Kate Marquardt – Our Casbon Journey

Grandpa’s Reader

November 8, 2018 admin5 Comments

This was my grandfather Leslie Casbon’s (1894–1990) Third Reader.

Cover and title pages of Indiana State Series, Revised Third Reader, 1899.^[1]

I know it was his book, because he wrote his name inside the front cover. It must also have been used by his brother, Lynnet (1899–1983), whose name is written inside the back cover.

Inside front and back covers. (Click on image to enlarge)

Since Leslie was the oldest child of Lawrence (1865–1950) and Kate (Marquart, 1868–1959) Casbon, and Lynnet was the youngest, it’s likely that the middle son, Loring (1896–1970) also used the Reader, although he failed to leave his mark in the book.

Photo of Lawrence & Kate Casbon with sons Lynnet, Loring, and Leslie, ca. 1898, near Hebron, Indiana.
Names of horse & dog unknown. (Click on image to enlarge)

Up until I started writing this post, I assumed that this book was part of the famous McGuffey Reader series, named for the original author, William Holmes McGuffey. The McGuffey Readers dominated American Education throughout the 19^th century.^[2] Generations of school children were raised on them.

Upon closer inspection, however, although the book is very similar in appearance to the McGuffey books, they are not the same. The cover indicates that this book is part of the Indiana Educational Series. Nowhere is the word McGuffey mentioned.

In the McGuffey series, the Third Reader was written at a level equivalent to today’s 5^th or 6^th grade.^[3] Since most rural students, including my grandfather, were taught in one-room schoolhouses, the modern concept of grades was not in use. I suspect the same applies to this book. It might be that the book was intended to cover several grades, since the readings become progressively longer, with more complex concepts and vocabulary. There were also fourth and fifth readers, which probably would have gone up to about the eighth-grade level.

The Indiana Educational Series of readers, which included this book, was selected by the State Board of School Commissioners “to be used in the public schools of Indiana for the next five years,” beginning in the summer of 1899.^[4] This ensured that a standardized curriculum for reading would be used throughout the state.

In the Introduction to the Third Reader, the author writes,

In choosing material for reading books to be used by pupils who have already acquired some facility in recognizing word forms, the purposes of the reading lesson must be clearly apprehended. These seem to be three: first, to inculcate a love for what is best and highest in literature; second, to train the child in correct habits of thought getting from the printed page; and, third, to train him in vocal expression.”^[5]

The contents include poetry, literary excerpts and historical writings. Some of the readings contain moral lessons, such as the poem “They Didn’t Think,” by Phoebe Cary. Here is the final stanza:

Now, my little children,
You who read this song,
Don’t you see what trouble
Comes of thinking wrong?
And can’t you take a warning
From their dreadful fate
Who began their thinking
When it was too late?
Don’t think there’s always safety
Where no danger shows;
Don’t suppose you know more
Than anybody knows;
But when you’re warned of ruin,
Pause upon the brink,
And don’t go under headlong
‘Cause you didn’t think.^[6]

Some of the better-known readings in the book include Clement Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” “The Owl and the Pussycat,” by Edward Lear, an excerpt from Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell, and “The Ugly Duckling” by Hans Christian Andersen.

Grandpa Les would have probably started using this book around 1903-1905, when the family was still living near Hebron, in southern Porter County. By the time it was Lynnet’s turn, they had probably already moved to their new farm in Morgan township, just south of Valparaiso.

This photograph was taken about 1905 – maybe Leslie was using the Third Reader then.

L to R: back row – Lawrence, Lynnet, Kate; front row – Leslie (I think), Loring. (Click on image to enlarge)

The Reader must have served the boys well. All went on to graduate from high school and complete some higher education.

^[1] Indiana State Series, Third Reader, revised by S.H. Clark and H.S. Fiske (Indianapolis: Indiana School Book Co., 1899).
^[2] Susan Walton, “(Re)Turning To W.H. McGuffey’s Frontier Virtues,” 2 Feb 1918; online newsletter, Education Week (https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1983/02/02/03060028.h02.html : accessed 7 November 2018).
^[3] National Park Service, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, “William Holmes McGuffey and His Readers,” The Museum Gazette, leaflet [undated]; PDF Download, National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/jeff/learn/historyculture/upload/mcguffey.pdf : accessed 7 November 2018).
^[4] Indiana School Journal and Teacher, Volume 44, no. 7 (July 1899), p. 446; online image, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=WlorAQAAMAAJ : accessed 7 November 2018).
^[5] Indiana State Series, Third Reader, p. 3.
^[6] Ibid., pp. 16-17.

