit had these photos taken.

Keep Smiling, Dad

This comic postcard shows a father whose fussy baby has gotten him out of bed in the middle of the night.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

This postcard was glued into one of Minnie Rossow Harms' scrapbooks. I could lift only partially, but we can see enough of the back to learn that the card was sent to Herman Harms in Ainsworth, with the exhortation: "Keep Smiling."



The sender's initial look like G.H. — I can't even guess. The year is illegible, but presumably it was one in which the young Harmses became parents … perhaps for the first time.

Wildflowers of Ainsworth: Cow Parsnip

This blooming plant, about four feet tall, was growing next to the intersection of Ainsworth and Country Club Roads (aka Spencer Street), on Deep River County Park property.


(Click on images to enlarge)

Per Newcomb's Wildflower Guide: "Very broad (4-8" wide) cluster of white flowers. The petals are indented at the tip, and the outer petals are apt to be larger and deeply cleft."



"Base of leaves enlarged into a clasping sheath. … Stem woolly."



It doesn't say anything about those slender little salmon-colored bugs that seem to be very fond of the flowers.



Cow parsnip can cause a nasty rash — like wild parsnip.

Knightstown, of All Places

In January 1923, the Hobart Gazette tells us, John and Mary (Baird Chester) McDaniel moved from Ainsworth to Knightstown, Indiana, near Indianapolis. But the Gazette fails to give us even a hint of why.

In other moving news, the Arment house and 20 acres, recently abandoned by its previous tenant, had just been leased for two years to Edward Maicke … who might possible be the brother of Otto Maicke, but I don't know for sure.


Source: "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 26 Jan. 1923.

Louis H. Sullivan in Lafayette

Random pointless photos from my latest visit to the Purdue U. Small Animal Hospital in West Lafayette. I tried to capture the charm of this "jewel box" bank with a cell phone camera.


(Click on images to enlarge)





I did capture a bit of the road-work project that has State Street all torn up.

Online I found a photo of the bank from 1956.

Wildflowers of Ainsworth: Thyme-leaved Speedwell

(Click on images to enlarge)

I think this might be the stuff I hesitantly identified as Corn Speedwell five years ago.

A few more years, and maybe I'll think it's something else.

The leaves:



Here it is compared to the ruler in Newcomb's Wildflower Guide so you can see how tiny the blossoms are — maybe 1/8" across.