The Further Adventures of Don Nixie

Or: Please Don’t Tell My Daddy I Collaborated With Lawrence Welk

In a recent post I shared what I had just learned about the musical talents of Donald Niksch, who began his commercial endeavors with a song self-published under the name Don Nixie. Since the time of that post, Ruth Markovich (Trinity Lutheran Church historian) has been on the case, and has tracked down additional information, including (from a source who prefers to remain anonymous) some materials from a booklet that Don himself put together circa 1960, perhaps for his own family. The booklet's table of contents lists many of the songs he wrote, and includes an image from his manuscript of "When It's Springtime Back Home Again":


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of an anonymous source.

From my point of view, that list has a couple of puzzling omissions — two songs mentioned in a 1954 newspaper item in my previous post: "Hobart, U.S.A., Our Old Hometown," and "Buzz, Buzz, I'm A Little Love Bug." Perhaps the news item was mistaken about Don's having written those songs? Or … perhaps … he wanted to erase them from history!?!

The booklet excerpts I was given included the sheet music for a song called, "Please Don't Tell My Daddy," with a surprising name in the credits:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of an anonymous source.

The song was written in 1946, by which time Lawrence Welk had already made a name for himself as the leader of a "big band" that had performed around the country. During the 1940s he and his band were regularly featured at Chicago venues.

How did Don Niksch, from Hobart, Indiana, get involved with this famous musician? Fortunately, Don himself tells us, in this excerpt from a three-page essay he wrote in 1960 about his songwriting activities:

When Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Music Orchestra appeared at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, I sent him a novelty tune entitled PLEASE DON'T TELL MY DADDY. In a few days I received a letter from Lawrence saying he liked the song very much and that I should call him at my convenience to discuss the composition. I called at his home and Lawrence and I worked on the song together making changes which he thought necessary. After two weeks the orchestra performed it at the Aragon Ballroom to a very enthusiastic audience as the song was broadcasted coast to coast over the Mutual Broadcasting System. I have a record of that broadcast and Jayne Walton, the Champagne Lady, usually reserved in her presentation, did a good job with the material although it was not her type of song. It was set for recording but since it is so important to couple the correct artist with the right material, the recording was never made.

You may read Don's full essay here.

Evidently Don's songwriting adventures went further than I ever suspected.

I have been looking around on the internet for any recordings, but no luck so far.

♦    ♦    ♦
Ruth Markovich also passed along to me a page from the Trinity Lutheran Church record books, with the marriage of Donald Niksch and Ruth Nagel written in, as it would have been had the person in charge in 1944 not inadvertently omitted it:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of Ruth Markovich.

It's interesting to see all the other names on that page — so many familiar ones!

Levi Bowman, 1906-1956

I have been hearing about Bowman's Landing for years, so this obituary caught my eye:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, 2 Aug. 1956.

I was surprised to read that Levi Bowman had been running the business for only about six years when he died. From the way people talk about it, I thought it had been operating for a quarter-century, at least.

I've been too busy this past week to collect my thoughts, much less do any research, so I'm just slapping this up as a low-effort post — well, I did do enough research to satisfy my own curiosity as to whether Levi was related to the Bowmans who've been showing up in the "South of Deepriver" columns I used to post, and I found that indeed he was. Levi himself is mentioned in a 1920 column, and the S.E. Bowman mentioned in, for instance, a 1922 column was his father, Samuel Edward.

I really ought to dig up more information about the Bowman family, and I will … someday. But not today.

A Different Species of Rat

This leather postcard was mailed from Hobart, Indiana, on January 18, 1908.


(Click on images to enlarge)

These "rats," as you may know, were little shaped pads that women used to create the plump hairdos stylish at the time, as illustrated on the postcard. This kind of rat was made of cloth or netting stuffed with something light and voluminous — often a thick wad of the user's own hair, collected by daily pulling it from her hairbrush and saving it in a hair receiver. (Here is an interesting blog post about making such hair-pads.)

The postcard's sender has called out some of her friends for wearing rats, but she's also called out herself (Ethel) and the recipient (Verna) on the caricatures at the lower right and upper right, respectively. The other names I can't read.

Here is the verso:



The recipient, Verna G. Crockett, is easy enough to find. She led a peripatetic life, along with her husband (a clergyman), moving from Pennsylvania where she was born and married (1898) to Chicago (1910 Census), to Denver (1920), to New York (1930), to California (1950), to Idaho, where she died in a nursing home in 1958. And those are just the moves we know about! Her husband, Albert Gordon Crockett, belonged to a family that lived for a time in Hobart (recorded there in the 1910 Census) before moving to Valparaiso; this 1929 article about a family party in Valpo mentions the Rev. A.G. Crockett:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 6 Sept. 1929.

