Baseball Player

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Tom Rainford.

A handwritten note on the back of the original photo identifies this young athlete only as "R. Hendrix." At first I thought that the "R" must stand for Roy or Ray — that this was one of the three little Hendrixes, all (or half) grown up.

Only … this fellow couldn't be younger than about 16, could he? — which means, if he is indeed Ray/Roy, the photo must have been taken about 1930. And doesn't it all look a bit old-fashioned for 1930? I mean the laced-up jersey, and the painted backdrop of the photographer's studio … it makes me wonder.


[12/18/2016 update: compare the photo above to these.]

Let's Get Some Electricity Out Here

From this report on the doings of the Improvement Club of Ross Township, we can gather that by October 1922 Ainsworth still did not have electricity, and its citizens either went without or made their own.


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Hobart Gazette, 27 Oct. 1922.

I believe that the Eliza Wood Mackey who "Strangled Herself to Death" was the wife of Robert Mackey, twin brother of the late Richard Mackey. If I have found the right grave, she is buried under the surname Wood, though her maiden name, per her death certificate, would have been Powers. I believe she married Thomas Wood in 1872 (Indiana Marriage Collection).

John Wood School ca. 1962

The John Wood School looks freshly built in this aerial view:


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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The image is not otherwise dated.

Here is the same image with a couple of features marked.



The old Foreman house is still standing, though its outbuildings (aside from the pump house) are gone. I have marked the location of the old wooden Ainsworth school according to what I have been told. I can't clearly see it in those trees, though I do see something that looks like a small building.

The Triebess house lies just outside the left border of the photo. That house was built in 1849 according to the county records. If that date is correct, we may also call it the old Horace Marble house (per the 1874 Plat Map) and maybe even the old Booth house, since members of the Booth family owned that land in 1848 and 1850, per Early Land Sales, Lake County.

The white house along the left border was built in 1939 according to county records, and I haven't yet found out yet who built it.

From a Soldier to His Mother

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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.



We know that Walter Ensign served in the armed forces during World War I. Evidently he sent this postcard "From Walter to Mother" while he was in camp in Mississippi. (According to his 1921 passport application on Ancestry.com, he was eventually sent to France.)

I think that much is in Walter's own handwriting. Someone else came along and added the surname, thank goodness, or we might not have known who Walter was. And I don't actually know which of these soldiers is Walter.

"Mother" was Elizabeth-or-was-it-Nora (Shearer) Ensign.

Break

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Here are two of my foster kittens wishing everyone a Happy Election Day.

As for me, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm taking a blogging break.

For Sale at Goldman's

The Ainsworth general store was promoting sales in late October 1922.


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Hobart Gazette, 27 Oct. 1922.

I did not know what crash toweling was. According to Dictionary.com, crash is "a plain-weave fabric of rough, irregular, or lumpy yarns, for toweling, dresses, etc."

Peters shoes from that era are still floating around, along with the boxes they came in, to my surprise — e.g., men's shoes from the 1920s, and children's shoes from the turn of the century.


Elsewhere on the page above, we learn that the newlywed Walter and Hazel Veal were moving into a house I can't identify.

And south of Ainsworth, Caroline Campbell was "seriously ill."

I don't think I have ever shown the Campbell farm on a plat map. And now that I set about trying to, I can see why I might have avoided it, since I'm having trouble pinpointing its location in relation to modern-day roads. This image from the 1908 Plat Map shows the Campbell farm lying over the border between Ross and Winfield Townships [corrected image posted 11/28/2016]:


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Hobart Then and Now: Radio Field/Southlake Mall

1937, and 2016


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Image above courtesy of the Eldon Harms family.



I can't do a precise then-and-now shot because I can't identify exactly where the first photo was taken. Thanks to notes on the back, we know the year — 1937.



"Les" is Lester Harms (with his back to the camera), and "Dad" is his father, John Harms (in the driver's seat). They did not own this land; they may have rented it, or plowed it for hire. The field was called "Radio Field" because there were radio towers somewhere in it.

In the 1937 picture, there seems to be a road in the right background, with a house and farm outbuildings in the distance. We don't know which road that is, or whose house.

I never had a chance to look at this picture with Eldon Harms. It had been mislaid in his house, and in spite of the time he spent searching, it didn't turn up until after he had gone. "Where Southlake Mall is now," is how he described it, and "near I-65." I'm not sure if he himself, looking at the photo, could have told me exactly where it was taken.