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Left image: Hobart High School Memories yearbook, 1954.
Right image: Hobart High School Memories yearbook, 1955.
Both via Ancestry.com.
Thus were the Schavey and Fleming families united, and that is why our Schavey descendant also has a couple of Fleming-related photos to share with us.
First, here is Calvin Fleming, in a photo that is undated but is giving me 1930s vibes.
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Image courtesy of Rachel White Hein.
Calvin Lawrence Fleming was born October 23, 1883,[1] in Hobart, to Elias and Harriet (Curtis) Fleming, who both came from Porter County. I don't know much about his early life. Although I can find his family of origin in Valparaiso in the 1900 Census, Calvin is not listed in the household. If this is not a mistake by the enumerator, that means Calvin had left home already, by 17 years of age — which would not be so surprising, given how active and enterprising he proved to be later in life.
In 1905 he married Lillis Thomas (she lived to marry again) and in 1907 Minnie Voltz. Minnie was the mother of Ruth Ann, and died in 1929. There are a couple of subsequent Indiana marriage records involving Calvin L. Fleming: a marriage in 1931 to Blanche Lawrence, and in 1944 to Irene Buckley (I am not entirely sure that the latter was our Calvin). I do not know how those marriages ended.[2]
In 1953 he married Ida Eastin.
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Brownstown Banner (Brownstown, Ind.), 18 Mar. 1953.
They were still married when Calvin died in 1959.[3]
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Brownstown Banner (Brownstown, Ind.), 5 Aug. 1959
He is buried in Michigan City.
Readers of this blog already know that Calvin's business enterprises included cigar-making. Even those who don't read this blog need only go into the basement of the Hobart Historical Society and view the display of local cigar manufacturers to find out the same thing. Here is a picture I took at the museum:
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You can just see the initials, C.L.F., pasted on this battered wooden box.
But not all his cigars were sold in such plain boxes. The Fleming-Schavey family has one that is a work of art:
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Images courtesy of Rachel White Hein.
And yes, that portrait is Calvin in his younger days.
Even the lid is magnificent:
Imagine how many of those boxes burned in the factory fire of 1917. It's enough to make you weep.
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[1] Per his death certificate; his WWI draft card says October 22, 1882.
[2] I've gotten to the point where using the computer too much is physically painful. Maybe somebody healthier, with more time on their hands, can look into this!
[3] His death certificate describes him as widowed. While the obituary is wrong on several points, including Calvin's middle initial and his father's first name, I think it is right about Ida's surviving Calvin. She died in 1968 (Indiana Death Certificates).