Leslie Casbon, Valparaiso High School Class of 1914

January 23, 2018 admin4 Comments

Getting distracted by “bright shiny objects” or BSOs is generally considered a bad habit in genealogy research. Such distractions can interrupt an organized plan of research, wasting valuable time and resulting in a disorganized mess of unrelated facts. While I generally agree with this view, I think a case can be made that pursuing BSOs can occasionally lead to serendipitous (there’s that word again!) discoveries and open up new lines of inquiry.

At least that’s my justification for today’s post. While looking through my archives for an unrelated item, I came upon my paternal grandfather’s high school yearbook, the Valparaiso (Indiana) High School Annual of 1914, the year he graduated.

Grandpa’s yearbook. (Click on image to enlarge)

Browsing through his yearbook gave me a glimpse of life in Valparaiso at the time and a few tantalizing hints into my grandfather’s life as he was emerging into adulthood.

I haven’t really written about my grandfather or his generation, so I’ll briefly put him into context. Leslie Christy Casbon was born December 24, 1894 in Porter County, Indiana.^[1] He was the eldest son of Lawrence (1865–1950) and Kate (Marquardt, 1868–1959) Casbon. Lawrence was the eldest son of Sylvester V (1837–1927) and Mary Adaline (Aylesworth, 1842–1868) Casbon; and Sylvester was the eldest son of Thomas (1803–1888) and Emma (Scruby, 1811–1870) Casbon, who emigrated from England first to Ohio in 1846, and then to Indiana in the 1860s. Thus, Leslie was in the fourth generation of Casbons living in Indiana.

Here is his class photograph and entry in the 1914 yearbook.^[2]

(Click on image to enlarge)

Of the 30 graduating seniors, his written entry was among the shortest (the shortest was for a girl: “She had her troubles but she kept them to herself and was a ray of sunshine to all”). From this description I’m led to believe that he wasn’t the most outgoing member of the class, but neither was he considered an outsider, and he seems to have been appreciated by his classmates.

The yearbook has a section called “Class Will,” in which members of the class make humorous bequests to underclassman. Here is the section containing Grandpa Les’ bequest.^[3]

I had to puzzle out what this meant. I finally figured out that he’s saying he is able to walk down the stairs without engaging in conversation with Gail, and he’s bequeathing that ability to Howard. Does this mean that everyone else does talk to Gail Fehrman? Or is he making a jab at Howard, who perhaps can’t resist talking to Gail? I couldn’t find out anything more about Gail other than she had notable dimples. Howard seems to have been a class cutup. At any rate, it reinforces my thought that young Les took pride in his self-control.

The only other mention of Les in the yearbook is in a section titled “Calendar,” in which daily events throughout the school year are described.^[4]

Overall, Grandpa Les comes across as good-natured and generous, at least with his father’s horses and maybe a wagon too. It seems like there was a good sense of camaraderie among his classmates – a good thing with only 30 students in the class.

Unlike modern school yearbooks, this one seems to have been produced solely by the graduating class, with only a few contributions from underclassmen. The lower classes each have a page or two and a group photo, but class members are not listed by name. Many of the graduating seniors wrote sections of the yearbook. Les’ contribution was a description of the Manual Training Department. His concluding paragraph reads:

The Manual Training Department is a very important part of a school and should be installed in all high schools, for it not only affords a change in work during the day for the regular day pupil, but it gives him a training with tools. Since most men work with some kind of tools, it is a great advantage for a pupil to get his training while young.

