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:


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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.


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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:


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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:


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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:


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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":


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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:


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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.


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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.

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[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.


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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.

Dogbane Beetle

I found this fabulous little iridescent beetle on a Common Dogbane, aka Indian Hemp, in my field.


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I was only able to snap a few photos with my phone before it flew away. These were the two best, so you have some idea what the rest were like.

Better photos and more info here.

Bertha's Second Marriage: It Was Bad

Even today I still think, sometimes, of that strange and touching poem written (I'm guessing) by Bertha Mueller Bodamer in memory of her husband, Benjamin, who died in 1917. To judge by the emotions that poem conveys, one would think their marriage was very happy.

After Ben's death, Bertha and her sons, Harry, Ralph, and Carlton, continued farming their 35 acres (more or less[1]) on S. Hobart Rd., marked with "BB" on the plat map from the 1926 Plat Book:


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As I mentioned in an earlier post, this map fails to show the 34-acre farm of Bertha's brother-in-law, John, bordering on the south side of her land.

In 1928, Ralph married Florence Wyant and set up a separate household close to his mother's; the following year Carlton married Helen Hardesty and moved to Hobart. The 1930 Census records only Bertha's unmarried eldest son, Harry, still under her roof.

By then, Bertha had been widowed over a decade. With her nest emptying, I suppose she was feeling lonely, and perhaps wishing for a pleasant and helpful companion, such as Ben had been. Anyway, somewhere she saw an advertisement by a man seeking a wife, and she answered it. The man was Fred Reuter, a widower living in West Virginia, about whom I know almost nothing. Fred came to Indiana, where he met Bertha. Evidently they liked each other.

Bertha's sons were not happy about this development. I wish I knew why! — did they object to a stranger moving in on what they viewed as their inheritance, or was there something about Fred in particular that they didn't like?

Around this time, possibly in February 1931,[2] Bertha's eldest son, Harry, married Ida Hollett[3] of Valparaiso.

Bertha soon went ahead with her own marriage. In April of 1931, she became Mrs. Fred Reuter (Indiana Marriage Collection). Shortly before the marriage, Fred lent her $2,000 to make improvements on her farm, with Bertha giving him a mortgage on property she owned in Porter County known as the "old Bodamer homestead," shown here on a 1938 plat map:


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Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1938Plats/Union-1938.gif.

If there was a honeymoon period, it was short. Everything soon started to fall apart. In December 1932, Bertha suffered a personal loss when her son, Harry, died at only 32 years of age, leaving a widow and no children. Fred Reuter failed to provide the companionship and help Bertha wanted; in fact, he left the home (or was thrown out by Bertha's sons) and went to Idaho. Bertha filed for divorce. Fred came back and began proceedings to foreclose on the mortgage he held. The unpleasant details started appearing in local papers in the autumn of 1934.


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 19 Oct. 1934.


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 26 Apr. 1935.


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Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 28 May 1935.

I can't find any follow-up articles beyond this. But it appears that Fred lost his mortgage case, if the 1938 plat map, above, can be relied on. The local papers soon went back to calling Bertha "Mrs. Ben Bodamer"[4] (notwithstanding the 1938 plat map).

The 1940 Census records a widow, Bertha Bodamer, living with her widowed daughter-in-law, Ida, on the farm. Her son, Carlton, had moved back to her neighborhood with his wife and three daughters, not farming but employed as a truck driver with the WPA. Her other son, Ralph, lived with his family and several relatives in Hobart Township and worked in a steel mill.

Both sons were back in the farm neighborhood for the 1950 Census, both working in steel mills. Bertha, 81 years of age, lived in Ralph's household. Ida was nowhere to be found.

Bertha died the following year — August 16, 1951 (Indiana Death Certificates). She was buried beside her pleasant and helpful companion, Ben, in the Woodvale Cemetery.

I still don't know what became of Ida, whose name is next to her husband's on the family grave marker without a death date.


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[1] The size varies slightly from one plat map to another.
[2] I'm getting the date from a family tree on Ancestry.com that does not cite a source. I cannot find a record of the marriage, nor any mention of it in on-line local papers.
[3] The surname comes from family trees on Ancestry.com, none of which cite a source. Occasionally it turns up spelled Hallett. Her middle name is given as Eve. (Just to make things more confusing, there was a longtime Valpo resident named Ida Mae Hollett, who was considerably older than our Ida.)
[4] E.g., "Hobart," Hammond Times, 13 May 1938.

A Dorman Family Reunion (ca. 1907)

From the Dorman descendant who gave us the photo of the Dormans at home comes this photo of the extended family, taken probably circa 1907 and probably at Blue Island, Illinois …


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Images courtesy of James Dorman Greene.

… with this information about who is in the photo:

Front (left to right): Willard, Winston, and Harold with their parents John Dorman and Ella (Walts) behind. Behind them are the other two Dorman boys I believe: John Carlisle and Clarence.

The rest of the front row: Edith Dorman (my grandmother) and two of her cousins. Edith's parents Louis and Ida Hecker are behind her. To their right is William Dorman and his with Lina. Back row starting from third on the left is Fred Dorman and his wife. Then Charles Dorman and his wife Elizabeth Ramm.

Blue Island was where John Dorman's parents had settled after coming over from Germany around 1849. He was born there in 1859.

From the same source comes this map showing where in Germany John Dorman's parents came from:



Their home village, Tangendorf, is now part of the municipality of Prignitz, in the state of Brandenburg. Per Wikipedia, its population in 2010 was 85.