Samuel Bartlett Woods, Enumerator

In light of the fact that my microfilm reading (remember when I used to read microfilm, instead of just posting pictures?*) has now gone through the taking of the 1920 census, I thought I'd post this picture of one of Ross Township's enumerators, Sam Woods, who was also something of a local historian.


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From The First Hundred Years of Lake County, Indiana by Sam B. Woods (1938). Image courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

He was born in Ross Township in 1856. You can find the farm belonging to his parents, Bartlett and Ann Woods, southeast of Ross Station in the 1874 Plat Map, and in the 1908 Plat Map, Sam's own land is just north of Lottaville.

Sam lived to be 100 years old.

Here he is counting people in the heart of Ainsworth:

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Census images from Ancestry.com.

And in the village of Deep River:


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*This is a facetious remark. I still read microfilm and I'll get around to posting something from it one of these days.

Updated Again! More Photos!

Believe it or not, we now have three more photos of the Buchfuehrer farm auction of November 1917. I have added them to the original post.

Children's Shoes

Photos taken in the Hobart Historical Society museum.


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Today's desecration of Art is the "ink sketch" effect from Paint.NET.

Sister Bertha

From the Busse autograph collection.


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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.

Ainsworth Then and Now: John Wood School(?)

[5/15/2020 update] The 1962 image is not John Wood School. I don't know what it is, but it's not John Wood School. You want to see John Wood School in 1962? Go here.

Circa 1962 and 2013.


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Top image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.

According to the handwritten caption on the first photo, this is the John Wood school, and the school looks pretty freshly built. The lettering on the building is not clear; however, to me it looks more like "Jonas E. Salk" than "John Wood." I would never have recognized the building — and what are all those structures behind it? It seems to have been placed in a densely built suburban neighborhood. Yet the 1965 aerial view of the school does not show those houses, or whatever they are.

I am mystified. It would be very nice to have a photo of the just-built John Wood School, but I'm not sure I do here.

Ironic, Isn't It?

— that the more irons have been improved to be convenient and effective, the less we use them.

Photos taken inside the Hobart Historical Society museum.


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This monstrosity was meant to be filled with hot coals. The embossed curved plate under the handle was there to shield the user's hand from the heat. Theoretically.



Early electrical irons.



Today's low-rent artsiness is the "oil painting" effect in Paint.NET. It's a desecration of Art, of course, but I think it's cute.





From the Hobart News of June 17, 1920.

Brother Bill

From the Busse autograph collection.


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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.