Season's Greetings from Luxembourg, 1918

(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Marilyn Duran.

The Armistice was just two weeks old when George Bruebach, Jr., wrote these holiday greetings to the folks back home in Hobart.

A Bruebach Family Portrait

I received this photo from a Bruebach descendant, who tells me that it shows a family group on the Bruebach farm circa 1912.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Photos courtesy of Marilyn Duran.

The extended and in-law Bruebach family at this time included an Abel as well as Manteuffels,[1] and probably other family names that I don't know about.

If this is the Bruebach farm, that must be the farmhouse in the background, and a very nice farmhouse it is. I can't match it up to anything still standing today; more's the pity.[2]

Only four people in this photo are identified, and here Marilyn has pulled them out to form their own little family group:



Clockwise from the top: Frank Abel, Jr. (b. 1880); his wife, Johanna (Bruebach, b. 1882); their son, Lester (b. 1911); and their daughter, Audis (b. 1907).

What strikes me is how unhappy both Frank and Audis look. Maybe they just didn't like having their picture taken; but then again, they might not have felt entirely comfortable among the Bruebachs. Unfortunately, Frank and Johanna's marriage was troubled. Later in the 1910s, their private drama would become public as the social columns of the local newspapers reported separations, reconciliations, and Johanna's filing of a divorce suit. Frank's death certificate (January 1919) describes him as divorced.

By then Johanna had taken the children and moved to Chicago. Marking the anniversaries of Frank's death through 1922, the local newspapers carried notices like this one:


Hobart News, January 22, 1920.


_______________
[1] Elise Manteuffel married George Bruebach, Sr., in 1887 in Chicago (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index), thus beginning what would become the Bruebach family of Hobart.
[2] Assuming some remodeling, it looks a bit like 10 N. Hobart Road, which was built in 1899 per the county records and is not on the former Bruebach property.

Where the Bruebach Farm Was: A Theory

Since I started researching the Bruebach family, I have been wondering where they lived. Newspaper items reference a farm, but I could not find any property labeled "Bruebach" on any plat map.

The reason for this, I have come to believe, is that the farm was too small to allow a mapmaker to write out the full name, and that the Bruebach farm is marked by the initials "G.B." on the 1908 Plat Map:


(Click on images to enlarge)

It's a parcel of probably less than 20 acres straddling Rand Street on the west side of present-day State Road 51.

Aside from the initials matching George Bruebach's name, what evidence do I have for my theory?

First of all, in the 1920 Census, the enumerator's notes place the Bruebach household on the "East Gary Road between East Gary and Hobart, Ind.," which describes S.R. 51.



That phrase could also describe Lake Park Avenue, I suppose, so let's look at the 1910 Census.



Of all the names recorded near the Bruebachs, only Larson also appears on Lake Park Avenue. I think the Jacob and Anna Haller below the Bruebachs show up on the 1908 map misspelled as J. & A. Keller, while Kostbade in the census comes out Kostbach on the map.

Also note that George Bruebach, Sr. was an electrician by trade, not a farmer, so he wouldn't need a lot of land.

In further support of the S.R.-51 theory, I offer early-20th-century newspaper descriptions of the location of the Bruebach home. The "Local Drifts" column in the Hobart Gazette includes a couple of items: in the July 7, 1914, issue: "Mrs. Frank Able [née Johanna Bruebach; married Frank Abel, Jr. in 1906] and two children spent Sunday with her parents northeast of town"; and in the September 29, 1922 issue: "Mr. and Mrs. Paul Bruebach, who live in the Lounsbury house, on Cleveland avenue, will move about next Monday to the home of his mother and sister, northeast of the city." I emphasize "northeast" because that direction more accurately describes S.R. 51 than Lake Park Avenue; the latter would just be "north."

In their obituaries of George Bruebach, Sr. (who died June 15, 1920), the Gazette states: "Fifteen years ago last April he purchased a small farm northeast of Hobart,"[1] while the News describes the farm as being "about two miles from town."[2] Measured on Google maps, the distance from the center of town to the Rand-S.R. 51 intersection (traveling by road) is about 1.77 miles.


So there you have my theory, and the evidence on which I base it.

_______________
[1] "Death of George J. Bruebach," Hobart Gazette, June 25, 1920.
[2] "George Bruebach, Sr. Expires Suddenly Tuesday Evening," Hobart News, June 17, 1920.

