Joshua R. Shedd, and Shedd-Related Tragedies

These two documents from the Jeremiah Wiggins estate tell us of some strange transaction whereby Joshua R. Shedd paid off Jeremiah's account to Robinson & Co.[1] and then filed for reimbursement by the estate.


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Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:

Jeremiah Wiggins Dr.
To Joshua R. Shedd

To the balance of account due the firm
of Robinson & Co. for merchandise — $5.09
Interest from June 5th 1837 to date .87
Lake C.H. Ia. March 2, 1939 $5.96

He was, in fact, reimbursed:


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Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:

Recd of the Clerk of the Probate Court of Lake County
the amount for my account of $5.09 originally due to
Robinson & Co. filed in the office of the said Clerk as a
claim against the estate of Jeremiah Wiggins, deceased.
March 2, 1839

Michigan City Ia. ) J.R. Shedd
Nov. 25th 1839. )

With a full name, including middle initial, not to mention two possible locations (Lake County and Michigan City), you'd think it would be possible to identify him, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. My best guess is that he was the Joshua Rundle Shedd who died in Cook County in 1854 and is now buried in the southern part of the city. But that's just a guess, based on his date of birth and the coincidence of names and middle initial. I can't find anything clearly tying Joshua Rundle Shedd to Lake County or Michigan City.

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However, in searching Chicago newspapers for any information about that Joshua Shedd, I came across a tragic story involving to the Shedd family of Deep River, so let us talk about them now.

William Henry Shedd was born in 1821 in Massachusetts. I know this from his grave marker. The record of his birth fails to include the date (but does mention an older brother named Joshua Rundle Shedd).


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Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook).

I can't find any record of him until a possible sighting in 1852, in California:


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Ancestry.com. California, U.S., State Census, 1852. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: California State Census of 1952. (microfilm, M/F 144, 6 rolls). Sacramento, California: California State Library.

The age is about right, the birthplace is right. Did our William get caught up in the Gold Rush?

If that's our guy, he left California very soon after being counted. The next record we have of him is in the autumn of 1853, when he married John Wood's daughter, Abbie.[2] William and Abbie had a daughter, also named Abbie, born in 1855. The following year, Abbie (the mother) died.

William married again, in 1859, to Josephine Blachly in Porter County. The 1860 Census shows William and Josephine, with their infant son, William, living in Union Township, while little Abbie lived with her grandparents in Deep River.

William Sr. gave his occupation as merchant. He may have been running his business in the village of Deep River. There was a mercantile partnership around this time, Shedd & Wood, operating in the area; we are told that George Wood, the fifth child of John and Hannah, worked for that partnership as a clerk "in a country store."[3] On this page from the July 25, 1861 issue of the Crown Point Register, we find both "Wm. H. Shedd, Deep River," and "Wood & Shedd, Woods Mills,"[4] offering patent medicines for sale:


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I have found such ads in the Register involving the name Shedd as early as 1859 and as late as 1865. By the way, I don't know which Wood was involved in the partnership; my guess is Augustus.

By the 1870 Census, William and Josephine, with sons William and Orton (b. 1861), had moved to Watseka, Illinois. William gave his occupation as cabinet-maker. The two elder Shedds would live out the rest of their lives in Watseka, and are now buried there.

The tragic story I mentioned above involves the eldest son, William Joshua Shedd:


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Blue Island Sun-Standard (Blue Island, Ill.), 30 Nov. 1922.


As you will note, the article mentions his birth in Deep River, Indiana. It also mentions that this was not the first such tragedy in the family.


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[1] We will speak of Robinson & Co. in the future.
[2] Indiana Marriage Collection.
[3] Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed-Blanchard) at 718.
[4] "Woods Mills" being another name for the village of Deep River, along with "Woodvale."

Ainsworth School-Year Souvenir, 1897-98 (Part 2)

(continued from Part 1)

As we now turn our attention to the pupils listed on the souvenir, I find there are more names here than I can index, so I'm going to have to split this up still further.


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I'll deal first with the names I've encountered before.

Blachly — Earl and May were siblings, the children of Morgan and Amelia. Earl had been born in 1882, May in 1884. By the way, I think the house at 4301 E. 73rd Ave. was the Blachly house, built in 1905[1] to replace whatever the family had been living in until then.

Bullock — Hubert probably met up with the Blachly kids as he walked down from the Bullock home, unless he walked along the Grand Trunk Railroad tracks or cut across the fields … but the latter would be some rough walking.

