Lulu Is Going to a Big Dance Tonight

About 112 years ago today, Lulu was looking forward with excitement to a "big dance" in the evening.


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I say about 112 years because I'm not completely sure about the postmark. It looks most like 1913 to me, but it could also be 1916 or 1918. Here's a high-resolution scan:



For the sake of completeness, here's the front of the postcard …



… but clearly it's just a generic postcard that merchants could have printed up with the name of their town stamped in the designated space. It was probably cheaper than the postcards with photos of Hobart scenes.


The postcard's recipient, Ada Watts, had been born in 1894 to John and Zilla Watts. The family lived and farmed in Washington Township, Porter County. This 1895 plat map is the earliest I could find showing John and Zilla's farm:


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Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1895Plats/Washington-1895.jpg.


The Watts family had ties to Ross Township, going back at least to 1850. (I am going to have to do a separate post on the Wattses.)

Ada lived on her parents' farm through the 1910 Census, but by 1920 had moved to Valparaiso and was working as a saleswoman. In 1922 she married Eugene Taylor Nowlin. In 1930 the two of them were back in Washington Township, running a dairy farm. The 1940 Census shows them still living on a farm, but Taylor had become an automobile dealer by then. I don't know who was doing the farming: their son, Irvin, was only 11 years old, and Taylor's father, living with them, described himself as a "retired farmer." Ada herself was a "housewife."

Eight years later, Taylor's life was cut short by a railroad accident during a snowstorm:


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"Meets Death at Rail Crossing," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 23 Jan. 1948.

The 1950 Census tells us that the widowed Ada (still in Washington Township) went to work as a cook making lunches in a public school, while Irvin, 21 years old, worked in a steel mill.

In 1959, Ada married Laurence Thatcher.[1] They were together for 21 years — only one year less than her first marriage. Still, when their marriage was ended by her death in 1981, she was buried beside her first husband.


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"Obituaries," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 23 Feb. 1981.

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So that's Ada, our postcard's recipient. What about its sender, Lulu? She hasn't given us her surname, to tell us who she was. We're going to have to guess.

My money is on Lulu Strong. Why? — because that's the only Lulu I know.

But seriously, not only were Lulu and Ada somehow related (Lulu's grandmother had been a Watts), the two young women were friends. For example, I find in my newspaper notes a mention of Lulu Strong making the trip out from Hobart to visit Ada's family in 1911: "Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Guernsey, Fred Hillman, Harry Phillips, Harry Moran, Ross Guernsey and Lulu Strong attended a party at John Watts near Coburg[2] Saturday night. They made the trip by auto."[3]

Lulu Strong would have been about 18 in 1913, when the postcard was sent: prime dancing age. All the more so if the postmark is actually 1916 or 1918. It wasn't until December 1919 that she settled down and became Mrs. John Aley. Which didn't mean that her dancing days were over, anyway.

I hope she had fun at her big dance.


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[1] "Thatcher-Nowlin November Nuptials Just Revealed," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 5 Jan. 1960.
[2] You can see Coburg on the 1895 plat map above. Steve Shook has written up the story of that lost village.
[3] "Personal Mention," Hobart News, 2 Nov. 1911. If there was only one auto involved, it must have been crowded. By the way, "Mrs. Melvin Guernsey" was Lulu's sister, Verna.

Bruce Mitchell Times Two

This postcard is postmarked 1955:


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It introduces us to a father-and-son team of entrepreneurs who operated businesses in Hobart for some three decades. They sold a whole lot more than sporting goods, as we are told by this advertising flyer bound into the Classifieds section of the 1952-53 Hobart directory:[1]


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.

Wellington Bruce Mitchell was the father, and Thomas Bruce Mitchell the son. The father usually went by "W.B."; the son almost always went by his middle name.

According to W.B.'s obituary, their business connection to Hobart started in 1932.


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"Deaths," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 22 Dec. 1964.

But their emotional connection to Hobart started even earlier. In April 1910 W.B. married Mary Blaemire (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index), a daughter of William and Isabell Blaemire,[2] who were Hobart residents as early as the 1880 Census, and who are now buried in Hobart Cemetery.

The 1910 Census, taken a couple of weeks before his wedding, recorded W.B. living with his parents in Chicago's Ward 8 — the furthest southeastern part of Chicago, bordering on Indiana. W.B. and his father both worked in steel mills.

W.B.'s draft card, filled out June 1917, stated that he and Mary, with their two children (the youngest being Thomas Bruce), lived in southeast Chicago while he commuted to a job in Gary, Indiana. Three years later, per the 1920 Census, they still lived in the same area, W.B. working as a millwright at an unnamed construction company.

In July 1929 we find this little personal item about the family in a south Chicago newspaper's social column: "Mr. and Mrs. Wellington Bruce Mitchell and their children, 7842 Paxton ave., left last week for a visit to their summer home at Hobart, Ind."[3] Their owning a summer home implies a fairly comfortable financial situation. In the 1930 Census, W.B. described himself as a self-employed real estate broker who owned his residence in south Chicago.