The high school he attended was built in about 1904, so it was still a fairly new structure when Les attended.^[5]

Postcards showing the Valparaiso High School (also known as Central School) in 1913. The building was located at 305 Franklin Street. This building burned down in 1938, but a new school was built, on the same foundation (as seen on Google Street View), and now houses the Central Elementary School.^[6] I like the street car going down Franklin Street. (Click on images to enlarge)

As I was leafing through the yearbook I had another surprise. From out of the pages slipped a program for the commencement ceremony, held on May 19, 1914, in the Opera House.

Cover and insert for 1914 Valparaiso High School commencement ceremony. Private collection of Jon Casbon. (Click on image to enlarge)

From this program, we learn that students could be enrolled in either a “Latin” or a “Scientific” course of study. Grandpa Les was enrolled in the latter. Although not described in detail in the yearbook, the Latin course, as the name implies, included in-depth study of the Latin language, grammar and literature throughout all four years of high school. The Scientific Course included a variety of science topics and allowed for Agriculture to be substituted for these classes in the second term of each year. The description also includes this interesting statement:

The boys in the scientific course are no longer compelled to take Manual Training and the girls are not compelled to take Domestic Art or Domestic Science, but any student, even in the Latin course, wishing to take this work may do so.… The girls are interested in Manual Training and the boy as well as the girls are learning how to cook.”^[7]

What progressive thinking for the times!

As I mentioned, there were 30 students in the graduating class. The yearbook also listed 46 “ex-members of the class of 1914.” Compulsory education was only required up to age fourteen in Indiana at that time.^[8] My grandfather was among the roughly 40 percent of his original classmates who completed their high school education.

It’s pretty impressive to me that he (and his two younger brothers, by the way) completed high school. He might have been the first Casbon to do so. The family was living on their farm in Morgan Township, about four miles from the school by road. How did he get there every day? How did he manage schoolwork in addition to the farm chores? I imagine most of his classmates were “city kids” who didn’t need to travel as far and could participate in extracurricular activities more easily.

For those interested, a nearly complete set of the Valparaiso High School yearbooks (known as The Valenian since 1917) from 1904–2012 has been digitized and is available for viewing on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/valparaisohighschoolyearbooks&tab=collection.

^[1] Indiana, delayed birth certificate no. 113-94-504260 (1954), Leslie Christy Casbon; Indiana State Board of Health, Division of Vital Records, Indianapolis.
^[2] Valparaiso (Indiana) High School, Class of 1914, Annual (Privately printed, 1914), unnumbered p. 11 (beginning with title page).
^[3] Valparaiso High School, Class of 1914, Annual, unnumbered p. 34.
^[4] Valparaiso High School, Class of 1914, Annual, unnumbered p. 58.
^[5] Steven Shook, “Historical Images of Porter County: High School Building Valparaiso, Indiana,” Porter County, Indiana (http://www.inportercounty.org/PhotoPages/Valparaiso/Schools/Valparaiso-Schools003.html : accessed 23 January 2018).
^[6] Shook, “Historical Images of Porter County: High School Building Valparaiso, Indiana.”
^[7] Valparaiso High School, Class of 1914, Annual, unnumbered p. 19.
^[8] Frank A Horner, compiler, The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana: Embracing All General Laws in Force October 1, 1901, with Digested Notes of Judicial Decisions Construing Or Illustrating Their Provisions, Vol. 1 (Rochester, N.Y.: The Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company, 1901), chapter 52, “Education,” section 4541a; online image, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=aUkwAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false : accessed 23 January 2018).

501 Academy Street, Valparaiso, Indiana

August 15, 2017April 15, 2020 admin1 Comment

My trip to Indiana earlier this month for a family reunion was a great time to meet people, dig into old records, and see many of the places associated with Our Casbon Journey in America. It was the first time I had spent any significant time here since childhood.

The best part was being able to spend time with family and friends, visiting their old haunts, and listening to stories of days gone by. One of the most noteworthy places I saw was the house at 501 Academy Street in Valparaiso. 501 Academy was home to four generations of my Casbon ancestors.

The house at 501 Academy Street, located at corner of Haas (left) and Academy (right) Streets.
Photo taken August 5, 2017.

