Bequest from a Wealthy Grandparent - 123 Burns Avenue part 1

Looking into the early history of 123 Burns Avenue, I find a story that goes back to one of the early settlers of Cincinnati, a man who made a fortune investing in the growing city's real estate. In his later years he and his wife moved to live with a daughter in suburban Wyoming, and at his death he divided his fortune among his children and grandchildren, including one grandson who had lived a much more modest life and ended up living at 123 Burns Avenue, thanks in part to the inheritance from his grandfather.

William Stephenson (1793-1873) was born in Yorkshire, England. He came to the United States in about 1810, living first in New Haven, and then in Hartford, Connecticut, where he married Lucinda (Lucy) Wood (1794-1884) in 1813. In 1819 they moved west to a very young Cincinnati. William worked in a tin shop and in a type foundry, and in about 1822 established his own tin shop, both manufacturing and dealing in tin ware and other metal products. He also invested in Cincinnati real estate, and over the decades built quite a fortune from both collecting rents and from the sale of land that had appreciated in value.

By the 1830s, William Stephenson had become involved in many early Cincinnati enterprises. He was on the Board of Directors of the Cincinnati Savings Institution, founded in 1831; served as treasurer for the Medical College of Ohio; and was treasurer of the St. Georges Benevolent Society and the Fire Warden Company, No. 1. He is reported to have been involved in "alleviating the distress occasioned by the cholera and flood of 1832" and as supporting the temperance movement of the 1840s. He served on City Council and as City Recorder. In the 1840s his son Henry joined his tinware firm, and in 1855 William retired from that business, leaving it to Henry to manage.

Medical College of Ohio, 1835
Source: Ohio History Central

William and his family lived in what we now think of as downtown Cincinnati. For a long period he had a home on 4^th Street between Plum St. and Western Row (now Central Ave.). However, in 1865 he moved to suburban Wyoming. When the Census was taken in 1870, William, 76 years old, and his wife Lucy, were living with their daughter, Amelia Stephenson Stearns – wife of George S. Stearns, of Stearns and Foster. 

Fourth Street Looking West from Vine, 1835, by John Caspar Wild.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

One other thing we can track through the Censuses is the growth of Stephenson’s estate. The Census reports the value of the real estate he owned, which in 1850 was $51,000; 1860 was $100,000; and in 1870 was $240,000 (by comparison George Stearns only owned $50,000 in real estate in 1870). By some calculations that is the equivalent of over $4.25 million in today’s dollars.

When William Stephenson died in May of 1873, he left a long, detailed will, explaining how his estate should be invested and dispersed until the death of his wife, and then how it should be distributed to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. His numerous real estate holdings provided rents that he directed be used to grow the estate and that his executors should continue to invest in more land purchases. This ultimately included buying the lots in Wyoming on Burns Avenue.

Published will of William Stephenson
Source: Wyoming Historical Society

The land on which 123 Burns Avenue stands was part of a farm once owned by Archibald Burns. After his death, his heirs arranged for J.T. Wilson to divide the farm into lots and sell them, sharing the proceeds. However, J.T. Wilson died in 1870 having only sold a few of the lots. The heirs continued to sell lots from the subdivision after Wilson’s death. Grant H. Burrows purchased Lots 47-49 from the Burns estate in the early 1870s.

In July of 1874, the estate of William Stephenson purchased these same lands from Burrows. The Hamilton County Auditor's website provides an approximate construction date for the home at 123 Burns Ave. as 1875, just after this purchase. In 1877, three years after the estate’s executors purchased this land, they granted a 99-year lease to William Stephenson’s grandson, William DeForest for the southernmost portion of Lot 49, fronting 112 feet on Burns Avenue, and including a house built on the lot.

123 Burns Avenue

In 1888, four years after the death of William Stephenson’s wife, his estate was finally disbursed to his heirs, including William DeForest, and as part of his share he was given the land and home at 123 Burns Avenue, as well as the next lot to the north that is now 131 Burns Avenue. This redistribution altered the lot lines, turning the original three lots into five lots, each with approximately 112 feet in street frontage. William's sister, Caroline DeForest, was given the lot next north, now 141 Burns, his cousin Arthur Stephenson received what is now 149 Burns, and the lot that is now 159 Burns went to his cousin Blanche R. Stephenson. In addition to the two lots on Burns Ave., William received at least 13 other lots--in Avondale, and in Cincinnati's West End, Over-the-Rhine, and Downtown neighborhoods, with annual rents ranging $100-230 per parcel.

