Birdhouses of Ainsworth

An incredibly talented photographer has managed to capture the heart of Ainsworth for the Project Birdhouse blog. I wonder who it could possibly have been.

"Destroying Church"

In September 1963 the old Trinity Lutheran Church at Main and Second was demolished. The Gazette printed a photo of the beginning of the end …


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Hobart Gazette, 12 Sept. 1963.

… and the very end, as the last wall fell.


Upload pic Open Cornerstone
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Hobart Gazette, 19 Sept. 1963.



On a personal note, it appears that I am too old and tired to do everything I've been doing and still maintain a history blog. I'm hoping that when the spring yard and field work is done, and the foster kittens have gone back to the shelter, I'll be able to post more often.

Hobart Then and Now: The Bale House/A Pink Boutique

Many years ago, I posted a then-and-now shot of the Bale house. Here is another version.

Circa 1900, and 2024:

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Historical images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.







The people standing in front of the house in the top photo are not identified, but I'm guessing they are B.B. and Emily Bale. I get the circa-1900 date from handwritten notes on a copy of one of the photos in the historical society's file indicate, and there is nothing in the photos to contradict that. The home was built in 1870.[1] I do not know why the Bales waited some 30 years after construction to get photographs of their house. You'd think they'd do that sort of thing in the first flush of new-home pride. But, of course, photographs were a little more difficult to get in 1870.

Nor do I know when the house was demolished. Per the county assessor's records, the building that houses A Pink Boutique was built in 1950.

Here is a detail from the 1902 Sanborn map showing the area, with the Bale house circled in red, to give us some idea of what we may be seeing in the background of these photos.


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The only thing I actually recognize is the steeple of Augustana Lutheran Church, above the head of the man holding the horse in the second photo. Between him and the church, we may be looking at the old wooden Pennsy station.

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[1] That's according to two sources, the Gazette obit of 1927 and the undated 60th-anniversary article, reproduced in my post about the Bales; but the News obit (also reproduced in my post) says the Bales "bought" the house in 1870, suggesting that it had been built earlier.

Inside a Hornet's Nest (Minus the Hornets)

I might as well post these photos since apparently my brain is broken and I can't do history at the moment. This is a hornet's nest that was built in an elm tree over my back yard last summer. I never knew it was there until the leaves dropped in the autumn. It has been slowly deteriorating all winter, and then recently a strong wind blew most of it down from the tree.


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I hope my brain rights itself pretty soon.

Spicebush

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For years, while walking in Deep River County Park in the early spring, I have noticed these shrubs or small trees with tiny yellow blooms. It never once entered my head that they could be Spicebush. I recently posted some pics to the IN Nature group on Facebook and those nice people clued me in.

Spicebush is a larval host of the Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly.

I would describe the bark as pretty smooth, with freckles.





The blossoms, as I said, are tiny, and hard to get in focus, at least for me.






Better pics here.

Lovers Lane (a/k/a Beer Can Lane)

If you were a young person living in Ainsworth or Hobart in 1963 who wanted to go somewhere to neck and/or drink beer, where would you go? Here's an idea:


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Gazette, 25 July 1963.

From the description, Baier Road must have been what is now known as East 61st Avenue:[1] it's the only road that connects County "K" and County Line Road — that is to say, the only such road that isn't Tenth Street, and if it had been Tenth Street, the article would have said so, and would not have said the road was "approximately even with 14th St."

Even now, in spite of the increase in population and traffic around here in recent decades, that stretch of road seems isolated and sparsely traveled.

Here is a 1962 directory listing of the shooter:


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Polk's Hobart City Directory 1962. R.L. Polk & Co.

I would never have known where Baier Road was if not for this newspaper article. But how did it get to be called Baier Road? I have been accustomed to seeing roads named after a substantial farmer on them — e.g., the Chester road (Ainsworth Rd.), the Springman road (Randolph St.) — or a destination they are used to travel to — e.g., the Ainsworth road (Grand Blvd., S.R. 51), the Palmer road (Randolph St. south of the Lincoln Highway). So let's take a look at Baier Road in the 1950 Plat Book:


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As you can see, the Baiers owned only 4.5 acres according to this plat map, and my earlier and later plat maps don't show them owning any more than that.[2] How did this road avoid being called after the Leszczynskis, or the Malones, or the Zelenkas or Kaars or Blimels?

