Reminiscing in 1922

In the summer of 1922, the Hobart News turned ten years old. Its editor wrote up some memories of Hobart as he had found it ten years earlier, and how it had changed. Indeed, the whole world had changed in those ten years.


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Hobart News 3 Aug. 1922.

… And the Odd Fellows/Daughters of Rebekah recognized Mary Kipp's distinguished service, but we are not informed of exactly what the service was.

Death, Expected and Unexpected

The family of the octogenarian Julius Manteuffel had been preparing themselves for his death since mid-April 1922,* but when John Hardesty left home on April 28, heading for the Wheeler saw mill, his wife and children had no idea they would never see him alive again.


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The reports about John Hardesty come through to us a bit garbled, and small wonder, since there were two John Hardestys farming in Union Township, and I can hardly sort them out myself. The one we are concerned with, I believe, was John N. Hardesty, born in 1863 to Harmon and Isabella Hardesty, and now resting in Mosier Cemetery.

This John Hardesty may not in fact have been farming in Union Township at the time of his death; while I can't find him in the 1920 census, a 1920 Gary city directory shows him living on Broadway with his wife, Maud, and working as a teamster. However, he had been farming in Union Township in 1910.

The other, John H. Hardesty, was born circa 1871 to George and Catherine Hardesty. He was still alive and well and farming in Union Township in 1930 and 1940.

The report above attributes six children to John N. Hardesty. I can identify only two from the 1910 census: a daughter, Rebecca, and a son, Russell. There was time enough to produce four more between then and 1922, but still, it's possible that the newspapers were confusing John N. with John H., whose family seems to have been more numerous.

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In happier news, Dr. Clara Faulkner goes to Crown Point to hear her grandson, Elmer Bullock, sing. She brings Mary Kipp with her, and Mary brings her sister, Mrs. Hatten, and Mrs. Hatten brings her sister-in-law, Mrs. Seider.

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*His name was mistakenly give as "Louis" in the April reports.


Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ 1940 Census.
♦ "Death of Julius Manteuffel." Hobart Gazette 5 May 1922.
♦ Gary Indiana City Directory 1920. R.L. Polk & Co. (Indianapolis), 1920. Ancestry.com.
♦ "John W. Hardesty Accidentally Killed." Hobart Gazette 5 May 1922.

Scavenger Hunt

Mr. Hallberg says all of these people had photographs taken between December 1921 and March 1922. Some of the photos may have been destroyed one way or another, or passed down with no name written on them so that nobody knows who they are now, but surely some of them still exist and are identified, somewhere. Anybody want to try to track them down?


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Hobart News 30 March 1922.


Names for search-engine purposes: Allen, Batterman, Beach, Billeaux, Black, Bloomquist, Braddock, Brahst, Brand, Brandt, Bruebach, Burnett, Byall, Calvert, Canino, Carlson, Cavender, Condon, Davis, DeFrance, Emery, Faulkner, Finding, Fisher, Fleck, Frageman, Fratzke, Friedrich, Gresser, Grieger, Gruel, Hagberg, Hamann, Hawke, Haxton, Heath, Henderson, Hulett, Ittel, Jahnke, Johnson, Keilman, Kemp, Keppel, Killigrew, Kipp, Koehler, Krull, Lee, Livingston, MacIver, Mackey, MacPherson, Manteuffel, Maybaum, Melin, Mellon, Miller, Mygren, Nelson, Newman, Owen, Pattee, Paxton, Peddicord, Penniman, Peterson, Peterson, Phillips, Pierson, Quinlan, Raschka, Rhodes, Rohwedder, Roper, Rose, Rossow, Scharbach, Scheidt, Schmelter, Shearer, Shoemaker, Shore, Shults, Siegesmund, Sitzenstock, Stocker, Stoeckert, Strom, Strong, Swanson, Thompson, Traeger, Tyler, Vincent, Voorhis, Walters, Weaver, Wheaton, Wild, Wilson, Wood, Wrobbel, Yetter

Good Times and Bad Among the Dairy Farmers

The Lake County Milk Producers' Association made big plans for a picnic in August 1921, enticing potential attendees with an offer of free milk as well as lots of fun.


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Hobart News 11 Aug. 1921.

Meanwhile, Everett Newman wins another "away" race; and the mysterious Miss Kipp attends a family reunion of her sister's in-laws, accompanied as usual by Dr. Clara Faulkner, and unexpectedly (to me, at least) by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Roper.

The picnic was a success — well attended and fun.


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Hobart News 25 Aug. 1921.


