Turk's Melody Boys

"Music by Turk's Melody Boys," says the advertisement for a dance at Niksch's dance hall, providing no further detail, as if everybody knew who Turk's Melody Boys were … or as if they were so obscure that there was nothing to say about them.


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Hobart Gazette, 29 Sept. 1922.

Googling "Turk's Melody Boys" turns up only a few references to a band called Johnny Turk's Melody Boys, which got some air time on West Coast radio broadcasts circa 1926; for example:


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Eugene Guard (Eugene, Ore.) 27 July 1926 (via newspapers.com).

I wonder if Johnny Turk's Melody Boys got their start in such humble places as the old Deep River schoolhouse? But theirs wasn't a story of a rise from small beginnings to great fame: after a few radio broadcasts they seem to have disappeared, and have not resurfaced in any modern-day account of American musical history that I can find.

The woman whose obituary takes up most of the left-hand column of the Gazette page above was Christina (Blank) Hazelgreen's sister.

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Here's a summary of local auto accidents in the space of a week:


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Hobart Gazette 22 Sept. 1922.

Dr. Phillip Forsberg was a veterinarian, and I suppose his wife, Mary, was the "Mrs. Forsberg" whose identity eluded me when she sang in Ainsworth. They both rest in Hobart Cemetery, beneath a literary epitaph. Their "house by the side of the road" was at 56th and Broadway (WWII Draft Cards), which was in Ross Township (1940 Census). Phillip was a friend to man's best friend, anyway. And Mary, who gave her occupation in 1940 as assistant school principal, was a friend to children, we can hope.

The Carlson fruit farm and its melons were on the west side of S.R. 51, somewhere near what is now Indian Ridge Golf Course.

A Rare Treat

Since the Ainsworth-area community had been holdings meetings and entertainments in the W.G. Haan school from the time it opened, I would guess that the entertainment of April 7, 1922 took place there as well, although the article gives no location.


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Hobart Gazette 14 Apr. 1922

Perhaps someone can tell me if "Lola" was Eleanor (Schuelke) Pflughoeft, Herman's wife; if so, she was then about 27 years old. I can't identify "Mrs. Forsberg." Thelma Fetterer was the daughter of Franklin (Sr.) and Harriet, about 24 years old. "Little Margaret Strong" was very little indeed — only about four years old, if I've identified her correctly (which isn't at all certain, since I can find her only in 1930, living with her grandparents in Winfield Township). Ellen Boyd was only a year older, the daughter of George and Addie (Guernsey) Boyd, who farmed near Merrillville.

I'm afraid "the Sunny South Girls," whoever they were, blackened their faces and spoke or sang in exaggerated dialect. Such treats as that were not as rare as we might like to think.


As for the meeting about the paving of what's now S.R. 51, I don't know where it took place. I can only imagine how "interesting and enthusiastic" it must have been, since just the previous month S.R. 51 had been described as "nearly impassable" around 61st Ave.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.