Ainsworth Then and Now: John Wood School

1962, and 2015


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

"Now" is a relative term. Looking through the photos on my computer (since I can't go out and research), I was amazed to find that in the five years since I took the "now" photo, I never got around to putting together this post.

I'm guessing that the earlier photo was indeed taken when the school was newly completed in 1962. The little village of Ainsworth must have been tremendously proud of it.


Back in 2013, I did a "then and now" involving a photo that was identified by handwritten notes as the John Wood School, but that I thought more likely to be the Jonas E. Salk School in Merrillville. I'm leaving that post up (with a disclaimer) just to remind myself, and all amateur historians, that you can't believe everything you are told.

Ainsworth Basketball Team, 1941-42

(Click on image to enlarge)
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.

Hobart Then and Now: The Miller Corner

1970s, and 2017.


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


I call this house the Miller house, because Eldon Harms told me that the Miller family lived there. But since I don't know when the house was built, I don't know who among the previous owners of that land might have lived there; nor do I know who might have lived there after the Millers ceased to own it. By 1950 it was part of Chester Wasy's extensive property, but surely he did not live there when he might choose the spacious Chester house or the riverside Nolte house.

If the house dated back to the early 1890s, it once housed Peter and Caroline Stolp, the maternal grandparents of Minnie (Rossow) Harms. They rented that farm for a short time. Peter may have died there (1892).

However, after that mystifying news item about John Miller moving his house, I don't know what to think.

The house was still standing when I moved here in 1990. By then it was painted green. There was a dog house behind it, and beyond the back yard a fenced-in area where a horse was kept, with a shed for its shelter. At the edge of the field to the south was a rusty farm machine — a tractor or some such thing. I liked that house. It was demolished before I began my historical research.

But getting back to the photo above — I'm dating it to the 1970s simply because of the style of photo. We have a similar photo, likewise undated, but taking in a car that looks like the sort of car you might see in the mid-1970s.


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

These two photos were taken at least a few months apart, since here the trees are in full leaf, while in the first one the leaves are changing color and falling. I think this photo was taken when the Tonagels had their store up for sale. We have some others taken apparently at the same time with a better view of the automobiles that are helping me date these photos to the 1970s.

Gas Truck on a Snowy Day

For some reason I just love this photo (dated 1949) from the Tonagel collection …


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

… perhaps because I really want to know what its subject is, if it has one.

The fuzzy but straight line along the bottom of the photo makes me think it was shot through a window, perhaps from inside the Tonagels' living quarters behind their store. Beyond one of the tourist cabins out back, we see a gas truck* heading north on State Road 51 — at least, that's what I see. But maybe the truck barged into the frame as the photographer tried to capture the fairy-tale kingdom of snow growing out of the dull landscape of Ainsworth.

Or maybe the photographer was just testing the camera, and might have shot any old thing through the window (since it was too dark inside to photograph, and too cold to go outside).

Don't you wonder?

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*Eldon Harms identified it as a gas truck, and theorized that it might have just delivered the product that the Tonagels sold from their pumps out front.

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.


(Click on image to enlarge)
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.

John Wood School ca. 1962

The John Wood School looks freshly built in this aerial view:


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

The image is not otherwise dated.

Here is the same image with a couple of features marked.



The old Foreman house is still standing, though its outbuildings (aside from the pump house) are gone. I have marked the location of the old wooden Ainsworth school according to what I have been told. I can't clearly see it in those trees, though I do see something that looks like a small building.

The Triebess house lies just outside the left border of the photo. That house was built in 1849 according to the county records. If that date is correct, we may also call it the old Horace Marble house (per the 1874 Plat Map) and maybe even the old Booth house, since members of the Booth family owned that land in 1848 and 1850, per Early Land Sales, Lake County.

The white house along the left border was built in 1939 according to county records, and I haven't yet found out yet who built it.

Goat-Powered Commerce

One day long ago, a peddler who carried his wares in goat-drawn wagons stopped along the old Lincoln Highway to trade, and perhaps to rest — and to be photographed — at the Tonagels' store in Ainsworth.


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

This man, and others like him, traveled around the area selling whatever they could carry in their wagons. The most visible wares in this picture are those contraptions with sails and tails — weathervanes, I suppose. But the wagons look well stuffed with other goods.

The adults who bought from them may have known the peddlers' names, but the photos come to us from one who was a child at the time and knew them only as "gypsies."

In another photo, this peddler is joined by some people we know:



The tall, dark-haired man in overalls is Cecil Tonagel. Next to him is his father-in-law, Charles Rosenquist. Of the five children crouched beside them, we know only the middle one — Donald Tonagel.

The photo is undated, and we don't see any cars that would help us fix a date. The photo must have been taken after the Tonagels started operating The Pantry in 1935 but before Charles Rosenquist's death in 1953. Donald Tonagel, born about 1929, looks perhaps twelve years old here; assuming he's been identified correctly, we can date the photo roughly to the early 1940s.

The photographer stood out front of The Pantry, pointing the camera southwest toward the intersection of 73rd and S.R. 51.

Charles Rosenquist

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

Here is Charles Rosenquist, father of Ruby Tonagel, riding shotgun in the Tonagels' delivery truck. We don't have a date on this photograph.

Charles died October 19, 1953, at the age of 81. His obituary gave a brief sketch of his life:

Rosenquist was born in Sweden, March 13, 1872, and came to the United States when he was 16. He was a farmer in the vicinity of Chesterton until 1938, when he retired and went to live with his daughter, Mrs. Ruby Tonagel, in Ainsworth. Rosenquist's wife preceded him in death several years ago.