I suspect the answer might lie in Mr. Baier's job. Peter and Helen Baier first show up in this location on the 1930 Census as a young married couple, with Peter describing himself as a "poultry man," but by the 1940 Census he had become a foreman with the State Highway Department. I wonder if somehow he did some work on that road — although it was not a state road — and thus got it connected with his name? By the 1950 Census Peter was a "General Sup" (supervisor, I'm guessing) in "Home Construction." The three houses now standing on or near the Baier property all date to the 1950s; is it possible that Peter was involved in building them?

One way or another, it seems he was a fairly prominent person in that area, despite his 4.5 acres.

The 1962 Polk's directory lists him on "RD 2" but doesn't add "Baier rd." as in the Ewing listing above.

Speaking of Mr. Ewing, here's an article from the Hammond Times of July 23, 1963, that gives a little more information about him:


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I haven't found any follow-up articles about what, if any, penalty was imposed on him.

In the 1962 directory page posted above, the listing directly above Robert's shows his parents, Lee and Anna. Robert had gotten married in 1955 (Indiana Marriage Collection); the marriage produced several children. Robert and his wife, Beverly, appear in my 1991 directory living on 8th Street in Hobart. Robert died in 2007.

The young man who was shot, Jeffrey Johnson, must have recovered, as he went on to lead a full life, and died of natural causes in 2018.

Peter Baier had died in 1987. I wonder when his road lost his name?

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[1] The county assessor's records still use "Baier Rd." in the site addresses for properties on that road, although their mailing addresses use "E. 61st Ave."
[2] One interesting thing I've noticed on many of my plat maps, from 1874 to 1972, is that they seem to show South Union Street running through from Tenth Street all the way to Baier Road. Today there is no trace of any connection: Union St. comes to a dead end well north of E. 61st. But in the 1939 aerial photos, S. Union, while narrow in comparison to the other roads around it, does appear to run all the way south to E. 61st. In the 1973 aerial photos, I can't see a connection between S. Union and E. 61st.

Wasp, Where Is Thy Sting?

This is some kind of ichneumon wasp …


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… exact kind unknown, because apparently there are many, many kinds, and the topic is much too complicated for me.

I didn't even know this creature was a wasp when I found it on the inside of my storm door. (Finding that out took some Googling.) After taking pictures, I gently shooed it out into the open air. It didn't sting me. As it turns out, these wasps, or some of them, or maybe all of the males (this might be a male) — as I said, it's complicated — they don't sting. And I, who thoughtlessly thought of stinging as part of the essence of wasp-hood, must now stretch my mind to a new idea.


The pups have left the building (one has already been adopted), and now I need a vacation after my puppy vacation. Even good boys use up all my bandwidth.

Puppy Vacation III: Snack Attack

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Twix and Snickers are on loan from the Humane Society of Hobart for a couple of weeks. They are such good boys, I might actually be able to get something done on this puppy vacation.

Here they are playing with one of my dogs:

Another Branch on the Bodamer Tree

But who (I asked myself) was this John Bodamer who in 1930 sold his 34 acres to the Wiernasciewicz family? — who exactly, I meant, since obviously he was one of the many Bodamers who farmed in eastern Ross Township over so much of its history.

It didn't take much research to figure out that he was a brother of George and Benjamin, and the son of Christopher F. and Elizabeth (Lortz) Bodamer.

According to information someone has added to Christopher's findagrave.com entry, the family came to Lake County from New York in 1854. John was born in 1855. The 1860 Census shows the Bodamer family farming in Ross Township — exact location unknown, but to judge by the names recorded near them, they probably already occupied the Randolph Street (S. Hobart Rd.) area that would be continue to belong to Bodamers well into the 20th century. On the 1874 Plat Map, I believe the "C. Batlmer" who owned 160 acres in Section 9 was just C. Bodamer with his name misspelled:


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The 1876 plat map of Union Township in Porter County shows that Christopher and Elizabeth also owned two good-sized farms near Union Center.

In 1878, John Bodamer married 18-year-old Adelia Nicholas of Center Township, an Ohio native whose family had come to Porter County sometime after 1867. With all those Bodamer farms around here, I was surprised to find John and Adelia in the 1880 Census farming in St. Joseph County, Indiana. They had one baby son, Alvah. They would go on to have two more sons, Vernon (b. 1882) and Herman (b. 1887).

