Fast Time

Our friend Fred Rossow lost nearly all his cows in April 1923, as the tuberculosis testing of local herds finished up.


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Hobart Gazette, April 20, 1923.

No one else lost as many in this round of testing, and most of the herds tested clean. "John Harnes" is a misprint for "John Harms."

There is so much material on this page! In the far-left column, Bess Hayward is selling off livestock and farming implements from her parents' estate.

In the next column, just below the cow-testing story, confusion arises from the inconsistent adoption of "fast time" — Daylight Saving Time. (And below that, yet another dance at the Niksches' Deep River Hall.)

In the right-hand column, we find an entertainment planned at the W.G. Haan School.


From Plays of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Volume 27 (1884)

And at the bottom of the column, some Severance-Yager socializing. From the 1920 Census, it would appear that George (Sr.) and Agnes Severance, who always rented the farms they operated, had moved from their previous home, a Ross Township farm west of Hobart,[1] to land in southeastern Hobart Township: their neighbors are Malones, Ensigns and Fasels.

♦    ♦    ♦
I was able to confirm the Harnes/Harms misprint above through the News version of the cow-testing story. That paper also carried a story about Ruby Fisher's marriage to a Hobart chiropractor named Alfred[2] C. Wickham, whom I never heard of before …


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Hobart News, April 19, 1923


… or after, either — I can't find them in the 1930 Census.

_______________
[1] "Celebrate Silver Wedding," Hobart Gazette, July 20, 1917.
[2] Indiana Marriage Collection.

Chicken Thieves Again

As long as there are chickens, there will be chicken thieves. And there were plenty of chickens around Ainsworth in 1923.


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Hobart News, April 5, 1923.


Albert Witt lived just north of Ainsworth.

John Wojahn, a former Ainsworth-area farmer, was probably living in the village of Ainsworth, to judge by his neighbors in the 1920 Census and 1930 Census. He was retired — or so I thought, but that was quite a "hennery" for a village backyard.


Over in the next column, Ruby Fisher has been exhibiting her musicianship.

The Fisher-Hahn Wedding

Having been showered with gifts by her friends, Bertha Fisher became Mrs. Hubert Hahn on March 17, 1923.


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Hobart News 22 March 1923.


I have no idea where the Owens flats were.

Two columns to the right, we are reminded that William Raschka is still part of Ainsworth commerce.

South of Deepriver, March 15, 1923

Among all the usual visiting going on in southern Ross Township, I am introduced to a connection between the Hurlburt-Smith family and the Ripley family that I didn’t know about.


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Hobart News 15 Mar. 1923.

Aside from a couple of passing mentions of the surname Ripley — back when I was figuring out who those south-of-Deepriver Smiths were, and in a 1920 "South of Deepriver" column — I have thoroughly ignored the Ripleys. That name shows up a couple more times in my notes, but never to tell of the Ripleys doing anything more interesting than being related to Milan Hurlburt and Rachel (Hurlburt) Smith. I am inclined to continue ignoring them.

However, I should do my duty as an amateur historian and at least get some of the basics. Per the Indiana Marriage Collection, Horace Ripley married Frances Hurlburt in Lake County, Indiana, on June 24, 1873. They were married by Horace Marble, J.P.

How on earth they ever met, I do not know, since Horace Ripley, aka "Hod," was born in Canada, raised in Wisconsin, and then moved to Missouri, according to his obituary on findagrave.com.

Frances Hurlburt Ripley was born March 25, 1852, according to her death certificate. Her parents were Jacob and Susan* (Perry Sheffield) Hurlburt.

What little information I have suggests that the Ripley presence in this area was never long-term, consisting only in visits to the Hurlburts and Smiths.

Now I've done my duty and can go back to ignoring the Ripleys.

♦    ♦    ♦
The shower for Bertha Fisher, also mentioned in the next column to the right, reminds us of the existence of Hubert Hahn.

______________
*Frances' death certificate gives her mother's name as "Jane," but I believe that is a mistake.

Gender Performance at the Ross Township Farmers' Institute

Here we have the program for the January 27, 1922 meeting of the Ross Township Farmers' Institute, which just leaves me wondering what would happen to a girl who showed up with some fine corn or potatoes she'd grown, or a boy with a cake baked from his own recipe.


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Hobart News 21 Dec. 1922.

Based on what comes up when I Google "Mrs. R.M. Brown, Goshen, Indiana," I think she was going to discuss "household efficiency" or something in that vein.

