Stoltz Family Stories: The Merrillville Store

This 1911 calendar plate was recently donated to the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society museum.


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I started looking into the newspapers of the time to figure out if this plate marked any special occasion, or if the Stoltz store was simply in the habit of handing out yearly promotional items, as this might have been. I didn't find the answer, but I did find some stories that I had previously overlooked.

Many years ago I posted a brief history of the Stoltz store in Merrillville. I was relying on A Pictorial History of Merrillville, which seems to be largely based on oral history — in other words, human memory. As so often happens, memory got it close but not 100% correct.

Memory was off by only a couple of years regarding the year when the store at 40 W. 73rd Avenue was built — it was not 1905, as per A Pictorial History, but 1907. The project started in July 1906 with the destruction by fire of the building that previously stood there:


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Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 3 July 1906, p. 1

That earlier store may have been built circa 1860: that is the build date listed for the current structure in the Lake County assessor's records, which apparently were not updated to reflect the fire. Perhaps the destruction was not complete enough.

Mike Weis had been born around 1873 to immigrant parents, John and Elizabeth, who spent some time in St. John Township before relocating to Ross Township around the time of the Civil War. In 1902 Mike had married Elizabeth Gerlach.

The "Weis" store, we soon learn, was actually owned by Marion F. Pierce:


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Marion gave his occupation for the 1900 Census as "general merchant." Writing in 1904, T.H. Ball described him as a "merchant and well-known business man of Merrillville, Ross township, [and] one of the oldest native sons of Lake county still engaged in the active pursuits of life. Three generations of the Pierce family have been identified with the industrial and commercial affairs of the county, covering a period of seventy years…"[1]

Mike Weis' health, incidentally, was a serious matter. He had tuberculosis. His visit to Rome City may have involved the Kneipps Springs sanatorium, but he did not find a cure there. After relocating to St. John, he and his family went to New Mexico and Texas, probably in search of a climate cure that failed to materialize. They were on their way back to St. John when Mike died in Topeka, Kansas, on April 3, 1910.[2]

But to return to the store: by April 1907, Carl Gerlach had purchased the land from Marion F. Pierce and announced his plan to rebuild the store, possibly in partnership with John Stoltz.


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Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 10 Apr. 1907, p. 1.

Carl Gerlach, born in St. John in 1887, was one of a large family. Among his sisters were Elizabeth Weis (Mike's wife) and Margaret Stoltz, wife of John Stoltz. So there were family connections around the store, even before the original one burned.

John Stoltz's parents were Gottfried Franciscus ("Frank") and Elizabeth, both German (or Prussian) by birth but U.S. residents from childhood. Frank Stoltz served in the Civil War, then came home and married Elizabeth Weis (yet another family connection to the store?). The family moved around a bit between Illinois and Indiana, then settled in Hammond, where Frank worked in the slaughterhouse (1880 Census). With the 1890 census missing and John Stoltz unidentifiable in the 1900 census, I don't know exactly what he was doing in his early adulthood.[3] He married Margaret Gerlach in the summer of 1900. They lived in Hammond, as we can gather from a few Hammond social-column items from 1906 into early 1907. His story, as far as we can tell it, starts in 1907 with the proposed new store in Merrillville.

The new store was completed in May 1907.[4] Per this social column, by September 1907 John Stoltz had become "the merchant" to Merrillville, and Margaret was part of Merrillville's social news.


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Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 14 Sept. 1907, p. 6.

According to A Pictorial History: "Business was good but the operation was not profitable enough to support two families, so John and Margaret bought her brother [Carl Gerlach] out …." The buyout happened only a few months after the store's opening — by August 1907.[5] Carl moved to St. John; the 1910 Census finds him there, working as a salesman for a general store.

The Stoltz store was a Merrillville fixture for decades. My earlier post gives an outline of its subsequent history per A Pictorial History, and I'm not going to double-check all the dates because the Stoltz store is not really what I came in here to talk about! — that is another story I came across while researching the 1911 plate that started this whole thing. But it will have to wait for another post, because I have worn myself out with this origin story.


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[1] Lake County Encyclopedia, p. 218. See also his entry in Alice Flora Smedstad's Soldiers & Veterans Memorialized at the Merrillville Cemetery, pp. 40-41.
[2] "Death of Mr. Weis," Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 6 Apr. 1910, p. 6; "Funeral of Mr. Weis," Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 8 Apr. 1910, p. 1.
[3] Per a Hammond directory of 1891-92, he might have been working for the "C&E Ry" (Hammond, IN, 1891-92. Hammond, IN, USA: Frank E. Gero, 1891, via Ancestry.com).
[4] "St. Johns News," Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 8 May 1907.
[5] "It is reported that Carl Gerlach has sold his interest in the new store to his partner, John Stultz." "Merrillville News," Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 1 Aug. 1907.

Dogs in Cemeteries, Part II

Another addition to my collection. Yesterday I was helping to clean up the storm-related damage in Ross Cemetery when I came across this lovely grave marker:


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In this case we find an explanation of the dog statuette in Mr. Cash's FindAGrave entry. It memorializes his bond with Lady and Brittany.

