Moonshine Again

It's the winter of 1924. In spite of the cold weather, local entrepreneurs are busy supplying consumers' wants.


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Hobart Gazette, 11 Jan. 1924.

The article is worded for an audience that already knows where this is — "the road," "the farm." I suppose "the road" is Lake Park Avenue, but that's just a guess. I do not know how many roads the New Chicago area had in 1924. And I'm guessing that "the farm" was the C.J. Smith farm as shown in the 1926 Plat Book:


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I cannot identify John Kopek (spelled Kopack in the story below), except possibly as John Kopec, a Polish immigrant (born mid-1880s, arrived in the U.S. circa 1909) residing in Gary in the 1920 Census but later moving to Hobart. He was married, as described in the article below, and old enough to be running a booze operation. But I can't be sure that's our guy: all the vital records I have found thus far show only that this John Kopec lived the blameless life of a steel-mill employee, and now rests from his labors.

As for the other guy, his name was probably Szymanski, but he lived out his life in Gary, so he's Gary's historical problem.

They were found guilty:


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Hobart Gazette, 15 Feb. 1924.

In the next column over is an item about several Rossows attending the funeral of Mrs. Herman Borck — Christina Kummerow Borck — about whom I know almost nothing except that she was the mother of "mom's godmother." The weekend after the funeral, Ella Rossow came down from Chicago to visit her parents (William and Antonia), bringing along August Rolff,[1] whom she would marry in June of that year.

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Here's a near-death experience involving liquor:


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Hobart News, 21 Feb. 1924.

The idea of taking the midnight train to Valparaiso seems so evocative. I guess I've heard too many songs about midnight trains. Actually, I'm surprised there even was a midnight train to Valparaiso.

To the right of that story, we find that on Valentine's Day, Lena Maybaum Barney, who had lost her first husband in 1921, married Henry Schavey, who had lost his first wife in 1920.

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[1] "Local and Personal," Hobart News, 14 Feb. 1924.

The Span of Rossow's Restaurant

When I first wrote about Rossow's Coffee Shop, I didn't know when it was in operation, or for how long. Now I know, thanks to this 1948 article announcing its end.


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Hobart Gazette, 22 July 1948.

So, the Rossows operated it from 1936 to 1948, and the pictures included in my previous post that were taken during Hobart's centennial celebration would indeed have shown the restaurant when it was under their ownership.

It makes sense that they would have started the business in 1936. That was a year of great change for the family. In January 1936, Theodore Rossow died — that is, husband of Annie Bergmann Rossow, and father of Lillian and Grace. So the three of them left the farm and opened their little restaurant in Hobart.

The article above does not mention Annie, and likely she had retired by 1948, for she was then 73 years old and not in good health. About two months after the restaurant closed, she died.

The purchaser, if I've found the right person, was Matilda Schmidt Springman. She had been born in Chicago circa 1899, but by the 1910 Census she and her family were living in Hobart. She was only 16 when she married Tony Springman on August 21, 1915 (Indiana Marriage Collection).[1] They had half a dozen children, but evidently the marriage was not happy: by the time we get to the 1950 Census, Tillie was divorced. She was described then as a restaurant proprietor. In 1953 she married again, to Edward Rigg.

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[1] On January 10, 1916, she gave birth to a premature infant, who died the following day (Indiana Death Certificates).

Edward Clifford Stolp: A Mystery Solved

Among the many images in Minnie Rossow Harms' steamer trunk was this photo of a young violinist, taken probably circa 1912.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

Handwritten notes on the back identify him as Clifford Stolp.



I've mentioned before that Clifford and his ultimate fate were a mystery to me. But recently I came across a short article in the Hobart Gazette of January 21, 1943, announcing, without much explanation, his death on January 9. However, that gave me a time frame, which made further research practical.
I found this article from the Nashville Banner of January 13:


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It helpfully explains who his wife and daughter were, as otherwise I would not have known. The only marriage record I had previously found for him was of his 1922 marriage to Dorothy Featherston (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index) and that one, it appears from the 1930 Census, ended in divorce. Clifford and Estelle married sometime around April 1941.[1] I do not know what brought Clifford to Tennessee in the first place, but now he rests there forever.

Here is another article from the January 21 Oak Leaves (Oak Park, Ill.).


((Click on image to enlarge)

Both articles, you will notice, give January 10 as the date of his death.

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The Gazette mentioned that Clifford Stolp "was an uncle to Billy and Carol Ann Stolp" of Hobart. Those were the children of his brother, Willard, who married Clara Shearer in 1929 (Indiana Marriage Collection). The Gazette added that Clifford had "numerous other relatives and friends in Hobart, having resided here at one time" — which we know, from the 1920 Census. He was, of course, related to the Rossows, and hence to the Harmses.