Chase — I thought this would be easy, since I know of a Chase (aka Chace) family recorded in Ross Township in the 1870 Census and 1880 Census, members of whom were residing in Hobart into the 1920s (Minnie Chase Smith and Gust Chase). But I can't place Gracie in any census. She might not have belonged to the local Chases, but to some Chase family just passing through.

Coyle — Nina, Stella, and Arlie were the daughters of Ainsworth's postmaster, Frank Coyle. Nina, the youngest, was the only one born in Indiana (1892). Her older sisters had been born in Kansas. Why the family moved from Kansas to Ainsworth, Indiana, is a mystery, but I suspect it might have something to do with Frank's wife, Susanne, having been born a Chase — possibly she had some relation to the local Chases. The Coyle family left this area probably around 1904 (when Frank resigned as postmaster) and moved permanently to Kansas City, Missouri.

Halsted — Howard lived above the Ainsworth general store with his parents, Willard O. and Barbara (Fiester) Halsted. He probably was a promising student, since he went on to law school. As we know, he died before his time.

Kagabein aka Kegebein — Frieda lived on a farm north of Ainsworth. Her parents were John and Carolina "Lena" (Eick) Kegebein. Frieda was born in 1891. In 1911, she became Mrs. Albert Witt.

Maybaum — There were so many Maybaums around here that I can't keep them straight. These two, Louis and Hattie, were cousins, I believe. Hattie was the youngest child of Charles and Caroline, born in 1886. In 1907 she became Mrs. R.D. Sizelove. Charles and Caroline's (I believe) eldest child, August, begat Louis in 1891. The 1900 Census shows the family — August and Dora, with Louis and his two younger brothers, Harold and Clarence — farming rented land among southeast Ross Township neighbors such as Bragington, Campbell, and Doepping.[2] In 1916 Louis married Ruby Man in Porter County. By 1917 they had moved to Battle Creek, Michigan,[3] and by the 1930 Census they were running an "oil station" in San Antonio, California.

Ols — Edward was the grandson of John and Charlotte Ols, born in 1890 to their son, John Jr., and Alta (Whittemore/Whitmer). Based on the 1900 Census, I believe they owned the 80-acre parcel in the southeast corner of Section 7 that later passed to Henry Chester, then Charles Chester, then John Berndt. The census records after 1900 show Edward in various places like Starke County and Gary, Indiana; as far as I know he never lived in Ainsworth after the family sold their 80 acres.

Pierce — Ruth (b. 1882) and Jennie (b. 1884) lived with their father, Reuben, and stepmother, Catherine. Their mother, Caroline (née Kegebein), had died in June 1895, not quite a week after their grandfather, Orrin Pierce, who had owned the farm where they lived as far back as 1874:


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From the 1874 Plat Map.

I don't know what, if any, relation they had to their Pierce neighbors.

Ruth Pierce married William Kelleher in Chicago in 1908; they lived and raised their family in Chicago. All I know about Jennie is that she is buried in the Hobart Cemetery under her maiden name.

Smith — Pearl Smith was the adopted daughter of Cyrus and Ellen Smith. So she was also the adopted cousin of the teacher, Mabel Smith Peterson.

Wojohn aka Wojahn — Frieda, Emil, Gust and Paul were some of the children of Julius and Alvina Wojahn. These four were born between 1884 and 1889. We've already met another of their children — Elsie, who married Howard Shearer. The Wojahn family lived on Ainsworth Road just west of the Lindborgs.[4] The schoolhouse was an easy walk west.

[to be continued]

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[1] Per the county records; also in my notes I find a reference in 1907 to Morgan Blachly's "new" house being blown off its foundation during a storm ("General News Items," Hobart Gazette, Mar. 29, 1907).
[2] From that location, they may have been attending a different school, such as the Deep River school, or the Hurlburt school if it was still operating.
[3] "General News," Hobart Gazette, Dec. 21, 1917.
[4] I believe the house at 6222 Ainsworth was built for the Wojahn family, in 1930 according to the county records, so it would have replaced an earlier house.

Simeon Bullock and the Old Bullock Homestead

It's September 1923 and Simeon Bullock has left us.


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Hobart News, Sept. 20, 1923.

I did not know about his time in Alva, Oklahoma. That might help to explain why his daughter Jessie and her husband, Samuel Quinlan, lived there.

We have already met Simeon's widow, Abbie Wood Bullock, as well as his daughters — Jessie and Ida, and Carolyn (Carrie), who had died in 1917.

Simeon was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.

