The Slow Death of a Veteran

(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).

Wedding Report

In late November 1923, a flurry of weddings involving people we know.

The first took place on the farm of Theodore and Annie Rossow. Harry, born in 1898, was their youngest son, but not their youngest child.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News, Nov. 29, 1923.

The young couple stayed in Gary, to judge by the 1930 Census and the 1940 Census, and had no children of their own as far as I can tell; but in 1940 their household included a young niece and nephew. I wonder what the story behind that was.


The next wedding, further down in the same column, involved Isaac Small, descended from the Smalls of Small's Crossing. Isaac's father, Richard, was one of the children of John E. and Mary Jane (Riley) Small, and had died in 1916, which is why only Isaac's mother, Carrie, is mentioned.[1]

Frances' father, Severin (aka Siegfried), was a baker with a shop on Main Street (bought out in 1922 by his son, Fred). Her mother, Lena (Conrad), had died in 1910.

♦    ♦    ♦
The third wedding involved the Moehl family, members of which eventually ran a garage at East and Second Streets in Hobart, near the flat where the article says the newlyweds would live.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News, Nov. 29, 1923.

As for the Born family, I can't say I've learned anything about them since the one and only time I mentioned them before, so perhaps it's time for me to do a little research.

Viola Born's grandparents, Charles (aka Carl) and Hanna (aka Johanna) — both German immigrants — brought their family down from Chicago sometime after the 1880 Census. The 1891 Plat Book shows them owning over a hundred acres of farmland west of Hobart. Here is the Born farm as it appears on the 1908 Plat Map:


(Click on image to enlarge)

It was the same in 1891 but for those southeasternmost 20 acres.

If I'm reading this all correctly, the brick house at 5050 Liverpool Road — built in 1900 per the county records — is probably the old Born place. And the Borns were neighbors of the Ewiglebens.

Viola's father, Paul, was the eldest child. By the 1900 Census he had five siblings. In 1901 he married Emilie (aka Amelia) Bastian (Indiana Marriage Collection). In the 1910 Census, Paul and Amelia, with Viola, Lauretta and a newborn daughter (as yet unnamed) were farming rented land in the same neighborhood — possibly part of his father's property.

Paul's mother died in 1904, his father in 1917. The 1920 death notice of his sister Anna gives a little snapshot of the family at that time:

The funeral of Mrs. Wm. Medrow was held from the home of her sister, Mrs. Bertha Thurber, of West Third street …. Burial was in Crown Hill cemetery.

Mrs. Anna Medrow died Monday at her home in Chicago after an illness of some time from tuberculosis. She was born in Hobart, her age being 46years, 4 months and 2 days, and lived here most of her life. Besides her husband she leaves seven children, six sons and one daughter, also three sisters, Mrs. Bertha Thurber, Mrs. Edward Rohwedder and Mrs. Edwin Sievert, and three brothers, Paul Born of Hobart, and Otto and Fred of Illinois.[2]

The 1920 Census shows Paul's family (now including four daughters) living on their own farm, which, according to the 1926 Plat Book, was formerly his parents' land.

Viola and Ernest Moehl are recorded in the 1930 Census living in their own home (with a radio) at 901 Garfield Street. He was employed by a lumber company as a truck driver.

_______________
[1] Carrie's maiden name was Haxton and she married Richard in 1881 (Indiana Marriage Collection).
[2] "Funeral of Former Hobart Girl Held Wednesday Afternoon," Hobart News, May 20, 1920.

Mary Munch's Moonshine

When Mary Munch was caught with a still back in February 1923, she had claimed it wasn't hers. Seven months later, caught with two stills and 15 gallons of moonshine, she apparently didn't think anyone would buy the same story.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, Oct. 19, 1923.

♦    ♦    ♦
In the "Local Drifts" column above, we find a couple of locals leaving the countryside to become town dwellers.

While we've encountered the name Hooseline in several "South of Deep River" columns, I've looked into the family only in connection with the suicide of John's father-in-law. But looking a little more closely now, I gather that John's father, Michael Hooseline, came into this area with his parents (Michael Sr. and Rebecca) sometime between John's birth in 1842 (Maryland) and the 1860 Census of Union Township, Porter County.[1] By the 1870 Census, Michael Jr. had married Laura Tabor and moved to Ross Township, Lake County. Our John was born in the south-of-Deep-River countryside in 1871. The 1874 Plat Map shows the "Hooseline & Tabor" farm straddling Randolph Street at the divide between Ross and Winfield Townships, but from the 1891 Plat Book on, I can't find any land under the Hooseline name in Ross Township.

