Bruce Mitchell Times Two

This postcard is postmarked 1955:


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It introduces us to a father-and-son team of entrepreneurs who operated businesses in Hobart for some three decades. They sold a whole lot more than sporting goods, as we are told by this advertising flyer bound into the Classifieds section of the 1952-53 Hobart directory:[1]


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.

Wellington Bruce Mitchell was the father, and Thomas Bruce Mitchell the son. The father usually went by "W.B."; the son almost always went by his middle name.

According to W.B.'s obituary, their business connection to Hobart started in 1932.


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"Deaths," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 22 Dec. 1964.

But their emotional connection to Hobart started even earlier. In April 1910 W.B. married Mary Blaemire (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index), a daughter of William and Isabell Blaemire,[2] who were Hobart residents as early as the 1880 Census, and who are now buried in Hobart Cemetery.

The 1910 Census, taken a couple of weeks before his wedding, recorded W.B. living with his parents in Chicago's Ward 8 — the furthest southeastern part of Chicago, bordering on Indiana. W.B. and his father both worked in steel mills.

W.B.'s draft card, filled out June 1917, stated that he and Mary, with their two children (the youngest being Thomas Bruce), lived in southeast Chicago while he commuted to a job in Gary, Indiana. Three years later, per the 1920 Census, they still lived in the same area, W.B. working as a millwright at an unnamed construction company.

In July 1929 we find this little personal item about the family in a south Chicago newspaper's social column: "Mr. and Mrs. Wellington Bruce Mitchell and their children, 7842 Paxton ave., left last week for a visit to their summer home at Hobart, Ind."[3] Their owning a summer home implies a fairly comfortable financial situation. In the 1930 Census, W.B. described himself as a self-employed real estate broker who owned his residence in south Chicago.

Two years after that, as we know, the family moved to Hobart. We start to find directory listings for them in the 1936-37 directory,[4] which shows them renting the house at 769 E. Third Street. We are told that W.B. is a merchant with a business called Hobart Paint & Glass, but there is no separate listing for that business. It was probably operating out of the Guyer Building, where the old-timers in 1979 remembered it, and where it was listed in the October 1940 directory.[5] A slightly later directory, for 1940-41,[6] showed Mitchell's Hobart Service Supply Co. (listed under "Paint Dealers") at 151 Illinois Street.[7]

In 1938 Thomas Bruce Mitchell got married.


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"Hobart," Hammond Times, 26 Sept. 1938.

The two Mitchell families set up separate households near each other on Kelly Street. Bruce (Jr.) worked in his father's stored; W.B. described himself as the owner of a lumber company (1940 Census) and a building contractor (1940-41 directory).

The sporting goods business makes its first appearance in Hobart's January 1946 directory,[8] with "Mitchell's" at 151 Illinois Street being listed in the Classified section under "Sporting Goods — Retail." The same business at the same address is also listed under "Hardware Stores" and "Paint — Retail." Under the latter heading we also find Hobart Paint & Glass at the same address. All these businesses shared one phone number: Hobart-75. In 1949, according to a photocopied newspaper article in the Hobart Historical Society museum files, a Mitchell appliance store was opened[9] (possibly at 225 Center Street, as listed in the 1952-53 directory insert posted above).

In the 1950 Census, W.B. is described as a "proprietor" in the "retail lumber & coal" industry, while Bruce is likewise a "proprietor," in the "retail sporting goods" industry.

As we already learned from his obituary, W.B. retired from business in 1952.

The 1956 directory[10] has a listing only for "Mitchell Bruce Sports" [sic] — no indication that any of the lumber, paint, or hardware business continued. But the Hobart Historical Society's file contains a photocopied newspaper article from 1957 about the "grand opening of Mitchell's Hardware store in its new location at 225 Center St."[11]

In 1962[12] Mitchell's of Hobart was operating at 151 Illinois. By 1968[13] it had moved across the street to 154 Illinois. That was the year of Thomas Bruce Mitchell's death, and, so far as I can tell, the end of the Mitchell business empire in Hobart. The 1970 directory has no business listings for any Mitchell business, and Bruce's widow, Loretta, is listed in Ogden Dunes.[14]

Bruce and Loretta (who died in 2005) are buried in Mosier Cemetery.

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As for the recipient of our postcard, Lloyd Schroeder — he lived a long, eventful life and now rests in Valparaiso.

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[1] 1952 — Directory — 1953 (Hobart – Wheeler – New Chicago – Ainsworth – Green Acres – Deep River – South Hobart Twp. – South Portage Twp.), published by Advance-News, Nappanee, Indiana (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[2] Indiana Death Certificates.
[3] "Personals," Southtown Economist (Chicago, Ill.), 19 July 1929.
[4] City Directory/Hobart, Ind./1936-37 ["Compiled by House-to-House Canvas"]. 1936: Mrs. Sherlock Hope (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[5] Hobart/Chesterton/East Gary/Kouts/Ogden Dunes/Valparaiso/Wheeler. Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation, October 1940 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[6] City Directory/Hobart, Indiana/1940 – 1941 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[7] Per the county records, the gas station now on that site was built in 1979. I have not been able to find any bird's-eye or aerial views showing whatever buildings may have been there before 1979.
[8] Valparaiso/Chesterton/East Gary/Hobart/Kouts/Ogden Dunes/Wheeler. Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation, January 1946 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[9] "Mitchell's To Hold Grand Opening Of New Appliance Center On Saturday, Oct. 1," Hobart Gazette, 15 Sept. 1949.
[10] Robinson's Hobart, Indiana City Directory. George C. Robinson Directory Service (Hillsdale, Mich.), 1956 (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[11] "Many Prizes Awarded at Grand Opening of Mitchell's Hardware," Hobart Gazette, 28 Mar. 1957.
[12] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1962. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.).
[13] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1968. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.) (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).
[14] Polk's Hobart (Lake County, Ind.) City Directory 1970. R.L. Polk & Co. (Detroit, Mich.) (copy at the Hobart Historical Society museum).