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[1] "Marriage Licenses," Nashville Banner, 14 Apr. 1941.

Wedding Report

In late November 1923, a flurry of weddings involving people we know.

The first took place on the farm of Theodore and Annie Rossow. Harry, born in 1898, was their youngest son, but not their youngest child.


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Hobart News, Nov. 29, 1923.

The young couple stayed in Gary, to judge by the 1930 Census and the 1940 Census, and had no children of their own as far as I can tell; but in 1940 their household included a young niece and nephew. I wonder what the story behind that was.


The next wedding, further down in the same column, involved Isaac Small, descended from the Smalls of Small's Crossing. Isaac's father, Richard, was one of the children of John E. and Mary Jane (Riley) Small, and had died in 1916, which is why only Isaac's mother, Carrie, is mentioned.[1]

Frances' father, Severin (aka Siegfried), was a baker with a shop on Main Street (bought out in 1922 by his son, Fred). Her mother, Lena (Conrad), had died in 1910.

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The third wedding involved the Moehl family, members of which eventually ran a garage at East and Second Streets in Hobart, near the flat where the article says the newlyweds would live.


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Hobart News, Nov. 29, 1923.

As for the Born family, I can't say I've learned anything about them since the one and only time I mentioned them before, so perhaps it's time for me to do a little research.

Viola Born's grandparents, Charles (aka Carl) and Hanna (aka Johanna) — both German immigrants — brought their family down from Chicago sometime after the 1880 Census. The 1891 Plat Book shows them owning over a hundred acres of farmland west of Hobart. Here is the Born farm as it appears on the 1908 Plat Map:


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It was the same in 1891 but for those southeasternmost 20 acres.

If I'm reading this all correctly, the brick house at 5050 Liverpool Road — built in 1900 per the county records — is probably the old Born place. And the Borns were neighbors of the Ewiglebens.

Viola's father, Paul, was the eldest child. By the 1900 Census he had five siblings. In 1901 he married Emilie (aka Amelia) Bastian (Indiana Marriage Collection). In the 1910 Census, Paul and Amelia, with Viola, Lauretta and a newborn daughter (as yet unnamed) were farming rented land in the same neighborhood — possibly part of his father's property.

Paul's mother died in 1904, his father in 1917. The 1920 death notice of his sister Anna gives a little snapshot of the family at that time:

The funeral of Mrs. Wm. Medrow was held from the home of her sister, Mrs. Bertha Thurber, of West Third street …. Burial was in Crown Hill cemetery.

Mrs. Anna Medrow died Monday at her home in Chicago after an illness of some time from tuberculosis. She was born in Hobart, her age being 46years, 4 months and 2 days, and lived here most of her life. Besides her husband she leaves seven children, six sons and one daughter, also three sisters, Mrs. Bertha Thurber, Mrs. Edward Rohwedder and Mrs. Edwin Sievert, and three brothers, Paul Born of Hobart, and Otto and Fred of Illinois.[2]

The 1920 Census shows Paul's family (now including four daughters) living on their own farm, which, according to the 1926 Plat Book, was formerly his parents' land.

Viola and Ernest Moehl are recorded in the 1930 Census living in their own home (with a radio) at 901 Garfield Street. He was employed by a lumber company as a truck driver.

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[1] Carrie's maiden name was Haxton and she married Richard in 1881 (Indiana Marriage Collection).
[2] "Funeral of Former Hobart Girl Held Wednesday Afternoon," Hobart News, May 20, 1920.

Survived by His Sisters and Brothers

I didn't miss this article the first time through the 1919 microfilm, but for some reason I didn't put it in the blog at the time.


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Hobart News, July 24, 1919.


Lynne was the illegitimate son of Sarah Jane Carey and an unknown man. What strikes me about the few records we have of his short life is how well his grandfather, William H. Carey, and William's second wife and step-family of Rossows seem to have accepted this child whose coming was, at first, such an unpleasant surprise.

In the 1910 Census (the only census Lynne lived to be counted in), William H. Carey claimed this boy as his own son.


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Image from Ancestry.com.

The Careys seem to be naming William's second wife, Augusta, as the boy's mother – note that she claimed to be the mother of only one child, although she had seven from her previous marriage to Henry Rossow. (The enumerator, Charles Blank of Miller, may have made this mistake, not being a local.)

