The Phantom Road

I have always been puzzled by the fact that the Ross Township plat maps — from the earliest we have onward through the mid-20th century — all show a public road where today there is none.

Here is that road on the 1874 Plat Map. It runs north and south along the section line between Sections 12 and 7, except where it bows out westward to avoid Sprout Ditch, and it connects present-day 61st and 70th Avenues.


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I had to draw in 70th Avenue myself, since it doesn't show up on this map, except for that brief east-west line connecting DeKalb and the phantom road.

Naturally I wondered whether the 1874 cartographer made a mistake. That would not be the only possible error I've encountered on a plat map. Perhaps subsequent mapmakers didn't bother to verify and just copied the original error.

However, I recently came across an announcement in the microfilm newspapers that throws a wrench into the works of the "mistake" theory.


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Hobart Gazette, March 16, 1933.

The announcement mentions the surnames of three property owners whose land is adjacent to the road: Frank, Paine, and Sievert. Those match up with the property owners shown in the 1939 Plat Book.


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I had to patch two pages together.

The announcement names Henry Sievert, while the plat map shows Carl Sievert owning the land, but I think the plat map just hadn't caught up with the reality that Carl had died in 1929 and his son, Henry, now owned the land.


The announcement seems a little garbled — its heading and opening line specify "vacation" of a highway — that is, abandonment — but it goes on to speak of a "proposed highway" that "will pass through" the described land, as if the road were to be built, not abandoned. And then it says the highway is, or will be, 66 feet in width! That's quite an impressive highway. I'm inclined to think that there was a little carelessness in the drafting or the typesetting of the announcement, rather than that a 66-foot-wide local road was proposed to be built during the Great Depression.

I have searched in vain in the Hobart papers for any information about the outcome of the April 4 hearing mentioned in the announcement. Was the highway officially vacated?

As we see above, the 1939 Plat Book still seems to take notice of a public road there. On the 1939 aerial view, we can still trace the line of the road …


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Image via Indiana University's Indiana Historical Aerial Photo Index.

… though it doesn't appear to connect directly with 70th Ave. (and it certainly is not 66 feet in width).

The road is drawn on the 1950 plat map , but not on the 1972 plat map.

Today, if you really zoom in on the Google satellite view, you can see that a wagon-wheel sort of path, probably used by farm machinery, still follows the line of the abandoned road.

That road would come in handy when both the DeKalb Street and the 70th Avenue crossings of the Canadian National Railroad are blocked by freight trains. As this area gets ever more developed, perhaps someday the road will be un-vacated.

South of Deepriver, June 7, 1923

Social news from the countryside.


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Hobart News, June 7, 1923

We previously encountered the story about little Vernon Fauser.

Over in the "Local and Personal" column, we find Ethel Paine traveling Indianapolis for the graduation of her daughter, Alice … who remained there to get even more educated.

"A Menace to Any Community"

We are destined to know no more of the mysterious Nathan Bosen, it seems, now that he has skipped town.


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Hobart Gazette 15 Dec. 1922.

Elsewhere on the same page — a Ross Township community meeting, and an improvement in Alice Paine's health.

Trench Mouth and a Twice-Broken Leg

In early December 1922 we find disease and an accident in the Ainsworth area. Alice Paine had to suspend her schooling while she battled a case of trench mouth, which sounds rather unpleasant. In the Goldman household, little Reva, only a few months after coming to America, was hospitalized. (And in the left-hand column we see that the Goldmans' store was going to be open every evening until Christmas!) On the former Otis Guernsey farm, James Jeffrey had broken the same leg twice.


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Hobart Gazette 8 Dec. 1922.

Happier news comes in the "Births" column — a new Wesley baby. I haven't completely ignored the Wesley family, but I have pretty well ignored this particular member of it. I had to go checking on Ancestry.com to get some basic information about William Wesley. Thanks to William's death certificate, I now know that his mother (his father's first wife) was Augusta Miller.

William was born in 1890 and named, apparently, for his grandfather (1900 Census). In 1917 he married the 18-year-old Pearl Auton (Indiana Marriage Collection), daughter of Harvey and Elma (Smith) Auton (1900 Census).

Per the 1920 Census, William and Pearl owned their own farm, somewhere in southeastern Ross Township. It may have been this small parcel shown in the 1939 Plat Book.


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(The 1926 Plat Book shows that land owned by "J.W." — probably John Wesley, William's father.)