♦    ♦    ♦
This obituary clears up for me something I've been a little confused about: the old Bullock homestead where Simeon spent his youth is marked here, on the 1874 Plat Map in red:


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The land marked in green, owned also by Moses Bullock, was where Moses' son Gilbert later built the big house that is still standing, but apparently it was not where the original Bullock family lived. I'm glad I got clear on that point.

A few years ago, I received an inquiry about the house at 3720 E. 73rd Avenue, which I was not able to answer very well at that time because I did not have the legal description of the land it stands on. Now, however, I do have that description: "PT. N2.W2.E2.SW. … S.13 T.35 R.8." This description matches up with the western part of the old Bullock homestead. According to the county records, the house was built in 1900; but I am beginning to suspect that "1900" in county records is often code for: "The house was built a long time ago, but nobody knows exactly when."

The earliest purchase I can find relating to the old Bullock farm, in Early Land Sales, was by Elizabeth Ayers, who bought the west half in September 1851. She was probably married to the Nathaniel Ayers who bought part of the east half in 1852.

Here is the Ayers family in Ross Township in the 1850 Census:


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Comparing the names of their neighbors to names in Early Land Sales, I am inclined to think they were in the area of their 1851 and 1852 purchases. Since I can't find the Ayers family in the 1860 Census, I don't know how long they stayed in the area. Perhaps they sold their land directly to the Bullocks in 1860.[1] The Ayerses soon migrated completely out of our story, traveling west to Oregon by 1870 and to California by 1900.

The Bullocks owned the land through 1874, as we've seen on the plat map above. Moses Bullock died in 1873. The 1891 Plat Book shows the west half of the old Bullock land being owned by "A. Bullock" — perhaps Moses' widow, Amanda, or his son, Asa.

The eastern half of the land had been purchased by Morgan Blachly, probably around 1883, from what we know of him. By 1908 (per the 1908 Plat Map) he had also purchased the western half of the old Bullock homestead (in addition to other adjacent land; he owned a parcel totaling 256 acres).

Here is the old Bullock homestead in the 1926 Plat Book:


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The west half was owned by two sons of Morgan and Amelia Blachly: Walter and Earl. (I don't know much about Clarinda Hayden except that she apparently lived in Cedar Creek and West Townships at various times, but I can't find her ever living in Ross Township.)

Here is the old Bullock homestead in 1939 Plat Book:


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I've found William and Iva Kuntz, owners of the east half, in the 1940 Census, but I can't identify the owners of the west half, Steven and V. Kovac.

The 1950 Plat Book shows the same ownership.

Here is the 1972 Plat Book:


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It's still recognizable as the old Bullock farm, though it's lost a few acres on the north. The person who inquired about the house at 3720 E. 73rd told me his parents bought it from an older couple by the name of Walsh, who may be the Walshes shown here. Hartcock, I believe, is a misspelling of Hartsock; see Jones Hartsock's death certificate:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

1972 is the most recent plat map I have.

Here is my attempt to outline the old Bullock farm on a screenshot from the Lake County GIS site:


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[1] Simeon's obituary suggests it was 1862 when the Bullocks moved here from LaPorte, but they are recorded here in the 1860 Census, and Moses Bullock's bio tells us that he bought his farm in 1860.

The Hay Press and George Bodamer

Hay press runs over George Bodamer, ruptures an artery in his leg. If it was the femoral artery, he could easily have bled to death. He gets first aid, then — goes to the hospital? Not George!


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, Sept. 7, 1923.

I think this is the George Bodamer who first separated my 3.5 acres from the Chester land. I hope it is, since I'm now going to spend some of my precious time researching him.

He, like Benjamin, was one of the children of Christopher (aka Christian) and Elizabeth (Lortz) Bodamer. (For a little background information on those two, visit Christopher's entry on findagrave.com.)

George was born in Indiana on October 12, 1853 (Indiana Death Certificates) — about the time the family came to Lake County from New York. The 1860 Census records the family farming in Ross Township. I can't find them in the 1870 Census, but the 1876 plat map of Union Township, Porter County, shows them owning 80 acres:


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Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1876Plats/Union-1876.jpg.

And that is where the 1880 Census places them.

On June 3, 1885,[1] in Porter County, George Bodamer married Christina Frederika (Gross) Stoeckert, widow of George Stoeckert. The next record we have of them is the 1900 Census, which shows George and Frederika (or Freeda) owning a farm in Ross Township. To judge by their neighbors, it is in the vicinity of these Bodamer parcels that appear on the 1908 Plat Map:



All of this land (and more) had been owned by C.F. Bodamer in 1891, per the 1891 Plat Book.

