South of Deepriver

Thank goodness for these South of Deepriver columns, they save me from having to write a real post.


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Hobart News 10 Aug. 1922.

South of Deepriver

Random bits from the countryside south of Deepriver, late July-early August 1922.


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Hobart News 3 Aug. 1922

I don't know exactly what a separator canvas is, but the wording of that item suggests that the farmers of southeastern Ross Township had chipped in to buy themselves a communal farm machine — a sensible thing to do — and it was getting a workout in that summer's wheat threshing.

… Here's a little article about a threshing machine that has a separator and a canvas, somehow or another.


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From the Chilton Tractor Journal, Vol VIII, No. 4 (April 1, 1922). Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=xsZMAQAAMAAJ&lpg=RA3-PA14&ots=pSADxxAJwL&pg=RA3-PA14&ci=80%2C816%2C899%2C500&source=bookclip#v=onepage&q&f=false.

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Elsewhere in the August 3, 1922 issue of the News, we find out that the strikebreaker has still not recovered …



… and among the familiar names in the second column, we also find Miss Jeanette Peterson, daughter of Lena and George. The Hugo Zobjeck at Camp Knox in Kentucky was Hugo Jr., now about 17 years old.

In the third column are a couple of obituaries. The first concerns the untimely death of Ida (Heck) Carlson, who probably grew up on the old Heck place. The second brings me to consider the Wilson family of Union Township, Porter County, whom I have considered very little up to now. Mrs. Jane Harwood would have been Aunt Jane to "Miss Leola Wilson of Blachly's corners," and also, I believe, to Ralph Wilson, who in his youth took music lessons from Ainsworth's own Hugh Dotzer ("Ainsworth Pick-Ups," Hobart Gazette 6 Jan. 1905). In my notes and in the blog, I find several references to Wilsons, and some day when I retire and have time on my hands, perhaps I shall investigate which of them belonged to the Wilson family of Union Township.

Here is the farm of Jane's parents, Amos and Hannah Wilson, as it appeared on the 1876 plat map:


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

This Is Why He Couldn't Have a Gas Station

While the human race exists, there will be jerks. At the time we are concerned with — 1922 — jerks had found a relatively new way to be jerks, involving that relatively recent invention, the gas station. But already this avatar of jerkitude was so well known that the neighbors of John Kibler's triangle rose up to prevent his building a gas station where jerks could be jerks.


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Hobart News 13 July 1922.

Also, news from the countryside south of Deepriver, some of it involving huckleberries in a way that I interpret to mean they grew wild around here. News to me!

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.

Maypoles and Gay-Mill Gardens

Tidbits from south of Deep River, late in May 1922:


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Hobart News 25 May 1922.

The list of Ainsworth graduates confirms my earlier guess (which wasn't exactly genius-level in the first place), and gives a few details about the graduation ceremonies — drills and Maypole dances in an open field that may have been a bit muddy.

So Howard H. Smith, who has been living in an undisclosed location at least since January 1922, when Melvin and Verna Guernsey moved onto his farm, is now building a house on his Porter County land? — and where might that be, I wonder?

Excuse me while I look at Union Township maps on a hunch …

… what do you know, it's right across the county line from his Lake County land.


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Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/UnionTownshipMaps.html, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

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This advertisement for the Gay-Mill Gardens sounds as if May 27, 1922 might be its grand opening …


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Hobart Gazette 26 May 1922.

… but if that's the case, then why is the "mirror floor" already famous?

In Dreams of Duneland, Kenneth J. Schoon describes the Gay Mill as "a vibrant dance and social hall with an adjacent hotel and even lakefront houses for rent." It must have seemed quite glamorous to people accustomed to dancing above a blacksmith's shop or in an old schoolhouse, if they ever ventured through the Gay-Mill doors.

South of Deepriver

Social news from the countryside early in May 1922:


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Hobart News 11 May 1922.

The Guernsey family was planning another reunion.

