Hobart High School Class of 1917: Elsa Gruel

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Elsa Gruel was Vice-President of the Class of 1917, not surprisingly. She also appeared in the school play, although she was not the female lead (surprisingly).

She had already decided upon teaching as her goal. Her immediate plan was to enter Valparaiso University for a teacher's training course. She hoped to teach at the Ainsworth school in the coming year.

We already know that Elsa achieved her goal, and teaching became her life's work.

♦    ♦    ♦
Here's a page from the yearbook with the autographs and a verbal sketch of all three of our 1917 graduates.


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Sources:
♦ "Cast of characters, H.S. Play, Friday Evening." Hobart News 17 May 1917.
♦ "Commencement Exercises Closing Event of Hobart Schools." Hobart News 31 May 1917.
♦ Hobart High School Aurora yearbook, 1917.

Autographs of Ainsworth: High School Petition

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Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.

So many Ainsworth people all signing their names in one place! (Unfortunately we don't have the original petition, only a photocopy, which I scanned to produce the poor-quality image above.) They hoped to have at least a couple years of high school taught in the Ainsworth school. The petition wasn't successful.

It's undated, as you can see. At this point I know only enough to date it sometime between January 1915 (before that time Charles Goldman had nothing to do with Ainsworth) and December 30, 1934 (after which date Henry Nolte could not have signed anything). Mrs. C.E. Smith is the only woman signing, which suggests that Cyrus was not alive to sign for himself, hence the petition probably dates after October 1, 1915. [An update on the likely timeframe for the petition, and its success, here.]

I have encountered all these names in the social columns, even if I haven't written about them in the blog. I can't help but look at how these people signed their names and thereby try to get some insight into their personalities — a futile endeavor, I know, but that doesn't stop me. F.A. (Frank) Peterson's style is careful and clear, and the text of the petition looks to be in his hand. Charles Goldman has splashed his name across the page as if it were the most important one on there; Frank Stiener Jr. wants to rival him. Henry Nolte's style is simple and unobtrusive. So is Glen Nelson's. Herman Harms seems to have had fun writing those embellished Hs. Sam Campbell's penmanship looks antebellum; Lee Hunter's looks modern. And so on….

I suppose I had better type out all the names for search-engine purposes.

F.A. Peterson John Benson Arthur Strong James Frame S.E. Bowman James Pecinka Charles Goldman Robert Harper John Berndt Edward Cole Henry Nolte Frank Stiener, Jr. Gust Lindborg Charles Henrichs Glen Nelson Otto Klemm Fred Carbine [Carbein] Herman Harms

John Miller Mrs. C.E. Smith H.O. Jones Chas. E. Chester Sam Campbell Wm. Springman Henry Sievert Paul W. Fredrick Albert Weiler Ed Maybaum C.E. Peterson Lee Hunter C.S. Guernsey Thos. Y. Crisman J.E. Crisman Wm. Foreman

Autographs of Ainsworth: The Sidewalk

When I said there were no sidewalks in Ainsworth, I meant public sidewalks, that any casual stroller through the town might use. As for private sidewalks … well, children, gather around and I will tell you a story.

The year was 1973. Hemlines were high, heels were clunky, and Tony Orlando was tying a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree. The Paris Peace Accord, signed by President Woodrow Wilson in January 1973, signaled the end of the French and Indian War, but not until August would the last Indian troops return to Mumbai. Isaac Newton had rocked the world with his invention of gravity, and the first man had walked upon Mars, but scientists continued to search for an effective vaccine against percussion.

Meanwhile, in a tiny town in Northwest Indiana, somebody was pouring cement. And somebody was writing in it with a nail.


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Ma … Dad … Ron … Tim … Ellen … Lori … they all lived happily ever after.

The End. Storytime is over, children.

Autographs of Ainsworth, Part 2: Barn

It's a stroke of luck that I, my mania for the past, should end up in a house where the previous inhabitants had a mania for signing and dating parts of the house and outbuildings. I noticed these things after I bought the house, not before.

The kitchen drawer autographs are out of sight most of the time, but there are other autographs around here that I see on almost a daily basis. I like seeing them; they remind me that my small, unremarkable house has seen many years, many people and many events, big and small.

