Her Soiled Bedding

Last Sunday at the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society museum, we received some items from the estate of the late Jean Halsted. Among them was a book of handwritten probate records recording the settlement of local estates, mostly in the 1920s. Many of the names are familiar to me, from Hobart and from Ross Township. For example, I previously wrote about this young man's accidental death at the Hobart motorcycle racetrack.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.
I took this picture with my phone. I hope to get better images if I post any more of these.

I was surprised to see that Mary McAuliffe charged the estate quite a bit of money — $26 would be about $400 in today's terms (CPI Inflation Calculator) — "for bedding soiled by decedent, etc." He had lain in a McAuliffe bed for some 24 hours, until he died the afternoon following the accident[1]. New sheets circa 1919 cost about $2.00 each. This makes me wonder what the "etc." could have been.

Three doctors tried to save him, and failed.

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[1] "Dies as Result of Accident," Hobart Gazette, 27 Aug. 1920; also Indiana Death Certificates.

Two Bloody Days

Twice in two days — the last days of June 1921 — Dr. Jacob Ader and Dr. Dwight Mackey were called on to deal with the carnage of railroad accidents.


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Hobart Gazette 1 July 1921.

The following week's Gazette reported that Louis Hershall had died the afternoon of the same day. His remains were shipped back to New York.


Another story on the page above concerned the farmer-owned milk-marketing company, which was "in a bad way financially"; but the story gave no clue as to the reason — whether poor management, or the effects of the depression the country had been going through since early 1920, or some other cause.