Sentimental Sunday: Cousins, ABT 1956

Some of my cousins standing outside the home of Nana and Grandpa (Elizabeth Massmann Pape and Paul Robert Pape Sr.) at 2547 Hastings in Evanston, Illinois, about 1956:

From left, in back are Marianne and Rosemary Streff, in front are Bud and Beth Streff, and Ron Dietz.  These are the oldest of my 23 cousins.  This image is from a Kodachrome slide found in the study of my late father, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017).


© Amanda Pape - 2019 - e-mail me!

Those Places Thursday: 2732 NW Monte Vista Terrace, Portland, Oregon - An Ewald Pape Design

This house, at  2732 NW Monte Vista Terrace in the Kings Heights neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, was designed by my architect first-cousin-twice-removed, Ewald Theodore Pape (1894-1976), in 1941.

Note the view of Mount Hood.

Here is the plumbing permit for the house, dated June 4, 1941, from PortlandMaps.com:

An ad in the June 7, 1942 Oregonian read:

New!  Completed just a few months ago for owner.  Designed by E. T. Pape and fastidiously built on a level hilltop, commanding views three ways - every mountain, all the city, the river and its beautiful bridges, the green hills and parkways.  Large living room has windows three ways as well as French door to view balcony and down two steps to level view garden.  Master bedroom has fireplace and two view balconies.  Two other bedrooms, double plumbing.... house so thoroughly insulated, heating bill for three winter months was only $23. ...buy it for less than its construction cost, at $12,900.

In the photo below, you can see the two balconies of the master bedroom.

A July 19, 1942 Oregonian ad had some different phrasing:

...commanding views in three ways:  Mountains, city, rivers, and wooded hills.  ...A dream of a kitchen, with breakfast alcove overlooking the world!  Master bedroom with fireplace and spacious dressing room.  Two other nice bedrooms and lovely bath with stall shower.  Thoroughly insulated and weatherstripped; air-conditioned furnace; double garage.  A rare buy at $11,900.

The chimney for the fireplaces, with its interesting brick details, can be seen in the photo below.

The entrance to the house, and the garage, can be seen in the next two photos.

The house is built on a high point in the neighborhood, and the back side of it is not visible from the street that runs behind the house.


© Amanda Pape - 2019 - e-mail me!

Sentimental Sunday: Happy Easter, 1969

Easter 1969 (which was on April 6), in the backyard of our family home at 8015 Sharpview in Houston, Texas.  In the back are me (age 12) and my sister Karen (age 11).  Seated in front are my brothers Mark (almost 9) and Brian (almost 7), and my almost-four-and-a-half-year old sister Mary.


© Amanda Pape - 2019 - click here to e-mail me.

Those Places Thursday: 3231 SE Bybee, An Ewald Pape Design

This house, at 3261 SE Bybee in the Eastmoreland neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, was designed by my architect first-cousin-twice-removed, Ewald Theodore Pape (1894-1976), in 1937.

A plumbing permit for the house (obtained via PortlandMaps.com) was issued on July 12, 1937:

Six days later, on July 18, 1937, a brief article appeared in the Portland Oregonian entitled "Nilson Builds House" that stated, "Construction of a $9000 house at 3231 Southeast Bybee boulevard has been started by Emil Nilson, builder.  Plans were prepared by E. T. Pape."

A 2009 real estate listing indicates the house has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a two-car garage, fireplace, and is 3,583 square feet on a 6,700 square-foot lot.

According to the Eastmoreland Historic District application, the house is of English Cottage style, with a projecting front room (visible in the first photo),  lead window above the front door, and flush face dormer (both visible in the photo below).

The historic distric application also indicates some minor alterations:  the "bay window [in the dining room] does not appear on 1950 Sanborn map; permits show that small bump-out addition [to the kitchen, to create a larger breakfast area] was constructed in 2015."  Both can be seen in the plans below for the addition, which were available in PortlandMaps.com.  It also shows that the house has a full basement under much of it.

The house is on the corner with Reed College Place, and has tall hedges along that side, obscuring views of that side and the back of the house.


© Amanda Pape - 2019 - e-mail me!

Sentimental Sunday: "Indian Boundary Club - Controlled Shooting Area" - November 11, 1951

Last year, while cleaning out the study of my late father, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), I found a number of old black-and-white photos from the early and mid-1950s.  Some of them appear to have been taken by his father, my Grandpa, Paul Robert Pape (1896-1970), and may have been sent to my dad during his time in Korea.  Grandpa put numbers on the front of the images, and also wrote captions on the back.  This one had a very long caption:

Taken at Indian Boundary Club - Controlled Shooting Area 11/11/51.  In case you can't see them, there are 2 Cock Pheasants in my right hand. "Mine Boy" was on duty that day.  I had a hell of a time keeping him from getting out too far ahead of us.

The "us" referred to Grandpa and his friend, Bill Doyle (born 1889), who's in the photo below, also with two pheasants and with "Mine Boy," the family dog, Lucky.  This photo was captioned "Taken 11/11/51 My friendly enemy (Bill Doyle) The guy who always gets in my hair."