And then, in the 1919 News death notice, Augusta is described as Lynne's "foster mother," and Augusta's children are called his sisters and brothers — though in fact they were his step-aunts and step-uncles.[1] Lynne was living with two of his "sisters," who had long since moved out of the Carey home, when he left for that ill-fated trip to Michigan.[2]

And the survivors bought a stone to mark his grave, which is more than his mother or grandmother got.


When Charles Hendrix (husband of Lynne's "sister," Ida) went to Michigan to bring the boy home, he kept the family secret, according to the death certificate:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

Charles may not have known who Lynne's mother was — was it he who gave the name "Leonard" for a boy who had always been called Lynn? Or maybe Charles knew, but thought it nobody's business except the Carey family's.

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We have only one known photo of Lynne.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Tom Rainford.

Both the News and the Gazette agreed that he had been born on October 29, 1904, so the handwritten note on the photo, giving his age as 16, is probably an error.

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[1] The Gazette simply called Lynne the "grandson of the late Wm. Carey" and noted that Lynne had "made his home in Hobart with Mrs. Carey," but did not name any survivors — thus being correct, discreet, and a bit cold, if you ask me. ("Hobart Boy Dies in Michigan," Hobart Gazette, July 25, 1919.)
[2] The death notice does not mention any of Lynne's uncles or aunts on the Carey side; I wonder if that omission means anything?

A Rossow by Any Other Name

In June 1923 the Rossow family held its first annual reunion. There were so many different names with a Rossow connection that I can't index them all, much less explain the connections.


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Hobart News, June 28, 1923.

The home of "Taylor" aka Theodore Rossow was on the southeast corner of County Line Road and Tenth Street.

We've already met the eldest attendee, Augusta Carey. The youngest, Betty Maxine Harms, was a daughter of Henry and Minnie (Rossow) Harms, born March 24, 1922.

Clara Davy is a misprint for Davies.


Additional Source: "Rossows Hold Reunion," Hobart Gazette, June 29, 1923.

Sweet Sixteen?

This is Clara Rossow at 16 years of age, according to the hand-written caption. Does she look sweet? — I think she looks determined.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Tom Rainford.

Assuming the caption is correct, this photo probably dates to circa 1906. I say probably because sources vary as to her birthdate, but the majority place it in 1890 or 1891.

She was one of the children of Augusta (Stolp) Rossow. The earliest census in which I can find her, the 1910 Census, gives her birthplace as Indiana. In subsequent censuses she claims to have been born at sea, on the Atlantic Ocean. It's a good story, but I don't think it's true.

That 1910 census shows her living with her siblings on Lake Street in Hobart. (As Minnie Rossow Harms tells us in As It Was Told to Me, the Rossow kids found that they got along better with their stepfather, William Carey, if they didn't live in his house, so they got their own.) Clara was working as a telephone operator. Sometime between 1910 and 1920 she married Thomas Davies, according to the family — I can't find an official record of the marriage on-line, but the 1920 Census records the two of them as married. It seems there were no children. When Clara died in 1976,[1] the background information on her death certificate came from a niece who did not know Clara's parents' names.


By the way, we have seen that painted backdrop a couple of times already.

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[1] [11/2/2026 update] A family member has sent me this correction: Clara Rossow Davey died on April 1, 1984.

Death at the Rossow Crossing … Again

Two years after witnessing a deadly train-vs.-automobile wreck at the Pennsy crossing near his home on present-day Wisconsin Street, William Rossow was among the first on the scene of another, equally horrifying, at the same crossing.


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Hobart Gazette, June 22, 1923

This story establishes that it was indeed Herman Harms who bought the cottage being moved from New Street, although here its destination is given as the "H. & S. subdivision." So Herman, along with his father Henry, his father-in-law William Rossow, and his brother-in-law Ed Niksch (Miksch is a misprint) were at work on the house a short distance southeast of the Wisconsin Street crossing.

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An item in the next column to the right mentions the filming of a 1915 celebration in Hobart. That film still exists, I am told, somewhere in the archives of the Hobart Historical Society. It hasn't been digitized, and trying to run the original through a projector would be foolhardy. Someday, perhaps, when both the film and the money to digitize it are found, we'll be able to view motion pictures of Hobart in 1915.

In the right-hand column, we find T.H. Grabowski building an addition to his home — an addition that, fortunately, is identifiable on this current sketch from the Lake County Assessor's website.



This confirms what I conjectured: that the old Carlson house is at 6430 Grand Boulevard. Per the county records, it was built in 1879.

