Wedding Report

In late November 1923, a flurry of weddings involving people we know.

The first took place on the farm of Theodore and Annie Rossow. Harry, born in 1898, was their youngest son, but not their youngest child.


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Hobart News, Nov. 29, 1923.

The young couple stayed in Gary, to judge by the 1930 Census and the 1940 Census, and had no children of their own as far as I can tell; but in 1940 their household included a young niece and nephew. I wonder what the story behind that was.


The next wedding, further down in the same column, involved Isaac Small, descended from the Smalls of Small's Crossing. Isaac's father, Richard, was one of the children of John E. and Mary Jane (Riley) Small, and had died in 1916, which is why only Isaac's mother, Carrie, is mentioned.[1]

Frances' father, Severin (aka Siegfried), was a baker with a shop on Main Street (bought out in 1922 by his son, Fred). Her mother, Lena (Conrad), had died in 1910.

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The third wedding involved the Moehl family, members of which eventually ran a garage at East and Second Streets in Hobart, near the flat where the article says the newlyweds would live.


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Hobart News, Nov. 29, 1923.

As for the Born family, I can't say I've learned anything about them since the one and only time I mentioned them before, so perhaps it's time for me to do a little research.

Viola Born's grandparents, Charles (aka Carl) and Hanna (aka Johanna) — both German immigrants — brought their family down from Chicago sometime after the 1880 Census. The 1891 Plat Book shows them owning over a hundred acres of farmland west of Hobart. Here is the Born farm as it appears on the 1908 Plat Map:


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It was the same in 1891 but for those southeasternmost 20 acres.

If I'm reading this all correctly, the brick house at 5050 Liverpool Road — built in 1900 per the county records — is probably the old Born place. And the Borns were neighbors of the Ewiglebens.

Viola's father, Paul, was the eldest child. By the 1900 Census he had five siblings. In 1901 he married Emilie (aka Amelia) Bastian (Indiana Marriage Collection). In the 1910 Census, Paul and Amelia, with Viola, Lauretta and a newborn daughter (as yet unnamed) were farming rented land in the same neighborhood — possibly part of his father's property.

Paul's mother died in 1904, his father in 1917. The 1920 death notice of his sister Anna gives a little snapshot of the family at that time:

The funeral of Mrs. Wm. Medrow was held from the home of her sister, Mrs. Bertha Thurber, of West Third street …. Burial was in Crown Hill cemetery.

Mrs. Anna Medrow died Monday at her home in Chicago after an illness of some time from tuberculosis. She was born in Hobart, her age being 46years, 4 months and 2 days, and lived here most of her life. Besides her husband she leaves seven children, six sons and one daughter, also three sisters, Mrs. Bertha Thurber, Mrs. Edward Rohwedder and Mrs. Edwin Sievert, and three brothers, Paul Born of Hobart, and Otto and Fred of Illinois.[2]

The 1920 Census shows Paul's family (now including four daughters) living on their own farm, which, according to the 1926 Plat Book, was formerly his parents' land.

Viola and Ernest Moehl are recorded in the 1930 Census living in their own home (with a radio) at 901 Garfield Street. He was employed by a lumber company as a truck driver.

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[1] Carrie's maiden name was Haxton and she married Richard in 1881 (Indiana Marriage Collection).
[2] "Funeral of Former Hobart Girl Held Wednesday Afternoon," Hobart News, May 20, 1920.