Trinity Lutheran School circa 1900

One last photo in connection with Adeline Busse.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Lena is somewhere among these children, according to the caption at the museum, but it lists so many of the same names as the ten-years-earlier photo, in the same order, that I have to wonder. The caption reads as follows (and the blank lines are in the original):

_____ Born, __________, Teacher Duttemeir, Eda Schuelke Wolkenhauer, Louis Passow, Martha Busse Gardner, Billie Maybaum, Barney Scharbach, Henry Kruse, ______ Kegebein, __________, __________, Eddie Fasel, _____ Fasel, Emil Moll, Walter Watson, Billy Busse, _____ Maybaum, Fred Scharbach, Clara Ahrens, _____ Maybaum, Tillie Gruel, __________, Minnie Busse, Adline [sic] Busse, Emma Kossow, Sofie Schavey, Tillie Wishman, Carrie Wishman, Fritz Schroeder, Paul Schuelke, Charles Fasel, Albert Witt, _____ Maybaum, Bertha Kossow, Tillie Triebess, Mary Kossow, Malie Schavey, Cora Niksch Jeffrey, Alma Maybaum, Martha Busse Gardner, Eda Schuelke Wolkenhauer [listed for the second time], Emma Busse Scharbach.

Trinity Lutheran School circa 1890

I bring you this photo because it allegedly shows two of Lena Busse's sisters who did not sign her autograph album.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The caption at the museum lists the following names, although I am not sure that their order corresponds to some order in the photo, e.g., left-to-right, back-to-front:

Ed Niksch, Fred Ahrens, Henry Fasel, Louis Maybaum, Lena Ewigleben Scharbach, Amanda Boldt, Mary Born, ________ Wojahn, Charles Koeppen, Traugott Reick, Louis Breitspecker, Otto Hasse, Carie Maybaum, Hulda Lewin, Lena Schroeder, Mary Wishman Rieck, Emil Hasse, Pastor Schuelke, Phillip Ahrens, Billie Witt, Emma Kossow, Sofia Schavey, Tillie Wishman, Carrie Wishman, Fritz Schroeder, Paul Schuelke, Charles Fasel, Albert Witt, Lillie Maybaum, Herman Maybaum, Frank Maybaum, Bertha Kossow, Lillie Triebess, Mary Kossow, ______ Schavey, Coca Niksch Jeffrey, Alma Maybaum Perwitz, Martha Busse Gardner, Eda Scheulke Wolkenhauer, Emma Busse Scharbach.

The Last Autograph

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

This autograph concludes Lena's album.

No, I'm not even going to try. Listen, people — you can personalize your handwriting all you want, but don't expect bloggers who come along a century later to puzzle it out so they can plug it into online translators and come up with some idea of what you're saying. They are too tired to care.

Lillian Keilman

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Estelle's big sister, Lillie, was about 12 years old when she wrote out this arch little poem (which was in general circulation at the time, but I can't identify any specific source). You can see the family resemblance in the two sisters' handwriting, though Lillie's naturally is under better control.

Here is Lillie's senior portrait, from the Hobart High School Aurora yearbook for 1916:



Lillian's obituary, which ran in the Hobart Gazette of March 26, 1980, described her as "a retired Hobart Elementary School teacher and a Hobart resident prior to her retirement twelve years ago to Phoenix, Ariz." She had died March 18 in Phoenix. Her husband, John Gresser, had died the previous September; his obituary (Hobart Gazette, Sept. 26, 1979) described him as "a popular Hobart barber for 40 years and a resident for 71 years." I do not know when they married. It appears that they had no children.

Alma Sitzenstock

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

We last met the lovely Alma on the occasion of her marriage to George Busselburg in November 1919. This signature dates to nearly 11 years before, when she was a schoolgirl of about 12 or 13.

Searching around the internet for this little poem, I find several variations on the third line, including "Remember the boy you kissed at the gate," and all those variations are from autograph albums. So it was an old reliable workhorse.

Edith Busse

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Sister Edith was the second Busse daughter, after Minnie. The 1910 Census shows her as 18 years old, while Bertha was then 16 and Lena 14. (Minnie, 22, had left home sometime after the 1900 Census.)

J.M. Swayze

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Your old friend, who??? I can't find any information on any J.M. Swayze who seems likely to have been a friend of a Hobart schoolgirl.

Paula Moll

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

When Martha Moll's little sister, Paula, got around to signing Lena's album, she didn't offer any sentimental stuff about green leaves upon the pine, but rather some practical advice about what to do when you are old and in harm(?). And she took a rather casual approach to how she got the words onto paper. Not your typical 13-year-old schoolgirl.

