Here Come the Grooms

Aside from the milk-fed turkeys of 1942, I know precious little about the Groom family that inhabited the Ainsworth/Hobart area, but I shall try to remedy my ignorance, now that they have come to my attention again through a little item in the "Local Drifts" column of the Hobart Gazette of February 1, 1924: "Hosea and Claude Groom and the latter's wife were called to DeSoto, Mo., last week by the death of their mother. They will return this week."

The brothers had been born in (or near) DeSoto,[1] Hosa[2] around 1890 and Claude around 1898, to Jefferson and Sarah Ellen Groom. There were eight children in all. The 1910 Census recorded Hosa and Claude still with their family in Missouri, but sometime after that, Hosa left home.[3]

He was in definitely in Lake County, Indiana, by 1916, when he married Hazel Pinson (Indiana Marriage Collection), who was also a native of Missouri. Hosa and Hazel show up in the 1920 Census in Hobart, with no children.

Meanwhile, Claude remained in DeSoto at least until September 1918 (WWI Draft Cards). I can't find him anywhere in the 1920 census (taken in January), but likely he was in this area by then or soon after: in October 1920, he married a Hobart woman, Mary Kisela. Her family and Hosa's were neighbors.


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Image from Ancestry.com.
Somebody at the Hobart Historical Society probably knows where "Earl[e]" street was (and Lightner street, too, which was the next one recorded), but I don't.

Mary was just short of 17 when she married Claude, but it was a lifelong marriage.

Hosa's marriage to Hazel was not.


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Hobart News, 8 May 1924.

The divorce went through, evidently, as we find Hosa a single man in 1930 census. (I don't know anything about Hazel's subsequent life.) In 1936 Hosa married Lola Martin. She had been born, raised, and was living in Illinois when they married,[4] so don't ask me how they met. But this marriage lasted.

Hosa and Lola continued living Hobart, he working in the steel mills and she keeping house. By the 1950 Census, the household included Lola's 21-year-old niece, who was divorced, with a three-year-old son.

Hosa was still living in Hobart when he died in 1951. According to his death certificate, his body was sent back to DeSoto, Missouri, for burial. Lola died in 1979 and is buried with her parents in Palestine, Illinois.

As for Claude and Mary Groom, they were living in Hobart in 1930 (next door to Hosa on Lawrence Street), with two children, Claude and Robert. Claude (Sr.) was a wireman in the steel mills. By 1940 they had moved to Ross Township (the enumerator notes "61st Street"), with another son (David) and Mary's parents (Frank and Barbara) having joined the household. When Claude was selling milk-fed turkeys in 1942, he told buyers to come to him "3/4 mile north of Green Acres at 330" — that is, 73rd Avenue.

I cannot find Claude and Mary at all in the 1950 census. Around the mid-1950s, they relocated to the Tampa area of Florida,[5] where they died in 1986 and 1988, respectively.

♦    ♦    ♦
The page of the News, above, where the divorce notice appears, includes an ad placed by Hattie Sizelove, who was selling life insurance from her farm east of Ainsworth. We already know that Hattie knew how to drive a car, so I'm getting the impression that she was quite an active person.

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[1] Hosa so states in his WWI Draft Card; Claude's death notice says likewise ("Obituaries," St. Petersburg Times (Fla.), 30 Aug. 1986).
[2] Yes, his name shows up as Hosa on official documents, even if the Gazette and also the News called him Hosea in the social columns. Which leads me to wonder if his parents intended to name him Hosea and/or that's how he pronounced it.
[3] His 1951 obituary says he left home in 1908 ("Hosa J. Groom, Former Resident, Dies in Indiana," Jefferson Republic (De Soto, Mo.), 5 Apr. 1951). If so, apparently he came back in time for the census.
[4] "New Marriage Licenses," Hammond Times, 26 Mar. 1936.
[5] Mary's 1988 obituary says she moved from Hobart to the Tampa area "32 years ago." ("Obituaries," Tampa Tribune, 14 Sept. 1988.)

Love and Death at the Ainsworth Crossing

For Fred Ahrens, the 1920s started out with grief upon grief. In February 1920, he lost his mother to complications of influenza. In February 1921, his 38-year-old wife, Mollie, died of tuberculosis. Fred was left with a young daughter and son to raise. He moved into his widowed father's house, where his sister, Mary, could help with the children. His former home became a rental property.