Here is John Hooseline's obituary from 1944:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso), Feb. 28, 1944.

The article fails to mention John's first wife, Rhoda Smith, whom he married in 1896. Rhoda was the daughter of Homer and Rachel Smith, although the 1880 Census doesn't list her (unless she is the "Rudie" whom the enumerator called a son; the birth dates match). Rhoda bore John Hooseline two sons, Harold and Hubert/Herbert (1900 Census), and died in 1902. In 1904 John married Emma Carbein Phillips. Their children were Kenneth and Velma (1910 Census, 1930 Census).


The other country-dweller getting out of the country was Simon Small, of Small's Crossing. From what I can find in the census and death records, he was a son of John and Mary (Riley) Small; odd that he wasn't mentioned in Mary's obituary. His children were all by his first wife, Cora Deardoff, whom he married in 1883 (Indiana Marriage Collection) and who died in 1902. He married his second wife, Anna Bean, in 1906 in Cook County, Illinois, where he may have been living already, as he was in the 1910 Census and 1920 Census. Apparently he moved back to Small's Crossing after 1920 just to leave it a few years later.

Here's his obit from 1945:


(Sorry, this image doesn't enlarge)
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso), Nov. 20, 1945.

I wonder if this leaves any Smalls at Small's Crossing? The Union Township plat maps shows that the old Small farm changed its name between 1921 and 1928.

_______________
[1] That's assuming the enumerator made an error in recording John's age.

Women Voters and a Woman Pioneer

The mid-term election of 1922 was approaching, which may be why the Ainsworth League of Women Voters planned a meeting in the W.G. Haan school; but then again, in those days people held meetings for any reason.


(Click on image to enlarge)
"Local and Personal." Hobart News 21 Sept. 1922.

The death of Mrs. J.E. Small, mentioned at the bottom of that column, got a fuller treatment from the next day's Gazette.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette 22 Sept. 1922.

Her daughter, Mrs. Crisman — christened Elizabeth — was the wife of John Crisman, Sr., and the grandmother of Dorothea.

Mary Hardesty, the daughter with whom Mrs. Small had lived, was a widow (1920 Census), but I'm not sure of her deceased husband's name. It might have been Adolphus (Indiana Marriage Collection).

Mary Jane Riley Small rests in Mosier Cemetery.


In the pages above and elsewhere in old newspapers I have come across references to "Small's Crossing," and thus far nobody I've asked has known exactly where it was. Based on the people whose names came up in connection with Small's Crossing, I gathered it was in Porter County but not far from the village of Deep River. In common parlance around the turn of the 20th century, the name likely referred to a road crossing a railroad line near a piece of land owned by a Small. So, let's take a look at the plat map of Union Township, Porter County, in 1895, by which time all the railroads were in place:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1895Plats/Union-1895.jpg, courtesy of Steven R. Shook.

There's a Small farm, there's the Grand Trunk Railroad, there's the road now known as N 725 W crossing the railroad. Just over the county line is the village of Deep River. I think this is a pretty good candidate for Small's Crossing. If you can find a better one, please let me know about it.

Pneumonia Again

Pneumonia took another child in February 1921.


(Click on images to enlarge)

Frank Schumacher had spent his childhood on a farm northeast of Ainsworth. By 1910, he was farming for himself on rented land in Hobart Township. The next year he married Eliza Foreman. Some time before 1920, they moved onto the Small farm in Union Township, Porter County.


I believe this is the Small farm where the Schumacher family lived, as it appeared on a 1921 Union Township plat map, from http://www.inportercounty.org/maps.html.

"Foster sister Ceil" was Lucile Mains, who had been living with the Schumachers for some three or four years, and who had already suffered the loss of her biological brother.


Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Funeral of Raymond Schumacher Held This (Thursday) Afternoon." Hobart News 10 Feb. 1921.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Master Raymond Schumacher Passes Away." Hobart Gazette 11 Feb. 1921.