I don't know who Albert Starr was, but he lived in Valparaiso (1920 Census).


Over in the left-hand column, we hear of an auto accident "south of Ainsworth," but we don't get enough details to figure out exactly where it happened.

South of Deepriver

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Hobart News 4 May 1922.

Among all this ordinary social news, we find an item about the Henry Cunningham farm. Last time we heard about that farm was in 1919, when Thomas and Maud Chandler were renting it and their landlord was planning to sell it.

Looking around on the plat maps, I had to go all the way back to the 1874 Plat Map to find a Henry Cunningham farm:


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Henry Cunningham was born circa 1827 in New York. The earliest I can find him around here is in Porter County in the 1850 Census; he was then working as a hired hand on the farm of Hazzard and Alvira Sheffield. In 1851 he married Elizabeth Sheffield (Indiana Marriage Collection) — the sister of his employer, I'm guessing. Henry and Elizabeth were still in Porter County, farming near Hazzard and Alvira, through the 1860 Census. By the 1870 Census, however, the Cunninghams were in Ross Township, apparently on the farm that would still be bear their name in local parlance in 1922.

… which is strange, because the 1880 Census shows that Henry, apparently widowed, had by then left Ross Township and was living with his children in Chicago, dealing in horses. In the 1891 Plat Book, the Cunningham farm is the Joseph Guernsey farm. I wonder why the Cunningham name had such staying power?

South of Deep River

First of all, I think that the reference to "Mrs. Carl Harper" as the secretary of the League of Women Voters' Ainsworth chapter was the newspaper's mistake for Pearl Harper, aka Mrs. Robert Harper. In the April 6, 1922 issue of the Hobart News, we find her placing a "Notice to Women Voters of Ainsworth" to announce a meeting at Lena Hunter's house, and signing herself as Secretary. Mystery solved.

Now, on to the social news from the countryside south of Deep River:


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Hobart News 6 Apr. 1922.

I suppose M.J. Guernsey was Melvin Guernsey, son of D.L. (David) and Stella Guernsey.

I'm having a little trouble identifying this newcomer, John Arnson. I suspect that the un-Americanized version of his name was Anders Johan Aronson, and the land he bought was in Union Township, Porter County, near Huffman's mill.


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Union Township plat map, 1928, from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1928Plats/Union-1928.jpg, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

If I've identified him correctly, he was born in Sweden circa 1868, came to the U.S. circa 1886, and married Cora Burge on August 17, 1910. I suppose she was related to the Burges, a large family that went back to the 1830s locally, but I can't identify her precisely. As far as I can tell, John and Cora had no children. She died in 1939, he in 1944.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Hold Rites for Mrs. Aronson." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso), 26 May 1939.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Johan Aronson, Age 74, Dies Sunday Night." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso), 21 Aug. 1944.

South of Deepriver

The social news from the countryside in early March 1922.


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Hobart News 9 Mar. 1922.

"Mrs. L.R. Huffman" would be Nellie, wife of Levi Randall Huffman, Jr.

South of Deepriver

Random news from the countryside south of Deep River, and elsewhere.


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Hobart News 5 Jan. 1922.

Melvin and Verna Guernsey are moving back into my bailiwick, so maybe I will start paying attention to them again. But if they are moving to the Howard H. Smith farm, where is Howard H. Smith going?

South of Deepriver

A social column from the countryside south of Deep River …


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Hobart News 13 Oct. 1921.

… and a full obituary for Harry Breyfogle's foster grandma.

Also a little more information about the Yellowstone Trail.

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Elsewhere in the same issue of the News, one heck of a chicken dinner …



If the Nelson family was our own Glen and Elsie Nelson (and their two little boys, Delmer and Melvin), I wonder if their being "of Crown Point" was only in terms of mail delivery routes. The 1920 Census seems to place them on Grand Blvd./S.R. 51 between Ainsworth and the Deep River, and I haven't seen any news since then of their moving.