Sweethearts and Smallpox

Just before Valentine's Day, the front page of the Gazette simultaneously invited people to a dance and warned them of the contagion that may lurk among the dancers:





Smallpox had come to town — but in a "mild form," according to the previous day's News as it reported on two "new" cases. The home of the Rev. J.C. Whitt was now under quarantine, Mrs. Whitt being ill with smallpox; likewise the home of Simeon and Abbie Bullock. Their 15-year-old grandson, Lester, was sick. If his mother, just then on another lengthy visit to Alva, Oklahoma, got the news, she apparently was not overly alarmed, as she did not return until early the next week.

By the next week, the home of Dave Young, south of Deepriver, was also on the quarantine list; and smallpox had "invaded" the Struble home in Hobart.

Early in March, Dr. Faulkner ordered fumigation of Hobart's school building and public library, "as a precautionary measure against smallpox."


Sources:
♦ Advertisement. Hobart Gazette 13 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Imperative Notice." Hobart Gazette 13 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 12 Feb. 1920; 19 Feb. 1920; 15 Mar. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 20 Feb. 1920.

Calvin's High Chair

Yet another artifact of Calvin Shearer's infancy, preserved in the Hobart Historical Society museum.

The display includes a typewritten account of the chair's history.


(Click on images to enlarge)

The chair is both beautiful and functional.





If this bowl and holder also date back to 1914, it's a miracle they survived the years unbroken.



The rhyme on the left side is one I never heard before:

One, two, three, four, five,
Catching fishes all alive:
Why did you let them go?
Because they bit my finger so.
Which finger did they bite?
The little finger on the right.

The rhyme on the right side I did learn, at least partially, as a child.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe:
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread,
Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

… That is to say, I remember the first two lines, but somehow I think the last two might have been dropped by the time it reached to me.

The Brotherhood of the Ugly Ties

From the Schavey envelope collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

I'm torn between awe and horror every time I look at that tie on the left.

The one on the right isn't bad in black-and-white, but I'm sure if the photo were in color we'd see that it was some hideous shade of yellow.

No ID, no date, I'm sort of guessing 1920s.

Occupation: Hero

From the Hobart Gazette of February 6, 1920, here's the story of a census-taker's adventure (transcribed for you since the microfilm copy is just awful).

Census Taker Proves a Hero

L.H. Haberman of Hobart, but at present staying with his family at East Gary, owing to the invalidism of his wife's mother, proved himself a true hero last week Thursday, while performing his duties as census taker, and saved the lives of three children and the possible burning of a house in Godair Park, a settlement in the southwest corner of the town of East Gary [now Lake Station]. He called at the back door of a modest house of some foreigner, and as he rapped, he heard the cry of a small child. Getting no response, he went to the front door, and there also got no response, neither did he hear any cries from a child, but noticed smoke oozing from the keyhole of the door. After running to a second neighbor's home he found a girl who could talk English, and she said the woman of the house he called at first had gone to Gary on the 1:15 car about 15 minutes before, and that there were three children in the house. Mr. Haberman then rushed back, secured a hatchet and broke a window, through which he entered the house through dense smoke, and in a crib felt a child, which he handed out the window, although he couldn't see, and then, on hands and knees, located the other two children under a bed, and rescued them. After regaining his breath, he located a smudge from paper and rags on the floor, and extinguished it with water.

The children comprised a 7-months-old babe, a 3-year-old invalid son and a 5-year-old son, the latter having secured matches and started a bonfire in the room.

Mr. Haberman saw the mother at 5 o'clock, when she returned from Gary. The babe was still unconscious, but came to later at the Mercy hospital. Mr. Haberman is entitled to a Carnegie medal.

Elsewhere in the Gazette, the make-believe adventures playing at the Gem Theatre:


(Click on image to enlarge)


Wallace Reid, 1891-1923
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

From what I can gather, the plot of "Alias Mike Moran" involved the Great War, but no known copies of the film exist. Likewise, "Paid in Full" and "The Test of Honor" are presumed lost.

Ice for Sale

From the Schavey envelope collection.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

That can't be Hobart, can it, with such terrain in the background? The hill at right looks like a pine-covered sand dune. Perhaps this is in Michigan, but that's just a wild guess.

I also must guess at the date since this photo has no helpful notes on it. From general appearances (the fashions, the car in the background) I'd say maybe late 1930s, early 1940s?

Calvin's Baby Booties

You remember Calvin Shearer, I'm sure.

I was delighted to find that the Hobart Historical Society museum has a pair of baby booties made for Calvin by his Aunt Bliss — probably in 1914, when he was born.


(Click on image to enlarge)

I certainly like to think it was Aunt Bliss's own hand cutting the scallops in the leather, sewing those tiny stitches and painting that lovely design. Three years ago I would have believed it without reservation; but these days such thoughts enter my head as that Aunt Bliss might have bought these for Calvin, and over the years in the telling and the understanding of this family story, "bought them" morphed into "made them herself" — in all good faith, for our minds play tricks on us.

Lillie and Alice

Today, just two grave markers, for two of the flu victims we read about yesterday.

In Hobart Cemetery, Lillie Rose Scholler's grave:


(Click on images to enlarge)

Not only do I not know, I do not even have any far-fetched theory as to why the year of her death is wrong.

She lies next to her parents …



… not her husband. Calvin, as we now know, went on to marry again.


Lillie Rose at the age of 18, from the Hobart High School Aurora yearbook for 1909. Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

♦    ♦    ♦
In the quiet little Woodvale Cemetery, Alice Baker Shoup's grave:



She, too, lies next to her parents. I do not know if her husband remarried.

Her obituaries tell a little about her family. She was George and Harriet Baker's daughter, and thus William's sister. Her other siblings were George Jr., Robert (listed as John R. in the 1900 Census), Mrs. Thomas Keene, Mrs. Schuyler Hardesty, Mrs. John Sandberg and Ada Baker. The 1900 Census gives the three married sisters' first names as Lizzie, Alice and Susan, but I don't know which became which "Mrs."