In 1894, John's father, Christopher, died and was buried in Jasper County, Indiana, where he had been living separately from his wife (or former wife), Elizabeth. I do not know whether John and Adelia returned to this area soon after his father's death, as I cannot find them at all in the 1900 Census. But the 1906 Union Township plat map shows two farms under the name of J.F. Bodamer …


Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1906Plats/Union-1906.jpg.

… and by the 1910 Census, they were living on their own farm in Union Township, described as being on the Joliet Road.

By then their three children were grown and out of the house. In 1907, their eldest, Alvah, had married Carrie Wolfe. In 1910 that young couple were farming rented land in Ross Township, with Alvah's unmarried brother, Vernon, in their household. It was in this time frame that we've encountered Alvah and Vernon, the "Bodamer brothers," hiring themselves and their machinery out to do threshing for their Ross Township neighbors. In 1915, Vernon married Anna Murray. Per the 1920 Census, Vernon and Anna took over farming the rented land in Ross Township (apparently part of the Randolph St. land of their grandparents); Alvah and Carrie moved to Porter County and the youngest brother, Herman, lived with them. (Herman never married, and apparently was a bit of a loner. When he died in 1957, some ten days passed before his body was found.[1])

In 1920, John and Adelia were still farming their Union Township land. I haven't found any evidence that John and Adelia, after their marriage, ever actually lived on the Ross Township farm. I suspect he just inherited it or bought it from his father's estate, and rented it out.

In February 1925, Adelia died at the age of 64. She is buried in the Mosier Cemetery.

I think the 1926 Plat Map contains an error, in that it fails to show John's Ross Township farm:


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The highlighted "B.B." would be John's brother, Benjamin — or rather, his widow, Bertha, since Ben died in 1917. John's 34-acre farm lay on the south border of B.B.'s. John owned those 34 acres in 1930 when he sold them to the Wiernasciewiczes, and the 1939 Plat Map shows the subject of that sale. I have a hard time believing John Bodamer sold the land to John Gruel sometime after 1908, then bought it back in time to sell it again in 1930.

In the 1930 Census, John was living alone in his farm home in Union Township. Alvah and Carrie and their three foster children lived nearby. As much as I'd like to think all was family harmony and bucolic peace around Union Center, I have found suggestions otherwise; for example:


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Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 22 June 1925.

Was John always like that, I wonder, or did his wife's death, several months earlier, change him for the worse?

And a few years later, we have conflict in the family:


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 9 May 1929.


But all such concerns came to an end for John in 1932.


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 24 Nov. 1932.

(He was 77, actually, and it had been seven years since Adelia died.)

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[1] "Herman Bodamer's Body Is Found; Dead About 10 Days," Vidette -Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 11 Mar. 1957.

A Tough Old Bird

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, February 10, 1963, three armed robbers went up against the 70-year-old Peter Bates. Guess who won?


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Hobart Gazette, 14 Feb. 1963.

This story prompted me to look into Peter's background more than I ever had before. He was born Batestes Batistatos in Greece in 1893.[1] Sometime after coming to the U.S. around 1908,[2] he started Anglicizing his name. When he became a naturalized citizen in 1936, he officially changed his name to Peter Bates.[3]

The first record I can find after his immigration is the 1930 Census, where he is living in Hobart and running his own confectionery store. According to the Hobart Historical Society's 1979 oral history, Peter first operated in the candy store in the east side of the Guyer building, then moved to Main Street.

By that time he was married. I know very little about his wife, Lena. She was born in Canada in 1888, but I do not know her maiden name. She told the 1930 census enumerator that she came to the U.S. in 1921, and that she and Peter had been married around 1924. I haven't been able to find a record of their marriage. Her 1959 death certificate states that her husband, the informant, did not know who her parents had been. Her brief death notice mentioned a sister …


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Hobart Gazette, 23 July 1959.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

… but since there was more than one Helen Harney in the Los Angeles area[4] in that time frame and I don't know which was Lena's sister, I can't use the sister as a source for Lena's background.

I don't doubt that Peter and Lena were still living in Hobart when the 1940 census came around, but I can't find them on Ancestry.com — probably a transcription issue. Peter's 1942 draft card lists his residence as 314 Main in Hobart.

They do appear in in the 1950 Census, of course, still living at 314 Main Street, where they operated their hotel and tavern. It does not appear that the couple ever had any children.

As we know, Lena died in 1959. Peter bought an ornate memorial stone for her.

Peter died in 1970:


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Hobart Gazette, 3 Dec. 1970.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The Hobart Historical Society museum has a file on him with several articles about his impressive collection of weapons.

