Elizabeth BAKER was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany on March 20, 1834. Elizabeth came to Logansport in 1853 where she married Henry E KRUG, born Aug 15, 1825 in Germany. She had lived at 5 Humphrey Street, Logansport, IN for many years. Several pictures of Henry KRUG as a young man in Germany exist, one of these was taken in the same studio as that of a member of the Prosch family -- same chair and background. It was said that Elizabeth had come from Germany with nothing because she had been disinherited or ran away because of marriage. One child was born in Richmond in 1856, a related BAKER family seems to have lived there.

Elizabeth had a brother, Phillip BAKER, who had THREE children; Mary, Lotta, and Theodore BAKER. They lived in Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois.

     One daughter and her husband had preceded Elizabeth quite some time before she died. It is unknown when Henry arrived in the U.S. He lived to be 79 years and 1 day. He died on August 16, 1904, at 2:00 pm, of old age. H.R. STORES? was the physician in Covington, IN. The funeral was through Kruger Funeral Home. The horse drawn hearse and taking 1 additional carriage were used. Remarks on the "Particulars for the Funeral"; Remains to arrive here Thursday on 10:20 a.m. train and to be taken direct to Mt. Hope cemetery in Logansport, IN. Elizabeth died on July 29, 1914 at 4:40 p.m., at the age of 80 years 4 months 9 days. After laying at home, the funeral was held 2:30 pm on Sunday, August 2, 1914 at the German Lutheran Church in Logansport, IN. Burial was at Mt. Hope cemetery. The minister was H.E. Stuehm and the physician was N.L. PALMER. The robe was White(cream), the hearse was Break vault and there were three carriages. The bill was to be charged to John D PROSCH of 1917 Spear Street. Three children & wife . . .Theodore Krug, Onieags? Illinois, Mrs. Mary Prusch, Miss Elizabeth KRUG, both of the city(Logansport, IN).

Children of Henry Krug and Elizabeth Baker;

i. Theodore A2 Krug, b. Bef. 1856; m. Wilhelmina C 'Minnie' Wooster, Sep 18, (or 28) 1877, Cass Co, IN. They had 6 children: Carrie Krug; Mary Krug m. Henry Berg and had Roy Berg and Grace Berg; Dora Krug m. Unknown Geisler; Henry Krug; Flora Krug and Fred W. Krug b. Feb 10, 1887 in Cass Co, IN.
ii. Mary Katherine Krug, b. Jun 15, 1856, Richmond, Wayne Co, IN; d. Aug 16, 1937, Logansport, Tipton twp, Cass Co, IN; m. John Daniel Prosch, Jul 29, 1875, Cass Co, IN; b. Mar 03, 1854, Elmshorn, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany; d. Oct 19, 1933, Logansport, Tipton twp, Cass Co, IN.
iii. Elizabeth Krug, b. Aft. 1857; m. Fred Kieffer.
iv. Salena Krug, b. Abt. 1859, Logansport, Cass Co, IN; d. Feb 21, 1878, Logansport, Cass Co, IN.

 
 

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John Daniel PROSCH

         John Daniel PROSCH, (born in 1854) was a shoe cobbler for many years on twelfth street, between Spear and Market Streets, in Logansport, IN. His children's occupations were varied; carpentry for one, railroad shop workers, machinists, druggist, tool and die maker in first generation. Four sons and a son-in-law served in armed forces in first generation. In second generation there were seven, one death. In three generations there were only three infant deaths. The parents celebrated more than 50 years each -- Wedding Anniversaries, that is. There are eleven male descendants carrying the Prosch name in the third generation in this family.

 
 

1917 SPEAR STREET

This is the story of a house. It began small, expanded, was vacated shortly due to circumstances that this generation calls "Senior Citizen Problems and Depression;" - but then allowed its homemakers, in their own words, "To return home to die." It had reached out briefly to shelter families of three children born beneath its roof, and two of its owner's nephews, before it succumbed to the city's condemnation to make room for an "urban renewal" of that generation. No picture of it, in its entirety exists; it is unsung, but not forgotten.

The house began with two rooms over a full basement. It expanded to a two story flattop under the hands of its young owner and some of his brothers. This expansion was achieved by walling off the trap door to the basement and building very, very steep steps directly over it to two upper rooms. To make head room for basement descension it was necessary to place the door to the new ascending stair-way on a high first step landing.

The door was attached at the left so coats could be stored behind it. It was possible to do this only if one ascended the steps far enough to close the door for depositing the coat, only the master made the necessary effort, he had designed it for that purpose. Everyone else used the hooks on a board that stretched between the double door leading to the dining room and the pantry door leading to the trap door.