By 1920 they had one little boy, Howard. The daughter born in 1922 was named Helen. They would have another three daughters (Thelma, Betty, and Elsie Mae) by the time of the 1940 Census.

His Awesome Alfalfa

On July 13, 1922 — about three months after the sudden death of her husband — Maud Hardesty gave birth to his last son. The child's name was not given in the newspaper; it may have been Bruce, but at the moment I'm not sure.

Three days earlier, on their farm southeast of Ainsworth, Emil and Bessie Buchfuehrer welcomed a baby daughter — she would be named Grace, I believe.

But the really surprising thing to happen in July 1922 — surprising to me, anyway — was that Henry Nolte came in to the office of the Gazette to show off his alfalfa.


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Hobart Gazette 21 July 1922.

That page is loaded with news, including visitors at the Paine farm, an expansion of the Wood garage in Deep River, and a thief in the night at the Hayward farm.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Births." Hobart Gazette 21 July 1922.

South of Deepriver

Random events in the countryside south of Deep River … and west of Deep River, Alice Paine is on summer vacation from Teachers College.


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Hobart News 22 June 1922.

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?

He Let a Sleeping Dog Lie …

I like how the newspaper takes pains to point out that it was a "foreigner" who allowed a dog to nap atop the fruit he was selling.


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Hobart News 30 March 1922.

The "Mr. DeKalb" who bought 15 acres was Charles DeKalb of Gary, not Chesterton (1920 Census; "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 7 Apr. 1922). Charles was in his early 30s and worked as a foreman in a tin mill. He had a wife, Esther, and an eight-year-old daughter, Mildred. The 1926 Plat Book does not give names for the small parcels along S.R. 51, but here is the DeKalb 15 in the 1939 Plat Book:


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As for Guy Crisman, his accident shows that while the village of Deep River may have been tiny, it wasn't sleepy, sitting there on the Lincoln Highway. The newspaper describes Guy as the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. John Crisman; per the census records, I thought their eldest son was named John, but I suppose "Guy" could have been a nickname.


Not on the print-out above but elsewhere in the same issue, we learn that Alice Paine was home from the Blaker college, aka Teachers College — on spring break, it appears, and intending to go back to college on April 2.


Additional Source: "Health Department Wins Approval." Hobart Gazette 31 March 1922.

Ross Twp. Farmers' Institute

I gather that in January 1922 Mary Baird Chester McDaniel was still living on the Chester farm, or somewhere in Ross Township, with her granddaughters, since one of them — Helen, now about 13 or 14 years old — walked away with three first prizes at the Ross Township Farmers' Institute.


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Hobart News 2 Feb. 1922.

Glen Peterson didn't do so badly either. About 13 years old, he was the youngest son of Mabel Peterson, Secretary of the Institute and writer of this report.

Vernon and Emery Hurlburt were the only children of Jacob and Augusta, who farmed some 80 acres at the northeast corner of E. 73rd Ave. and Grand Blvd.

Irvin Wojahn was the oldest child of Louis and Lena (Fasel) Wojahn, who had supposedly retired from farming in 1917 — but I can't find them in the 1920 census to see what they were up to.

Dorothy Mankey was the only daughter of William and Lena (Springman) Mankey.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Ross Twp. Farmers Hold Big Meeting." Hobart Gazette 3 Feb. 1922.

Entertainments at the Ainsworth School

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Hobart News 1 Dec. 1921.

I don't know the reason for this Thanksgiving-evening banquet in the W.G. Haan School, nor do I know the topics of those "talks." The first talker I can only tentatively identify as George B. Argo, whom I haven't mentioned yet in this blog. Born in Iowa circa 1884, George shows up in my notes as early as 1912, when apparently he was the Grand Trunk agent at the Ainsworth depot. He pops up now and then through June 1913, after which he disappears; that may have been when he was transferred to the Grand Trunk station at Capac, Michigan, where the official records place him in 1918 and 1920. But now he's back in the area — where, exactly, I don't know; perhaps he's in Hobart, where the 1930 census will record him. Anyway, if George had anything to do with the February 1921 community entertainments and the "Argo orchestra," he must have been something of a live wire.

The other two talkers at the November 1921 banquet were, I'm guessing, Robert Harper (a local dairy farmer and one-time marshal of Ainsworth), and Albion Paine (another local dairy farmer, and father of Alice ).

After the talking, there was dancing.