That may be the Hobart connection, since I can't find evidence that Verna herself ever lived there.

The sender is more of a mystery, since she gives only her first name. Searching on the name "Ethel" in the 1910 Census of Hobart, I find only an Ethel Joy, about five years younger than Verna Crockett. She was the wife of John Joy and the mother of at least five children. Possibly this is our Ethel, but without a surname, I can't know for sure.

Rats in Hobart

In 1956, Hobart was overrun with rats.

This letter, printed in the Gazette of May 17, 1956, took a humorous approach to the problem.


(Click on image to enlarge)

But the rats proved to be man-eaters:


Hobart Gazette, 14 June 1956.
(Click on image to enlarge)

Local citizens were already organizing to fight back, as the Lion's Club announced "D-Day On Rats":


Hobart Gazette, 14 June 1956.
(Click on image to enlarge)

The June 21 issue of the Gazette not only gave the date and other details for rat D-Day, but also, in another article, offered an explanation for the infestation:


Hobart Gazette, 14 June 1956.
(Click on image to enlarge)

As you may know, the city dump mentioned in the article was at the northern end of downtown, approximately where the soccer field is now.

"D-Day On Rats" didn't completely solve the problem, and the Rotarians vowed to fight on:


Hobart Gazette, 12 July 1956.
(Click on image to enlarge)

Hobart Then and Now: Third and Wisconsin

Circa 1958, and 2024.



(Click on images to enlarge)
Second photo from Google Street View.

I have had that circa-1958 postcard for years, and when I happened to come across the newspaper article about the opening of the Lake George Medical Center in 1955, I decided it was time for this not-terribly-interesting then-and-now.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, 17 Mar. 1955.

By June 1956, an expansion project was underway.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, 7 June 1956.

The photo on our postcard above appears to show the post-expansion building, which turned out to be not quite as grandiose as the architect's drawing. I am guessing at about 1958 for that photo, because the lawn and shrubbery have had a little time to grow and settle after the new construction, but the building was still new enough to warrant a postcard. Also, the photographer …


(Click on image to enlarge)

… may have been in business for only a few years in the mid- to late 1950s. "Squire Photo" was the side business of Robley Daniel Squire, whose day job was at the Sears Roebuck store in Gary. The earliest listing I can find for Squire Photo is in a 1956 Hobart directory at the Hobart Historical Society museum, and the latest is in a listing of Hobart businesses as of October 31, 1959, online.[1] (The 1952 directory at the museum lists the Robley Squire family, but no photo business; the 1962 directory lists neither the family nor the business.)

Robley Squire was born in Ohio in 1908 to George and Lydia Squire. Sometime after the 1920 Census, the Squire family left Ohio, and the 1930 Census shows them living on 49th Avenue in Hobart. Robley, then 22, was an apprentice roller in a steel mill.

Soon after 1930, it appears that Robley had a vocation, as we find this surprising announcement in the Burnettsville [Indiana] News of May 18, 1933:


(Click on image to enlarge)

From the steel mill to the pulpit! The young couple lived in Logansport at least until 1935, per the 1940 Census, which finds them back in Hobart, and Robley back in a steel mill. Around 1942 their only child, Daniel, was born. By 1950 Robley was a "Division Manager" at Sears. The directory listings mentioned above indicate that they stayed in Hobart through 1959, but not long after that, the family moved to Illinois, to the far-southern suburbs of Chicago.

Here is a picture of Robley in 1969:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Harvey Tribune (Harvey, Ill.), 20 Nov. 1969.

The ceremony was a family affair, if you read the text.

Robley and Alta now rest from their labors in Illinois. And that is the story of Squire Photo.

And the Lake George Medical and Professional Center was knocked down circa 2006 to make way for the building that is now standing half empty, but half Marco's Pizza, which is delicious.


_______________
[1] "Hobart Businesses — October 31, 1959," Historical Association of Lake County, Indiana Reports and Papers Volume XII (1970), p. 86. https://archive.org/details/reportsandpapersoflakecountyindiana/page/n99/mode/2up

Alias Don Nixie

I saw this item for sale on Ebay: home-grown sheet music from 1937, with only the cover page included in the listing:


(Click on image to enlarge)

Naturally I was interested, but wondered how it was I had not heard of a Don Nixie in all the 1930s newspapers I've read. I clicked on "Buy It Now," of course, and while waiting for it to be delivered, I set about trying to find out who Don Nixie was. I came up empty. Not the slightest trace of any Don Nixie in or around Hobart, in the 1930s or any other time.