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The story about the robbers mentions someone else we've met before: Rex Roll. Obviously, if he lived at the Bates Hotel, he and Alice had split up; by that time, she might have already been married to her second husband. Rex, apparently, was not remarried.

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[1] Some sources give his birth year as 1895 (e.g., the 1950 census and his death certificate); his WWII draft card shows his date of birth as February 10, 1892.
[2] That is the date he gave the 1930 census enumerator. Ancestry.com turns up a record of a Batestes Batistatos arriving in New York in 1910 (INDEX TO THE NATURALIZATION RECORDS OF DUPAGE COUNTY, ILLINOIS. Lombard, IL: Dupage County (IL) Genealogical Society, 1999. 248p).
[3] Naturalization record per Ancestry.com.
[4] I think that for "Montre Park" in the obit we can read "Monterey Park."

Puppy Vacation II: The Yappening

Walter and Seymore are on loan from the Humane Society of Hobart for two weeks. They specialize in yapping.


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I can't tell them apart without seeing their collars.

This is Seymore:

Bad Times at the Black Cat: Dead Man Renting

On the morning of November 10, 1961, Bill Reed of the Black Cat motel discovered that one of his guests had checked out of this world.


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The deputy coroner, Dr. Warren H. Pike, Jr., had grown up in the Harper-Carlson-Grabowski-Pike house. His father was Warren Pike, Sr. At some point, after I've learned to tell them apart, I shall have to write about them more. But not today, because I have just finished up 2.5 weeks of foster puppies with diarrhea, and I am tired.


The Black Cat also features in the story in the next column about a truck driver taking his license plate and leaving the truck (if I understand it correctly) after having lost some of his wheels.

Puppy Vacation

I'm taking my annual puppy vacation.


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Bobby and Jimmy are on loan for two weeks from the Humane Society of Hobart. They and their five siblings (some kind of Border Collie mix?) were given to the shelter by a breeder.

They are impossible to photograph. They won't hold still. I can't even sneak up on them when they are sleeping.

The Glass-Coffin Madness

Eight or ten years ago, a long-time Hobartite told me a story about something that happened near Ainsworth, back (as she recalled) in the late fifties or early sixties: a rumor had started somehow that a man who lived down on County Road K (now known as South Hobart Road or Randolph Street) was keeping a woman's dead body in a glass coffin in his house, so people started driving by the house trying to catch a glimpse of the glass coffin.

When I mentioned the story to Eldon Harms, he recalled the incident, and even showed me where the house in question had been. I took away the impression that it was just a matter of some bored teenagers acting silly, so I was surprised to find not only that the glass-coffin madness had earned a mention in the Gazette, but that I had underestimated its magnitude …


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Hobart Gazette, 5 Oct. 1961.

… and I was shocked by the tragic way it all ended.


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Hobart Gazette, 12 Oct. 1961.

Stories about Stanley Wiernasiewicz's suicide and the bizarre events that led up to it appeared in newspapers as far away as Texas and California.

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These articles have prompted me to take a closer look at the area where all this happened.

On this screenshot from the Google satellite view on the area, the arrow marks approximately where Eldon said, "Here!" as we were driving down the road:


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Image from Google.com/maps.

The 1939 Plat Map shows the original Wiernasiewicz farm of 34 acres, purchased in April 1930 from John Bodamer.[1] Later, the family would also buy the 40 acres across the street.[2]


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The 1930 purchaser, technically, was Mary Wiernasiewicz. The plat map shows the owner's first name as Chester. I have tried and failed to identify a Chester among the Wiernasiewiczes. I suspect that might be an error on the part of the plat-map maker.

Here is the farm in a 1939 aerial photo (I hope I got the boundaries right):


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For the first time since I started researching Ainsworth history, I have looked into the Wiernasiewicz family. The research wasn't easy: in dealing with a last name like Wiernasiewicz, you naturally get alternate spellings and mistranscriptions. (In fact, one member of the family ended up amputating all but the first syllable of his surname, to make his own life easier, I suppose.)

It appears this family included some interesting people — interesting and enterprising; perhaps a bit too enterprising.

