A Dance Hall in Disguise

Back when I posted the Deep River Christian Church history as it appeared in the Hobart Gazette in 1975, I lamented that the article wasn't clear about which house the church bought for a parsonage in 1967 — a house I found particularly interesting because it was said to have been a dance hall.

Now comes a reader to tell me which house it was.


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Image courtesy of Cheryl Jones.

This was the home of Rudolph ("Rudy") and Lillian Wencl, at 9411 Old Lincoln Highway. Rudy and Lillian were the great-uncle and great-aunt of our correspondent.

They were both natives of Illinois, married there in 1937, but were living in Menominee County, Michigan in the 1940 Census. Sometime in the mid-1940s, they moved back to Illinois, and then in the latter 1940s, to Indiana — as we can tell from looking at the birthplaces of their children in the 1950 Census:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

You will notice that Annie Anders, the lady of many cats, was recorded near them.

The enumerator noted "on right" for the Wencls, "on left" for Annie, but also that she (the enumerator) was proceeding west from the township line along the old Lincoln Highway, heading toward S.R. 51. Thus the Wencls should have been on the left. I'm confused, or maybe the enumerator was confused. We know where Olive Wood lived: that's on the right if you're going west.

My 1962 phone directory lists the Wencls on a rural route, no street address.

The house at 9411 Old Lincoln Highway was built in 1924, according to the Lake County records. I have not seen anything in the 1924 microfilm about who might have built it. It does look as if it were built originally as a family home, not a commercial building. Could it have been abandoned by the time it became a dance hall? Or maybe the people living there just shoved their parlor furniture against the walls for occasional dances.

Just west of Deep River, remember, was the schoolhouse-turned-dance hall. The newspapers circa 1924 often advertised dances at "Deepriver hall," which I have been taking to mean the former schoolhouse. Even earlier, before the house in question was built (assuming the county records are correct), there had been a dance hall at an unknown location in Deep River.


As for Rudy and Lillian Wencl, their hearts were in Michigan, it seems. After selling their Deep River home, they moved back to Menominee County, where they are both buried.

The Further Adventures of Don Nixie

Or: Please Don’t Tell My Daddy I Collaborated With Lawrence Welk

In a recent post I shared what I had just learned about the musical talents of Donald Niksch, who began his commercial endeavors with a song self-published under the name Don Nixie. Since the time of that post, Ruth Markovich (Trinity Lutheran Church historian) has been on the case, and has tracked down additional information, including (from a source who prefers to remain anonymous) some materials from a booklet that Don himself put together circa 1960, perhaps for his own family. The booklet's table of contents lists many of the songs he wrote, and includes an image from his manuscript of "When It's Springtime Back Home Again":


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Image courtesy of an anonymous source.

From my point of view, that list has a couple of puzzling omissions — two songs mentioned in a 1954 newspaper item in my previous post: "Hobart, U.S.A., Our Old Hometown," and "Buzz, Buzz, I'm A Little Love Bug." Perhaps the news item was mistaken about Don's having written those songs? Or … perhaps … he wanted to erase them from history!?!

The booklet excerpts I was given included the sheet music for a song called, "Please Don't Tell My Daddy," with a surprising name in the credits:


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Image courtesy of an anonymous source.

The song was written in 1946, by which time Lawrence Welk had already made a name for himself as the leader of a "big band" that had performed around the country. During the 1940s he and his band were regularly featured at Chicago venues.

How did Don Niksch, from Hobart, Indiana, get involved with this famous musician? Fortunately, Don himself tells us, in this excerpt from a three-page essay he wrote in 1960 about his songwriting activities:

When Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Music Orchestra appeared at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, I sent him a novelty tune entitled PLEASE DON'T TELL MY DADDY. In a few days I received a letter from Lawrence saying he liked the song very much and that I should call him at my convenience to discuss the composition. I called at his home and Lawrence and I worked on the song together making changes which he thought necessary. After two weeks the orchestra performed it at the Aragon Ballroom to a very enthusiastic audience as the song was broadcasted coast to coast over the Mutual Broadcasting System. I have a record of that broadcast and Jayne Walton, the Champagne Lady, usually reserved in her presentation, did a good job with the material although it was not her type of song. It was set for recording but since it is so important to couple the correct artist with the right material, the recording was never made.

You may read Don's full essay here.

Evidently Don's songwriting adventures went further than I ever suspected.

I have been looking around on the internet for any recordings, but no luck so far.

