People I've Been Ignoring

The first thing that caught my eye on this page was the announcement about Henry Paulus and the premiums he awarded to lucky locals on July 28, 1923.


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Hobart News, Aug. 2, 1923.

Of course we know who John Miller was, and Mrs. Ernest Sitzenstock might be Mrs. Ernest Sr. or Mrs. Ernest Jr. But Mrs. Frank Steiner? — why don't I know who she is? After poking around in the records, my best guess at her identity is this: she had been Bertha Grosch, who shows up in the 1910 Census at the age of 27, living with her aunt and uncle in Chicago, working as a saleslady in a department store. Somehow she met and fell in love with Frank Stiener[1] (Jr.), who in 1910 was working as a hired man on a farm in Eagle Creek Township, Lake County, Indiana. He was the son of Frank (Sr.) and Susan Stiener, Austro-Hungarian immigrants and farmers in Winfield Township.

Frank Stiener, Jr. and Bertha Grosch were married December 20, 1911, and they came back to the farmland of northwest Indiana. In the "Personal and Local Mention" column of the Hobart News of November 18, 1915, I find this item: "The 3-months-old baby of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Steiner [sic], living south of Ainsworth, is seriously ill with bronchial pneumonia." In the 1920 Census, we find Frank and Bertha living on rented land in southern Ross Township, operating a dairy farm. They had three children under the age of seven: Frances, Robert, and Clayton. And now, 1923, they have an aluminum kettle.

Moving along … the Argo orchestra is still a mystery.

We've met Clinton and Ida Peck before. Linus Peck was their son, born ca. 1897 (1910 Census). In 1919 he had married Martha Frame[2] in Chicago (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index), and they lived in Hobart.

We know Ezra Gilpin and we know he worked the Lake Street "J" crossing. Somebody else can investigate Patrick Glynn.

Just below that, another new (to me) name. Martha Schiesser was the daughter of Michael and Catherine Wehner, a farming family. In the 1900 Census, they lived in Center Township, but by 1908 had moved to Ross Township and owned 148 acres surrounding Lottaville:


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Image from the 1908 Plat Map.

On May 11, 1920, Martha married Frank Schiesser (Indiana Marriage Collection). He was one of the many sons of Adam and Mary (Dumbsky) Schiesser, who owned land in Ross Township as early as 1900, though I can't find it on the 1908 Plat Map … but Adam's father, I believe, died young, and his mother, Catherine, took as her second husband Nickolaus Thiel, which might explain why the land owned by Cath. Thiel in the 1908 map above would end up in the hands of A. Schiesser in the 1926 Plat Book. The land north and east of it, belonging to Chas. L. Merrill in 1908, would belong to B. Schiesser by 1926, but that's another story.

I interpret the statement about her being buried at Turkey Creek to mean Ss. Peter and Paul Cemetery, but findagrave.com lists her in Calumet Park Cemetery.


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[1] The censuses and other records usually spell it Stiener (as does the record of his grave on findagrave.com, though I have not been out there myself to see the grave marker), while the only two newspaper references I have noted spell it Steiner.
[2] Her parents were Newton and Annie Frame, and I have no idea if these were any relation to the various Frames who are all over the "South of Deepriver" columns.

Two Drunks and an Idiom

Following the close of the big liquor trial, we get a tidbit of information about the incident involving the Springman brothers — dating back, I suspect, to March 1921 — that somehow led to the parties involved getting mixed up with all those real wrongdoers in Gary.


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"Local and Personal," Hobart News, April 5, 1923.

I had never before heard the expression "to clean house" being used in this way, meaning … I'm not sure exactly what. To trash the place? To fight?


Elsewhere in the same column, some news of our acquaintances. James Chester went to a horse auction. Ezra Gilpin began standing watch at the Lake Street crossing of the EJ&E Railroad — we have already seen the pictures.

And Alfred Pierce found his final resting place in California.

What Happened to the Strikebreaker

The Great Railroad Strike of 1922, which began on July 1, was marred by violence on both sides. One act of violence took place in Hobart on July 17.


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Hobart News 20 July 1922.

