The Story of the Store: The Prequel

Just recently stumbled across this tidbit of information, and I'm wondering how I missed it the first time I read through the 1919 microfilm. For our purposes, the most interesting part is the last sentence.


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"Deaths for the Week," Hobart Gazette, Feb. 21, 1919.

Here's a photo of Frank as a prosperous businessman, circa 1915:


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That photo comes from History of Lake County and the Calumet Region, which includes a biographical sketch of Frank and the ups and downs of his career.

'Way back when I first started getting into the history of the Ainsworth general store, I was theorizing that perhaps W.O. Halsted was the first storekeeper; apparently that's wrong. Nor would Frank have been the first storekeeper, if the 1915 bio is correct in saying that he bought the store.

But I find the early history in the 1915 bio questionable. According to that source, Frank moved to Crown Point in 1875, spent nine years as a contractor — which brings us to about 1884 — then three years at a wood-working mill in South Chicago, which brings us to roughly 1887 and the purchase of the Ainsworth store. However, in other records, Frank shows up as postmaster at the Ainsworth post office in 1885.


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Ancestry.com. U.S., Appointments of U. S. Postmasters, 1832-1971 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832-1971. NARA Microfilm Publication, M841, 145 rolls. Records of the Post Office Department, Record Group Number 28. Washington, D.C.: National Archives.

We know from the 1880 Census that Frank was living in Crown Point, with his wife, Elizabeth (née Hutton), and their young family. So it must have been sometime between June 1880 and September 1885 that Frank moved his family to Ainsworth and became the village storekeeper and postmaster.

Frank is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Hammond.

I have pretty thoroughly neglected the Clintons so far. I shall have to remedy that.