In May of 1923, the house got a new tenant, a former Chicago resident named Catherine McManus. She had something in common with Fred: she too had lost a spouse and was raising a daughter and son on her own. Her husband, Matthew, had died in 1918. For a few years after her loss, Catherine had remained in Chicago, working as a waitress and taking in boarders to make ends meet.

Catherine probably was familiar with Hobart long before she moved there. Her married sister was a Hobart resident for some ten years before moving to Gary. Their mother, Carolina (Lena), had been one of the local Springmans by birth. Lena's first husband (Catherine's father) was Nicholas Semmer, whose parents had farmed in Ross Township in the mid-19th century before relocating to Chicago. Her second husband was Fred Maybaum. So Catherine had many local relations, and surely friends and acquaintances too. Fred Ahrens may have been among the latter.

He soon became something more. These two bereaved hearts found solace in each other. Catherine and Fred fell in love, decided to marry, and quietly told their family and friends of their decision.

Since the two of them were an item, it was natural for them to travel together to the surprise birthday party planned for Rollie Sizelove, an Ainsworth-area farmer, on the evening of January 9, 1924. They would drive south from Hobart on present-day State Road 51, cross the Grand Trunk tracks at Ainsworth, turn right onto Ainsworth Road to reach the Lincoln Highway, then west to Colorado and north to the Sizelove farm.

But their journey ended at the Ainsworth crossing.


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Hobart News, 10 Jan. 1924.


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Hobart Gazette, 11 Jan. 1924.

There was no indication that Fred might have been trying to beat the train, as in the case of an earlier accident at this railroad crossing. It seems that he simply didn't notice it in time to react.


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Hobart News, 17 Jan. 1924.


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"General News," Hobart Gazette, 18 Jan. 1924.

A double funeral for Fred and Catherine, held at the Evangelical Lutheran Church, was widely attended.[1] They were laid to rest in the Hobart Cemetery.[2]

The surviving family members thanked their friends and neighbors as one:


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Hobart News, 17 Jan. 1924.

The orphaned children all had relatives willing to give them a home:


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"Local and Personal," Hobart News, 17 Jan. 1924.


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[1] "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, 18 Jan. 1924.
[2] Catherine's grave is listed on findagrave.com and in the NWIGS's Hobart Township Cemeteries. Fred's grave does not appear in either source; nor does his wife's (Mollie).

Ainsworth School-Year Souvenir, 1897-98 (Part 2)

(continued from Part 1)

As we now turn our attention to the pupils listed on the souvenir, I find there are more names here than I can index, so I'm going to have to split this up still further.


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I'll deal first with the names I've encountered before.

Blachly — Earl and May were siblings, the children of Morgan and Amelia. Earl had been born in 1882, May in 1884. By the way, I think the house at 4301 E. 73rd Ave. was the Blachly house, built in 1905[1] to replace whatever the family had been living in until then.

Bullock — Hubert probably met up with the Blachly kids as he walked down from the Bullock home, unless he walked along the Grand Trunk Railroad tracks or cut across the fields … but the latter would be some rough walking.

Chase — I thought this would be easy, since I know of a Chase (aka Chace) family recorded in Ross Township in the 1870 Census and 1880 Census, members of whom were residing in Hobart into the 1920s (Minnie Chase Smith and Gust Chase). But I can't place Gracie in any census. She might not have belonged to the local Chases, but to some Chase family just passing through.

Coyle — Nina, Stella, and Arlie were the daughters of Ainsworth's postmaster, Frank Coyle. Nina, the youngest, was the only one born in Indiana (1892). Her older sisters had been born in Kansas. Why the family moved from Kansas to Ainsworth, Indiana, is a mystery, but I suspect it might have something to do with Frank's wife, Susanne, having been born a Chase — possibly she had some relation to the local Chases. The Coyle family left this area probably around 1904 (when Frank resigned as postmaster) and moved permanently to Kansas City, Missouri.

Halsted — Howard lived above the Ainsworth general store with his parents, Willard O. and Barbara (Fiester) Halsted. He probably was a promising student, since he went on to law school. As we know, he died before his time.

Kagabein aka Kegebein — Frieda lived on a farm north of Ainsworth. Her parents were John and Carolina "Lena" (Eick) Kegebein. Frieda was born in 1891. In 1911, she became Mrs. Albert Witt.

