The Hay Press and George Bodamer

Hay press runs over George Bodamer, ruptures an artery in his leg. If it was the femoral artery, he could easily have bled to death. He gets first aid, then — goes to the hospital? Not George!


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, Sept. 7, 1923.

I think this is the George Bodamer who first separated my 3.5 acres from the Chester land. I hope it is, since I'm now going to spend some of my precious time researching him.

He, like Benjamin, was one of the children of Christopher (aka Christian) and Elizabeth (Lortz) Bodamer. (For a little background information on those two, visit Christopher's entry on findagrave.com.)

George was born in Indiana on October 12, 1853 (Indiana Death Certificates) — about the time the family came to Lake County from New York. The 1860 Census records the family farming in Ross Township. I can't find them in the 1870 Census, but the 1876 plat map of Union Township, Porter County, shows them owning 80 acres:


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Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1876Plats/Union-1876.jpg.

And that is where the 1880 Census places them.

On June 3, 1885,[1] in Porter County, George Bodamer married Christina Frederika (Gross) Stoeckert, widow of George Stoeckert. The next record we have of them is the 1900 Census, which shows George and Frederika (or Freeda) owning a farm in Ross Township. To judge by their neighbors, it is in the vicinity of these Bodamer parcels that appear on the 1908 Plat Map:



All of this land (and more) had been owned by C.F. Bodamer in 1891, per the 1891 Plat Book.

The 1900 census shows George and Freeda with three children: Elizabeth (14), Christopher (12), and Henry (9).

In April 1901, Christine Frederika Gross Stoeckert Bodamer died.


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Hobart Gazette, Apr. 5, 1901.

I can't account for the six children mentioned in the obituary vis-à-vis the three in the 1900 census; the others were probably from her previous marriage.

On March 19, 1904,[2] George's daughter Elizabeth married Earl Blachly. (The marriage did not last.)

I cannot find George Bodamer at all in the 1910 Census. One son, Christopher, was farming on the old Bodamer place in Union Township, Porter County, living with his grandmother; the other son, Henry, lived in Wheeler in the home of a Walsh family and worked in a mill.

The "Local Drifts" in the Hobart Gazette of April 3, 1914, included this item: "James Chester has sold four acres off the old Flaherty farm to Geo. Rodamer for $525." If "Rodamer" is a misprint for "Bodamer," that could be our George. Looking on the 1908 plat map image above, we see below the Bodamer parcels two parcels belonging to Hy. Chester and T.&E. Flaherty. Henry Chester apparently bought those ten acres from a D. Flaherty around 1891 (1891 Plat Book). After Henry's death in 1910, his son James may have owned that land at the south end of S. Hobart Road.

Later that year, George's older son, Christopher, shows up in Michigan marrying a Lavina Hilliker.[3] It appears that Christopher and Lavina settled and lived out their lives in Michigan.

In October 1915, George's younger son, Henry, married Minnie Baessler. By the 1920 Census, the two of them were living in Gary, so Henry must be the son in Gary to whom George went with his ruptured artery in 1923.

I cannot find George in the 1920 census, and (spoiler alert!) he died in 1929 (Indiana Death Certificates).

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[1] Indiana Marriage Collection; other sources say June 4.
[2] Indiana Marriage Collection; March 23, 1904, per "General News Items," Hobart Gazette, Apr. 1, 1904.
[3] Ancestry.com. Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867–1952. Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics.

Ailanthus Webworm Moth

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This festive-looking moth gets its name from the behavior of its larvae. The caterpillars build a web in the Ailanthus tree (aka Tree of Heaven) where they all live together as they feed on the leaves and branches.

More pics here.

Running Earle's Mill

When I wrote about John Premer earlier, I noted that he gave his occupation in the 1850 Census as "miller." This page from the daybook I'm working on now shows George Earle hiring John in February 1850 to run the Hobart grist mill for him.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

In July 1850, for some reason the A. Spencer who'd been boarding George Earle along with the orphaned John and Philip Hodson "left keeping house," and his boarders had to find a new place to stay. John and Philip went to "Mr. Premer" — John Premer, I suppose, in the "miller's house" mentioned on the page above.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society. The "J. Butler day book" mentioned in this entry has not been digitized yet.

George Earle went to board with a Mr. Turner. I think that was probably J.L. Turner, whose name turns up in the ledgers a few times around 1850 and 1851, and whom we find in the 1850 census[1] in Hobart:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

Odd that the enumerator writes "Unknown" for all the family members' birthplaces. The Turner family is elusive: I can't find any of them before or after 1850.

As we've previously seen, by the time the 1850 census was taken in October, George Earle and the two orphan boys were back in the same household.


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[1] The enumerator recorded J.L. Turner's household right next to John Premer's, not that that proves anything.

