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:


(Click on image to enlarge)

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.