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Hobart Gazette, 14 Feb. 1963.
This story prompted me to look into Peter's background more than I ever had before. He was born Batestes Batistatos in Greece in 1893.[1] Sometime after coming to the U.S. around 1908,[2] he started Anglicizing his name. When he became a naturalized citizen in 1936, he officially changed his name to Peter Bates.[3]
The first record I can find after his immigration is the 1930 Census, where he is living in Hobart and running his own confectionery store. According to the Hobart Historical Society's 1979 oral history, Peter first operated in the candy store in the east side of the Guyer building, then moved to Main Street.
By that time he was married. I know very little about his wife, Lena. She was born in Canada in 1888, but I do not know her maiden name. She told the 1930 census enumerator that she came to the U.S. in 1921, and that she and Peter had been married around 1924. I haven't been able to find a record of their marriage. Her 1959 death certificate states that her husband, the informant, did not know who her parents had been. Her brief death notice mentioned a sister …
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Hobart Gazette, 23 July 1959.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.
… but since there was more than one Helen Harney in the Los Angeles area[4] in that time frame and I don't know which was Lena's sister, I can't use the sister as a source for Lena's background.
I don't doubt that Peter and Lena were still living in Hobart when the 1940 census came around, but I can't find them on Ancestry.com — probably a transcription issue. Peter's 1942 draft card lists his residence as 314 Main in Hobart.
They do appear in in the 1950 Census, of course, still living at 314 Main Street, where they operated their hotel and tavern. It does not appear that the couple ever had any children.
As we know, Lena died in 1959. Peter bought an ornate memorial stone for her.
Peter died in 1970:
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Hobart Gazette, 3 Dec. 1970.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.
The Hobart Historical Society museum has a file on him with several articles about his impressive collection of weapons.
The story about the robbers mentions someone else we've met before: Rex Roll. Obviously, if he lived at the Bates Hotel, he and Alice had split up; by that time, she might have already been married to her second husband. Rex, apparently, was not remarried.
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[1] Some sources give his birth year as 1895 (e.g., the 1950 census and his death certificate); his WWII draft card shows his date of birth as February 10, 1892.
[2] That is the date he gave the 1930 census enumerator. Ancestry.com turns up a record of a Batestes Batistatos arriving in New York in 1910 (INDEX TO THE NATURALIZATION RECORDS OF DUPAGE COUNTY, ILLINOIS. Lombard, IL: Dupage County (IL) Genealogical Society, 1999. 248p).
[3] Naturalization record per Ancestry.com.
[4] I think that for "Montre Park" in the obit we can read "Monterey Park."
