Joy in Mudville (Random Pointless Photo)

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Last summer I planned to spend the long, cold, snowy winter holed up in my cozy little house, doing all sorts of wonderful things to my blog.

Instead we get day after day of spring-like weather, and I simply must spend every afternoon outside, digging tree stumps out of the ground. Out of the mud, I mean. Mud everywhere. Mud, mud, mud, mud, mud. Mud on my boots. Mud on my clothes. Mud on my face. Mud on my dog. Mud tracked all over the floor of my house. Mud on the furniture. Mud on the walls.

But every time one of those stumps finally gives up and lets itself be heaved out of the mud, it is a moment of joy and exultation.

That red thing in the foreground, by the way, is a Honeysuckle Popper and I love it.

Lined Up Alphabetically by Height (Unidentified Glass-Plate Image)

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

No identification on this dim photo, but it's not so dim that I can't see that the young woman second from the left is the ubiquitous Tekla Anderson. At least, I think so.

The woman at the right end looks familiar, but I can't place her.

Let's Stop This Nonpartisanship

In its issue of January 24, 1919, the Hobart Gazette proclaimed that it would henceforward consider itself on the side of the Democratic party.

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I don't know if "Independent" in this case meant sympathy with an independent party (was there an independent party consistently present during those years?), or sympathy with no particular party. I can't say I've perceived any political bias in the Gazette at all over the years.

What "Democratic" meant remains to be seen.

(Note that the "Stray Thoughts" under that article include a continuation of the Gazette's fight with the News over how Hobart ought to supply its citizens with electricity.)

Eyes (Unidentified Glass-Plate Image)

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

No ID on this young woman with piercing eyes. As you can see, it's a photo of a photo, and the original mounting board was embossed with the name of August Haase.

How the Harmses Partied, Part 2

We have seen how the Harms family could party on the important occasion of a wedding. Now we get a reminder of what they could do even on a lesser occasion like a birthday celebration for Anna Harms.


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From the "Local and Personal" column of the Hobart News, Jan. 23, 1919.

What gets me is the luncheon at midnight. I have not yet reached my 59th birthday and I cannot stay awake until midnight, let alone eat "an appetizing luncheon" at that hour.

If this was anything like other Harms family gatherings, they did not just sit around talking until it was time to eat. They were a musical family, and Henry Harms, Jr. in particular was a talented violinist. Perhaps he was not in attendance — why the paper mentions his wife but not Henry Jr. himself is puzzling — but if he was, surely he brought his violin; and anyway, someone could always play the piano. And as for the others, they likely rolled up the rug and danced.

Photographer's Holiday, Part 2 (Unidentified Glass-Plate Image)

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

No notes to tell us where our photographer shot this paddle-wheel steamboat, but I don't think it was in Hobart.

Farm Bureau Drive

Nobody seems to have any good reason why farmers should not be organized. When men engaged in such work as chimney sweeps, bootblacks, window washers and flat janitors find reasons for organizing unions, and paying a large membership fee thereto, it would seem that the farmer, who is the backbone of the nation, oftentimes working with thousands of dollars' worth of capital, should join hands with his neighbor in an organization which has for its purpose nothing else than the furthering of this interests.

With these words, printed in both of Hobart's newspapers (and, no doubt, in newspapers all over Lake County), Virgil Place urged local farmers to join in the "Farm Bureau movement," the rising effort to create a farmers' union, which would culminate in the formation of the American Farm Bureau Federation later that year.

Virgil's immediate concern was to stir up interest among Lake County farmers. The "membership drive" was set for January 27 through February 1, 1919, with a structure reminiscent of the Liberty Loan and Red Cross drives of the war. Virgil was county chairman; each township in the county had its own leader (Alex Boyd in Ross Township, John Larson, Jr. in Hobart Township) commanding teams who would go out and talk to farmers, explaining the farm bureau concept and urging the farmers to join. The effectiveness of the county farm bureau depended upon membership.

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In another case of farmers looking after their own interests, the regional milk producers' association revived its pre-war plans for its own marketing company, which had been put on hold during the war. This cooperative marketing company was intended to replace the middlemen who now skimmed off some of the farmers' profits as the milk moved to the retailers who sold it to consumers.

On January 14 the milk producers' association called a meeting in Gary. With many dairy farmers from Lake and Porter Counties in attendance, the association's representatives explained how the marketing company was intended to work and asked that the farmers enter contracts with the company for all their milk by February 1, when the company was expected to begin operating.

From there, things moved quickly. Within ten days the Milk Producers' Co-operating Marketing Co.,* headquartered in Chicago, rented space for its local office in Room 242 in the Gary Building at 515 Broadway in Gary. By the end of the month it was in business.

But the 16,500 dairy farmers in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana who belonged to the milk producers' association faced a drop in milk prices early in February. After an all-day conference with milk distributors, the association was able to avert a strike only by agreeing to a price of $3.50 per hundred pounds, instead of the $3.70 the milk producers had wanted. The association explained their compromise by pointing out that distributors already had a surplus of milk, and feed prices had gone down from their wartime highs.

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*Its name varies slightly from one report to another.


Sources:
♦ "Farmers' County Organization." Hobart Gazette 24 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Lake County Farm Bureau Membership Drive Next Week." Hobart News 23 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Marketing Co. Operating." Hobart Gazette 31 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Membership Drive Next Week." Hobart Gazette 24 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Milk Producers' Co-Operating and Marketing Company." Hobart News 30 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Milk Producers' Marketing Company Preparing for Business." Hobart News 16 Jan. 1919.
♦ "News From the County Agent." Hobart News 23 Jan. 1919.
♦ "To Start Operation Feb. 1st." Hobart Gazette 24 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Wholesale Price of Milk For February Takes a Drop." Hobart News 6 Feb. 1919.