Reminiscing in 1922

In the summer of 1922, the Hobart News turned ten years old. Its editor wrote up some memories of Hobart as he had found it ten years earlier, and how it had changed. Indeed, the whole world had changed in those ten years.


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Hobart News 3 Aug. 1922.

… And the Odd Fellows/Daughters of Rebekah recognized Mary Kipp's distinguished service, but we are not informed of exactly what the service was.

Wildflowers of Ainsworth: Wild Leek Leaves

Here is an impressive colony of wild leeks growing in Deep River County Park:


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These are the leaves that wither away before the blossoms appear.

A close-up, so you can see their red stems:

Blimp

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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

Here's a Goodyear blimp moored in the open field at the north side of the Hobart Sky Ranch Airport (so I'm told).

The Hobart Gazette of July 16, 1970, tells us why it was hanging around here:

The giant Goodyear Blimp, AMERICA, has been a welcome local visitor this week. It is staying at the Hobart Sky Ranch on North Lake Park Avenue during the celebration of the opening of the new Port at Burns Harbor. The first ocean going vessel will dock at Indiana's international port today. (Thursday) The AMERICA has been flying guests around the area and lighting up at night in four colors with signs reading "Port of Indiana, New Gateway to the Midwest."

Hands Off His Apples!

County Line Road, that orphan road, was getting some theoretical attention from both Lake and Porter County road commissions in July 1922. They were even contemplating building a bridge over the Grand Trunk Railroad, which would not be too difficult since even today the railroad sits in a dip between two rises in the road. Think of it! We might have had a nice rickety wooden bridge like the old Sedley Bridge! — but, alas, no bridge was ever built there.

If you went a little further south to the Lincoln Highway, you could make $4.00 a day doing concrete work.


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Hobart Gazette 28 July 1922.

In other news, somebody has been stealing Owen Nelson's apples. He identified his current residence as the "Parks place." Here is the Parks place as it appears on the 1908 Plat Map.


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I believe that corresponds roughly with the open field lying on the south side of 6th Street's eastern dead end:



Last I heard, Owen and Caroline Nelson had moved onto the "Hoffman farm," which I hadn't clearly identified; but if it was the Hoffman land I marked in Section 32 on the excerpt from the 1926 Plat Book in the linked post, then it would have included the old Parks place.

Grace Rossow

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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

Grace was the youngest of Theodore and Annie Rossow's children, born circa 1911 (1920 Census), on their Union Township farm, perhaps.

I am told that she had a spinal deformity — a rounded back — and the family story that has come down to us is that Annie and Theodore were out driving in their car one day, with Annie holding the infant Grace, when they saw another car heading straight toward them. In a panic, Annie threw the baby out of the car window, clear of the smash-up … but when the baby hit the ground, she suffered injuries that caused her rounded spine.

I don't know if the story is correct about the cause of Grace's back problems, but it's bad enough that Annie felt (or was deemed) responsible.

Rossow's Coffee Shop

Here's another matchbook cover.



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I do not know when Rossow's Coffee Shop opened, nor how long it operated — not long, perhaps, since it eluded the memories collected in 1979.

The shop was owned by Annie Rossow, and staffed by two of her daughters, Lillian and Grace, as evidenced by this entry in the 1940-41 City Directory:



So they were living in Hobart, but I cannot find them anywhere in the 1940 census. By that time Anna was a widow; her husband, Theodore, had died in 1936.

The coffee shop was located in a narrow building that stood where the north part of Kellen's flower shop is now. Eldon Harms tells me the building was so narrow that you could just about stretch your arms out to the side and touch its two interior walls at the same time. (The 1922 Sanborn map isn't clear on that dimension.)

In cold weather, Eldon used to stop in there after working a shift at NIPSCO, to warm up with some of their hot vegetable soup. The Rossows also made their own pies fresh every day. One row of small tables stood along an interior wall, with room to walk along the other interior wall. At the back was a small counter, perpendicular to the interior walls, with a few stools in front of it. You could eat there, or at one of the tables.

That narrow building can be seen in a few of the photos linked in the 342 Main Street entry of the Downtown Hobart 1979 blog:


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The image above and the two below are courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.





The middle photo, taken during the Hobart Centennial celebration, is interesting because it shows an "EAT" sign hanging out over the narrow building. And then there is this photo, which I have scanned from the April/May 2011 edition of the Generations magazine, where it is credited to "the Niksch family":



Per Eldon Harms, those two ladies are (left to right) Grace and Lillian Rossow. Lillian appears to be dressed for a centennial celebration, doesn't she? On the other hand, I can't find a listing for Rossow's Coffee Shop (or for any Rossow) in the 1947 telephone directory. Maybe the town had some sort of old-timey-days festival at another time.

The former Rossow's Coffee Shop, along with its neighbor to the south, was demolished to make way for the flower shop — built in 1969, per the Lake County records.

Lost Sight

This poor kid — he lost the sight in one eye, and no one knew (or cared to tell) more about him than his surname.


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Hobart News 27 July 1922.

The Gazette described him as an "orphan boy." I think he might possibly be the orphaned Raymond Brink whom the 1920 Census shows living in the household of Marcene and Helen Haxton, in Union Township, Porter County. If so, he was about 20 years old at the time of this accident. He had a twin brother, Roy, who has already caused me some confusion.

(At the bottom of that column is an item about the newly established Little Red Hen restaurant, with most of its business from out-of-town tourists, which makes me wonder if it was located along the Yellowstone Trail. Its proprietor was Hobart's first librarian, by this time married to the man with whom she had climbed the water tower.)

♦    ♦    ♦
Elsewhere in the same issue of the News, we find Carrie Raschka spending a week at Koontz Lake with her daughters and (I believe) her mother-in-law …


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Hobart News 27 July 1922.

… while Charlie DeWell and the former Anne Fleck (now Mrs. Alfred G. Ingram) were dealing with health problems.

Last and least, drainage was being installed on the east side of the Ainsworth road, now known as Grand Boulevard/State Road 51 — this would be near the township line, where the road had been in a bad condition the previous spring.


Additional Sources:
♦ "General News." Hobart Gazette 28 July 1922.
♦ "Raymond Brink Dies at Age 71." Hobart Gazette 4 Oct. 1973.