The History of Porter County tells us that “in 1892 Mr. and Mrs. Casbon removed from their country estate to Valparaiso, and have since enjoyed the comforts of a pleasant city home on Academy street.”^[1] “Mr. and Mrs. Casbon” were my second great-grandfather Sylvester (~1837–1927) and his third wife Mary (Mereness, 1851–1932) Casbon. They had been living at their farm near Deep River in adjacent Lake County for the previous 15+ years. Sylvester was only 55 years old when he retired from farming and moved to “Valpo.” He did not sell his land in Lake County for a number of years, so I suspect he was letting someone else do the work and still getting income from the farm. The house was originally numbered as 21 Academy Street (and later renumbered in the early 1900s), as shown in this 1893 Valparaiso City Directory.^[2]

Detail from 1893 Valparaiso directory. (Click on image to enlarge)

I think Sylvester was the original owner of the home, although I don’t know for sure. The plot of land containing the lot, known as Pierce’s Addition, was added to the city plat in 1854.^[3] I don’t think any homes were built on the addition for many years. Fire insurance maps of the city don’t show any buildings on the site until 1905, when the present structure can be seen.^[4]

Detail of 1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, showing Haas and Academy
Streets. 501 Academy Street is outlined in red. (Click on image to enlarge)

You can see in the 1893 directory that Sylvester’s oldest son, Lawrence, was also living at 21 Academy Street. Lawrence (1865–1950), my great-grandfather, would have been 28 years old in 1893. I believe this portrait of him was taken in about the same time frame.

Lawrence L Casbon (undated photo)

I have no idea why he was living with his father or what he was doing for a living in 1893. This period of his life is a complete mystery to me. The 1890 U.S. census was lost in a fire, so it is of no help. By January of 1894 he was married to Katherine (“Kate”) Marquart; and somewhere along the line he took up farming in Porter township, in the southern part of the county.^[5] So, his time at Academy Street must have been of short duration.

As the patriarch of a fairly large family, Sylvester would likely have used his house for family gatherings. This photo, which I’ve dated to 1905 or 1906, shows such a gathering.

Is this the house on 501 Academy Street? Look closely at the detail of the double window casing.
It looks identical to me. The siding is different (more about that in a bit) and the current house no
longer has a front porch. If you look at the fire insurance map, however, you can see that the
original house had a front porch in this location. I’m confident that they are the same house,
with an entryway built out from the original porch. (Click on image to enlarge)

Sylvester was still living in the house when he died in 1927.^[6] His widow, Mary, continued to live there until her death in 1932.^[7] Mary’s death heralded the arrival of two more generations of Casbons to the house on Academy Street. This article appeared in the April 26, 1932 Vidette-Messenger.^[8]

(Click on image to enlarge]

Leslie Casbon (1894–1990) was my grandfather, the son of Lawrence. You can see him in the previous photograph seated on the ground, second from the left. The article says he would be commuting to work in Chicago. He must not have done so for very long. This was during the depression, and his business (jewelry, radios, musical instruments) was failing. Soon afterwards he gave up on the Chicago business and joined his two brothers in the new Casbon Brothers Electric Company, which was to become a well-known and successful Valparaiso business for another five decades or so.

The two children mentioned in the article were my father Lewis and his brother Don. They grew up in the house on Academy Street. During my visit, they shared their recollections of the house with me.

Both mentioned the fact that wakes or funerals were held in the house. Don remembers the death of his great uncle Ed Lewis, a wealthy businessman from Chicago. He remembers going down the stairs late at night & seeing Ed’s body in the coffin – the first dead person he had ever seen.

Don also remembers when his dad, Leslie, put asbestos shingle siding on the house – that’s right, asbestos! It was a popular material in home construction in those days. They would cut it to size and then attach it to the house. According to Don, this kind of asbestos wasn’t believed to be harmful. From what I’ve read, that’s true, unless the shingles are damaged (or cut!). Look closely at the picture of the house as it is today. Those asbestos shingles are still there – just painted yellow!

Lewis and Don walked to school, a block west and four blocks south of the house. The alley behind the house was a popular thoroughfare and probably the starting point for many adventures.

