Researching the History of 1830 Indianapolis Boulevard

Jeff Vrabel
February 2026

Got any tips, edits, or additions to this story? Please email the author at jeff@jeffvrabel.com

First, to get this out of the way, this history still has a lot of holes. In researching the origin story of a small, reasonably nondescript building on a once-dominant thoroughfare in northwest Indiana, you pretty quickly realize that an overabundance of information will not be one of your problems. You’re relying on an awful lot of ancient stuff: questionably scanned newspapers, ads from 1923, scanned microfilm copies of some water-damaged city directories — and that’s just the unknowable percentage of stuff that’s been digitized. You’re also digging through it on the internet, so what you end up with is a weird mix of ancient hard copies, surviving records in government buildings, and whatever faith you can have in the AI that scans, organizes, and searches it all.

That said, you also get lucky on a number of fronts. You run into folks from groups like the Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society, who help fill in gaps and dig into their non-digitized archives. You get help from folks at the Indiana State Library and the cities of Whiting and Hammond. And you take advantage of the work that’s been done by strangers’ families on Ancestry, which provide connective tissue for things you wouldn’t have thought of.

So what follows here is the hopefully organized result of internet research, ChatGPT answers (for what those are worth), Lake County Courthouse cratedigging, and a good deal of conjecture. And though we’ve put together more of a timeline than we had before, we’re still missing key points, including the question that sort of kicked off this whole endeavor: Wait, did Grandma and Grandpa’s house used to be a funeral home?

We’ll keep digging into that question. But in the meantime, we did uncover a story that involves a legendary bluegrass musician, two churches, one town-wide address redesign, one mysterious chandelier, 100 years of a creepy basement, and one very lively undertaker. So here’s what we found.

1921

The building that sits at 1830 Indianapolis Boulevard in Whiting, Indiana, doesn’t exactly leap out at you. For most of its 104 years, it’s lacked dramatic signage or — aside from two relatively discordant columns on its facade — many distinguishing architectural characteristics that would make you stop on your way to or from the mills. There’s no awning, no welcoming greenery on its front stoop. It’s physically attached to — but does not share a wall with — a larger two-story building of the same functional red brick that seemed to define functional structures in a functional steel mill town. As a kid, it was deeply weird to think of the front door as the front door, because we always went in the back. Grandma’s front yard was the four truck-choked lanes of Indianapolis Boulevard, which lacked a certain charm but made up for it through easy access to McDonald’s, Burger King, and danish at the Sara Lee factory store.

Not surprisingly, the building’s early years are its least documented. The building was constructed in 1921 and was intended as a storefront. It measures 25 feet by 50 feet. And if we’re being technical, it’s located at “Lot 3 and SE. 23 ft. lot 2 Block 2 Schrage’s 1st Addition in the City of Hammond.” The parcel number, which is crucial for looking this place up, is 450307135002000023. And its construction was part of a residential development boom that took place around 1920-1921 on the west side of Indianapolis Boulevard.

That much is pretty easy to find. Many of the most useful sources from this time are maps produced by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, which were used nationwide to establish insurance rates. As a national organization with financial interest in providing as much data as possible, Sanborn and its maps have become a cornerstone source for records of the time. They’re comprehensive and complete. They map entire towns. They include building materials and use. They’re available for towns and cities all over the country. And as a side note, their covers are full of insanely detailed lettering; they’re the most metal fire insurance maps on Earth.

Sanborn maps were issued frequently, but not annually. Maps for Whiting exist for 1896, 1901, 1907, 1915, and 1930. Any map more than 100 years old is available in the public domain, meaning that the first four are freely available online. The 1930 map was sent by the Indiana State Library.

The Sanborn maps confirm all the above. The building doesn’t appear in the 1915 map, but it does show up in the 1930 map, where it offers the sole clue about the building’s purpose: the letter “S,” which was used to denote a store.

All good enough. But it’s not clear why it was constructed, who put it up, or what kind of store it was meant to be. The columns and the vaguely decorative windows on the front are a curious architectural anomaly, one that would seemingly indicate a bank or a government office or — well — a funeral home.

It also wasn’t 1830 Indianapolis Boulevard. At the time of its construction — and for the following 10 years — the building sat at 830 Indianapolis Boulevard, according to the original street numbering system of Lake County. That was the case until 1930, when the entire town was remapped to align with Chicago. It’s a little stroke of convenience that when the renumbering was completed, they basically just added a 1.