Besides Mrs. Tonagel, he is survived by two other daughters, Mrs. Ester Fridh, South Bend, and Mrs. Hazel Young, Chesterton. Also surviving are a sister, Glenda Peterson, Chicago, and six grandchildren.*

Charles is buried in Chesterton Cemetery … as is his wife, I'm told, but unfortunately whoever added his record to findagrave.com did not include hers.

There was a Charles H. Rosenquist in Porter County, born ten years earlier than our Charles M., and we must not allow him to confuse us.**

♦    ♦    ♦
Eldon Harms, looking at this photo, remembered the delivery truck as being blue. He also said that the telephone number on the side ending in "3" may mean it was a party line, and a call to the Tonagels would ring thrice.

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*"Former Chesterton Area Farmer Dies in S.B. Hospital." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 20 Oct. 1953.
**Any more than we are already, I mean.

Ainsworth Then and Now: The Pantry/Sharp School Services Again

1937 and 2015



(Click on images to enlarge)
1937 photo courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Taken on July 5, 1937, the top photo is two years later than the first then-and-now I showed you (though the "now" photos were taken the same day in both posts).

I like this photo because it shows you the emptiness of the northwest corner of that intersection (73rd Ave./S.R. 51). Now the fields have been filled up by the Christian Assembly Church and the John Wood Elementary School.


These next photos were taken from that northwest corner.




(Click on images to enlarge)
First and third images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

While the older photos are undated, we can be pretty sure they were not taken on July 5, 1937! I would say that they date a bit later than that: someone has had time to put up some directional signs that weren't there in the 1937 photo. The car is not clear enough to identify, but it appears to be a late-1930s or early-1940s model.

In the foreground of the first photo you will notice a gravel road, which is not the main north-and-south S.R. 51, but a shortcut that people would take if turning west onto 73rd Ave. from southbound S.R. 51 (or turning north onto S.R. 51 from eastbound 73rd) — much the same way that nowadays they cut through the church parking lot. The posts mark off an unused triangle of land between the shortcut and the main north-and-south S.R. 51. You can see a few of those posts in the 1937 photo.

Tonagel's Tourist Cabins

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that at last we have some photos of the tourist cabins that stood out back of the Tonagel family's store.

The bad news is that we probably do not (as I had believed) have a photograph of one of the cabins in the Cozy Camp, with Dacre Nelson lounging in front of it. Turns out that Dacre Nelson was a guest at the Tonagel place, and more likely that's where he was photographed.

So the search for images from the Cozy Camp/Chester's Camp must continue. In the meantime, however, let's get to those cabins out back of Tonagel's.

These first two pictures were taken from the southeast, with the photographer standing in almost the same place for both — but not on the same day. The first photo, undated, shows the cabins looking brand new. In the second, taken on July 5, 1937, the cabins seem to have a little wear on them.


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



I am told that these cabins were not built from scratch, but came pre-manufactured and only required assembly. They appear to be six- or eight-sided; each of those six or eight sides was a separate piece (with a matching separate piece of roof). The owner fastened the pieces together, and voilà ‐ a cabin!


Also taken on July 5, 1937, the next photograph shows The Pantry at left, and from the center toward the right, you can just make out those three cabins, behind the main building and the summer foliage.



The photographer was standing on (or near) the Lincoln Highway, just east of The Pantry.

If we judge by their chimneys, the cabins had a stove inside. They did not, however, have indoor plumbing. Guests in search of a toilet or a shower had to go to the main building (specifically, its east side, toward the back).


The camera was busy on July 5, 1937. Here's another shot from the same day:



Per notes on the back, the people are Cecil Tonagel, Esther Fridh, and Janice Fridh. (Esther was the sister of Cecil's wife, Ruby, and the mother of Janice.*)

The last photo from that day was taken from the west. It focuses on a swing in the area between the cabins and the back of The Pantry.



I suppose the swing could be used by the Tonagel family (who lived behind their store) or the guests in the cabins. The building in the background at right, I am told, is still standing, though remodeled; I would never have recognized it.

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*Relationship of Esther to Janice based on 1940 Census. Relationship of Esther to Cecil based on obituary of Ruby (Rosenquist) Tonegal's father, Charles ("Former Chesterton Area Farmer Dies in S.B. Hospital," Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso) 20 Oct. 1953).

Ainsworth Then and Now: The Pantry/Sharp School Services

A descendant of Cecil and Ruby Tonagel has generously shared a collection of photos with the Hobart Historical Society and the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society. So at last I have seen more than a corner of the Tonagels' store!

Here's a then-and-now:

1935 and 2015




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

That is among the earliest photos we have of The Pantry, as the Tonagels named their new business.



And I'm pretty confident that 1935 marked the beginning of this business run by the Tonagel family, since the on-line research for my first post about the Tonagels turned up a Mobilgas ad suggesting that as late as July 1935 Cecil was still occupied as the manager of the Walnut Gardens, well east of Ainsworth on the Lincoln Highway … although I suppose he could have run two businesses at once.

In its early days, The Pantry was not so much a grocery store as a lunch counter and tourist stop, taking advantage of the traffic on the Lincoln Highway, which then passed right in front of it. Out back of the main building stood cabins that tourists would rent (and we shall see photos of those, too).

After the new Route 30 was put through, diverting the tourist traffic south, the Tonagels gradually changed the focus of their business to serving the locals.