Quitting Farming: Part XVIII or Whatever

Now we learn that back in the autumn of 1921 when an airplane fell into "William Moehl's field," it was technically George Hayward's field on the northeast corner of Liverpool Road and 49th Avenue.


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Hobart News, 19 Oct. 1922.

The renters vacating the flat were, I believe, Lloyd and Mamie Arnold (1920 Census). I have mentioned Lloyd before in passing. He was from Wheeler, where his father had been a blacksmith (1900 Census). I don't know anything about Mamie (maiden name unknown). Lloyd seems to have spent just a few years in Hobart, then moved to Gary to stay.

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Elsewhere in the same column on the page above, we have some teacher news — Elsa Gruel teaching in Chicago, and Evelyn Fredrick entertaining her colleagues in the Fredrick home on S.R. 51. Bunco, in case you didn't know (and I didn't), is played with dice.

Tall Nettle

This plant, which manages to be both graceful and ugly, sprang up in my raspberry bed.


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I identified it as Tall Nettle. I wanted to photograph the hopelessly tiny blossoms, and I figured that since this nettle didn't actually have "stinging" in its name, it wouldn't hurt me if I took hold of its stem to position the flowers better, right? … Wrong. And ouch.

Anyway, here's the best photo I could get of the blossoms.

Breaking Camp

Mrs. George Thompson was Lee's (and Eva's) mother. Her maiden name was Swartz and per the 1900 Census she had married George Thompson in 1899, but I've not yet been able to find the record of their marriage.


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Hobart News, 19 Oct. 1922.

The little Amlong family started camping out near the village of Deep River in June. They must have spent a few chilly nights in their tent before finally moving into a house for the winter. The "Humes residence south of the city" was likely on what's now State Road 51, though I still don't know exactly where.

Morning-Glory Plume Moth

Most of my adult life I have been letting dogs out at night, and while they take care of business, looking at the living things that congregate around dusk-to-dawn lights in mild weather, and saying to myself, "Strange creatures come out at night" — usually while looking at one of these:


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Finally I have learned that they are not so strange after all. They are just moths; specifically, plume moths, and this one is a Morning-Glory Plume Moth — so called, I gather, because its caterpillars feed on plants in the morning-glory family.

They roll their wings up when not using them.



My moth-identification book helpfully includes a ruler printed inside the back cover.


A couple of weeks after I took the photos above, I found a morning-glory plume moth that had gotten into my house.

What Was It About Seattle?

The "Local and Personal" column of the Hobart News of October 5, 1922, included this item: "Lee Thompson, residing south of Ainsworth, formerly of Hobart, left Monday evening for Seattle, Wash. where he expects to be employed in the markets in that city."

I think "south of Ainsworth" referred to their rented farm near the Vincent schoolhouse.

Perhaps Lee had heard from the Hazelgreens how great Seattle was. Or maybe there was some boom going on there in 1922 that could draw him out of Indiana.

This might explain why I couldn't find him around here in the 1930 Census; on the other hand, we already know he was back in Hobart by 1940.

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The fact that 60 property owners were petitioning for an "asphaltic concrete top dressing" for Cleveland Avenue in October 1922 suggests that it was still a gravel road at the time … if not a dirt road.


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Hobart Gazette 6 Oct. 1922.

That was the route of the Yellowstone Trail, competing for traffic against the Dunes Highway (still under construction, I think) to the north and the Lincoln Highway to the south. And crews had been at work on the Lincoln Highway during summer of 1922, pouring fresh cement.

The "south road … between Hobart and the Lincoln Highway" refers State Road 51.

Steam Engine Running Beside a Plowed Field

Here's another entry in my series, "Not Ainsworth But Could Be."

When I first saw this photo, I thought: That's how the Grand Trunk steam engines must have looked running past my field, back when Henry Chester farmed it!


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Unfortunately, the notes on the back give Grand Haven, Michigan as the location and 1947 as the year …



… so I was way off as to place and time. But still — let exactitude fall to the side, let our eyelids droop, and that's a westbound Grand Trunk train slowing down for the Ainsworth depot.


The first car behind the tender belongs to the Pennsylvania Railroad, the third one to the C&O Railroad — both lines that would have been a part of life in Ainsworth, though not quite as large a part as the Grand Trunk Railroad.

Dynamite!

I am indebted to Rita McBride of the Hobart Historical Society for finding and printing out this story. Back when I was reading the 1916 microfilm, the name Hazelgreen meant nothing to me.


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Hobart Gazette 16 June 1916.

We've already met Malcolm Hazelgreen. The sister living in the same home was probably Elna.


The last paragraph mentions a similar event happening to Fred Kappelman "nine years ago," which would take us to about 1907; this is why I think Fred was still alive some years after his marriage to Nora Ensign.