Anna and Norma Lindborg in Sweden, 1938

The Hobart Index-Commonwealth of May 26, 1938, carried this article on the front page:

Ainsworth Ladies Embark Saturday For Visit In Sweden With Relatives
Planning to embark on the "S.S. Gripsholm" from New York City this Saturday, for a trip to Sweden and other European countries, Mrs. Gust Lindborg and daughter, Norma, and Miss Bernice Taber, left Wednesday morning for the east. They will be accompanied on their motor trip as far as New York City by Mrs. Lindborg's son, Raymond, daughter, Gladys, and Miss Evelyn Wolf,[1] who plan to return home in about a week, after a motor trip through the eastern states.

Mrs. Lindborg expects to visit until the latter part of August with her aged parents, brothers, and sisters and also with her husband's brothers and sisters, who all reside in the southern part of Sweden in and near the city of Malmo. This will be the first time she has seen any of them in 38 years, since she came to America from her homeland, when she was a young girl.

After a short visit with Miss Lindborg's relatives in Sweden, she and Miss Taber will continue their tour through Sweden, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and England. The two young ladies plan to return to the United States about August fifth by way of Montreal, Canada.

Mrs. Lindborg will spend all of her time in and near Malmo returning home the latter part of August on a different boat.

The Hobart Historical Society recently received a donation of a scrapbook/photo album put together by Mildred Lindborg Lute, Anna Lindborg's eldest daughter. It included photos from that trip to Sweden in 1938. We know that thanks to Mildred's happy penchant for identifying her photos — otherwise, we'd just be looking at the photos and saying, "Doesn't that look like Anna Palm Lindborg? But where on earth were these taken?"

The first photo shows Anna and her mother, Hanna Palm.[2]


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

The photo below shows both Anna and her daughter, Norma, with some relatives. (The fact that Mildred referred to her sister as Norma Berg means she was typing up these captions sometime after Norma's marriage in April 1949.)



For the rest of the photos, I will let Mildred's captions speak for themselves.













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The August 11, 1938 Index-Commonwealth reported:

Miss Bernice Taber and Miss Norma Lindborg, both of Ainsworth, returned recently from a three months tour of Europe. The girls motored, together with Mrs. Gust Lindborg, to New York where they embarked on the ship, Gripsholm of the Swedish-American lines. Landing in Sweden they took a trip up the Goda Canal to Stockholm, which is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. From there they went to Oslo, Norway, and through the fjords. The water in the fjords, Miss Taber reports, is a very clear, marked green, but the air has a definite bluish cast and gives the surrounding scenery a hazy look, which even accents its beauty. From Norway, the travelers journeyed to Copenhagen, Denmark, and from thence through Germany by way of the Rhine. The Rhine, the girls said, is an exceptionally winding river and makes its many turns through the surrounding Alps. From Brussels, Belgium, they ferried to England across the English Channel, where they visited London, and Oxford University. Mrs. Lindborg, who remained longer to visit her sister in Sweden, sailed this week for the United States. Miss Taber and Miss Lindborg, however, returned two weeks ago by way of Canada, on the ship Express of Britain. Arriving in Canada, they visited Quebec and Montreal and then journeyed on home.

The August 25 Index-Commonwealth noted that Anna Lindborg had finally come home to Ainsworth, saying she'd had "a wonderful trip."

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[1] I have found an Evelyn Wolfe living in Portage Township, Porter County, who was about 17 in 1938, but I'm not sure she's the right person.
[2] Although the newspaper article mentions Anna's "aged parents," none of the photos include her father. I don't have international Ancestry.com to find out if he was still living then.

Ainsworth School-Year Souvenir, 1897-98 (Part 7)

(continued from Part 6)



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Maybe I should have recognized the name, Wert; I've mentioned with it a couple of times before in the blog — but only in passing, and without bothering to find out much about the family.

Ella Wert was born in 1880. In December 1900, she became Mrs. Edward Cole. She and Edward had two daughters (Evelyn and Edna), and also a foster son named Harry Breyfogle.

