Vance Calvert and His Amateur Radio Jargon

Here's what Vance Calvert of Hobart was up to in the early days of 1922.


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Vance is giving the details of the radio equipment he was using to talk to John Martin in Ohio, I gather, but those details are beyond me and I'm too lazy to research this topic.

We can deduce that Vance did this radio stuff often enough to warrant the expense of having his own postcards printed with his call letters and location, for memorializing the contacts he made with other radio operators.

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I am not too lazy to do a little research into Vance Calvert. His connection to Hobart appears to date mostly to the 1910s and 1920s, although his parents[1] remained there after he had moved on.

My research has also turned up a news story that may or may not involve him (probably not), but it involves murder with sides of adultery and bootleg liquor, so of course I'm going to tell you about it.

Vance Robert Calvert was born in Michigan City on May 28, 1898 (WWII Draft Cards). His parents had moved to Chicago at the time of the 1900 Census, then back to Michigan City (1910 Census). By 1916 it appears that the family was in Hobart:


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Porter County Vidette (Valparaiso, Ind.), 13 Sept. 1916.

In April 1917, just after the U.S. entered the Great War, Vance joined the military:


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Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 13 Apr. 1917.

A week later, Vance's name appeared again on the "Roll of Honor" but "infantry" had been changed to "signal corps"[2] — that may be where he got to know so much about radios.

When we look for him in the 1920 Census, we must go to an army camp in Texas. I believe this is our guy:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

I cannot find any record of the marriage, in Texas or anywhere else, but that wouldn't be the first time a marriage failed to show up on Ancestry.com decades after it happened.

Vance was back in Hobart by 1921, when we find him mentioned among some Hobart "boys" in the national guard going off to Louisville, Kentucky. And our postcard above places him in Hobart in 1922. In 1926 we find him and Dora living in San Antonio, Texas, per a city directory, which gives his occupation as serviceman for the International Radio Co.[3]

Now we come to 1927 and things get weird because according to someone on findagrave.com (as well as a couple of family trees on Ancestry.com), Vance's wife was Donna May McGuffin Calvert, who was murdered in Amarillo, Texas, on January 1, 1927. Here is the earliest story about the murder, appearing under a headline splashed across the full width of front page, "Woman Killed and Husband Dying in Hotel Shooting":


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Amarillo Daily News, 01 Jan. 1927.

Attentive readers will notice that the name of the victim's husband is given as Fred, and Fred it remains as the story develops in the newspapers. (I have tried and failed to identify this Fred Calvert in the online records.)

Two days later, another article tells us that Fred survived his wounds, while there seems to have been some confusion about whether he was, in fact, Donna May's husband.[4]

Here are two articles that summarize the testimony at the trial of the man who shot Donna May.


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Amarillo Daily News, 16 Mar. 1927.


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Amarillo Daily News, 16 Mar. 1927.

Aside from the fact that the possible husband in this case was named Fred, why do I think our Vance did not lose his wife in 1927? — because when we catch up with him in the 1930 Census, in Gary, Indiana, this is what we find:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

Vance's wife is Nora, which is a reasonable mistake for Dora, and again, I can find no record of his marrying a Nora. This Nora, like the Dora of 1920, was born in Texas. Nora's current age is very nearly what it would be if she were Dora, although her age at first marriage is wrong; and both their mothers were born in Texas, while there's a discrepancy in the paternal birthplaces. The differences, I think, can be chalked up to Dora/Nora fudging her age, or maybe the enumerator being no better at recording ages than names.

That's my hypothesis. Dora = Nora. Dora ≠ Donna May. Is that reasonable? Am I missing something?

Anyway, within a few years, the marriage between Vance and Dora/Nora dissolved, though whether by death or divorce I cannot say. In July 1934 Vance married Bernice Wesenberg, in Chicago.[5] The couple continued living in Chicago through the next two censuses, with three children by 1950. Bernice died in 1958.

Vance was living with a married daughter in Delaware when he died in 1975. No mention is made of his first marriage.