♦    ♦    ♦
I have not been able to find a script for that 2.5-hour play, The Country Minister, which may be a mercy. But the performance was intended to raise money for a good cause — the purchase of equipment for the school — and in fact it was well attended, and judged "a big success."


Additional Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 2 Dec. 1921.
♦ "Ainsworth Notes." Hobart News 26 June 1913.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 15 Dec. 1921.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 2 Dec. 1921.
♦ "Ross Township Notes." Hobart Gazette 21 June 1912.
♦ WWI Draft Cards.

Bobbed Hair in Middletown!

Was it newsworthy when three girls in Muncie bobbed their hair??


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Hobart Gazette 16 Sept. 1921.

Elsewhere on that same page — aside from the sixth wedding anniversary of George and Pearl Yager — we find a mention of a young man named Lee Thompson. I don't believe I've taken notice of this particular Thompson family before. Lee's parents were George and Nancy Thompson, who had moved with their son and three daughters into Ross Township from Porter County, sometime between 1910 and 1920. I can't really tell from the 1920 census where in Ross Township they were living; I have been told that at some point they occupied the white house on the north side of Ainsworth Road just west of County Line Road, and the News also describes Lee as an Ainsworth resident.

I don't believe these Thompsons were any relation to the five-and-ten-cent Thompsons. I am not sure if they had any relation to the 19th-century Ainsworth Thompsons. However, George was a brother of the Wallace Thompson whose daughter, Ethel, had been killed by a train in Wheeler in 1919.

There's nothing particularly interesting about Lee's visiting his uncle, but we shall be hearing more from this family as the years go by.

♦    ♦    ♦
Little tidbits about some people we've known for a long time …


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Hobart News 15 Sept. 1921.

Lovisa Nelson and her children had probably been visiting her sister, Luella Olson, in Fort Wayne. And Alice Paine, recently graduated from Hobart High School, is off to Teachers College in Indianapolis, which I never heard of before.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 15 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.

How the Class of 1921 Partied

Hobart High School's Class of 1921 had its class dinner on the Paine farm, west of Ainsworth. From the report, I gather that Ethel Paine did much of the hard work of preparing the food and décor — surprising, given her health problems, but then again not so surprising, given that Alice was her only daughter.


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I am mystified as to why the cars were left at the Frank residence.

The above article is from the News; the following day's Gazette ran the same article next to an ad for the class play, A Modern Ananias.




Sources:
♦ "Class Dinner Given by the Senior Class Hobart High School." Hobart News 28 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Class Dinner." Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Senior Class Play" (advertisement). Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.

Class of 1921: Alice Paine

Alice Paine was another farm girl, living west of Ainsworth. Her parents, Albion and Ethel, had bought the old Bullock homestead in 1913.


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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The family came here from Iowa, where Alice and two of her brothers had been born. Her youngest brother was born on their new farm in 1915.

I've been following the Paines since they got here, so I don't have a lot to add — just a few random things I find in looking over my notes:

• Just a few days after moving into their new home in April 1913, Ethel Paine "suffered a slight concussion of the brain by accidentally striking her head against a nail in the wall." She recovered.
• Later that month, they ran the following ad in the News: "Wanted — To do dressmaking by the day. Inquire of A.D. Paine. Phone 1607-R 1." I must admit I'm not sure whether they were seeking to hire in a dressmaker, or someone in the house wanted to hire out as one.
• In the summer of 1914, Albion set about "making alterations to the [former] Bullock farm, including plumbing and hot water heating system, and hydro-pneumatic water system" that was unusual at the time, though the report did not say why.
• On a cold day in January 1916, bad things happened to Albion:

  Saturday morning, while A.D. Paine was on his way to the milk stand, his horse became frightened and ran away, throwing him out on the hard gravel road, rendering him unconscious for the time being. Dr. Brink was called and found Mr. Paine suffering from a slight concussion of the brain, a severe laceration of the scalp, one thumb fractured and one dislocated, besides being hurt internally about the left chest, and also suffered from a wound in the hip. While Mr. Paine is in a serious condition, he is resting easy.