This undated portrait of Paula may have been made to commemorate her confirmation, so perhaps it was taken a year or two after she wrote about boots.



Per the Indiana Marriage Collection, Paula married Herbert Shearer in October 1917. The 1920 Census finds the young couple living in Hobart, he working at a brickyard, she staying home to care for their toddler daughter. All I know about Herbert is that he was not one of the Ainsworth Shearers.

Martha Sonntag

From the Busse autograph collection.

Here we go again with the green leaves upon the pine.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Martha was living in Hobart Township when she signed Lena's album, but she had once lived "near Ainsworth," in the words of the Gazette, and the 1900 census also shows the family somewhere roughly south of the Ainsworth-Deep River area (if I can judge correctly by their neighbors), farming rented land. The family then consisted of William and Alvina Sonntag and their seven children, who ranged in age from late teens* down to the five-year-old Martha — the baby of the family, and the only one not born in Germany.

In February 1903, the Sonntags moved to Hobart Township, to rent the "Christian Heck farm," which lay approximately where Tenth Street meets S. Decatur Street (aka Clay, aka Arizona). By 1908 they had moved to "the Oliver Hayward farm southwest of town," and in 1910 (judging by their neighbors in the census), they were still living there, or near there, although in the spring of 1908 they had bought the "Geo. Stoeckert thirty-four acres southeast of town." (I don't know. Look at the 1908 Plat Map and drawn your own conclusions.) By 1920, it appears that William and Alvina had retired from farming and moved to a home on Lake Street; of all their children, only Martha remained with them, single and employed as a saleslady at some unspecified department store. And beyond that, I lose track of her.

Well, I don't have a picture of Martha, so how about a story about her father's horse accident at Ainsworth?


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______________________
*The census is almost illegible on that point. I'm not sure it's possible for Selma to be "4," as Ancestry.com has it, because someone named Selma Sonntag married in 1906. (See "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 26 Oct. 1906.)


Sources:
♦ 1891 Plat Book.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 7 Aug. 1903; 3 Apr. 1908.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 13 Feb. 1903.

"Dear Friend . . ."

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

A mystery! Someone — we shall never know who — started to sign Lena's album and failed to get past the salutation.

I personally don't put too much faith in the "08" of the date. Haven't we all, at some point during the first few weeks of some new year, written the old year by mistake?

Margaret Rieck

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

So many of these autographs are dated January 13, 1909, that I wonder if Lena brought her new album to school that day and circulated it among her friends.

Margaret was born in 1896 to Fred and Sofie Rieck, both German immigrants. I believe that Sofie, widowed in 1916, would later marry John Kegebein, who had once farmed his land half a mile north of Ainsworth. But as for Margaret, I have not been able to trace her beyond the 1910 Census, nor do I have a photo of her.

Martha Moll

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

While I fail to see any connection between the color of pine needles and the choice of friends, evidently this little poem was popular in this place and time for autograph albums — we shall see it again.

Martha was 14 years old and the middle child of Gustav and Huldah Moll. The 1910 Census shows the family of eight — counting Huldah's elderly mother — living on Kelly Street (possibly neighbors of our friends Charles and Anna Lee). Gustav worked as a section foreman for one of the railroads.

At this point I don't know what became of Martha. The 1920 Census shows her still single, still living with her parents, and I think I've found a 1925 phone directory that shows her working as a bookkeeper in Gary, still living in Hobart … and beyond that I can't trace her.

Here she is in a formal portrait that is undated, but I would guess it was taken within a few years of her signing Lena's album.

Caroline Sapper

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

We already know that six years after she signed Lena's album, Caroline became Mrs. Owen Nelson.

♦    ♦    ♦
[2/6/2013 update] From the DeWell Family Archives come the following two photos of Caroline Sapper Nelson. The first is undated.


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This next one was taken in 1980, on the occasion of Caroline and Owen's 65th wedding anniversary. From left to right: Caroline, Owen, Howard Ewen, Ruth Schavey Ewen, and Annabelle Schavey Larson.



Ruth and Annabelle were Caroline's nieces (the daughters of her sister Louise Sapper Schavey DeWell by Louise's first husband, whom she lost to the Spanish influenza). Howard Ewen was Ruth's husband.

The archivist tells us this story:

The Sappers lived in Chicago when the kids were young. Their dad owned a grocery near the Pullman area. My mom remembers hearing that Aunt Caroline, and her brother Uncle John (of the farm market in Hobart) were little scrappers. They said they had to fight their way home every day from school through a line of other kids (probably the German Sappers vs. the Italians or Irish). Caroline and John probably barely topped five feet as adults, but I have no doubt they were tough!

