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.


(Click on image to enlarge)
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.

Two Old-Timers

And now we lose two old-timers.


(Click on image to enlarge)
From the Hobart Gazette 15 Apr. 1921.

Jeremy Parker's name is given as Josiah in the News, but perhaps that was the second "J." Here is J.J. Parker's land in Hobart Township, 1908:



I believe there was once a Parker School on the northeast corner of the Liverpool-Old Ridge intersection, and nowadays there is a Parker Road in the north part of the old farm — which may be coincidence; I don't know. The nameless widow mentioned in the obituary was born Cornelia Hutton, who had married J.J. in 1876.

And southwest of Ainsworth, on the farm formerly belonging to Benjamin Case, Dayton T. Case lost his wife, née Eliza Jane "Jennie" Toothill. They had married in 1881. (Dayton was Benjamin's nephew, the son of Benjamin's brother, William.)

I suppose this is the "farm near Merrillville" where Jane was born and raised:


From the 1874 Plat Map.

So it's now part of Calumet Park Cemetery.

Dayton and Jane's two daughters were their only children (to survive infancy, anyway). The elder daughter, Bessie, married Archie Brooks in 1916; they lived in Hobart and he worked at a steel mill. In 1914 Ada had married Paul Henning (brother of Elsie Henning Nelson). They farmed rented land in Ross Township — to judge by the 1920 census, somewhere south of Ainsworth.


Sources:
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Death of Mrs. Case." Hobart Gazette 15 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Funeral of Josiah Parker Held Sunday Afternoon." Hobart News 14 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Funeral of Mrs. D.T. Case Will be Held Saturday Afternoon." Hobart News 14 Apr. 1921.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "J.J. Parker Dies April 7." Hobart Gazette 15 Apr. 1921.

Diphtheria

The early autumn of 1920 saw an outbreak of diphtheria in Hobart. At that time, treatment relied mainly on an antitoxin, developed in the 1890s, to neutralize the effects of the toxin secreted by the diphtheria bacteria; but with effective and widespread vaccination still a few years in the future, and no antibiotics to treat the main infection, the only way to fight the spread of the disease was quarantine. Among the first houses to be quarantined was the Springman home on Lake Street, where the widowed Hattie lived with three sons between 12 and 20 years of age.

Diphtheria was particularly dangerous for young children. The mortality rate for patients under five years of age was about 20%, and for those five years or older, 5-10%.* The first fatality in this outbreak seems to have been Leslie Carlson, the five-year-old son of Albert and Hannah Carlson of Michigan Avenue, who died October 23.

By early November the disease was in Joryville. Eugene Hill, 50 years old, was infected and his house quarantined, as was the home of James and Hulda Shearer, whose only child, the 10-year-old Clara, was sick. Nearby in the Frank and Christina Popp home, an (unnamed) young daughter had caught the same disease. By the time the this report came out, Eugene was already on the mend; Clara would pull through, as would the Popp girl. But on Fleming Street, diphtheria took the life of three-year-old Theresia Peas.

On November 18, the News declared: "The diphtheria epidemic is well under control. All suspicious symptoms are treated with rigid care. … No new cases are reported." As you might expect, the next week brought another reported quarantine — the home of Melvin and Marian Parker, though it isn't clear how many were sick in that household, which included four children under 11, and Melvin's 70-year-old father.

After that, however, diphtheria faded from the news for what remained of 1920.

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On a related note, for a good read I recommend The Cruelest Miles by Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury (2003). It centers on a diphtheria epidemic that broke out in Nome, Alaska, in the winter of 1925. The city was unreachable by boat or airplane; the only way to transport fresh antitoxin from Seward, 1000 miles away, was by dogsled. The Cruelest Miles tells the story of that life-and-death dogsled race.


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*The mortality rate for adults over 40 was 20%, but more of the adult population could be expected to have the immunity that usually resulted from surviving a childhood infection.


Sources:
♦ "Diphtheria." History of Vaccines. College of Physicians of Philadelphia, n.d. http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/diphtheria. Accessed 28 Aug. 2013.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 11 Nov. 1920; 18 Nov. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 15 Oct. 1920; 29 Oct. 1920; 12 Nov. 1920; 26 Nov. 1920.
♦ Steven, Doerr, MD. "Medical Dictionary." EMedicineHealth. WebMD, Inc., n.d. http://www.emedicinehealth.com/diphtheria/article_em.htm. Accessed 28 Aug. 2013.

