Charles Cropper Dilley spent his teenage years living at 123 Burns Ave., graduated from Wyoming High School in 1911, and attended Yale University. He enlisted in the Army’s Coast
Artillery Corps in August of 1917, as the United States entered World War I. Entering the service as a second lieutenant, he was a captain when he was honorably discharged in November of 1918.
The 1920 Census reveals that the George and Harriet Beckwith and their sons, Ralph and Wayne, were living at 123 Burns Avenue that year.
George Beckwith (1867-1949) was the son of a Butler County farmer. His occupation is listed in the 1900 Census as bookkeeper, and later as a merchandise broker. He had an office downtown on Second Street, close to the waterfront, where goods would have arrived by boat or rail. In 1893 he married
Harriet Neff Izor (1867-1957). Harriet, or Hattie, was born in Indiana; her father Monroe Izor was, over time, a miller, flour inspector, and flour dealer. He brought his family to live in Lockland, Ohio sometime between 1870 and 1893; he had an office downtown on Walnut Street, near the Ohio River waterfront.
In 1900 the Beckwiths were living with Harriet's widowed father in Lockland on Anthony Wayne Ave. In 1910 they were renting a home in Wyoming, at 120 Burns Ave. (Harriet's father had remarried - to Katherine Friend). The family may have moved into the home at 123 Burns Avenue as early as 1915, when the Dilley family moved out. Living in the home with them were their sons
Ralph Monroe Beckwith (1894-1968) and
Wayne Izor Beckwith (1900-1984) (their middle names honor their maternal grandfather).
Younger son Wayne graduated from Wyoming High School in 1917 and attended the University of Wisconsin, where he was a member of the S.A.T.C. (the Student Army Training Corps) during World War I, graduating in 1922. He later lived in Westchester County New York, where he worked in the home building and life insurance industries, married, and had a family.
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Source: University of Wisconsin Yearbook, 1922
via ancestry.com
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Source: University of Wisconsin Yearbook, 1917
via ancestry.com |
Older son Ralph graduated from Wyoming High School in 1912 and also attended the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1917, and was also a member of the S.A.T.C. In 1917 when he registered for the draft, he was living in Montclair, New Jersey, and was a chemical salesman for the Huron Milling Company. He enlisted as a private in the New York National Guard in July of 1917, and was repeatedly promoted until he was made an officer, a second lieutenant, in September of 1918. At this time he was sent to France, where he was assigned to Co. H of the
372nd Infantry. The 372nd, was a "colored," all African-American, infantry regiment that had been sent to France in March and seen quite a bit of action. However, in mid-September the Army replaced all its African-American officers with white officers; one was Ralph Beckwith. This occurred as the unit began to fight in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. In October Ralph was injured in a gas attack. After the 372nd returned to the United States, Ralph remained in France, and was transferred to a military police unit, through July, 1919, when he was honorably discharged with the rank of first lieutenant and returned home.
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Soldiers of the 372nd Infantry preparing to board ship in France for their return home and discharge in March 1919.
(Not 100% sure, but the officer on the left looks a lot like Ralph Beckwith to me)
Source: National Archives and Records Administration |
In 1920 Ralph Beckwith was back living with his parents, and was a sales manager for a canning company. In June 1921 he purchased the home at 123 Burns Avenue from Grace DeForest Hall, but then sold it just two years later in July of 1923; he signed the deed while in Minnesota. Ralph went on to marry, have a family, work as a manager in the paper industry, and live in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Worcester, Massachusetts; and Naples, Florida.
George and Ella Beckwith were again living with her father Monroe Izor at the time of the 1930 Census, on Anthony Wayne Avenue; his second wife had died in 1926 (Monroe is listed with three different addresses on Anthony Wayne - 306, 206, and 208. I don't know if he moved or if the Census taker was repeatedly mistaken). After Monroe Izor's death, George and Harriet Beckwith moved into one of the apartments in Hess' Flats, the apartment building facing Springfield Pike at the corner of Worthington Avenue, where they were living at the time of the 1940 Census. They later moved to New York to be near their son Wayne.
The Van Buskirk Family (1923-1928)
In 1923
Edgar Flandreau van Buskirk (1883-1976) and his wife
Edna van Buskirk (1886-1983) purchased the home at 123 Burns Avenue. Living with them was their son,
Edgar F. van Buskirk, Jr. (1912-1986). Edgar and Edna had both been raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of Rochester, graduating in 1908, and Edna graduated from Vassar College. Edgar taught high school in Brooklyn during the 1910s. Edna was also a teacher in New York City schools; the couple married in about 1911 and their son was born the next year. During this period, Edgar also earned a master degree from Columbia University, and from 1918-1920 he was an assistant educational director with the U.S. Public Health Service.
Edgar came to Cincinnati to be the Executive Secretary of the Cincinnati Social Hygiene Society, which promoted sex education and worked to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. In this role, Edgar gave lectures throughout Cincinnati and Hamilton County to parents and teachers, and prepared materials for programs to be held in the schools; he also was on the staff of the University of Cincinnati, lecturing to students on social hygiene. While in Cincinnati, he was working toward a PhD at Ohio State University, which he completed in 1928. Edgar's publications include co-authoring
The Science of Everyday Life, (1925) a junior high school natural science textbook, still available in reprints on amazon.com;
Sex and Character Education (A Course for Parents) (1925);
The Place of Sex Education in Secondary Education (1928 - his dissertation); and
Principles of Healthful Living (1938).