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Ruth Markovich also passed along to me a page from the Trinity Lutheran Church record books, with the marriage of Donald Niksch and Ruth Nagel written in, as it would have been had the person in charge in 1944 not inadvertently omitted it:


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Image courtesy of Ruth Markovich.

It's interesting to see all the other names on that page — so many familiar ones!

Alias Don Nixie

I saw this item for sale on Ebay: home-grown sheet music from 1937, with only the cover page included in the listing:


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Naturally I was interested, but wondered how it was I had not heard of a Don Nixie in all the 1930s newspapers I've read. I clicked on "Buy It Now," of course, and while waiting for it to be delivered, I set about trying to find out who Don Nixie was. I came up empty. Not the slightest trace of any Don Nixie in or around Hobart, in the 1930s or any other time.

When I finally got my hands on the sheet music, I understood why: "Don Nixie" was a nom de plume.


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The last time we saw Don Niksch, it was July 1923, and he was seven years old and recovering from injuries inflicted on him by a hit-and-run driver on the Lincoln Highway.

He did recover, and as he grew up, he proved to have a talent for music. Here's a photo of him from 1934, when he was a junior at Merrillville High School and played the piano in the school orchestra:


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Image from the Merrillville High School Mirror yearbook of 1934, courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

Now it's springtime back home again — that is, it's 1937, and Don is a 21-year-old aspiring songwriter/composer. His day job may have already been what he reported in the 1940 Census: clerk at a steel mill. He lived with his parents, Edward and Tillie (Harms) Niksch, in the old farmhouse on the south side of the Lincoln Highway, shown here in the 1939 aerial view:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Photo from https://legacy.igws.indiana.edu/IHAPI/.
The Niksch farmhouse and the Harms house have both been demolished. The old schoolhouse is still standing, as is the Niksch home that would be built in 1955.

Don served in the Army during World War II. In June 1944, he married Ruth Nagel.[1] The 1950 Census shows the young couple with two little children living on Colorado Street in Hobart. The home on the Old Lincoln Highway where Don and his family eventually lived was built in 1955, per the county records, so that may have been when they moved back here from Hobart.

He continued to write songs and entertain family and friends with them. Here's an example from 1948:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 13 Feb. 1948.

His eldest child, Donna, began performing as well, and in this article we learn that Don had written a song celebrating "Hobart, U.S.A., Our Old Home Town":


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 9 Feb. 1954.

(I cannot find any evidence that he ever wrote a song about Ainsworth, or even Deepriver. Hmm!)

At a 1958 meeting, Donna sang the song that inspired this post, and her six-year-old brother, Douglas, also got involved in the entertainment:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 30 June 1958.


Unfortunately, Don's life was cut short by cancer. This obituary from the Hobart Gazette of November 26, 1975, summarized his work, his family, and his art:

Donald E. Niksch, age 59, of R.R. 2, died November 19. He was a life-long resident of Hobart, and served during World War II as a Lieutenant in the Medical Corps. He retired as a supervisor after 33 years at Gary Sheet and Tin Mill, and was presently employed as a teacher at River Forest High School. He was a life-long member and former president of Trinity Lutheran Church and served as host of the Lutheran Vespers Radio Program for many years. He was also past president of the Ainsworth Community Club and past Cub Master of B.S.A., member of the American Guild of Authors and Composers, the Optimist Club, Indiana University Alumni, Indiana State Teachers Association and the National Education Association. He will be remembered through his many plays, poems, and songs.

Survivors include his wife, Ruth; two daughters, Mrs. Merrill (Donna) Douglass of Atlanta, Georgia and Diane Niksch at home; four sons, Captain Richard (Marilyn) Niksch with the U.S. Air Force at Clovis, New Mexico, Douglas (Beverly) Niksch of Highland, Roger Niksch and Ronald Niksch at home; five grandchildren, Andrew, Michael, Bryan, Stephan, and Susan; one sister, Mrs. Clifford (Leona) Carpenter of Hobart; two brothers, Laverne Niksch of Hobart and Edward Niksch of Garden Grove, California; and inlaws, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Nagel of Hobart.

I came across the obituary of his daughter, Donna, and found that she had continued singing her Dad's songs throughout her life.


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Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.), 4 Aug. 2019.

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Those who are musically inclined (or just curious) may download the sheet music for "When It's Springtime Back Home Again" here.

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[1] That is, according to a family tree on Ancestry.com. I have not been able to find online a record of the marriage or any mention of it in the local papers.