Ella's father, Emanuel Wert, shows up in Ross Township as early as the 1860 Census. His parents, Martin and Mary, with their numerous children (nine by 1870), farmed in southeastern Ross Township. This image from the 1874 Plat Map shows the Wert farm, which included 40 acres just over the Winfield Township line.


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You'd think, with so many children, the Wert family would have more of a presence locally, but my newspaper notes include only a few mentions of them. (Which may be due to my lack of attention.)

Also on the image above, outlined in green, is the Hooseline and Tabor farm. That, I believe, has some connection to Ella's mother, Mary Hooseline, whose obituary describes her as the child of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hooseline. The 1870 Census shows Michael and Laura (Tabor) Hooseline living in southeastern Ross township, possibly on that farm. But Michael is not old enough to be Mary's father: he must be her brother.[1] Her father, then, was Michael Sr. I am not sure who her mother was — Mary's death certificate has "unknown" in that space. The 1860 Census shows Michael Sr. and his wife (one infers) Rebecca living somewhere in Union Township, Porter County, with Mary and her siblings. Michael Sr. was 58 and Rebecca 35; I suspect she was his second wife. Michael Sr. died in 1862.

In 1878 Mary Hooseline married Emanuel Wert. Ella was their only child — at least, the only one to survive infancy — and the Wert marriage was cut short when Emanuel died in 1886, as we learn from his grave marker in Deer Creek Cemetery. I have no idea what happened to him.

I cannot find the family in the 1880 Census. The 1900 Census shows Mary and Ella living in or near the village of Ainsworth (to judge by the names recorded close to theirs). And later that year came Ella's marriage.

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That's all the time I have right now to devote to the Werts. Just one last thing — I took a look at the satellite view of the Wert land in case their house might still be where the 1874 plat map seems to indicate: on the east side of Grand Boulevard, just north of the Ross-Winfield Township line. But now there is only an empty plowed field, and some buildings south of the township line.


[to be continued]

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[1] Michael Jr.'s entry on findagrave.com gives a little background about him and his family.

Mary Munch's Moonshine

When Mary Munch was caught with a still back in February 1923, she had claimed it wasn't hers. Seven months later, caught with two stills and 15 gallons of moonshine, she apparently didn't think anyone would buy the same story.


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Hobart Gazette, Oct. 19, 1923.

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In the "Local Drifts" column above, we find a couple of locals leaving the countryside to become town dwellers.

While we've encountered the name Hooseline in several "South of Deep River" columns, I've looked into the family only in connection with the suicide of John's father-in-law. But looking a little more closely now, I gather that John's father, Michael Hooseline, came into this area with his parents (Michael Sr. and Rebecca) sometime between John's birth in 1842 (Maryland) and the 1860 Census of Union Township, Porter County.[1] By the 1870 Census, Michael Jr. had married Laura Tabor and moved to Ross Township, Lake County. Our John was born in the south-of-Deep-River countryside in 1871. The 1874 Plat Map shows the "Hooseline & Tabor" farm straddling Randolph Street at the divide between Ross and Winfield Townships, but from the 1891 Plat Book on, I can't find any land under the Hooseline name in Ross Township.

Here is John Hooseline's obituary from 1944:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso), Feb. 28, 1944.

The article fails to mention John's first wife, Rhoda Smith, whom he married in 1896. Rhoda was the daughter of Homer and Rachel Smith, although the 1880 Census doesn't list her (unless she is the "Rudie" whom the enumerator called a son; the birth dates match). Rhoda bore John Hooseline two sons, Harold and Hubert/Herbert (1900 Census), and died in 1902. In 1904 John married Emma Carbein Phillips. Their children were Kenneth and Velma (1910 Census, 1930 Census).