The 1900 census shows George and Freeda with three children: Elizabeth (14), Christopher (12), and Henry (9).

In April 1901, Christine Frederika Gross Stoeckert Bodamer died.


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Hobart Gazette, Apr. 5, 1901.

I can't account for the six children mentioned in the obituary vis-à-vis the three in the 1900 census; the others were probably from her previous marriage.

On March 19, 1904,[2] George's daughter Elizabeth married Earl Blachly. (The marriage did not last.)

I cannot find George Bodamer at all in the 1910 Census. One son, Christopher, was farming on the old Bodamer place in Union Township, Porter County, living with his grandmother; the other son, Henry, lived in Wheeler in the home of a Walsh family and worked in a mill.

The "Local Drifts" in the Hobart Gazette of April 3, 1914, included this item: "James Chester has sold four acres off the old Flaherty farm to Geo. Rodamer for $525." If "Rodamer" is a misprint for "Bodamer," that could be our George. Looking on the 1908 plat map image above, we see below the Bodamer parcels two parcels belonging to Hy. Chester and T.&E. Flaherty. Henry Chester apparently bought those ten acres from a D. Flaherty around 1891 (1891 Plat Book). After Henry's death in 1910, his son James may have owned that land at the south end of S. Hobart Road.

Later that year, George's older son, Christopher, shows up in Michigan marrying a Lavina Hilliker.[3] It appears that Christopher and Lavina settled and lived out their lives in Michigan.

In October 1915, George's younger son, Henry, married Minnie Baessler. By the 1920 Census, the two of them were living in Gary, so Henry must be the son in Gary to whom George went with his ruptured artery in 1923.

I cannot find George in the 1920 census, and (spoiler alert!) he died in 1929 (Indiana Death Certificates).

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[1] Indiana Marriage Collection; other sources say June 4.
[2] Indiana Marriage Collection; March 23, 1904, per "General News Items," Hobart Gazette, Apr. 1, 1904.
[3] Ancestry.com. Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867–1952. Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics.

Charles Chester and the Unsatisfactory Tractor

In the year between July 1922 and July 1923, Charles Chester's tractor had gone from the EJ&E right-of-way to the Indiana supreme court.


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Hobart News, July 26, 1923.

In the column to the right of that story, Charles' sister, Carrie (Chester) Raschka, is selling a canary warbler; let's hope nobody takes her to court over that.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Back in September 1916, Kenneth Humes had lost a finger to farm machinery on a Blachly farm. More than six years later, his suit for damages was finally being heard.


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Hobart News 11 Jan. 1923.

After several hours' deliberation, the jury would award Kenneth $100 and his costs ("Local and Personal," Hobart News 18 Jan. 1923).


Elsewhere on the page above we find Herman Harms, Jr., aka "Bud" — about four years old — sick with pneumonia at his maternal grandparents' house. His own parents, having been ill so recently, might have found it difficult to care for him.

Among the deaths reported in the right-hand column was that of the infant son of John and Goldie Ensign who had probably been named for his Uncle Walter. According to his death certificate, little Walter was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, but it seems that his grave is unmarked.

A New Feedstore and an Old Homestead

When I wrote about the 1910 death of Morgan Blachly, I didn't know the 1908 Plat Map existed, so I could not credit him with more than the 180 acres shown in the 1891 Plat Book … but now I know that the Blachly farm comprised 256 acres by 1908. After Morgan died, the land apparently was divided up among his heirs, and his three sons farmed their share, or rented it out for others to farm.

In February 1922, as we've seen, Earl Blachly announced that he had sold his share of the old homestead, but did not identify the buyer.

Now in September 1922 we have this announcement of a new feed store in Hobart, one of the owners of which had "last spring … bought the Morgan Blachly homestead."


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Hobart Gazette 15 Sept. 1922

I believe I've identified him as Mark Pembor, born in Massachusetts on July 7, 1880. The earliest I can connect him to this area is December of 1911, when he married Esther Denton in Lake County, Indiana. (Why there, I do not know; Esther was a Chicago resident in 1910.) While my 1927 telephone directory lists a number for his "farm residence," I can't otherwise establish that the couple ever lived there. In 1920 they lived in Chicago; I can't find them in 1930; and Mark's death in 1933 happened in Chicago.

Mark and Esther are buried in (of all places) Frankfort, Michigan.

♦    ♦    ♦
The "Local Drifts" on the Gazette page above includes a few items about acquaintances of ours — the family of Dalia Messick moving from one unknown place to another; William Rossow loving the improvements on Lincoln Street; and George Rhodes moving to Cleveland Avenue, somewhere east of Illinois Street.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths Index.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ WWI Draft Cards.

