Season's Greetings from Luxembourg, 1918

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Images courtesy of Marilyn Duran.

The Armistice was just two weeks old when George Bruebach, Jr., wrote these holiday greetings to the folks back home in Hobart.

The Girl in an Abandoned House

She was photographed in Chicago, probably sometime in the first decade of the 20th century, but she meant something to someone in Hobart, where this photo ended up …


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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

… but then again, she meant nothing to someone in Hobart, where this photo was left in an abandoned house, and found by Eldon Harms, whose employer had sent him to shut off the gas in that house so it could be demolished.

I can't date the photograph with any precision. Her blouse and the bow in her hair could date to anytime between the turn of the 20th century and World War I. The photographers, Fein & Schnabel, were in business at that address for over a decade: Chicago Photographers 1847 through 1900 shows them starting out in 1897, and a 1910 Chicago directory records them still working together at that same address.[1]

She wears a heart-shaped locket, just like Baby Les.

I don't suppose I'll ever know who she was.

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[1] The following year Jacob Fein, photographer, is listed at that address without reference to Schnabel, but that might not mean anything.

Baby Les, Bejeweled

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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

On the back of the original photo, someone has written: "Les baby picture," and since this photo was among those that had belonged to Lester Harms, I gather it's Lester himself. He was born August 10, 1904 (Indiana Death Certificates), and while the photo is undated, Lester appears to be perhaps three months old, which would mean the photo was taken in the autumn of 1904. The photographer was August Haase.

Lester's parents, John and Sophia (Schavey) Harms, have dressed their baby very nicely — just to have his photo taken, or was there some special occasion that this portrait commemorates?

He wears a ring on one finger of his right hand, and a heart-shaped pendant (a choking hazard, but they didn't think about things that way in 1904).

He is staring straight at the camera with such a look of curiosity!

Independence Hill Fire Department 1946-1947

The volunteer fire department of the Independence Hill area of Merrillville got up a little booklet in 1946 as a means of raising funds for equipment or supplies.


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They sold advertising space to local businesses (going as far east as Ainsworth's The Pantry, even) and then, I suppose, distributed the booklet around the community. The booklet includes lists of active firemen and charter members, as well as a brief history of the fire department and photographs of its officers.

I have scanned the entire booklet and you may view it here.

This particular copy comes from the estate of Dr. Doris Papke Blaney via the Hobart Historical Society, which passed it along to the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society (in the belief that the latter was more properly concerned with Independence Hill).

In the online files of The Times, I found an informal history of Independence Hill written by Bruce Woods in 2008.