Finally, a new bridge was going up over the Deep River where Ainsworth Road crosses it, known as the Nolte bridge since the road passes through the Nolte property there. When I first moved out here in 1990, there was a metal truss bridge similar to the one at 73rd Avenue — I wonder if that could have been the 1923 bridge? It was replaced within about a year of my moving here, and I never thought to take a photo of it.

I am curious to know what sort of bridge was there before 1923.


Additional Source: "Two More Victims of Grade Crossing Saturday When Mrs. John Clark and Daughter Margery Meet Death," Hobart News, June 21, 1923.

Mr. Moehl Wants to Build a Garage

On May 28, 1923, William Moehl bought a lot on Second Street (near his home) where he planned to build his garage.


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Hobart News, May 31, 1923.

Higher up in the same column are a couple of items that involve our friends the Harmses. The first just tells of a visit by Herman and Minnie (Rossow) Harms, along with her sister and brother-in-law, to her parents. The second tells us that Herman Harms bought a cottage, intending to move it elsewhere in the city. The Fairbank cottage was being moved from New Street to make way for what would eventually be the Roosevelt Gym.[1] In an earlier report, however, the Gazette named the buyer as Herbert Harms — whom I cannot identify in any local census — and the intended destination of the cottage as being in "the Melin subdivision," which may be Andrew Melin's Fairfield Addition on the east side of Wisconsin Street.[2] I will just add that in all the time I knew Herman's son, Eldon, he never mentioned any such cottage to me, but that doesn't prove anything.

An item over in the right-hand column tells us that the Amlong family was spending a second summer camping out near the village of Deep River.

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[1] "Local and Personal," Hobart News, May 17, 1923.
[2] "School Board Sells Dwelling," Hobart Gazette, May 18, 1923.

Fast Time

Our friend Fred Rossow lost nearly all his cows in April 1923, as the tuberculosis testing of local herds finished up.


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Hobart Gazette, April 20, 1923.

No one else lost as many in this round of testing, and most of the herds tested clean. "John Harnes" is a misprint for "John Harms."

There is so much material on this page! In the far-left column, Bess Hayward is selling off livestock and farming implements from her parents' estate.

In the next column, just below the cow-testing story, confusion arises from the inconsistent adoption of "fast time" — Daylight Saving Time. (And below that, yet another dance at the Niksches' Deep River Hall.)

In the right-hand column, we find an entertainment planned at the W.G. Haan School.


From Plays of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Volume 27 (1884)

And at the bottom of the column, some Severance-Yager socializing. From the 1920 Census, it would appear that George (Sr.) and Agnes Severance, who always rented the farms they operated, had moved from their previous home, a Ross Township farm west of Hobart,[1] to land in southeastern Hobart Township: their neighbors are Malones, Ensigns and Fasels.

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I was able to confirm the Harnes/Harms misprint above through the News version of the cow-testing story. That paper also carried a story about Ruby Fisher's marriage to a Hobart chiropractor named Alfred[2] C. Wickham, whom I never heard of before …


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Hobart News, April 19, 1923


… or after, either — I can't find them in the 1930 Census.

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[1] "Celebrate Silver Wedding," Hobart Gazette, July 20, 1917.
[2] Indiana Marriage Collection.

Now, About All Those Other Guys

Mayor Sherman Henderson's instructions to Police Chief Fred Rose in early April 1923 testified that, in spite of all those recent acquittals, plenty of people in Hobart were selling and buying vice in the form of liquor and gambling.


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Hobart News, April 5, 1923.

I had to ask Professor Google what punch boards are. In his letter, His Honor sounds as if he were still mad about losing money on them.[1]

In the left-hand column, we find another type of eradication underway, as local cattle were getting tested for tuberculosis, and many failing.


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[1] I'm kidding.

Huldah Shearer's Mother

This is Augusta Juhnke Lewin …


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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

… or, as notes on the back identify her, Huldah Shearer's mother, and Ma's second cousin.



Now, who was "Ma"? Antonia Rossow? Minnie Rossow Harms? All I know is that Minnie's maternal grandmother's maiden name was Juhnke (and thank goodness I wrote that down because I would never have remembered it otherwise).

There is no date for this photograph. The stamp box on the back was in use between 1908-1924. I am inclined to place the photo circa 1910, based on Augusta's apparent age — she was born in 1841, and here I would say she looks about 70. The bodice of her dress is a timeless black silk that an elderly lady might have worn anytime in the later 19th or early 20th century.

I ought to have posted this photo back when I posted her obituary … but honestly, I forgot I had it.

Kenneth Humes Puts a Ring on His Finger

After winning $100 in damages for his lost finger, Kenneth Humes could afford to buy a nice set of wedding rings, I suppose.


