Eight or ten years ago, a long-time Hobartite told me a story about something that happened near Ainsworth, back (as she recalled) in the late fifties or early sixties: a rumor had started somehow that a man who lived down on County Road K (now known as South Hobart Road or Randolph Street) was keeping a woman's dead body in a glass coffin in his house, so people started driving by the house trying to catch a glimpse of the glass coffin.
When I mentioned the story to Eldon Harms, he recalled the incident, and even showed me where the house in question had been. I took away the impression that it was just a matter of some bored teenagers acting silly, so I was surprised to find not only that the glass-coffin madness had earned a mention in the
Gazette, but that I had underestimated its magnitude …
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Hobart Gazette, 5 Oct. 1961.
… and I was shocked by the tragic way it all ended.
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Hobart Gazette, 12 Oct. 1961.
Stories about Stanley Wiernasiewicz's suicide and the bizarre events that led up to it appeared in newspapers as far away as Texas and California.
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These articles have prompted me to take a closer look at the area where all this happened.
On this screenshot from the Google satellite view on the area, the arrow marks approximately where Eldon said, "Here!" as we were driving down the road:
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Image from Google.com/maps.
The
1939 Plat Map shows the original Wiernasiewicz farm of 34 acres, purchased in April 1930 from John Bodamer.
[1] Later, the family would also buy the 40 acres across the street.
[2]
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The 1930 purchaser, technically, was Mary Wiernasiewicz. The plat map shows the owner's first name as Chester. I have tried and failed to identify a Chester among the Wiernasiewiczes. I suspect that might be an error on the part of the plat-map maker.
Here is the farm in a 1939 aerial photo (I hope I got the boundaries right):
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For the first time since I started researching Ainsworth history, I have looked into the Wiernasiewicz family. The research wasn't easy: in dealing with a last name like Wiernasiewicz, you naturally get alternate spellings and mistranscriptions. (In fact, one member of the family ended up amputating all but the first syllable of his surname, to make his own life easier, I suppose.)
It appears this family included some
interesting people — interesting and enterprising; perhaps a bit too enterprising.
The story begins with Andrew Wiernasiewicz and Mary Fusko, who both came from Poland, but separately: she in 1900 at about 6 years of age, he in 1902
[3] when he was about 13, according to the
1930 Census. They were married circa 1910 (I can't find the record), possibly in Pennsylvania, where their first son, Stanley, was born. By 1913 they had come to Indiana. The
1920 Census shows them living at 1949 Virginia Street in Gary, now with another son, Michael, born in 1913.
[4] (In 1916, they had had a little girl, Aniela, who lived only a few months.) Also in their household in 1920 was a roomer, another Polish immigrant who, at the age of 86, was still working in a steel mill. Andrew worked in a steel mill too. Mary's occupation is given as "none"; however, three years later we find her operating a "soft drink parlor":
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The Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 14 Apr. 1923.
The 1930 census shows the Wiernasiewicz family living at 1837 Virginia, with yet another son, nine-year-old Walter, as well as two roomers. Andrew worked as a machinist in a bolt factory. Mary managed a grocery store.
Andrew may have had a side job, if this is our guy (and I can't find anyone else by that name in Gary):
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"Gary," The Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 14 Apr. 1923.
In April 1930, as we know, the farm on County Road K had been purchased. But it doesn't look as if the Wiernasiewiczes became full-time farmers. A 1935 Gary directory shows the family both living and operating a grocery store at 1839 Virginia Street. They may have rented their farm out, or hired someone to run it for them.
In spite of the repeal of Prohibition, Mary still found ways to violate liquor laws.
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The Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 23 Dec. 1935.
The
1940 Census records the family still in Gary. It doesn't say anything about Andrew's or Mary's occupation, but I find it difficult to believe that they were idle. Stanley was working in a steel mill, Mike bartending in a tavern, and 18-year-old Walter was described as a "New Worker" (meaning, I believe, that he was an inexperienced person in search of a job).
In 1946 we come across a previously unheard-of Wiernasiewicz who followed the family tradition of running afoul of liquor laws:
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The Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), 15 Oct. 1946.
Lily Ann turned out to be Walter's wife, or possibly at this point his live-in girlfriend using his last name — the only record of I can find of Walter Wiernasiewicz marrying a Lily Ann (maiden name Brewer) comes in 1953.
[5]
When Mary Wiernasiewicz died in 1948, her address, and Andrew's, were given as Rural Route #2, Hobart (
Indiana Death Certificates), which sounds like the farm on "County K." And that is where Andrew and two of his sons, Stanley and Michael, were living when the 1950 census came around.
The census records Walter and Lily, along with a 70-year-old lodger but no children, living in a separate household on what sounds (per the enumerator's notes) like the same road as the Wiernasiewicz farm. Walter described himself as a farmer. By 1950 the family had bought the 40 acres across the road from their original 34 acres, which may account for the separate households.
In 1951, Michael died at the age of 37, unmarried and with no children I know of. Andrew's being named as the informant on Michael's death certificate is his last appearance in any record I can find. I suspect that Andrew died sometime between 1951 and 1961. When Stanley died in 1961, it was not his father who reported his death and applied for a veteran's grave marker, but his brother (going by the name Walter Weir). No news story mentions Andrew. I cannot find Andrew's death certificate; it may be among the illegible ones listed on Ancestry.com, or the name may have been hopelessly mistranscribed.
Andrew probably lies in Calvary Cemetery with the rest of his family, though perhaps in an unmarked grave. If Stanley ever got his veteran's marker, it hasn't been photographed for
findagrave.com.
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[1] "Real Estate Transfers," Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 14 Apr. 1930.
[2] I believe the "L.E. Nelson" who owned that 40-acre parcel in 1939 was someone we've met before: Lovisa Elizabeth (Chester) Nelson.
[3] Sources vary on this.
[4] I got his birth year from his death certificate; the 1920 enumerator appears to have been confused. It is possible that Michael sometimes went by another name. I have found a 1913 birth certificate for a Jan Wiernasiewicz, born to Andrew and Mary the same day as Michael — but no birth certificate for Michael. I have also found a 1937 Gary directory listing showing an occupant of the Wiernasiewicz household named Joseph, which was Michael's middle name (per the death certificate). But no census calls him anything except Michael.
[5] Maybe they were divorced earlier and remarried in 1953. Unfortunately, I don't think the 1953 marriage lasted long, as Lily Ann Brewer shows up in 1954 marrying somebody else. But there is also a record of Walter Weir getting a license to marry Lily Brewer (both described as Hobart residents) in Berrien County, Michigan, in 1955 ("Marriage Licenses," The Herald-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Mich.), 28 Sept. 1955). Walter's 1980 death certificate describes him as divorced.