Elsewhere on the same page: Ruby Fisher was offering piano lessons; Paul Emery was offering loans and insurance — was this a side job while he continued working with his father-in-law, Calvin Shearer, in the coal-and-building-materials business?

Interesting that among the suggested gifts for "ladies" (up in the right-hand corner) were face powder and rouge.

130 Center Street

In the Hobart News of September 28, 1922, we find this little notice: "Wanted — Roomers and boarders. Mrs. W.G. Fisher, 130 Center Street."

Her giving the address settles the question of where the Fisher family lived. Evidently even a family of eight left space in the two-story Stocker house for roomers and boarders.

And Jennie Fisher may have felt the need to supplement the family income after her husband's disappointment with the Nickel Plate Garage business.

♦    ♦    ♦
Elsewhere in the same issue of the News, Everett "Mickey" Newman declared that he intended to quit racing. We shall see.

Of Garages and Grief

At Newman's garage in Hobart, on a July day in 1922, a car was brought in by some men who didn't have sense enough to keep from getting rowdy and attracting attention when they were carrying moonshine.


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Hobart News 13 July 1922.

Meanwhile, the Nickel Plate Garage slipped out of William Fisher's reach. We shall see if he continues operating out of the old whip factory with his surviving eldest son, Floyd. (He had two more sons, but they were still schoolboys.)


Additional Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Lands Four in Jail." Hobart Gazette 14 July 1922.

Lester Fisher, 1901-1922

We had a warning about Lester Fisher's health. The 21-year-old died on the last day of May 1922.


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Hobart News 1 June 1922.

It was tuberculosis that killed him, according to the Gazette.

The Gazette also stated that the family was residing in "the Kramer house on Center street." We do find the Jacob Kramer, Jr. family on Center Street in the 1920 Census, but I can't say whether the Fishers occupied the former Stocker house.


Additional Source: "Death of Lester Fisher." Hobart Gazette 2 June 1922.

Hobart Class of 1922: Ruby Fisher

Since I mentioned Lester Quinlan, I ought to mention Ruby Fisher, who was niece and cousin to the Fishers who used to farm in Ross Township.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Ruby had lost her father the previous September.

Scavenger Hunt

Mr. Hallberg says all of these people had photographs taken between December 1921 and March 1922. Some of the photos may have been destroyed one way or another, or passed down with no name written on them so that nobody knows who they are now, but surely some of them still exist and are identified, somewhere. Anybody want to try to track them down?


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Hobart News 30 March 1922.


Names for search-engine purposes: Allen, Batterman, Beach, Billeaux, Black, Bloomquist, Braddock, Brahst, Brand, Brandt, Bruebach, Burnett, Byall, Calvert, Canino, Carlson, Cavender, Condon, Davis, DeFrance, Emery, Faulkner, Finding, Fisher, Fleck, Frageman, Fratzke, Friedrich, Gresser, Grieger, Gruel, Hagberg, Hamann, Hawke, Haxton, Heath, Henderson, Hulett, Ittel, Jahnke, Johnson, Keilman, Kemp, Keppel, Killigrew, Kipp, Koehler, Krull, Lee, Livingston, MacIver, Mackey, MacPherson, Manteuffel, Maybaum, Melin, Mellon, Miller, Mygren, Nelson, Newman, Owen, Pattee, Paxton, Peddicord, Penniman, Peterson, Peterson, Phillips, Pierson, Quinlan, Raschka, Rhodes, Rohwedder, Roper, Rose, Rossow, Scharbach, Scheidt, Schmelter, Shearer, Shoemaker, Shore, Shults, Siegesmund, Sitzenstock, Stocker, Stoeckert, Strom, Strong, Swanson, Thompson, Traeger, Tyler, Vincent, Voorhis, Walters, Weaver, Wheaton, Wild, Wilson, Wood, Wrobbel, Yetter

Gruel Report

Elsie Gruel had been teaching since 1917, but apparently she felt she needed more training to be the best teacher she could possibly be. Because that's how the Gruels did things.


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The uncle she was staying with in Hobart would be Charles Gruel, the butcher … and ice farmer, whose dashed hopes we encounter further down in that same column.

Meanwhile, on the farm east of Ainsworth, the calves that Elsie's brothers were selling were "high grade" and "from world's record breeding." Of course they were, because that's how the Gruels did things.

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Among the illnesses reported in the Hobart News of January 12, 1922, was an ominous-sounding item about William and Jennie Fisher's son, Lester (a budding auto mechanic):


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A Lincoln Highway Death

On September 19, 1921, at the crossing of the Lincoln Highway south of Ainsworth (the present-day intersection of Grand Boulevard/S.R. 51 and E. 73rd Avenue) a speeding car struck a turning car, and the result was death.


