Hey, You Guys, Let's Go Harass Somebody Else to Death!

In the years after they drove one Ainsworth-area farmer to suicide, the local bored teenagers went after his brother as well.


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Hobart Gazette, 4 Feb. 1971.

I'm not sure how wise the Gazette was to print a photo of Walter's house: that's a little too helpful to any area jerks who didn't already know which house it was.

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When I left off with Walter in my previous Wiernasiewicz post, he was reported in the 1950 Census as living on the Randolph Street/S. Hobart Road farm with his wife, Lily, whom the Indiana Marriage Certificates recorded him marrying in 1952 (or maybe it was 1953 or 1955).

That marriage ended, one way or another. In March 1960, we hear from a Benton Harbor, Michigan, newspaper that a marriage license had been issued to "Walter Weir, 38, of Hobart, Ind., and Ardith Lucille Wyant, 25, of Merrillville, Ind."[1]

Somewhere among all that marrying, at least four children were born, as we later learn, but I don't know when or by which wife.

The local jerks did not succeed in harassing Walter to death. He died of natural causes on April 5, 1980. From his death certificate, I gather he collapsed and died at the Lake Street boat landing in Marquette Park, the cause being "coronary occlusion."

The death certificate described him as "divorced."

His obituary listed the children I mentioned above:

Walter Weir, a life-long area resident, died April 5, at the age of 58.

He is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Lee (Cheryl) Thrush of Greenville, Mich., and Mary Ann Weir of Calif.; two sons, Wayne, attending the U.S. Naval Academy in Anapolis, Md., and Wendell, of Greenville, Mich., and two grandchildren.

Funeral services were April 12 from the Pruzin Funeral Home, Rev. Kenneth Albright officiating. Burial was at Calvary Cemetery.[2]

In my 1962 Hobart directory, he was listed twice: once as Weir, again as Wiernasiewicz. I can't find a listing for him under either name on findagrave.com, in Calvary Cemetery or anywhere else.

Incidentally, he was born Władysław, if I'm reading his birth certificate right:


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Image from Ancestry.com.

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[1] "Marriage Licenses," Herald-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Mich.), 5 Mar. 1960. According to a family tree on Ancestry.com, she was a granddaughter of Albert B. "Abe" Wyant.
[2] "Obituaries," Hobart Gazette, 16 Apr. 1980.