The story begins with Andrew Wiernasiewicz and Mary Fusko, who both came from Poland, but separately: she in 1900 at about 6 years of age, he in 1902[3] when he was about 13, according to the 1930 Census. They were married circa 1910 (I can't find the record), possibly in Pennsylvania, where their first son, Stanley, was born. By 1913 they had come to Indiana. The 1920 Census shows them living at 1949 Virginia Street in Gary, now with another son, Michael, born in 1913.[4] (In 1916, they had had a little girl, Aniela, who lived only a few months.) Also in their household in 1920 was a roomer, another Polish immigrant who, at the age of 86, was still working in a steel mill. Andrew worked in a steel mill too. Mary's occupation is given as "none"; however, three years later we find her operating a "soft drink parlor":


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The Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 14 Apr. 1923.

The 1930 census shows the Wiernasiewicz family living at 1837 Virginia, with yet another son, nine-year-old Walter, as well as two roomers. Andrew worked as a machinist in a bolt factory. Mary managed a grocery store.

Andrew may have had a side job, if this is our guy (and I can't find anyone else by that name in Gary):


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"Gary," The Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 14 Apr. 1923.

In April 1930, as we know, the farm on County Road K had been purchased. But it doesn't look as if the Wiernasiewiczes became full-time farmers. A 1935 Gary directory shows the family both living and operating a grocery store at 1839 Virginia Street. They may have rented their farm out, or hired someone to run it for them.

In spite of the repeal of Prohibition, Mary still found ways to violate liquor laws.


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The Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 23 Dec. 1935.

The 1940 Census records the family still in Gary. It doesn't say anything about Andrew's or Mary's occupation, but I find it difficult to believe that they were idle. Stanley was working in a steel mill, Mike bartending in a tavern, and 18-year-old Walter was described as a "New Worker" (meaning, I believe, that he was an inexperienced person in search of a job).

In 1946 we come across a previously unheard-of Wiernasiewicz who followed the family tradition of running afoul of liquor laws:


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The Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), 15 Oct. 1946.

Lily Ann turned out to be Walter's wife, or possibly at this point his live-in girlfriend using his last name — the only record of I can find of Walter Wiernasiewicz marrying a Lily Ann (maiden name Brewer) comes in 1953.[5]

When Mary Wiernasiewicz died in 1948, her address, and Andrew's, were given as Rural Route #2, Hobart (Indiana Death Certificates), which sounds like the farm on "County K." And that is where Andrew and two of his sons, Stanley and Michael, were living when the 1950 census came around.

The census records Walter and Lily, along with a 70-year-old lodger but no children, living in a separate household on what sounds (per the enumerator's notes) like the same road as the Wiernasiewicz farm. Walter described himself as a farmer. By 1950 the family had bought the 40 acres across the road from their original 34 acres, which may account for the separate households.

In 1951, Michael died at the age of 37, unmarried and with no children I know of. Andrew's being named as the informant on Michael's death certificate is his last appearance in any record I can find. I suspect that Andrew died sometime between 1951 and 1961. When Stanley died in 1961, it was not his father who reported his death and applied for a veteran's grave marker, but his brother (going by the name Walter Weir). No news story mentions Andrew. I cannot find Andrew's death certificate; it may be among the illegible ones listed on Ancestry.com, or the name may have been hopelessly mistranscribed.

Andrew probably lies in Calvary Cemetery with the rest of his family, though perhaps in an unmarked grave. If Stanley ever got his veteran's marker, it hasn't been photographed for findagrave.com.


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[1] "Real Estate Transfers," Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 14 Apr. 1930.
[2] I believe the "L.E. Nelson" who owned that 40-acre parcel in 1939 was someone we've met before: Lovisa Elizabeth (Chester) Nelson.
[3] Sources vary on this.
[4] I got his birth year from his death certificate; the 1920 enumerator appears to have been confused. It is possible that Michael sometimes went by another name. I have found a 1913 birth certificate for a Jan Wiernasiewicz, born to Andrew and Mary the same day as Michael — but no birth certificate for Michael. I have also found a 1937 Gary directory listing showing an occupant of the Wiernasiewicz household named Joseph, which was Michael's middle name (per the death certificate). But no census calls him anything except Michael.
[5] Maybe they were divorced earlier and remarried in 1953. Unfortunately, I don't think the 1953 marriage lasted long, as Lily Ann Brewer shows up in 1954 marrying somebody else. But there is also a record of Walter Weir getting a license to marry Lily Brewer (both described as Hobart residents) in Berrien County, Michigan, in 1955 ("Marriage Licenses," The Herald-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Mich.), 28 Sept. 1955). Walter's 1980 death certificate describes him as divorced.