But this was gaiety in the face of hard times: just a week later, the Gazette was complaining that prices paid to milk producers were falling while retail prices remained almost the same — somebody was making money, but it wasn't the farmers, and now their marketing company's bad financial condition was about to force its Gary office to shut down.


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"Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 2 Sept. 1921.

(Also, Mabel's younger brother has a dislocated arm.)

Whatever happened at that meeting in the old town hall was not reported, but a week later the Gazette expressed hopes that the Milk Producers' Association proposition would "be saved from the rocks and placed on a sound working basis." That remains to be seen.


Additional Sources:
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 9 Sept. 1921.
♦ "Milk Producers of Lake County to Have Big Picnic." Hobart Gazette 12 Aug. 1921.
♦ "Notice to Milk Shippers." Hobart News 1 Sept. 1921.

"Something Different"

The "Local and Personal" column of the Hobart News of July 21, 1921, was bristling with news of our acquaintances, including George Sauter, who dreamed of "something different" and ended up with an eye-catching red-on-white delivery truck, which would be different from the one we have a picture of.

Charles Halladay was the son of Josiah and Ruth (Bullock) Halladay, thus a nephew and cousin to the local Bullocks.

And a couple more sisters for the mysterious Miss Mary Kipp.


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And, speaking of "something different," I just keep reading that Chesterfield ad over and over. I think those guys at the ad agency were smoking something different from Chesterfields.

Road Trip News! Also, Baby News

Dr. Clara Faulkner, Mary Kipp, and Mrs. George Hatten returned from their four-week road trip on May 25, 1921, and got a big write-up in the News. (The News seems slightly better informed than the Gazette was about Mrs. Hatten's identity, thus suggesting that I correctly identified her as Ida Hatten, of Hobart.) The well-traveled Dr. Faulkner was impressed with Hobart's new camping ground … or at least she was kind enough to say she was.

Four days earlier, Peter and Hulda Palm had welcomed into the world their first son, after two daughters. That didn't get much of a write-up, of course, because a baby was nothing out of the ordinary. (But at least now I know exactly when Elmer Palm was born.)


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From the Hobart News of 26 May 1921.

Lincoln Highway Update, and a Party at the Lutes'

Aside from road workers nearly killing each other, work on the Lincoln Highway was "progressing very nicely" in the late spring of 1921.


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From the Hobart News 12 May 1921.

The right-hand column includes a few items about acquaintances of ours. Dr. Mary Faulkner and Mary Kipp had arrived at Millertown, Pennsylvania (where they had also stopped on their previous year's road trip), and William Jahnke demonstrates how much it cost him to serve on a jury in Crown Point.

We haven't talked too much about the Lutes yet, but "Will Lute and family" probably included the 12-year-old Clarence Lute, Mildred Lindborg's future husband. William Lute, Sr. had come over from Germany in 1868, at about 14 years of age. His wife, Louise, was a native Hoosier with German-immigrant parents. They lived in LaPorte County, Indiana, when the 1880 Census came around, and in Porter County (Portage Township) for the 1900 Census. The 1908 Plat Map shows them in Hobart Township, on the farm at 61st Avenue and Arizona Street, where they would remain.


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I'm guessing the Shults, Schnabel and Berndt connections came about through marriages of the Lute daughters. I know nothing about Fritz Miller of LaPorte.

Death at the Rossow Crossing

Late in the evening of April 22, 1921, William Rossow and his family witnessed a horrifying accident on the Pennsy Railroad where it crosses present-day Wisconsin Street.


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From the Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.

The Parker family had only recently lost its oldest member. And Benjamin Harrison Parker had been the youngest.

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From an item in the social column on the Gazette page above, we learn a little more about the mysterious Miss Kipp — that she had a sister, Mrs. Hatten. I do find a George and Ida Hatten living in Hobart in 1920, but can't determine what Ida's maiden name was. That the Gazette gives first names to Dr. Faulkner and Miss Kipp, but calls the sister simply "Mrs. Hatten," suggests that the editor did not know the first name of either Mr. or Mrs. Hatten.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Benj. H. Parker Killed by Train." Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Benjamin Parker Killed at Rossow Crossing, Hit by Pennsy Fast Train." Hobart News 28 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.

Roads Excellent … Outside of Indiana

Elmer Bullock's road trip with Grandma came to an end, and the travelers' report appeared in the "Local and Personal" column of the Hobart News of July 22, 1920:


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(By the way, per the 1900 Census, J. Harmon and Ella Kipp had 11 children, Mary being the eldest.)