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Hobart News 22 Sept. 1921.

William Raschka* came upon the scene just after the wreck and probably helped organize the rescue. Maria Fisher was carried to the Hobart doctor in John Chester's car, Alvah Fisher in a car belonging to George Hall of South Bend (probably the "man from South Bend" mentioned as a witness in the above article).

Maria was too badly injured to attend her husband's funeral. A week later she was still in the hospital but reported to be "improving nicely."

"Wm. G. Fisher, brother of the dead man," who sought to have the other driver charged with manslaughter, had experienced a car accident of his own, though much less serious, just a few weeks earlier.

♦    ♦    ♦
Happier things were going on elsewhere; e.g., George Sauter's grocery store. I never heard of the Wilson & Co. meat-packing company before, though I've certainly heard of Wilson sporting goods.

Just above that article — another race at the Hobart Speedway, and Everett Newman continues to win.


________________________________
*William had previous experience in dealing with a bad accident.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Death of Alvah Fisher." Hobart Gazette 23 Sept. 1921.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 30 Sept. 1921.
♦ "Reckless Driving Again Brings Death." Hobart Gazette 23 Sept. 1921.

Weekend Wreckage Report

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Hobart News 25 Aug. 1921.

The first accident occurred at the intersection of present-day E. 73rd Ave. and Grand Blvd./S.R. 51. That spot may have been particularly dangerous, with Lincoln Highway tourists adding to the traffic, and heaven knows if there was even a stop sign at the intersection.

William Fisher (husband of Jennie Hurlburt) was innocently getting the honey from Joe's bees when an anonymous driver struck his car on Old Ridge Road.

The column to the left of the "Week-End Accidents" relates the adventures of the local young men in the National Guard. I believe the John Fisher mentioned in that story was William's nephew.

♦    ♦    ♦
In other auto-related news, I now learn of yet another named highway that (like the Yellowstone Trail) I'd never heard of before; but the "Liberty Highway" is so obscure that I have not been able yet to determine whether it, too, was a cross-country route, or ran only between Kokomo and Chicago.


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Hobart Gazette 26 Aug. 1921.

In addition to a reminder of the hard times the nation was experiencing, the "Local Drifts" column notes the purchase by Joseph Wegesin of the Thomas Roper farm "south of Deepriver." The only farm I can find matching that description shows up in the 1891 Plat Book in the northeast corner of Winfield Township:


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Image from the 1939 Plat Book.

Blog-wise, I've ignored the Wegesin family up until now. In my newspaper notes, I've recorded only two mentions.* One was in 1911, when Mrs. Conrad Wegesin (Joseph's mother) came down from Chicago to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fasel, Sr. for Mrs. Fasel's 54th birthday party. The second was in May 1920, when Joseph's oldest daughter, Gladys, attended a birthday party for Lillie Fasel, who was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fasel, Sr. (I wonder if the Wegesins had a family connection to the Fasels?)

From a brief look at the official records, I gather that sometime after Joseph's birth in Ohio in 1881, his parents, Conrad and Mary, moved the family to Chicago, where 1900 census found them. About a year later, Joseph married Martha Semmer, who also went by the name Magdalen in some censuses. By 1910 Joseph and Martha-Magdalen had moved to Hobart. Ten years later, they had seven children of their own, plus a niece and a nephew living with them.

I'm not sure I'm going to have to pay much more attention to this family, as it appears that by 1930 they had moved to Muncie, Indiana.

___________________
*There may have been more, but I did not record them.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 3 Feb. 1911.
♦ "Young Lady Surprised." Hobart Gazette 28 May 1920.

Ford v. Cement Truck

Apparently, if you were bored in Hobart, you could go hang around the Nickel Plate Garage and wait for something to happen. Just one day after the barber-v.-barber grudge match, a cement truck showed what it could do to a Ford car out in front of the Nickel Plate Garage. The Ford belonged to our friend Roland Dolphus Sizelove.


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"Local and Personal," Hobart News 11 Aug. 1921.

In news of other acquaintances — yet another relative for the mysterious Mary Kipp. "Mrs. Wm. Halsted" may have been W.O.'s widow, Barbara; that was how the Gazette of August 12 identified a woman beginning a new house on Garfield Street, though there could have been two such women.