The following day's Gazette described the victim as "Ross Gray, the Valparaiso car inspector."

By early August, trains had entirely stopped running on the EJ&E Railroad due to the strike ("E., J. & E. Trainmen on Strike — No Trains Running," Hobart News 10 Aug. 1922), but the strike would last only a few more weeks before collapsing.

EJ&E Train Orders

I have acquired a handful of Elgin, Joliet & Eastern RR orders from 1963 and 1965.


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These two were stapled together:






As were these:






And these:






Not knowing the first thing about train orders, I asked local historian-photographer-railfan Daniel Kleine to give me a crash course — so here is Dan's "Train Orders for Dummies," with illustrations.

From 1850's to 1980's many railroads operated by timetables and train orders. Most people are familiar with paper passenger train timetables but there are more complete and complicated timetables listing passenger and freight trains, and other operating details and rules. These are carried by RR employees only; every scheduled train has an identifying number. A central dispatcher would orchestrate train movements for the day and issue train orders (aka track warrant or clearance) Train orders were used to communicate exceptions to the timetable, or special conditions. Trains were often eliminated (withdrawn), added (extra), or priorities or speed limits were changed. For example the Lincoln Funeral Train would have been an "extra" and train orders would have been issued to cover its movement, giving it priority (right of way). Train orders facilitated smooth train movements, safety, and superseded the timetable. They are written in a sort of railroad shorthand, which makes sense to RR people, but may be hard for others to understand. Each RR was an independent entity so each had its own procedures. These were the days before radio communication. Trains operated in different directions, at varying speeds, on a single track so they would have to "meet" at passing sidings/spurs. For example, a train would have to wait for an opposing train to pass at a siding, based on the timetable, operating rules, and/or train orders to prevent a head-on collision.

Towers and stations were usually connected via telegraph or telephone (the railroads had their own private system). Most people think that the wires that ran beside RR tracks were for electricity; actually they were for communication and in some cases low-voltage electricity for signals powered by large banks of batteries. Paper train orders were passed to the engineer and/or conductor at towers and stations, either by the train stopping, or via hoops/tossing while the train was moving slowly. The attached photo of the Merrillville station shows a train order semaphore; it is set to tell an eastbound train to stop.


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Image courtesy of Daniel Kleine.

Most stations, towers and telegraph poles are gone now. Some small railroads with limited capital still use the train order system; a variation was used by the South Shore up until 2011 when they installed new signals and central control. Some large model railroads use a train order system to play realistically. The Pennsylvania railroad and the EJ&E had an interchange track in Hobart; i.e. they could swap cars. A photo of the tower in the 80's is attached.


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Image courtesy of Daniel Kleine.

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Dan directed me to the website of the Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society and some instructive photos in its archives:

• This one shows a station employee with a folded train order in a long-handled device that will allow a member of the train crew to snatch the order as the train passes (Dan points out that in the background "the train order semaphore is set to 'slow' for the approaching train").
• Here an engineer is plucking an order from the station operator.
• This photo shows a similar device set into a train order crane.
• Here we see a brakeman reaching out to grab an order.

You can find even more photos by searching on "train order" in the archives.

EJ&E Crossing at Lake Street

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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Tom Rainford.






These three photos appear to be taken at the same place — the Lake Street crossing of the EJ&E Railroad, where Ezra Gilpin worked in 1923, according to the caption of one of the photos.

As we've already noted, he was still working as a railroad crossing guard when the 1930 census came around, though perhaps not at the Lake Street crossing.

I can't read the name on the sled in the last picture — King something? (Anyway, it's not Rosebud.)

The Guy on the Baggage Cart

We local-history buffs have all seen this picture of the Pennsy station:


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Fred Ols.

Now we have learned the identity of one of the people in it: the guy on the baggage cart is Martin Ols, one of Henry's children. Since the photo dates to about 1913, Martin would be about 19 years old here. According to notes on the back of the photo, Martin was a clerk and responsible for unloading baggage (for the Pennsy Railroad, I suppose, though the notes don't specify), and later became a watchman in a tower along the EJ&E RR.