I'm not quite sure where the "Indian Boundary Club - Controlled Shooting Area" was.  The Indian Boundary Line itself was an old Native American trail that the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis designated as a boundary dividing the land between the Native Americans and white settlers.  It's the yellow highlighted line on this 1910 map of Chicago (where the city limits are marked in red):

The maps above and below are adapted from the The Rand McNally new standard map of Chicago.  The original maps--and the files--are from the University of Chicago Library's Map Collection.

The map section above shows the West Ridge / Rogers Park neighborhoods of Chicago, where the eastern end of the northern Indian Boundary Line began (click on the map to make it bigger).  Besides the yellow highlighting of the Indian Boundary Line, I also added (the blue square) the location of the future Indian Boundary Park, which was established in 1916, and which was just down Lunt street from where my grandfather was living in 1951 (where the blue star is).

I don't think the controlled shooting area my grandfather refers to is anywhere near this Indian Boundary Park.  It's only about 13 acres in size, and by 1951, was completely surrounded by development.

Instead, I think the shooting area may have been near the Indian Boundary Golf Club, further southwest along the northern Indian Boundary Line.

Here is a map from the Forest Preserve District of Cook County of that area, dating back to the 1930s and 1940s (click on the image to make it larger).  I've taken the original (pictured just below it), rotated it 90 degrees to the right (to more closely match the orientation of the maps above), cropped and color-adjusted it, and highlighted both the Indian Boundary Line (in yellow) and the "tentative alignment of superhighway" (in blue).  The latter may have referred to what is now Interstate 294, which actually went in a little west of this, although there are Metra rail lines roughly in this area.  Hunting was not allowed in the Cook County Forest Preserve itself, but I'm wondering if this "controlled shooting area" might have been in some of the then-unacquired future preserve areas, or perhaps in the area where the superhighway was intended to go, if it was still an undeveloped area in 1951.

Above image adapted from image below: 
Control Plan, scale: 1"=400' - FPDCC_06_01_0000_0015_015, Forest Preserve District of Cook County Records, University of Illinois at Chicago Library.  Used with permission of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Illinois.

© Amanda Pape - 2019 - e-mail me!

Those Places Thursday: 920 Westpoint, Lake Oswego, Oregon - An Ewald Pape Design

This gorgeous house on Lake Oswego (near Portland, Oregon), was designed by my architect first-cousin-twice-removed, Ewald Theodore Pape (1894-1976), in 1936 - but it took a little while for me to verify it.  Thanks to Terry Sprague of Luxe Christie's International Real Estate, the broker who currently has the house listed for sale; Kelley Woodwick, Anne Sjogren, and James Fugate of Fidelity National Title in Portland; and Marilyn Felipe, Steve Rauch, Linda and Laura of the Lake Oswego Public Library, I was able to figure it out.

920 Westpoint, Lake Oswego, Oregon, as viewed from the lake.  

Photo courtesy of Terry Sprague of Luxe Christie's International Real Estate

This quest started with an article in the April 12, 1936 Portland Oregonian, on page 23, entitled "Fine Residence Being Erected at Lake Oswego":

One of the outstanding residential buildings of the year is under construction in the exclusive Lakewood drive, facing Oswego lake, for Leo J. Hanley of Cookingham & Hanley, attorneys for the Ladd estate.  Cost is estimated at $12,000.

The house, designed by E. T. Pape, occupies one of the most desirable building sites in the district.  It is of Cape Cod style.  Exterior will be of shake and stone.  It will feature four bedrooms, three baths, and basement shower and locker rooms.

Stone used in the house is from the old Oregon City courthouse and was quarried at Carver in 1884.  This stone also will be used in an 80-foot stone wall bounding the property on the lake side.

The house will be finished early in June.

The image below accompanied the article, with the additional information that the contractor was Fred Juhr.

The sketch looks a lot like this photograph, doesn't it?

920 Westpoint, Lake Oswego, Oregon, as viewed from the air.  

Photo courtesy of Terry Sprague of Luxe Christie's International Real Estate

But I'm getting ahead of the story.  It took me a while to figure out that this was the house, because the newspaper article didn't provide an address, and I couldn't find any records (such as census or city directories) of Leo Hanley actually living in Lake Oswego.

All the article said was "Lakewood drive, facing Oswego lake."  There is not a street in Lake Oswego specifically called Lakewood Drive.  However, there is a neighborhood / subdivision called Lakewood, and I decided to start my search there.  I used PortlandMaps.com to search all the waterfront lots that still had houses on them completed in 1936 or 1937 (since sometimes the year of completion listed on that site is one year after the actual completion date).  I found a number of possibilities, including a house at 920 Westpoint that, in Google Maps Street View, looked a lot like the sketch from 1936.  But that still wasn't enough evidence.

I discovered that the City of Lake Oswego's public library had created an online index for a couple of local newspapers.  I did a search on Hanley and came up with two articles that seemed relevant, and submitted a request through their Ask a Librarian service to get copies of the articles from microfilm.

