Schoolteachers, Fall Term, 1886

While searching for something else, I came across this mildly interesting list of schoolteachers in Lake County for the fall term of 1886.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Crown Point Register, 25 Nov. 1886.

"Names and addresses," it says at the top, so perhaps the towns are where they lived but not necessarily where they were teaching, although where they lived would seem to be less important.

Many of these names are familiar.

Among the teachers in Ainsworth, if Alice Palmer was living there she must have been teaching there as well; otherwise she would have stayed at her father's home in Merrillville.

I wonder if A.H. Swain was related to our 1904 Grand Trunk station agent, P.H. Swain? I can't find out anything about either of them.

The only Charles Jones I can find in the 1880 Census would have been about 19 years old in 1886 — old enough to teach school. His father was a farmer named James. His mother, in the 1870 Census, is named Eliza, but in 1880 she's Jennie. Stepmother, or just using her middle name? Eliza J. Jones shows up in the 1890 Plat Book owning 142 acres in Section 19. Much of that land, I believe, was later purchased by Michael Weiler. Beyond that, I can't find out anything about Charles or his family.[1]

Kate Marble was the daughter of Horace and Mary Ellen (Booth). In June 1887 she married John Wesley Ott.


I don't have the time or energy today to look into all the names listed under Merrillville and Hobart, many of which are familiar. I will just say that among the Hobart teachers, Mary Sullivan was known to all Ainsworthites, and the Gadsbys were a teaching family, as well as being active in the Union Sunday School: here George is listed with two daughters, Annie and Nettie.

Just for search-engine purposes, I will list all the Hobart, Ainsworth, and Merrillville surnames list that I haven't discussed: Booth, Collins, Cook, Davis, Flick, Frazier, Halfman, Kern, Nash, Parks, Pattee, Smith, Spencer, Spray, Zuvers.


_______________
[1] The 1860 Census shows a 25-year-old Jacob Jones working as a stagecoach driver and living with Lewis Merrill, stagecoach proprietor. The age is right for this to be our James, and of course James is the Anglicized form of Jacob.

The Willy Family

This photo of the Willy family, who lived on the farm under the big boxes, was taken in 1934.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Nick Hopman.

Here they are again with names:



Frank Sr. came up with nicknames for his wife and children. His wife, Catherine, was "Cattie"; Phyllis (born 1921) was "Pheidippides";[1] Bernice (b. 1922) was "Bunny"; Arlyne (b. 1924) was "Kayo"; Frank Jr. (b. 1926) was — of course — "Junior"; little Catherine (b. 1927) was "Coky"; and the baby of the family, Alice (b. 1929), was "Iggy."

Unfortunately, the names of the animals that Coky and Iggy are holding have been lost to history. I'm not even sure what kind of animals they are. At first I thought they were cats. Now I think they are puppies, but Coky's might even be a little kid.

_______________
[1] My best guess is that she liked to run around a lot as a toddler.

The Burge-Underwood House

The Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society museum has a three-ring binder labeled "Places" that includes numerous photos of local homes, farm buildings, and businesses, some of them identified more or less clearly, some not at all. One of the projects on my "when I have some time" list is to research the locations of the originals.

Among them was this photo, which looks as if it had been taken in the late 20th century (as opposed to early 20th/late 19th).


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

I had this filed as "Burge-Underwood house," so of course when I started researching the history of the Willy family farm and came across both of those names, I started wondering what the connection was. And when I received a photo of the Willy house, which looks similar (with differences that could be explained by half-a-century's remodeling), I jumped to the conclusion that they were the same house.

I was wrong about that. Looking more closely at the notes on the back of the museum photo, I find a different location specified: "Burge-Underwood House / 73rd Ave — next to town hall / 1976 / the right view."[1] What was the town hall in 1976 is now the historical society museum.

However, the house is still connected to the farm on Colorado because both were occupied by the same family for a time. According to A Pictorial History of Merrillville, the 73rd-Avenue house was built in 1880 by Winfield Scott and Mary Jane (Demmon) Burge. They lived there until, according to the book, Mary inherited a farm from her father, Julius Demmon, who died in 1898.[2] That was probably the Colorado-Street farm; so when when the 1900 Census recorded them there, they hadn't been occupying it for long.

After the Burges left the house in this photo shortly before 1900, A Pictorial History skips over the next 20-some years, and then tells us that in the 1920s it was bought by Frank Underwood — hence the "Burge-Underwood" appellation. Frank lived there for some time with two of his sisters, Clara Underwood and the long-widowed Mary Castle. "Frank, a confirmed bachelor for many years, startled the community when, at the age of 60, he took Mrs. Nettie Macy as his bride." (Nettie, a widow, married Frank in 1933, in Kankakee County, Illinois.)

I came across this item about the house in a 1937 newspaper:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hammond Times, Hammond (Ind.), 25 Aug. 1937.

The 1940 Census records them still in the 73rd Avenue house, apparently. Frank died in 1956. My 1958 Merrillville directory shows Nettie still at 15 W. 73rd Avenue. She died in 1965.

That is all the specifics we can find in A Pictorial History: after the Underwoods, "[o]ver the years, the house was rented or owned by several families." When Jan Clemens was writing up the first edition of the book, which came out in 1976, the Burge-Underwood house was still standing. She mentions that it was then owned by the Town of Merrillville and its fate was uncertain. But its fate was decided soon, I imagine — perhaps before the book was actually printed, since the Merrillville Public Works Department building, which now stands on the site, was built in 1975 per the county records. The house probably had to be demolished to make way for it.

Here's the site as it looks now, from Google street view (2019):


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Google.com.


The first photo I posted above was taken from the west side of the house. The Historical Society has another taken from the east — a negative, but with photo editing software, easily enough turned positive:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

In the foreground you can see the sign pointing to the town hall parking lot and entrance. The house stood very close to the driveway of the town hall (now the museum).

I wonder if those are the same asbestos shingles from 1937?

_______________
[1] The "right view" in contrast to the wrong view, which we also have: I think it's the same photo but printed backwards.
[2] Julius Demmon does not appear as owner of the farm on any of the plat maps I have, but he have might been if only the farm had been included in the 1891 Plat book.

Setting Sun Through Snow-Laden Branches(Random Pointless Photos)

Artsy cell-phone shot taken on a trail out back of Big Maple Lake.



Same place, same time: dog in blue boots.