Wall space on both sides of the trap door was used to hold pots and pans, with shelves jutting out from each step to the upper room. A once-in-a-while used ice cream freezer was on the shelf farthest back. If you were over about 5'6" you ducked going to the basement or you cracked your head on the ice-cream freezer shelf. (see drawing) The huge bread crock perched on, but partly off a triangular shelf at the rear corner, behind the wall-hung, iron tank, one-pound coffee mill.

The seams of the house bulged with life - now called a "population explosion" and they were expanded to ten rooms, two stairways and two halls. This time the workers were father and young sons. Each room had one window except for the kitchen, dining and front rooms. They had two. The living room had a glassed door as well as its window. The back door was solid. The family towel rack decorated it on the inside. This very convenient asset was at least as long as three towels. It dried as it hung. If the user was a little "finicky" he could change the area to a less used one. The towel was changed when mother decided it was dirty enough.

Downstairs the new part of the house added a living room; a downstairs bedroom, which was essential to the care of the sick, and for child birth; and the elegant, very little used front room, which was set off by its long hall, with the open front stairs, forbidden for everyday use. Upstairs, it added three more bedrooms plus the hall, and the open stairwell. The one outstanding feature of the house was this beautiful walnut stairs with its hand turned posts, two to each step. The posts held the one piece curved rail, and there was a beautiful newel post at the bottom. It was a wonderfully exciting experience for the younger members to sneak through the upper rooms to the top of the stairs and make the swift descent on the seats of their pants, landing on the ample post at the bottom. The underneath area of the stairway was open, finished, and served as the coat hall for visitors.

There was not a single built-in closet in the six bedrooms. How could they get along with no closets? Well, there were a couple of walnut wardrobes, placed in the house, which held a Sunday outfit for each person. Since the child had on a pair of trousers, and one pair of trousers down in the summer kitchen for laundry, or on the sewing machine for repair, they did not need much storage, because that was the most of the clothes they owned, A few hooks, here and there behind doors, existed for hanging up clothes at bedtime.

Lacking as it was, for all bet the bare essentials, the house stood firmly, almost four-square, like a huge box, for it was flat topped, with the oldest part of the house a foot lower, but with a wide overhang around the entire edge. So it stood on a bluff ten to fifteen feet above the street level. The land sloped more gently to the rear of its eighty by one-hundred-twenty foot lot to the alley in the rear. An alley also ran along the west side.

Much later the youngest sons helped the father wall off a four foot strip from the room over the kitchen, (see drawing) and install a second hand toilet with an overhead pull chain water tank; and in the kitchen, where the small rain water pump was located, they installed a cold-water faucet. Finally, the younger boys' Christmas present to their parents was electricity installation, a singly wire drop in each room, no wall plugs; this was the only addition not done by family hands. There stood the completed house. It now had one small closet t the end of the walled off strip where the mother could store the winter bedclothes in summer, instead of putting them under the straw tick of the bed.

Its influence was enormous, for this house was home to eleven children born beneath its roof or roofs, and to two grandchildren brought back home by the widowed, oldest daughter. It was grandma's house to twenty grandchildren; it was aunt Mary's and uncle Dan's house that sheltered two teen aged nephews from Michigan who were trying to break into city living. A son brought his daughter there for a time, but when war was going to separate her from him he allowed the mother to take her. Another son and his family spent some time there after the owners left the first time. It is for the fourth and future generations that these roots are exposed. Perhaps it may even guide them as to the essentials of life.

The water supply was a dug well and a cistern.. Both had to be cleared out now and then pumping it dry, lowering a small member of the family by rope. With a small bucket and shovel he removed layers of organic matter that had filtered through its planked, single layer lid. Once, although alighted lantern had previously been lowered to test for gas, it nearly cost the life of the cleaner. During a typhoid epidemic this water supply was the only one on the block that checked out as a potable water, so it served as the neighborhood supply. The house's outdoor plumbing was the usual two-holed, gabled shanty, with its extended foundations sills, which allowed it to be moved over various holes in the garden- "organic gardening" in its infancy- and this building was uphill from the water supply. The cistern water, which gathered from the flat roof with the guttered overhang, was piped to a pitcher pump in a small kitchen sink. Drinking water was carried into the house in a pail. When it was empty the thirst one filled it up first, then too a drink.

The heat supply for the new part of the house was as close to the center of the house as it could possibly be. It occupied the space between the corner of the room near the front hall door and the double door leading to the downstairs bedroom. There was an iron, open- close register in the ceiling above the stove. This allowed ceiling heat to dissipate to a heating advantage in the upstairs bedrooms. There were now three places to dress in the morning, but the back of the living room stove was favored. Two, even of different sex, could turn backs to each other and slide as quickly as possible into the top layers. The bottom layer was only removed on bath day anyway. That ushered in the era of black sateen bloomers for little girls.

