A Kid in the Kitchen

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Images courtesy of the Eldon Harms family.

Handwritten notes on the back of the original identify this kid only as: "The little Goat. 1930."

Whose little goat? and why was it so special that it was allowed in the kitchen? — We don't know.

The photo comes from a group dominated by Lester Harms, his wife Sue Prochno White Harms, his parents and extended family. This leads me to think that the scene is on either the Harms farm on Cleveland Avenue, or the Prochno farm on Colorado Street.

I like the homey details you can see in the background if you enlarge the image: the plain spindle-back chair, the plastic- or oilcloth-covered table, and the lidded bucket or cast-iron pot atop it. But I am mystified by the appliance at the far left. Here I have fiddled with the light values to try to bring it out more:



In a farm kitchen in 1930, you'd expect to see a stove, cupboards, a sink, and maybe an icebox. I'm trying to see one of those things in this image. Is that bright vertical line caused by a convex central panel reflecting light from the back window? Or is it a shiny metal handle down the side? I suppose we could be looking at an oven door, but I've never seen one with those rivet-like dots around the central panel.

She Was a V, A, M, P …

My only memory of the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour is Cher's recurring vamp song, which comes to mind now that I'm delivering on my promise to dish the dirt about Emma Shearer.

I will let this newspaper article from October 2, 1908, tell the story:



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Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.) 2 Oct. 1908.

Although the article gives her earlier husband's name as James Adams, per the county records it was Anthony S. Adams, and the date of their marriage February 28, 1901. She was then about 34 years old, he about 28 — old enough to know what he was doing, you'd think. But what "disclosures" could he have made to provoke her to kick him out of the buggy? My guess is that he hadn't gotten around to divorcing a previous wife … or perhaps had a lot of debt.

After divorcing Mr. Adams, Emma appears not to have married anyone else until November 17, 1906, when she and John Kroledge joined their hearts together. He was ten years her junior. Their marital bliss lasted almost two years, it seems.

Several weeks after the above publicity about their impending divorce, another disgruntled hired man came forward:


Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.) 20 Nov. 1908.

I have not been able to learn the outcome of any of these cases. I assume the divorce came through, since John Kroledge married again during Emma's lifetime.

But I did come across this tantalizing tidbit from the spring of 1909 …


Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.) 13 Apr. 1909.

… which stirred up in my mind a vague memory of Emma and Michael O'Hearn being connected somehow, long ago; so I went searching among my notes and found that yes, indeed, they had been closely connected. I don't know exactly when it started, but by the spring of 1895 they were secret lovers. She was about 29, he about 33. In the spring of 1896 their quiet romance ended — loudly.


Hobart Gazette 17 Apr. 1896.


Hobart Gazette 8 May 1896.

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I have yet to learn much about the rest of Emma's life, but at the moment it appears there were no more marriages. In 1910, Emma — living alone, apparently, on her farm on Tenth Street — gave her surname as Kroledge and her status as widowed (the enumerator was Charles A. Blank, who, as a resident of Miller, might not have heard the real story). In 1920, she was still Emma Kroledge, but now "divorced." In her household was a 51-year-old hired man; let us hope he was satisfied with his wages. I cannot find Emma in the 1930 Census.

Emma Kroledge, "widow," died in the Lake County Poor Asylum on May 7, 1932.


Hobart Gazette 12 May 1932.

What little I know of Emma's siblings suggests that all of them were, shall we say, unsettled. I believe brother Charles served a short time in prison in the 1890s; someday I will discuss him in more detail.

Her sister, Mary Ellen, had married John Mander in 1873, and, as we've learned, the marriage was not happy.

"Mrs. Nora Ensign" is somewhat mysterious, because I can't find that Emma ever had a sister named Nora; she did, however, have a sister named Elizabeth E., born in 1857, whose death certificate (1934) described her as the widow of William Ensign … who, according to the marriage records as transcribed on Ancestry.com, married "F. Ellen Shearer" in 1881. We've met Elizabeth Ensign before and learned that she described herself as widowed in 1910 and divorced in 1920. She had two sons, John and Walter (and through John she was the grandmother of Richard Ensign). I can't find Elizabeth in 1930, but I do find a Nora Ensign living in Hobart — about three years older than you would expect Elizabeth to be. Which leads to something else interesting: the marriage records show a Nora Ensign marrying a Fred Kappelman in 1899; and the 1900 census shows John and Walter Ensign living with their mother, whose name is nearly illegible but looks as if it could be "Kappelman, Norra" (you can see for yourself here), and who told the enumerator she had been married for one year. The question is: where was Fred Kappelman in 1900? I have no idea. I have reason to think he was still alive, though I can't find him outside of the local newspapers.

As for William Ensign, I don't know what became of him. I can't find any record of his death.

And as for the "family lot in the Hobart cemetery" mentioned in Emma Kroledge's obituary: I cannot find Emma, nor her parents, nor her sisters in Hobart Cemetery — or anywhere else, for that matter.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ 1940 Census.
♦ Indiana Death Certificates.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.

Various Stages of Quitting Farming

This first public-sale announcement shows that I was sent on a wild-goose chase a year ago when I came across an item in the News where "Hoffman" was spelled "Huffman" and the Sonntags had just bought the Emma Shearer farm.