Here's What I Think of That Tractor!

Sometime in 1917, it seems, Charles Chester bought a tractor from Justin B. "Jud" Blachly on credit. When the tractor failed to meet his expectations, Charles refused to finish paying for it, thus setting in motion legal proceedings that came to trial in the summer of 1922. At some point between the purchase and the trial, Charles publicized his dissatisfaction by abandoning the tractor on the EJ&E right-of-way, according to the News:


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Hobart News 6 July 1922.

… Meanwhile, brother James, the quiet Chester, went about peacefully trading in used furniture.


Additional Source: "Bank Gets Judgment." Hobart Gazette 7 July 1922.

Back in '02, When the Vincent School Burned

Here's an interesting little event that I didn't know enough to pay attention to the first time I was reading through the 1902 microfilm.


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Hobart Gazette 28 Feb. 1902.

So when Gust Lindborg "bought the old Sullivan schoolhouse" in 1912 — assuming "Sullivan" and "Vincent" are two names for the same school — it wasn't really all that old, was it? — nine or ten years.

The property records for the former Vincent schoolhouse still standing at Clay St. and Harms Rd. give a construction date of 1925. If that's correct (and assuming Sullivan = Vincent), why was the Vincent school building available for purchase in 1912? Were they building a new wooden one then? This is getting complicated.

I wish the story had identified "Miss Burge" better. In the 1900 Census, (Winfield) Scott and Mary Burge had six daughters and two sons living at home. I suppose either of the two eldest daughters, May (born circa 1881) and Bertha (born circa 1882), could have become a teacher by 1902, and maybe even the next eldest, Libbie (born ca. 1885). The census shows the Burges owning their own farm; my guess at its location is marked on this image from the 1908 Plat Map, which also shows how conveniently close for the burned-out students the Goodrich house was.


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The yellow X marks the present location of the brick house that used to be the Vincent schoolhouse. This map places the 1908 schoolhouse* on the north side of present-day E. 83rd Ave.

The Goodriches were Charles and Caroline. They had five children of their own who likely attended the Vincent school: Cora, Ida, Arthur, Clarence, and Harold. (The two youngest would later go to war, and Harold would not come home.)

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*Which would be the one that ended up as the Lindborg home on Ainsworth Road, as I currently understand it all.

Ninth and Lincoln, Fifth and Lake

The "Local Drifts" in the Hobart Gazette of April 7, 1922, reported on a child's birthday party in the Briney house, on the northwest corner of Ninth and Lincoln, which is for sale these days.


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Hobart Gazette 7 Apr. 1922

Earl Blachly, who recently sold his farm, is opening an auto repair shop at Fifth and Lake, which sounds like the old German Methodist Church building. The 1922 Sanborn map confirms that the building was being used then for auto repair.


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Image courtesy of the Sanborn Company and Indiana University.

According to Hobart's Historic Buildings by Elin Christianson, the building had ceased to be a church in 1914 and was bought first by the town of Hobart, and then (in 1916) by L.E. Barnes, who leased it out to a laundry business. "The old church was used for commercial purposes for many years" — now we know another of those purposes.

Also, over in the "All kinds of Wants" column, someone is selling Rhode Island Red eggs, and that someone has Lovisa Nelson's phone number.

The Vote of the Ladies Is Respectfully Solicited

Several acquaintances were running in the primary election in the spring of 1922, and every candidate was asking for the vote of the recently enfranchised women. Earnest Walter was the father of the Walter Bros. Robert Harper lived near Ainsworth and, last I heard (1917), served as its marshal. John Harms lived on Cleveland Avenue and was part of the large Harms family that populates this blog.


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Hobart News 23 March 1922.

The "Local and Personal" column is crammed with people we know. The John Crisman, Jr. with rheumatism may be Dorothea's father … or perhaps her 16-year-old brother. Earl Blachly and his second wife, née Annie Witt, had recently shed all their farming-related possessions. Mrs. William Killigrew and Mrs. Dwight Mackey had grown up east of Ainsworth as Etta and Ruth Bullock. And apparently Otto and Lesta (Raschka) Maicke have moved back to Ainsworth, after living in Hobart for some time.

Earl Blachly Quits Farming

Earl Blachly has been going back and forth between farming and other work; the last time we saw him, in October 1919, he was back to farming. Now, in February 1922, he's getting out of it again, and this time he sounds serious.


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Hobart News 23 Feb. 1922.