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Hobart News 15 Feb. 1923.

I still don't know exactly where the Humes residence was, or is, if it's still standing. Nor do I know where the Bradley garage was — but it might have had something to do with Charles Bradley.

An item in the "Local and Personal" column of the same issue reports that a sister of Kenneth who married a William Hill came to town for the happy occasion. As far as I know, Edwin and Carrie Humes' only daughter was Gladys … but Gladys shows up in the 1930 Census, married, with the surname Stevens (living with her parents; husband not recorded in the household), and with a child old enough to have been very young in 1923, surname also Stevens. Hm!



I hope Grace Nelson got well in time to attend the program at the W.H. Haan School.

A Burgling Spree

As clocks in Hobart ticked into the last day of January 1923, houses in Hobart were being burgled.


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Hobart News 1 Feb. 1923.

The story in the next column about the accident on the Pennsy Railroad still calls the Wisconsin Street crossing "the Rossow crossing" even though the farm next to it was no longer the Rossow farm.

'Twixt Love and a Car

The accident in my last post put me in mind of this postcard sent by Herman Harms to Minnie Rossow on March 4, 1915.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.



I think this is the latest-dated card I have from their correspondence. Just about three months later, they would be married.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Back in September 1916, Kenneth Humes had lost a finger to farm machinery on a Blachly farm. More than six years later, his suit for damages was finally being heard.


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Hobart News 11 Jan. 1923.

After several hours' deliberation, the jury would award Kenneth $100 and his costs ("Local and Personal," Hobart News 18 Jan. 1923).


Elsewhere on the page above we find Herman Harms, Jr., aka "Bud" — about four years old — sick with pneumonia at his maternal grandparents' house. His own parents, having been ill so recently, might have found it difficult to care for him.

Among the deaths reported in the right-hand column was that of the infant son of John and Goldie Ensign who had probably been named for his Uncle Walter. According to his death certificate, little Walter was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, but it seems that his grave is unmarked.

Wishing You a Merry Xmas

Christmas 1914 …


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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

Herman Harms sends his best wishes to his sweetheart, Minnie Rossow.



Half a year later they would be married.

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:


(Click on image to enlarge)
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.

Honey

Here we have a young Minnie Rossow Harms, wearing an apron with a "HONEY" label pinned to it.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

As I've mentioned, the Rossows and Mundells were neighbors, and the most likely explanation I can think of for the "HONEY" apron is that Minnie was working at Joe Mundell's honey-producing operation. However, if she did so, her son Eldon Harms could not recall her ever mentioning it, nor have I heard of it from any other source.

The photo is printed on a postcard with a stamp box style dating between 1904 and 1918.



Though I can't see much of her dress, her skirt nearly touches the ground, which moves the photo back from 1918;* but I don't think Minnie (born 1897) could be less than fourteen here … so I would guess at 1911-15 for the date of this photo.

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*That's assuming she hasn't got herself up in some sort of fancy-dress costume, to which current fashion would be less important.

A New Feedstore and an Old Homestead

When I wrote about the 1910 death of Morgan Blachly, I didn't know the 1908 Plat Map existed, so I could not credit him with more than the 180 acres shown in the 1891 Plat Book … but now I know that the Blachly farm comprised 256 acres by 1908. After Morgan died, the land apparently was divided up among his heirs, and his three sons farmed their share, or rented it out for others to farm.

In February 1922, as we've seen, Earl Blachly announced that he had sold his share of the old homestead, but did not identify the buyer.

Now in September 1922 we have this announcement of a new feed store in Hobart, one of the owners of which had "last spring … bought the Morgan Blachly homestead."


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Hobart Gazette 15 Sept. 1922

I believe I've identified him as Mark Pembor, born in Massachusetts on July 7, 1880. The earliest I can connect him to this area is December of 1911, when he married Esther Denton in Lake County, Indiana. (Why there, I do not know; Esther was a Chicago resident in 1910.) While my 1927 telephone directory lists a number for his "farm residence," I can't otherwise establish that the couple ever lived there. In 1920 they lived in Chicago; I can't find them in 1930; and Mark's death in 1933 happened in Chicago.

Mark and Esther are buried in (of all places) Frankfort, Michigan.

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The "Local Drifts" on the Gazette page above includes a few items about acquaintances of ours — the family of Dalia Messick moving from one unknown place to another; William Rossow loving the improvements on Lincoln Street; and George Rhodes moving to Cleveland Avenue, somewhere east of Illinois Street.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths Index.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ WWI Draft Cards.