In those early years, the building usually doesn’t appear in what will become the best source for information for the next decade: the Hammond City Directory, which presents information not only in traditional phone-book form but also by street number — so you can go look at the header for INDIANAPOLIS BLVD to see what was at 800, 810, 820, and so forth. That indexing approach is handy when trying to figure out who in the world was in this place between 1921 and 1933, the first year it starts being regularly and reliably documented. As we’ll see, for many of those intervening years, the building is usually listed as “Vacant,” if it’s listed at all. But though they’re muddy and incomplete — possibly unsalvageably so — those listings all begin with the name of a man who in all probability was the first tenant of 830 Indianapolis Boulevard: John Jasnowski.

The Undertaker

For nearly 50 years, starting in at least January 1920, John Jasnowski was one of the most prominent members of Northwest Indiana’s thriving funeral-home community. Numerous articles refer to “undertaker Jasnowski” as being “in charge” of numerous funerals; there are ads that call him a “funeral director and embalmer” and small newspaper blurbs that mention of his parlor and church services. Jasnowski and his wife, Anna, are listed in the early 1920s at the address of 313 Gostlin Street in Hammond, the town where they’d reside for decades. And though the early timeline is spotty, eventually the Jasnowski funeral home business moved to 4404 Cameron Avenue in Hammond and remained there until the 1970s. The location is today associated with the Acevez Funeral Home. But the Jasnowskis weren’t known only from the funeral world. From a book unearthed at the Indiana State Library:

Mr. and Mrs. John (Anna) Jasnowski of 313 Gostlin Street, over on the North Side, are consistent boosters and believers in the future of Hammond. They have been constant residents and workers here since 1907, when they were induced to locate through the interest awakened by Mr. Meyer Rubin. When they first came here they were farsighted enough in the possibilities of Gostlin street and became property owners even before they actually took up their residence.

They are not of the nomadic blood and Bohemian nature of the rovers, but started in business at the corner of Ash and Gostlin streets and have ever since lived on Gostlin. Mrs. Anna Jasnowski besides an assistant to her husband, has been active in locating many of her people and friends in selling real estate and assisting them to obtain money to build their homes. Many have been obligated to her for her keen womanly advice and direction.

Speaking several languages she has been the instrument of the best known real estate operators of Hammond. The Building and Loan Associations through which she has consummated many successful deals for them.

Mr. John Jasnowski is a graduated (1915) and licensed undertaker and embalmer and has the confidence and respect of many beyond the confines of the North Side, his work extends many miles beyond. They each foremost in the interest of the local North Side Improvement and Civic Club work and keen for development.

Jasnowski is the first name to appear at 830 Indianapolis Boulevard. The 1922 edition of the Calumet District Directory places his residence at both that address and his (probably primary) home of 313 Gostlin Street.

On its face, this would lend credence to the idea that the building was indeed a funeral home. But nowhere — not in that 1922 Calumet District Directory, nor any others — is there ever any evidence of it. Jasnowski will continue to reside at 830 for a handful of years. But both the Hammond City Directories and similarly useful Calumet District Directories of the time offer those dedicated sections for street listings and businesses, and no funeral home ever turns up at that address. There are no advertisements, no blurbs about services being held there. As far as the evidence is concerned, he’s simply at the address. It’s not even clear that he owns it.

That said, over the coming year or so, several curious references to the property do pop up. The first is a three-line classified ad from the November 23-24, 1923 edition of the Hammond Lake County Times that reads:

FOR RENT — Store building, 25 x 50, at 830 Indianapolis blvd. For information call 2800 Ham. 11:23:2t

Simple enough! Jasnowski bought the place and tried to rent it. It’s reasonable to assume that the “store building” comprised the entirety of the space at the time, from the front door on the boulevard to what we remember as the kitchen. Since it wasn’t a residence, there would have been no need for a kitchen, or bedrooms, or anything approximating a living space. Just a big ol’ empty store building.

There’s also the matter of the chandelier. Those who’ve been brave enough to venture into the attic — the access to which was high in the studio room and reachable only by ladder — report seeing there a large chandelier, hanging from the ceiling, and positioned not to be over a single room like a bedroom or a kitchen, but over the entirety of that 25’ x 50’ space. If this guess and this chandelier are right, Jasnowski was just trying to rent out the whole place.

In any event, he wasn’t done. Two months later, in the January 11-12, 1924 paper, there’s a second and more curious ad:

ROOM RENT FREE for two refined persons able to answer; Phone Inquire 830 Indianapolis Blvd. from 7 to 9 this evening. 1-11-1

Lots to unpack here. First, it’s entirely unclear what “refined persons” are, or what they’d be “able to answer.” The punctuation is kind of curious; maybe he meant “... able to answer phone. Inquire 830 Indianapolis...” Room “rent-free” seems like a really good deal! And it’s possible that he wasn’t renting out 830 at all, only asking people to inquire there about accommodations somewhere else.

