An Ainsworth Halloween

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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

From left to right: Minnie Rossow Harms, Herman Harms, and Ella Rossow Rolff. This photo is undated. Judging by the height of Ella's hem, I wouldn't date it before 1924, and the fact that it's taken on the old Harms homestead on Ainsworth Road means it must date before 1938. Minnie looks as if she might be pregnant, but then again maybe she just stuffed a pillow under her costume, as Herman did!

A second photo shows just Minnie and Herman. In the background we can see a man and child by the tree. That might be Ella's husband, Gus, and one of their daughters. Their first daughter was born in 1927.



The third shows Ella and Herman.



All these photos were taken in the front yard, with the photographer facing east. The building in the background was the granary. A driveway passed between it and the fence; the Harmses would drive a horse and box wagon full of grain up the driveway and load the grain into the granary through a window. On its south side (between it and Ainsworth Road) was a small garden. The granary is long gone.

Hobart Class of 1922: Lynn Peterson

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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

After the death of his brother, Herbert, in 1916, Lynn was the eldest of Frank and Mabel Peterson's surviving children.

The Peterson farm lay on the west side of Grand Blvd. at its intersection with E. 93rd Ave. — here is how the 1926 Plat Book showed it (taken from an earlier post):


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As we know, Lynn Peterson would marry Grace Nelson in 1929 — but its seems that his classmates had already noticed his liking for her.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Visiting the Farm

In May 1922 Julius Triebess came down from Chicago to remind me that he existed, and to visit his farm just south of Ainsworth. I do not know who was living there at this time; the last I heard (autumn 1919) it had been rented to the Harris brothers, but in November 1921 they had held a sale of livestock, machinery, etc. ("Public Sale," Hobart News 17 Nov. 1922) — an event that usually preceded a departure.


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 12 May 1922.

Among the other items that caught my attention was the detour sign "at the Deepriver schoolhouse"; that is, at 73rd and Randolph. So which way did that sign direct travelers? North, I suppose, along Randolph, and thence the motorist would take Ainsworth Road, to County Line Road, and again turn north, and take either the road (450 N) that passes by the site of the Hoosier's Nest, wend their way along the back roads to Wheeler, thence to … no, they'd probably be wiser to stick to main-traveled roads, taking County Line Road north all the way to Cleveland/700 N, then known as the Hobart-Valpo Road.

Speaking of the (former) Deepriver schoolhouse — yet another dance there. It was a lively place.

I have often noticed the dignified two-story brick house on the north side of E. 10th Street, just east of the intersection with S. Hobart Rd. Now I know it was George Lutz's house. Here is his property as it appeared in the 1926 Plat Book:


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Hobart Class of 1922: Wayne Nelson

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Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Wayne, who lived in the village of Ainsworth, was the youngest of Lovisa Chester Nelson's children. His sister, Grace, had graduated in 1921.

Wayne was, apparently, short.



And if I'm interpreting the "Bughouse Fables" correctly, he was forever writing notes to his classmates.

Betty Koepke Again

Another sighting of Betty Koepke added to the "On Sykes Farm" post.

South of Deepriver

Social news from the countryside early in May 1922:


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Hobart News 11 May 1922.

The Guernsey family was planning another reunion.

I don't know who Albert Starr was, but he lived in Valparaiso (1920 Census).


Over in the left-hand column, we hear of an auto accident "south of Ainsworth," but we don't get enough details to figure out exactly where it happened.

Too Good to Be True

The Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society Museum has a big ledger titled, "Record of Recognizance Bonds," being the record of bonds posted for people charged with various misdeeds in Lake County from the late 1870s to the mid-1890s. Among them is this one dated May 18, 1883:


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Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.

Of course, when I saw that name I got all excited. While the notion that the Ainsworth stop on the Grand Trunk Railroad was named for a railroad executive comes only from a 2006 Post-Tribune article by Bob Burns, who qualified it with "reportedly," still I dreamed up a story about this mysterious executive who, after spending time in northwest Indiana in 1880 overseeing the construction of the railroad, became fond of the area, and especially of Cedar Lake; so a couple of years later he took a vacation there — but alas, he chose to fish in an unsportsmanlike manner, and fell into the hands of the law.

That story was too good to be true.

A little investigation into the census records turned up not a railroad executive, but a "laborer" living in Center Township, perhaps in or near Crown Point (since one of his neighbors is a deputy county clerk). Sidney Ainsworth was born circa 1852 in New York, and sometime after 1870 came out to Lake County and got married, not necessarily in that order (1870 Census, 1880 Census). The S.W. Ainsworth who co-signed his bond was his father, a Civil War veteran born circa 1821.

Neither lived long after the gill-net incident. Maplewood Cemetery in Crown Point is the final resting-place of both father and son.


Horace Marble was the Lake County sheriff at the time of this incident, having been elected in 1880. The 1880 Census showed him living in the town of Hobart, working as a "commission merchant," whatever that may be. As we know, his first wife, Mary, rests in Chester Cemetery.

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[12/2/2015 update] Here is Sidney Ainsworth's obituary, from the Lake County Star of May 31, 1889:


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