Just when the summer kitchen appeared is beyond my ken, but an educated guess is that it came first, possible in the two-room stage. The washing and summer food canning was done there. It had a fairly tall ceiling, two tiny windows in the main part and one big enough for a coal chute in the space portioned off at the back for coal storage and kindling. Teenagers growing up, earning their own money, wore white shirts with starched collars and cuffs. So washing for eight boys and three girls needed two washers. The crank type propelled the blade for dirty wash, the pull-push handle of the other washer rubbed a slatted curved arc over the clothes in its boat-shaped bed. Water squeezed up between the slats. This washer was used for the cleaner type of clothing. The corrugated washboard was always needed and buckets and buckets of water were needed to fill wash boilers and tubs and tubs.

At the back corner of the lot along the two alleys was a very ancient barn. It provided a place for wood storage, for setting hens, and a ready-made gymnasium for kids on a rainy day. The setting hens provided new laying hens, which allowed some older hens or a rooster or two for Sunday dinners now and then, as well as the eggs for cooking. Eggs were always scrambled, in that way some milk, a little flour would serve as a means of parlaying four eggs into six or more. The edge of the fenced chicken yard was planted with red and black raspberries, which developed to an enormous size as a result of the organic feeding that ran downhill from the chicken yard.

There was no ice-box (refrigerator, which is not electric) until the last children and the two grandchildren were fairly well grown. Food was carried to the dirt floor of the basement and covered. A wooden bin held apples, potatoes, pumpkins, turnips and beets. Wire suspended shelves held cans and cans of fruits and vegetables. A twenty-five gallon jar of kraut stood besides a twenty-five pound can of lard. Absolutely nothing of food was thrown out - not even cold gravy - I developed quite a taste for it. Bread was set in the dish pan, not just once a week - whenever it was low. Out of the dish pan emerged bread, kuchen, and sometimes even doughnuts. The hop vines grew over the back fence behind the summer kitchen. Sometimes the mother had to make the yeast, but she usually saved out a pint of starter, which was stored on the dirt floor in the basement. The contents of many of the cans on the swinging shelves in the basement came from the garden. The garden itself stretched from the back of the summer kitchen to the barn, and from alley fence to grape arbor, excluding the small square used by the outdoor plumbing facility, called the privy. But small, the garden produced enormous amounts of food. The whole plot was deeply spaded in thin slices, with each shovelful turned over. Then it was raked and reraked. A board, the width of the hoe, about four inches, marked off the rows. Into that garden went lettuce, radishes, onions, beets, salsify, kohlrabbi, tomatoes, corn, and green beans. During the local depression, which followed the closing of the Pennsylvania Railroad Shops, the married boys still living in town, the father, and a son-in-law rented the quarter block next to the house and put out a community garden. They produced so much food they had to sell part of it. No spray was need for the potatoes, those little ones of us were given cans and spoons to knock off the bugs into the can and to break off any leaf with yellow eggs. Since we were so close to the ground and the plant, we could see them. The larger ones inspected the corn for ergot and took it out. It wasn't work, for we competed with each other. Life wasn't all work. With so many children and a fourth of a whole block empty - before the garden - the obvious favorite was baseball. No discrimination, any sex, as song as you could bat or run. One lad took up clarinet. I can still recall his practicing "Bringing in the sheaves, bringing - eek - in the sheaves." There were tales afloat of a snow ride that ended up going around a field, instead of down the road, lost in a silvery night. The family album shows so many of their "best friends" groups. They danced in the kitchen-dining area, as they sang or whistled the popular tunes of the day.

The boys carried papers or worked after school for spending money. After graduation - off to the railroad shops to learn a trade. The owner of the house was self-employed as a boot cobbler, and lord and master of his house as well. This meant that he got up early, ate his breakfast, and walked the eight blocks to his shoe repair shop. He walked back and forth for lunch. When supper time came, one or two of the children carried a hot supper and a bucket of hot coffee to him, and carried back any needed groceries. He handled the money - period. When the mother wanted money she asked for it. What for, and how much were asked. She got exactly what she asked for and not a cent more. She needed money for the paper boy although she had two or more boys carrying them. If a boy's territory was between fourth and twelfth streets and between Market and Smead Streets, he had no customers elsewhere. He could not depend on mother's friends or neighbors as potential customers, and not even his own mother.

The bigotry of the Lutheran Church in respect to Catholics reared its head in that first generation. The oldest son married a Catholic girl who was a dear friend of the oldest daughter, my mother. Since the entire family attended the same school and had the same teacher their views were not surprisingly colored alike. Anyway, there was always this feeling of superiority over this oldest son by many of the other members of the family. His daughter died leaving two small children; his wife died four years later, and he was the first of the family to die. His son had no children, so they have been almost completely erased from the remaining family although the first two generations were almost always present at family gatherings.

