Death at the Rossow Crossing … Again

Two years after witnessing a deadly train-vs.-automobile wreck at the Pennsy crossing near his home on present-day Wisconsin Street, William Rossow was among the first on the scene of another, equally horrifying, at the same crossing.


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Hobart Gazette, June 22, 1923

This story establishes that it was indeed Herman Harms who bought the cottage being moved from New Street, although here its destination is given as the "H. & S. subdivision." So Herman, along with his father Henry, his father-in-law William Rossow, and his brother-in-law Ed Niksch (Miksch is a misprint) were at work on the house a short distance southeast of the Wisconsin Street crossing.

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An item in the next column to the right mentions the filming of a 1915 celebration in Hobart. That film still exists, I am told, somewhere in the archives of the Hobart Historical Society. It hasn't been digitized, and trying to run the original through a projector would be foolhardy. Someday, perhaps, when both the film and the money to digitize it are found, we'll be able to view motion pictures of Hobart in 1915.

In the right-hand column, we find T.H. Grabowski building an addition to his home — an addition that, fortunately, is identifiable on this current sketch from the Lake County Assessor's website.



This confirms what I conjectured: that the old Carlson house is at 6430 Grand Boulevard. Per the county records, it was built in 1879.

Finally, a new bridge was going up over the Deep River where Ainsworth Road crosses it, known as the Nolte bridge since the road passes through the Nolte property there. When I first moved out here in 1990, there was a metal truss bridge similar to the one at 73rd Avenue — I wonder if that could have been the 1923 bridge? It was replaced within about a year of my moving here, and I never thought to take a photo of it.

I am curious to know what sort of bridge was there before 1923.


Additional Source: "Two More Victims of Grade Crossing Saturday When Mrs. John Clark and Daughter Margery Meet Death," Hobart News, June 21, 1923.

Independence Day Parade

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Image courtesy of John Fleck.

This photo, showing the July 4, 1915 parade in Hobart, was sent to me by John Fleck, son of John and Daisy (Raschka) Fleck. He says that the driver of the car is his Uncle Bill Fleck, and the young woman in back is Mayme Brand, who would become Bill's wife in 1921.

Here is an account of their wedding, from the Lake County Times (Hammond) of June 23, 1921.


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Bill Fleck and his father-in-law, Henry Brand, were the Brand & Fleck who sold meat and groceries from the Guyer Building.

The car in the photo has been traveling west on Third Street and is turning south onto Main. Concerning the car itself (which can hardly be seen for all the decorations on it), John Fleck has some interesting tidbits for us:

That old car is a 1912 Michigan & belonged to my grandfather, Michael Fleck. The car sat in his barn on West Third St., Hobart until the 1970's — I saw it many times when I was a kid. The car was later bought and moved to Hebron where it remained until two years ago. It was purchased by a cousin and moved to California where it is being restored. There are only a few 1912 Michigan's left in existence.

I believe the manufacturer of this car was the Michigan Buggy Company.

[Nov. 2020 update] The current owners of the car in the photo above have a website dedicated to it and its manufacturer, the Michigan Motor Car Company, including a blog detailing the enormous amount of work that has gone toward restoring this individual vehicle: https://michiganmotorcar.com/

Air and Water

Henry Brand, a 51-year-old grocer from Hobart, went on a little vacation to Ohio in August 1919. He returned with a story to tell, and the Hobart News gave him credit for a "first":



The Gazette said, more moderately, that Henry "perhaps" was "the first or among the first Hobartites to fly through space."

It is a matter of interpretation. We know that George Severance, Jr. had learned to fly airplanes for the military some two years earlier, and had even survived a crash. However, though the Hobart newspapers seemed to treat George Jr. as a hometown hero, he was a Ross Township farm boy, technically not a Hobartite.

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And now we go from up in the air to down in the ground, as a town board meeting in late July resulted in a contract for some old friends of ours:

Supt.* reported a bid of $294 by Lee & Rhodes for furnishing all labor and tools in laying the Main street water extension from 6th street south about 600 feet, under and across the "J" tracks to 7th street. The town will furnish all material. The contract was let to Lee & Rhodes.

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"Supt." probably refers to Robert Wheaton, superintendent of Hobart's light and water plant.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Henry Brand Takes Air Trip in Bombing Plane at Dayton, O." Hobart News 7 Aug. 1919.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 8 Aug. 1919.
♦ "Town Board Doings." Hobart Gazette 1 Aug. 1919.