And Vera Quinlan had a job in Gary. From the next day's Gazette, we learn that her brother, Lester, who was then about 16 or 17, had joined the National Guard:


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 12 Aug. 1921.

… and yes, Mrs. Gottfried Mayer was Oscar's sister-in-law.

Fisher, Farmer, Auto Mechanic

If William G. Fisher planted any crops on his rented farm in the spring of 1921, apparently someone else would have to harvest them. Though he and his wife (née Jennie Hurlburt), along with their seven children, had spent the winter of 1920-21 in Florida, they returned early in April, in time for planting. But by early summer, they left Ross Township for the town of Hobart, the farming life for the auto-repair business, and their farmhouse for the "MacPherson house on Main street, formerly occupied as a boarding house" (exact location unknown).

The Fishers had purchased the Nickel Plate Garage building from F.D. Barnes, but would not take possession until January 1, 1922. Awaiting that happy day, William and his two eldest sons, Floyd (21) and Lester (20), would operate their auto-repair business out of the old whip factory building.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 2 June 1921.
♦ "Return From Southland." Hobart Gazette 8 Apr. 1921.
♦ "South of Deepriver." Hobart News 2 Dec. 1920; 9 June 1921.
♦ "W.G. Fisher Buys Nickel Plate Garage Bldg. of F.D. Barnes." Hobart News 9 June 1921.

Hurlburt's Corners

From early on in my reading of the microfilm, I've seen mentioned some place called "Hurlburt's Corners," and could not figure out where it was.

At last, a Hurlburt descendant has clued me in. What was Hurlburt's Corners is now the intersection of Randolph Street and E. 93rd Avenue. If you go back to 1874, you find the whole west side of that intersection owned by J. Hurlburt.


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From the 1874 Plat Map.

I believe J. Hurlburt was Jacob, and the M. Hurlburt owning 80 acres on the north line of Jacob's land was Milan, his son.

The little square marked "S.H." is the Hurlburt schoolhouse. This map shows it on the southeast corner; a hand-drawn map at the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society museum shows in on the northwest corner.

Hurlburt's Corners is distinct from the lost village of Hurlburt, which is, or was, in Porter Township, Porter County, along the Chicago & Erie Railroad. See this 1895 plat map, showing both Hurlburt and Boone Grove, and the 1876 plat map, showing about 320 acres in that vicinity owned by a C. Hurlburt — first name unknown to me. Still, I would not be surprised if both the village and the corners got their name from members of the same extended family.

This large family began with Reuben and Rachel Hurlburt, who came to Porter County in the spring of 1834, according to Goodspeed and Blanchard. If we can trust that source, the family first lived in Portage Township, later moving into Porter Township, where Reuben and Rachel died.

In 1850 their son Jacob and his wife, Susan, were farming in Porter Township with their seven children, the youngest being one-year-old Milan. By 1860 they had moved into Ross Township, and among their neighbors were Guernseys and Bragingtons; this leads me to suspect they were already at the place that would come to be called Hurlburt's Corners.

In 1873 Milan married Mary Ann Guernsey. The 1880 census shows them farming in what seems to be southeastern Ross Township. The young Hurlburts had two children, Jacob and Jennie. Goodspeed and Blanchard, writing in 1882, list their children as "Jacob (born January 1, 1874), Jennie (born March 3, 1877), and Chester (born August 8, 1880)" — Ethel is ever elusive!

… Well, no, she's not quite as elusive as she used to be. I just took the trouble to read through the 1900 census of Ross Township, and found the Milan Hurlburt family, which Ancestry.com's search function couldn't do. While their listing is not the most legible, Ethel is there, and (reading it as best I can) I think she's 10 years old. Now I wish I could remember what inspired me to say she was sixteen years old at her marriage, in that earlier post. Evidently I was wrong. She was nineteen.

I have finally found out a little about Ethel's older sister, Jennie. In August 1898 Jennie married William G. Fisher. They lived in Winfield Township at first, but by 1909 were back in Ross Township, living on her father's land.

Here's a little story from 1909 about Jennie and her son, Lester.


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Lester "got along" well enough to be counted in the 1910 census, which shows the Fishers farming rented land — probably her father's. Just before the 1920 census, they lost their son Richard to complications of influenza. They were left with seven surviving children.

… And that is all the Hurlburt genealogy I can handle in one day.


Sources:
♦ 1850 Census.
♦ 1860 Census.
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Auto Injures Boy." Hobart Gazette 20 Aug. 1909.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed/Blanchard).