Maybaum — There were so many Maybaums around here that I can't keep them straight. These two, Louis and Hattie, were cousins, I believe. Hattie was the youngest child of Charles and Caroline, born in 1886. In 1907 she became Mrs. R.D. Sizelove. Charles and Caroline's (I believe) eldest child, August, begat Louis in 1891. The 1900 Census shows the family — August and Dora, with Louis and his two younger brothers, Harold and Clarence — farming rented land among southeast Ross Township neighbors such as Bragington, Campbell, and Doepping.[2] In 1916 Louis married Ruby Man in Porter County. By 1917 they had moved to Battle Creek, Michigan,[3] and by the 1930 Census they were running an "oil station" in San Antonio, California.

Ols — Edward was the grandson of John and Charlotte Ols, born in 1890 to their son, John Jr., and Alta (Whittemore/Whitmer). Based on the 1900 Census, I believe they owned the 80-acre parcel in the southeast corner of Section 7 that later passed to Henry Chester, then Charles Chester, then John Berndt. The census records after 1900 show Edward in various places like Starke County and Gary, Indiana; as far as I know he never lived in Ainsworth after the family sold their 80 acres.

Pierce — Ruth (b. 1882) and Jennie (b. 1884) lived with their father, Reuben, and stepmother, Catherine. Their mother, Caroline (née Kegebein), had died in June 1895, not quite a week after their grandfather, Orrin Pierce, who had owned the farm where they lived as far back as 1874:


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From the 1874 Plat Map.

I don't know what, if any, relation they had to their Pierce neighbors.

Ruth Pierce married William Kelleher in Chicago in 1908; they lived and raised their family in Chicago. All I know about Jennie is that she is buried in the Hobart Cemetery under her maiden name.

Smith — Pearl Smith was the adopted daughter of Cyrus and Ellen Smith. So she was also the adopted cousin of the teacher, Mabel Smith Peterson.

Wojohn aka Wojahn — Frieda, Emil, Gust and Paul were some of the children of Julius and Alvina Wojahn. These four were born between 1884 and 1889. We've already met another of their children — Elsie, who married Howard Shearer. The Wojahn family lived on Ainsworth Road just west of the Lindborgs.[4] The schoolhouse was an easy walk west.

[to be continued]

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[1] Per the county records; also in my notes I find a reference in 1907 to Morgan Blachly's "new" house being blown off its foundation during a storm ("General News Items," Hobart Gazette, Mar. 29, 1907).
[2] From that location, they may have been attending a different school, such as the Deep River school, or the Hurlburt school if it was still operating.
[3] "General News," Hobart Gazette, Dec. 21, 1917.
[4] I believe the house at 6222 Ainsworth was built for the Wojahn family, in 1930 according to the county records, so it would have replaced an earlier house.

A Wreck at the Ainsworth Corner

To someone reading about a car wreck in the Hobart News of September 1922, what did "the Ainsworth corner" mean? The corner south of Ainsworth, where present-day 73rd Avenue and Grand Boulevard meet, was notorious for wrecks, sometimes deadly, sometimes only painful. However, in this case …


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"Local and Personal," Hobart News 7 Sept. 1922.

… I think "the Ainsworth corner" likely meant the intersection of present-day Ainsworth Road with Grand Boulevard. Hattie Sizelove was presumably coming from her farm east of Ainsworth, so leaving the Lincoln Highway at present-day Greene Street and taking Ainsworth Road to Grand would be a shortcut compared to staying on the Lincoln Highway all the way to Grand.

And Hattie's auto met John Wesley's just south of the Grand Trunk Railroad tracks.

I don't know whether this was John senior or John junior.

♦    ♦    ♦
In Hobart, the female population was looking forward to Friday or Saturday night and a trip to the Gem Theatre to see heartthrob Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik.


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Ford v. Cement Truck

Apparently, if you were bored in Hobart, you could go hang around the Nickel Plate Garage and wait for something to happen. Just one day after the barber-v.-barber grudge match, a cement truck showed what it could do to a Ford car out in front of the Nickel Plate Garage. The Ford belonged to our friend Roland Dolphus Sizelove.


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"Local and Personal," Hobart News 11 Aug. 1921.

In news of other acquaintances — yet another relative for the mysterious Mary Kipp. "Mrs. Wm. Halsted" may have been W.O.'s widow, Barbara; that was how the Gazette of August 12 identified a woman beginning a new house on Garfield Street, though there could have been two such women.

And Vera Quinlan had a job in Gary. From the next day's Gazette, we learn that her brother, Lester, who was then about 16 or 17, had joined the National Guard:


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 12 Aug. 1921.

… and yes, Mrs. Gottfried Mayer was Oscar's sister-in-law.

