Vance Calvert and His Amateur Radio Jargon

Here's what Vance Calvert of Hobart was up to in the early days of 1922.


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Vance is giving the details of the radio equipment he was using to talk to John Martin in Ohio, I gather, but those details are beyond me and I'm too lazy to research this topic.

We can deduce that Vance did this radio stuff often enough to warrant the expense of having his own postcards printed with his call letters and location, for memorializing the contacts he made with other radio operators.

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I am not too lazy to do a little research into Vance Calvert. His connection to Hobart appears to date mostly to the 1910s and 1920s, although his parents[1] remained there after he had moved on.

My research has also turned up a news story that may or may not involve him (probably not), but it involves murder with sides of adultery and bootleg liquor, so of course I'm going to tell you about it.

Vance Robert Calvert was born in Michigan City on May 28, 1898 (WWII Draft Cards). His parents had moved to Chicago at the time of the 1900 Census, then back to Michigan City (1910 Census). By 1916 it appears that the family was in Hobart:


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Porter County Vidette (Valparaiso, Ind.), 13 Sept. 1916.

In April 1917, just after the U.S. entered the Great War, Vance joined the military:


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Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 13 Apr. 1917.

A week later, Vance's name appeared again on the "Roll of Honor" but "infantry" had been changed to "signal corps"[2] — that may be where he got to know so much about radios.

When we look for him in the 1920 Census, we must go to an army camp in Texas. I believe this is our guy:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

I cannot find any record of the marriage, in Texas or anywhere else, but that wouldn't be the first time a marriage failed to show up on Ancestry.com decades after it happened.

Vance was back in Hobart by 1921, when we find him mentioned among some Hobart "boys" in the national guard going off to Louisville, Kentucky. And our postcard above places him in Hobart in 1922. In 1926 we find him and Dora living in San Antonio, Texas, per a city directory, which gives his occupation as serviceman for the International Radio Co.[3]

Now we come to 1927 and things get weird because according to someone on findagrave.com (as well as a couple of family trees on Ancestry.com), Vance's wife was Donna May McGuffin Calvert, who was murdered in Amarillo, Texas, on January 1, 1927. Here is the earliest story about the murder, appearing under a headline splashed across the full width of front page, "Woman Killed and Husband Dying in Hotel Shooting":


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Amarillo Daily News, 01 Jan. 1927.

Attentive readers will notice that the name of the victim's husband is given as Fred, and Fred it remains as the story develops in the newspapers. (I have tried and failed to identify this Fred Calvert in the online records.)

Two days later, another article tells us that Fred survived his wounds, while there seems to have been some confusion about whether he was, in fact, Donna May's husband.[4]

Here are two articles that summarize the testimony at the trial of the man who shot Donna May.


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Amarillo Daily News, 16 Mar. 1927.


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Amarillo Daily News, 16 Mar. 1927.

Aside from the fact that the possible husband in this case was named Fred, why do I think our Vance did not lose his wife in 1927? — because when we catch up with him in the 1930 Census, in Gary, Indiana, this is what we find:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

Vance's wife is Nora, which is a reasonable mistake for Dora, and again, I can find no record of his marrying a Nora. This Nora, like the Dora of 1920, was born in Texas. Nora's current age is very nearly what it would be if she were Dora, although her age at first marriage is wrong; and both their mothers were born in Texas, while there's a discrepancy in the paternal birthplaces. The differences, I think, can be chalked up to Dora/Nora fudging her age, or maybe the enumerator being no better at recording ages than names.

That's my hypothesis. Dora = Nora. Dora ≠ Donna May. Is that reasonable? Am I missing something?

Anyway, within a few years, the marriage between Vance and Dora/Nora dissolved, though whether by death or divorce I cannot say. In July 1934 Vance married Bernice Wesenberg, in Chicago.[5] The couple continued living in Chicago through the next two censuses, with three children by 1950. Bernice died in 1958.

Vance was living with a married daughter in Delaware when he died in 1975. No mention is made of his first marriage.


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"Obituaries," Evening Journal (Wilmington, Del.), 2 June 1975.

I don't attribute any significance to the fact that his youngest daughter was named Donna!

Vance is buried in the same cemetery as his wife and mother.

As for Dora/Nora, I have no idea what became of her.

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[1] His father was Leon Calvert, who at various times ran a tinsmith business and a hardware store in Hobart. From what I've found so far it seems that Leon remarried in 1930, while Vance's mother (Addie) was still living.
[2] Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 20 Apr. 1917.
[3] San Antonio City Directory 1926 (John F. Worley Directory Co.), from Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
[4] "Parks Hearing Tuesday," Amarillo Globe, 3 Jan. 1927.
[5] Presbyterian Historical Society; Philadelphia, PA, USA; US, Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1907; Accession Number: 96 0522b 49e. Via Ancestry.com. U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

The Reaper

Who is this young man reaping the harvest of 1911?


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I don't know; but I think it may have been a member of the Kraft family of Hobart (well, technically, of rural Porter County northeast of Hobart, but let's not get picky), because it was sent by Fred Kraft, Jr.



Fred Jr. was about 36 when he sent this postcard. From what I can see of the young man in the photo, he looks younger than mid-30s. There was a 19-year-old brother, Ralph, who seems a more likely candidate, if this reaper is indeed a Kraft.

