Thursday, August 15, 2013

Those Places Thursday: Wolfe Houses in the Houston Heights, 1912 and 1913

When my maternal great-grandfather, Louis Henry Wolfe (1872-1929), moved to Houston, Texas, from Shreveport, Louisiana, sometime between the 1910 Census and 1912, he lived in a couple of houses in the Houston Heights.  The first, according to page 744 of the Directory of The City of Houston for 1912, by Morrison & Fourmy Directory Company, was at 1423 Cortlandt:


Note that the household has five members.  That would be Louis, his wife Addilee Tennessee Shelton (1890-1977), son Lloyd L. (1906-1993), and daughters Sara Melzina (my grandmother, 1907-1997) and Edith Elizabeth (1910-2006).  Youngest child Neva Marie (1912-1995) was born in November of that year, likely after the directory had come out.  Or it could be five family members besides Louis.  That would be the case for his brother James Shannon (1868-1949) in this directory; his four family members were wife Annie Volce (1875-1936), daughters Edna Viola (1896-1931), Thelma Mary (1900-1923), and son Joseph Shannon (1902-1983).  Shannon had been at 1405 Allston in the Houston Heights since at least 1905.

Here's what the house at 1423 Cortlandt looked like in 2000:


The pier-and-beam house was originally built in 1910, and was originally about 1300 square feet with two bedrooms and one bathroom.  It's been remodeled since them, but in May 2011 looked much the same as this from the outside on Google Maps.

By the following year, 1913, the Louis Wolfe family had moved a few blocks away, to 924 Ashland, according to page 900 of the Directory of The City of Houston for 1913 published by the Morrison & Fourmy Directory Company:


This is how the house at that address looked in 2000:


I'm not sure, though, if this was the same house in which my grandmother and great-grandparents lived.  Property records indicate that the house there today (which was heavily remodeled: "taken down to the studs, expanded, and brought to modern standards") was built in 1920, but obviously my family members were living at this address in 1913 - but maybe a different building.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

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