A Soldier's Belated Funeral

On November 6, 1920, a telegram from New York reached F.B. and Carrie Price on their Ainsworth farm: the body of their fallen soldier, their son James, was again on American soil. That day the ship bearing his coffin had docked. A U.S. soldier would accompany his remains to Crown Point.

The News now suggested that it was influenza that had killed him, not the wound he received in action, or nephritis, or exposure. (The Gazette merely said that he had recovered from his wound sufficiently to return to service, but then was "taken ill" and died at Base Hospital No. 22.)

The journey from New York home took nearly two weeks. On Friday, November 19, James' coffin arrived at his parents' home.

So many people came to the funeral on the afternoon of Sunday, November 28, that the Merrillville Methodist Church could not hold them all, and some were left outside. Seventy-five American Legion members were there, from the Hobart and Crown Point posts. Among the pallbearers were George Tabbert and Otto Sizelove of Hobart, both of them veterans; George said that James' company had relieved his detachment during fighting in the Argonne forest, where James was wounded.

James Price was finally laid to rest in the Merrillville cemetery.


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Sources:
♦ "Card of Thanks." Hobart News 2 Dec. 1920.
♦ "Funeral of James I. Price Will Be Held at Merrillville, Sunday Afternoon." Hobart News 25 Nov. 1920.
♦ "Funeral of Jas. Price Next Sunday." Hobart Gazette 26 Nov. 1920.
♦ "James I. Price, Who Died in France, to Be Buried at Merrillville." Hobart News 11 Nov. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 2 Dec. 1920.
♦ "Merrillville Items." Lake County Star 3 Dec. 1920.
♦ "Remains of Jas. Price Brought Home." Hobart Gazette 12 Nov. 1920.

Cutting the Midnight Hair

Deep in the cold silent darkness of Hobart, in the autumn of 1919 and the winter of your soul, you reach that point where only a shave and a haircut can restore your will to live. Where can you go? To whom can you turn?

To pretty well any of the local barbers, apparently. Just rouse them out of bed and they will take care of you in their sanitary, up-to-date barbershop whenever you like.

The Hobart barbers have done away with closing hours, and are now working whenever and as long as customers wish work done. Lawrence Niksch is again working all alone, his barber having gone to the steel mills where he can make more money. E.E. McAdams is helping Otto Sizelove at the former Wilder shop, and O.C. Mize is all alone. Since Mr. Brown left about a month ago Mr. Mize has added some new fixtures to his place and now has one of the most sanitary and up-to-date shops in the Calumet region.

Which is great for the hairy men of Hobart, but a hard life for barbers.

♦    ♦    ♦
A happier announcement moves me to say a few words about James and Rosa Frame …


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… who, if they really had wanted to be mentioned in this blog, should have been less orderly and law-abiding. However, they had the foresight to suffer some misfortune, in the form of Rosa's serious illness early on in their marriage — but I'm getting ahead of myself.

James was born in November 1870, Rosa Stegmeier in July 1874; both in Indiana, and Rosa probably on the land where she and her husband would be farming in 1926:



They married in 1898.

We first hear of Rosa's illness in early September 1904, when she was "reported very low," which in the idiom of the time meant seriously ill. Two weeks later she was in the "Logansport asylum," i.e., Longcliff Hospital — but the "very low" suggests it was her physical, not mental, health at issue, so I'm guessing she had tuberculosis.

Unlike so many of the tuberculosis cases we've encountered so far, Rosa's had a happy ending: she recovered. The 1910 census found her back home, the mother of a two-year-old boy, Irvin (though she had borne and lost another child at some point). In 1915 she gave birth to a daughter, Allene or Aline (who eventually became a teacher at the W.G. Haan school).

Those were the high, or low, points of the Frames' life so far. Other than that, they quietly went about farming and socializing, and obviously had plenty of friends to celebrate James' birthday in 1919.

I don't understand how his 50th birthday could fall in 1919, when he himself told the 1900 census-taker that he was born in November 1870, but that may be a mistake on the part of the News. And anyway, when 35 friends turn up at your door to celebrate your birthday, you don't fuss about the details.


Sources:
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Ainsworth Pick-Ups." Hobart Gazette 9 Sept. 1904; 23 Sept. 1904.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 4 Dec. 1919.

He Went Home Again

I didn't even know that Charles Maybaum, Jr. was in poor health. And now, having learned that from the age of 17 he suffered from "rheumatism" (probably arthritis), I am surprised that he was so active. As the years passed, his condition grew worse: by his early thirties, he needed a crutch and a cane just to move about, and toward the end he was "quite helpless."