William DeForest (1836-1900) was the son of William Stephenson’s eldest daughter, Mary Stephenson (1814-1856) and DeLauzun DeForest (1808-1892), who married in 1832 in Cincinnati--before William Stephenson had developed his real estate empire. DeLauzun DeForest, like William Stephenson, also came west to Cincinnati from Hartford, Connecticut, around 1830. He was a bookbinder, though for a time in the 1840s he worked for his father-in law’s tin business and did a stint owning a grocery, but returned to bookbinding in the 1850s. 

Source: Cincinnati Directory, Robinson & Fairbanks, 1831 

William DeForest's parents had at least seven children, but only three survived to adulthood. His mother, Mary Stephenson DeForest died in 1856 when she was just 42, and William was 20. His older brother George died in 1860 at age 27. His younger sister, Caroline was just 4 when her mother died (she inherited the lot that is now 141 Burns Ave. from her grandfather). By 1860 William's father DeLauzun DeForest had remarried, and Caroline had been sent to live with her Stephenson grandparents.

William DeForest combined the occupations of his grandfather (metal work) and father (bookbinding) and became a manufacturer of printing type. City directories listed his occupation variously as "type maker"; "typecaster"; "type founder"; and "machinist." William did not have his own business, but likely worked for one of two type manufacturers located in Cincinnati in the early 1800s, the Cincinnati Type Foundry or the Franklin Type and Stereotype Foundry (or possibly for his Stephenson relatives' tinware manufacturing business). The two type companies were both located on Vine Street and both produced printing presses and all the parts from type to ink necessary for printing.

Source: Williams' Cincinnati Directory, 1865.

Source: Williams' Cincinnati Directory, 1865.

In 1857 William DeForest married Eliza Jane Higdon (1838-1923) in Clermont County, Ohio, where her father, Josiah Higdon owned a farm (he also ran a stable/livery in Cincinnati with his sons). For much of the 1860s William and Eliza lived in Cincinnati on Richmond Street, near today’s location of the Lloyd Library. Then in the early 1870s they lived for a brief time on Budd Street, near the riverfront, west of downtown, just east of the mouth of Mill Creek. William and Eliza lost at least three children within their first year of birth. Their oldest son, William S. DeForest (1858 – 1901),  suffered from some form of developmental disability: in 1870 when most children his age were listed as “at school” he was indicated as “at home”; the 1880 Census lists him as “idiotic”; and the 1900 Census indicates that he was unable to read, to write, or to speak English. William and Eliza had one daughter who survived to adulthood, Grace DeForest (1866 - 1943). Prior to moving to Wyoming, none of the Census records indicate William DeForest as owning any real estate.

In 1877 William and Eliza DeForest moved to the home at 123 Burns Avenue in Wyoming, when William, Jr. would have been 19, and daughter Grace was about 11 years old. Grace DeForest, who spent her teenage years living at 123 Burns Avenue, married Harry Hall in 1893. In 1900 the Census lists their household immediately before that of her mother and brother, so they may have been living right next door, on the lot to the north that William DeForest had also inherited, 131 Burns Avenue. Eliza DeForest and her son William remained at 123 Burns for a time after William, Sr.’s death in 1900; William, Jr. passed away in 1901. By 1903 Eliza Higdon DeForest had joined the Hall family’s household and moved out of Wyoming, first living in North Avondale, and by the time of the 1910 Census they had relocated to Myrtle Avenue in East Walnut Hills, Cincinnati. Eliza lived with them there until her death in 1923.

131 Burns Avenue

Harry and Grace DeForest Hall had nine children; the two eldest were girls, the rest boys. Harry was bookkeeper, cashier, and treasurer for various firms over the years. In 1921 Grace DeForest Hall, who had inherited the properties at 123 and 131 Burns Avenue from her father, sold the two homes after having rented them to a number of families over the preceding two decades. During that time it is difficult to know for certain who occupied the homes. However, the 1910 and 1920 Censuses identify at least two families that lived in 123 Burns. Stay tuned for a post about those families...

