And They Lived Happily Ever After

On September 23, 1923, Miss Leona Raschka became Mrs. Fred Ewigleben, Jr.


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Hobart News, Sept. 27, 1923.

We just recently met Leona's bridesmaid, Florence Ewigleben. We've also met the best man, Walter Miller.

In all these years that I've been hearing that wonderful name, Ewigleben — it means "live forever" in German — I've never looked into the family much; I was content to know that they were a farming family from somewhere west of Hobart. Now I'd like to find out exactly where that farm was. Let's look at the 1908 Plat Map:


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Why, you may ask, should I be interested in the land owned by "C. Erigleton"? — because that land coincides with the land owned by Christ Ewigleben as shown in the 1891 Plat Book. My theory is that Erigleton is a butchered spelling of Ewigleben.

I've often wondered about that big parcel on the northwest corner of Liverpool and 49th, which seems like a throwback to the old rural days of this area, almost untouched by the development that has transformed the old Hayward farm on the east side of Liverpool Road. The farmhouse that sits on that land was built in 1890 according to the county records, so perhaps it is the old Ewigleben home.

Christ Ewigleben, the patriarch of this family, was a German immigrant. It appears that he married and had some children in the old country; I do not know what happened to his first wife. In 1865 Christ came to the U.S. (1900 Census). In Cook County, Illinois, in 1873, he married a woman named Johanna, whose surname is listed as Hillmann or Maas.[1]

The earliest I can find the Ewigleben family in Hobart Township is in the 1880 Census, on the same page with (among others) Berndts, Boldts and Mummerys, which suggests that they were in the area west of Hobart where the 1891 Plat Book places them. Christ's wife is listed as "Teressa" or some such thing, not Johanna; it's a mystery.

Their son, Frederick — the father of the groom in our 1923 story above — was born in Hobart in 1878 (Indiana Death Certificates). He married Tillie Blanchard in 1898 (Indiana Marriage Collection); and their son, Frederick, was born in 1902 (Indiana Death Certificates).

Frederick Jr. and Leona's home at 520 E. Fourth Street seems to be a bank parking lot now.

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Elsewhere on the same page of the News, above, we find Clifford O. Mize going to prison for the attempted murder of his mother-in-law back in July 1923.

We also find the Gem Theater receiving a letter demanding that it stop showing movies on Sunday evenings. Just remember how recently we Hoosiers could not buy alcohol on Sunday.

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[1] "Hillmann" per Ancestry.com, Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index, 1871-1920 [database on-line], Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. "Maas" per Ancestry.com, Illinois, Marriage Index, 1860-1920 [database on-line], Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.

Dr. Joseph L. Gordon of Wheeler

Back when I was researching the Gordon house, someone asked me whether the Dr. Joseph Gordon who practiced in Wheeler was related to the Gordons of Hobart. I didn't know the answer then, and I don't know it now, but this article from July 1923 tells us a little about Dr. Joseph Gordon's background.


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Hobart Gazette, July 20, 1923.

His parents, Samuel and Frieda, farmed near Wheeler. Here is their land in 1906:


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From https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1906Plats/Union-1906.jpg

So Wheeler was home to Dr. Gordon; no wonder he set up his practice there.

According to a 1927 biographical sketch, he would be practicing in Gary within a few years.

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An item above the article about Dr. Gordon gives us a little update to the C.O. Mize story. In the next column to the left, we learn that the speed limit on the Lincoln Highway was 25 m.p.h., and that it was frequently broken.

In-Law Troubles: Extreme Edition

Accusing one's in-laws of meddling in one's marriage is not all that rare. But on July 6, 1923, in-law troubles reached an unusual level, involving attempted murder.


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Hobart Gazette, July 13, 1923

The last time we met Clifford O. Mize, he was brawling on Main Street. Evidently that was not out of character for him.

The 1920 Census places the Schreffler household on Indiana Street, and that seems to go along with the references in the article to the Bruhn factory and the Nickel Plate and "J" tracks. So these events probably happened in the general area of 400 South Indiana.

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I had noticed Harriet "Hattie" Schreffler in February of 1919, when she opened a millinery shop on Main Street.


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Hobart Gazette, February 7, 1919

In June of that year, she married Clifford Mize. It was his second marriage, and a child of the first was reported living with them in the 1920 Census. Harriet and Clifford had two sons together.

Brawling Barbers

Passersby near the Nickel Plate Garage on the evening of August 9, 1921, were provided free entertainment courtesy of Hazard Halsted and Clifford O. Mize.


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Hobart Gazette 12 Aug. 1921.

