Happy New Year!

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Here are my cousins welcoming 1945 in style!

Hoodoo? We Do!

In spite of bad roads, the East Ross Community Association continued holding entertainments at the W.G. Haan school during the winter of 1921. (Also, the "Births" column brings news of some acquaintances, and I do not know where the Buchfuehrer baby was buried.)


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I can't identify this "Mrs. O'Leary" who is promising to direct the upcoming play; the 1930 census shows a 64-year-old Margaret O'Leary living on the Sunderman farm in Ross Township, but she is listed as single. As for the play itself, though I can't find its text, other selections from its its author's body of work give you some notion of its tone.

The February 4 meeting felt the effect of the weather on the unpaved roads.



I don't know exactly what that reference to "Dinah and Sambo" means, but I fear the worst, and it may have involved blackface.

(Some sad news in this week's "Births" column about the former Carrie Zobjeck.)


Sources:
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ "Ainsworth Community Meeting." Hobart Gazette 11 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Ainsworth Community Meeting." Hobart News 10 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Births." Hobart News 3 Feb. 1921; 10 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Community Meeting at Ainsworth, Friday Evening, Feb. 4." Hobart News 3 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 3 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Play at Ainsworth, Feb. 18." Hobart Gazette 4 Feb. 1921.

Stop Teasing Your Grandma!

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Image courtesy of Diane Barnes.

To me, these unidentified people suggest three generations of a family. I don't know what that kid in the striped sweater, at center, is doing with his hands. Is he making devil's horns behind his grandma's head?? — kids these days!

This photo was among Lillie Newman Barnes', but it wasn't in the "John Gruel Farm" envelope. Like an earlier photo from the envelope, it includes a well kept setting, canna lilies and a gentleman with white facial hair … who's now in profile, inconveniently for comparison; moreover, the world is full of canna lilies; and furthermore, going by the women's fashions, I would set this photo in the mid- to late 1920s, meaning there's at least 15 years between the two photos.

Short answer: I don't know.

Didn't It Already Have One?

Paul Newman was selling Fords, among other things, in the winter of 1921. He sold one of them to John Ensign.

Paul's business was doing well, apparently, since he was "planning to build a second story on his garage building." According to the 1979 oral history, his garage was the Third Street part of the building at Third and Center streets. And here I was, thinking that place always had a second floor!


Sources:
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 10 Feb. 1921.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 11 Feb. 1921.

When Life Gives You Lemons

From the steamer trunk.


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Images courtesy of E.H.



Who wrote to Herman Harms suggesting a squeeze?

My guess is Minnie Rossow, disguising her handwriting.

Update

We have an update on the latest Main and Third postcard, and it makes nice tragic reading for this happy season.

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas from 1963 (or thereabouts). That's my brother and I at our grandparents' house.