Ainsworth School-Year Souvenir, 1897-98 (Part 7)

(continued from Part 6)



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Maybe I should have recognized the name, Wert; I've mentioned with it a couple of times before in the blog — but only in passing, and without bothering to find out much about the family.

Ella Wert was born in 1880. In December 1900, she became Mrs. Edward Cole. She and Edward had two daughters (Evelyn and Edna), and also a foster son named Harry Breyfogle.

Ella's father, Emanuel Wert, shows up in Ross Township as early as the 1860 Census. His parents, Martin and Mary, with their numerous children (nine by 1870), farmed in southeastern Ross Township. This image from the 1874 Plat Map shows the Wert farm, which included 40 acres just over the Winfield Township line.


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You'd think, with so many children, the Wert family would have more of a presence locally, but my newspaper notes include only a few mentions of them. (Which may be due to my lack of attention.)

Also on the image above, outlined in green, is the Hooseline and Tabor farm. That, I believe, has some connection to Ella's mother, Mary Hooseline, whose obituary describes her as the child of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hooseline. The 1870 Census shows Michael and Laura (Tabor) Hooseline living in southeastern Ross township, possibly on that farm. But Michael is not old enough to be Mary's father: he must be her brother.[1] Her father, then, was Michael Sr. I am not sure who her mother was — Mary's death certificate has "unknown" in that space. The 1860 Census shows Michael Sr. and his wife (one infers) Rebecca living somewhere in Union Township, Porter County, with Mary and her siblings. Michael Sr. was 58 and Rebecca 35; I suspect she was his second wife. Michael Sr. died in 1862.

In 1878 Mary Hooseline married Emanuel Wert. Ella was their only child — at least, the only one to survive infancy — and the Wert marriage was cut short when Emanuel died in 1886, as we learn from his grave marker in Deer Creek Cemetery. I have no idea what happened to him.

I cannot find the family in the 1880 Census. The 1900 Census shows Mary and Ella living in or near the village of Ainsworth (to judge by the names recorded close to theirs). And later that year came Ella's marriage.

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That's all the time I have right now to devote to the Werts. Just one last thing — I took a look at the satellite view of the Wert land in case their house might still be where the 1874 plat map seems to indicate: on the east side of Grand Boulevard, just north of the Ross-Winfield Township line. But now there is only an empty plowed field, and some buildings south of the township line.


[to be continued]

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[1] Michael Jr.'s entry on findagrave.com gives a little background about him and his family.

Mary Munch's Moonshine

When Mary Munch was caught with a still back in February 1923, she had claimed it wasn't hers. Seven months later, caught with two stills and 15 gallons of moonshine, she apparently didn't think anyone would buy the same story.


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Hobart Gazette, Oct. 19, 1923.

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In the "Local Drifts" column above, we find a couple of locals leaving the countryside to become town dwellers.

While we've encountered the name Hooseline in several "South of Deep River" columns, I've looked into the family only in connection with the suicide of John's father-in-law. But looking a little more closely now, I gather that John's father, Michael Hooseline, came into this area with his parents (Michael Sr. and Rebecca) sometime between John's birth in 1842 (Maryland) and the 1860 Census of Union Township, Porter County.[1] By the 1870 Census, Michael Jr. had married Laura Tabor and moved to Ross Township, Lake County. Our John was born in the south-of-Deep-River countryside in 1871. The 1874 Plat Map shows the "Hooseline & Tabor" farm straddling Randolph Street at the divide between Ross and Winfield Townships, but from the 1891 Plat Book on, I can't find any land under the Hooseline name in Ross Township.

Here is John Hooseline's obituary from 1944:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso), Feb. 28, 1944.

The article fails to mention John's first wife, Rhoda Smith, whom he married in 1896. Rhoda was the daughter of Homer and Rachel Smith, although the 1880 Census doesn't list her (unless she is the "Rudie" whom the enumerator called a son; the birth dates match). Rhoda bore John Hooseline two sons, Harold and Hubert/Herbert (1900 Census), and died in 1902. In 1904 John married Emma Carbein Phillips. Their children were Kenneth and Velma (1910 Census, 1930 Census).


The other country-dweller getting out of the country was Simon Small, of Small's Crossing. From what I can find in the census and death records, he was a son of John and Mary (Riley) Small; odd that he wasn't mentioned in Mary's obituary. His children were all by his first wife, Cora Deardoff, whom he married in 1883 (Indiana Marriage Collection) and who died in 1902. He married his second wife, Anna Bean, in 1906 in Cook County, Illinois, where he may have been living already, as he was in the 1910 Census and 1920 Census. Apparently he moved back to Small's Crossing after 1920 just to leave it a few years later.

Here's his obit from 1945:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso), Nov. 20, 1945.

I wonder if this leaves any Smalls at Small's Crossing? The Union Township plat maps shows that the old Small farm changed its name between 1921 and 1928.

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[1] That's assuming the enumerator made an error in recording John's age.

South of Deepriver, March 29, 1923

My part-time job has been trying to be full-time lately. So here's a "South of Deepriver" column to save me the trouble of writing a real post.


