Sudden Deaths

Not two years after Alvah Fisher was killed in an accident at the Lincoln Highway crossing south of Ainsworth, that dangerous intersection took another life.


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Hobart News, Aug. 23, 1923.


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Hobart News, Aug. 23, 1923.

Both articles mention tall corn on the northeast corner blocking the view. I take this to mean that there was no building there yet, at the future site of the Tonegals' business.[1] The article below the main story in the Gazette implies that there was not so much as a stop sign at this intersection.

I can't identify the driver of the local car involved in the wreck. The News gives his name as John Myers; the Gazette gives him no name but says he is the son of John H. Meyer; both describe his home as being in Winfield Township. I've found the death certificate of a John Henry Meyer, gored to death by a bull in Winfield Township in 1927 (Indiana Death Certificates), but I can't find him there in the 1920 Census, or any other census for that matter. The 1920 Census does show a Meyer family farming in Winfield Township, but no John among them.


Speaking of dangerous corners — a couple weeks earlier, a fatal accident occurred near Valparaiso, at a location the Gazette described as "the Clifford turn west of [Valparaiso], called the 'death corner'" ("Auto Accidents," Hobart Gazette, Aug. 17, 1923). "Clifford" was probably a major landowner nearby. If I go looking for Cliffords owning land just west of Valpo in 1923, I find a lot of them. The most dangerous-looking "Clifford turn" is circled in red below on the 1928 plat map (which I'm using because it shows the road better than the 1921 map), on a stretch of road now called Clifford Road:


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Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1928Plats/Center-1928.jpg.

The intersection and crossing at the southeast end of that road look even more dangerous, but I don't know that they would be linked to the Clifford name. A couple less dangerous corners by Clifford land are circled in green. There must have been more than one fatal accident at the "Clifford turn" to earn it the name of "death corner."

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President Warren G. Harding died unexpectedly on Thursday, August 2, 1923, just when he seemed to be recovering from an illness. Eight days later (the day of his burial), a memorial service was held in the auditorium of the Hobart High School on Fourth Street. "The attendance of citizens was disappointingly small. The room should have been crowded but it wasn't. … Attorney John Killigrew, who had met the president on two occasions in 1920, spoke praisingly of his personal attainments as he saw and judged him at those times." ("Hobart Holds Memorial Services," Hobart Gazette, Aug. 17, 1923.)


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[1] The county records state that the building now housing Sharp's School Services was built in 1980, but we know that is incorrect.

Here Comes the Triebess Family … Again

Julius Triebess had moved his family from Chicago to Ainsworth in 1917 — and I'm still not sure if that was a return for them, or their first attempt to live on the farm Julius owned.

Whatever it was, that experience ended when they moved back to Chicago in 1919.

Now it's 1923, and the family (what's left of it) is returning to Ainsworth …


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Hobart Gazette 16 March 1923.

… not to farm, apparently, since they have rented the land to Sophie Triebess's brother, but only to live.

Down in the right-hand column, we learn that the Triebess farm had previously been rented to John H. Meyer … which might explain why there was an Andy Meyer graduating from (I believe) the Ainsworth school in 1922.

And below that item comes a little news about the Ainsworth Department Store under its new proprietor, Henry Paulus. Verna Guernsey, the lucky winner of a bag of flour, may still be occupying the Howard H. Smith farm.

By the way, I'm guessing that the "Raschke" in the article in the left-hand column entitled "Ready to Bore for Oil" is our own William Raschka, formerly of Ainsworth.


Elsewhere in the same issue of the Gazette, an ad for the Ainsworth Department Store.

Ross Township Graduates

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Hobart Gazette 19 May 1922.

Judging by the names, District 2 was the W.G. Haan School. Laverne Niksch was the son of Edward and Tillie. Gilbert was the orphan boy adopted by Lee and Lena Hunter. Edwin Paine, brother of Alice, is listed in the 1920 Census as "Alfred E." and in the 1930 Census and "A. Edwin." Franklin Lindborg — well, we even have his graduation photo (wish I knew who the friend was). Gordon Argo was the son of George and Rachel "Rae" Argo.

The only one I don't really know is Andy Meyer. After poking around a bit on Ancestry.com, I think he might be the son of John and Martha Meyers, as the 1920 Census enumerator spelled it, who then lived in Hobart Township on the "East Gary Road near Cemetery" — which sounds like N. Lake Park Avenue near Crown Hill Cemetery, but I'm not sure about any of this.


As for the other districts, I'm don't know which schools they meant. Part of the problem is that I don't know which schools were still operating. The Merrillville and Vincent schools, of course, and maybe the Adams school …but who knows what else?