(Click on image to enlarge)
From the Hobart High School's "Memories" yearbook of 1921.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.
He didn't die in action, or even in the service, but World War I killed John Small anyway, according to the Hobart News.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News, 20 Dec. 1923. See also "Death Summons John E. Small," Hobart Gazette, 21 Dec. 1923.
If I understand the family tree correctly, this John Small was the grandson of John and Mary Jane Small, who (I believe) gave Small's Crossing its name. The farm he grew up on seems to have been in southwest Portage Township, Porter County, based on neighbors' names in the 1900 census and several parcels owned by Smalls in that area on the 1906 plat map. By 1910 his parents had retired from farming and moved their family to the village of Wheeler. In 1920 John and his wife, Martha, were living in Hobart, where John gave his occupation as a teacher in a public school — modestly, perhaps, if the News was correct about his being the high school principal by then.
Martha remarried in 1935, to a widower named Ralph Orr, but when she died in 1975, her remains were brought home from Indianapolis to be laid to rest beside John.
Moving from the serious to the silly, we note (in the lower right of the page above) that a Hobart night marshal resigned from his position under a cloud. According to an earlier article, he had been suspended after being accused of not only drunkenness, but also poker-playing ("Night Marshal Carrier Suspended," Hobart Gazette, 14 Dec. 1923).
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