Even lives filled entirely with the mundane take on a different light when you look at them in retrospect: they are suffused with the sunset colors of decades gone by; they are sweetened with nostalgia; they are entwined with the passage of time, that great mystery of our existence; they are triumphant because they still stand, in memory or in physical evidence, after the flood of years has washed over the people and the landscape, sweeping away so many and so much. Whatever is left has survived a disaster; it has a story to tell; and you, the listener, feel — however fragmentary and incoherent the story may be — that you are hearing an epic.

… It's the side of a barn that I'm waxing poetic about here, folks.

I think my barn was built in 1923. Why do I think that? Because of things like this:


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Difficult to photograph clearly because it's shallow carving on a weathered plank, but it says, "G.C. 1923." In 1939 my land belonged to a J. Chester; George Chester owned an even larger tract of land down Grand Boulevard; whether this "G.C." is even remotely connected to either of them, I have no way of knowing.

Even stronger evidence of the building date is here:


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I rotated the image for your viewing convenience, but as you stand on the ground and look at the barn, these carvings are upside down, meaning that the plank was probably lying on the ground when W.S., H.L. and W.E. carved their initials and "1923" into it.

I bought the house from Hubert Lines, Jr. The H.L.s on the barn might be him, or his father — or some random person with the same initials.

On an interior wall, someone took a piece of charcoal, maybe, or a stick dipped in ink, or a soft pencil, and wrote on the wall: "June 1923." I think it's 1923; the digits are almost illegible:


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The paperwork I got while I was house-hunting said that my house was built in 1937. The barn was built in 1923, the house 14 years later? Was there another house that stood on the land before? Is the 1937 figure just wrong? It's a mystery.

Anyway, in 1940, along come "H.L." and "C.S." and carve their initials — to mark what event, I don't know.


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Hubert Lines' wife was named Carlene (maiden name unknown to me). It's just possible, I suppose, although they'd be awfully young. Childhood sweethearts?

As I've mentioned before, that little old barn is in bad shape. The roof leaks, the walls are almost as much daylight as wood, the dirt floor is overgrown with elm roots. But I will never knock it down; it will stand for as long as it pleases.

Autographs of Ainsworth, Part 1: Kitchen Drawer

This morning I am cooking and freezing spaghetti squash from my garden. Each squash has to cook for 12 minutes in the microwave, then sit out until it's cool enough to handle comfortably. Then I'll have to scoop out the seeds, scrape the flesh into strands, put the results from each squash into a gallon-size freezer bag and carry the bags downstairs to the freezer. The skins and seeds go out to the compost heap, the contents of which I've never used but I still feel obligated to put fruit and vegetable scraps out there and feel all virtuous when I do.

All in all, pretty time-consuming.

So let us, while we're waiting on the spaghetti squash, move to the topic of my kitchen drawer, and the people who have there memorialized themselves for eternity, or rather for as long as the house stands — or rather, until somebody paints over the kitchen drawer. Or remodels the kitchen and tears out those cabinets, which appear to be hand-made, and I wouldn't trade them for the fanciest line that Home Depot carries, so it certainly won't be me doing the remodeling.

But back to the drawer. Difficult to photograph; in some cases difficult to read, but here are the signers thereto:

Here is a shot of the whole underside of the kitchen drawer:


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Hard to read, no? Then here are the individual signatories:

Sally Lines
Dec. 19, 42
SAT.
[illegible] Mrs. Fasel
Now

"Norma Lines"
April 26, 1948
Monday

May 5, 1944
Janet Lines

"Sal"
May 19, 45
Tuesday

The inside of the drawer was signed in red crayon by Hubert — presumably Hubert Lines, from whom I bought the house.

And then Norma, that mischievous girl, reached inside the socket into which the drawer fits (sorry, I don't know the correct terminology) and signed again:

Norma Lines
April 26, 1949
HA!
HA!
Tues[?]day



That's it for the kitchen autographs. There was one other that I found in the upper cabinets when I pulled up the old contact paper, but I didn't make a note of it and I'm not pulling up all the new contact paper to find it again.

Back to the spaghetti squash.