Bull Calves and an Exploding Radiator

Allow me to get back to my adopted quiet family, the Noltes — two of its surviving members have some pure-bred bull calves to sell in March of 1923:


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Hobart Gazette 9 Mar. 1923.


Above that ad, we find Charles Chester selling oak fence posts, which I expect he made from oak trees felled in his own woods, nowadays the domain of horse-riders, dog-walkers and track-meeters.

Elsewhere, we learn about Christian Heck's arrival in this country in 1860, and James Chester's hard lesson about patching a radiator with cement.

In the last column, the report about Wayne Nelson's appendicitis describes his mother as living "north of Ainsworth," which is news to me. Either that is a mistake, or she moved out of the village when I wasn't looking.

Lydia Margaret Schnabel Clifford

Today's guest post is by Suzi Emig.


Lydia Margaret Schnabel Clifford was my paternal great-aunt and the second oldest of twelve children born to Jakob (Fred) Schnabel and Catherine Reichert Schnabel in the family home at the intersection of 61st and Colorado west of the creek on the south side of the road. A cousin told me that the family called her Liddy or Aunt Lid. She married relatively late in life, as you know to, Frank Clifford. They are both interred in Crown Hill Cemetery.

Her illness was rather well documented in the local press and she was hospitalized for months before her death. She suffered from pemphigus. I had to research the disease not having heard of it before. It is a rare autoimmune disease that affects the mucous membranes and the skin, causing blistering of the skin which in turn causes the skin to slough off and turn into open sores which can lead to infection. It wasn't until the 1960's and 1970's that an understanding of and the nature of this disease was published. There are three types of pemphigus which vary in severity. From the accounts of her illness in the obituaries, it appears that she may have had the least common and severest form of the disease. She was apparently diagnosed about 5 or 6 months prior to her demise. Since no autoimmune drugs, steroids, or antibiotics existed at that time, treatment consisted of comfort measures and pain relief. The prognosis was grave.

As far as I know Frank never remarried.

I have a copy of the Adams School picnic from 1895 with her and many of her siblings in it. She would have been about 18 at the time and may have been a teacher.



Lydia and Frank's wedding photo, from 1911:


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Their marriage announcement states they will reside on the Heck farm. Evidently they rented. The Hecks and Schnabels were related by marriage.

I think the home northwest of Ainsworth was a house on the Schnabel property between Liverpool Road and Colorado St. and was owned by the family, so again they may have rented it. The plat map of Ross Twp. in 1908 shows the owner as Fred Schnabel, Lydia's older brother. The house is located just a little west of the old Elks on the south side of the road. I don't know the address. It is white with four pillars in the front on the porch that goes all the way across, a fenced pasture to the west and a little barn and garage on the east.


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This image from Google street view shows the house on 61st Avenue that Lydia and Frank may have once occupied.

Evidently Frank had another house built in "Hobart Park" where Lydia died. From what I have figured out the house sat on the north side of 3rd St. in Hobart back from the road. This is about 50 yards from my house. My Dad said that the family used to graze cattle in this area and did own several plots here. So again, the land was most likely owned by the Schnabels.

South of Deepriver

Random bits from the countryside south of Deepriver, late July-early August 1922.


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Hobart News 3 Aug. 1922

I don't know exactly what a separator canvas is, but the wording of that item suggests that the farmers of southeastern Ross Township had chipped in to buy themselves a communal farm machine — a sensible thing to do — and it was getting a workout in that summer's wheat threshing.

… Here's a little article about a threshing machine that has a separator and a canvas, somehow or another.


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From the Chilton Tractor Journal, Vol VIII, No. 4 (April 1, 1922). Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=xsZMAQAAMAAJ&lpg=RA3-PA14&ots=pSADxxAJwL&pg=RA3-PA14&ci=80%2C816%2C899%2C500&source=bookclip#v=onepage&q&f=false.

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Elsewhere in the August 3, 1922 issue of the News, we find out that the strikebreaker has still not recovered …



… and among the familiar names in the second column, we also find Miss Jeanette Peterson, daughter of Lena and George. The Hugo Zobjeck at Camp Knox in Kentucky was Hugo Jr., now about 17 years old.

In the third column are a couple of obituaries. The first concerns the untimely death of Ida (Heck) Carlson, who probably grew up on the old Heck place. The second brings me to consider the Wilson family of Union Township, Porter County, whom I have considered very little up to now. Mrs. Jane Harwood would have been Aunt Jane to "Miss Leola Wilson of Blachly's corners," and also, I believe, to Ralph Wilson, who in his youth took music lessons from Ainsworth's own Hugh Dotzer ("Ainsworth Pick-Ups," Hobart Gazette 6 Jan. 1905). In my notes and in the blog, I find several references to Wilsons, and some day when I retire and have time on my hands, perhaps I shall investigate which of them belonged to the Wilson family of Union Township.