Bad Times at the Black Cat: Domestic Edition

"The triumph of hope over experience" turns into "fool me twice …"


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Hobart Gazette, 20 Jan. 1955.

The 1950 Census shows Ronald Reed managing the Black Cat, along with his brother William (and William's wife, Darrielyn).

I've found the October 1953 record of Ronald and Laura's re-marriage in Lake County, Indiana. I can't find the record of their original marriage. I'm guessing that happened in Pennsylvania sometime between (probably) 1935 and 1940, when they show up married in the census, living in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

The owners of the Black Cat, Paul and Elva Allen, are recorded the 1950 census on the page before the Reed brothers. Elva was the mother of Ronald and William. Paul was their stepfather. Apparently Elva and their father, William, had been divorced, since William lived until 1959.

Now I'm wondering about Betty Reed, described in the 1953 article as the "wife of the owner." I can't find any Betty in the 1950 census. Did the article just get her name wrong?


I don't actually know if the divorce went through for Ronald and Laura. If she got her $30,000 in alimony, she did pretty well; that's about $341,000 in 2023 dollars (the $200,000 gross income of the Black Cat would be over $2,000,000 today). The next I hear about Ronald is a newspaper item in 1957 saying that he was marrying Lorraine Brady.[1] But I can't figure out what happened to Laura.

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In happier news, Jack Hendrix is back!


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Hobart Gazette

He was "back" from Key West, Florida, where he lived most of the time, I believe. A "Hobart Happenings" item from the Gazette of March 3, 1955, said:

Jack Hendrix will leave Tuesday for Florida, where he is the featured organist in the Bamboo Room at Key West. He has been visiting friends and relatives in this area for the past two months.

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[1] "News From the Court House," The Brook Reporter (Brook, Ind.), 3 Jan. 1957.

Yet Another Car Crash at the Black Cat

This one has a twist.


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Hobart Gazette, 3 Apr. 1952.

The mention of Gilbert Bullock reminds me that this is supposed to be the Ainsworth blog, not the Crash-at-the-Black-Cat blog. This particular Gilbert was the son of Claude Bullock and his second wife, Mary Ann Chandler. The 1950 Census shows him living at Peter Bates' hotel, 314 Main Street.

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Also from yesterday's microfilm-reading and phone-photographing session:


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Hobart Gazette, 4 Jan. 1952.

The Gazette actually published bowling league scores weekly in this time frame, or at least in the late 1940s.

Your Favorite Organist

Yesterday while reading microfilm at the Hobart Historical Society museum, I came across this ad from the Hobart Gazette of June 9, 1949:


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Your favorite organist is little Jackson Hendrix, all grown up.


I have mentioned the Ridge Road Gardens before, in connection with an incident in 1921. This ad gives us a more precise location — Ridge Road at Missouri Street. So the Ridge Road Gardens' former location is under the I-65 interchange, possibly in the vicinity of where the notorious Berghoff road house once was. If I had time, I'd go check the 1950s directories at the museum, in case an actual street address was ever listed. My 1962 directory doesn't list the Ridge Road Gardens at all.

Indiana Takes Over the Yellowstone Trail

I don't particularly care about Indiana taking over the Yellowstone Trail in November 1923 …


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Hobart Gazette, Nov. 16, 1923.

… but I'm interested in that bit about the Liberty Highway, as I'm now clearer about some of the roads involved. The first time I encountered the Liberty Highway — in 1921 — its route was being moved from "the North Hobart-Wheeler road [W 700 N] and Cleveland avenue" to "the south Hobart-Wheeler road." I didn't know what the latter was.

But here we are in 1923 and the Liberty Highway route has been moved back to Cleveland Ave./W 700 N "to eliminate the bad crossing of the Pennsy and Nickel Plate railroads" — now, what could that be but that awful Traeger crossing? So the south Hobart-Wheeler road was Tenth Street/W 600 N.

I still don't know where the Liberty Highway started or where it stopped.

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Later in the month, when Alwin Wild is trying to sell property from someone's estate, he thinks it helpful to mention that the property is on the Yellowstone Trail … not a word about the Liberty Highway.


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Hobart Gazette, Nov. 30, 1923.

Also, a child born to Walter and Hazel (née Thompson) Veal … and a dance at Deepriver Hall, which I believe is the former schoolhouse.

Hit-and-Run on the Lincoln Highway

Two accounts of a serious accident that happened on July 8, 1923, along the Lincoln Highway just west of Randolph Street.