Four Generations

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Fred Ols.

From left to right: Martin Ols, Herbert Ols (Martin's oldest child, born April 1914), Bertha Ols (Martin's mother), Christian Wischman (Bertha's father). The photo is estimated to date to around 1915-1916.

This photo was taken near the end of Christ Wischman's life: he died in the spring of 1917. Here is his obituary from the Hobart Gazette of March 16, 1917:

Christ Wischmann, who has been ill for a couple of months, died at his home in the Ryan subdivision yesterday morning, March 15, following an attack of pneumonia, aged 78 years last November. He was born in Germany, Nov. 27, 1838, and came to this country in 1867. He lived a number of years in Hobart following his coming here, but most of his years thereafter were spent in Milwaukee and on a farm nearby. His last residence in Hobart has been about eight years.

He is survived by wife and three sons, William, Arthur and Frank, by his third marriage; a son, Christ, Jr., who lives in Wisconsin, by a second marriage, and a daughter, Mrs. Henry Ols of Gary, by his first marriage; besides a brother and a sister, William Wischmann and Mrs. Christ Passow, who reside in Hobart. Fred Wischmann, who lives here, is a nephew.

The funeral will be held this week Saturday from the German Evangelical Lutheran church at 2 o'clock. The burial will be at Crown Hill.

His first wife's name was Mina — probably short for Wilhelmina; maiden name unknown. That marriage also produced a son, Robert, who died in 1887 per the genealogy compiled by Fred Ols. It may be Mina's gravestone in the Hobart Cemetery, bearing a date of death of Jan. 26, 1872, and an age of 30 years, 9 months and 12 days, per the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society's transcription. In 1873, in Lake County, Indiana, Christ married Amalia* Schroeder, and sometime before 1880 they moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By that time they had three children: Herman (whose fate is unknown**), Martha,*** and Christ Jr., named in the obituary as a survivor. In 1891, Christ Sr. married another Amelia, and by 1900 they were farming in Juneau County, Wisconsin, and had five children: Willie, Louie, Charlie, Arthur and Frank. Louie apparently died between 1900 and 1905. In 1910 the family was still in Wisconsin, but they must have moved to Hobart very soon after the census, if the Gazette could reasonably attribute about eight years' recent residence to Christ. Charley Wischman died in Hobart in 1914 at the age of 21 (the cause of death being tuberculosis), and is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery under the name Wishman, as is his father.

That more or less accounts for Christ's wives and children at the time of his death. His son Arthur would not outlive him by long: he died of Spanish flu in September 1918. Here is Arthur's obituary, from the Hobart Gazette of October 4, 1918:


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*Her name is given as "Mina" in the marriage record transcription, but "Amalia" in the 1880 census.
**He died in December 1910 according to a very helpful family tree compiled by the Dewell family archivist on Ancestry.com, but I have not been able to find any independent confirmation of this. I doubt that the Herman Wischman buried in Crown Hill Cemetery is Christ's son, since his birth year (1883) doesn't jibe with the 1880 census.
***This was not the Martha Wischman who married William Dewell, and died of the Spanish flu in 1918; that Martha was the daughter of Christ's brother William. (Thanks to the DeWell family archivist for straightening me out on that!)


Sources:
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 25 Dec. 1914.
♦ Ancestry.com. Wisconsin, State Censuses, 1895 and 1905 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.
♦ "Funeral of Christ Wischman Held Saturday Afternoon." Hobart News 22 Mar. 1917.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ Indiana WPA Death Records Index.

A Fight Over the Moehl Houses

It was in February 1919 that the 75-year-old Caroline Moehl (mother of William Sr.) entered a contract to sell her lot and two houses to her neighbors, Theodore and Elfrieda Schroeder, for $2,500, to be paid in installments. As inducement to murder her, the contract provided that the Schroeders would take ownership of Caroline's property upon either full payment of the purchase price, or her death, whichever came first. As added inducement, the contract obligated the Schroeders to nurse her in any illness.

In spite of all that, the Schroeders restrained themselves. When death came for Caroline in June 1920, it had to seek her out far from her old neighborhood, for she was staying with her son on his farm west of Hobart. And her death was so sudden — reasonably healthy one day, suffering from "acute dilation of the heart" the next, and dead the day after — that the Schroeders had no opportunity to nurse her in illness. In their opinion, their contract with Caroline now entitled them to her property.

Caroline's heirs thought otherwise, and so the fighting began.


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From the Hobart Gazette, 27 May 1921.

The other heir mentioned in the story, aside from William, would probably be Caroline's daughter, Mrs. Alvena Clemens of Canton, Ohio.


The second story marked on that page is about a possible successor to the Hillman soft-drink parlor.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Mrs. Moehl Dies Suddenly." Hobart Gazette 11 June 1920.