The other country-dweller getting out of the country was Simon Small, of Small's Crossing. From what I can find in the census and death records, he was a son of John and Mary (Riley) Small; odd that he wasn't mentioned in Mary's obituary. His children were all by his first wife, Cora Deardoff, whom he married in 1883 (Indiana Marriage Collection) and who died in 1902. He married his second wife, Anna Bean, in 1906 in Cook County, Illinois, where he may have been living already, as he was in the 1910 Census and 1920 Census. Apparently he moved back to Small's Crossing after 1920 just to leave it a few years later.

Here's his obit from 1945:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso), Nov. 20, 1945.

I wonder if this leaves any Smalls at Small's Crossing? The Union Township plat maps shows that the old Small farm changed its name between 1921 and 1928.

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[1] That's assuming the enumerator made an error in recording John's age.

Dance on the Dan Kraft Farm

Here's a good-times post. Let's start off with an ad for a dance to be held on the Dan Kraft farm …


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Hobart News, April 29, 1923.


… which naturally leads me to wonder where the Dan Kraft farm was. Of course I thought of that wonderful brick house on the northeast corner of County Line Road and Cleveland/700 N; that's a Kraft house. But looking over the Porter County plat maps, I find that's not the right Kraft house — it belonged to Dan's brother, Fred. Dan's farm was a bit further northeast:


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Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1921Plats/Portage-1921.jpg.


I am not sure that Dan Kraft actually resided on his farm in 1923. He was about 75 by then, retirement age even in that hard-working era. The 1920 Census seems to have counted him twice: once as a dairy farmer on his farm in Portage Township; and again as a retired resident of Hobart.


Below the Kraft ad in the same column, we learn of a very large party for a 14-year-old. Apparently Louis and Lena Wojahn had moved back to Ainsworth from Hobart since 1917.

I believe this Wojahn house is still standing, but it sits so far from the road that you can't really see it as you drive by.

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Elsewhere in the same issue, a "South of Deepriver" column …


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Hobart News, April 19, 1923.


… with a couple of unfamiliar names — King and Lakotski. I can't identify any of them for certain.

South of Deepriver, March 1923

Much innocent sociability in the countryside.


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Hobart News 8 Mar. 1923.

"The Raschka barn near Leroy" might have belonged to Frank and George, William's brothers.

Arthur Bowman's radio sounds more like a ham set than something to receive commercial broadcasts — but then again, for all I know about radios, it might have done both.

W.G. Haan Staff

We've seen these people before. Now we get to see them in front of the great emptiness that used to inhabit the west side of State Road 51, opposite the W.G. Haan school.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Notes on the back of the original identify them as "Mr. Garland, Mrs. Zieseniss, Miss Frame, Miss Tabor."

Mr. Garland was, I believe, George Bronson Garland, born in 1904. I can find him locally in the 1930 Census, but not at all after that. If I've found the right person, he married a woman named Esta, and they both rest in Adams County, Indiana.

Ella Zieseniss was born Ella Kretschmar (Indiana Death Certificates) in 1899. She married Wayland Zieseniss, a farmer, about 1929 (1930 Census). She became a schoolteacher after Wayland's untimely death in July 1930 (Indiana Death Certificates). More than half a century later, she joined her husband in Maplewood Cemetery, in Crown Point.

Allene Frame was born in 1915 to James and Rose (Stegmeier) Frame (Indiana Birth Certificates). She is the only one of these four whom I can find in the 1940 Census. At that time she was a teacher, single and living with her parents, but according to information transcribed from her 2010 obituary on Ancestry.com, the following year she married George Chermak, and they had five children.

Bernice Tabor descended from a long line of locals. The 1850 Census shows her great-grandparents, George and Chloe, living in Ross Township near the Guernseys and Strongs (in the neighborhood that would eventually be chronicled in the "South of Deepriver" columns). In their household is a five-year-old Charles — Bernice's grandfather. In 1865 Charles married Margaret Hooseline (Indiana Marriage Collection), and in 1884 they became the parents of Grover Cleveland "Cleve" Tabor. Cleve married Clara Klemm in 1908 (id.), and eight years later Bernice came into the world. According to information on findagrave.com, after some years of teaching, Bernice married Dr. Arthur Nelson (a chiropractor), and operated the Hobart Employment Agency at 449 E. Third Street.