Road Trip with Grandma

Our road-tripping Dr. Clara Faulkner was at it again in the summer of 1920. Aside from Mary Kipp, who accompanied her as always, the doctor had two new companions this time: her 17-year-old grandson, Elmer Bullock, and the 26-year-old Elsie Rose (daughter of the town marshal).


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Their planned route was to take them through Indianapolis and southern Ohio, on to Pennsylvania to visit Mary Kipp's relatives, then a trip to Niagara Falls. Elsie Rose planned to leave the party at some point, returning early by train. "The doctor is loath to leave her practice for that length of time," said the News, "but feels the necessity of a vacation."

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Their being out of town for a month meant that they had to miss the circuit Chautauqua scheduled to open in Hobart on July 4, 1920, and run for five days.

This page from the Gazette includes a few of the planned features. (Sorry I cut it off — I was more interested in that irrelevant assault and battery case.)



The Chautauqua was well attended, and — what was unusual — actually made a small profit.


Sources:
♦ "Chautauqua a Success." Hobart Gazette 9 July 1920.
♦ "Get Ready for Our Chautauqua." Hobart Gazette 11 June 1920.
♦ "Hobart Chautauqua Will Open Here July 4th." Hobart News 10 June 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 17 June 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 18 June 1920.

Roads Poorest in Indiana

Dr. Clara Faulkner and Mary Kipp had announced their plans for an East Coast road trip at the end of May. Not until after their return, on the first day of July 1919, do we discover that they had been accompanied by Paul and Margaret Newman, thus making up a two-car expedition.


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The little party had some criticism for Indiana's roads.



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In other automobile news, the Gazette reprinted an item from a Chicago newspaper about Hobart's own William Killigrew:

Notice was served Chicago motorists to conduct themselves circumspectly in Indiana in the future by Deputy Sheriff William Killigrew of Indiana, who was fined $30 yesterday on a charge of speeding by Judge John Stelk in the speeders' court.

"Take heed, ye smart city fellers," he warned. "Don't let me catch you speeding in Indiana."

He was charged with speeding at a rate of 36 miles an hour on Michigan boulevard, June 26.

Sources:
♦ "Enjoy Long Motor Trip." Hobart Gazette 4 July 1919.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 3 July 1919.
♦ "Warning to Speeders." Hobart Gazette 11 July 1919.

The Importance of an Invitation

Two items on the front page of the Hobart Gazette of May 30, 1919, show what a different reception you may expect if you go onto Charles Chester's place without an invitation, or with one. (I believe the birthday in question was Constance's 49th.)


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A few other items on the same page bring us news of other old friends, and a little more information about the mysterious Mary Kipp.

Well Organized Mercy

By early July, those humanitarian patriots interested in operating the local Red Cross branch had organized themselves into a remarkable number of committees.


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Doctors and schoolteachers, lawyers and barbers, pastors and plumbers…. The editors of both Hobart newspapers (A.J. Smith and O.L. Pattee) are on the Information and Publicity Committee. I have no idea how Dr. Clara Faulkner and the Misses Kipp and Halstead intended to instruct women.

Auto Party Speculation

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

This old photo is on display in the Hobart Historical Society museum, captioned "Dr. Faulkner in her Winton." No one else is identified. No date is given.

That leaves room for me to engage in reckless speculation!

Obviously, some of those people must be Dr. Clara's favorite motoring companions, right? — aside from the child with her in the front seat, who may be one of her grandchildren. Immediately behind her, well, that's probably her husband, Sam Faulkner. Then, in the back seat, on the left is Constance Chester, on the right her husband Charles; in the middle — uh, let's say that's Mary Kipp.

All of this is pure conjecture. Or rather, wishful thinking, because if those two in the back aren't Constance and Charles Chester, I'll probably never know what they looked like.

Road Trip!

I previously mentioned the road trip that Charles and Constance Chester made in August 1913, in company with Sam and Clara Faulkner, Bessie Banks (daughter of N.P. Banks for whom the schoolhouse was named) and Mary Kipp. They spent three weeks traveling to the East Coast and back, all crammed into one car, a Winton Six.

1910 Winton Six. I don't know the exact model year of Charles' car.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

To me that sounds as if it would get old fast, but apparently they liked it — except perhaps Bessie Banks, for she was not included when, in the spring of 1915, the little band of travelers announced their plans for another, even more epic, road trip. This time they would head west.

During much of 1915, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition was being held in San Francisco. The Chesters et al. were determined to see it, and they were going the hard way, on the road in Charles' auto (perhaps still the Winton Six he had driven in 1913). They expected the round trip to take them two months.