  Within about a week he was able to leave his bed and get around a bit.
• That summer, Albion lost his older brother Henry, who had moved to Gary in its early days, "started in the hardware business, and continued until 1912, when he sold out." Suffering from ill health, Henry had gone to Florida, accompanied by "Dr. Mayo, the famed specialist" — but in vain, it seems.
• Farmers meeting in the Hobart Public Library in March 1917 heard that the Paine farm was to be the site of an agricultural test in the coming season — different varieties of oats, including some not usually grown in the area, would be planted on the same farm under the same conditions to test their performance.
• Health problems continued to plague Albion and Ethel over the years: for her, an attack of appendicitis in 1916, followed two years later by a "serious operation" at Wesley Hospital in Chicago, performed by Dr. Davis of Chicago and Dr. Brink of Hobart; she did not return home until November, and even then she was not fully recovered, but hopeful. As for Albion, Christmas 1920 brought him such an attack of rheumatism that he was confined to bed for nearly a month; in March 1921, still suffering, he traveled to Chicago to consult a bone specialist, who advised that Albion must have a special brace for his back, and must remain in bed until he got it.

On a happier note, in May of 1917 Alice Paine (along with Grace Nelson) completed the eighth grade in the little two-room wooden schoolhouse at Ainsworth. From there, I suppose, they both went to Hobart High School.

What little we see of Alice's personality in the 1921 yearbook suggests an old head on young shoulders — a good thing for a future teacher.






Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Additional Local." Hobart News 20 Jan. 1916.
♦ "Funeral of Henry A. Paine Held Sunday." Hobart News 20 July 1916.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 30 May 1918; 18 Nov. 1920; 10 Mar. 1921.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 30 Apr. 1915; 28 Jan. 1916; 28 Jan. 1921.
♦ "Meets With Accident." Hobart Gazette 21 Jan. 1916.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 9 Apr. 1913; 23 Apr. 1913; 18 May 1916; 14 July 1914.
♦ "Ross Township Commencement." Hobart Gazette 18 May 1917.
♦ "Under the Knife." Hobart Gazette 7 June 1918.

Sunday School, Dandelion Wine, and a "Period of Retrenchment"

After Daisy Raschka became Mrs. John Fleck, Lesta was the oldest daughter still at home; but in the spring of 1921, at about 22 years of age, she was making plans to leave — destination: marriage. She was engaged to Otto Maicke.

On the evening of Friday, March 4, Daisy hosted a shower for Lesta at the Raschka home on Lake Street. "The evening was spent in social converse, during which a dainty luncheon was served," said the Hobart News. "Miss Raschka was the recipient of many beautiful gifts."

On Monday evening, Lesta brought her Sunday School class over to the house, and I hope her parents were home from their missionary board meeting in time for the fun:


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That social column is packed with news of people we know — brothers Christ and Tony Springman drunk on dandelion wine; Albion Paine traveling from his farm west of Ainsworth to seek medical help in Chicago; and Paul Newman busying himself with a proposed tourist camp for travelers on the Yellowstone Trail where it ran with Cleveland Avenue into Hobart.

The last item in the column mentions the local effects of a depression the nation was going through. Among the men laid off by the Pennsy Railroad was our friend Peter Palm. I am not sure what his job with the railroad was, as the 1920 census is illegible on that point — but he described himself then as a farmer as well as a railroad employee, and he took the layoff in stride, saying that he had plenty of work to do on his small farm.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 10 Mar. 1921.

Third Time's the Charm?

Albert Witt started farming again late in December 1920 — the third start, by my count. (Also, a few random happy reports about people whose names we know.)


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Albert's first start was barely perceptible. Born into a farming family, he grew up with the line of work, and in 1910, at the age of 25, he still lived on the family farm, giving his occupation as farmhand. On March 1, 1911, he "quietly married" Frieda Kegebein, the only surviving child of John and Lena Kegebein — likewise a farming family — and came to live with his wife and in-laws, to farm the land the Kegebeins had bought sometime between 1874 and 1891.



In November 1915, Albert placed this notice in the Gazette:

Having decided to quit farming, I will offer for public sale at the John Kegebein farm, located 2½ miles south of Hobart, and ½ mile north of Ainsworth, beginning at 10 a.m., Monday, Nov. 15, three horses, 12 milch cows, 14 heifers, 15 head of hogs, chickens, farming implements, household furniture, and many articles not mentioned.

I don't know what Albert did instead of farming, but he was still on the Kegebein land in 1916 when he traded farms with his neighbor, Glen Nelson.

Albert remained on the Charles Chester farm until he quit farming the second time, and this time he really meant it — temporarily, at least. The January 1920 census records him working in the steel mills; he and Frieda and their four children lived on the "Chicago road," which I believe is Old Ridge Road.

