Cute But Ruthless

Let's play "this ain't it, but it might have looked like this" again.

This slide caught my attention because handwritten notes on the original identify the place as "Mom Chester's farm." And I have been told by a native Ainsworthite that Ruth Chester (George's wife) used to drive the tractor herself to plow the fields on their farm, while George was working his day job.


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Wouldn't it be a stroke of luck if I just happened to stumble across a picture of Ruth Chester this way? However, I don't think that happened. Aside from sheer improbability, the notes on the original say "fall 1958." In 1958 Ruth Chester was about 61 years old; the woman in this picture looks younger.

But we can pretend, can't we?

A Faithful and Valuable Employee

Deering Melin as a high-school senior in 1909.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

In April 1921, Deering Melin left his job with the Hobart Bank. Both local papers used such words as "faithful," "valuable" and "valued" to describe him as a bank employee; I wonder if perhaps there was gossip about him and the previous year's embarrassment that they wished to contradict.

Deering was not going far: only a stone's throw, to the Kulage Brick Works, where he would take up an office position.


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The Kulage Brick Works circa 1920.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

He stayed on with the bank a few days after handing in his resignation in order to train his successor, Joseph E. Mellon.


Sources:
♦ "D.D. Melin Resigns — Jos. E. Mellon to Take Position at Hobart Bank." Hobart News 28 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Deering Melin Quits Bank." Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 5 May 1921.

Still More Scenic Beauty

This is the Deep River near Hobart circa 1936, but it could be anywhere, anytime. Hey, I'm just trying to use up all the scenic-beauty postcards I've got lying around.


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I can't make any sense out of that message.

Death at the Rossow Crossing

Late in the evening of April 22, 1921, William Rossow and his family witnessed a horrifying accident on the Pennsy Railroad where it crosses present-day Wisconsin Street.


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From the Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.

The Parker family had only recently lost its oldest member. And Benjamin Harrison Parker had been the youngest.

♦    ♦    ♦
From an item in the social column on the Gazette page above, we learn a little more about the mysterious Miss Kipp — that she had a sister, Mrs. Hatten. I do find a George and Ida Hatten living in Hobart in 1920, but can't determine what Ida's maiden name was. That the Gazette gives first names to Dr. Faulkner and Miss Kipp, but calls the sister simply "Mrs. Hatten," suggests that the editor did not know the first name of either Mr. or Mrs. Hatten.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Benj. H. Parker Killed by Train." Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Benjamin Parker Killed at Rossow Crossing, Hit by Pennsy Fast Train." Hobart News 28 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 29 Apr. 1921.

Portrait from Chicago

From the steamer trunk.


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Images courtesy of E.H.

There is nothing on the original to identify this young man. This portrait was in the steamer trunk, so he probably had some connection to Minnie Rossow Harms, but your guess is as good as mine.

We can date the photo roughly, as the Chicago Historical Society places William Ahlborn's Berlin Studio at 333 W. Madison from 1886 to 1894.




Source: Chicago Historical Society. Chicago Photographers 1847 through 1900 as Listed in Chicago City Directories (1958).

The Old Carlson Place Again

William Blumenthal of Chicago, having tired of being an absentee farmer, sold the old Carlson place. The buyer was Teofil Heronim Grabowski, a 32-year-old Gary lawyer who also served as president of the American State Bank at 17th and Broadway in Gary. Teofil had immigrated from Poland in 1905. He eventually married Wanda Cieszynski (about nine years his junior), and in 1920 they lived in Gary with Wanda's 18-year-old brother, Valerian, a student.

Teofil was evidently a person of great energy: soon after buying the old Carlson place, he set about remodeling the farmhouse, building chicken coops, and making other unspecified improvements. The Gazette explained: "We understand [Mr. Grabowski] expects to engage extensively in the chicken raising business. That is he expects to raise 'broilers' for an eastern market." The Grabowskis intended to live on the Hobart farm, while Teofil commuted to his Gary law office and bank presidency. And indeed they did so at least through 1923; we shall have to wait to see what happens after that.


Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ Gary (Indiana) City Directory 1923 (R.L. Polk & Co.), from Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
♦ "Improving the Old Carlson Place." Hobart Gazette 22 Apr. 1921.
♦ WWI Draft Cards.

You Have Caught Me

From the steamer trunk.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of E.H.

Here's Minnie Rossow, writing from Chicago, it appears, and missing her friend down in Ainsworth.



The postmark is July 2(?), 1912. Just left of the Chicago postmark, she has written: "You wasn't froze when you got home, was you?" — an unexpected question in July, but if it wasn't an inside joke, perhaps they'd had some unseasonably cool weather.

The note in the upper left-hand corner, as best I can decipher, reads: "Mach's gut und schreibe bald," i.e., "take care and write soon."