Many thanks for these contributions!

♦    ♦    ♦
[2/9/2013 update] Thanks to Marilyn (granddaughter of Caroline Sapper), we now have some images of Caroline in her youth.

This first one is not dated, but I'm guessing circa 1900, since she looks roughly five years old here, and she was born in 1895.


(Click on images to enlarge)

We have tried to decipher these handwritten notes on the back of the original:



Here's my interpretation thus far:



It seems to be a description of the details of Caroline's portrait that would be lost in the black-and-white version. I wonder if perhaps her mother gave instructions to the photographer to produce another version, retouched with some color?

Moving along, here is Caroline's confirmation class at Trinity Lutheran Church, undated, but we're guessing circa 1910. Caroline is in the middle row, third from the right.



No one else is identified — a pity, since it's a great photo. Perhaps someday there will be time for research on that.

Last but not least, we have Caroline's wedding photo, taken February 14, 1915:



She was a beautiful bride, but she seems to be staring down the photographer … while Owen is gazing dreamily off-camera. (I have also added this photo to the previous post about their wedding.)

Emily Rossow

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

I would be obliged to anyone who can tell me who Emily Rossow was. I've found plenty of Rossow girls in the 1910 census, but none is named Emily.


This little picture was in the autograph album at this page, but there's nothing on it to confirm that it has anything to do with the elusive Emily, rather than just being stuck into the album randomly.



Two little children playing at the edge of a cliff, and their guardian angel watching over them. Well, judging by all the newspaper reports I've seen of children injured and killed in this general time frame, I have to say that guardian angels of the early 20th century were pretty bad at their jobs.

Olga Foreman

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

If these lines are not original, I haven't been able to identify their source, and perhaps the poet's obscurity is well earned, since I'm able to believe that the 14-year-old Olga made this up herself.

She was the daughter of William and Emma Foreman. The 1910 Census found them living on Front Street, sharing a home with Emma's parents, Julius and Augusta Manteuffel.

I believe Olga married Fred Rossow in 1916 (Indiana Marriage Collection) and the 1920 Census shows them running a dairy farm in Porter County, with a baby daughter who was not named after Olga's dead friend.

♦    ♦    ♦
Since I can't find a picture of Olga, you'll just have to make do with a picture of her father: William Foreman was a long-serving school engineer — or janitor, as the 1910 censustaker puts it plainly — and so beloved that one of Hobart's elementary schools was named for him after his death. Of course, native Hobartites know the story better than I do. Here he is in the Hobart High School Aurora yearbook of 1927:




And here is the Foreman school — photo undated, but probably near the time of its demolition, since I think that's the newly built Joan Martin school in the background.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Sister Bertha

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Bertha Busse was four years younger than Brother Bill and a good deal less cynical. For Adeline's album she used these words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, expressing ideals that sound lofty at the first reading, but when you think about them more closely — especially the "speak what we think" part — you find they constitute a recipe for being tiresome.

Bertha was strikingly lovely, as we see in this photo, which was printed as her senior portrait in the Hobart High School Aurora of 1913.



This photo is on display at the Hobart Historical Society museum. Someone has added a typewritten caption: "Bertha Busse (Mrs. George Smith)." At this point I know nothing about George Smith or their marriage.

Brother Bill

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

"Brother Bill" was Adeline's older brother, William John Busse, and he was 19 years old when he wrote this cynical advice. The 1910 Census found him with no job, but by the time of the Great War he had moved to Chicago and was employed by Wells Fargo (WWI Draft Cards). However, he was back in Hobart in time for the 1920 Census, and I think he remained there until his death. He is buried in Hobart Cemetery.

So far as I can tell, he did indeed paddle his own canoe through life, in a sense, for he never loved and trusted anyone outside his family enough to marry.

Mary Kegebein

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Mary was about 13 years old when she wrote this. The 1910 Census shows her living on Lake Street in Hobart, with her parents, Charles and Anna Kegebein — the third of their nine children. At that time both her father and older brother were employed in a brickyard. Her 17-year-old sister was a telephone operator. Her father was a brother of the John Kegebein, Jr. who owned a farm north of Ainsworth (see also the 1891 Plat Book).

I believe Mary became Mrs. Homer R. White in July 1917 (Indiana Marriage Collection) and in the 1920 Census can be found in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband and a little daughter, Gertrude.

As for the "angles," this is one of those traditional children's prayers with a morbid twist (like "if I should die before I wake…"). A little research suggests that the more common form is:

Four corners to my bed
Four angels round my head
One to watch and one to pray
And two to bear my soul away.

