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).
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| 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.
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| Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 28 April 1907 |
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| Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 14 December 1899 |
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| 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.
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| 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.