Embarrassment at the Bank

This ad appeared in Hobart High School's Aurora yearbook for 1919.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

It was an ordinary business morning — Wednesday, January 25, 1920 — and in the Hobart Bank, cashier William Killigrew and assistant cashier Deering Melin were going about their ordinary business when an official from the state banking department walked in and told them to close their doors and suspend all business. The bank was under investigation.

The news came as a shock to the two men, as they had no reason to think anything was wrong. The state official explained that the Farmers' State Bank of Valparaiso had likewise just been closed, and there lay the problem: the two banks shared a principal owner, one William H. Gardner of Valparaiso — so it was a case of suspicion by association.

State officials' examination of the Valparaiso bank's books, begun earlier in the week, had turned up a shortfall of $200,000. Examiners believed that bank funds were being used in stock speculation. The Farmers' State Bank cashier, Henry Winneguth, openly confessed to the shortfall; as for President Gardner, he had nothing to say — he was nowhere to be found.

The news, and the shock, spread locally. William Killigrew published a notice in the News asking for Hobart Bank patrons' "patience and good will until matters [were] straightened out." The Gazette had this to say:

Wm. J. Killigrew, the cashier, has been connected with the Hobart bank for some ten years, and D.D. Melin, the assistant cashier, for the past eight years. They have always retained the confidence of the general public, and through this confidence the bank has grown nicely, much to the credit of these two young men and the town. The Hobart bank was established here as a private bank in 1884 by the present owner's father, and was counted as solid as any institution.

By Friday, Mr. Gardner had turned up and surrendered all his property — hundreds of shares of stock, including all his stock in the Hobart Bank, his "magnificent home and all its luxurious fixtures" and "half a dozen other pieces of property"; Cashier Winneguth had also surrendered his home and personal property. Between the value of those assets and "financial soundness of [the bank's] backers," by the end of the week the Farmers' State Bank failure was apparently headed for a happy ending.

Meanwhile, the Hobart Bank, with a shortage of $46,000, faced either a winding up of its affairs with a possible loss of 30 percent to depositors, or a reorganization that would allow it to continue business with no loss to depositors. On Sunday morning a number of depositors, determined to reorganize, gathered at the bank and worked out the details with the help of state banking examiners. Quickly ("in ten minutes," according to one report) depositors bought $50,000 worth of stock, more than making up the shortage. By Tuesday morning, the Hobart Bank was open for business again.

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Many of those involved in the reorganization are acquaintances of ours. The bank's new officers were William Stommel (president); John J. Wood (vice-president); William Killigrew (cashier); and Deering Melin (assistant cashier). Its directors were Calvin Shearer, Emil Scharbach, Sherman Henderson, John Stocker and John Hillman. All officers (except Deering Melin) and directors were shareholders; additional shareholders were Andrew Melin, Armin Mackeldey, Paul Emery, Fred Rose, Lawrence Traeger, Alex Boyd, John Killigrew, Philip Thompson, Harry Parker, Siegfried Baumer, Robert Scholler, and Simeon Bullock.


Sources:
♦ "Bank Shortage to Be Made Good by the Backers." Kokomo Daily Tribune 27 Feb. 1920. http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 12/7/12).
♦ "Doors of Hobart Bank Closed Wednesday Morning." Hobart News 26 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Hobart Bank Closed Wednesday by State Officials." Hobart Gazette 27 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Hobart Bank Involved in Crash, Will Reopen." Elkhart Review 1 Mar. 1920. http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 12/7/12).
♦ "Hobart Bank Opened Tuesday." Hobart Gazette 5 Mar. 1920.
♦ "Hobart Bank Opens Under Reorganization." Hobart News 4 Mar. 1920.
♦ "State Auditor Closes Up Two Indiana Banks." Kokomo Daily Tribune 26 Feb. 1920. http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 12/7/12).
♦ "Two Indiana Banks Closed By Auditor Shortage $200,000." Logansport Daily Tribune 26 Feb. 1920. http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 12/7/12).