In the "Local and Personal" items, one of Charles and Constance Chester's daughters is ill; she isn't named, and I believe all their daughters had married and moved out. The illness must have been pretty serious if she had to come back to her parents' home for care.

Elsewhere, we learn that John and Lulu (Strong) Aley had left Hobart sometime after their marriage in 1919 and gone to live in Argos, Indiana. I wish I knew what a "nervous breakdown" was, in the terminology of the day. The condition was not uncommon.


Additional Source: "Public Sale." Hobart Gazette 24 Feb. 1922.

Walter Blachly Quits Farming

I believe that now — February 1922 — is the first time Walter Blachly has quit farming, unlike his brothers, who made a hobby out of quitting farming.


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Since their daughter, Mildred, had married in September 1920, Walter and Eva Blachly had only one child remaining at home: their son Wilbur, who was now about 10 years old.

Apparently they sold only the farm's contents, not the land, as the 1926 Plat Map shows W. & E. Blachly owning 77 acres west of Ainsworth on the Lincoln Highway.

After the sale, the family moved to "one of the Anders flats on South Main street" in Hobart.


Sources:
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 9 Feb. 1922; 23 Feb. 1922.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart News 9 Feb. 1922.

Charles Popp and a Series of Dances

I believe this is the first I've seen of Charles Popp doing anything in Ainsworth: a series of dances in the Ainsworth hall, which I suppose means Gust Lindborg's dance hall.


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"Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 18 Nov. 1921.

The identity of the members of the Bruebach orchestra is a mystery, though I'm assuming it was named for one or more members of the George and Eliza Bruebach family of Hobart, whose mausoleum graces Crown Hill Cemetery. An item in 1912* described the orchestra as having three members, which might mean George Sr. and his sons, George Jr. and Paul; or it might just mean one of the Bruebachs led it.


In other news, Harvey Carey (former Ainsworth-area resident and stepson of Augusta Stolp Rossow Carey) is renting his Wheeler farm to some guy who had somehow got onto the Blachly farm earlier without me hearing about it.

And as for the birthday party for Mary Passow (who had told the 1920 census-taker she was only 89), I suppose it would be Bertha Ols, aka Mrs. Henry Ols, who baked the cake.

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*"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 25 Oct. 1912.

South of Deepriver

It was probably a postcard or telegram with words to the effect of "If you want to see your brother alive, come home," that brought William Guernsey back from West Virginia to visit Harold, whose condition was deteriorating.


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Hobart News 3 Nov. 1921.

The rest of the "South of Deepriver" column was happier.

The "Local and Personal" columns included a visit from "Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Hile" — she being the former Louise Halladay. Amelia Blachly is home from a visit to her son, who, I believe, was living on the Lincoln Highway between Ainsworth and Merrillville. And the "Hobart band" — the high-school band, I suppose? — is performing to raise money for the W.G. Haan school in Ainsworth.

Caroline Abel and Her Carpenters

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From the Hobart Gazette 1 Apr. 1921.

Aside from being an early settler, Caroline (Feiler) Abel was the wife and mother of carpenters who were responsible for a lot of building in the vicinity of Ainsworth; my notes are full of "Contractor Abel" and "F. Abel" shipping lumber to Ainsworth and putting up this house and that barn in the surrounding area. Problem is, I'm not sure exactly which Abel is being referred to, since all these references are after the 1900 census, in which both Frank Abel, Sr. and his son, Frank, Jr., described themselves as carpenters. In 1910 they both described themselves as contractors doing carpentry work (Frank Jr. being married with his own household), and 16-year-old Edward Abel also called himself a carpenter.

Let's just take a look at what we can attribute to one or more of the Abels:

• Nov. 1901: "Walter Blachely [Blachly] will build an addition to his barn on the Mid Harper farm. Frank Abel sold him a carload of lumber with which to do the work."
• March 1902: "On Wednesday Contractor Abel began building a house for John Miller at Ainsworth, having the contract for the labor and the furnishing of lumber."
• April 1902: "Contractor Abel … has just shipped a carload of lumber to Ainsworth for C. Hill for repairs on a house and several outbuildings, which he will shortly build."
• May 1902: "Contractor Abel received another carload of lumber this week for his contracts. He is building an addition to the house of Wm. Foreman, south of Ainsworth."
• May 1902: "Contractor Abel has just shipped two carloads of lumber to Ainsworth to be used in a large barn that he will build for Frank Bayor…."
• June 1902: "Contractor Abel this week finished Fred Miller's new house at Ainsworth."
• September 1902: "An old-fashioned barn raising was held at John Gruel's yesterday and both of his new barns were raised. Quite a number from town attended. Contractor Abel is doing the carpenter work."
• May 1903: "Contractor Abel has had three cars of lumber shipped to Ainsworth, to be used in the construction of a new barn for Howard Smith who lives south of Deepriver."
• August 1904: "Contractor Abel is building the new Deepriver church."
• June 1906: "A week ago Contractor Abel began building a big barn for Chas. Sievert who lives southwest of town. The building will be 34 by 84 feet, with 20-foot posts."
• September 1906: "Contractor Abel has begun the erection of a new barn, 32 by 48 feet and 18 feet high, on the Mike Ormond farm southeast of Hobart. The dwelling is also to be raised about eighteen inches and a new addition built thereto."
• October 1909: "Contractor Abel who is building a new barn on the Kramer farm south of town hopes to have the structure completed within a few days."
• March 1911: "Abel & Sons have been doing a lot of repair work on the Chas. Chester farm near Ainsworth and are now doing work for Ed Batterman."

… and those are just the projects I happened to make note of over the years.

Frank Sr. died in 1915; Edward died in 1918; and Frank Jr. died in 1919 of tuberculosis.

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Just look at all those Ross Township names in the "Notice of Road Petition" on the Gazette page above. Many acquaintances, some farmers, some Ainsworth businessmen such as Gust Lindborg and Charles Goldman, and even William Wollenberg, who I suppose still owned the saloon building in Ross Township though he lived in Chicago.

I suppose the road in question is E. 101st Avenue.


Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ "Early Settler Passes Away." Hobart Gazette 1 Apr. 1921.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 8 Nov. 1901; 21 Mar. 1902; 4 Apr. 1902; 2 May 1902; 23 May 1902; 15 May 1903; 26 Aug. 1904; 8 June 1906; 21 Sept. 1906.
♦ "Hobart." Hammond Lake County Times 22 Jan. 1919.
♦ Indiana WPA Death Records Index.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 27 June 1902; 19 Sept. 1902; 29 Oct. 1909; 10 Mar. 1911.

Marriages and Other Transitions

Two young people with Ainsworth connections; two marriages.

After the coal-gas incident in 1917, William Gernenz was lucky to have a life to pledge to his bride in September 1920.

And Mildred Blachly had grown up on a farm near Ainsworth, a descendant of local farming families. Her grandparents were (the late) Morgan and Amelia Blachly, her parents Walter and Eva (Harper) Blachly.


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In spite of Anna Wesley's family being "well known people residing south of Ainsworth," I have not seen fit to mention them yet in the blog. I don't even have much on them in my notes. Let us hope this is because they lived quietly happy lives, not because I missed something juicy. It does appear that Anna's father, John, had lost his first wife (name unknown). In 1898 he married the 20-year-old Ida Sonntag, who became stepmother to John's three boys, the oldest of whom was about 13. Ida went on to bear him two daughters, Anna and Theresia. The Wesley land lay mostly at the intersection of (present-day) E. 83rd Ave. and Randolph Street — 40 acres on the northwest corner and 30 acres on the southeast corner, with another 20-acre parcel further south on Randolph. (Anna's oldest half-brother, Edward, had married Martha Sonntag's sister, Selma, in 1906.)

And so the newlywed Gernenzes settled down to farming near Ainsworth, and the young Kostbades took up residence in Valparaiso, washing their hands of both farming and Ainsworth.

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Another kind of transition — from life to death, or from death to life, by Frances Springman Schavey, without whom there would have been no Schavey envelope.



This obituary from the Gazette is a little confused — it was six sons and two daughters who survived her. [7/26/2013 update: more than a little confused, as it got her parents wrong too. Correction here.]

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Lastly, a mundane sort of transition: Amelia and May Blachly moved, yet again.


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The Gazette described Amelia's new house as "opposite the Hobart Lumber Co." (which was on the west side of Main, where the "lumber" part of Hobart Lumber is now). Two weeks early, Amelia had sold her home on Fourth Street, described as the former A.C. Thompson house, to one John Walsh.

Also note the item that mentions a couple of Dr. Clara Faulkner's relations by marriage. But Dr. Clara wasn't married anymore — not if I'm reading the 1920 census correctly. Sometime after the 1910 census, her husband, Samuel, vanished. I can't find him anywhere. I was hoping to see something in the local newspapers about the divorce (or death, if not divorce), but I haven't; either I missed it, or the incident was treated with unusual discretion.