South of Deepriver, August 1922

Today is South-of-Deepriver Day, also known as Blogger-Takes-a-Nap Day.


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Hobart News 31 Aug. 1922.

And at the Niksches' Deep River Hall, an old-time dance, whatever that meant in 1922.

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!

Ross Twp. Farmers' Institute

I gather that in January 1922 Mary Baird Chester McDaniel was still living on the Chester farm, or somewhere in Ross Township, with her granddaughters, since one of them — Helen, now about 13 or 14 years old — walked away with three first prizes at the Ross Township Farmers' Institute.


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Hobart News 2 Feb. 1922.

Glen Peterson didn't do so badly either. About 13 years old, he was the youngest son of Mabel Peterson, Secretary of the Institute and writer of this report.

Vernon and Emery Hurlburt were the only children of Jacob and Augusta, who farmed some 80 acres at the northeast corner of E. 73rd Ave. and Grand Blvd.

Irvin Wojahn was the oldest child of Louis and Lena (Fasel) Wojahn, who had supposedly retired from farming in 1917 — but I can't find them in the 1920 census to see what they were up to.

Dorothy Mankey was the only daughter of William and Lena (Springman) Mankey.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Ross Twp. Farmers Hold Big Meeting." Hobart Gazette 3 Feb. 1922.

Still Not Tuberculosis

The last "South of Deepriver" column of 1920 tells us, among other things, that poor Bertha Nolte Campbell was, in the family tradition, continuing to suffer poor health; but her illness probably wasn't tuberculosis, as the treatment for that would not be surgery.


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From the Hobart News of 30 Dec. 1920.

Also, a big party for the little Sauter born on Christmas Day.

This Must Come and These Must Go

In October 1920, Albert Orcutt (who had an Ainsworth connection through his wife, née Etta Mander) had come to realize that his business building — this one, I suppose — must be renovated "sooner or later."

Also, the social activity of our friends South of Deepriver.


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From the Hobart News of Oct. 7, 1920.

Meanwhile, Edward Rohwedder is getting rid of his excess inventory as he prepares to move to a smaller farm.


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From the Hobart News of Oct. 7, 1920.

A Threshing Party

…and a load of fertilizer, and a lot of minor socializing.


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From the Hobart News of Sept. 2, 1920.

South of Deepriver

Next best thing to an Ainsworth social column.


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From the Hobart News of August 19, 1920.

I don't know what ailed our old friend Otis Guernsey.

But we do know what ailed poor William Waldeck, don't we? Ouch.

Of Threshing and Road Trips

Since we don't have an Ainsworth social column in the newspapers anymore, the next best thing is the "South of Deepriver" column.


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From the Hobart News of July 29, 1920.

You may remember "Mr. and Mrs. Ed Cole" as the foster parents of the orphaned Harry Breyfogle.

The same issue of the News mentioned that important matter, the commencement of wheat threshing.



(The Frank Popp who had a newborn son was brother to Charles. And I think a certain someone out there has a Moehl family connection.)

What wouldn't fit on that print-out was a little story about a road trip by someone outside the Chester and Faulkner families:

Mr. and Mrs. Chris Ols, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Herman Harms and Bruce McCable motored to Lafayette Sunday, that being Bruce's former home. They report the crops in excellent condition down there and about three weeks in advance of Lake county. While there they also visited the Indiana State Soldiers' home — a beautiful place.

Judging by a collection of images from 1901, the Soldiers' Home was indeed a beautiful place. It is now called the Indiana Veterans' Home.

W.G. Haan School and Personnel, 1938

Another Ainsworth historian sent me these wonderful pictures from 1938, along with their appearance in a newspaper (I don't know which one).


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Images courtesy of R.F.