Cutting the Midnight Hair

Deep in the cold silent darkness of Hobart, in the autumn of 1919 and the winter of your soul, you reach that point where only a shave and a haircut can restore your will to live. Where can you go? To whom can you turn?

To pretty well any of the local barbers, apparently. Just rouse them out of bed and they will take care of you in their sanitary, up-to-date barbershop whenever you like.

The Hobart barbers have done away with closing hours, and are now working whenever and as long as customers wish work done. Lawrence Niksch is again working all alone, his barber having gone to the steel mills where he can make more money. E.E. McAdams is helping Otto Sizelove at the former Wilder shop, and O.C. Mize is all alone. Since Mr. Brown left about a month ago Mr. Mize has added some new fixtures to his place and now has one of the most sanitary and up-to-date shops in the Calumet region.

Which is great for the hairy men of Hobart, but a hard life for barbers.

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A happier announcement moves me to say a few words about James and Rosa Frame …


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… who, if they really had wanted to be mentioned in this blog, should have been less orderly and law-abiding. However, they had the foresight to suffer some misfortune, in the form of Rosa's serious illness early on in their marriage — but I'm getting ahead of myself.

James was born in November 1870, Rosa Stegmeier in July 1874; both in Indiana, and Rosa probably on the land where she and her husband would be farming in 1926:



They married in 1898.

We first hear of Rosa's illness in early September 1904, when she was "reported very low," which in the idiom of the time meant seriously ill. Two weeks later she was in the "Logansport asylum," i.e., Longcliff Hospital — but the "very low" suggests it was her physical, not mental, health at issue, so I'm guessing she had tuberculosis.

Unlike so many of the tuberculosis cases we've encountered so far, Rosa's had a happy ending: she recovered. The 1910 census found her back home, the mother of a two-year-old boy, Irvin (though she had borne and lost another child at some point). In 1915 she gave birth to a daughter, Allene or Aline (who eventually became a teacher at the W.G. Haan school).

Those were the high, or low, points of the Frames' life so far. Other than that, they quietly went about farming and socializing, and obviously had plenty of friends to celebrate James' birthday in 1919.

I don't understand how his 50th birthday could fall in 1919, when he himself told the 1900 census-taker that he was born in November 1870, but that may be a mistake on the part of the News. And anyway, when 35 friends turn up at your door to celebrate your birthday, you don't fuss about the details.


Sources:
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Ainsworth Pick-Ups." Hobart Gazette 9 Sept. 1904; 23 Sept. 1904.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 4 Dec. 1919.

Random Changes

Having auctioned off their farm things, the Rossows apparently were making plans to move to town.

Wm. Rossow last week purchased the Ray Halstead home on Lincoln avenue, the consideration being $3,000. Mr. Halstead and family will remain there until next March, when they expect to move on the farm.

I don't know exactly where on Lincoln Street this house stood (or stands). By "the farm," I suppose the writer meant some of the Halsted property between Ainsworth and Merrillville.

Speaking of Halsteds, changes were coming up for Hazard.* In July he sold his barbershop to a partnership formed by Clifford O. Mize (a barber sidelining in phonographs) and one Mr. Brown, whose first initials vary from report to report. Since none of these newspapers stories ever give an address, I don't know if the barbershop in question is the one in the photo linked to above, but it was indeed on Main Street. "Mr. Halstead has not fully decided as to his future business engagements," the Gazette commented on July 4, adding that Hazard meant to work for at least a week in the barber shop of Lawrence Niksch — filling in for the said Mr. Brown, who had worked there for several weeks.

Meanwhile, his sister, Alta, had left for Boston, intending to spend a month's vacation traveling and visiting in the East and South.

In non-Halsted news, our Deep River friend, Wilma Cullman, enrolled for the "summer courses" at Valparaiso University. While the report does not specify what courses, Wilma was likely preparing to become a teacher, as she would be by 1920. Among her classmates were Elsie Gruel and Pearl Ols.

And finally, on May 30, Benjamin and Mertie Strattan returned from Florida. They had been visiting someone named Harlan, who I believe was Benjamin's son from his first marriage, and who operated a "pleasure boat" for a living.

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*I still don't know what, if any, relation Hazard and Ray were to each other.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Halstead Barber Shop Sold." Hobart Gazette 4 July 1919.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 29 May 1919; 5 June 1919.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 4 July 1919.
♦ "Mize & Brown Form Partnership and Buy Halstead Barber Shop." Hobart News 3 July 1919.
♦ "Mize-Schreffler." Hobart News 3 July 1919.