South of Deepriver, June 7, 1923

Social news from the countryside.


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Hobart News, June 7, 1923

We previously encountered the story about little Vernon Fauser.

Over in the "Local and Personal" column, we find Ethel Paine traveling Indianapolis for the graduation of her daughter, Alice … who remained there to get even more educated.

The Death of Otto Kulage

Otto Kulage, who started the Kulage Brick Works, died May 24, 1923.


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Hobart News, May 31, 1923.

The child whose story is just below Mr. Kulage's was buried in Deer Creek Cemetery — the only one of that surname there (at least per findagrave.com). Louise Doepping had married Earl Fauser in 1919 (Indiana Marriage Collection).

Ernest Doepping and His Grandmother

I said earlier that I was going to stop trying to figure out the Doeppings, but I lied. How can I help myself? — I've just found more Doeppings "near Ainsworth."


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Hobart Gazette 15 Mar. 1923.

I think the "aged lady" of that first item is Mary, the widow of Frederick. Her grandson, Ernest, showed up in the 1920 Census in the household of his parents, Rheinholdt and Sophia (née Busselburg), in southeastern Ross Township. Ernest was the last of their children still at home, and with him was his wife — he had married Lilly Werblo in 1917 (Indiana Marriage Collection). Perhaps the young people wanted to get their own place, and the next best thing was to move in with his grandmother, Mary, who was getting too old to live alone. Since I suspect Mary of living in one of those little houses on S.R. 51 just north of the Grand Trunk tracks, the household might have been very "near Ainsworth."

The Charles Sievert who was also ill (and also near Ainsworth) may have been the man we find in the 1910 Census living in eastern Ross Township (in the neighborhood of the present-day River Pointe Country Club). He was 61 at that time. However, I can't find him in the 1920 Census.

I wonder where that "hooded Klansman in full regalia" came from, with that money for the Lake Station church? Maybe he was one of those mysterious out-of-towners responsible for the recent parade in Hobart.

South of Deepriver, August 1922

Today is South-of-Deepriver Day, also known as Blogger-Takes-a-Nap Day.


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Hobart News 31 Aug. 1922.

And at the Niksches' Deep River Hall, an old-time dance, whatever that meant in 1922.

This Is Why He Couldn't Have a Gas Station

While the human race exists, there will be jerks. At the time we are concerned with — 1922 — jerks had found a relatively new way to be jerks, involving that relatively recent invention, the gas station. But already this avatar of jerkitude was so well known that the neighbors of John Kibler's triangle rose up to prevent his building a gas station where jerks could be jerks.


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Hobart News 13 July 1922.

Also, news from the countryside south of Deepriver, some of it involving huckleberries in a way that I interpret to mean they grew wild around here. News to me!

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.


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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.


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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.

Frederick Doepping

Frederick Doepping was an "aged Ainsworth citizen" when he died in March 1922.


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Hobart News 23 March 1922.

Per my own imaginative reading of the 1920 Census, I'm guessing Frederick and Mary occupied one of those little houses on the west side of Grand Blvd./S.R. 51 just north of the Canadian National tracks, either of which is old enough to accommodate them. But that's just a guess.

I am a bit confused about the Doepping family. According to the obituary, Frederick had no daughters (if a daughter had died before him, you'd still expect her to be mentioned). And yet the 1900 Census shows Frederick and Mary sheltering under their roof a schoolboy of 13 named Henry Kastner, described as their grandson. With only two sons, how did they get a grandson with a different surname? Or is that just a mistake by the census enumerator?

You may have noticed some mention in this blog of a Reinhart Doepping, most notably in connection with tree-related crime. I'm beginning to suspect that "Reinhart" was the newspaper's mistake for "Rheinholdt." It appears that the enumerator of the 1900 Census made the same mistake, while the 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940 Census got the name more or less right.

Rheinholdt/Reinhart had a son named Richard Doepping (and I've encountered more than one reference in the newspapers to "R. Doepping," which isn't illuminating). In January 1919, Richard Doepping bought a farm belonging to Chester Guernsey — exact location unknown, but my guess is that it was somewhere close to the Ross-Winfield Township line and the Lake-Porter County line. ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 23 Jan. 1919.)