All of this came out (to me) only after Charles died on October 11, 1919, in the house in Ainsworth where he had moved only three months earlier. He was 53 years old, having been born July 23, 1866, in Germany.

I do wonder if the grief and disruption in his life — the loss of his mother, who had cared for him all those years, the move from his old familiar farm home to a house in the village — hastened his death, but that is just my wild conjecture.

Charles was survived by his nine siblings, and since eight of them lived in northwest Indiana, they likely attended his funeral at the M.E. Church in Hobart. The possible exception was his sister Lena Barney, who now lived in Battle Creek, Michigan; but her branch of the family was represented by her 28-year-old son, Ray, who made the trip down to pay his respects.

Charles Jr. was laid to rest in Crown Hill Cemetery.


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That is the west side of the stone whose east side memorializes his parents.

His brother-in-law, R.D. Sizelove, was appointed administrator of his estate.




Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 11 July 1919.
♦ "Card of Thanks." Hobart News 16 Oct. 1919.
♦ "Death of Charles Maybaum." Hobart Gazette 17 Oct. 1919.
♦ "Funeral of Charles Maybaum Held Monday Afternoon." Hobart News 16 Oct. 1919.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 16 Oct. 1919.
♦ "Notice of Administration." Hobart News 16 Oct. 1919.

"Practically All His Life"

Late in January 1919, Charles Maybaum, Jr. left his Ross Township home to move in with Arthur and Olive Weiler in Porter County. The Gazette noted that he had "spent practically all his life on the farm south of Ainsworth." Omitted from "practically all his life" were the first five years of it, spent in Germany where he was born, and the journey of over 4,000 miles that brought him to Ainsworth. Aside from that, then, let us say that he was an unadventurous homebody, at the age of 52 still a bachelor living in the old family home with his widowed mother, Caroline.

A week later comes news that gives us an idea of the reason for the move: the 76-year-old Caroline was sick, and had been for several weeks. She was under the care of her daughter, Hattie Sizelove. Hattie may have come to Caroline's house, or brought Caroline to her own; either way, apparently the old Maybaum household was disrupted enough to make Charles leave the home where he had spent practically all his life.


Sources: "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 31 Jan. 1919; 7 Jan. 1919.

Now That His Cows Are Safe…

We've seen Rollie Sizelove sell off all his cows to keep them from being killed by the trains passing across the farm he rented. Now that his cows are all safe with Charles Chester, he goes and buys a farm that is untouched by railroads.

(I just had to go back to that cow post and fix his name. I thought it was "Raleigh" because that's how census-taker in 1910 spelled it, and I haven't been able to find any other census record of him. The newspapers refer to him as "R.D.," or sometimes "Rollie." Now I finally track down his World War I draft registration card, and find out that "R.D." stood for "Roland Dolphus" — no wonder he used his initials.)

I don't know much about the Sizeloves. Rollie came from some unknown location (possibly Grant County, Indiana) to marry Hattie Maybaum in April 1907. In December of that year Hattie bore a daughter, name unknown. No children are listed in the 1910 census, so I suppose their little daughter did not live long.

That loss aside, their life seems to have been peaceful and pleasant. They were a fairly sociable couple, with a large extended family to visit. Twice during the winter of 1910, Rollie won a prize for the handsomest costume at a masquerade ball, one in Ainsworth, one in Deep River. In 1911, about 30 friends threw a surprise party for them at their own home, and spent several hours playing cards and dining. That home of theirs was well south of Ainsworth, as for some years they rented all or part of the Sela A. Smith farm.

In mid-February of 1918, the Sizeloves finally purchased their own land: a 60-acre parcel known as the Mid Harper farm. It had been owned by Middleton Harper at least since 1891. Since early 1901 Walter Blachly had rented it. Walter may have eventually bought it, but the report of the sale to the Sizeloves doesn't name the seller. Whoever it was, he or she got $7,000 from Rollie and Hattie.

They expected to stay in their rented home on the Smith farm until the first of March, but Rollie immediately set about building a new barn on their very own farm.


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This image from the 1926 Plat Book shows the Sizeloves' new farm outlined in green, and the Sela Smith farm, which they had been renting, outlined in red.


