Hobart Class of 1922: Wayne Nelson

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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Wayne, who lived in the village of Ainsworth, was the youngest of Lovisa Chester Nelson's children. His sister, Grace, had graduated in 1921.

Wayne was, apparently, short.



And if I'm interpreting the "Bughouse Fables" correctly, he was forever writing notes to his classmates.

Betty Koepke Again

Another sighting of Betty Koepke added to the "On Sykes Farm" post.

South of Deepriver

Social news from the countryside early in May 1922:


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Hobart News 11 May 1922.

The Guernsey family was planning another reunion.

I don't know who Albert Starr was, but he lived in Valparaiso (1920 Census).


Over in the left-hand column, we hear of an auto accident "south of Ainsworth," but we don't get enough details to figure out exactly where it happened.

Too Good to Be True

The Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society Museum has a big ledger titled, "Record of Recognizance Bonds," being the record of bonds posted for people charged with various misdeeds in Lake County from the late 1870s to the mid-1890s. Among them is this one dated May 18, 1883:


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Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.

Of course, when I saw that name I got all excited. While the notion that the Ainsworth stop on the Grand Trunk Railroad was named for a railroad executive comes only from a 2006 Post-Tribune article by Bob Burns, who qualified it with "reportedly," still I dreamed up a story about this mysterious executive who, after spending time in northwest Indiana in 1880 overseeing the construction of the railroad, became fond of the area, and especially of Cedar Lake; so a couple of years later he took a vacation there — but alas, he chose to fish in an unsportsmanlike manner, and fell into the hands of the law.

That story was too good to be true.

A little investigation into the census records turned up not a railroad executive, but a "laborer" living in Center Township, perhaps in or near Crown Point (since one of his neighbors is a deputy county clerk). Sidney Ainsworth was born circa 1852 in New York, and sometime after 1870 came out to Lake County and got married, not necessarily in that order (1870 Census, 1880 Census). The S.W. Ainsworth who co-signed his bond was his father, a Civil War veteran born circa 1821.

Neither lived long after the gill-net incident. Maplewood Cemetery in Crown Point is the final resting-place of both father and son.


Horace Marble was the Lake County sheriff at the time of this incident, having been elected in 1880. The 1880 Census showed him living in the town of Hobart, working as a "commission merchant," whatever that may be. As we know, his first wife, Mary, rests in Chester Cemetery.

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[12/2/2015 update] Here is Sidney Ainsworth's obituary, from the Lake County Star of May 31, 1889:


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Hobart Class of 1922: Walter Miller

Among the seniors at Hobart High School in the spring of 1922 was Ainsworth's own Walter Miller.


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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Seeing that title — "Duke of Ainsworth" — made me wonder if we had misidentified this photo … but no, that Duke of Ainsworth is not Walter Miller. Ainsworth had more than one Duke, it seems.

Walter's sister, Ruth, had graduated from Hobart High in 1917. With Ruth now married and living in Michigan, Walter was the only child left at home.

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Among the random photos printed in the 1922 Aurora yearbook is a pair of shots from the upper floor of the old high school on Fourth Street:



In the photo on the left, the camera is pointed toward New Street; the library building (now the Hobart Historical Society museum) is in the upper left-hand corner. In the photo on the right, the camera points northwesterly; in the upper right we see just a corner of the second M.E. Church, with the old parsonage next door.

Ross Township Graduates

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Hobart Gazette 19 May 1922.

Judging by the names, District 2 was the W.G. Haan School. Laverne Niksch was the son of Edward and Tillie. Gilbert was the orphan boy adopted by Lee and Lena Hunter. Edwin Paine, brother of Alice, is listed in the 1920 Census as "Alfred E." and in the 1930 Census and "A. Edwin." Franklin Lindborg — well, we even have his graduation photo (wish I knew who the friend was). Gordon Argo was the son of George and Rachel "Rae" Argo.

The only one I don't really know is Andy Meyer. After poking around a bit on Ancestry.com, I think he might be the son of John and Martha Meyers, as the 1920 Census enumerator spelled it, who then lived in Hobart Township on the "East Gary Road near Cemetery" — which sounds like N. Lake Park Avenue near Crown Hill Cemetery, but I'm not sure about any of this.


As for the other districts, I'm don't know which schools they meant. Part of the problem is that I don't know which schools were still operating. The Merrillville and Vincent schools, of course, and maybe the Adams school …but who knows what else?

"Dead Man's Crossing" and School Plumbing

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Hobart Gazette 19 May 1922.

We've already read of one particularly horrific accident at the Merrillville C&O crossing; that may have been enough, or perhaps there were others, to inspire the "dead man's crossing" nickname.

The description of the new school building about to go up in Wheeler and be plumbed by Lee & Rhodes sounds like the one still standing at Fifth and North (but no longer a school):



I don't know where the "present building at Union Center" was in 1922 — possibly in the vicinity of present-day Union Center Elementary School, but that's just a guess.

Lee & Rhodes were also installing new toilets in the Nickel Plate depot, the old ones having been condemned, along with "a number of other toilets about the city," several weeks earlier by the secretary of Hobart's board of health.


Additional Sources:
♦ "City Council Doings." Hobart Gazette 5 May 1922.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 18 May 1922.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 19 May 1922.