The Langles of Elkhart

We had not planned on any genealogy as we passed through Elkhart, but once here it seemed like too good a chance to pass without at least a stab at it.

A general web search on the Langle name turns up very little. There is one posting by Noel some years ago in which he said that Robert's father's name was Asa, based on notes left by Evelyn, but that's about it.

Searching on Langle in Elkhart did not turn up name-specifics, but one interesting item was that there is a Langle Park near downtown, which we resolved to have a look at.

Without getting into the subscription-based online data, there was some more that could be determined. The US Census of 1930 shows the Langles as a Family of five at that time:

Alva J.
Fannie
Eveyln
Robert
Donald

The website for the Elkhart Library has indexes for obituaries that appeared in the Elkhart Truth in the years 1921 through 1944, and 1967 to the present. Those showed two results:

Name: Langle, Donald W. Obituary Date: April 11, 1977
Newspaper Section: Page 16
Date of Death: April 9, 1977
Date of Birth:

Name: Langle, Evelyn A. Obituary Date: May 19, 1930
Newspaper Section: Page 2
Date of Death: May 19, 1930
Date of Birth: October 27, 1911

Armed with that, we set off into town. First stop was the park. There is nothing to indicate the name of the park, as can be seen from the missing sign in the first image below:



So, it was off to the library. We got great assistance from a reference librarian. She said they have the years 1944 to 1967 of the Truth, and are indexing from both ends towards the middle. She pulled the microfilm for the two listed above. We started with Evelyn in 1930, and here it is:



Next was Donald's, which is much more substantial. The headline reads "Langel Rites on Tuesday." There's also a bit cutoff at the bottom, but I don't think more than one line.



Armed with the information that Donald was buried in Rice Cemetary, the librarian was able to find him in the cemetary records, and they also contained records for Alva, Fannie, and Evelyn, complete with date of death. Date of death is hit or miss in those types of records, since the headstones usually only have year. With the dates, the microfilm for those months of the Truth were pulled, and we found the following in the 12/8/51 and 5/25/59 issues, one and two days, respectively, after the date of death:



Langle Park set the librarian off in various directions. First find was microfilm from a 1982 edition of the Truth:



Then hardcopy, pasted to a rigid backing, from some collection:



Unfortunately we did not discover until after we left the library that the extensive caption for the July 5, 1977 photo was cutoff in the copy. It identified Betty, David, and the gentleman on the right was the president of the park board at the time. Not a lot new there, but sorry it is cut off.

Finally, we visited Rice Cemetary. Pictures of the stones are below. There are two markers for Evelyn, and that agreed with the Cemetary records, which show the one that matches her parents as "second marker." The layout is Evelyn, Fannie, Alva, then Fannies large marker behind, and Donald's behind that (left side just barely seen in the first picture of the large marker).



We hope you enjoyed this brief look at the Langles of Elkhart!