The other son, Emil, is elusive. He may be the Emil Doepping born Dec. 24, 1880, who married a woman named Bertha between 1910 and 1920 (though I can't find the record of their marriage). But in that case, the official records would seem to place him in Chicago, not south of Ainsworth.

This is where I stop trying to figure out the Doeppings.

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Moving on to the items in the "Local and Personal" column, Mrs. Mike Foreman was married to a man who liked to confuse historians by going by Michael, Mike, or Helmuth, as his fancy took him. She had been born Mary Mau (Indiana Marriage Collection).

James Jeffrey had indeed bought some Guernsey land, but I wouldn't describe it as being near the old Deepriver schoolhouse.

Elizabeth Fredrick was my favorite census enumerator; Sadie Baker helped her husband, William, run their general store in Deep River. I have no idea who Mrs. Carl Harper was. Mrs. Lulu Crisman was married to Thomas, who was a son of John and Elizabeth (Small) Crisman of Porter County … which would, I think, make him a brother of John Crisman of Deep River.

And, of course, we all know the Raschkas and the Shearers.

Merry Christmas from the Ainsworth School!

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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

There is no date on this program, but one of the participants estimates that it took place in the very late 1930s, or 1940 at the latest. The Ainsworth school had a Christmas program every year (she tells me), as well as a Halloween masquerade party and some sort of program in the spring. And every month during the school year, a "community meeting."

I wish I could index every surname, but Blogger won't let me. So I will just type them out for the search engine: Baldner, Bergman, Blimel, Bodamer, Bowers, Bryant, Buchfuehrer, Bush, Busselburg, Carden, Collins, Dick, Doepping, Dorman, Engstrom, Ford, Gernenz, Harms, Hartin, Homeier, Johnson, Jones, Kissinger, Klemm, Kuntz, Lines, Madura, Maihofer, Mitchell, Moreland, Nelson, O'Brien, Olson, O'Neil, Peterson, Pike, Piske, Ready, Robb, Robinson, Schmidt, Shaw, Sullivan, Tonagel, Watts, Weiler, Wesley, Willy, Wise, Witham, Wojahn, Yager, Ziemanski.

South of Deepriver

A social column from the countryside south of Deep River …


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Hobart News 13 Oct. 1921.

… and a full obituary for Harry Breyfogle's foster grandma.

Also a little more information about the Yellowstone Trail.

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Elsewhere in the same issue of the News, one heck of a chicken dinner …



If the Nelson family was our own Glen and Elsie Nelson (and their two little boys, Delmer and Melvin), I wonder if their being "of Crown Point" was only in terms of mail delivery routes. The 1920 Census seems to place them on Grand Blvd./S.R. 51 between Ainsworth and the Deep River, and I haven't seen any news since then of their moving.

Abscess on the Brain

I can't find the Harold Guernsey, Otis' son, in the 1920 census — not even in Montana, which is where his brother William had to go to fetch him when he became dangerously sick in June of 1921. Harold was about 21 years old at this time.


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Images from the Hobart News 23 June 1921.

All the other news on this page is much more pleasant, including an ice-cream social at the home of Arthur and Mary Strong, south of Deep River; and in Crown Point, a party for Elmer Bullock's 18th birthday.

In the left-hand column we find notices of an upcoming show based on the popular comic strip, The Gumps. The fact that it would be held under a "big rainproof tent" is alarming to those of us who know what waterproofed tents could do when they caught fire. But no reports of disaster came out of "Henpecked Andy" in this case.

Party at Chandlers', Play at W.G. Haan

Eugene and Carrie Chandler's house on South Liverpool Road was packed with guests celebrating his 34th birthday on November 15, 1920.

The audience at the Willing Workers' play in the W.G. Haan school auditorium may have enjoyed it while sitting in new chairs.


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From the Hobart News of Nov. 18, 1920.

I do not know whether, or how, Paul Newman may have been related to the Leopold Gruel who bought the Ford sedan. Per the 1920 Census, Leopold was a 53-year-old Hobart resident, born in Germany, who came to the U.S. in 1888.

Merry and Not-So-Merry

The first newspapers of the new year reported on how the holidays had gone for some of our friends.

