"The Marriage of Her Brother"

I have previously gotten pretty well convinced that Julius Triebess married Sophie Mankey in Chicago on June 11, 1901. Thus, this little item from the "Miller Murmurings" column of the Hobart Gazette of June 14, 1901, pretty well convinces me that Julius and Lena Triebess were brother and sister: "Miss Lena Triebess went to South Chicago to attend the marriage of her brother."

Although that item does not specify June 11, it would be a great coincidence if two Triebess men with local ties were married in Chicago during the same week … and no mention of such a coincidence appeared in the local paper. Ergo, I am pretty well convinced.

The Gordon House

As some of you already know, the Gordon house has new owners, who have begun the difficult process of restoring this lovely old place. Because they have enough work to do, I volunteered to look into the microfilm and other records in search of some background on the house to share with them … and with the readers of this blog.

Let's get straight to the good part: the spring of 1909, when construction first began.


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Hobart Gazette May 7, 1909.

The electric-line franchise is discussed in more detail in the left-hand column of this page. As we know, the streetcar line ended up taking a different route — passing a block south of Dr. Gordon's house, rather than right past it.

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He went by "E.R." and I'm beginning to wonder if it's because he himself didn't know whether his first name was Edwin or Edward. It shows up both ways. With the help of Paula Isolampi of the Hobart Historical Society, I've come up with a theory: he was christened Edwin after his paternal grandfather, but he didn't like that name, and as soon as he was old enough to impose his will on others, he started making them call him Edward, or just Ed. Professionally and publicly, he used his initials — a common practice at the time.

E.R. Gordon was born December 7, 1878 (Indiana Death Certificates). His parents were John and Lushia (aka Lucy) Gordon, whose brick house used to stand on the southwest corner of Center and Second Streets (and where four-year-old E.R. was photographed on the porch). His father was a druggist, and his uncle, Pliny P. Gordon, a doctor, so medicine ran in his blood, I suppose you could say.

To find out the details of his life, we must look to his death — which came early; the poor soul had scarcely three years to enjoy living with his family in his beautiful house. Here are his obituaries from the two Hobart papers of 1912.


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Hobart News 26 Dec. 1912.



Hobart Gazette 27 Dec. 1912.


It's interesting that E.R. went to Battle Creek originally as a patient. He did more there than rest and recuperate, according to accounts at the time of his marriage (1908), which described him practicing his profession in a sanatorium. But we'll get to that later.

Something You Didn't Know About Jay Sharpe

Since he proved so elusive in the census and other records, we had nothing to prove that Jay Sharpe ever existed except that one glass-plate negative, taken in April 1906.

Now we have a little more, which I have added to the post with his glass-plate image.

August 15, 1976, 4:15 a.m.

Here is another view of Hobart's water tower … watching over an alien landscape, in another world and another time.


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Photograph by Thomas Wells. Used with permission.

Mrs. Jacob Hurlburt's Mother

Mary Louise Gustafson's obituary gave me the maiden name of Jacob Hurlburt's wife, Augusta.


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Hobart Gazette Mar. 9, 1923.


The obit describes Augusta as well as Mary as a resident of Union Township, Porter County; if that was true, I suspect it was only temporary. As we know, by 1923 Augusta and Jacob Hurlburt had plenty of their own land in Ross Township, and the 1920 Census shows them living there. However, if we look at a 1921 plat map of Union Township, we find land belonging to Claus Gustafson and a residence of Linder Gustafson:


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Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/UnionTownshipMaps.html.

And indeed, the 1920 Census reports Mary Gustafson living there with her 32-year-old son, Linder, who was unmarried.

However, if Mary's health was seriously declining, I doubt that the family would leave her nursing to a bachelor son — quite possibly Augusta Hurlburt stayed there to tend to her mother in her final illness. That may account for the confusion about where Augusta lived.

Hobart's Second Water Tower

This undated photograph shows the town's second* water tower (now gone) at the east end of what is now Jerry Pavese Park. The building to the right of it is, I believe, the water filtration plant (now gone) and to the right of that, the NIPSCO building (still standing).


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Image courtesy of the Eldon Harms family.


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*The first one was on New Street.

A Funeral and a Wedding

On March 4, 1923, Maria Eickemann Kramer — a former Ainsworthite — was reunited with her husband, Jacob Kramer, Sr.


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Hobart News, 8 Mar. 1923.


On a happier note, we find sister Bertha Busse marrying George Smith — whose father, Sela Smith, had probably been born on the Smith farm southwest of Ainsworth. Mrs. Emil Scharbach was, as we know, sister Emma. Neither Bertha's father nor her sister Adeline lived to see this happy occasion.


Additional Sources:
♦ "Death of Mrs. Jacob Kramer," Hobart Gazette 9 Mar. 1923.
♦ "Smith-Busse Nuptial," Hobart Gazette 9 Mar. 1923.