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Hobart News, Mar. 29, 1923.



One thing these columns are good for is to remind me who's living in the area.

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.

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

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

W.G. Haan Staff

We've seen these people before. Now we get to see them in front of the great emptiness that used to inhabit the west side of State Road 51, opposite the W.G. Haan school.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Notes on the back of the original identify them as "Mr. Garland, Mrs. Zieseniss, Miss Frame, Miss Tabor."

Mr. Garland was, I believe, George Bronson Garland, born in 1904. I can find him locally in the 1930 Census, but not at all after that. If I've found the right person, he married a woman named Esta, and they both rest in Adams County, Indiana.

Ella Zieseniss was born Ella Kretschmar (Indiana Death Certificates) in 1899. She married Wayland Zieseniss, a farmer, about 1929 (1930 Census). She became a schoolteacher after Wayland's untimely death in July 1930 (Indiana Death Certificates). More than half a century later, she joined her husband in Maplewood Cemetery, in Crown Point.

Allene Frame was born in 1915 to James and Rose (Stegmeier) Frame (Indiana Birth Certificates). She is the only one of these four whom I can find in the 1940 Census. At that time she was a teacher, single and living with her parents, but according to information transcribed from her 2010 obituary on Ancestry.com, the following year she married George Chermak, and they had five children.

Bernice Tabor descended from a long line of locals. The 1850 Census shows her great-grandparents, George and Chloe, living in Ross Township near the Guernseys and Strongs (in the neighborhood that would eventually be chronicled in the "South of Deepriver" columns). In their household is a five-year-old Charles — Bernice's grandfather. In 1865 Charles married Margaret Hooseline (Indiana Marriage Collection), and in 1884 they became the parents of Grover Cleveland "Cleve" Tabor. Cleve married Clara Klemm in 1908 (id.), and eight years later Bernice came into the world. According to information on findagrave.com, after some years of teaching, Bernice married Dr. Arthur Nelson (a chiropractor), and operated the Hobart Employment Agency at 449 E. Third Street.

South of Deepriver, August 1922

Today is South-of-Deepriver Day, also known as Blogger-Takes-a-Nap Day.


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Hobart News 31 Aug. 1922.

And at the Niksches' Deep River Hall, an old-time dance, whatever that meant in 1922.

South of Deepriver

The social news from the countryside in early March 1922.


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Hobart News 9 Mar. 1922.

"Mrs. L.R. Huffman" would be Nellie, wife of Levi Randall Huffman, Jr.

South of Deepriver

A social column from the countryside south of Deep River …


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Hobart News 13 Oct. 1921.

… and a full obituary for Harry Breyfogle's foster grandma.

Also a little more information about the Yellowstone Trail.

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Elsewhere in the same issue of the News, one heck of a chicken dinner …



If the Nelson family was our own Glen and Elsie Nelson (and their two little boys, Delmer and Melvin), I wonder if their being "of Crown Point" was only in terms of mail delivery routes. The 1920 Census seems to place them on Grand Blvd./S.R. 51 between Ainsworth and the Deep River, and I haven't seen any news since then of their moving.

Hanged in the Corn Crib

Another instance of hanging oneself in a farm outbuilding was the sad case of Christian Carbein.

He was then 76 years old. He had been born in Germany, and there he married and started a family. In 1873 he and his wife, Lena, came to the United States, bringing their two small children and eventually settling at Deep River. They would have a total of eight children, six of whom survived them. The family doesn't seem to have been very prosperous. Christian described himself to census takers as a "laborer" or "day laborer," and although by 1900 he was a homeowner, he had not owned enough land to appear on the 1891 Plat Book.

In 1907 Lena died. Christian left the Deep River home and moved in with his daughter, Emma, and her second husband, John Hooseline, who farmed rented land in southeast Ross Township. They had three sons at home. Christian should have finished out his years pleasantly there, resting from his labors, playing with the littlest grandson (born in 1906) and going fishing with the older boys.

But his health grew worse. He suffered some kind of partial paralysis as well as crippling neuralgia. He couldn't do any more than the lightest work around the farm, and he couldn't enjoy being idle. He sank into depression. Sometimes he would say that he felt useless, a burden to Emma and her family, and even that he would be better off dead.

On the morning of September 19, 1912, Christian left the house to go out to the barnyard, as he did every morning. Emma thought nothing of it until she happened to step into his room, where she noticed that his best suit of clothes was missing. That he would go and get all dressed up before heading out to the barnyard struck her as so odd that she sent one of her sons to find him, to make sure he was all right.

He wasn't all right, of course. They found him in the corn crib, dead. He had tied a rope to one of the rafters and strung it around his neck, and then — because the rafter was too low to allow for jumping — he had simply bent his knees so the rope could do its work.

And to put on his best suit for the task! Did he want to look nice when he met Lena?


Christian and Lena are buried side by side in Woodvale Cemetery.


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Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ "Christian Carbine, Aged 76, Commits Suicide by Hanging." Hobart News 26 Sept. 1912.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 27 Sept. 1912.