The Dunes Highway Opens

Construction on the Dunes Highway had started in 1922. By mid-November 1923, the Highway was ready to be opened to public use. The dedication ceremony would be attended by some prominent Hobart citizens.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, Nov. 9, 1923.

The following week's Gazette reported that the ceremony included an odd incident that was resolved with "a bottle" …


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, Nov. 16, 1923.

… which I'm inclined to interpret as a flouting of Prohibition, which (as we know) was not uncommon — but this case would be uncommonly open and public.

The "Local Drifts" of the same issue mentioned that "Paul Bruebach of this city was a member of Perry's Municipal Band that furnished music last Friday afternoon at the dedication of the Dunes Highway."

Incidentally, in spite of the November 9 issue's giving November 14 as the planned date of the ceremony, and the inclusion in the Route 12 Wikipedia entry of a picture of a historic marker also giving November 14 as the date of the highway's opening, the two November 16 items name "Friday," that is, November 16, as the date of the ceremony. So does this article from the Hobart News of November 22, 1923:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News, Nov. 22, 1923.

The "Local and Personal" column of the same issue mentioned a few more locals who attended the ceremony: "Paul Emery, W.J. Killigrew, Evan Roper, Leslie Walters, A.J. Smith, O.L. Pattee; and John Dorman and Alex Boyd of Ross Township."

In the November 22 issue above, an article in the second column to the right mentions a "Bootjack extension" that was planned to connect the Dunes Highway and the Lincoln Highway. An online article about the Lincoln Highway in Indiana includes a map from 1924 showing the "Boot Jack Corner" near Rolling Prairie, and even today in that vicinity there is an "East Bootjack Road." Add this to the collection of random facts I have learned accidentally since I started the blog.

♦    ♦    ♦
Also in the November 22 issue, we see an announcement of a law-and-real-estate partnership between F.E. Demmon and C.L. Fleming. We've already met Calvin L. Fleming, former cigar-maker and billiard-room operator, now concentrating on real estate. The lawyer would be, I suppose, Floyd E. Demmon, whom the 1920 Census records as a 28-year-old lawyer for an unnamed railroad, living on Cleveland Avenue with his mother-in-law, Harriett Mundell. Floyd had married Alice Mundell in 1918 (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index).

That Other Michael Foreman

Speaking of (apparently) unrelated local people with the same names, this "Michael Foreman" living "near Hobart" was not the Michael Foreman of Ainsworth.


(Click on image to enlarge)
"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, May 4, 1923.

Ainsworth's Michael Foreman was born in the U.S., and known as "Mike" mainly in newspaper items. In one census only (1900) he gives his name as Michael; all others record him as Helmuth.

The Porter County Michael's middle name was Helmuth, according to one source — his listing on findagrave.com — but I can't confirm that with any other source.

I myself got them confused at least once, when I noted down this item from the "Local Drifts" of the Hobart Gazette of October 30, 1908: "The Blake farm has been sold to Mike Foreman who lives on one of the Wolf farms." Now that sounds like the Porter County Mike Foreman.

I don't expect to trouble myself any further about the Porter County Mike Foreman.

Other items I have marked on the page above include a fire at the Mohl house — more commonly spelled Moehl. Back in 1921 when the Moehl houses were the subject of a legal dispute, they were described as being on Second Street, and I believe they were west of East Street. The Haxton creamery, as I understand it, is still standing on the east side of New Street, north of Third. So I'm a bit confused by the use of "adjoining" in this description. [Update: I was wrong about the former Haxton creamery's location; it stands on the east side of the alley between East and Center Streets, so the description in the newspaper item makes sense.]

The Mrs. Abel whose hospitalization is mentioned below that item was born Johanna Bruebach. She was the sister of Liza Bruebach and the widow of Frank Abel, Jr.[1]

♦    ♦    ♦
In the following week's Gazette, Helmuth "Mike" Foreman of Ainsworth had published this tribute to his late wife.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, May 11, 1923.


_______________
[1] His death certificate from 1919 gives his marital status as divorced (Indiana Death Certificates).

Easter Cantata

This public-sale notice has me stumped: I can't find a Doepping farm 3.5 miles southwest of Hobart, and I never heard of Nathan Bosen before.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 13 Apr. 1922.

The 1920 Census shows a Nathan Bosen in Union Twp., Porter County — a Russian immigrant working as a dry cleaner. If he moved into Lake County and changed careers, I didn't hear about it.