(I don't know where John and Lena Kegebein had been living while their farm was rented by Glen and Elsie Nelson. The 1920 census shows the Kegebeins on their own property somewhere in the vicinity of Ainsworth, but John's occupation is given as "retired farmer." Perhaps they had a little house in the village, or even on their own land.)

But now, as we see, Albert and Frieda Witt have come back to the Kegebein farm, and we shall see how long the farming lasts this time.


Sources:
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 30 Dec. 1920.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart Gazette 12 Nov. 1915.
♦ "Quietly Married." Hobart Gazette 3 Mar. 1911.

His Dog and His Daughter

In June 1920 Charles Ols lost his dog and his daughter. He wanted the dog back.


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We've previously met Bessie's younger sister, Pearl. Irvin Ols was an eight-year-old cousin, a son of their Uncle Christ and Aunt Alpha (who now farmed rented land east of Ainsworth — I believe it was the former James Chester place, at the county line). As for little Totsie, I can only guess that she was one of Irvin's sisters.

Earlier that month, some of Bessie's friends had thrown a bridal shower for her, held at farmhouse of her neighbors, Albion and Ethel Paine.

Here is Bessie, in her senior portrait in the Hobart High School Aurora yearbook of 1915:



♦    ♦    ♦
A day after Bessie's wedding, Margaret Boldt became Mrs. Raymond E. Cosgrove. Margaret, as you may or may not remember, had an Ainsworth connection through her mother, the former Mary Sullivan, who did not live to see the wedding.


Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "All kinds of Wants." Hobart Gazette 25 June 1920.
♦ "Boldt-Cosgrove." Hobart Gazette 25 June 1920.
♦ "Boldt-Cosgrove." Hobart News 24 June 1920.
♦ "Ittel-Ols." Hobart Gazette 25 June 1920.
♦ "Ittel-Ols." Hobart News 24 June 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 6 Mar. 1914; 11 June 1920.

No Class of 1918

Would you believe nobody from Ainsworth graduated with the Hobart High School Class of 1918?

But there were a few Ainsworth underclasspersons in that school, so I'm going to post their pictures.


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All images in this post courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Here we have Willard Dorman, son of John and Ella Dorman whose farm is now the Indian Ridge Golf Course. Wilma Cullman was a Deep River girl; we've already taken notice of her triumph over disaster.




Here we have Edward Wollenberg, the second son of William and Adelphine Wollenberg, owners of the Ainsworth saloon. I don't know if Eddie will prove to be as talented as his older brother; thus far his only public performance has been on a church basketball team.




Grace Nelson, the younger daughter of Lovisa Chester Nelson, had just recently become an aunt.

Alice Paine was living on the old Bullock homestead with her parents, Albion and Ethel. She looks rather severe, doesn't she?


Sources:
♦ "Basket Ball Games at M.E. Gym Thanksgiving Evening." Hobart News 6 Dec. 1917.
♦ Hobart High School Aurora Yearbook, 1918.

From France with Thanks

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When Charles McIntyre wrote to his parents from France, they passed the contents of the letter along to the News for printing — the better, I suppose, to convey Charley's thanks to the people who had sent him some nice things. Among those people was Ainsworth's own Ethel Paine.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "A Letter from Chas. Mc Intyre Now in France." Hobart News 31 Jan. 1918.

Ainsworth Then and Now: The Bullock Farmhouse

Late 19th/early 20th century and 2010.



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Top image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

No date was given for the top image, on display in the Hobart Historical Society Museum. I'm only estimating that it's around the turn of the century based on the absence of automobiles in the photo. The house stands west of Ainsworth, on 70th Avenue just west of DeKalb. These days if you tried to take a picture of it from the same spot as the original photographer, you'd find yourself running into a wild hedge along the south side of the road.

I don't know who any of those people were, but evidently they liked dogs. Surely some or all of them were members of the extended Bullock family — and it was very extended indeed throughout the Ainsworth-Hobart area — but which ones, I couldn't tell you.

This was the homestead of Gilbert and Estella Bullock. It had its beginning just before their marriage in 1876, when, according to an 1882 biographical sketch, Gilbert bought "forty acres of improved land, with good frame house and outbuildings" in Ross Township. (Based on that description, and also because the 1890 Plat Book shows Gilbert owning the land on which this house stands, I'm jumping to the conclusion that this house and the 1876 house are one and the same, aside from a little remodeling.)