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I was glad I had the opportunity to be part of the clean-up effort at the cemetery. (Most Sunday afternoons I spend in the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society museum, but the museum was closed for the Labor Day weekend.) Ross Cemetery is a beautiful and serene place, like a nature preserve, with the added interest of history all around you. Volunteers will be meeting there every Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. for as long as it takes to clean up the storm damage.

Unidentified Pugnacious Teenager

Another entry into our growing collection of teenagers who managed to get through the eighth grade, or through catechism classes, but didn't appreciate having to get photographed for the occasion.

This one looks as if she intends to hurt somebody once this is all over.


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Since the photo was taken at Showman's Gallery, we can date it somewhere between about 1893 and 1898.

She is standing in front of the same painted backdrop as the teenage zombie linked above. I wonder if they were in the same class? How often did Showman refresh his painted backdrops?

Female Zabulon Skipper

I think I finally found a female Zabulon skipper to match the male I found eight years ago. Time flies like a skipper, doesn't it?


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Bonus shot of buckwheat — real buckwheat, not climbing false buckwheat.







It volunteered under one of my bird feeders. The birdseed mix I use must include buckwheat seeds. It's pretty, but it's not native.

I'm still too busy and tired to do any real posting.

[Formerly] Unidentified People with Food ca. 1962

[8/19/2026 update: the people in the photo have been identified, at least tentatively. Left to right: Ralph Kennedy, Dick Boyd(?), Dwight Mathis, Chief of Police William McGinn, and Officer Dick Raiza. My thanks to Suzi Schnabel Emig and Barbara Phillips Rowley.]


All the good people who have been sharing food in the wake of the August 11 derecho/tornadoes made me think of this photo.


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There are no notes on the back to tell us who these people are or what sort of event this was. But this photo was one of three that I recently bought as a package, and the other two pertain to the Hobart Police Department and date to the early 1960s, so this one likely does too. Not to mention the uniformed officer at right, and the fashions.

No reason to believe it involved a disaster, though.

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[further update] While searching for Chief McGinn's first name, I came across this article from the Hammond Times of June 26, 1963, which teaches us that if we're going to try to start a bookie operation, we should not order five telephones all at once.


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Milkweed Leaf Beetle Larva

Since I'm too busy to write about anything that requires research, here's some bug pictures.


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This ugly little guy will eventually become less ugly.

I have only just learned about Mullerian mimicry and Batesian mimicry. The adult Milkweed Leaf Beetle is an example of the former: it shares the vivid orange-and-black coloring of several insect species that hang around on milkweeds and are toxic to predators. Milkweed Leaf Beetles, Milkweed Bugs, Monarch butterflies, etc. — they all have the same color scheme, and they will all give a bird an upset stomach. In the case of Batesian mimicry, a non-toxic species adopts the coloring of a toxic one to "borrow" protection from predators.

There, now you have some information to bore people with at parties.

In conclusion, if you would like to see some pictures of "frolicking" insects on milkweed, go here. I appreciate this guy's sense of humor.

Dogs in Cemeteries

Today we have two tales of dogs in cemeteries.

The first comes from the "Local Drifts" column of the Hobart Gazette of February 22, 1924:

An incident of "dog faithfulness" is told of the pet dog of the late Wm. Kruse, who was buried Feb. 3 in the Hobart cemetery. The dog remains almost constantly upon the grave, departing only when forced to go to his master's late home for something to eat.

I previously wrote about William Kruse's death. I suppose it was the kind housekeeper, Emma Dunn, who was feeding the dog.

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The second dog in a cemetery came to my attention through a Facebook post by Michael White about one of his recent visits to some historical places in northwest Indiana. The post included some photos taken in Adams Cemetery, in Morgan Township, Porter County.


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Images courtesy of Michael White.

As a dog person, I was charmed by this little cast-stone canine, but also mystified: surely there could not be a dog buried in a human cemetery?

The dog statuette is near the grave of John B. Covert.



That does not necessarily mean it has anything to do with Mr. Covert, or even that the statuette is now in the spot where it was originally placed.[1]

I went looking online for anything that could explain the presence of the dog. The only thing I could find involving both the Covert name and a dog is this story from the Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger of September 6, 1949:


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But, again, this canine WWII veteran could not be buried in the Adams Cemetery. Wilford Covert is not buried there, either; his grave is in Portland, Oregon.

Wilford and John Covert were cousins of some degree — Jeremiah Covert (1829-1906) was John's grandfather and Wilford's great-grandfather, if I'm reading the family trees on Ancestry.com correctly.

Maybe the Coverts in general were dog lovers. Maybe the statuette was indeed intended for John, to honor a beloved dog he had lost or left behind. Or maybe the statuette has wandered from its original placement and has nothing to do with the Coverts.

"Maybe" all kinds of things, right? I could sit here all day and think of possible explanations, and still not be close to the truth. I hope it has not been lost to time. I hope someone out there knows the story of this little sleeping dog.

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[1] Recall my then-and-now post of the Chester Cemetery where in one case I could not produce a definite "now" because the arrangement of the old stones had seemingly changed so much since 1963.