Mary Ellen (Mellon) Halfman

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Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.


About a year before the Civil War broke out, Mary Ellen Mellon became Mrs. Henry Halfman.

Her descendants compiled some notes to go with this photo, including the interesting fact that the land for what is now St. Peter and Paul Cemetery was donated to the church by her father.


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Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.


Mary Ellen's obituary had little to add:


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Hobart Gazette, June 3, 1910.


The portrait above is undated. Per the Chicago Historical Society's Chicago Photographers 1847 Through 1900 as Listed in Chicago City Directories (1958), John B. Wilson was at 389 State Street from 1887 through 1900 (excluding the year 1890), so Mary Ellen could be anywhere from 50 to 63 years old in that photo.

Henry Halfman

This is Henry Halfman, who farmed on the northeast corner of Broadway and 61st.


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Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.


The photo is undated. Although I can't find a listing for the photography partnership of Iverson & Boyd, the Chicago Historical Society's index of photographers places Henry Iverson at 2176 Archer Avenue from 1881 to 1885. In that timeframe, Henry Halfman, who was born in 1837, would have been in his late forties, which looks about right.

For a sketch of his life, we turn to his obituary:


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Hobart Gazette, March 24, 1905.

Work ID and Chauffeur Badge, 1936

A collection of photos and other items relating to the Fleck and Halfman families of Ross Township has come to the Merrillville/Ross Twp. Historical Society through the Fleck family. The collection includes this photo ID (undated) used on the job by Nicholas Fleck, Jr. (1887-1955):


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Images courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Twp. Historical Society.

And here is the badge he wore as a truck driver in 1936:



A family legend holds that Nicholas, as an employee of the Lake County Highway Department, worked on building Broadway up to the steel mills; the family is now researching to try to determine whether that's true, or just a good story. Neither the ID nor the badge indicates who his employer was when he used them.

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Although I have mentioned the Flecks of Hobart several times already in the blog, I find I have neglected the Flecks of Ross Township. They are related, all being descended from Peter and Anna Fleck. Our truck driver's father, Nicholas Fleck Sr., was the brother of the Michael Fleck who ran a coal business in Hobart (and whose ledgers I expect to be indexing sometime in the future).

Nicholas Sr., born circa 1854, married Frances Wilde in 1876 (Indiana Marriage Collection). The two of them, with a young daughter, were farming in Hobart Township (near his father and brother) when the 1880 Census was taken. By the 1900 Census, their family had grown to nine children, including Nicholas Jr.; they were farming in Calumet Township.

The family first shows up in Ross Township in the 1910 Census, farming their own land, with five of their children still at home. Judging by their neighbors, the Flecks were on the land that showed up as theirs in the 1926 Plat Book:


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The 1908 Plat Map shows different ownership, so unless that map lagged behind purchases and sales, the Flecks bought their Ross Township farm between 1908 and 1910. On the south, the Grand Trunk Railroad cut across their land; on the north it was Turkey Creek. Today, the old Fleck farm is occupied by some businesses and part of Hidden Lake Park.

Although in 1910 Nicholas Jr. was described as single, when he shows up in the 1920 Census with a wife (née Anna Halfman), their children include an eleven-year-old son. I have not been able to find a marriage record for Nicholas Jr. and Anna, so I don't know how to explain that.[1] Nicholas and Anna were farming rented land near his father's farm — or maybe part of it?

Nicholas Jr. seems to have been among those who quit farming in the 1920s. In the 1930 Census he described himself as a truck driver for a hardware store. He and Anna, with their nine children, were living on rented property in Ross Township described as being in the "north corner of [the] township, east of Broadway," which could still be the old Fleck farm. The year after that census, another daughter joined the family. In the 1940 Census, Nicholas Jr. said he was a clerk at a hardware store. His death certificate (1955) gives his occupation as "truck driver," his employer as "Highway Dept." — but does not specify which highway department, and he died in LaPorte County.

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[1] I have since learned that Anna Halfman's first husband was Nicholas' brother, Mathias, who died in 1912.

A Funeral and a Wedding

At 6:30 on the morning of June 21, 1922, Marie Halfman and Martin J. Powers were quietly married by Father Fred Koenig of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church at Turkey Creek. "The ceremony was quite private," reported the Gazette, "owing to the recent death of the bride's father, invitations for a big wedding having been cancelled."

In fact, William Halfman had been buried only the day before.


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Hobart Gazette 23 June 1922.

"[T]he farm where he was born 48 years ago" would probably be the Henry Halfman farm on the northeast corner of 61st Ave. and Broadway.

The widow's name was Clara, as was the eldest daughter's ("Mrs. A.J. Prott"). The rest of the children were still at home, and Marie, even as Mrs. Martin J. Powers, intended to remain at home for some time.

This young (about 22 years old) Martin J. Powers came from Gary. His father, who worked in a steel mill, and his mother were both the children of Irish immigrants. Reading a little into the census information, I think his two older brothers, William and John, worked in (or perhaps even owned) a plumbing shop, and Martin worked with them as a "plumber helper."

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Two columns over on the page above, we find the Chicago-area dairy farmers gamely hoping to reorganize their troubled cooperative marketing organization.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Powers-Halfman Nuptial." Hobart Gazette 23 June 1922.

Radiophone

By the spring of 1922, gramophones were common. The next thing in entertainment was the "radiophone."


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Hobart News 27 Apr. 1922.

KYW was the first radio station in the Chicago area.

The real-estate transaction described below that ad was reported in greater detail by the next day's Gazette.


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 28 Apr. 1922.

"Near the Collver place," was it? Well, the only thing I can identify out of all this is the Collver place as it appeared in 1908:


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From the 1908 Plat Map.

I find a Fred Trapp in Gary in the 1920 Census and the 1930 Census. In neither does he describe himself as a carpenter, but I can't find anyone else by that name.


Anyway, just above that item we see that Calvin C. Shearer had started work on present-day S.R. 51, which had aroused so much interest because of its bad condition.

Over in the "Births" column, a second child for John and Lillian Call, and two Halfman babies — news that only reminds me how little I've kept track of the Halfmans of Ross Township. John and Joe were brothers, I believe: sons of Frank Halfman, and thus brothers also of young Carl Halfman, who had died in an Army camp in 1918. Their grandfather was Henry Halfman, who had arrived in Lake County by April 1860 (when his marriage was recorded), but he did not appear in the census that year. He did, however, show up in the 1870 and subsequent censuses. The 1874 Plat Map shows him owning 80 acres at the northeast corner of Broadway and 61st Ave (the parking lot of Ultra Foods, in other words). Henry and his wife, Mary, had three children: Frank, Clara, and William. We shall have news of William soon.

Joseph Halfman was born circa 1889 and married Marian Adler circa 1912-3. The child born in 1922 was either their third or fourth. As for Joe's younger brother, John, born circa 1893, he had married Clara Adler (Marian's sister) in 1915, and the child born in 1922 was their third, a son named Leo. I can't find the Joseph Halfman family in the 1920 census. The John Halfman family was running a dairy farm on rented land near his Uncle William's farm — possibly his grandfather's old place.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1860 Census.
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Mrs. Halfman Dies at Lowell," Hammond Times 4 Apr. 1940. Newspaperarchive.com.