Well Educated Women of East Mills Avenue, 1940 edition

Looking at the 1940 Census pages for East Mills Avenue I was struck by how well-educated so many of the women living on the street were (in 1940 the census-taker asked how many years of schooling each adult had completed). In 1940 only about 3.7 percent of all women in the United States had 4-year college degrees (and only 4.9 percent of men).  On East Mills there were 13 women with four or more years of college; 2 women with two years of college; and three current female college students--- 35 percent of women living on E. Mills Avenue in 1940 were college-educated. Although six of these women were working in their homes as wives and mothers, nine were in the paid workforce. There were six teachers, a doctor, a stenographer, and a retired teacher who had also been a social worker at Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Helen E. Mabon (Hiestand) (1905-1985) – Physician – 24 E. Mills Ave.

In 1940 Helen E. Mabon was a lodger in the household of William Kleeman, Jr. who owned 24 E. Mills Avenue and lived in one of the two apartments in the building. Her occupation was listed as private physician. Daughter of a minister, she moved around Ohio as a child. She attended Miami University, and medical school at the University of Cincinnati. Helen began as a resident at Cincinnati General Hospital in 1932, and then worked in the Hamilton County Tuberculosis Sanatorium. According to city directories, in 1940 she had an office on Vine Street between Hereford and Hillsdale Streets in Hartwell, just south of Wyoming. In the 1950s she married Dr. Robert F. Hiestand and they lived and had an office in the  Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati. By the early 1960s she was working for the Cincinnati Health Department.

24 E. Mills Ave.

Ilo Feurt (1906-1969) – Teacher – 24 E. Mills Ave.

Ilo and her mother, Mary Ella Henry Feurt, rented the second unit in the building owned by William Kleeman, Jr. at 24 E. Mills Avenue. She was born near Portsmouth, Ohio. Ilo attended Ohio University in Athens, where she received a B.S. in Education, and was part of the following organizations: Phi Mu, Y.W.C.A., Folklore Club, Psychology Club, Cosmopolitan Club, and Women’s League. After her 1927 graduation, she moved to Cincinnati to teach in the Cincinnati Public Schools. She worked at several schools, including Dyer School, Mary Dill School, and Schiel School. In 1948 she was director of one of Cincinnati Public Schools’ remedial reading centers. Ilo lived in Cincinnati when she first came to the area, moved to Wyoming sometime after 1936, was in Wyoming as late as 1951, but was back in Cincinnati in 1960.

Ilo Feurt
Source: 1925 Ohio University Yearbook

Stella (Martha Estelle) Radabaugh Anderson (1881-1965) – Teacher – 101 E. Mills Ave.

Stella was from Montgomery/Sycamore Township, Ohio, and began her teaching career at the age of 18; though she also reports attending college for four years. She worked for Evendale School district before she was married. After marriage in about 1909, she and her husband lived on Beech Avenue in Wyoming; they never had children. In 1919 they bought the home at 101 E. Mills Ave. Stella taught 6^th grade, and eventually became principal of Wyoming’s Elementary School, retiring in about 1961. In 1940 Stella and Jacob had two teachers as lodgers in their home, Louise Brand and Opal Shifflet.

Mrs. Stella Anderson, 1943.
Source: Wyoming Historical Society.

101 E. Mills Ave.

Louise “Suzie” Brand (1905-2000) - Teacher - 101 E. Mills Ave.

Louise was born in Findlay, Ohio, where her father was a supervisor in the brickmaking business. The family moved around a bit, spending parts of her childhood in Madison, Ohio and Uhrichsville, Ohio. Louise attended Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, graduating in 1929. She also received a degree in elementary education from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio and a master’s in education from Columbia University in New York. Louise came to teach fifth grade in Wyoming in 1935 and remained a Wyoming teacher until her retirement in 1974. Former students still remember receiving raps across their knuckles from Miss Brand.

Miss Louise Brand, 1944.
Source: Wyoming Historical Society.

(Grace) Opal Shifflet (1902-2001) – Teacher – 101 E. Mills Ave.

Opal grew up on farms in Illinois and Ohio, graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1925, and became a teacher. Based on city directory listings, it appears she may have worked for schools in Columbus, Ohio and Richmond, Indiana in the 1920s and 1930s. before coming to teach in the Wyoming Schools. She taught second grade for many years, and later was a school administrator.