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"Obituaries," Evening Journal (Wilmington, Del.), 2 June 1975.

I don't attribute any significance to the fact that his youngest daughter was named Donna!

Vance is buried in the same cemetery as his wife and mother.

As for Dora/Nora, I have no idea what became of her.

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[1] His father was Leon Calvert, who at various times ran a tinsmith business and a hardware store in Hobart. From what I've found so far it seems that Leon remarried in 1930, while Vance's mother (Addie) was still living.
[2] Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 20 Apr. 1917.
[3] San Antonio City Directory 1926 (John F. Worley Directory Co.), from Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
[4] "Parks Hearing Tuesday," Amarillo Globe, 3 Jan. 1927.
[5] Presbyterian Historical Society; Philadelphia, PA, USA; US, Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1907; Accession Number: 96 0522b 49e. Via Ancestry.com. U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

Radiophone

By the spring of 1922, gramophones were common. The next thing in entertainment was the "radiophone."


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Hobart News 27 Apr. 1922.

KYW was the first radio station in the Chicago area.

The real-estate transaction described below that ad was reported in greater detail by the next day's Gazette.


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 28 Apr. 1922.

"Near the Collver place," was it? Well, the only thing I can identify out of all this is the Collver place as it appeared in 1908:


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From the 1908 Plat Map.

I find a Fred Trapp in Gary in the 1920 Census and the 1930 Census. In neither does he describe himself as a carpenter, but I can't find anyone else by that name.


Anyway, just above that item we see that Calvin C. Shearer had started work on present-day S.R. 51, which had aroused so much interest because of its bad condition.

Over in the "Births" column, a second child for John and Lillian Call, and two Halfman babies — news that only reminds me how little I've kept track of the Halfmans of Ross Township. John and Joe were brothers, I believe: sons of Frank Halfman, and thus brothers also of young Carl Halfman, who had died in an Army camp in 1918. Their grandfather was Henry Halfman, who had arrived in Lake County by April 1860 (when his marriage was recorded), but he did not appear in the census that year. He did, however, show up in the 1870 and subsequent censuses. The 1874 Plat Map shows him owning 80 acres at the northeast corner of Broadway and 61st Ave (the parking lot of Ultra Foods, in other words). Henry and his wife, Mary, had three children: Frank, Clara, and William. We shall have news of William soon.

Joseph Halfman was born circa 1889 and married Marian Adler circa 1912-3. The child born in 1922 was either their third or fourth. As for Joe's younger brother, John, born circa 1893, he had married Clara Adler (Marian's sister) in 1915, and the child born in 1922 was their third, a son named Leo. I can't find the Joseph Halfman family in the 1920 census. The John Halfman family was running a dairy farm on rented land near his Uncle William's farm — possibly his grandfather's old place.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1860 Census.
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Mrs. Halfman Dies at Lowell," Hammond Times 4 Apr. 1940. Newspaperarchive.com.

Dick Wheaton, Ham (Random Old Photo)

This is pretty much all Greek to me. All I understand of it is that Dick Wheaton operated a ham radio in Hobart in 1937.


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This message was written on the back:



The 1940 Census shows Dick Wheaton as 32 years old, living on 8th Street in Hobart, with Hazard and Alta Halsted. He is described as Hazard's stepson, and his occupation is given as "electrical manager" in a "retail department store." He is similarly described in a Hobart city directory for 1940-41 as a "Dept. Mgr." living at 759 E. 8th Street. (The 1930 Census shows Robert and Alta Wheaton having a 22-year-old son, Russell. I suppose it's possible that Alta Wheaton of 1930 might have become Alta Halsted by 1940, but in that case I don't know what happened to the Wheaton marriage, nor how to account for Russell's becoming Richard/Dick, if indeed he did.)

A 1936-37 directory describes Dick as a salesman for Sears-Roebuck and gives his address as 433 Center Street.

A 1955 directory lists "Wheaton, R E" at 614 E. 3rd Street, with the notation "Television & Appliance."