Here is the farm of Jane's parents, Amos and Hannah Wilson, as it appeared on the 1876 plat map:


From http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1876Plats/Union-1876.jpg, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

What the Heck?

Now the 1926 Plat Book has me confused again because it shows some land being owned by Christian Heck that he reportedly sold in April 1921:


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From the Hobart News 14 Apr. 1921.

Here it is in 1926:



I don't know why I care, except that (1) Christian, with his parents, Frederick and Doretta, lived in Ross Township (northwest of Ainsworth) in 1870 and 1880; and (2) in 1900, when he farmed his own land south of Tenth Street, he shows up as a neighbor of Augusta Rossow, the second wife (and by then the widow) of Henry Rossow, who was Minnie Rossow Harms's grandfather. Augusta was renting (I believe) the land shown on the above map as belonging to William Lute, but in her time the land had belonged to Jacob Fiester, so it was known as the Fiester farm.

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In other news, John and Goldie Ensign had a new baby, John Jr.




Sources:
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Births." Hobart News 14 Apr. 1921.
♦ "C.F. Heck Sells His 187-Acre Farm to Louis Kelle of Gary." Hobart News 14 Apr. 1921.

Asa Bullock, Jr.

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Asa Bullock, Jr. in 1905, at about 13 years of age. This is the only photo I've been able to find of him.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Here is a Bullock we haven't spoken about much yet, if at all. He was the son of Asa and Cynthia Bullock of Hobart, and hence the nephew and cousin of our Ainsworth Bullocks. In April 1918 Asa Jr. came home to Hobart for a visit:


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From the Hobart News of April 25, 1918.

He wasn't kidding about the safety of the troopships — or, at any rate, of the one he returned on, the Leviathan. She was the largest of the American troopships, but in spite of her enormous size, she moved swiftly, and at 22 knots per hour easily outpaced the enemy. According to historian Alfred Crosby, "No U-boat could hope to send a torpedo into the Leviathan unless it was lucky enough to be right in her path." The ship had a rather interesting history.

The most amazing thing about her was that she was German, christened the Vaterland at her launching at Hamburg in 1914. She was not home when war unexpectedly broke out later that year and had to take refuge in an American port for fear of the British Navy. In 1917 the United States entered the war, seized the Vaterland, renamed her, and sent her back to Europe with cargoes of doughboys.

Originally built to hold 6,800 passengers, as a troopship she was sometimes crammed with as many as 11,000 soldiers, in addition to a crew of a couple thousand.

That overcrowding probably intensified the spread of Spanish influenza during one of her later crossings from the U.S. to France. She left New York on September 29, 1918, with between 9,000 and 10,000 army personnel aboard, plus the crew. By the time she landed in Brest, France, 3 sailors and about 76 soldiers had died of influenza or its complications. The exact number of victims is unclear, as in the chaos and exhaustion that came with raging epidemics, record-keeping always suffered. For a harrowing account of this deadly crossing, I suggest Alfred Crosby's America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918, which I have been quoting. (I used the new edition, first published in 2003 by Cambridge University Press.)

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But to return to Asa Jr., here are a few older articles, more or less relevant, that I happen to have on hand.


The death of his father in 1905 (with a biographical sketch of Asa Sr.):


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From the Hobart Gazette of Sept. 29, 1905.



The suicide of his wife:


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From the Hobart News of Sept. 12, 1912. They had been married on August 24, 1912 according the to Indiana Marriage Collection.


The wireless telegraphy station that he and his brother set up on the Bullock farm:


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From the Hobart News of Nov. 6, 1913 (in case you couldn't tell).

Our Musical Postmaster

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Advertisement from the Hobart Gazette of May 13, 1904.

Hugh Dotzer came to the United States from Germany in 1881 or 1882 at about 20 years of age. In 1888 he married Eva Peck in Porter County, Indiana. By 1900 they were living in Union Township, Porter County, and had three children: Matilda, 11; John, 6; and Valeska, 2. Hugh called himself a farmer, but out among the cows and the corn he worked with the soul of a musician.

Sometime between 1900 and 1904 he began selling Adam Schaaf pianos. I do not know precisely when he moved to Ainsworth, or if there were intervening residences between Union Township and Ainsworth — the family's later history showed a tendency to move around.

On January 28, 1904, Hugh was appointed postmaster of Ainsworth, succeeding Frank Coyle, who had resigned.

The appointment apparently caused some disruption to Hugh: a month later, he announced: "Having taken charge of the Post Office at Ainsworth, I will be selling stock of Adam Schaaf pianos and organs at cost, warranted ten years. This offer good for a few days only."

He may have sold them at cost for only a few days, but he continued selling them at a profit for the remainder of his stay in Ainsworth. He ran ads like the one pictured above regularly throughout 1904 and early 1905.