Two years after that, as we know, the family moved to Hobart. We start to find directory listings for them in the 1936-37 directory,[4] which shows them renting the house at 769 E. Third Street. We are told that W.B. is a merchant with a business called Hobart Paint & Glass, but there is no separate listing for that business. It was probably operating out of the Guyer Building, where the old-timers in 1979 remembered it, and where it was listed in the October 1940 directory.[5] A slightly later directory, for 1940-41,[6] showed Mitchell's Hobart Service Supply Co. (listed under "Paint Dealers") at 151 Illinois Street.[7]

In 1938 Thomas Bruce Mitchell got married.


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"Hobart," Hammond Times, 26 Sept. 1938.

The two Mitchell families set up separate households near each other on Kelly Street. Bruce (Jr.) worked in his father's stored; W.B. described himself as the owner of a lumber company (1940 Census) and a building contractor (1940-41 directory).

The sporting goods business makes its first appearance in Hobart's January 1946 directory,[8] with "Mitchell's" at 151 Illinois Street being listed in the Classified section under "Sporting Goods — Retail." The same business at the same address is also listed under "Hardware Stores" and "Paint — Retail." Under the latter heading we also find Hobart Paint & Glass at the same address. All these businesses shared one phone number: Hobart-75. In 1949, according to a photocopied newspaper article in the Hobart Historical Society museum files, a Mitchell appliance store was opened[9] (possibly at 225 Center Street, as listed in the 1952-53 directory insert posted above).

In the 1950 Census, W.B. is described as a "proprietor" in the "retail lumber & coal" industry, while Bruce is likewise a "proprietor," in the "retail sporting goods" industry.

As we already learned from his obituary, W.B. retired from business in 1952.

The 1956 directory[10] has a listing only for "Mitchell Bruce Sports" [sic] — no indication that any of the lumber, paint, or hardware business continued. But the Hobart Historical Society's file contains a photocopied newspaper article from 1957 about the "grand opening of Mitchell's Hardware store in its new location at 225 Center St."[11]

In 1962[12] Mitchell's of Hobart was operating at 151 Illinois. By 1968[13] it had moved across the street to 154 Illinois. That was the year of Thomas Bruce Mitchell's death, and, so far as I can tell, the end of the Mitchell business empire in Hobart. The 1970 directory has no business listings for any Mitchell business, and Bruce's widow, Loretta, is listed in Ogden Dunes.[14]

Bruce and Loretta (who died in 2005) are buried in Mosier Cemetery.

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As for the recipient of our postcard, Lloyd Schroeder — he lived a long, eventful life and now rests in Valparaiso.

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[1] 1952 — Directory — 1953 (Hobart – Wheeler – New Chicago – Ainsworth – Green Acres – Deep River – South Hobart Twp. – South Portage Twp.), published by Advance-News, Nappanee, Indiana (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[2] Indiana Death Certificates.
[3] "Personals," Southtown Economist (Chicago, Ill.), 19 July 1929.
[4] City Directory/Hobart, Ind./1936-37 ["Compiled by House-to-House Canvas"]. 1936: Mrs. Sherlock Hope (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[5] Hobart/Chesterton/East Gary/Kouts/Ogden Dunes/Valparaiso/Wheeler. Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation, October 1940 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[6] City Directory/Hobart, Indiana/1940 – 1941 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[7] Per the county records, the gas station now on that site was built in 1979. I have not been able to find any bird's-eye or aerial views showing whatever buildings may have been there before 1979.
[8] Valparaiso/Chesterton/East Gary/Hobart/Kouts/Ogden Dunes/Wheeler. Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation, January 1946 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[9] "Mitchell's To Hold Grand Opening Of New Appliance Center On Saturday, Oct. 1," Hobart Gazette, 15 Sept. 1949.
[10] Robinson's Hobart, Indiana City Directory. George C. Robinson Directory Service (Hillsdale, Mich.), 1956 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[11] "Many Prizes Awarded at Grand Opening of Mitchell's Hardware," Hobart Gazette, 28 Mar. 1957.
[12] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1962. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.).
[13] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1968. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.) (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[14] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1970. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.) (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).

Martha Wood

Martha Beatty Wood has been so quiet all this time that I don't believe I've yet mentioned her name in this blog — though her husband, William (and indirectly her son, Raymond, who helped to run the Wood garage), and her daughter, Olive, have made several appearances.

Now it's November 1922, and Martha has quietly slipped away.


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Hobart Gazette 24 Nov. 1922.


In the left-hand column, we learn of the death of Lydia Clifford — another person I've never mentioned, but I have posted about three of her sisters: Mrs. Matilda Demmon, known as Tillie, had married Walter Demmon, who built the store in Merrillville; Carrie Chandler, with her husband Eugene, lived on a farm on Liverpool Road; and Emily had married Fred Shults (whose brother just recently quit farming).

Going by the 1920 Census and judging by their neighbors, I gather that Frank and Lydia Clifford owned a farm northwest of Ainsworth, but I haven't been able to find it on any plat map.