The third and final reference comes from an ad in the February 15, 1924, edition of the Times, and it’s for an entirely separate funeral home run by a man with the evocative name of G.C. Oexman, who’s in the market for a “Lady Assistant.”

This ad is the first and only time Oexman pops up in connection with the address. But it’s certainly possible that Jasnowski rented the 830 space to Oexman — which would sure lend a little backing to the theory that the building was once a funeral home, or close to it.

Lady assistants were quite common in the 1920s, called upon to handle the care and preparation of women’s bodies, meet with family members, and the like. Funeral homes often listed local agents or assistants at a neighborhood address and phone so they could respond quickly and provide gender-sensitive assistance. One resource went so far as to say:

Small, local undertakers sometimes worked out of private residences, temporary parlors, or even sublet booths in other firms’ parlors. Those arrangements might appear only in newspaper notices or in a single ad but not in city directories or national trade lists.

In sum, it’s entirely plausible! The undertaker community would have been small and tight-knit, and the Jasnowskis were certainly well-known. It could have been a paid arrangement or a simple favor to a friend. What’s known is that if a lady assistant was there, she wasn’t for long. This ad is the first and only mention of a lady assistant, Oexman, or any other actual funeral-related activity at the address.

It’s also the only activity of any kind for almost a decade. It’s unclear why or when Jasnowski and/or Oexman left the building. In the next wave of editions of the Hammond City Directory, the address either just doesn’t appear (1926, 1927, 1933) or is listed as “Vacant” (1928, 1931). That’s the case both with the original 830 address and the post-1930 realignment address of 1830.

But the takeaway is that, aside from some potential and sporadic activity, not too much seems to happen at 830 Indianapolis Boulevard during the first half of the 1920s — and nothing happens at all during the second half. This little building went up, was purchased by a respected and successful businessman and community member who maybe rented it to a fellow funeral director, and then sat quiet and dormant until the dawn of the Great Depression, when the churches moved in.

The Church Decade

St. John the Baptist Church, the physical and spiritual center of Whiting, Indiana, was originally established as a parish in 1897, and its first building was dedicated on — get this — July 4, 1897, to serve the Slovak community. But the big building, the large cathedral-style building with the skyline-defining steeple that can be seen from all of Lake County and hosted the lion’s share of Vrabel family baptisms, weddings, services, and funerals for a century, is newer. That church’s groundbreaking took place in May 1930, and the cornerstone was laid on July 6, 1930, because everything important in this town apparently happens around July 4. The new church was dedicated in 1933.

Churches, of course, were the social, religious, and cultural centers of the community in that time — particularly as the Depression took hold. St. John was (and is) a cornerstone of the town. And it’s a St. John’s-affiliated group that provides the first of many church-related functions for the building in the 1930s.

“The Daughters of Mary of the St. John’s parish will entertain a public card and bunco party at their clubrooms at 830 Indianapolis Boulevard at 8 p.m. Lovely prizes and refreshments will be served.”

In 1930s Catholic churches, the Daughters of Mary (often called Children or Sodality of the Daughters of Mary) were a lay devotional organization for girls and young women, centered on Marian devotion, moral formation, and parish service. The Daughters — especially common in immigrant parishes — were typically unmarried girls and young women in their teens and 20s, under the guidance of a parish priest or teaching nuns. They espoused devotion to the Virgin Mary, chastity, modesty, and a whole bunch of other stuff you can problaby guess. By the mid-20th century, many Daughters of Mary groups were absorbed into broader Catholic youth groups.

The Daughters are the first of a long decade of church-related uses for the building. With construction on St. John’s underway, it makes sense that the new parish would be scouting out alternative meeting spots — and what’s more convenient than a vacant building that’s basically across the street? But while it’s plausible that the church used the building for this and similar activities during construction of the main church, the Bunco Night classified ad above is the only confirmation (zing) we have of them.

But good news: The path gets easier to follow from here. The year 1932 brings the first mention of the Church of the Nazarene, an oragnization that will go on to rent and occupy the building until 1936. Per an article found by John Hmurovic of the Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society:

“The (Church of the Nazarene) congregation rented a vacant store building, the basement of which was used for Sunday school and the store room for church services.”

This confirms that the “store room” — probably the bulk of the building — was large enough for church services. And it confirms also that the building was rented — meaning that we still don’t know who owned it when the church moved in. It’s possible that the Jasnowkis still hold the deed, but as we’ll see a little later, it’s also possible that ownership began to transfer during these early years of the Depression.