Cement for the Lincoln Highway

"Truck loads of cement are being hauled via Hobart to Ainsworth for the Lincoln Highway," said the Gazette, early in April 1921. "This would indicate that cement work will soon start." This was welcome news to motorists (especially those driving oil trucks).

Just a few days later, Ainsworth became the center of cement activity.


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I believe "the Will Smith corner" refers to a long-time resident who died in 1919; he had once owned 50 acres on the south side of the Lincoln Highway where it meets Ainsworth Road* — he hadn't actually lived there since 1907, and yet the custom of naming this intersection after him persisted.


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The William Smith farm as it appears on the 1908 Plat Map.


For about a month, bad weather interfered with the Lincoln Highway work.


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Also, a "South of Deepriver" column, which tells us that Esther Guernsey was back after teaching a school year in South Dakota. And a revival at the Deep River church.

_______________________
*Called Greene Street from that intersection as it moves northeast to a gentle curve where it imperceptibly becomes Ainsworth Road; but as far as I'm concerned it's all Ainsworth Road.


Sources:
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 8 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Pouring Cement." Hobart Gazette 15 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Rainy Weather Retards Work on the Lincoln Highway." Hobart News 5 May 1921.
♦ "South of Deepriver." Hobart News 5 May 1921.

South of Deepriver

Here's a South of Deepriver social column that might be mildly interesting if you're related to these people. Also, John Killigrew, moving up in politics, is attending the inauguration of Warren T. McCray; John's brother, William, seems to be doing well in his oil business with Lewis Barnes and Calvin Shearer.



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From the Hobart News, 13 Jan. 1921.

Still Not Tuberculosis

The last "South of Deepriver" column of 1920 tells us, among other things, that poor Bertha Nolte Campbell was, in the family tradition, continuing to suffer poor health; but her illness probably wasn't tuberculosis, as the treatment for that would not be surgery.


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From the Hobart News of 30 Dec. 1920.

Also, a big party for the little Sauter born on Christmas Day.

The Great Cattle Drive of 1920

This social column from the Hobart News of December 2, 1920, finds H.H. Smith going to Chicago and bringing back cattle, as if Ainsworth didn't have enough cattle already.


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So who (I ask myself) was this H.H. Smith, since I find myself knowing absolutely nothing about him? — which turns out to be surprising, because a little research shows that these Smiths have been in the area since 1860 at least.

I believe "H.H." was Howard H. Smith, son of Homer and Rachel Smith, grandson of George and Caroline Smith, whom the 1860 Census finds farming in Union Township, Porter County, having come from Ohio, apparently, via Michigan. The 1870 Census records the Smith family farming in Ross Township, Lake County, with Homer still single and living at home, but in December of that year he married Rachel Hurlburt (Indiana Marriage Collection). By the 1880 Census Homer and Rachel had four children — Abbie (8), Howard (6), Rudie (4) and Millie (2). Their farm was, I believe, 80 acres on the county line in southeast Ross Township; that parcel belongs to "H. Smith" per the 1874 Plat Map, and per the 1926 Plat Book is owned by "Rachael Smith."

In the 1920 Census, the widowed Rachel is living there with her son, Howard, who at the age of 45 is still single. The other children have gone, I don't know where.

But you can see it was a fair distance to drive 24 cattle from the Ainsworth depot, especially when you had to dodge reckless motorists.



Checking my notes, I find a few references to this branch of the Smith family. In fact I've been neglecting them since 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." ("General News Items, Hobart Gazette 15 May 1903.)
• "John Hann, a farm hand employed on the Smith farm, near Deepriver, had his right hand badly mangled in a corn shredder Tuesday. Part of the hand had to be amputated." ("General News Items," Hobart Gazette 4 Nov. 1904 [not entirely sure that's the right Smith farm].)
• "T.A. Strong has the job of building a barn for Howard Smith south of Deep River." ("Personal and Local Mention," Hobart News 9 Apr. 1913.)
• "H.H. Smith helped to car wheat at Ainsworth Monday and Tuesday of this week for Wm. Raschka." ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 27 Apr. 1916.)
• H.H. Smith bought a team of horses. ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 20 Feb. 1919.)
• The John Dick family visited H.H. Smith and his mother. ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 1 Jan. 1920.)
• H.H. Smith and his mother joined members of the Fisher, Crisman and Ripley families in visited Mr. and Mrs. Ben Edwards at Gary. ("South of Deepriver," Hobart News 7 Oct. 1920.)

And then the great cattle drive is the next recorded event. You know what? — I think I may just go right on neglecting these people.