Toots and Norma

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


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Image courtesy of N.B.

Gladys "Toots" Lindborg, with her arms draped over little sister Norma's shoulders. No date on the photo, but Norma looks about seven years old here, which would put it in the vicinity of 1923.

They are on the front steps of the Lindborg home in Ainsworth. The camera's operator is facing west-northwest and standing inside the fence that encloses the little front yard. The barn in the background is no longer standing.

Each girl wears her characteristic expression — Gladys looking serious, even grim; Norma smiling sweetly. Two sisters, night and day.

Kansas City, Here We Come

… or there we went, anyway. The Chesters are just back from yet another road trip. This was one of the lesser voyages of these seasoned travelers, at a little more than 1,000 miles, round-trip — but that's calculated by modern highways; the roads of 1920 may well have made the distance actually longer, as well as seemingly longer.


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette, Sept. 24, 1920.

Also, a little item confirms that I had indeed found the right people in the 1920 census: Burgess and Helen Wells have moved to Colorado.

Another item, about the Nickel Plate's Main Street crossing, has forced me to get edumacated — I did not know what the heck a "wig-wag safety signal" was, so I had to go look it up.

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Speaking of road trips — the "Local and Personal" column of the Hobart News (Sept. 23, 1920) included this item: "A two-ton truck belonging to Thos. Crisman of Deep River was stolen last Saturday night and was seen to pass through Hobart that night about midnight."

Baby On Pillow

From the steamer trunk.


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Image courtesy of E.H.

This solemn-looking baby is completely unidentified. Not even a photographer's mark.

They have taken Baby outside where the light is better, and perched him or her atop a shawl-covered pillow on a rocking chair … and I think what Baby is looking at, off-camera, is Mama holding up her hands and saying, "Don't move! Don't move!" And Baby is really trying to understand her.

4 July 1914

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Handwritten notes on the back of the original identify this as the "Shearer Float 4 July 1914."

Could the man on the left be Howard Shearer? — compare his photo taken about 50 years later.

Nice house behind them, isn't it? Looking at the steep pitch of its roof, as well as what appear to be rails in the street behind the float, I'm wondering if we're at the corner of Third and East Streets, and that's the house still standing today on the northeast corner? Once the holiday is over and it's possible to move freely about the streets, I shall have to go take a better look at that house.

My Little Cousins

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


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Image courtesy of N.B.

Mildred did not give names to her "little cousins," but it's a good guess that these are the children of Peter and Hulda Palm of Hobart, probably at home on the farm east of Hobart. If so, then I'd guess that we're looking at (left to right) Esther, Elmer and Helen. Elmer was born around 1922, and here he looks about one year old, which would put us around 1923. Maybe even Labor Day.

Hello, I Must Be Going

I didn't even know these guys existed until they announced, in September 1920, that they were leaving.


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The Bayor farm lay in Ross Township, on the northeast corner of 69th and Colorado, with the Grand Trunk Railroad crossing its southern acres. I can't even find Charles Szikora in any census earlier than 1930 (and that may not be the same Charles), and I do not know if he was related to John Szikora.

The only Deppe farm I can find is on the southern border of Hobart Township and is ascribed to Catherine, not Frank, Deppe. The 1920 census enumerator who recorded Michael Malz and his neighbors noted that they lived on the "South West Road out of Hobart Past Green House." The Malz household consisted of Michael, 55 years old, his 54-year-old wife Magdalen, and a five-year-old grandson — only those, to take care of 400 chickens and all those cattle!

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Across Colorado Street from the Bayor farm lay the Price farm. I mention that only because I just recently came across pictures of Fremont and Carrie Price (while babysitting the Merrillville museum). They are undated, and while to me they look earlier than 1920, I'm not going to try to guess at a date.

Fremont Benjamin Price

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Images courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

Carrie Belle Cunningham Price


And here's a totally random fact I just learned about F.B. Price — he had a grocery-store-running brother in Ludington, Michigan.


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Sources:
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 23 Sept. 1920.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart News 23 Sept. 1920.

Aunt Lid and Helen

From Mildred Lindborg's photo album.


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Image courtesy of N.B.

"Aunt Lid" was likely what the Lindborg kids called Lydia Nelson Lindborg, wife of their Uncle Emil, so I suppose we can identify the woman at left. But as for Helen, I don't know who she was, and Mildred's caption did not include a surname.

Behind them, we see the west side of the Lindborg house in Ainsworth.

While there is no date for this photo, the fact that these two are dressed just as they were in one of the dated photos, and they have the same dog, I'm afraid there's no getting around it — what we've got here is another Labor Day 1923 picture.