A House on Lincoln Street

Out of the steamer trunk comes this photo:


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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

Handwritten notes on the back identify the house, though not the man in front of it.



I'm guessing the writer was Minnie Rossow Harms, and "Ma & Pa" to her were William and Antonia Rossow.

The stamp box style dates from 1910 to 1930 according to playle.com.

To me, this house looks a great deal like 726 Lincoln Street, with a little remodeling …



… but we've got a family story that would seem to have 726 Lincoln already occupied by October 1921. I shall be paying close attention to the 1921 newspapers for information about who rents the house, as it's possible for a family story to jump over a few months in another house. [Never mind about all that!] But for now I shall call this house, as well as the man in front of it, unidentified.

Fred Carbine

Well, guess what. Now I do know where the Hite cottage was, thanks to Suzi Emig's comment on yesterday's post:

My maternal g'father Fred Carbine was the youngest of nine children born to Christian and Caroline Kegebein. He married Anna Buchfuehrer. My mom was their youngest child born in 1921. She said they lived in the house in Ainsworth which is now 7237 Hwy 51 at that time. They moved to 756 Lincoln St. where they raised their family and lived until their deaths. My mom told me that the house originally did not have a basement, so it was raised up and a basement was dug out. I have many happy memories of that house and even got to see the inside with my mom years later when my neighbor's daughter bought the house. My grandfather as a young man worked for the Wood family in Deep River at their store, then delivered for Roper and Brown, so this was probably the grain dealer as per the blurb.

And furthermore she sent me this image of Fred Carbine with a horse-drawn delivery wagon:


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Image courtesy of Suzi Emig.

The photo is not dated, but may date to the time when Fred was employed at the Wood store, circa 1910.

From the Hobart News of 26 Oct. 1911, his wedding announcement:


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(I began indexing this family under the spelling on the grave marker at Woodvale Cemetery, but apparently the younger generation Americanized it, and I have seen "Carbine" used often in the newspapers. All the same, I'm not going to change my indexing.)

Fire in the Fields

"The month of July broke all records for heat and dryness," said the Hobart News of Aug. 5, 1921. So it's no wonder that sparks or cinders thrown off by steam engines were setting fires in fields beside the railroad tracks.


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Hobart News 4 Aug. 1921.

William Rossow's farm, of course, lay on the west side of Wisconsin Street at the crossing of the (former) Pennsy Railroad. Charles Chester's land was divided by the Grand Trunk Railroad, and if the fire was threatening the Shults oats, it was probably on the Chester land on the south side of the tracks.

And we already knew where Fred Carbein was moving from; now we know where he was moving to — more or less, since I couldn't tell you exactly where in Joryville the "Hite cottage" was.

What Dan Maybaum Had

Dan Maybaum, now living in the village of Ainsworth, had a car to lend, and $10 to help out a friend who got in trouble in the big city …


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… and land to sell:

Mrs. Chas. Henning last week purchased the house and one and a half acres of Fred Carbine at Ainsworth, located north of the new school building, and also an acre of ground from Dan Maybaum.

"Mrs. Chas. Henning" was Henrietta, a 62-year-old widow and mother of Elsie (Henning) Nelson.

Fred Carbein described himself in the 1920 Census as a salesman in a "grain house" (perhaps William Raschka's?), and based on his neighbors, he and his family (including a 13-year-old orphan girl) did appear to be living in Ainsworth, near the schoolhouse.


Source: "Local and Personal." Hobart News 19 May 1921.

Hoodoo? We Do!

In spite of bad roads, the East Ross Community Association continued holding entertainments at the W.G. Haan school during the winter of 1921. (Also, the "Births" column brings news of some acquaintances, and I do not know where the Buchfuehrer baby was buried.)


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I can't identify this "Mrs. O'Leary" who is promising to direct the upcoming play; the 1930 census shows a 64-year-old Margaret O'Leary living on the Sunderman farm in Ross Township, but she is listed as single. As for the play itself, though I can't find its text, other selections from its its author's body of work give you some notion of its tone.

The February 4 meeting felt the effect of the weather on the unpaved roads.



I don't know exactly what that reference to "Dinah and Sambo" means, but I fear the worst, and it may have involved blackface.

(Some sad news in this week's "Births" column about the former Carrie Zobjeck.)


Sources:
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Ainsworth Community Meeting." Hobart Gazette 11 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Ainsworth Community Meeting." Hobart News 10 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Births." Hobart News 3 Feb. 1921; 10 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Community Meeting at Ainsworth, Friday Evening, Feb. 4." Hobart News 3 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 3 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Play at Ainsworth, Feb. 18." Hobart Gazette 4 Feb. 1921.

Ross Township Column!

Like Nessie breaking through the surface of the loch for an instant, a Ross Township column makes a sudden, brief appearance in the Hobart News of July 18, 1919. How long has it been since we've had an Ainsworth social column?


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After this one issue, the Ross Township gossip vanishes again.

Hanged in the Corn Crib

Another instance of hanging oneself in a farm outbuilding was the sad case of Christian Carbein.

He was then 76 years old. He had been born in Germany, and there he married and started a family. In 1873 he and his wife, Lena, came to the United States, bringing their two small children and eventually settling at Deep River. They would have a total of eight children, six of whom survived them. The family doesn't seem to have been very prosperous. Christian described himself to census takers as a "laborer" or "day laborer," and although by 1900 he was a homeowner, he had not owned enough land to appear on the 1891 Plat Book.

In 1907 Lena died. Christian left the Deep River home and moved in with his daughter, Emma, and her second husband, John Hooseline, who farmed rented land in southeast Ross Township. They had three sons at home. Christian should have finished out his years pleasantly there, resting from his labors, playing with the littlest grandson (born in 1906) and going fishing with the older boys.

But his health grew worse. He suffered some kind of partial paralysis as well as crippling neuralgia. He couldn't do any more than the lightest work around the farm, and he couldn't enjoy being idle. He sank into depression. Sometimes he would say that he felt useless, a burden to Emma and her family, and even that he would be better off dead.

On the morning of September 19, 1912, Christian left the house to go out to the barnyard, as he did every morning. Emma thought nothing of it until she happened to step into his room, where she noticed that his best suit of clothes was missing. That he would go and get all dressed up before heading out to the barnyard struck her as so odd that she sent one of her sons to find him, to make sure he was all right.

He wasn't all right, of course. They found him in the corn crib, dead. He had tied a rope to one of the rafters and strung it around his neck, and then — because the rafter was too low to allow for jumping — he had simply bent his knees so the rope could do its work.

And to put on his best suit for the task! Did he want to look nice when he met Lena?


Christian and Lena are buried side by side in Woodvale Cemetery.


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Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ "Christian Carbine, Aged 76, Commits Suicide by Hanging." Hobart News 26 Sept. 1912.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 27 Sept. 1912.