At any rate, the Church of the Nazarene begins taking out classified-style advertisements in the Hammond Times — the earliest example we found is from October 11, 1932 — and continues to do so on a regular basis for years. These listings are generally templated: An announcement from Rev. Father D. Wright that includes service and Sunday school times, upcoming meeting updates, occasional sermon topics, and a suggestion to bring a friend.

Sometimes, the Church would hold special events or concerts, and it’s here that we come across the article that kind of kicked off this whole line of research: Northwest Indiana’s Connection to Country Music, authored by Hmurovic and published September 18, 2019 by the Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society.

The article is pegged to a Ken Burns documentary series called Country Music that premiered at the time and prominently featured Bill Monroe, who’s widely considered one of the fathers of bluegrass music. A Kentucky native and the youngest of eight children, Monroe and his family moved to Northwest Indiana in the late 1920s to work at the Sinclair Refinery in East Chicago (but adjacent to Whiting).

Monroe’s job was the customarily unglamorous work of “washing, loading, and stacking oil drums.” But Monroe’s musical talents were already well evident, as were those of two brothers and two friends, and together the Monroe Brothers performed throughout East Chicago, Whiting, Hammond, and Gary.

As Hmurovic’s article confirms, though the group would play vaudeville theaters, American Legion halls, and radio stations, churches provided the “main venues” for the Monroe Brothers’ music — and indeed, the Church of the Nazarene hosted the Monroe Brothers as the “special singers” for a Sunday school rally in October 1933. Sadly, no records of this performance seem to have survived. But the idea of a bluegrass concert in the studio building is certainly a novel aside to the family history.

The Church of the Nazarene thrived — so much so, that by 1935 church membership had grown to 100 and Sunday school attendance had expanded in parallel. According to a newspaper article uncovered by Hmurovic:

Finding it impossible to find a suitable place to rent for the growing congregation, the group divided to build a church building.

An article in the March 3, 1936 edition of the Hammond Times reports that due to overflow crowds, the revival services of the Church of the Nazarene had been transferred to “temporary quarters” at 1046 119th Street (on the corner of Lincoln Avenue). Attendance immediately doubled. And the church relocated to that 119th Street location after a dedication on August 22, 1937 — and remained there until, strangely enough, the fall of 2025.

The church’s old home didn’t sit empty for long. By August 1936, it began to host services for the First Baptist Church, under the direction of Pastor F. D. McFadden. (First Baptist is listed at the address in both the 1937 and 1939 Hammond City Directories.)

McFadden, like Wright, was also religious about putting his church’s activities in the newspaper. First Baptist Church blurbs follow the same general template of the Church of the Nazarene’s: dates, times, worship service subjects, occasional guest speakers and meetings, and consistent mention that “all are invited.”

Music is a recurring theme of the First Baptist Church too. In November of 1936, “large crowds” greet the “Dixie evangelistic and chalk artist Harry Beckman of Owensboro, Ky.” Also performing is an “adjacent choir” of 75 voices. And the Gospel Singers of the William Jennings Bryan University in Dayton, Tennessee, perform in July 1939.

It’s not stated but assume that First Baptist, like the Nazarene, was a rental tenant. It’s hard to imagine that these churches, even with larger congregations, would have had the means to support themselves during Depression times. And it’s in the closing years of First Baptist’s time in the building that we begin to throw a little more light on the trail of ownership that led to George and Ann Vrabel’s eventual purchase.

Ownership in the 1930s

Naturally, that trail isn’t remotely linear. We have dates and names and some pleasantly incontrovertible facts, but this was all happening when records were less than clear. For instance, whoever typed up the very first document we’ll cover here was off by two years.

Sometime during the early 1930s, the building falls under the name William H. Gostlin. It’s not clear who this Gostlin is or what he did; it’s possible he was a speculator. But we do know that he wasn’t great at paying his taxes; the bills for years 1936, 1937, and 1938 were never handled, and the property goes up for public auction, where it’s purchased on April 17, 1939, for what seems like a steal. From official documents:

“ELSIE SELIGER did, on the 12 day of APRIL 1939, purchase at public auction at the door of the Court House in said County, the tract, parcel or lot of land lastly in this Indenture described, and which lot was sold to Elsie Seliger for the sum of $1949.62, being the amount due on the following tracts or lots of land returned delinquent in the name of William H. Gostlin for the non-payment of taxes, costs and charges for the years 1934 and prev.”

