Home Guard Band (WWI-Era Photo Album)

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

This is the "home guard band," according to the handwritten caption, and behind the photo is a handwritten note:

Home Guard Parade
June – 1918
Hobart Ball Park

The home guard, of course, would be the militia, so these men may be part of Company K. I suspect, although I can't know for sure, that what we're seeing here is just a moment in the festivities on June 21, 1918, when Hobart hosted a competition among local militia companies. Was the "Kulage field," where the drill was held, the same as the "Hobart Ball Park" where our photographer places this?

Whatever he was pointing his camera at, it was obviously a big occasion. In the background you can see many spectators (including women in white dresses), a grand tent, and a long row of parked cars.

How to Plow Your Fields in 1919

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From the Hobart Gazette of March 28, 1919.


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From the Hobart Gazette of April 4, 1919.


I believe the Brahst brothers were Louis* and Julius Brahst. The 1920 Census lists them as 38 and 35 years old, respectively, both self-employed mechanics, both boarding with Freda Green on Lake Street.

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*Or Lewis, per his WWI Draft Card.

Ball Game near Ainsworth (WWI-Era Photo Album)

Or: Bait and Switch.


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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

There's a handwritten caption and a description that should be stuck behind the photo … but there's no photo. And how I would have loved to see that ball game.

This is on the same page as this photo of the Sauter/Wollenberg place in Ainsworth, which we've see before, but are now going to see again. Because I love it!



The handwritten note behind that one reads:

Wollenberg Place
Summer 1918

I think these guys have just gotten through playing a game of baseball and have gone to Wollenberg's for soft drinks.

Ainsworth School Contract Awarded

And they expect the school to be built before the end of 1919!


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From the Hobart Gazette of March 28, 1919.

You may notice that I marked two other articles on this page when I printed it out from the microfilm — only because they are remotely related to Ainsworth. Susan Popp was the mother of Charles Popp. As for Fred "Keoppen," also known as Koeppen, I believe he is the second husband of Louise Sievert, who now lies buried under that name in Chester Cemetery.

I suppose the Boldt article is also remotely related to Ainsworth, but who dares accuse me of consistency?

John Gruel's Woods (WWI-Era Photo Album)

Perhaps while hunting the mighty woodchuck in John Gruel's woods, "Myself" took this photograph. The handwritten note behind it reads:

June 1918
North of Ainsworth
J. Gruels Woods

… Those look more like cows than trees to me, but what do I know?


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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

On the same page, beneath a blank space where a photo once was, this caption:



Bill is a mystery.

Railroad Kookery and an Update(Random Pointless Photo)

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Railroad maintenance equipment on the Canadian National (fka Grand Trunk Western) tracks. I don't know what they are testing the rails for.

Last night I dreamed I was out in the fields around here somewhere, and I saw that a freight train on the Grand Trunk tracks had developed engine trouble and stopped. The crew were all gathered around the front engine. They had raised its hood and were tinkering underneath it, just as you've seen people do with stopped cars on the side of the road. You wouldn't think there were so many crew members on a train — half a dozen, all dressed like conductors on the South Shore line. But they couldn't get the engine to start, so what they did was just tie ropes to it and start pulling. They put their whole hearts into it, and by golly, they soon got that whole freight train into motion, as they pulled on the ropes, walking, then trotting down the tracks, the train going faster and faster. I said to myself, "I have got to have a picture of this," and I ran home for my camera, but those guys were so fast that by the time I got my camera, the train was just a speck, 'way down the tracks.

♦    ♦    ♦
Thanks to the DeWell family archives, I have been able to add a portrait to the story of the wandering Charles.

I'm Quitting the Dairy Business! I'm Serious, You Guys!

Thus far I've mentioned William Shults only for his effort to oust County Agent S.J. Craig. I don't know much about him. Sometime between 1900 and 1910, he and his wife, Vena, moved into Ross Township from Porter County. By then they had only a son, Alfred, having lost a little daughter, Dora, in early childhood.

(William also had two brothers, Charles and Fred. I've heard of Charles farming the Kramer land south of Hobart, and the Coffey land somewhere between Ainsworth and Merrillville. As for Fred, in 1910 he was 16 years old and living in William's household; two years later he married Miss Emily Schnabel, and the young couple started their life together in "the B.B. Bale residence near the Penna depot" before taking up farming again in Ross Township.)

For a while William and Vena rented the Clinton land northwest of Ainsworth and farmed it. In 1913 they bought for themselves the "Kruse farm," a large spread of land bordering on the Lincoln Highway.


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This excerpt shows the land owned by William Kruse in 1908. Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.

In 1917, we find William elected to the "Trouble Committee" of the Ainsworth branch of the Lake County Milk Producers' Association. Two years later, he decided the dairy business was too much trouble.



It sounds serious, doesn't it? But I've seen the 1920 census; I've seen William and family living on their own farm in Ross Township, William calling himself a dairy farmer, so I know this is only temporary.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Ainsworth Farmers Elect Officers." Hobart Gazette 26 Jan. 1917.
♦ "Kramer Barn Burns." Hobart Gazette 10 Sept. 1909.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 29 Oct. 1909; 30 Sept. 19101; 22 Nov. 1912.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 25 Dec. 1913.
♦ "Public Sale Today." Hobart Gazette 28 Mar. 1919.
♦ "Ross Township." Hobart News 13 Jan. 1913.