Wednesday, May 29, 2019

People I've Been Ignoring

The first thing that caught my eye on this page was the announcement about Henry Paulus and the premiums he awarded to lucky locals on July 28, 1923.

2019-05-29. Paulus, News, 8-2-1923
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News, Aug. 2, 1923.


Of course we know who John Miller was, and Mrs. Ernest Sitzenstock might be Mrs. Ernest Sr. or Mrs. Ernest Jr. But Mrs. Frank Steiner? — why don't I know who she is? After poking around in the records, my best guess at her identity is this: she had been Bertha Grosch, who shows up in the 1910 Census at the age of 27, living with her aunt and uncle in Chicago, working as a saleslady in a department store. Somehow she met and fell in love with Frank Stiener[1] (Jr.), who in 1910 was working as a hired man on a farm in Eagle Creek Township, Lake County, Indiana. He was the son of Frank (Sr.) and Susan Stiener, Austro-Hungarian immigrants and farmers in Winfield Township.

Frank Stiener, Jr. and Bertha Grosch were married December 20, 1911, and they came back to the farmland of northwest Indiana. In the "Personal and Local Mention" column of the Hobart News of November 18, 1915, I find this item: "The 3-months-old baby of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Steiner [sic], living south of Ainsworth, is seriously ill with bronchial pneumonia." In the 1920 Census, we find Frank and Bertha living on rented land in southern Ross Township, operating a dairy farm. They had three children under the age of seven: Frances, Robert, and Clayton. And now, 1923, they have an aluminum kettle.

Moving along … the Argo orchestra is still a mystery.

We've met Clinton and Ida Peck before. Linus Peck was their son, born ca. 1897 (1910 Census). In 1919 he had married Martha Frame[2] in Chicago (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index), and they lived in Hobart.

We know Ezra Gilpin and we know he worked the Lake Street "J" crossing. Somebody else can investigate Patrick Glynn.

Just below that, another new (to me) name. Martha Schiesser was the daughter of Michael and Catherine Wehner, a farming family. In the 1900 Census, they lived in Center Township, but by 1908 had moved to Ross Township and owned 148 acres surrounding Lottaville:

2019-05-29. Wehner-Thiel 1908
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from the 1908 Plat Map.


On May 11, 1920, Martha married Frank Schiesser (Indiana Marriage Collection). He was one of the many sons of Adam and Mary (Dumbsky) Schiesser, who owned land in Ross Township as early as 1900, though I can't find it on the 1908 Plat Map … but Adam's father, I believe, died young, and his mother, Catherine, took as her second husband Nickolaus Thiel, which might explain why the land owned by Cath. Thiel in the 1908 map above would end up in the hands of A. Schiesser in the 1926 Plat Book. The land north and east of it, belonging to Chas. L. Merrill in 1908, would belong to B. Schiesser by 1926, but that's another story.

I interpret the statement about her being buried at Turkey Creek to mean Ss. Peter and Paul Cemetery, but findagrave.com lists her in Calumet Park Cemetery.


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[1] The censuses and other records usually spell it Stiener (as does the record of his grave on findagrave.com, though I have not been out there myself to see the grave marker), while the only two newspaper references I have noted spell it Steiner.
[2] Her parents were Newton and Annie Frame, and I have no idea if these were any relation to the various Frames who are all over the "South of Deepriver" columns.

Friday, May 24, 2019

Bilobed Looper Moth

Once again: while mowing I find a moth in the grass. Moth has wonderful markings. I search through my 611-page Peterson's Field Guide to Moths and identify said moth … and learn that it is a very common moth with absolutely nothing remarkable about it. Except those wonderful markings.

2019-05-24. Bilobed Looper Moth
(Click on image to enlarge)

Bilobed Looper Moth, also called Stephens' gem.

I couldn't get a clear photo of its wings because they were constantly vibrating.



As a bonus, here's a mysterious creature from the outside of my garage.

2019-05-24. mystery creature

♦    ♦    ♦

5/26/2019 update — My thanks to Suzi E., who identified the mysterious creature as some kind of crane fly.

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Popp Pop

Charles Popp was last sighted giving a series of dances in Ainsworth in 1921. Now it’s 1923 and he's up to something in Hobart, as the "Local and Personal" column of the August 2 Hobart News carries this item: "Chas. Popp has bought A.G. Kemerly's interest in the Hobart Bottling works and now has complete control."


I don't think I even had Ancestry.com when I made that very first post about the Popps and couldn't find Lucy Popp's maiden name. But now, looking on Ancestry.com, I can find a Charles Popp marrying a Lucy Fritz in Chicago on November 5, 1921. That's probably our Charles and Lucy.

They are both buried in Calumet Park Cemetery.

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Restoring a Photo on the Cheap

I wanted to include, in the historical-district exhibit at the Merrillville museum, the building that replaced the old California Exchange Hotel after it burned in 1912, but the only image we have of it is a halftone reproduction in A Pictorial History of Merrillville … which, I thought, when scanned and printed up again as a 4x6, would hardly be worth looking at.

So as not to spend a lot of money, I decided to try "restoring" it on my own. I scanned it, printed the scan as an 8x10 on photo paper, then went over the lines with drawing pencils and tinted it with colored pencils. Scanned the result again, and used some free photo editing software on my computer to try to enhance it a little more.

Here's the before and after:

2019-05-15. Christy's halftone
2019-05-15. Christy's tinted

Still not sure which version I like better.

Thursday, May 9, 2019

The Golden Foxes and the Frank Aunts

Here's a nice cheerful post where nobody dies.

John and Anna Fox, having sold their farm on Cleveland Avenue, are still living somewhere on that street.

2019-05-09. Fox, Gazette, 7-27-1923
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, July 27, 1923.


I suppose we don't care about Mrs. Fox's maiden name (Peters) since her people aren't local.

The little item in the right-hand column helps me just slightly with the mysterious Mulfinger connection. It also brings in the name Apfelbach, which means "apple creek," which is cute, but I think she's a Chicago person too.

(Just below that item we get back into depressing territory, with John and Minnie Berndt recovering from the diphtheria that killed their little daughter.)

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Update to Photographer Timeline

In the Hobart Gazette of September 14, 1923 ("Local Drifts"), I come across the first mention I've seen of "Roland Grabill, the photographer," who was going out of town on a vacation. His being described in that way suggests he was already known to the people of Hobart. Checking the 1920 census, I find him in Hobart, working as a self-employed photographer. He was 25 years old.

The "Local Drifts" of the September 21 Gazette had this announcement: "Roland Grabill, the photographer, has returned to Hobart with his family, and will manage and operate the Hobart studio, formerly the Hallberg studio, in the Friedrich building." That tell us that A.A. Hallberg (whom I haven't been able to identify beyond his initials) had left his Hobart studio, and probably not too long before, since the studio was still associated with his name.

So I have updated the photographer timeline to reflect this additional information.

Photographer Timeline 2019-5-2 by Anonymous X9qOpCYfiB on Scribd