Louise Brand and Opal Shifflet were long-time housemates. After rooming with the Andersons they shared an apartment on Mt. Pleasant Avenue for many years, and then were both residents of the Maple Knoll Village retirement community.

Miss Opal Shifflet, 1940.
Source: Wyoming Historical Society.

Cora Adel March (1868-1958) – Retired Teacher/Social Worker at Children’s Hospital – 5 Elm Avenue (on the corner of E. Mills Ave.)

Cora was from Columbiana County, Ohio, where her father was a blacksmith. She graduated from The College of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio, in 1896. She began her teaching career back home in Columbiana County, but in about 1900 moved to Wyoming to teach at the high school. In 1905 she was a lodger with the Edward Hess family, whose home was located where the Wyoming School Board office building is today. By 1909 her retired, widowed father and younger sister had moved to the area; the three lived together on Grandview Avenue in Woodlawn, Ohio.

Cora taught science at Wyoming High School until 1915, and then began working in the social services department at Children’s Hospital. By 1927 Cora, her sister, and father had moved to the home at the northwest corner of E. Mills and Elm Avenues in Wyoming. Cora later worked in the personnel department of the Richardson Co., Lockland, Ohio. She was a member of the Wyoming Garden Club, the Wyoming Woman’s Club, and the Wyoming Presbyterian Church.

 

5 Elm Ave. at corner of E. Mills Ave.

Grace Ruth Mittendorf (1885-1974) – Teacher – 324 E. Mills Ave.

Grace was born in Baltimore, Maryland; her father was a minister temporarily in that city, and soon they returned to his home in Dayton, Ohio. Her parents both died while she was a child, in the early 1890s. She then lived in the Clifton neighborhood of Cincinnati, with her half-brother. She graduated from Hughes High School, the University of Cincinnati, studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and became a teacher of the French language. Grace taught at Wyoming High School for about 31 years, retiring in 1948. She lived with her half-brother and his wife until their deaths in the late 1930s, then moved to Wyoming, where she was a lodger in the Hyndman home. After retiring she moved to Dayton, where she did volunteer work reading to and recording college textbooks for blind students.

Miss Grace Mittendorf, 1943.
Source: Wyoming Historical Society.

Elizabeth Hyndman (1890-1967) - Teacher - 324  E. Mills Ave.

Elizabeth was born in the house at 324 E. Mills Avenue, Wyoming. Her father had a local roofing business. Elizabeth obtained a graduate degree in education from the University of Cincinnati. She taught at Garfield School in Cincinnati, and then in the early 1930s began teaching at the school in Hartwell.

324 E. Mills Ave.

Other College-Educated Women

Several other women living on E. Mills Ave. had attended college, but did not work outside the home: Emma Kleeman (22 E. Mills); Opal Switzer (39 E. Mills); Elaine Miller (41 E. Mills); Alene Rogert (116 E. Mills); Eva McCall (126 E. Mills); Ruth Cordes (320 E. Mills). There were also three young women in college in 1940: Mary Louise Scroth (115 E. Mills) and Emily and Shirley Cordes (320 E. Mills).

Other Working Women

I don’t mean to give short shrift to the other working women on East Mills Avenue in 1940, those who did not have a college education. Ermadel Kleeman (24 E. Mills) did private housekeeping; Christime Miller (320 E. Mills) and Elizabeth Fisher (324 E. Mills) were live-in housekeepers for the families at those homes; Virginia Vonderahe (36 E. Mills) was a nurse; Ruth Ellen Wright (45 E. Mills) was an assistant treasurer at a paper box company and her sister Martha C. Wright (45 E. Mills) was a clerk with the telephone company; Margaret Stoops (123 E. Mills) was an order clerk for a paper company; Clara Keith (129 E. Mills) was a telegraph operator; and Florence M. Smith (128 E. Mills) was a stenographer at a soap plant (and she had completed two years of college).

The-Leaf-Picker-Upper (again) but with more on its inventor, Fred Gedge, and operator, Joe Sontag

Last year I posted this amazing photo of Wyoming's early "leaf-picker-upper." In November and December of 1941, the photo was published in at least a dozen newspapers from Massachusetts to Texas to California. It still amazes me. This year, I'm reposting, but with information about Fred Gedge, its inventor, and Joe Sontag, the man running the machine in the photo.