The first article was from the July 16, 1936 Oswego Review and was called "Leo J. Hanley Residence," with keywords "Leo Hanley house described."  This article repeated the story about the "hewn sandstone taken from the old Clackamas court house," noting that it was used in the first story of the house as well as walls fronting the building, terraces, and lake shore walls.  The article went on to say,

The building has fifteen rooms, among them a spacious living room, dining room, dinet [sic], kitchen, and recreation room, besides a full basement, there are five bed rooms, three baths, and closets, drawers, and shelving galore.  A highly finished three stall garage, with parking space for eight cars, has been provided.  The grounds have been beautifully designed and upwards of 2000 flowering plants and shrubs have been set out.  The home is equipped with every convenience known to science, and the site of the home is among the most romantic on the lake.

This story also mentioned Pape and Juhr, as well as the home's location on the "shore of Lake Oswego," but said it was on "Peninsula Drive."  There's no Peninsula Drive in Lake Oswego, and wasn't in the past, according to the city's librarians.  However, part of the Lakewood subdivision is often called "The Peninsula," and Westpoint is located in that area.

Here is a plat of the second part of the Lakewood subdivision, from 1925, obtained from the Clackamas County Surveyor Information System (CCSIS) - click on the image to enlarge it:

And here is an enlargement of the lower part of that plat, the peninsula, showing Westpoint Road:

I felt 920 Westpoint might be the right house, but I still wasn't sure.  The other article that I obtained from the Lake Oswego Public Library was called "Many Real Estate Transfers Take Place in this Vicinity," from the August 27, 1936 Oswego Review.  Some of its keywords included the phrase "Leo Hanley House."  It had this sentence:  

The palatial home of Mr. Leo Hanley, Portland prominent attorney, has been sold to an unnamed person.  A rumor is to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. Anderson of the Anderson and Cohen Hudson auto dealers in Portland were the buyers.

I searched for an Anderson in Lake Oswego in the 1940 Census - and bingo!  William M. Anderson, co-owner of an "retail automobile store," and family were on West Point Road - although there were no house numbers on the 1940 Census in that part of Lake Oswego, so I still wasn't sure.

Next I searched in the Oregonian again, this time for William Anderson, and found his 1976 obituary, which gave his address as 920 West Point.  Apparently he lived there for 40 years.  His daughter, Doris Mae Soller, died in 2012 and was living in Lake Oswego at the time.  I found references to 920 Westpoint associated with her name.  I wondered if she and her family lived in the house too, perhaps after her father's death.  I found her obituary and that of her son (who died in 2010), along with names of other relatives.

At that point, I was stuck, due to distance and lack of (free or low-cost) online access to the records I need.  I wanted to see if the home's current ownership could be traced backwards to William Morris Anderson and wife Eva Lulu Bischoff Anderson, and even better, back to Leo James Hanley and wife Fabian Rosche Hanley.  Then I would feel more confident that Ewald Pape did in fact design this house.

So I reached out to realtor Terry Sprague, and he was very interested in helping me.  He contacted Kelley Woodwick, who in turn put Ann Sjogren on the hunt.  Ann was able to send me copies of the deeds that did trace the ownership back to Leo Hanley.  And, as I thought, Doris Anderson Soller (William's daughter) and her husband did own the house from November 1976 to June 1986.

The house at 920 Westpoint is on lot 263 and the eastern (left-side) half of lot 264, as shown on this 1988 survey from CCSIS (click on the image to enlarge it):

And on this topographic map, from the same 1988 survey, you can see the footprint of the house at that time (click on the image to enlarge it):




Here is a photograph of the 1884 Clackamas County Courthouse, the source of the stone used on the house and grounds:

Courthouse at Oregon City, Oregon / OSU Special Collections & Archives : Commons

 / No known copyright restrictions

You can see the stones from the courthouse in the fence around the front of the property in the photograph below:

920 Westpoint, Lake Oswego, Oregon, as viewed from the street.  

Photo courtesy of Terry Sprague of Luxe Christie's International Real Estate

Check out this video of the home, which includes interior photos and more views of the exterior.


© Amanda Pape - 2019 - e-mail me!

Sentimental Sunday: "Old 'Droopy Britches' Himself" - Winona, Minnesota, ABT October 1951

Last year, while cleaning out the study of my late father, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), I found a number of old black-and-white photos from the early and mid-1950s.  Some of them appear to have been taken by his father, my Grandpa, Paul Robert Pape (1896-1970), and may have been sent to my dad during his time in Korea.  Grandpa put numbers on the front of the images, and also wrote captions on the back.  The caption on this one said, "Winona Minn Old 'Droopy Britches' himself."

That's Grandpa in the picture.  No idea what kind of car that is, but it's the same one as in a photo of my aunt, Marilyn Pape Hedger, that I posted five weeks ago.  Another photo from the same roll, also taken in Winona, is dated October 1951, so I'm guessing this photo is from the same time.  Marilyn attended the College of Saint Teresa in Winona around this time, so that is probably why they were there.


© Amanda Pape - 2019 - e-mail me!

Thankful Thursday: Happy Birthday to ME!

My birthday in 1960.

© Amanda Pape - 2019 - click here to e-mail me.