Less mysterious is the appearance of two members of the music-loving Harms family as soloists in the cantata performed at Trinity Lutheran Church on Easter Sunday 1922.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette 21 Apr. 1922.

I think Henry Harms was Henry Sr. (Henry Jr. was musical, too, but he lived in Chicago and likely had his own church to sing at on Easter Sunday.) Herman, of course, just drove up from the farm east of Ainsworth.

… and then, in the "Local Drifts" column, who should appear but "N. Bosen," presumably Nathan Bosen, who is now renting Elmer Arment's 20 acres and brand-new house on S.R. 51.

I am not sure whether Miss Elizabeth Bruebach was the lovely Liza whose photographs we've seen … but Liza, or Eliza, had been born in April 1890 per the 1900 Census (and her mother, née Elise Manteuffel, had married George Bruebach in 1887 per the Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index).

In the lower right-hand corner of the page above, we find an announcement that a League of Women Voters meeting will be held in Lindborg hall — the dance hall over the blacksmith shop.


Elsewhere in the same issue of the Gazette, we find "Lee & Rhodes announc[ing] that their drinking fountain is now in working order" — that would be the public fountain in front of their shop, I'm guessing, which likely had been shut down for the winter. I have lost track (if I ever knew) where Lee & Rhodes' shop was by 1922.

With a Friend Like This, He Didn't Need Enemies

The violent robbery of George Bruebach, Jr., is the most attention-grabbing story on this page …


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette 16 Dec. 1921.

… but we should also note the wedding of Irma Baessler to Helmuth Kasch, Jr.

Irma, about 20 years of age, was the eldest child of Michael (Jr.) and Emma Baessler, who had bought their farm on the Lincoln Highway in 1918.

I have not paid the slightest attention to the Kasch family yet, but in 1920 they were Ross Township residents, renting a farm that seems to have been in the general area of Clay Street and E. 83rd Ave. At that time the family consisted of Helmuth Sr. (45 years old), his wife, Emma (43), and their children, Helmuth Jr. (20), Edward (19), and Vera (16). Helmuth and Emma had brought their family to the Indiana countryside from Chicago. (Also in the household in 1920 were William Dewell and his little son Conrad. William's wife, Martha, who had died of the Spanish flu in December 1918, had been Emma Wischman Kasch's sister.)

Apparently, by December 1921 the Kasch family had moved to "the old Lincoln farm south of East Gary," which I cannot identify.

By 1930 the elder Kasches would be back in Ross Township. Helmuth Jr. and Irma became residents of Hobart.


Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Kase-Baessler [sic]." Hobart News 15 Dec. 1921.

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.


(Click on image to enlarge)
"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.

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

Auto Mayhem Report

Side by side in the Hobart Gazette of June 3, 1921, two happy escapes, and one sad ending:


(Click on image to enlarge)

The story on the left mentions the names without explanation, as if the Gazette's readers should know them, but I can't identify those exact people.

As for poor Dan Slachelska, he was indeed buried at Porter County's expense, in Crown Hill Cemetery. "It is said," the Gazette commented, "he possessed no means nor friends to defray burial expenses" — or to buy a marker for his grave, apparently, as none was found by the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society's readers. Unless some family or friends later turned up to claim his remains, perhaps he sleeps there anonymously to this day. ("Additional Local News," Hobart Gazette 10 June 1921.)

Liza Bruebach

From the steamer trunk.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images above and immediately below courtesy of E.H.

This striking young woman is Liza Bruebach. According to notes on the back of the original, the photo was taken circa 1911, at which time Liza was 27 years old.



I know very little about her. I can't find her outside the 1910 Census. I've been told by a relative that Liza was married and then divorced, but neither that relative nor I can find any documentation.

The Hobart Historical Society has another photo of her, undated, but judging by appearances I think it was taken some years earlier.


Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

She is so nicely dressed up that you'd think it one of those confirmation or eighth-grade-graduation* photos; on the other hand, would she strike such a casual pose for those important occasions? — that suggests quite a lively personality. If this was a confirmation/graduation photo, it would probably date to the late 1890s. The photographer can be placed at that address from 1886 to 1900.

♦    ♦    ♦
Liza now rests in the mausoleum of the Bruebach family in Crown Hill Cemetery, Hobart.




_______________________________
*I can't find any record of her having completed high school.