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Hobart News, July 12, 1923.


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Hobart Gazette, July 13, 1923.

Donald was the son of Edward and Tillie Niksch, who had turned the former Deep River schoolhouse, on the northwest corner of Randolph and E. 73rd Avenue, into a dance hall.

I find that casual hospitality interesting: strangers from Gary traveling along the Lincoln Highway just happened to stop at the Niksch place for water, and for the lady to amuse herself playing the piano in the dance hall, though no dance was going on. Then she got thirsty again and gave the little boy a dime(!) to fetch her another glass of water. That's when everything went bad.

But little Donald recovered from his injuries and went on to live a full life.

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Below that story in the Gazette we find another accident, caused by drunk driving, involving Charles and Etta (Sohn) Kisela, who were a few weeks short of their first wedding anniversary.

The story in the News about camping along the Deep River mentions Camp 133, which we know about, but also some other camps that I've never heard of. The early summer's hot weather probably helped drive people out of their stuffy homes and into tents by the river.

Hot Weather

The last two weeks of June 1923 were so hot that the strawberry crop withered and the M.E. church held its services in the basement. The Gem Theatre in Hobart enticed its patrons with "12 big fans" to cool them off. (The movies had not yet become the talkies so there was no spoken dialogue to be drowned out by those fans.) When sundown brought a little relief, you could go dancing at the pavilion just north of the old Liverpool schoolhouse, on the northeast corner of the Old Ridge Road-Liverpool Road intersection. The brave young people playing tennis on Stommel's lot did so early in the morning or late in the afternoon, I hope.

Nothing much was planned in Hobart for Independence Day, but on its eve Camp 133 promised a big fireworks display. If you didn't care for fireworks, you could go dance at the old Deepriver schoolhouse to music "with real pep" played by Perry's Big Six (I have no idea).


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Hobart Gazette, June 29, 1923.

Still, work had to go on. Planning for the future Roosevelt Gym building was going forward, and our favorite plumbers, Lee & Rhodes, as the only bidders for the plumbing work, were awarded the contract.

Some unpleasant business involving tuberculosis-testing of cattle occurred on "the big farm of Roper Bros." (and even more unpleasant business later at a Chicago slaughterhouse). I don't know where that farm was. I can't find any land owned by a Roper in Union Township on the Lincoln Highway in the 1921 or 1928 plat maps.

"Hickory Grove" and Other Mysterious Places

In August of 1874, Hobart's Union Sunday School made plans for its annual picnic. The date was set for Thursday, September 3. The organization's secretary, John Blackhall, wrote to neighboring Sunday schools inviting them to join in the fun. Two of them accepted the invitation: the Underwood school and the Hickory Grove school.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

I have come across the Underwood name before. There was a one-room schoolhouse by that name in Ross Township, exact location unknown, which may have been associated with a Sunday school as well. But in all my research, I have never come across the name Hickory Grove in this area. Was that a mistake for Hickory Top — the village that eventually became Ainsworth? And then again, was it actually a mistake? Perhaps some people called the village Hickory Grove, while others called it Hickory Top, and somehow the former was overshadowed by the latter in collective memory.

That's just a theory. You know how I love theories.

Anyway, it sounds as if the picnic went off well. The Hobart Cornet Band came along to provide music. The attendees rode in two excursion cars — on the Pennsy Railroad, I'm guessing, since during the planning stages the location was set for Robertsdale, which got its name from George Roberts' giving the Pennsy Railroad right of way through his land.[1] But below the reference to Hickory Grove on the page above, the writer gives "Sheffield" as the location of the picnic. Perhaps those were pretty much the same place. These days you can find Robertsdale on Google maps, but not Sheffield. We do find Sheffield on this section of the 1874 Plat Map showing the west end of North Township:


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Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.

At the eastern border of Sheffield, we find a parcel of land belonging to George Roberts, with the Pennsy Railroad (the southernmost of those three lines) crossing it. Further to the southeast lay another George Roberts, also crossed by the Pennsy Railroad. I don't know which of those gave Robertsdale its name — maybe both?

But all of that area is in Hammond now, and this is as far as I intend to go into Hammond history.