Sources:
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Gernenz-Wesley." Hobart News 30 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Hobart Boy Marries." Hobart Gazette 1 Oct. 1920.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Kostbade-Blachly." Hobart News 30 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 16 Sept. 1920; 30 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 26 Oct. 1906; 8 Oct. 1920.
♦ "Mrs. Schavey Dies in Chicago." Hobart Gazette 1 Oct. 1920.

Twenty Years to the Day

Twenty years to the day after her husband died, Anna Harper went to join him. She had been a resident of Ross Township for at least half a century, yet her passing prompted only this brief mention in one of the Hobart papers.


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Anna had been born a Goodrich, so the two brothers were Levi and Charles; she married Middleton Harper in 1872. The home "near Merrillville" where she died was, I believe, the farm of her daughter Eva and son-in-law Walter, on the south side of 73rd Avenue west of Ainsworth — part of the old Morgan Blachly land. The land that had once been known as the "Mid Harper farm" was now the Sizelove farm.


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I had to go back and look at the 1900 microfilm to find out what kind of a write-up Middleton Harper got upon his death. It was more than Anna had:

Middleton Harper, a farmer near the Adam's school house in Ross township, died Sunday evening, May 6th, 1900, aged 49 years 4 months and 25 days. The deceased was born in Montgomery Co, Ind., but for the last thirty years had been a resident of Lake county. During recent years he had become very fleshy, so much so that he weighed over three hundred pounds, and as a result he became afflicted with fatty degeneration of the heart. The funeral service conducted by Rev. J.L. Greenway took place at the church in Merrillville on Tuesday, a large number of friends being present. The deceased was a good neighbor and was respected by all who knew him. He leaves a mother, wife and three daughters, also two brothers and one sister.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

And though at times impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,—

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.

The poetry is an excerpt from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Resignation." I shall have to wait until I retire from blogging and have some free time so I can go and check the Crown Point newspapers of 1920, before I make any remarks about Anna's family not being able to find any poetry for her.


Sources:
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ Indiana WPA Death Records Index.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 6 May 1920.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 11 May 1900.

Oil and Lumber andWhat to Do on Saturday Night

A couple more entries in the "Hobart in Epitome" series that I found mildly interesting — the first updating us on some old acquaintances, Lewis E. Barnes, Calvin C. Shearer, and William J. Killigrew.


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As for what to do on a lovely Saturday night in April … if you aren't afraid of catching the measles that are going around …


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Wings of the Morning had a fantastic story line and a handsome leading man.



(Click on image to enlarge)
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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In other old-acquaintance news, on April 19, 1920, Miss May Blachly bought the Louise Jacobs house and lot on Lake Street. Perhaps May was tired of living with her mother, or intended to rent out the house. Although house numbers were coming into vogue, this time no address was given. The Hobart Gazette described the house as being located "between the Fetterer and the Hancock property," which doesn't tell me much. My 1947 telephone directory shows a Walter Blachly living at 674 S. Lake Street; perhaps we shall find out if that had ever been May's house.


Sources:
♦ Advertisements. Hobart News 15 Apr. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal. Hobart News 15 Apr. 1920; 22 Apr. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 23 Apr. 1920.
♦ McDonald, J. Frank. "Hobart Lumber Company." Hobart News 22 Apr. 1920.
♦ McDonald, J. Frank. "National Oil and Supply Company." Hobart News 22 Apr. 1920.

The Race Car Driver Settles Down

Last we heard of Clifford Blachly, he was speeding around a track in Valpo, winning an auto race. Now, at the tender age of 20, he is settling down.


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From the Hobart News of 11 Dec. 1919.

The 1920 Census would show him living in Gary with his wife — who would that year give birth to their first child — and his parents, and working as a foreman in a steel mill. Sounds very responsible. I don't know if we'll hear any more of his racing cars, but in by the 1930 Census he had found a way to combine his love of cars with responsible wage-earning: he was a steel-mill chauffeur.

… Also, Eugene and Carrie Chandler are so excited about moving to their very own farm that they can't wait for all those fine buildings to be finished.

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As we continue following the unusual career of Ellsworth Humes, we find this in the "Local and Personal" column of the Hobart News of December 18, 1919: "Ellsworth Humes left last week to become advance advertising man for Harvey's Greater Minstrels. The show is now eastward bound, and will later go to the Pacific coast."

It's difficult to find any information about Harvey's Greater Minstrels. Here is a brief summary.

A minstrel show was something of an anachronism in 1919, as such entertainments had, since the turn of the century, been giving way to vaudeville and stage musicals, and now the movies were taking over the entertainment world.