Hobart Then and Now: The Pennsy Bridge

This is an update to my 2013 post.

Circa 1906, and 2020


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The original Pennsy Railroad bridge over the Deep River, dating to the 1850s, had charmed generations of Hobart residents and visitors. With its graceful arches, it was a favorite of photographers and artists.

In 2018/2019, it was demolished and replaced by a new bridge that has plenty of water capacity but zero charm.

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I have two real-photo postcards with this view of the original bridge. The one above is the clearer of the two, but the year in its postmark is illegible. Here is the other one, postmarked 1906:



I find this one interesting for its message — the writer says "these views" are taken by one of her "old pupils." So evidently she is or was a teacher, and her name is Maude. I went looking in the 1900 and 1910 censuses for a schoolteacher named Maude, and found Helen Maud Quinnell (she was Maud in 1900 and Helena in 1910). She appeared among the faculty in the first Hobart High School annual in 1908.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

In the 1900 census she described herself as a schoolteacher, but in the 1910 census, she gave her occupation as "none."

I remember coming across that name — Quinnell — now and then in my newspaper reading, but never in connection with anything juicy. Helen Maud was born in 1880 in Illinois. Her father was H(arry) T(homas) Quinnell, her mother Anna (Bridgman). She had two younger sisters, Beatrice and Blanche (we've previous seen a photo of Blanche as a member of Hobart High's class of 1904). The family left Illinois sometime after 1888;[1] the 1891 Plat Book shows them owning a farm of some 30 acres just southeast of Lake Station. They still owned it per the 1908 Plat Map:


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After the 1910 census, I lose track of all the Quinnells.


As for the photographer, the "old pupil" whose hand may have written the caption on both postcard images — I don't have a clue.

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[1] That is the latest date when I can find H.T. registered to vote in Cook County, Illinois, per Ancestry.com.

Season's Greetings from Luxembourg, 1918

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Images courtesy of Marilyn Duran.

The Armistice was just two weeks old when George Bruebach, Jr., wrote these holiday greetings to the folks back home in Hobart.

The Girl in an Abandoned House

She was photographed in Chicago, probably sometime in the first decade of the 20th century, but she meant something to someone in Hobart, where this photo ended up …


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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

… but then again, she meant nothing to someone in Hobart, where this photo was left in an abandoned house, and found by Eldon Harms, whose employer had sent him to shut off the gas in that house so it could be demolished.

I can't date the photograph with any precision. Her blouse and the bow in her hair could date to anytime between the turn of the 20th century and World War I. The photographers, Fein & Schnabel, were in business at that address for over a decade: Chicago Photographers 1847 through 1900 shows them starting out in 1897, and a 1910 Chicago directory records them still working together at that same address.[1]

She wears a heart-shaped locket, just like Baby Les.

I don't suppose I'll ever know who she was.

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[1] The following year Jacob Fein, photographer, is listed at that address without reference to Schnabel, but that might not mean anything.

Baby Les, Bejeweled

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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

On the back of the original photo, someone has written: "Les baby picture," and since this photo was among those that had belonged to Lester Harms, I gather it's Lester himself. He was born August 10, 1904 (Indiana Death Certificates), and while the photo is undated, Lester appears to be perhaps three months old, which would mean the photo was taken in the autumn of 1904. The photographer was August Haase.

Lester's parents, John and Sophia (Schavey) Harms, have dressed their baby very nicely — just to have his photo taken, or was there some special occasion that this portrait commemorates?

He wears a ring on one finger of his right hand, and a heart-shaped pendant (a choking hazard, but they didn't think about things that way in 1904).

He is staring straight at the camera with such a look of curiosity!

Independence Hill Fire Department 1946-1947

The volunteer fire department of the Independence Hill area of Merrillville got up a little booklet in 1946 as a means of raising funds for equipment or supplies.


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They sold advertising space to local businesses (going as far east as Ainsworth's The Pantry, even) and then, I suppose, distributed the booklet around the community. The booklet includes lists of active firemen and charter members, as well as a brief history of the fire department and photographs of its officers.

