Not in Our Back Yard! (Smallpox, That Is)

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Hobart Gazette, March 30, 1923.


First question: where was "the Peddicord brick north of Cleveland avenue"? — near Illinois and Kelly Streets, apparently, but that doesn't narrow it down very much.

Second question: why did the Hobart Health Department think that neighborhood a better place for a smallpox patient than Lake Street? Less crowded, maybe?

George Maybaum was not one of the Ainsworth Maybaums, but we still hope he gets over his smallpox, don't we?[1]

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At the bottom of that column, we find William H. Wood & Son (Raymond, I believe) selling used Fords at their dealership in the village of Deep River. I've mentioned that enterprise at least once — more than once, I thought, but I can't find any other reference. According to my notes, it went back at least to 1916, when the "Local Drifts" column of the November 24 Gazette said: "Wm. H. Wood, the Deepriver merchant, who is sales agent for the Ford auto, is building a garage 40 by 60 feet for storage of new cars and a repair shop." I have been told that this business was located about where the fire department station is now.

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[1] SPOILER ALERT! — he did, according to the 1930 Census. The neighbors' objections were settled by moving George "to a smallpox barracks in Cook county, Ill." ("Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, April 6, 1923), where presumably he was nursed back to health.

Sunday School Is Cancelled

That's the good news. The bad news is: you have smallpox.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


The cancellation lasted two Sundays — March 24 and 31, 1872. I suppose the Superintendent who made that decision was the same person as on April 7: Orsemus H. Spencer, brother-in-law to Harriet Hanks Chester.

A Surprise Klan Parade

Darkness had fallen on that Saturday evening, February 24, 1923, when dozens of out-of-town vehicles, including a LaPorte bus, streamed into Hobart and disgorged their cargo of Klansmen — some 400 of them. A cross burned as the Klansmen marched from Lincoln and Tenth up through downtown Hobart and circled back to their starting point, watched by silent townspeople.


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Hobart Gazette, Mar. 2, 1923.

The "triangular park opposite the Kibler filling station," where the cross burned, is now the site of the Doughboy statue.

I like how the report includes all the rumors floating around: that no one in the parade was recognized (certainly not any Hobart citizens!); that the marchers were from Michigan City, Laporte, Valparaiso, Gary, and Hammond; that many in Hobart were frightened by this bizarre display.

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As we see in the next column, Hobart had also been invaded by a more familiar illness: smallpox. Our friend Harry Breyfogle had it. Last I heard, the young Breyfogles were living in the Guyer building; they must have moved. I have no idea which of the many houses around the intersection of East and Second Streets they occupied.

Sweethearts and Smallpox

Just before Valentine's Day, the front page of the Gazette simultaneously invited people to a dance and warned them of the contagion that may lurk among the dancers:





Smallpox had come to town — but in a "mild form," according to the previous day's News as it reported on two "new" cases. The home of the Rev. J.C. Whitt was now under quarantine, Mrs. Whitt being ill with smallpox; likewise the home of Simeon and Abbie Bullock. Their 15-year-old grandson, Lester, was sick. If his mother, just then on another lengthy visit to Alva, Oklahoma, got the news, she apparently was not overly alarmed, as she did not return until early the next week.

By the next week, the home of Dave Young, south of Deepriver, was also on the quarantine list; and smallpox had "invaded" the Struble home in Hobart.

Early in March, Dr. Faulkner ordered fumigation of Hobart's school building and public library, "as a precautionary measure against smallpox."


Sources:
♦ Advertisement. Hobart Gazette 13 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Imperative Notice." Hobart Gazette 13 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 12 Feb. 1920; 19 Feb. 1920; 15 Mar. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 20 Feb. 1920.