They left Hobart on May 22, 1915. (Two days later, a Ford car passed through Hobart bearing a sign: "Coast to Coast"; the Gazette wondered if it would overtake the Chester party.)

From then on, all news of their progress came from postcards that Dr. Clara sent to her daughter, Daisy (wife of Hubert Bullock).

Early on, they ran into trouble. Charles would later report that there had been no gravel or stone roads between Chicago and California, and in some areas the dirt roads had suffered from heavy rains: "They drove for miles in places through mud and at times where the water was so deep as to interfere with the running of the engine." On May 30, Dr. Clara wrote from Mexico, Missouri, to say that they had gotten completely bogged down. They had to ship their auto (by train, I'm guessing) some seven miles to drier land before they could resume driving.

Toward mid-June, Daisy Bullock received a more encouraging communiqué: the party had gotten out of the flooded region and reached Colorado Springs, Colorado, with no further mishaps, not even a flat tire. At Colorado Springs they visited with some former Hobartites and took a side trip up Mt. Cheyenne before heading out for Santa Fe, New Mexico.

No further news came until early July, when Dr. Clara reported that the party had reached Van Nye, California, where they were visiting some friends who had formerly lived in Tolleston. Although they had had no further trouble with floods, the roads were still treacherous — Charles later said that in desert regions, holes in the road often filled up with dust that concealed their depth. Sometimes the little party found themselves for days out of sight of any railroad, in sparsely populated areas, on lightly traveled roads, and entirely dependent on their car. But it did not fail them.

A postcard dated July 10 announced triumphantly that they had reached San Francisco, gotten exposed to the Exposition, and were now headed homeward, going into the mountains through Donner's Pass. At some point they had a minor collision when a car coasting down the mountain struck theirs, but no one was hurt, and neither car damaged.

They intended to get back home by the shortest route, heading through Utah, traveling "amongst the Mormons." In Salt Lake City on July 19, they stopped to replace their tires. Charles had put a new set on the car before starting the journey, but the many miles and rough roads had worn them out.

By July 30 they had reached Omaha, Nebraska.

As they got into Iowa, rainy weather again slowed their progress. At Des Moines, Dr. Clara took ill, but she was determined to stick with the party to the end. The others must have felt some anxiety as the car crept with frustrating slowness along the slippery, muddy roads. Friends in Hobart were now beginning to watch for the little party's return, but the weather did not improve as they crossed Illinois and their progress continued slow. At Harvey, Charles noticed the transmission was acting up a bit; not wanting to stop, he coaxed the car along.

Finally, on Saturday, August 7, they limped back into Hobart, tired but satisfied.

The trip out had been 4,200 miles, the trip back 2,800, lasting altogether eleven weeks. In spite of treacherous roads, bad weather and illness, they had all enjoyed their journey, and felt they had learned much about conditions in other regions.

One thing they learned was that gas in Hobart was comparatively expensive, going for 45 cents a gallon, whereas they had been paying 10 to 15 cents on the return journey. On the other hand, Charles — a farmer himself — reported that "the farmers here are very fortunate compared with those of other states."

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I don't know the nature of Dr. Faulkner's illness at Des Moines, but it may have been pretty serious if it was related to the condition for which she underwent an operation in September. The Gazette noted that she "been ailing for several weeks as a result of a tumerous [sic] growth" when she entered Gary General Hospital on September 14. Dr. Dwight Mackey of Hobart, together with a Chicago doctor, performed surgery on her the next day. The operation was successful, but she was in for a long convalescence.

By the way, this Mary Kipp who endured both road trips is a bit of a mystery to me. The census reports don't show any Kipps living in Hobart earlier than 1920. The first mention I've seen of Mary was in connection with the east coast road trip. The 1920 Census shows Mary living in Dr. Faulkner's household, working as attendant nurse, accompanying the doctor on her calls. Whether there was some family relation, or whether it was a working relationship that developed into a friendship (or vice versa), I can only speculate.


Sources:
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 28 May 1915; 18 June 1915.
♦ "By Auto to California." Hobart Gazette 26 Mar. 1915.
♦ "Chester Party Back Home." Hobart Gazette 13 Aug. 1915.
♦ "Dr. Faulkner Submits to Operation." Hobart Gazette 17 Sept. 1915.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 4 June 1915; 16 July 1915; 23 July 1915; 30 July 1915; 6 Aug. 1915.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 3 June 1915; 17 June 1915; 8 July 1915; 15 July 1915; 22 July 1915; 7 Oct. 1915.