When I finally got my hands on the sheet music, I understood why: "Don Nixie" was a nom de plume.


(Click on image to enlarge)

The last time we saw Don Niksch, it was July 1923, and he was seven years old and recovering from injuries inflicted on him by a hit-and-run driver on the Lincoln Highway.

He did recover, and as he grew up, he proved to have a talent for music. Here's a photo of him from 1934, when he was a junior at Merrillville High School and played the piano in the school orchestra:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from the Merrillville High School Mirror yearbook of 1934, courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

Now it's springtime back home again — that is, it's 1937, and Don is a 21-year-old aspiring songwriter/composer. His day job may have already been what he reported in the 1940 Census: clerk at a steel mill. He lived with his parents, Edward and Tillie (Harms) Niksch, in the old farmhouse on the south side of the Lincoln Highway, shown here in the 1939 aerial view:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Photo from https://legacy.igws.indiana.edu/IHAPI/.
The Niksch farmhouse and the Harms house have both been demolished. The old schoolhouse is still standing, as is the Niksch home that would be built in 1955.

Don served in the Army during World War II. In June 1944, he married Ruth Nagel.[1] The 1950 Census shows the young couple with two little children living on Colorado Street in Hobart. The home on the Old Lincoln Highway where Don and his family eventually lived was built in 1955, per the county records, so that may have been when they moved back here from Hobart.

He continued to write songs and entertain family and friends with them. Here's an example from 1948:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 13 Feb. 1948.

His eldest child, Donna, began performing as well, and in this article we learn that Don had written a song celebrating "Hobart, U.S.A., Our Old Home Town":


(Click on image to enlarge)
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 9 Feb. 1954.

(I cannot find any evidence that he ever wrote a song about Ainsworth, or even Deepriver. Hmm!)

At a 1958 meeting, Donna sang the song that inspired this post, and her six-year-old brother, Douglas, also got involved in the entertainment:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 30 June 1958.


Unfortunately, Don's life was cut short by cancer. This obituary from the Hobart Gazette of November 26, 1975, summarized his work, his family, and his art:

Donald E. Niksch, age 59, of R.R. 2, died November 19. He was a life-long resident of Hobart, and served during World War II as a Lieutenant in the Medical Corps. He retired as a supervisor after 33 years at Gary Sheet and Tin Mill, and was presently employed as a teacher at River Forest High School. He was a life-long member and former president of Trinity Lutheran Church and served as host of the Lutheran Vespers Radio Program for many years. He was also past president of the Ainsworth Community Club and past Cub Master of B.S.A., member of the American Guild of Authors and Composers, the Optimist Club, Indiana University Alumni, Indiana State Teachers Association and the National Education Association. He will be remembered through his many plays, poems, and songs.

Survivors include his wife, Ruth; two daughters, Mrs. Merrill (Donna) Douglass of Atlanta, Georgia and Diane Niksch at home; four sons, Captain Richard (Marilyn) Niksch with the U.S. Air Force at Clovis, New Mexico, Douglas (Beverly) Niksch of Highland, Roger Niksch and Ronald Niksch at home; five grandchildren, Andrew, Michael, Bryan, Stephan, and Susan; one sister, Mrs. Clifford (Leona) Carpenter of Hobart; two brothers, Laverne Niksch of Hobart and Edward Niksch of Garden Grove, California; and inlaws, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Nagel of Hobart.

I came across the obituary of his daughter, Donna, and found that she had continued singing her Dad's songs throughout her life.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.), 4 Aug. 2019.

♦    ♦    ♦
Those who are musically inclined (or just curious) may download the sheet music for "When It's Springtime Back Home Again" here.

_______________
[1] That is, according to a family tree on Ancestry.com. I have not been able to find online a record of the marriage or any mention of it in the local papers.

Hazelnuts-in-the-Making

Since I discovered the Picture This app this past spring, I have been having lots of fun identifying things. It's especially helpful to me in identifying trees and shrubs because my knowledge of them is so sparse. But when it told me that an interesting-looking shrub out in my field was an American Hazelnut, I was skeptical — it was mid-spring, I had missed the distinctive blooming stage (which comes very early in spring), and the shrub didn't look as if it had the potential to ever produce anything, much less hazelnuts. I told myself I would believe Picture This when the shrub actually produced some hazelnuts.

Well, now it's producing hazelnuts.


(Click on images to enlarge)

I hope I get to see the mature nuts before the wildlife gets them.

This is the shrub. You can see I marked it with fluorescent tape so I won't run over it with my brush mower next spring.




I can't believe I have something this awesome in my field, and I didn't even plant it! More info here.