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[1] Gayle Faulkner Kosalko, "Robertsdale has a history all its own," April 3, 2008, NWI Times, https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/robertsdale-has-history-all-its-own/article_df6cf958-2db8-540f-aff0-8f3ea0fe5f81.html

Fats-v.-Leans Baseball

This game in June of 1923 was not the first fats-against-leans game that I've seen. And on holidays such as Independence Day, you might also find foot-races going on — one for the "fats" and one for the "leans." Anyway, in this case the News has left us with a record of the body type of a number of Hobart's male citizens, in case we had no photograph and were wondering!


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Hobart News, June 28, 1923.

Sorry I failed to get the beginning of the story.

As we see from the little item below the summary of the game, Hobart had another team called the Cardinals.

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Back when I was talking about the Frank family, I wondered about the Mulfinger connection. This item in the right-hand column helps a little. Not much.

Conflict of Interest

I just can't get over the fact that ambulance service used to be provided by funeral homes rather than fire departments or other dedicated emergency responders.


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Hobart News, June 21, 1923

Also, the rural social news from south of Deep River. Ellen Smith, whom Emily Strong helped with housecleaning, was the widow of Cyrus and by now nearly 80 years old. Per the 1920 Census, she lived alone; if she still lived in that big farmhouse, I expect she could use help in cleaning it.

Ainsworth Actors Hit the Big Time

In May 1923 the plucky thespians of Ainsworth took their production of The Brookdale Farm from the school basement to the bright lights in the big city of Hobart.


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Hobart Gazette, May 25, 1923.

The story in the left-hand column describing an ambitious project for 40 acres of summer homes on the south shore of Lake George probably explains the origin of the Patzel Lakeview Summer Resort subdivision.

Comedian

Here we have an irreverent young person (I hope it was a young person) who ignored the tragic story in the next column in favor of exercising what he or she considered wit.


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Hobart News, May 3, 1923.

(Lew Wallace Watson was about 32 years old, a military veteran, and (I believe) the son of the Dr. Joseph C. Watson who delivered, among others, Elna Hazelgreen. He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.)

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In the same issue we find more sociable entertainment in another dance on the Houk farm.



The only plat map of Winfield Township I have at the moment is from 1939, and it shows two different parcels under the Houk name. I shall have to track down other plat maps to try to determine where these dances took place. I seem to remember asking Eldon Harms if he'd ever heard of this dancing farm, and he had — if my memory is correct, the dances must have gone on for a number of years.

Given that the farm's owner goes by title of Dr. Houk, I think he might be Dr. William Houk, a physician living in Crown Point, now about 47 years of age (1920 Census). Why a doctor in Crown Point would own a farm in Winfield Township and give dances there, I do not know. But it appears he grew up on a farm (1880 Census), so perhaps had a nostalgic fondness for rural amusements and the money to indulge it.

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.

Fast Time

Our friend Fred Rossow lost nearly all his cows in April 1923, as the tuberculosis testing of local herds finished up.


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Hobart Gazette, April 20, 1923.

No one else lost as many in this round of testing, and most of the herds tested clean. "John Harnes" is a misprint for "John Harms."

There is so much material on this page! In the far-left column, Bess Hayward is selling off livestock and farming implements from her parents' estate.

In the next column, just below the cow-testing story, confusion arises from the inconsistent adoption of "fast time" — Daylight Saving Time. (And below that, yet another dance at the Niksches' Deep River Hall.)

In the right-hand column, we find an entertainment planned at the W.G. Haan School.


From Plays of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Volume 27 (1884)

And at the bottom of the column, some Severance-Yager socializing. From the 1920 Census, it would appear that George (Sr.) and Agnes Severance, who always rented the farms they operated, had moved from their previous home, a Ross Township farm west of Hobart,[1] to land in southeastern Hobart Township: their neighbors are Malones, Ensigns and Fasels.

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I was able to confirm the Harnes/Harms misprint above through the News version of the cow-testing story. That paper also carried a story about Ruby Fisher's marriage to a Hobart chiropractor named Alfred[2] C. Wickham, whom I never heard of before …


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Hobart News, April 19, 1923


… or after, either — I can't find them in the 1930 Census.

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[1] "Celebrate Silver Wedding," Hobart Gazette, July 20, 1917.
[2] Indiana Marriage Collection.

Calvin Scholler's Third Marriage

Calvin Scholler's experience with marriage had been heartbreaking so far — one young wife lost to influenza and another to cancer — but in April 1923 he decided to brave it once more.


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Hobart News, April 12, 1923.


The Gazette added, "The bride is formerly from Glascow [sic], Scotland, and a life-long friend of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce."[1]


Other mildly interesting items on that page include (in the left column) the Gem Theatre's ad for The Toll of the Sea, which made me learn a little more than I used to know about motion pictures in color.