The name is familiar. The Seliger family ran an electric shop in the building next door (the one that housed Debbie’s dress shop). They also owned the building across the lot.

After the Seliger purchase, things move fast. In the property’s incredibly helpful Real Estate Assessment and Transfer Record, the next official word is that the it’s purchased by a “Charles J. And Helen E. Kramer” on June 24, 1940. Charles’s career seems to have three parts: He was a refinery worker and laborer for Standard Oil, he owned the C.J. Kramer Music Store in Gary between the years 1924-1952, and he was in real estate from 1952-1970. Perhaps his interest in the 1830 building was an early taste of the market.

Something to note here: While a tremendously helpful resource for dates and names, the Real Estate Assessment and Transfer Record is also a great reminder to double-check your document spacing. The paper is a combination of handwriting and typing, but the data doesn’t remotely line up where it’s supposed to, and it’s easy to mentally blend the initial Seliger-to-Kramer purchase into the next flurry of activity.

Anyway, the Kramers were apparently part of some sort of group-ownership situation — one that they took steps to consolidate under their own name, as that Real Estate Assessment and Transfer Record next lists a flurry of activity involving a whole bunch of new names and the phrase “Und. Int. To.”

In real-estate records, especially older ones, "Und. Int. of..." is shorthand for "Undivided Interest of...”, or the share of ownership in a property where the property itself is not physically divided. Each person owns a percentage of the whole property. This arrangement was most common when a property was inherited by multiple heirs, or co-owners were buying each other out, or business partners shared ownership.

In other words, and on March 26, 1941, four other parties transfer their Undivided Interests in the building to the Kramers:

• Peter Huth

• Onofrio and Tolanda Amati

• Ida Rosenbauer

• Margaret Wachter

Just to clarify: These names are all brand new, and no one we’ve talked to (at least anecdotally) has ever heard of any of them. Cursory internet searches don’t turn up a whole lot of connections between any of these names or the property (or, for that matter, each other). It’s conceivable that they’re members or patrons of the First Baptist Church, but we can’t be sure. In any event, by this point the Kramers are the sole owners of the building, until May 9, 1941, when they sell it to George and Ann Vrabel.

The Vrabels

One of the nice things about being part of a family that keeps everything is that sometimes you crack open a box and find every possible record of a day, moment, or transaction. Happily, that’s the case here: Turns out Jeep has in his office closet a box of documents that clearly and comprehensively lays out the details of the Vrabel purchase of 1830 Indianapolis Boulevard.

On May 5, 1941, George Vrabel applies for a loan of $6,000 from the American Trust and Savings Bank of Whiting to purchase the property at for the purpose of being “owners for dwelling and business.” The loan values the land as $2,000, and the building at $6,000. It also mentions three rooms on the first floor.

The mortgage document is in the name of George and Ann Vrabel, husband and wife, who were moving over from their apartment on 119th Street. Just to be insanely complete here, it’s for:

Lot No. Three (3) and the Southeasterly 23 feet of Lot No. Two (2), in Block No. Two (2), as marked and laid down on the recorded plat of Schrage’s First Addition to Hammond, in Lake County, Indiana, as the same appears of record in Plat Book 14, page 10, in the Recorder's office of Lake County.

The couple signs on for a payment of $35/month for 58 succeeding months — many of which are tracked in a surviving list of payments kept in (probably Ann’s) handwriting. The house is paid off by the summer of 1946.

The Vrabels will continue to own the house for the remainder of the century. (Their first appearance in the Hammond City Directory comes in 1941.) They’ll also spend a good amount of time and energy renovating and upgrading the place, ostensibly to prep the “dwelling” side of things. They’d have had two teenage sons to house, and two more to come.

First, the three-room apartment was added to the rear of the building at some point in 1941. That would have been necessary to fill out the living space for George, Ann, Jim, and Don Vrabel, especially if the building had been open during its use as a church. The garage was added in 1948. And according to Jeep and others, the living room — the room with the piano and the TV on which Grandpa would record Bears games — was added in 1954. The basement under that apartment would have been dug out and added at that time as well.

Over the course of the next 60-some years, the building would serve as a home, a photo studio, a gathering place for priests and parishioners of St. John’s, a darkroom, a garden, a workshop, and a place for kids to play. Following the deaths of George Vrabel in 1993 and Ann Vrabel in 2002, the building was sold in September 2005 to Dean Lombardini and Rebecca D. Mateja. In those years, it housed a company called P&H Printing. In December 2019, it was sold to Susan Mateja. Today it serves as home to a handful of apartments. And probably some ghosts.