If they were bigoted, yet their expression of loyalty to their country in the face of discriminatory cries of the 1914 period, "Pro German", expressed itself. Four boys went into service; two were in Europe; one was in base camp; and one was on high seas when World War I ended. Loyalty in World War II sent the son and daughter of one of these four men into service. The 21-year old son earned a gold star. The son of another of the four made landings both in Europe and Asia. The son of a daughter, who was an army wife during WWI, flew almost eighty missions; the son of another brother was stationed in England; and the son of a fourth became a German Prisoner. In the present generation there is a West Point graduate.

Family problems of course! Brother-sister rivalry was intense. In one case one boy ran off as a teenager. His marriage turned out badly; he never remarried, but came home quite often. He promoted the reunions of latter years that replaced the 13 years of reunions, which had included all five original Prosch brothers and their families. World War II had its devastating effect and the families really did not feel like tat much fun. The last reunions were small gatherings at an Indianapolis park, or at the home of any of the three boys living there, but the interest had dissipated and there were few of the following generation present at these small gatherings. Reunion photo

The closeness of the first and second generations was probably due to their closeness to the home at 1917 Spear Street. Several of the families remained in Logansport as long as the railroad shops were there. Every holiday they met at one home or another, but mostly at home. The air would be blue with smoke as they played euchre, checkers, hide the thimble, (kids favorite place was in grandpa's silver hair) or sang with the record player that had been a family gift from two of the boys.

Gifts - once they all chipped in to buy a wonderful shoe repair machine to make it easier for dad... When he used it at all it was to polish the edges after he had done the work by hand as usual. He never added to the basic shaft as he could have done. (ART VS. MACHINE AGE) After 50 years in the same place the order came for evacuation. He moved the shop to the summer kitchen, but there was no more incentive, no more family. Then the depression came. Money sent spasmodically by families having a really hard time to keep going was not enough. The third generation sent one dollar here and there, but it was not enough. With a college degree I had no job to use the degree that it had taken me ten long years to obtain. I worked in my uncle's drug store. When the letter came, which unwittingly revealed that they had no money to buy a stamp until the $1 came, then the true state of affairs came to light.

An Indianapolis trip with a purpose of regulating the irregular gifts showed one family completely out of work. He was doing needed repair work on Catholic property; they in return supplied food. One family member had to transfer his job to another city to hang on at all, so increasing their family expenses. One family had already taken in a sick sister-in-law and her son, when one of their own children was terminally ill. Two other families were surviving, one well with a large garden, the other had been able to sell the house, which he had planned and contracted, and had decided to do it again, but this time to build two. He failed in the attempt, and it was certainly a contributing factor in his marriage failure. One sister took in the other one whose husband was out of work, and who had been surviving on the absolute requirements of any respectable, serious minded couple of that era, their "savings". Before a cent was spent a savings was make. Schools had penny savings for bank day, once a week. My sister was already caring for our mother. Later they had both grandma and grandpa, 1931-32, after mother's sister had them in 1930-31. Mother took them back to 1917 Spear Street for the summer, and there the builder willed to die in 1933.

That fall, grandma and my mother went back to my sister's, and they all moved to Decatur in May 1934, to start a new business, with ten dollars of borrowed money as cash in hand. But grandma also wanted to go back home to die, so my mother and she went back in the summer of 1936; the family again made it possible just as they had in 1933. Grandma had recovered from a broken hip that had occurred in 1932 when she stepped off her own front porch, so she was able to walk with a crutch. That summer of 1936 she broke her hip again; this time in the back porch. She died in August of 1937, after those months in her own home. Daughters and daughters-in-law made the trip, exchanged places week after week. Only mother was there with her permanently.

When it was over the family that called it home, deeded it, at his request, to the one son who had no home of his own, and who had run away from this one. In return, he paid the cost for final burial. Some day he hoped to return permanently. He never did. The latter years of his living brothers and two of his sisters were eased by thoughtfulness of this son. He lies next to the parents from whom he ran away. The house stood empty of people; it was almost sold once for unpaid taxes. Finally it was condemned. Neighbors complained about the "goings on" of young trespassers, and at last the building that was no longer a home was about to be leveled. My sister asked her uncle for the stairway, had it numbered, taken apart piece by piece, and installed it in her home. No one ever said whether that next generation of children slid down its banister, but this time this one part of 1917 Spear Street was the focal point of the living room. On its treads marvelous Christmas decorations were arranged differently each year. Now again this one part of the austere, but love filled home, stands in a a vacant house, no longer a home, lonesome. This time no one will rescue it.

The year 1976 - Only someone did rescue the staircase. The buyer of the place recognized the stairway as an antique, removed it, and installed it as the stairway to his basement family room.

written by Leta Miriam (KESLING) BROCK 1905-1992  
 

JOWEST

 
 
Updated April 2, 2008