Fred Jr.'s parents were Fred Sr. (of course) and Elizabeth "Eliza" Ream — which answers one of my earliest questions in this blog, about the connection between the Kraft and Ream families. They had nine children, all of whom lived to adulthood.

The family was living in Indiana by the time of Fred Jr.'s birth in 1875, and to judge by the 1880 census, they were already in the area of Portage Township where they would settle permanently; but the earliest plat map where I can find the Fred Kraft farm dates to 1895.


Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1895Plats/Portage-1895.jpg

The 1876 plat map shows 40 acres of that land owned by D. Kraft — likely Fred Sr.'s brother, Dan.

On the 1895 map, there's a square marking a house in approximately the same spot where that lovely old brick farmhouse stands today. The Porter County records give 1900 as the build date for the house (but you know my opinion about "1900").

Fred Jr. lived and worked on that farm through the 1940 Census. He never married. He died in 1951 and was buried in Hobart Cemetery.


As for this Michael Pister who received the card in Chicago — if there was any family connection between him and the Krafts, I don't know about it. And the Henry whom Frank Kraft, Jr. wanted to hear from was Michael's brother. The 1910 Census records them as 30-something bachelors living with their parents in Chicago, working in their father's tin shop.

Within three months of the date of this postcard, the Reaper came for Henry.


Chicago Inter Ocean, Sept. 22, 1911.

(That last sentence is probably inaccurate, as Henry's obituary in the Chicago Tribune of September 24, 1911, mentions no wife or children.)

Cora Maybaum

We've seen the interior of the Main Street Trinity Lutheran Church before.


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I finally took the trouble to figure out the text across the top of the front wall — it's the beginning of 1 Corinthians 1:23, "But we preach Christ crucified."

Once again, I didn't buy the postcard for its front but for the mystery on its back (and this time I didn't wimp out).



The postmark is 1909. The writer signs herself Cora M. From the text we can gather that she has two daughters, Mary and Margaret, and that Mary is old enough to go to school. Looking in the 1910 Census records for Hobart, we find all those elements in the household of Fred and Cora Maybaum. They have two children: Mary, who in 1909 would have been just old enough to go to school (about six years of age), and Margaret, about three years old. They lived at 1122 Devonshire Street.

According to Fred Maybaum's death certificate (Indiana Death Certificates), his mother's maiden name was Maasch, which would explain why Cora was writing to Mrs. F. Maasch.

Fred was not one of the Ainsworth Maybaums. He was one of the many, many Hobart Maybaums. I believe his brother, Louis, had also married a Cora.

The postcard-writing Cora's maiden name was Shearer (Indiana Marriage Collection), but if she was related to the Ainsworth Shearers, I haven't found out about it yet. Her father was Harrison Shearer; I think Amanda Shearer Scholler was her aunt. Her grandparents were Daniel and Sarah (Ream) Shearer, who came to Union Township, Porter County, sometime between the 1850 Census and the 1860 Census.

Here is the Daniel Shearer land in 1876:


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Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1876Plats/Union-1876.jpg, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

Note the road I've marked with a question mark. If that road ever existed, it has long vanished. But the map fails to show Duck Creek, which runs about the same route as that road; so I'm wondering if somewhere between the surveyor and the printer, the creek got mistaken for a road. We find the same marking in the 1895 and 1906 plat maps, but with the 1921 map the road is replaced by Duck Creek.

Also with the 1921 map, we find some of the former Shearer land in the hands of Theodore and Annie Rossow, whose niece, Minnie Rossow, married in the Harms family of East AINSWORTH — ha! I've finally brought this back around to Ainsworth, so I guess those 6 hours I spent researching this little postcard weren't all wasted.

From Hard to Soft, Again

Martin Scheer proved a flash in the pan. The next we hear of the Hillman soft-drink parlor, the business of the late Fred had been bought, and the room of the surviving John rented, by Jake Ittel and Bert Ream.

Jacob Ittel was the son of a saloonkeeper (and the brother-in-law of the former Bessie Ols). By the age of 23 Jake had been in the saloon business — either in partnership with his father, or on his own; eventually he did have his own saloon, and he employed Bert Ream as his bartender.

Of course, the prohibition of alcohol had put an end to that. Unlike John Hillman, who smoothly converted his saloon to a soft-drink parlor, Jake Ittel had closed the doors of his and gone off to do goodness knows what, for I can't find him in the 1920 census, while Bert Ream went into the steel mills.

(Incidentally, we've met other members of Bert's family before, he being a son of Henry and Josephine Ream; we've also seen a photo of "Bertie" as a child.*)

But now Jake and Bert were in business together again, and it was not so very different from their old saloon days. Indeed, given all the reports we've seen of drunkenness and the brewing of illicit liquor, I suspect their new soft-drink parlor may have been even less unlike their old saloon than you'd think, only now they had to keep any hard stuff hidden.

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*I suspect the Edith "Reams" of the caption was Bertie's five-year-old sister.


Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "The Hillman Stand Re-Rented." Hobart Gazette 3 June 1921.
♦ WWI Draft Cards.

Ainsworth School: Interior

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Images in this post courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The caption says this is circa 1900.

What are those birds on the blackboard holding the "Roll of Honor" banner? — sandhill cranes?

"The Hunter and the Woodman" is one of Aesop's fables.

Here's another exterior shot of the schoolhouse. No date is given and the photo is not clear enough for me to tell whether the schoolhouse has one room or two at this point.