Heartbreak, Nebraska

In our tracing of the history of the Harms farm on 73rd Avenue, we left off in May of 1869, when Jacob and Hannah Smith had just bought back the 80-acre parcel from the estate of their deceased son, Luther.

In October 1869, Jacob and Hannah sold those 80 acres to their only surviving son, Charles L., for $1400.


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

Charles, in turn, immediately gave his parents a lifetime lease on the northern half of that parcel, along with a pledge of support in the amount of $800, if needed.



Possibly Charles was farming the southern half for himself.

Not quite a year later, Charles gives up all ownership of the 40 acres his parents were farming.



From this transaction we learn that Charles, now about 33 years old, was a single man.

In 1873, Charles — who is now in Clay County, Iowa — sells the southern 40 acres back to Mary Chester (who, with her husband, had sold the land to Charles' parents in 1857).



Thus we learn that in the two and a half years between October 1870 and March 1873, Charles had found and then lost a wife. I have no idea who the wife was. I can't identify any record during these years of Charles' marriage. Of course, my galloping imagination races to the conclusion that he left Indiana to get away from the heartrending memories after his wife died. But he may have married her in Nebraska. I just don't know.

A year later we find Charles in Hamilton County, Nebraska, as he recruits James Sanders to collect his mortgage money from Mary Chester.



In 1876 Charles married Mary Jones,[1] who apparently had had an earlier marriage with at least one child (1880 Census). But previously Charles had entered yet another marriage, according to the 1910 Census, which notes that Charles was on his third marriage and Mary her second. So between 1873 and 1876 Charles may have suffered heartbreak yet again.

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Albert Van Doozer, who bought the northern 40 acres, is a bit of a mystery. We encountered him for the first time in my earlier post about the Smith family, when (for quiet-title purposes, I believe) he wrote letters saying that he had been "well acquainted" with the late Jacob and Hannah Smith and their late daughter-in-law, Sarah.

I don't know how he became acquainted with this family of farmers, or what he wanted with farmland: he doesn't seem to have been the farming type himself. Born in New York in 1838, he shows up in the 1850 Census as a city boy, living in Buffalo, New York. His father was a joiner. Then I lose track of him until 1866, when he marries Emma Bevans — but the marriage is recorded in both Lake County, Indiana and Cook County, Illinois.

Not coincidentally, I'm sure, this was the same Emma Bevans, or Bevins, who had appeared in the 1850 Census living in the household of Jacob and Hannah Smith. She was a native of Canada. How and why did she get to Ross Township, Indiana, and into this particular household? I have no clue.

In the 1880 Census, Albert and Emma were living in Chicago and he worked as a shoemaker. By 1900, they were living in Wheatfield, Jasper County, Indiana; Albert described himself as a watchmaker. Ten years later, in the same town, he owned a jewelry shop. In 1920, at the age of 81, he was still a jeweler, still making watches, but Emma had died. Albert lived only three more years and was probably making watches to the end.


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[1] Ancestry.com. Nebraska, U.S., Select County Marriage Records, 1855-1908 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2017.

More Grabowski Photos (Calling All History Detectives!)

Teofil Grabowski's relatives in Poland have kindly sent us a few more photos of Teofil and his immediate family members. We do not have many details about these photos, but I'm hoping that might change once the history detectives who read my blog get their hands on them.

The first shows Teofil in a military uniform, possibly during World War I.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Aneta and Zenon Grabowscy.

In the lower right-hand corner is part of the photographer's imprint. The name looks like "Moffit" and the address "346 Morrison St." Unfortunately, our correspondents' original does not include the city and state. It could be a town in Indiana; or Chicago; maybe even New Britain, Connecticut; or near whatever training camp Teofil might have been sent to. (He shows up in the "Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940" on Ancestry.com, so he must have served in the military, but I don't have any details.) He was living in East Chicago, Indiana, when his WWI draft card was filled out.


The second photo shows a group at an orphanage that Teofil supported financially.



One ring marks Teofil, standing in the back row, with his mother, Marianne, seated in front of him. The other ring marks his daughter, Aurelia, in the front row. We don't know the name or location of the orphanage, but obviously it was Catholic. Aurelia was born in September 1922 and here she looks about six years old. That would date to photo to 1928 or so (which might explain why Wanda wasn't with them: she was at home with her new baby, Edwin).


The third photo we know nothing about.



A young-looking Teofil is marked in the front row. Based on the women's fashions, I would date this roughly to 1910, 1912, which would put Teofil in his early 20s. The Methodist Episcopal Church in the background is in the U.S., evidently, since its sign is in English, but that's all we can say at this point. In his early years, Teofil spent time in Indianapolis and South Bend, and probably in New Britain, Connecticut, as well; by 1916 he was in East Chicago. I can't even try to guess where this is.

James S. Sanders (Or Do You Spell It Saunders?)

Curious about the administrator of Luther Smith's estate, I looked into James S. Sanders and found that he was a long-time resident of Winfield Township and usually recorded as James Saunders.

He was born in Virginia in 1809. According to a family tree on Ancestry.com, by 1829 he had moved to Pennsylvania, where he married Mary Haines. The same family tree tells us that the young family left Pennsylvania for Ohio around the mid-1830s. Mary gave birth to a child in Ohio in January 1846, but early in May of the same year Early Land Sales, Lake County shows James S. Sanders buying land in Winfield Township, Lake County, Indiana: 160 acres in Section 16, along the Porter County line. The 1850 Census records James, Mary, and their eight children farming what seems to be the same parcel.

In December 1852, James purchased 80 acres in Section 5, and then in February 1854 another 160 acres — thus, the 240-acre farm we find on the 1874 Plat Map:


(Click on image to enlarge)

The Sanders home appears to be on the north side of 109th Avenue not far east of its intersection with Grand Boulevard. No trace of the home remains as far as I can tell. (As for the 1846 farm, it's now buried under the Lake of the Four Seasons development.)

Here the Sanders family was recorded in the 1860 Census and the 1870 Census. Around 1874, apparently, James got tired of farming. He and Mary moved to Jackson Township, Porter County, where James became postmaster in the village of Jackson Center and started the first store there in 1874, and ran it for a couple of years.[1]

But by the 1880 Census James and Mary had moved to Westville in LaPorte County, and James, now 72, served as a justice of the peace. Living with them was their 16-year-old granddaughter, Melissa Shaw, whose mother, Joanna Sanders Shaw, had died.

James died in 1891 and Mary in 1900.

One would think that Deer Creek Cemetery, the Sanders' neighbor for some 20 years, would hold much evidence of the family, but the only person by the name I can find there is Alma Sanders — about whom nothing is known but her name.[2] I do not know where Joanna Sanders Shaw is buried.

I have satisfied my own curiosity about James S. Sanders, estate administrator, and to judge by the family tree on Ancestry.com, this family has already been well researched.

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[1] Goodspeed and Blanchard (eds.), Counties of Porter and Lake Indiana (1882), p. 203.
[2] I haven't been out to the cemetery to find out why we know her name but nothing else. Perhaps there is a grave marker that is illegible (or blank) but for the name.