Dwarf St. John's Wort

I am more accustomed to the larger version of St. John's Wort, so this had me puzzled at first just because it is so small. It has been growing all summer on the edge of my pollinator habitat and still is only a foot tall.


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Klan Labor-Day Theatrics

About two and a half acres of wooded land described variously as "the Mundell grove west of the city" or "the Mundell picnic grounds" or "the Mundell free camp grounds" lay somewhere on the 120-acre Mundell farm, which straddled Old Ridge Road in the vicinity of Strack & Van Til. In 1922 Joseph Mundell had opened up those two and a half acres for free use by the general public, whether area residents or passing tourists.[1]

On Labor Day 1923, two different organizations held gatherings there.

One of those organizations was the Ku Klux Klan. As many as 12,000 people attended the Klan picnic, which lasted from mid-morning until midnight. Out-of-towners came in automobiles or streetcars. The festivities included refreshments, speeches, songs, initiation ceremonies "amid flaming crosses," and a nighttime parade through downtown Hobart headed by an automobile decorated with a cross and American flags, and consisting of about 140 Klansmen and a band. As the parade was forming, a plane took to the air with a huge cross strapped to its underside, illuminated by red light bulbs. The plane spent about 45 minutes in the air over northwest Indiana. At a time when flying machines were still uncommon, that surely caught the attention of people on the ground.

Less theatrically and less controversially, the Modern Woodmen of America (a fraternal benefit society) held their picnic further south and east in the Mundell grove.

The Lutherans used the Yellowstone Trail campgrounds east of town.


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Hobart News, Sept. 6, 1923.


Hobart Gazette, Sept. 7, 1923.

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[1] Joseph Mundell, his bees, and his campground will be discussed in more detail in the near future.

Haying with Horses

These photos were taken in the summer of 1937 on the old Harms homestead. In the first one, we are near the barn on the south side of the road.


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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

Here are my notes based on what Eldon Harms told me about the photo:

The team is pulling a hay wagon. Note the ladder on the wagon: as the hay piled up on the wagon, you climbed the ladder to drive the team so that you weren't buried in the hay. The building in the background is the corn crib, which held the dried ears of corn on the cob that would eventually be taken to the mill in town (Hobart) and ground up for cattle feed.

The horses are Nel and Topsy. Eldon is at left. The two girls are probably his sisters. His father, Herman, is holding the reins.

In this photo, we are out in the hay field:



My notes based on what Eldon told me about it:

At left you can see the hay loader, which picked up the hay from the field and deposited it on top of the wagon.

When you cut the hay, you raked it into long windrows lying on the field. Then you hitched your double team to the hay wagon and drove them over each windrow — one horse on each side of the windrow — and the hay loader, attached to the rear of the wagon, ran along picking up the hay and dropping it onto the wagon.

In this picture Bud Ensign (at right) is driving the team, and Herman Harms, Sr., is raking the hay to distribute the load evenly over the wagon. The wheels of the wagon are just barely visible under the hay hanging down, and at the lower right of the photo you can see the horses' legs.

Bud Ensign's father had died, so Bud wanted to earn extra money to help his family; that is why he hired on with the Harmses. He was only 14 at this time.

The hay wagon could be converted into a box wagon, by removing the back section and attaching a box. That was more convenient for driving when you weren't carrying a load of hay.

We've already discussed how you got the hay from the wagon to the loft of the barn.

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I'm not sure if I ever asked Eldon who exactly "Bud" Ensign was; if he told me, I've forgotten.

Looking into the census records for a local Ensign boy who would have been about 14 in 1937, I find Richard Elden Ensign. We've seen Richard before, but I had his nickname down as "Dick." Perhaps a 14-year-old Bud might, within a few years, be able to make people call him a slightly more formal name.

Richard's father, John Ensign, had died in October 1935 (Indiana Death Certificates), leaving a widow, Goldie, with some half-a-dozen children, the youngest of which was about three years old.[1] And this was in the midst of the Great Depression.

Incidentally, John's mother had been Elizabeth aka Nora (Shearer) Ensign.


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[1] The 1930 Census and 1940 Census are not consistent regarding some of the children's ages.

Wild Indigo Duskywing

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Found this Wild Indigo Duskywing skipper on the privet hedge that separates my pollinator habitat from the road.

Drunks Upon the Streets

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Hobart Gazette, Aug. 31, 1923.

We do not know what the commentator meant by "formerly" — before Prohibition? two months ago?


In more constructive news, the Fifield ice-cream parlor has been doing very well, it seems.


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Hobart Gazette, Aug. 31, 1923.

Common Gray

What a talented designer can do with shades of gray, black, and white!


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At first I thought it was a Pale-Winged Gray, but someone on the IN Nature Facebook page who knows more than I do about moths thought otherwise.