While living in Wyoming, Edgar became involved in local government. He was a member of the Village of Wyoming's first planning commission, established in 1924, which oversaw the initial adoption of a zoning ordinance for the community in 1925. In 1928 Edgar was hired as a professor by Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. He and Edna lived there until the late 1950s, when they moved to Lakeland, Florida.
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Edgar F. Van Buskirk, Sr.
Source: Stephens College Yearbook, 1932
via ancestry.com |
While I could not find much information about Edna during her time in Wyoming, in St. Louis and in Florida Edna was active in her community, in politics and in government, so I assume she must have also done the same in the Cincinnati area. She served as President of the Missouri Federation of Women's Clubs, as an active member of the League of Women Voters, the Civil Liberties Union, and the Universalist-Unitarian Fellowship.
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| Source: Lakeland Ledger (Lakeland, FL), May 16, 1978. |
Edgar van Buskirk, Jr. lived at 123 Burns Ave. from age 11 through 16; he finished high school in Columbia, Missouri. He attended his father's alma mater, the University of Rochester, graduating in 1933. He married Elisabeth Beyer in 1935. In the 1930s he worked for the American Child Health Association in New York; the Farm Credit Administration in St. Louis; and the Michigan Municipal League in Ann Arbor; all according to reports in the
Rochester Alumni Review. He was also reported to be a student in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1938 (likely graduate study at the University of Michigan). The 1940 Census finds him living in Arlington, Virginia and working in publishing for the federal government. Edgar, Jr. served in the Navy during WWII. He was living in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts at the time of his death.
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Edgar F. Van Buskirk, Jr.
Source: David Henry Hickman H.S. Yearbook, 1929
via ancestry.com |
The Reed Family (1928-1953)
When Edgar van Buskirk accepted the professorship at Stephens College and needed to sell his home, he found a buyer in a man he likely crossed paths with professionally, Ellery F. Reed. The following article explains Ellery's coming to Cincinnati.
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| Source: The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 7, 1925. |
The Helen S. Trounstine Foundation was established in 1917 in memory of its namesake, a young woman who was very active in local civic organizations but developed a terminal illness and died at age 27, prematurely halting her advocacy. Miss Helen S. Trounstine served as civic director of the Woman's City Club and was instrumental in the research that led to the establishment of the Juvenile Protective Association. The Helen S. Trounstine Foundation was established to do fund social research in coordination with the
Community Chest (the predecessor of the United Way), and became part of that organization in 1931.
Ellery Francis Reed (1891-1978) was born in Iowa. His father was a Presbyterian minister, and served as president of several colleges, including Lenox College, which Ellery attended as an undergraduate and where he trained in the ministry. He served in the Medical Department of the U.S. Army from March to September, 1919, during WWI. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, and taught at the University of Illinois and Miami University, Ohio, before coming to Cincinnati. He worked for the Community Chest until 1957, after which he did some research work for the Hamilton County Welfare Department.
Ellery married
Gertrude Elizabeth King (1898-1932) in the early 1920s, before the birth of their daughter
Margaret Lucy Reed (b. 1924). Their second child,
Murray King Reed (b. 1927) was born just before they bought the home at 123 Burns Avenue. The family also had a live-in servant according to the 1930 census, 63-year-old widow Josephine Bobeck.
Gertrude was born in Los Angeles, California, though her family relocated to Peoria, Illinois when she was a child, where her father was a lawyer, real estate agent, and building contractor. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1919, where she was a member of Alpha Phi. While living in Wyoming, Gertrude worked as a a visiting teacher at Avondale, Bond Hill and Mary Dill Schools in Cincinnati; on the 1930 Census her occupation is noted as "social service." Gertrude passed away in 1932, at age 34, of complications from scarlet fever.
Sometime before 1940 Ellery remarried, to
Ella M. Weinfurther (1885-1987). Ella was from Wisconsin, where her father ran a creamery. She worked as a teacher in her rural community of Mishicot, and then moved to Milwaukee in about 1914, where she worked as a nurse, and later became a social worker, employed by Associated Charities and then by the
Travelers Aid Society. By the late 1920s she was a field director for the American Association for Organizing Family Social Work in New York City. She continued employment in the social work field after she moved to Cincinnati. After selling the home at 123 Burns in 1953, Ellery and Ella moved to Hollyhock Drive in neighboring Springfield Township.
Lucy and Murray Reed grew up in 123 Burns Ave. and attended Wyoming High School, but moved out of the Cincinnati area as adults. Lucy graduated in 1941, nominated "best looking" of her class, and went on to attend the College of Wooster. She married fellow Wooster alumni John Otis Clay in 1947.
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Source: Wyoming High School Yearbook, 1941
Wyoming Historical Society |
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Source: Wyoming High School Yearbook, 1944
Wyoming Historical Society |
Murray was a member of the class of 1944, nominated "most studious." He earned a his B.A. from Yale, a PhD from the University of Minnesota, and became a psychologist.
In 2002, Lucy paid a visit to the current residents of 123 Burns Avenue, which was reported on in an article in
Wyoming Living. Copies of the article, as well as correspondence from Murray about the home and his experiences growing up in Wyoming, can be found in the files of the
Wyoming Historical Society. Located in the basement of the City Building at 800 Oak Avenue, the historical society maintains files on every property in the city, in which any historic documentation they have collected or been given about the home is kept.
