Immature Pine Cones (Random Pointless Photos)

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You guys are so immature! Why can't you be more like your brother?

Dr. Friedrich's Family

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Nice-looking family, but I would never have recognized them had not some benefactor of humanity scrawled on the back, "Dr Fredricks Family" — and that, along with the "J.J. Naumann, Hobart, Ind." embossed on the front, allows us to make the identification. And once you know it, you do see the resemblance, don't you?

After looking over the 1910 and 1920 censuses and estimating the children's ages here, I think this photo dates to about 1915. Left to right (with approximate year of birth): Maria (1909), Dr. Louis M. Friedrich (1874), Martin (1905), Emma (1907), Dorothea (1912), Minnie (née Batterman) (1879), and Edna (1911).

There's a "Merry Christmas" sticker on the back; possibly the doctor and his wife distributed this card as holiday greetings, though this one did not go through the mail — uncovered, at any rate.

Sparrows Are Jerks (Random Pointless Photo)

Welcome to Super Slacker Summer Posting Time, brought to you by bloggers who are sick of the word "Ainsworth."


… So. The lovely barn swallows came back and in a few days built themselves a nice new nest.

As soon as the nest was completed but before any eggs were laid, a pair of sparrows started hanging out on the window frame, mugging all tough, occasionally jumping into the nest. It took only a couple days of psychological intimidation (I never saw them actually fight) for the barn swallows to abandon their nest to the sparrows.

Then the sparrows started re-decorating the nest to suit their taste. But the thing is, their taste is awful, and deep down they probably know it, as they have now been re-decorating longer than it took the swallows to build the nest in the first place, and show no signs of stopping. The result is the ugliest nest on the face of the planet:


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Raymond at Two

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


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Image courtesy of N.B.

Mildred noted that her little brother Raymond, photographed here in the fenced front yard of the Lindborg house in Ainsworth, was two years old. Ray had been born June 12, 1918.

Behind him you can see the Lindborg business: the frame part of the building may have been an auto-repair shop by then; the brick part beyond that was still a blacksmith shop.

Coming Home, Leaving Home

While Fremont and Carrie Price had hopes that their fallen soldier would soon be laid to rest in his native land, Melvin Guernsey had hopes of getting away from his native land — specifically, from the cold winters of Lake County, Indiana.


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Melvin Guernsey had been born in 1891 and raised on the farm of his parents, David and Stella Guernsey, in southern Ross Township near the county line. On August 17, 1910, he married Verna* Strong. By the time they were planning their Florida stay, they had two young sons, and would leave behind the grave of an infant daughter who died in 1911.



But they hadn't left yet, so they probably attended the Guernsey family reunion:


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The "home of C.S. Guernsey" would be (I believe) the farm of Chester and Nancy Guernsey, on the southern border of Ross Township, close to the county line.

♦    ♦    ♦
[6/19/2013 update] Below is a photograph that, according to handwritten notes on the original, shows a "Guernsey reunion taken about 1920." No one in the photo is identified.


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Image courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

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*The 1930 census-taker calls her "Thelma," but all other references I can find agree on "Verna." I cannot find Melvin and Verna Guernsey in the 1920 Census.


Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ Lake County, Indiana, Birth Records Index, 1882-1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 26 Aug. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 19 Aug. 1910; 30 June 1911; 27 Aug. 1920.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart News 26 Aug. 1920.

The Duke of Ainsworth

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


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Images courtesy of N.B.

Here is Franklin Lindborg — alias "The Duke," according to his sister, Mildred — standing in downtown Ainsworth. At left in the background is the former Sauter's Place; I do not know who owned or occupied that building in the early or mid-1920s, when this photo was probably taken.

Behind Franklin's boater and left hand, you can see William Raschka's grain warehouse.

A second photo on the same page in the album shows Franklin again (at right), with a friend — identity unknown, for the caption just calls him "Bud."

8th Grade Graduates, 1911

From the steamer trunk.


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Image courtesy of E.H.

According to the Hobart Gazette of June 9, 1911, the names of the "8th Grade Graduates" were: Elsie Mundell, Leo Pio, Edwin Carlson, Elmer Ballantyne, Alfrieda Carlson, Lewis Roper, George Schane, Fred Ramenstein, Louis Kramer, Helen Rose, Marie Scheidt, Margaret Tree, Harold Thompson, Herbert Larson, Myron Black, Elsie Strom, Clara Lapean, Helen G. Smith, Vernon Traeger, Pliny Swanson, Hertha Foreman, Elnora Carlson, Frieda Nagel, Theresa Niksch, Helen R. Smith, Edmund Fleck, Roswell Hollister, Grace Stuart, Lillian Barney, Ernest Sohn, Mary Thompson, and Minnie Rossow.

Of all those, the only one I can identify is Minnie Rossow, at the left end of the back row.