In the next column, the top article concerns the future site of the Roosevelt Gym. The bottom article describes the newly formed Hobart Gun Club planning to meet "on the Jerry McAuliff[e] farm east of the city in the field formerly used as a motorcycle race track," which sounds as if the racetrack had fallen into disuse.

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[1] "Scholler-Young Nuptial," Hobart Gazette, April 13, 1923.

Ainsworth Basketball Team, 1941-42

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


This photo comes to us with the following IDs:

Back row, L to R: Young Johnson, Pat Sullivan, unknown, unknown, Donald Tonagel, Ron (last name unknown), Jack Dick, Don Carpenter.

Front row, L to R: Dick Julian, unknown, unknown, Jerry Kuntz, Wayne Johnson, Jack Woodland, Principal George Garland. Little boy in front may be Frankie Foreman.

To the extent I've been able to find these boys in the 1940 Census, they are all around 11-13 years of age, and, I suppose, students at the W.G. Haan School in Ainsworth. Here are my notes on each:

Young Johnson — don't know if "Young" is a first name or an adjective. If it's a first name, I can't find him; but see Wayne Johnson below.

Pat Sullivan — have no evidence that he's related to the Ross Twp. Sullivans; can't really find who is he is related to.

Donald Tonagel — As we learned a long time ago, he was the elder of the two children of Cecil and Ruby Tonagel.

Ron (last name unknown) — can't find any Ron in Ross Twp. who would be the right age.

Jack Dick — his family farmed in southeastern Ross Township. His parents were Sherman and Anna.

Don Carpenter — maybe son of Lawrence and LaRiatha, born 1930 in Ross Township; by 1940 lived in Gary.

Dick Julian — possibly the son of Ralph and Rachael Julian of Hobart Township. Ralph is a described as a "laborer" in a "W.P.A. project."

Jerry Kuntz — Paul Gerald "Jerry" Kuntz, son of William and Iva, who in 1940 were living in Ross Township, somewhere (to judge by their neighbors) along the old Lincoln Highway near S.R. 51. Jerry Kuntz went on to serve in the Korean War and to work with Eldon Harms at NIPSCO.

Wayne Johnson — may be the son of Clarence and Bernice Johnson of Hobart. The 1940 Census confusingly describes him as their daughter; however, the 1930 Census shows him as their one-year-old son. If "Young" Johnson (above) is a description, then that boy might be Wayne's younger brother, Richard.

Jack Woodland — can't find in Ross Township 1940 census. Eldon Harms told me that Jack was a resident of the Cozy Camp (successor to Chester's Camp, situated on the north side of the Old Lincoln Highway just east of DeKalb Street), his family having come down from Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Principal Garland is George Bronson Garland.

The little boy in front holding the basketball is probably Frankie Foreman, youngest son of Otto and Louise Foreman. Between Frankie and his next oldest brother, there were about 10 years. Frankie was a surprise baby, who came at a time when his parents had stopped expecting any more children.

Gender Performance at the Ross Township Farmers' Institute

Here we have the program for the January 27, 1922 meeting of the Ross Township Farmers' Institute, which just leaves me wondering what would happen to a girl who showed up with some fine corn or potatoes she'd grown, or a boy with a cake baked from his own recipe.


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Hobart News 21 Dec. 1922.

Based on what comes up when I Google "Mrs. R.M. Brown, Goshen, Indiana," I think she was going to discuss "household efficiency" or something in that vein.

Elsewhere on the same page: Ruby Fisher was offering piano lessons; Paul Emery was offering loans and insurance — was this a side job while he continued working with his father-in-law, Calvin Shearer, in the coal-and-building-materials business?

Interesting that among the suggested gifts for "ladies" (up in the right-hand corner) were face powder and rouge.

A Chopping Bee

In December 1922, the men of the South of Deepriver neighborhood got together and held a "chopping bee" to supply Jim Jeffrey with stove wood for the winter — as Jim was in no condition to chop wood for himself, with a twice-broken leg.


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Hobart News 21 Dec. 1922.

I've paid so little attention to the Prescott family that I had to go look them up to remind myself that Mrs. John Prescott was born Carrie Sturtevant.


Over in the left-hand column, the Central Drug Store in downtown Hobart was selling popular recordings. I've never heard of either "Indiana Lullaby" or "Three O'Clock in the Morning" before. I guess I need to get out more.