Fred (Fredrick George) Gedge (1887-1966) was born in Covington, Kentucky. His father, Julius Gedge, was a salesmen when Fred was young, but later was partner in the Gedge & Gray Company, which manufactured machinery used in mills for the production of food, beverages, and other products. Juliuis’s partner, George A. Gray, was his sister’s husband.

A Gedge-Gray horizontal mixer in Alexander's Grist Mill, Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
Source:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HAER OHIO,18-VAVI,2--11. 

The family moved to 12 Walnut Ave in Wyoming about 1904. Fred attended the Ohio Mechanics Institute, worked for Proctor & Gamble for a year, and then was a manager in his father’s machinery manufacturing business until 1927.

Julius Gedge Family Home, 12 Walnut Ave.

The Gedge & Gray company operated out of a plant in Hamilton, Ohio, until it was destroyed by a 1913 flood. After the flood they moved their manufacturing facility to Lockland, Ohio, constructing a factory at Hosea and Cooper Avenues.

Help Wanted Ad
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, March 10, 1920.

Fred Gedge married Grace Tabbs (1886-1951) in 1915. Grace was originally from Louisville, Kentucky. Her father died when she just 4 years old; Grace’s mother lived with the couple until her death in 1930. Grace and Fred made their first home at 130 Springfield Pike, Wyoming. Fred enlisted in the Army during WWI, but the war ended about the same time his training did.

Fred and Grace Gedge's First home, 130 Springfield Pike.

In February 1930, Fred left the manufacturing business and began to work for the Village of Wyoming as what was officially titled “service inspector,” but was effectively the equivalent of a “village manager.” Later that year Fred’s father died, and the couple moved back into his family home at 12 Walnut Avenue.

Frank S. Bonham was Mayor of Wyoming
Source: Hamilton Evening Journal, February 27, 1930.

In addition to running the affairs of Wyoming, Fred was a member of the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission from 1944-1954, and its chairman for much of that time. When the City of Wyoming adopted a new charter in 1949, he officially became the first city manager, and held that position until he retired in 1955.

Fred's wife Grace died in 1951; they never had any children. In 1952 Fred married Emily Knight Smith, a widow, and they moved to the house at 357 Beech Ave.  Emily passed away in 1962, and is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, in a plot with her first two husbands.  Fred lived until 1966 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Glendale, near his parents, brother and first wife, Grace.

Home of Fred Gedge and his second wife, Emily, 357 Beech Ave.

Joseph Charles (Joe) Sontag (1887-1970), the man operating the leaf-picker-upper in the photograph, was a lifelong resident of Wyoming. His father, Julius Sontag, immigrated from Germany in about 1880, first settling in Cincinnati, and moving to Wyoming not long after. He both worked as a blacksmith for manufacturing companies, as well as had his own business of shoeing horses and making iron tools and implements.

Joe's mother, Philomena Rieninger,  was born in Indiana to German immigrant parents. When she was in her late teens her family had hard times. Her father, a farmer, ended up in the poorhouse, and Philomela and her siblings were put out to work as household servants. She and at least one brother ended up moving to Cincinnati, where she met and married Joe's father, Julius, in 1884.

Joe's parents moved out to the Park Place neighborhood, where they raised their family of two girls (Catherine and Flora) and two boys (Joe and Julius). Park Place was annexed into Wyoming in 1904. The Sontags first lived on Springfield Pike, then Charlotte Ave., and by the 1920s owned land on the 1500 block of Maple Ave., where several of the children also established homes. Joe never married and lived much of his life with his parents and then his widowed mother.

Sontag home on Maple Ave.
Source: Google Maps Streetview

Joe spent his whole life working with automobiles and other vehicles. In 1910, when he was 22, the occupation listed for Joe in the census was "Automobile Tester." City directories and later censuses continue to list him as working as a mechanic or driver for garages. In World War I Joe was in the Army in Company E of the 405th Telegraph Battalion Signal Corps, served time in France, and was a Sergeant at the time of his discharge at the war's end. In the 1920s he was a "Garage Foreman" working in Cincinnati, and by 1940 was working for the Village of Wyoming as an auto mechanic.