The Blue House on Vine St. / Van Roberts Pl.

I first noticed the house when visiting the Wyoming Avenue Farmers Market’s old parking-lot location, next to the railroad crossing. It was bright blue, and looked as if it had not been altered much since it was built in the late nineteenth century. Last year it was lost, due to years of deferred maintenance combined with its less-than-ideal location adjacent to the railroad tracks. Up until the time it was demolished, from the outside it looked much as it did when it was first built—a modest home for a family headed by a dedicated public servant. For 24 years, the home's owner, Fred Bracker, was Village Marshall and Patrolman for Wyoming, and he and his family lived in the house at 520 Vine Street for more than 50 years. (The street was later renamed Van Roberts Place).

Source: Google Maps Street View

Frederick Bracker (1858-1934) was the son of German immigrants who were innkeepers, first running a hotel in Cincinnati, and sometime before 1860 moving to manage a hotel in Glendale. Fred’s first occupation was as a painter. In 1880, he married Mary Ann McArdle (1856-1941), daughter of Irish immigrants, whose father was a “common laborer,” according to the 1870 Census, when her family lived in Hamilton, Ohio. Fred and Mary Ann had five children, Eva C. Bracker (1882-1975), William A. Bracker (1886-1952), Mary Ann Bracker (1890-1965), Frank  M. Bracker (1892-1967), and Charles F. Bracker (1894-1961).

The Bracker family lived on Vine Street in Wyoming in 1887, according to the 1887 Hamilton County Directory. They purchased the lot where 520 stood in 1888. County Auditor records indicated the house at 520 as built in 1890, but that date might be off by a couple years.

The residents of Wyoming elected Fred Bracker to be Marshal of the Village from 1884-1908 and he was also employed by the village as a patrolman most of that time. During his time as Marshal, Bracker was Wyoming’s point person for public safety. He dealt with crimes that ranged from loitering and pickpockets, to theft, burglary, domestic violence, suicide, and murder. Over the years he also assisted with other emergencies such as fires, train derailments, and streetcar and automobile accidents. His name appears in dozens of articles in the Cincinnati Enquirer that reported on crime and accidents in Wyoming. Here are selected few.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 28 April 1907

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 14 December 1899

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 14 December 1900

After leaving office, Fred returned to the occupation of house painter. The 1910 Census reports other residents of this block as laborers at manufacturing plants, machinists, a carpenter, a locomotive engineer, and a widow who was a washerwoman. Most of the residents rented their homes; the Brackers were one of only a few families who owned their homes in this block of Vine Street. Many of the families were headed by men and women whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Germany and Ireland.

In 1920 Fred’s occupation was listed on the Census form as a painter of locomotive engines, and the children of the family all had jobs. The daughters, Mary and Eva, were seamstresses in a mattress factory – likely Stearns & Foster, in Lockland.  Frank was a clerk for the railroad and Charles worked in a tailor shop. William, a machinist, had married and moved out of the home, but still lived in Wyoming.

By 1930 the other sons married and moved away from home, but lived nearby. As of the 1930 Census, William was in Lockland and a millwright in a soap factory. Frank lived in Reading and was a clerk for a railroad. Charles lived on Wilmuth Ave. in Wyoming and had a dry cleaning business (Becht’s Dry Cleaners). Eva and Mary Ann continued to live with their parents; Eva still worked as a seamstress in a cotton mill, but Mary Ann ran a confectionery store, and later was a cook in a restaurant.

Frederick Bracker died in 1934, Mary Ann McArdle Bracker died in 1941, and the house was inherited by her daughter Eva Bracker. In 1944 Eva Bracker sold the property at 520 Vine St./Van Roberts Place to Claude Johnson.

Source: Cincinnati Times-Star April 30, 1934

Claude Johnson (1904-1985), an African-American WWII veteran, had grown up in Wyoming and Lockland. His father came to the area from rural Kentucky, but his mother’s family had long roots in Wyoming--his great-grandparents came here in the late 1860s from Tennessee. After WWII, Claude Johnson owned and operated a convenience store in Lockland. While he owned 520 Vine Street/Van Roberts, Claude spent some time living in it, at times rented it to others, and his widow, Helen Graham Johnson, lived there for a few years after Claude's death.

The neighborhood originally known as  ”Greenwood,” located north of  Wyoming Avenue and straddling the railroad tracks and the Wyoming/Lockland border, was one of the few suburban Hamilton County neighborhoods where African-Americans were able to live in the early twentieth century. Within this neighborhood, black residents, comprised in large part of successive generations of families and friends, developed their own supportive community that included schools, churches, service organizations, and other institutions.