The families on the bank and store side — Eberhart, Kamm, Perkins, Wiekamp

1883 – the twentieth century

The boundary of this entry: The Eberharts' mill — the flour and woolen works Jacob Eberhart's line carried into Ball Band — belongs to the Ball Band file and is not retold here; the Kamms' brewery stands in its own entry above. What this entry carries is the same families where the business record, beyond those two houses, puts them: as bankers' guarantors, corporate officers, and investors.

F. G. Eberhart, guarantor: The younger Frederick George Eberhart — the Ball Band president's son of the Ball Band file's people record — stands in the Indiana Supreme Court's reports as Mishawaka capital in its own right. By a memorandum of agreement of 24 February 1914, F. G. Eberhart of Mishawaka, with Frank L. Krug, J. Winter, and R. G. Page, guaranteed the notes of the Modern Specialties Manufacturing Company of South Bend to the First National Bank of South Bend, up to $15,000. The company borrowed — $2,500 on 20 September 1915, $1,000 on 11 October 1915, $11,500 on 6 November 1915 — and failed; Eberhart paid $10,154.41 on his guaranty, credited 20 May 1916, and the bank's suit over the remaining $2,326.36 and the effect of a $10,000 release instrument became First National Bank of South Bend v. Mayr, 189 Ind. 299, 127 N.E. 7 (1920). The case is printed here for what it documents about the family: a Mishawaka Eberhart standing behind a South Bend manufacturer's credit, in five figures, in his own name — the Eberharts on the bank side of the valley's business, in a court record.

The Kamms, in the corporate record: The brewery's 1883 incorporation, carried in full above, puts the second generation in the company's offices at the founding of the corporation itself: Adolph Kamm president, his brother-in-law Nicholas Schellinger treasurer, and Adolph's daughter Laura Kamm secretary. Rudolph Kamm worked the other end of the house as foreman and brewmaster. A century later the family name still stood in the business record of the ground: the 1993 group that considered reviving the Kamm's Beer label was, in the Tribune's reporting, a group of 100 Center investors and Kamm family members, the revival conditioned on the family's own taste-test approval — the name treated, by the family itself, as theirs to lend or withhold.

The Perkins brothers, investors; and Wiekamp: Palmer and Pardon Perkins, the windmill brothers, spread their works' profits the same way the Eberharts spread the mill's: the axe-history record of the Perkins enterprise notes that the brothers "further invest[ed] in other companies, including banks and a furniture business" — banking stock and a furniture house (the town's 1889 directory carries two furniture factories, the Roper and the St. Joe Valley, at directory size above) held beside the windmill works. And the twentieth century's Mishawaka banking family is the Wiekamps': Darwin Wiekamp, who bought the West End's neighborhood bank and built it into Valley American, stands whole in the banks entry above — a Mishawaka-born banker whose institution, not the First National, became the region's largest home-grown bank of its generation.

Sources:

1. First National Bank of South Bend v. Mayr, 189 Ind. 299, 127 N.E. 7 (Ind. 1920), as carried in the case-law record — the guaranty agreement of 24 February 1914 (Krug, Winter, F. G. Eberhart, Page) for the Modern Specialties Manufacturing Co.; the 1915 notes of $2,500, $1,000, and $11,500; Eberhart's payment of $10,154.41 credited 20 May 1916; and the $2,326.36 balance in suit.
2. The Kamm & Schellinger period company account and the South Bend Tribune (1993) — the 1883 officers, Laura Kamm secretary and Rudolph Kamm brewmaster as carried in the brewery entry; and the 1993 revival group of investors and Kamm family members, as carried there.
3. Exploring Axe History, "The Mishawaka Axe and Windmills" (2023) — the Perkins brothers' investments in other companies, including banks and a furniture business.