Dad remembers a time when a neighbor called his mother while she was working at the draft board, and told her, “I just saw the back end of a jack ass in your front door. ” Don and his friend were bringing a pony into the house! He also recalls that his father dug a basement beneath the house and eventually installed a furnace there. At one point he had to crawl into the basement through a window to tend the furnace, because the house was quarantined due to scarlet fever.

My dad’s best friend was Jim (“Jimmy”) Brown, whose dad ran a grocery store on the first floor of their house, about four doors down the street on Academy. Dad & Jimmy have remained good friends for their entire lives. During our visit, we were able to surprise Jimmy on his birthday and share good memories of past times.

Jim Brown (left) & Lewis Casbon (right), Valparaiso, August 2017.

My grandparents sold the house in the early 1940s, probably in the early years of the war. It had been in the family nearly fifty years. There must be many more stories, yet untold. I’m glad the house is still standing, a silent witness to the family’s history.

^[1] History of Porter County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1912), vol. 2, p. 484; online image, Hathi Trust Digital Library (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89067919191;view=1up;seq=139;size=175 : accessed 14 August 2017).
^[2] Valparaiso Porter County, Ind. City Directory 1893 (Chicago: Kraft & Radcliffe, 1893), unnumbered p. 59 of 130; PDF image, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/stream/valparaisoindian1893polk#page/n57/mode/2up : accessed 9 Aug 2017).
^[3] History of Porter County,” vol. 1, p. 195; Hathi Trust Digital Library (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89067919183;view=1up;seq=229 : accessed 14 August 2017).
^[4] Insurance Maps of Valparaiso Indiana (New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1905), p. 17; PDF image, “Maps,” Porter County Indiana (http://www.inportercounty.org/maps.html : accessed 14 August 2014) >Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps >Valparaiso >1905.
^[5] “Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007”, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDHQ-H68 : accessed 10 March 2017), Lawrence L. Casbon & Kate E. Marquart, 31 Jan 1894; citing County Clerk, Porter, Indiana.
^[6] “Death Calls S.V. Casbon; Reached 90,” The(Valparaiso, Indiana) Vidette Messenger, 10 Dec 1927, p. 1, col. 1, online image, Newspaper Archive (accessed through participating libraries: 16 June 2016).
^[7] “Death Claims Mary Casbon.” The Vidette Messenger, 29 Feb 1932, p. 3, col. 8; online image, Newspaper Archive.
^[8] “Local Brevities,” The Vidette-Messenger, 26 Apr 1932, p. 3, col. 1, para. 27; online image, Newspaper Archive.

Updated “Documents” Link

July 11, 2017April 15, 2020 admin3 Comments

Instead of my usual weekly post, I’ve been working hard to create two new documents, which can be found by clicking on the “Documents” link. These are Descendants of Thomas Casbon (1803-1888) and Descendants of James Casbon in America.

The documents were produced by my genealogy software (Family Tree Maker^®), but took quite a bit of “tweaking” on my part to edit and update information. I plan to update them periodically as needed.

These reports cover the two main branches of the family that came to the United States from England. I started with these two because of the upcoming Casbon family reunion in Indiana on August 5th. Eventually, I intend to add additional reports covering all of the major branches of the family.

Amos and Carrie (Aylesworth) Casbon’s farmouse and children, about 1911, Porter Township, Porter County, Indiana. Photo courtesy of Ron Casbon. (Click on image to enlarge)

You will notice that information about living people is limited to their surnames. Their given names have been replaced with “Living.” I have done this to protect their privacy, while still allowing others to see how they are connected to the family. Although I’ve worked hard to keep information private, it’s possible that I’ve mistakes or used incorrect information. If you discover something that should be kept private, please contact me through the “Contact” link so I can make corrections.

Likewise, I may have indicated people as “Living” who are deceased. This happens when I don’t have birth or death information. Please contact me if you have updated information.

Lawrence and Kate (Marquardt) Casbon’s farmhouse and children, about 1900. Boone Township, Porter County, Indiana. Photo courtesy of Don Casbon. (Click on image to enlarge)

The information comes from a variety of sources. I have not personally verified every source, and there may well be errors. You are welcome to download and use the information, but please be aware of its limitations. Feel free to contact me with updated information or to ask questions about my sources. Photos are always welcome!

In the meantime, enjoy!