Gilbert was the son of Moses and Amanda Bullock, who farmed in Ross Township west of Ainsworth. Moses and Amanda also had one daughter, Ruth, who married a man named Halladay, and two other sons, both of whom eventually moved to Hobart: Simeon, who was an ice dealer, among other things, and Asa, a lawyer. The Bullock family had the habit of recycling names — e.g., among Asa's sons were a Gilbert and another Asa — which makes grief for the historian, especially as they were active, talented people, often in the news.

But back to our Gilbert! On Christmas Day, 1876, he married Estella Markham. By the turn of the century they had four children, Hubert, Claude, Ruth and Etta, all born on the farm pictured above.

Through additional purchases over the years, the Bullock farm expanded from its original 40 acres to cover some 200 acres. Gilbert and Estella seemed to have owned (for a while, at least) another good parcel of land north of Ainsworth, on the west side of State Road 51 near the Deep River, but apparently their ownership fell into the blank between the 1891 Plat Book and the 1926 Plat Book.

In the spring of 1901, Hubert Bullock married Miss Daisy Lambert, daughter of Dr. Clara Faulkner of Hobart (by a previous marriage, perhaps?); the young couple moved in with his parents. In the autumn of that year, Claude married Almantha Smith.

Early in 1902, Gilbert and Estella, with their two daughters, retired to Hobart, leaving the old homestead in the hands of one of their sons — I'm not sure which, since reports varied; but both sons continued farming for the moment. Both of the Bullock daughters later married Hobart men — in 1910, Ruth married Dr. Dwight Mackey, and in 1912 Etta became Mrs. William J. Killigrew.

Hubert and Daisy had two sons, Elmer (born 1903) and Cecil (born 1910). This family portrait shows Hubert and Elmer along with (at left) Estella Bullock, Hubert's mother, and (at right) Emily Markham, Estella's mother.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Hubert not only farmed, but made extra money using his up-to-date machinery to grind feed, saw wood and press hay for his neighbors. During the summer of 1909 he even found time to play with the Crown Point baseball team.

As I mentioned in another post, early in 1911 he began further supplementing his income by selling Abbott-Detroit automobiles. He caught the automotive fever in a big way. By the autumn of 1911 he abandoned farming — and Ainsworth — to move to Valparaiso, where he ran an automotive sales-and-service business in partnership with a Valpo man. That enterprise lasted about a year and a half, then Hubert moved to Hobart where he opened his own garage.

Claude got out of farming earlier than Hubert. He had continued to work the family acres during the course of his first marriage; it was tragically brief, for Almantha had tuberculosis. She died, childless, on February 25, 1905, just four days after her 23rd birthday. (She is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.) Before the year was out, Claude had announced his intention to give up farming, sold all his farming equipment, and moved to Hobart. We get no clue of the kind of work he did there until the 1910 census, wherein he describes himself as a laborer working in the house-moving business. In Hobart he met Mary Ann Chandler, who became his second wife on November 4, 1909.

In March 1912 Claude returned to farming; he and Mary moved to his parents' other farm, somewhere north of Ainsworth.

About a year later, that became his parents' only farm. Early in April 1913 Gilbert and Estella sold the old homestead, all 200 acres of it, to a newcomer from Iowa named Albion D. Paine.

And that is where we must leave the Bullocks for now.


Sources:
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 23 Apr. 1915.
♦ "Ainsworth Pick-Ups." Hobart Gazette 1 July 1910.
♦ "Bullock-Lambert Nuptial." Hobart Gazette 5 Apr. 1901.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 21 Mar. 1902; 15 Dec. 1905; 25 Jan. 1907.
♦ "Gilbert Bullock Sells 200-Acre Farm for $20,000." Hobart News 3 Apr. 1913.
♦ Goodspeed, Weston A., and Charles Blanchard (eds.). Counties of Porter and Lake, Indiana. Historical and Biographical. Chicago: F.A. Battey & Co., 1882.
♦ "Hubert Bullock Opens Garage and Auto Repair Shop." Hobart News 9 Apr. 1913.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 17 Jan. 1902; 26 June 1903; 7 May 1909; 1 Apr. 1910; 1 Mar. 1912.
♦ "Mortuary Record." Hobart Gazette 3 Mar. 1905.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 10 July 1903.
♦ "Sold Out." Hobart Gazette 14 Mar. 1913.
♦ "The Car You Want." Hobart Gazette 27 Jan. 1911.
♦ "Young People Marry." Hobart Gazette 15 Nov. 1901.