For George and Mabel Sauter, who had not yet celebrated their first wedding anniversary, Christmas Day was … well, stressful, I suppose, but ultimately joyful — for unto them a child was born, unto them a son was given; and his name would be called George Jr.

The same day, the Grinch paid a visit to Charles Chester's farm:



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On a farm in southern Ross Township, the new year came in miserably for Richard and Pearl Doepping — their four-year-old son sick with scarlet fever, their home under quarantine.


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Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "$50 Reward." Hobart Gazette 2 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Births." Hobart News 1 Jan. 1920.
♦ "South of Deepriver." Hobart News 1 Jan. 1920.

A Strong Marriage

Hobart News, 25 Dec. 1919.
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This happy announcement reminded me that I had not yet mentioned the Strong family. Worse than that, I hadn't even done any research on them, though the name comes up pretty often in the social columns, and I'd gotten the impression that they'd been around here forever.

Which a little research confirms, if by "forever" you mean "since 1850," as that's the earliest I can find this branch of the Strong family in Ross Township — this branch consisting of Asa and Frances Strong and their descendants, one of whom was Thomas Strong, the father of Lulu. Thomas wasn't actually here in 1850, since he wasn't born until 1854.

Here is their farm in 1874:



(Folks, I just recently realized I've been mislabeling present-day U.S. 30 on a lot of my maps, so I only hope this is right.)

In 1842, Asa Strong married Frances Watts in Lake County. They had four children, Thomas being the youngest. At the age of 23, Thomas married the 19-year-old Phoebe Hollister in Porter County. They had five children, of whom three survived to adulthood: Arthur, Verna and Lulu.

Sometime between 1900 and 1910, Thomas and Phoebe moved with their daughters to Hobart. Thomas worked as a carpenter while they rented out their farm (to, I believe, Reinhart Doepping). In 1910, their daughter, Verna, married Melvin Guernsey. That autumn, both Verna and her brother Arthur — who had married in 1900 — returned with their spouses to southern Ross Township and the farming life, and the young Strong and Guernsey families became familiar figures in Ainsworth/Deep River social news. Lulu stayed in Hobart with her parents, working at the Thompson store and falling in love.

I don't know much about the groom's family — they don't seem to have lived in this area before 1910. David Aley was a carpenter, his wife Callie a homemaker; David's widowed mother lived with them. John was their only child.

The young couple may indeed have been building their own house, but for the present they would live with John's parents, Lulu staying at home with the mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law (God help them all) while John worked at a steel mill.


Sources:
♦ 1850 Census.
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Aley-Strong." Hobart Gazette 26 Dec. 1919.
♦ "Aley-Strong." Hobart News 25 Dec. 1919.
♦ "Finds Gas." Hobart Gazette 12 Apr. 1912.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 19 Aug. 1910; 30 Sept. 1910.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 9 Apr. 1913.

Tree Crime

Reinhart Doepping owned a farm south of Deepriver. January 1909 found him working in Henry Nolte's woods north and east of present-day Big Maple Lake. He was cutting and hauling trees — with Henry's permission, so that was all well and good; but in hauling the felled trees out to the road, he had to pass through Louis Wojahn's little ten-acre parcel, and on that wooded parcel he spotted a couple of fine trees that he decided he simply couldn't live without. In fact, he coveted his neighbor's ash, and his walnut. And he cut them down and hauled them away.

Louis noticed the two trees missing from among all the others. He may have already known about Reinhart's logging on the Nolte land, or he soon found out; but Reinhart was the natural suspect.

Louis went to Crown Point to see a Deputy Prosecutor, M.J. Smith. So well did he make his case that he was able to come back to Ainsworth with a deputy sheriff and a search warrant.

The Gazette explained the cracking of the case thus:

At the Doepping home they found two black walnut logs, cut from the identified tree, and at the Weiler sawmill they found the other one and the ash tree.

"Cut from the identified tree"? All I can say is, wow, did these people know their trees, or what?

Of course Louis pursued the matter in court. Reinhart pled guilty and ended up having to pay Louis $50, as well as $17 in costs. I don't know whether he was allowed to keep the wood.

I also don't know why I thought this story was fit to be included in this blog.


Source: "Pays For His Folly." Hobart Gazette 26 Feb. 1909.