These days you can buy a sanitized version to hang on your wall.

"Your Freind"

From the Busse autograph collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Estelle Keilmann was just ten years old when she signed Adeline's album.

Estelle was the daughter of Henry and Margaret Keilmann — Henry being the Keilmann in Scheidt and Keilmann's Bee Hive.

The 1910 Census suggests that Estelle and Adeline lived next door to each other on Main Street, or perhaps across the street.

♦    ♦    ♦
[1/14/2013 update] I have found a photo that includes Estelle ("Stella") Keilmann, circa 1908:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Adeline's Autograph Album

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The front cover of Adeline's autograph album.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


Let us begin a new set of images, taken from an autograph album belonging to Adeline Busse. I believe she received it as a gift for her 13th birthday, January 11, 1909. She wrote on the front flyleaf:


Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The only photograph I've been able to find of Adeline, or Lena as she was known to family and friends, is this blurred one from her childhood:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.
(Lena is at right. At left is her older sister, Bertha.)

The album was a gift from Lena's father, as we know from this inscription inside the back cover:


Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

"Papa" was Gustav John Busse.


(Click on image to enlarge)
The caption doesn't indicate which is Gust Busse; for the moment I'm assuming he's on the left.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The sad thing is that less than one year after he gave Lena the album, "Papa" died.

Ex-Marshal Dies

Ex-Marshal Gustav John Busse who has been conducting a saloon in Hobart for several years died suddenly Sunday morning, Jan. 2, 1910, at his home on Main street. Apparently Mr. Busse had been enjoying reasonably good health and New Year's evening while eating supper with his son-in-law, Emil Scharbach, he sustained a stroke of apoplexy which caused him to become unconscious within a short time and died about six o'clock the next morning, never having regained consciousness. Dr. Gordon was called within ten minutes after he was stricken and remained with him all night and Dr. Bulhand was called in consultation but nothing could be done to help his condition.

Mr. Busse was born in Germany on June 13, 1854, and came to America in 1877. In Oct. 1882, he was married to Miss Augusta Hundt at Laporte. Four years later he moved his family to Glen Park and there had charge of a section for the Nickel Plate until 1891 when he moved to Hobart and engaged in the saloon business, which he since followed except for seven years that he was Town Marshal.

Mr. Busse was a kind-hearted and liberal citizen and was never known to refuse a friend an accommodation. He had been a supporter of and a member of the local German Ev. Lutheran church for twenty-four years and from which edifice the funeral was conducted by Rev. Schuelke on Tuesday of this week at 2 o'clock. The interment took place at Crown Hill.

He is survived by a wife, one son and six daughters, besides a brother, Herman Busse, who lives near Knox, Ind., and six sisters, Mrs. Wm. Stoltz, of Wanatah, and the balance who live in Germany.

(Click on image to enlarge)

In April 1910, the census-taker found the widowed Augusta running a boarding-house on Main Street. In addition to the four of the Busse children still at home — William (20), Edith (18), Bertha (16), and Adeline (14) — the house was crammed with ten male boarders.

Lena's story had a sad ending, as she died quite young.

Death of Miss Busse

Miss Adeline Busse who had been ailing for about five weeks and was operated upon Feb. 14 for gangrenous appendicitis passed away at 7:30 on Monday evening, Feb. 25, 1918, at the Mercy hospital in Gary. The remains were conveyed the same evening by Undertaker Wild to the saddened home of her mother on Center street.

Miss Busse was the youngest daughter of Mrs. Augusta and the late Gustav Busse and was a most highly respected young lady. She was born in Hobart and was 22 years old the 11th of last January. The many friends of the family sympathise with them in their dark hour of affliction. Her death in the prime of girlhood is extremely sad.

Besides her mother, she is survived by five sisters — Mrs. Emma [Emil] Scharbach of Hobart, Mrs. Martha [Fred] Gardner and Miss Minnie Busse of Chicago, Mrs. Edith [Kelly] Norris of Hobart, and Miss Bertha Busse who lives at home, and one brother, William, who resides in Chicago.

The funeral was held yesterday (Thursday) at 3 o'clock at the German Ev. Lutheran church and the burial was made at the Crown Hill cemetery.

Lena's little grave marker is fading into illegibility.


(Click on image to enlarge)


… Having spent so much time on the background, we will leave the autographs for the future.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ "Death of Miss Busse." Hobart Gazette 1 Mar. 1918.
♦ "Ex-Marshal Dies." Hobart Gazette 7 Jan. 1910.
♦ "Funeral of Miss Matilda Adeline Busse Held This Afternoon." Hobart News 28 Feb. 1918.