The Story of the Store: The Prequel

Just recently stumbled across this tidbit of information, and I'm wondering how I missed it the first time I read through the 1919 microfilm. For our purposes, the most interesting part is the last sentence.


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"Deaths for the Week," Hobart Gazette, Feb. 21, 1919.

Here's a photo of Frank as a prosperous businessman, circa 1915:


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That photo comes from History of Lake County and the Calumet Region, which includes a biographical sketch of Frank and the ups and downs of his career.

'Way back when I first started getting into the history of the Ainsworth general store, I was theorizing that perhaps W.O. Halsted was the first storekeeper; apparently that's wrong. Nor would Frank have been the first storekeeper, if the 1915 bio is correct in saying that he bought the store.

But I find the early history in the 1915 bio questionable. According to that source, Frank moved to Crown Point in 1875, spent nine years as a contractor — which brings us to about 1884 — then three years at a wood-working mill in South Chicago, which brings us to roughly 1887 and the purchase of the Ainsworth store. However, in other records, Frank shows up as postmaster at the Ainsworth post office in 1885.


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Ancestry.com. U.S., Appointments of U. S. Postmasters, 1832-1971 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832-1971. NARA Microfilm Publication, M841, 145 rolls. Records of the Post Office Department, Record Group Number 28. Washington, D.C.: National Archives.

We know from the 1880 Census that Frank was living in Crown Point, with his wife, Elizabeth (née Hutton), and their young family. So it must have been sometime between June 1880 and September 1885 that Frank moved his family to Ainsworth and became the village storekeeper and postmaster.

Frank is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Hammond.

I have pretty thoroughly neglected the Clintons so far. I shall have to remedy that.

Two Old-Timers

And now we lose two old-timers.


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From the Hobart Gazette 15 Apr. 1921.

Jeremy Parker's name is given as Josiah in the News, but perhaps that was the second "J." Here is J.J. Parker's land in Hobart Township, 1908:



I believe there was once a Parker School on the northeast corner of the Liverpool-Old Ridge intersection, and nowadays there is a Parker Road in the north part of the old farm — which may be coincidence; I don't know. The nameless widow mentioned in the obituary was born Cornelia Hutton, who had married J.J. in 1876.

And southwest of Ainsworth, on the farm formerly belonging to Benjamin Case, Dayton T. Case lost his wife, née Eliza Jane "Jennie" Toothill. They had married in 1881. (Dayton was Benjamin's nephew, the son of Benjamin's brother, William.)

I suppose this is the "farm near Merrillville" where Jane was born and raised:


From the 1874 Plat Map.

So it's now part of Calumet Park Cemetery.

Dayton and Jane's two daughters were their only children (to survive infancy, anyway). The elder daughter, Bessie, married Archie Brooks in 1916; they lived in Hobart and he worked at a steel mill. In 1914 Ada had married Paul Henning (brother of Elsie Henning Nelson). They farmed rented land in Ross Township — to judge by the 1920 census, somewhere south of Ainsworth.


Sources:
♦ 1874 Plat Map.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Death of Mrs. Case." Hobart Gazette 15 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Funeral of Josiah Parker Held Sunday Afternoon." Hobart News 14 Apr. 1921.
♦ "Funeral of Mrs. D.T. Case Will be Held Saturday Afternoon." Hobart News 14 Apr. 1921.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "J.J. Parker Dies April 7." Hobart Gazette 15 Apr. 1921.