Not in Our Back Yard! (Smallpox, That Is)

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Hobart Gazette, March 30, 1923.


First question: where was "the Peddicord brick north of Cleveland avenue"? — near Illinois and Kelly Streets, apparently, but that doesn't narrow it down very much.

Second question: why did the Hobart Health Department think that neighborhood a better place for a smallpox patient than Lake Street? Less crowded, maybe?

George Maybaum was not one of the Ainsworth Maybaums, but we still hope he gets over his smallpox, don't we?[1]

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At the bottom of that column, we find William H. Wood & Son (Raymond, I believe) selling used Fords at their dealership in the village of Deep River. I've mentioned that enterprise at least once — more than once, I thought, but I can't find any other reference. According to my notes, it went back at least to 1916, when the "Local Drifts" column of the November 24 Gazette said: "Wm. H. Wood, the Deepriver merchant, who is sales agent for the Ford auto, is building a garage 40 by 60 feet for storage of new cars and a repair shop." I have been told that this business was located about where the fire department station is now.

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[1] SPOILER ALERT! — he did, according to the 1930 Census. The neighbors' objections were settled by moving George "to a smallpox barracks in Cook county, Ill." ("Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, April 6, 1923), where presumably he was nursed back to health.

High Water!

Since we've been dealing with flooding in past few days, it seems an appropriate time to post these photos, taken by Eldon Harms, of flooding in October 1954 (according to handwritten notes on the originals).

The first shows the bridge on 37th Avenue west of State Road 51, nearly swamped.


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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.



The second shows State Road 51 north of 37th Avenue, well and truly swamped.




Here's the tumble dam, tumbling like crazy.




Here's the water treatment plant, getting the water treatment.




And finally, this is the rear of 200 N. Main — then a NIPSCO office, now the Villa del Sol restaurant.



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Here is my own contribution, taken yesterday in Deep River County Park. The park's Facebook page had noted that the hiking trails were impassable, and truly it spoke — at least concerning the trails at the level of the river. This is the trail that passes under the Canadian National Railroad bridge. At the center of the photo you can see the handrail poking up from the rushing waters of the Deep River.



Higher trails were flooded only in spots.

"Dear Honey Lobey Dubby Sister"

Albin Hazelgreen, lasted glimpsed as a toddler, was a young man of 19 when he wrote this affectionate letter to his little sister, Elna, in 1902:


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He may have been away on a railroad-grading job with his father; the letter seems to come from a station in Cincinnati, Ohio, where H.S. Hazelgreen apparently spent considerable time around August of 1902.[1] Dated October 22, the letter reads as follows:

Dear Honey Lobey Dubby Sister Elna,

Tomorrow you will be eight years old so you must be a good girl now and help mamma and when I come home maybe I will give you a hug and a kiss.

Have you got your bicycle yet?

Here is some ribbon for you to play with.

Can you read this or must you get Esther [their sister] to.

Well Elna I guess I must kiss you good bye as it is time to go to work so be sure and answer this letter and not do as you did last.

By Bye

From Albin.

Between Albin's asking her not to let this letter go unanswered like the last one, and her father's chiding her for her illegible handwriting, I gather that the young Elna was not the best correspondent.

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[1] "Lake Pick-Ups," Hobart Gazette 29 Aug. 1902.

Happy Birthday, Julius; Goodbye, Hub

This mangled page from the Hobart News of March 29, 1923, tells us of Julius Wojahn's 68th birthday. He was born March 23, 1855, in Posen, Germany (Indiana Death Certificates).


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I have the impression that his residence was more in Ainsworth than "near" it. Among his neighbors in the 1920 Census are the names Lindborg, Foreman, Miller, Nelson (Lovisa), and Hunter.

Just below that item we find Carrie Raschka hosting 40 people from the Merrillville Study Club in her Hobart home.

At the bottom of the column — is this the end of The Hub forever?

Horses in the Mist of Ainsworth(Random Pointless Photos)

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Weird weather but it makes the horses look otherworldly.

This one came up to the fence and posed for a picture.

Gary Railways Bus Schedule, 1952

From deep in the files of the Hobart Historical Society Museum comes this bus schedule showing how insignificant Ainsworth was in 1952.


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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.




This is the same company whose 1940 schedule I already posted.

Lushia Trumper Gordon

This is the last of the Gordon family obituaries that I have on hand. Lushia, aka Lucy, was the mother of E.R., among others.


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Hobart News, Sept. 30, 1926.



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Hobart Gazette, Oct. 1, 1926.


The News gives her maiden name as Trumper, the Gazette as Trumber, and I couldn't tell you which is correct.

We catch a glimpse of Lushia in this 1881 photograph, where she is standing on the porch of her brick house, on the southwest corner of Center and Second Streets.

Like her sister-in-law, Hettie, she taught in Hobart's Union Sunday School.

The obituaries say that she was buried in Hobart Cemetery (and her death certificate indicates burial in Hobart), but neither the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society's index of Hobart Township cemeteries nor findagrave.com records a grave marker for her, or her husband.

South of Deepriver, March 29, 1923

My part-time job has been trying to be full-time lately. So here's a "South of Deepriver" column to save me the trouble of writing a real post.


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Hobart News, Mar. 29, 1923.



One thing these columns are good for is to remind me who's living in the area.