Sources:
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Ainsworth." Hobart News 9 Nov. 1911; 26 June 1913.
♦ "Deepriver Items." Hobart Gazette 11 June 1909.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 7 Dec. 1900; 20 Dec. 1907.
♦ "General News." Hobart Gazette 15 Feb. 1918.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 14 Jan. 1910; 4 Feb. 1910; 3 Mar. 1911; 25 May 1917.
♦ "Ross Township." Hobart News 2 Jan. 1913.
♦ WWI Draft Cards.

Cows and More Cows

In the autumn of 1916 Charles Chester sold an 80-acre parcel just north of Ainsworth to John Berndt.* (I don't know whether that's the parcel shown in the 1926 Plat Book as belonging to John Berndt, or the one just below it, which ended up in Carrie Raschka's hands). That sale brought Charles $10,000.

He intended to use the money to expand his dairy operations on the old Chester homestead, a 240-acre spread that I believe centered on the house still standing at 7302 Ainsworth.

His current herd comprised about 40 milch cows. Charles intended to add another 20 once he had expanded his facilities for stabling them. Around this time he took two of his sons — George, age 21, and Sela, 17 — into partnership in his farm business, "to give the boys a chance, and at the same time lift some of the work and responsibility from his own shoulders." The News noted that Charles' lengthy travels had taught him much about dairying techniques throughout the country. He used the most modern practices on his farm, including a milking machine.

In May came the big cow purchase. Rollie D. Sizelove sold his whole herd of 31 head to Charles in a fit of disgust — the C. & O. railroad passed through the farm Rollie rented; the railroad refused to maintain the fence along the right-of-way, so his cows were in constant danger of wandering onto the tracks, and the railroad never paid more than half the value of any animal killed. Rollie figured he'd rather get out of the cow business altogether than watch his cows get picked off one by one. With that purchase, the Chester herd nearly doubled in size.

♦    ♦    ♦
Since we've mentioned the Berndt family, here's some gossip: in January 1917 John Berndt, Sr., at the age of 69, sued his 71-year-old wife Hannah for divorce. After 40 years of marriage! What is this world coming to?

________________________
*I'm not entirely sure at this point whether the John Berndt in question was John Sr. or John Jr. — a couple of reports say Sr.; one says Jr.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Chas. Chester and Sons Increasing Their Dairy Business." Hobart News 22 Mar. 1917.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 25 May 1917.
♦ "In the Divorce Courts." Hobart Gazette 19 Jan. 1917.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 12 Oct. 1916.

Trees: Falling and Family

As I said, I'm at a point in time where an Ainsworth person has to die or be born in order to get into the paper. Charles Maybaum made it onto the front page of the Hobart News of September 11, 1913, by being killed by a falling tree. And it took that obituary to inform me just how instrumental he and his wife, Caroline, had been in populating the area. Just look at the list of surviving (adult) children:

In Ainsworth:

• Albert Maybaum
• Edward Maybaum
• Charles Maybaum
• August Maybaum (in Ross Township, outside the village of Ainsworth)
• Mrs. Lena Barney
• Mrs. Martha Miller
• Mrs. Hattie Sizelove

In Deep River: Mrs. Gusta Waldeck
In Hobart: Mrs. Jennie Dewell
"Near Hebron": Mrs. Mary Thompson

Honestly, Ainsworth wouldn't have been much of a town without Charles and Caroline Maybaum; now, would it? I mean, even less of a town. Or village.

He was also survived by a brother, Fred Maybaum of Chicago, and just to make things interesting there was an (I believe) unrelated Fred Maybaum in Hobart whose hobby was likewise, apparently, populating the town.

Charles Maybaum was born in Germany in 1840. In 1863 he married Caroline Wagoner, and their two eldest sons, August and Charles junior, were born in Germany. In 1871 the family came to the United States and eventually settled in Ross Township, south of Ainsworth, where they resumed producing children. The 1891 Plat Book shows "Chas. Maibaum & wife" owning the 80-acre parcel that later passed into the hands of George Chester, and where Chester Cemetery is located.


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The 80-acre Maybaum parcel is outlined in red. This image is from the 1926 Plat Book, which I use because it's easier to read than the 1891 one, and by that time the land belonged to George Chester.

Charles died sometime on the morning of September 4, 1913. He had left the house about 9 a.m., after announcing his intention to go chop down a tree in the woods on his land. No one thought anything of it when he didn't come back for lunch, but as the afternoon wore on and Charles was nowhere to be seen, someone got worried and set out looking for him. His "severely bruised" body — dead for probably several hours — was found near the tree he had cut down.

He is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.


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Sources:
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Chas. Maybaum Killed by Falling Tree Thursday." Hobart News 11 Sept. 1913.