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Hobart News 5 Oct. 1922.

The John G. Hoffman farm is the one I marked in this post, when it was owned by John's son, Henry. No plat map shows that parcel owned by Mike Ormond, but the 1908 Plat Map of Ross Township shows it owned by Margaret Doyle, who I believe was Mike's sister (their respective death certificates show the same parents (Indiana Death Certificates), and the 1870 Census shows them living in the same household). Straddling the border between Hobart and Ross Townships, the Ormond/Hoffman farm comprised 160 acres.

And that is where the Carl and Anna Sonntag were living when they downsized to the Emma Shearer* farm.

I am not sure how large the Emma Shearer farm was in 1922. The 1908 Plat Map shows a 36.83-acre parcel owned by E. Shearer, which probably stands for Emma (though it could stand for Elijah, Emma's father, who died in 1902):


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The 50-acre parcel immediately north of that is ascribed to Sophia Shearer, Emma's mother, who died in 1907. The 1926 Plat Book shows Carl and Anna Sonntag's farm spreading over both those parcels. (I think the Sonntag farm is the location of Hobart's gigantic new high school.)

So I'm not sure how much of a downsize it actually was, but at any rate they were quitting dairy farming. (I suppose they were udderly tired of it.)


The second public sale advertised in the News was being held by Maude Hardesty. Recently widowed, with a new baby and several young children to raise on her own, Maude would have been hard pressed to supervise a farm as well. Whether she intended to sell the land as well as the livestock and farming implements remains to be seen. I don't know for sure where her farm was. If we look at the Union Township plat map from 1921, we see Hardesty farms all over the place, but no John N. Hardesty farm; we do, however, see a J.W. Hardesty farm:


Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1921Plats/Union-1921.jpg, courtesy of Steven Shook.

In the 1906 plat map, that initial looks more like an N. The 1928 plat map shows a non-Hardesty owning that land. So my current theory is that that was Maude's farm and she sold it before 1928.

♦    ♦    ♦
Two weeks later, we find Charles Shults declaring that he intended to quit farming altogether:


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Hobart News 19 Oct. 1922.

This looks like the William Springman farm in 1921:


Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1921Plats/Union-1921.jpg, courtesy of Steven Shook.

I do not know what, if any, relationship Charles Shults had to Ainsworth's William Shults — I suspect they were brothers, but I'm going to need somebody's obituary to confirm that.

___________________________
*The News was using her maiden name, which Emma herself may not have used at that time. I have recently come across some interesting information about Emma's activities in her younger days, which I will post soon.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ Indiana Death Certificates.
♦ Indiana WPA Death Records Index.

Goat-Powered Commerce

One day long ago, a peddler who carried his wares in goat-drawn wagons stopped along the old Lincoln Highway to trade, and perhaps to rest — and to be photographed — at the Tonagels' store in Ainsworth.


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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

This man, and others like him, traveled around the area selling whatever they could carry in their wagons. The most visible wares in this picture are those contraptions with sails and tails — weathervanes, I suppose. But the wagons look well stuffed with other goods.

The adults who bought from them may have known the peddlers' names, but the photos come to us from one who was a child at the time and knew them only as "gypsies."

In another photo, this peddler is joined by some people we know:



The tall, dark-haired man in overalls is Cecil Tonagel. Next to him is his father-in-law, Charles Rosenquist. Of the five children crouched beside them, we know only the middle one — Donald Tonagel.

The photo is undated, and we don't see any cars that would help us fix a date. The photo must have been taken after the Tonagels started operating The Pantry in 1935 but before Charles Rosenquist's death in 1953. Donald Tonagel, born about 1929, looks perhaps twelve years old here; assuming he's been identified correctly, we can date the photo roughly to the early 1940s.

The photographer stood out front of The Pantry, pointing the camera southwest toward the intersection of 73rd and S.R. 51.

Unidentified Moth

I'm amazed I managed to get such a clear shot of this very active moth!


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Too bad I couldn't get a clear shot of its wings at rest, from above, which is how my moth-identification book shows them.

Cursing, and Other Unpleasantness

Some nice local news … a new silo on the Gruel farm, innocent social activities South of Deepriver, blah, blah, blah …


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Hobart News 5 Oct. 1922.

… but also some juicy stuff, like "Mr. Traeger" cussing out Dr. Friedrich, a city health officer.

I do not want to guess at the identity of Mr. Traeger, whose first name is not given; but the location, I suppose, was the building at 235 Main Street. In 1922 it was only a former "saloon," as we use the word, since liquor could not legally be sold there.

And in the next column, we have a report of a big Ku Klux Klan recruitment rally in Hammond which gives us a look at how the Klan presented itself at that time and place. The open avowal of white supremacism is jarring, but otherwise the speaker was saying things that you can still commonly hear in both public and private discussions, and his concern that "a foreigner can come in here with a bomb in his hand" could have been voiced five minutes ago.

Wildflowers of Ainsworth: Three-Seeded Mercury

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Yep, that's a wildflower. If you look very closely, you can see its poor excuse for a blossom.



Found in my rain garden.

More info here, if anybody cares.