In May 1904, when the people of Ainsworth organized a Sunday school, Hugh served as organist. That same month he began advertising to give piano and organ lessons every Friday to students in Ainsworth and Hobart.

Hugh's tenure as postmaster was brief. By late May he asked to be released from his duties "for the good of the service" because, as far as I can tell, the quarters he occupied did not offer suitable space for a post office. He recommended William Raschka to replace him, and William was appointed postmaster on May 24, 1904.

Hugh's living space must have been small, or else overrun with pianos and organs. The Grand Trunk's Ainsworth agent, P.H. Swain, and his wife lived for a time with the Dotzers. In September, Swain announced that because the "Dotzer house [was] too small" he and his pregnant wife were going to move to the "Chester house." If he meant they were going to live with Henry Chester, the crowding chez Dotzer must have been terrible indeed to make a man willing to run such a risk.

When the Ainsworth baseball team gave a dance at Ed Sauter's hall in June, Hugh was among the musicians.

At the late-summer Lake County fair, Hugh had the largest musical display — four Adam Schaaf pianos, an organ and over a thousand pieces of sheet music — beating even the Lion Store and the Kimball Co. He had to cancel his usual Friday lessons that week so he could supervise his fair display. In September, he reported that he had sold pianos to Frank Abel, a Hobart builder; Sedley's James Hardesty; and Frank Graves, who lived near Valpo.

That same month, he also announced that he had purchased ten acres in Crown Point and intended to move there in March 1905.

His musical business went on as he made improvements to his Crown Point property. In October he furnished the new Deep River church with an organ; in November he made a trip to Hammond to sell pianos; in December, Christ Heck bought a piano and Miss Martha Heck became one of Hugh's pupils.

On New Year's Day 1905, the Dotzer family hosted a large dinner, the guests including the Morgan Blachly family, Mr. and Mrs. J. Watts and the Frank Graves family. In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Fred Harney and the whole Michael Foreman family visited the Dotzers.

Hugh assured his students that he would continue to teach them after his move to Crown Point. He planned a class recital to take place on February 18.

In January 1905, a "Notice of Commendation" appeared in the Hobart Gazette, placed by some of Hugh's students or their parents:

We, the undersigned patrons of Mr. H. Dotzer, hereby express our esteem and regard for him as a teacher. We are sorry to see him move away from our midst, yet are glad to know that he will continue as our teacher, and heartily recommend him to all.

Elsie Piske, May Abel, Mrs. D. Owens, Ella Jonas, W. Wilson, Dr. Morton, C. Heck, S. Lightner, C. Schnabel, M. Blachly, W. Raschka, M. Wagoner, John Gruel, Miss T. Triebess, John Springman, H. Carey, Clara Sauter, Etta Mander, H. Stevens.

Early in the afternoon on Saturday, February 18, two sleighloads of pianists and spectators drove from Ainsworth to the spacious home of Mr. and Mrs. Seward Lightner in Hobart, where the recital began at 2:00 p.m. It was well attended, with about 20 student performers from Hobart and Ainsworth, and an audience of their family and friends; fortunately Alwin Wild, a Hobart undertaker, had furnished additional chairs.

March came and Hugh went to Crown Point, suspending lessons for three weeks while he got settled.

Whether he resumed them, and for how long, I do not know. In May of 1907 the Gazette mentioned, rather off-handedly, that Hugh had moved to Danville, Illinois. November of 1907 found him in Fort Wayne, Indiana, offering piano and organ lessons as well as the tuning and repairing of instruments.

After that we lose sight of him. It seems he stayed in Fort Wayne; he died there in March 1918. The 1920 census reports the widowed Eva Dotzer working as a live-in servant in a Fort Wayne home.

Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Ainsworth Pick-Ups." Hobart Gazette 9 Sept. 1904; 23 Sept. 1904; 30 Sept. 1904; 7 Oct. 1904; 21 Oct. 1904; 4 Nov. 1904; 25 Nov. 1904; 23 Dec. 1904; 6 Jan. 1905; 13 Jan. 1905; 27 Jan. 1905; 17 Feb. 1905; 24 Feb. 1905.
♦ Ballantyne, Dorothy and Robert Adams. Along the Route: A History of Hobart, Indiana, Post Offices and Postmasters. Hobart: The Hobart Historical Society, Inc., 1992.
♦ Dotzer, Hugh. Advertisement. Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette 24 Nov. 1907.
♦ Dotzer, Hugh. Advertisement. Hobart Gazette 13 May 1904.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 26 Feb. 1904; 27 May 1904; 3 June 1904; 10 June 1904; 26 Aug. 1904; 9 Sept. 1904; 9 Dec. 1904; 10 May 1907.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ Indiana WPA Death Records Index.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 5 Feb. 1904; 10 Mar. 1905.
♦ "Notice of Commendation." Hobart Gazette 6 Jan. 1905.
♦ "Sunday School Organized at Ainsworth." Hobart Gazette 20 May 1904.