Mr. Moehl Wants to Build a Garage

On May 28, 1923, William Moehl bought a lot on Second Street (near his home) where he planned to build his garage.


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Hobart News, May 31, 1923.

Higher up in the same column are a couple of items that involve our friends the Harmses. The first just tells of a visit by Herman and Minnie (Rossow) Harms, along with her sister and brother-in-law, to her parents. The second tells us that Herman Harms bought a cottage, intending to move it elsewhere in the city. The Fairbank cottage was being moved from New Street to make way for what would eventually be the Roosevelt Gym.[1] In an earlier report, however, the Gazette named the buyer as Herbert Harms — whom I cannot identify in any local census — and the intended destination of the cottage as being in "the Melin subdivision," which may be Andrew Melin's Fairfield Addition on the east side of Wisconsin Street.[2] I will just add that in all the time I knew Herman's son, Eldon, he never mentioned any such cottage to me, but that doesn't prove anything.

An item over in the right-hand column tells us that the Amlong family was spending a second summer camping out near the village of Deep River.

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[1] "Local and Personal," Hobart News, May 17, 1923.
[2] "School Board Sells Dwelling," Hobart Gazette, May 18, 1923.

Baby, Burn

Monday, July 11, 1921, was a day of joy the Kegebein farm, as Albert and Frieda Witt welcomed a baby boy into the world — their fifth child.

Tuesday was a day of disaster.


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From the Hobart Gazette 15 July 1921.

Going into Hobart, Albert had actually seen the town's fire engine rush by him, never suspecting it was headed towards his own place. Perhaps someone telephoned Jim Chester, who lived on Water Street, and told him go find Albert; the Herman Neef residence, where Jim caught up with Albert, was on Lake Street.

It must have been a shock to the unnamed sister (in-law) staying with Frieda when she looked outside and saw the roof of the 36' x 66' barn all on fire, and she in charge of a sick woman and five children. The Bullock home to which Frieda was carried was probably the Claude and Mary Bullock farm on the bank of the Deep River.

With no fire hydrants in the area, the Hobart fire department had to rely on its "chemical engine." When its chemicals were exhausted, the house and new granary had been saved, but the wreckage of the barn and other buildings was still smoldering. The last of the fire was put out with a hose "attached to the feed pipe running from the creek [Deep River] to Ainsworth used in mixing concrete."

Frieda recovered, and so did the baby, whom they named — not Blaise, Incendio, or even Phoenix, but — Clyde.

(You will notice just above the newspaper report of the Kegebein fire, another barn fire in Hobart.)

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In local sporting events we have Hobart's Everett Newman triumphing at the Roby speedway, and a mercenary baseball team from Valpo.


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From the Hobart News 14 July 1921.


Additional Sources:
♦ "$5,000 Fire at the Kegebein Farm, Tuesday Afternoon." Hobart News 14 July 1921.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Births." Hobart Gazette 15 July 1921.