Robby & Hypotenuse (Random Pointless Photo)

(Click on image to enlarge)

Hypotenuse is not from the same litter as the other three kittens I'm fostering. He* is a little older. Eats more solid food, needs less bottle-feeding.

I'm glad that Robby shows no inclination to eat any of the kittens.

___________________
*I don't know the gender of any of these kittens. I have enough trouble trying to keep them fed and clean, without taking the time to examine their private parts.

Smiling Girl

From the Schavey envelope collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Continuing on the theme of cute little girls with no ID, here's another. The photographer didn't focus very well, and then time was not kind to the photograph itself.

A Gentle Bull and a Couple of Babies

Charles Boyd was (if I'm not mistaken) the son of Eli Boyd; Eli and his brother Levi were the "E. & L. Boyd" whose Holsteins were the ancestors of the cattle Charles was now selling, including the gentle bull. Charles probably intended to get out of farming — at any rate, he had done so by 1930.


(Click on image to enlarge)

And you will notice some familiar names in the "Births" column. Roberta Leona's mom was the former Daisy Raschka; this was her second child and first daughter. Mrs. George Rhodes had been Helen Mackey (and I hope she had found that lost velvet rabbit). This baby, Jane, was their second daughter. They would bring her home to a full household, as the Rhodeses lived with Helen's widowed mother, Ruth, who also provided a home for her other daughter, Martha, and Martha's husband of three months, Don Gilger — but if they occupied that sprawling house on Center Street, no doubt there was plenty of room for them all.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Births." Hobart Gazette 16 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Births." Hobart News 15 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart Gazette 16 Jan. 1920.

Blacksmith Shop Interior

Since Monday I have been foster-parenting four baby kittens for the Hobart Humane Society. They are about three weeks old, just starting to eat solid food but still in need of regular bottle feeding. Nor have they figured out the litter-box thing yet. So, while they are cute as all get-out (I will try to get some pics soon), they take a lot of time and attention. Which is why I'm glad I have more museum photos to slap up here.

In the basement of the Hobart Historical Society museum is an exhibit showing the interior of a blacksmith shop, and much of the equipment in it came from Gust Lindborg's shop in Ainsworth:


(Click on image to enlarge)


Click here to see the full set of photos from the blacksmith shop.

Her Four-Legged Friend

From the Schavey envelope collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

I have no clue who this adorable little girl is.

Just looking at the way the frame of that coal chute is set into the wall makes my trigger finger itch (caulk gun, I mean).

Empty milk bottle next to her. What is that battered, rusty-looking circular thing on the ground at right — an abandoned basketball hoop, maybe?

The Death of Michael Baessler, Sr.

Michael Baessler, Sr. never lived in Ainsworth, but he fathered two Ainsworth-area farmers — Michael Jr. and John — so I ought to take note of his passing.

He was 80 years old and had buried all three of his wives and five of his eight children.


(Click on images to enlarge)

(The News gives his first wife's name as Magdalena, but the Gazette here agrees with the 1870 census.)

His gravestone, in Hobart Cemetery:



Beside him, his second wife, Louise (and thank heaven the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society/DAR transcribed these markers back when they were still legible!):



In the next row over, his first wife, Wilhelmina, who died in 1875 (the inscription is in German):



Beside her, three of their children (the first stone marking two graves):





(I can't read the names or dates, but according to the NWIGS listing, all three children died within four days of each other — on March 16, 19 and 20, 1877, aged 11, 4 and 15, respectively.)

Two babies were buried in Mosier Cemetery, in Porter County. According to the NWIGS listing of Union Township cemeteries, this first stone marks the grave of Anna Sophia, daughter of Michael and Menia Bassler, who died January 30, 1866, aged one year, ten months and 27 days.



Just beside it lies a completely illegible stone — small, suitable for a baby. The NWIGS volunteer was able to read "infant son of Michael and Menia Bassler," but even at that time the name and dates, if any, were illegible, and the stone broken.



♦    ♦    ♦
As noted beside the obituary above, the Indiana legislature had just ratified the proposed 19th amendment to the Constitution.


Sources:
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ "Death of an Aged Citizen." Hobart Gazette 16 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 8 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Michael Baessler, Sr., Dies at Home of His Daughter Wednesday." Hobart News 15 Jan. 1920.
♦ "Obituary." Hobart Gazette 23 Jan. 1920.

Jim's Wife's Mom's Sidesaddle!

Or: When an Amateur Historian Buys a Tripod

I finally coughed up the money for a tripod. I don't know why. But now I have to learn to use it, and how better than to photograph stuff in a dimly lit place without using the flash? Perfect excuse to go to the Hobart museum and take pictures. And so you, dear Readers, will be subjected to treated to some of the results.

The things I photograph won't necessarily have an Ainsworth connection, but this one does: a sidesaddle that belonged to Margaret Spencer, the mother of Effie Spencer, who married James Chester.

The seat is covered with a herringbone-patterned fabric (velvet, I think) that must have been beautiful when it was new.


(Click on images to enlarge)