I have scanned the entire booklet and you may view it here.

This particular copy comes from the estate of Dr. Doris Papke Blaney via the Hobart Historical Society, which passed it along to the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society (in the belief that the latter was more properly concerned with Independence Hill).

In the online files of The Times, I found an informal history of Independence Hill written by Bruce Woods in 2008.

The Reaper

Who is this young man reaping the harvest of 1911?


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I don't know; but I think it may have been a member of the Kraft family of Hobart (well, technically, of rural Porter County northeast of Hobart, but let's not get picky), because it was sent by Fred Kraft, Jr.



Fred Jr. was about 36 when he sent this postcard. From what I can see of the young man in the photo, he looks younger than mid-30s. There was a 19-year-old brother, Ralph, who seems a more likely candidate, if this reaper is indeed a Kraft.

Fred Jr.'s parents were Fred Sr. (of course) and Elizabeth "Eliza" Ream — which answers one of my earliest questions in this blog, about the connection between the Kraft and Ream families. They had nine children, all of whom lived to adulthood.

The family was living in Indiana by the time of Fred Jr.'s birth in 1875, and to judge by the 1880 census, they were already in the area of Portage Township where they would settle permanently; but the earliest plat map where I can find the Fred Kraft farm dates to 1895.


Image from https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1895Plats/Portage-1895.jpg

The 1876 plat map shows 40 acres of that land owned by D. Kraft — likely Fred Sr.'s brother, Dan.

On the 1895 map, there's a square marking a house in approximately the same spot where that lovely old brick farmhouse stands today. The Porter County records give 1900 as the build date for the house (but you know my opinion about "1900").

Fred Jr. lived and worked on that farm through the 1940 Census. He never married. He died in 1951 and was buried in Hobart Cemetery.


As for this Michael Pister who received the card in Chicago — if there was any family connection between him and the Krafts, I don't know about it. And the Henry whom Frank Kraft, Jr. wanted to hear from was Michael's brother. The 1910 Census records them as 30-something bachelors living with their parents in Chicago, working in their father's tin shop.

Within three months of the date of this postcard, the Reaper came for Henry.


Chicago Inter Ocean, Sept. 22, 1911.

(That last sentence is probably inaccurate, as Henry's obituary in the Chicago Tribune of September 24, 1911, mentions no wife or children.)

A Bruebach Family Portrait

I received this photo from a Bruebach descendant, who tells me that it shows a family group on the Bruebach farm circa 1912.


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Photos courtesy of Marilyn Duran.

The extended and in-law Bruebach family at this time included an Abel as well as Manteuffels,[1] and probably other family names that I don't know about.

If this is the Bruebach farm, that must be the farmhouse in the background, and a very nice farmhouse it is. I can't match it up to anything still standing today; more's the pity.[2]

Only four people in this photo are identified, and here Marilyn has pulled them out to form their own little family group:



Clockwise from the top: Frank Abel, Jr. (b. 1880); his wife, Johanna (Bruebach, b. 1882); their son, Lester (b. 1911); and their daughter, Audis (b. 1907).

What strikes me is how unhappy both Frank and Audis look. Maybe they just didn't like having their picture taken; but then again, they might not have felt entirely comfortable among the Bruebachs. Unfortunately, Frank and Johanna's marriage was troubled. Later in the 1910s, their private drama would become public as the social columns of the local newspapers reported separations, reconciliations, and Johanna's filing of a divorce suit. Frank's death certificate (January 1919) describes him as divorced.

By then Johanna had taken the children and moved to Chicago. Marking the anniversaries of Frank's death through 1922, the local newspapers carried notices like this one:


Hobart News, January 22, 1920.


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[1] Elise Manteuffel married George Bruebach, Sr., in 1887 in Chicago (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index), thus beginning what would become the Bruebach family of Hobart.
[2] Assuming some remodeling, it looks a bit like 10 N. Hobart Road, which was built in 1899 per the county records and is not on the former Bruebach property.